The handbag boys: a footy tragic is redeemed.

  I’m not going to deny it, I’m a footy tragic. To be honest, it’s even worse than that. I am an expatriate footy tragic, now long in exile in the United States of America.   America: the land of the free and the home of the brave. Let’s stop and examine that statement for a moment. When it comes to American football nothing is free, and judging from all the padding and helmets, it must not be easy to be brave.

  All jokes aside, I have never connected with our American cousin “gridiron” in any meaningful way. It’s too corporate. Seats to even the most meager of offerings, say the Jacksonville Jaguars V the Houston Texans are stratospherically beyond the reach of your average working class hero.  And the Super Duper Bowl? As Tony Soprano would say: “Fegedabouit” Those seats are reserved, much like congressional pews, or the Presidency, for Millionaires, Captains of Industry and made men who know where the bodies are buried.

  Joni Mitchell once sang. “They paved over paradise and put up a parking lot.” In the process of the money grubbing paving the dickhead developers mostly forgot about things like green belts and community parks. So, in my experience it is rare to see a couple of kids playing with abandon after school. Shooting pin point Joe Montana (A Geelong supporter if the truth be told) like passes at each other’s chests, or running into space too receive said pass and then  haul ass to the goal line for a mythical, magical, disco dancing touchdown. Nope, most American football is conducted on school campuses, and in the case of College football, it is a multimillion dollar enterprise, where hopefully for a 300 lb.  Offensive lineman, the road will lead to the gilded grass of the NFL.

  A place where the game of football has become a corporate Goliath, where players are traded like stocks and bonds on Wall Street. Neck injuries are common and can cruel the careers of the most gifted in the blink of an eye. In my time I have seen Joe Montana and Peyton Manning, Super Bowl winning MVP’s, shunted off like potato peelings, after serious injury dimmed their worth in their owner’s eyes. And to be sure, they are owned, their contracts the property of Billionaires and syndicates of Millionaires. Bloodless “Mr. Burn’s” who will slash and burn in the pursuit of glory and profitable operations, kicking a leviathan like Joe through the uprights and into retirement, or leveraging his old bones as trade bait for a younger stud at the drop of a hat.

  Sadly, it seems the suits at AFL house are determined to follow this wretched corporate example. Reducing the great game of Australian Rules football to a mere business proposition. A blunt equation of bums on seats, merchandise sold ratings points and broadcast rights banked. The fish rotting from the head and left baking in the sun. That makes me sad, because since 1857 we have raised, cajoled and encouraged a unique spectacle that has resonated across generations. Barely dimmed by the calamity of the world wars, in fact, even bringing solace and the comforting normal of the home front to our lads seized up as POW’s at the fall of Singapore. The resourcefulness and camaraderie of the diggers conjuring the great game amid the adversity of internment. Playing a full season of home and away games, replete with selection committees, clearances, tribunal sanctions and even a “Changi” Brownlow. The 1942 medal being awarded to Fitzroy’s Wilfred “Chicken” Smallhorn, playing in the company of St Kilda’s Peter Chitty, and other elite Australian sportsmen: and it’s still Victoria versus the rest of Australia.

  How great is this game? We are born into it, indoctrinated: the tribalism and ritual hammered into us at birth. Only a brave or ornery few straying from the rigid foundations of family barracking.  I am a Geelong man: a catter, and so it shall be till I draw my last breath on this mortal plain.  I wasn’t born or raised in Geelong, far from it.  Strangely my Frankston bred father had begun life as, of all things, a Collingwood supporter. There, I’ve shared the shameful family secret. Spun inside and out, and hung out to dry on the hills hoist by his experience in WW2, my Dad fell hard. Alcoholism and incarceration dogged him: the black dog a nefarious companion, always growling and close, teeth gnashing at his thigh.

  In the Heidelberg repatriation hospital he conspired a plan. He might be able to forsake the drink if he rode as far away as he could to a football match. Kardinia Park, long before the endless corporate rebranding, became his sober pilgrimage.  A four hour journey each way on the red rattler to South Geelong and the shores of the Barwon River. There, and only there, for one hundred minutes and the vagaries of time on was he was safe from his obsession. Captivated by the grace and dash of the Geelong flyer Bob Davis, scorching the wing and the proud bullocking of john Hyde defending for his life. Captain Fred Flanagan commanding and exhorting the team forward. Reg Hickey coaching them to a perfect victory in 1952, on that last delirious Saturday in September, over the now detestable Collingwood football club.

  And so a family tradition was raised. The old man got better but he was never over the obsession. Saddled with two little boys too raise football became everything: and we embraced it as a family. It was the manly hug of a Father to a son.  All the while  Mother creasing her brow as the puffy  impacts of under 13’s gave way to teenage backhands and flat out Murrumbeena under 16’s mayhem in the goal square. The boot studder oppressed teenage umpires and a few Dads’s wading weekly into the mayhem, with all the authority of a GTV 9 big time wrestling referee. Those suburban stoushes taught me so much. How to stand your ground and not show weakness, carry a hurt, and most importantly; be part of something bigger than yourself with your mates.  Something you all worked for: small parts of a bigger whole.

  It is  hard to conceive a time in the 21 st century when a couple of brothers could slip away from their Dad in the grog and fog of 30,000 people, jump the fence and run to the man who had just kicked 100 goals before  their  young wide eyes: and the cops were as happy as the kids.  Mobbing the man with glee, already planning Monday’s Shakespearian reenactment on the school turf. A simple pat on the back, a grin, a tousled head, the gratification  of being part of the history. Doug Wade. Peter Hudson: that Collingwood bastard Peter McKenna: all kicking whopping tons whispering towards Bob Pratt’s mythical 150 goals. Running a victory lap with Bobby Skilton (I always had a soft spot for poor downtrodden South Melbourne.) and his fairest and very best Brownlow medal. Going into the rooms with your Dad and feeling Gareth Andrews great paw on your shoulder. Feeling the heft of the knowledge as he warmed a few soft hand balls to you. Age 9, and already part of the team.

  I have always thought it was better, during the fallow years, to be a Geelong supporter as opposed to a “pie” man.  Too be accused of having hand bags by Lou Richards was one thing but to be shellacked year after years in Grand Finals would have raised blisters.  1967 was a tearful hunkering down at a flat in Sorrento. 1989 flush, and married, visiting like King Farouk with a Cadillac was a bitter jagged pill to swallow. Even with Gary Snr running amok we couldn’t get the job done.  Listening on a shortwave radio from a bar in Timbuktu in 1992 was sobering.  1994 finishes beaten to within an inch of your faith by the upstart West Coast Eagles.  Going back to back in 1995 and lying, cheating, tanking Carlton owns you.  Bugger!!  Surely there is no God and I have lost my faith.

  My, Dad, Charlie, died in 1999, on a cold Saturday in July. He had the Geelong game on the wireless when he slipped away. I was in California out around the Farralon Island’s fishing. My ex-wife called me on the new fandangled cell phone and squared me up with the sad news. What she said sobered me up pretty quick. “Charlie’s dead. Your Mum said Geelong beat Collingwood by three points and he just closed his eyes and went, with a smile on his face, sitting in the “comfy” chair.” In the mad scramble too transit the miles this pasted a broad smile too my sad face. He had at the death defeated Collingwood one last time.  (Catters 19.14. 128. D Pies 19.11. 125.) this was the last time the suits at AFL house required Collingwood too travel to the shores of the Barwon river.  The current mob would need to crack out the Melways to find their way back. This was a wooden spoon year for the club and obviously the suits at AFL house would have to find away too ease the stresses of the premiership cakewalk for their marquee team.

  Work and family have led me to stray far from the muddy winter bogs of VFL & VFA suburban grounds. Far from a time when a kid could be just  a kid and Kick the footy with his mates, scoff a meat pie and sneak a can of VB from an unsuspecting Esky. Singing the club song in victory and bearing the despair of defeat as a man must learn to do. Mum knitting a beanie and darning footy sock hand me downs, as Harry Beitzel umpired the panel in a ghostly black and white world. And, Mr. Demetriou, we didn’t need a clash Guernsey too distinguish between the Tigers and Bombers or the emaciated Kangaroos battling the detestable magpie mob. Much less warmed over meatloaf.

  In 2007 my drought broke and a victorious rain soaked me to the bone. My team, The Geelong Football Club, second oldest in the world, were premiers. I was a wee lad of three the last time they had saluted, and now here I was, a middle aged man with flecks of grey hair and a child of my own. I wasn’t barking instructions at the players from the great southern stand, nor was I marking goals, behinds and other statistics into the footy record as father had all those years ago. I was in a bar in San Diego, California when the wave soaked the shore. A dingy little joint with a quasi Aussie theme, surrounded by the mighty San Diego Lions footy club: our hosts for live grand final coverage on that glorious last Friday night in September.

  It had been a hard year. I had just separated from my wife and was staring down the barrel of starting over, a daunting prospect for a man in his late forties with no family and few friends in the region. As was my routine in exile, I had dutifully followed along, charting the home and away season as it unfolded, often rising at 3 AM to listen to the absurdly comical Rex Hunt as he narrated the action in real time.  As was my way I didn’t get too revved up when the boys dispatched the hated Magpies for the right to confront the Power. I’d been there, done that. But I was confident, as I explained a few of the complexities of the game to the locals, that today would be the day we were relieved of the burden we had carried as a club and a family for forty four years.

  It was a romp from start to finish. Port Adelaide were never in it. My money was on John Scarlett’s boy for the Norm Smith, maybe freshly minted Brownlow Bartel, or one of seniors’ sons. Seeing that reformed scallywag Stevie J take the medal was icing on the cake. The beer flowed and the song was sung with gusto and then sung again and again. Once more, there could be no doubt, we were truly the greatest team of all.  I wove my way to the Pacific Ocean and stared long and hard into the night looking to the west, bridging the 12,460 kilometer gulf in my mind. Remembering all the bitter hurts and disappointments that had just been so joyously lifted from my shoulders by 22 men, now bonded as one in the record books and I felt the gleaming twilight of the MCG as surely as if I were truly there. Thunder cracked ominously overhead as I said my thankful half pissed prayers and had a good chit chat with dear departed Dad about the game that had just unfolded.

  2008 was dawning and it would prove to be the year that we ran out of money. America was broke and everywhere you looked people were hurting, losing homes and jobs hand over fist and I, a son of two shores, was caught in the bitter grip of that harsh American winter. Increasingly, as resume after resume was sent to the oval file and hope was waning, footy sustained me. My brand spanking new girlfriend would sit and listen with me as we endured the cold together. She shared my pain when the Hawks humbled us and popped the champagne when we came from behind to deny the Saints. That moment is burned into my psyche. Saint Nick skews it off the boot and Harry Taylor marks un opposed on the half back flank, chips it to Enright, to Stevie J stabbing a centering pass to Ablett, swatted away by a desperate Saint, a mercurial toe poke from a running Mathew Scarlett to a now recovered Junior making a last mad dash forward. A booming kick to the edge of the square, a crumbing hand pass from Varcoe to Chapman. Chapman swings onto his left foot and delivers a win at the death. You could almost feel sorry, for the Saints, almost

  Many of their tribe are close friends and I spent many a Saturday at Moorabin watching Robbie Muir go berko, I was on the fence up close and personal when a decaying fabulous Phil Carmen decked out in Essendon togs head butted the boundary umpire.  Even premiership hero and Coach Alex “Jezza” Jesaulenko, now out of favor with Carlton’s suits, couldn’t help the poor hapless bastards. They were clearly the team to beat in 2009 but we had denied them, and the sting lingers a lifetime. Having endured five drubbings, I know the feeling well.   Surely it would be too much to ask for a blessed third premiership in five years. The nattering nabobs of negativity had drawn a line through my club. The corrupting lure of money had hooked the biggest fish in the game and the coach had decamped for his heartfelt home. The general consensus was that the premiership window was well and truly closed. It would take more than Viagra to stiffen my cats for another crack at the cup.

  When Rookie coach Chris Scott made his way to the bench in the dying minutes of the 2011 decider, embracing the players and supporters, as the clock soaked up the last hopes of the magpie mob, it washed over me. I could die a happy man, we had crushed Collingwood in a grand final and I had seen it with my own eyes as had my Dad before me, as he struggled with his sobriety in 1952. Sitting on my couch in San Diego summer was waning and autumn was in the air. It finally felt like there was some momentum, things were improving. I didn’t feel smug as I added the hardships of the last five years and rounded off the sum to a nice even number. It would have been so easy to just quit and walk away, but the love of a good woman and the Geelong footy club had sustained me, as they had my father before me. This great and spectacular indigenous Australian game brought hope, passion and light into dark spaces: much as it did for our boys incarcerated by imperial Japan in the bleakest days of the Second World War.

  Sadly for me that generational chain is probably broken. My life delivered me to America and in a way I have become her son too. There was no grand plan, just a Darwinian evolution. I hoe my little musical row with my band in San Diego and raise my daughter as a divorced Dad with my partner Michelle. Grace is a funny kid, a very pink and girly, girl. She doesn’t have much interest in sport. Although she recently announced she may try out as a cheerleader, for her school-The Hawthorn Trojans.  Too quote Dr Smith. “Oh, William, the pain, the pain” She’s a tall girl and more than one person has suggested I push her towards basketball. Sport often being the key to a good scholarship and tertiary education in America.  But I’m of the mindset that I’ll encourage whatever she chooses to do, for ultimately she will have to be responsible for her life decisions.

  Its round 19, 2012. My Catters had been giving Hawthorn a toweling, but the worthy old foe has fought their way back into contention. The match is hanging by a thread. It’s nearly 5 AM in Southern California, and I can hear the hum of traffic as the grinding commute revs up. I shut it out and concentrate on the call. It appears the Kennett curse will be broken. Suddenly a fast leading Tom Hawkins marks 50 meters from home. 12,460 kilometers and 50 meters from goal my heart is pounding. The siren sounds as the ball kisses Tom’s boot and sails majestically through the goal posts far above the dejected backmen’s  reach. The Hawk is mobbed, Lazarus has risen.

THE DOUG JONES INDEX: heartbeat of America.

I think it's time for a new fiscal index; THE DOUG JONES. It seems every morning I get up and there is breathless adulation for the transactional bliss on Wall Street and the sacred beating heart of his step brother the DOW JONES. The market is bullish. Trump is coming up trumps so to speak. The investor class is in the clover. But what of poor old main street?? That pathetic strip mall far from the coveting, speculating, manipulating, gilded pavement of Wall Street. It has become a dark and dispiriting no through road. Where boot leather is worn thin and patience and serenity are frayed. Perhaps if we woke up every morning and brewed the coffee while THE DOUG JONES was sliced and diced ad Infinitum things would change globally. Imagine if that surly bear turned bullish and the DOUG JONES rose to unprecedented stratospheric heights on quarterly news of higher test scores in schools. Less productivity lost to idle factory floors. Real savings squirreled away for a rainy day, earning solid meat and potatoes interest. Safer neighborhoods where families count and don't hide behind iron bars. Where the average main Streator’s kid doesn't have to consider a quid pro quo arrangement with the pentagon to get a shot at a tertiary education. (The money hoarder’s children most certainly do not consider such a Sophie's choice.) So, I think as the photo says, it's about time that the Wall Street squires were taxed at the same rate as the sweat of the brow. Don't get me wrong here; I'm sure it is good that some of the lucre will trickle back to Grandpa when he can no longer hoe the row. And that's a good thing right? But it doesn't add up to a hill of beans if living standards are constantly in decline. Sadly, while the current news from the corporate temples is an ecstatic, backslapping. Margarita guzzling PARTAY!! For most of the folks I know, it's a bit of a wake and a long vigil at the flag draped coffin of the middle class. I think it is high time we took a breathless look at the sinking main street numbers. DOUG JONES INDEX, I say it is time to step out from your puffy step brothers shadow and show us all what we're truly worth>

Big Bells and brass balls: paddling out at Bells beach on a big day.

   You crest the hill in the old Holden and you’re craning your neck to try and get that first glimpse of blue swell lines cut up and stacked upon the horizon. Powerful lumps of raw energy that have rolled relentlessly across the vast waste of the Southern ocean ready to expend all their force on the weather beaten shores of the Gadubanud  people.  You’re riding with three mates: good mates.  Peter “led balls” Leddin, John” Fozzie bear” Foster and Pete’s older brother Bernie: our surf shepherd.  More like brothers to you than your own blood. It’s bloody freezing but the steaming coffee you’re cradling is working its magic on your groggy metabolism and the building excitement boiling in your blood. Surf is up!!

  Last night’s boozy boogie in the city seems a million years and miles ago. You’ve made the morning run to the coast with your best mates and your expectations are about to be rewarded. The sun is up fresh and raw in the late April morning, the mist still wrapping its wispy tendrils around the coastal scrub. It’s the best time for waves in Southern Australia.  The pre- winter Antarctic swells are consistent and the wind still delivers pristine offshore conditions at regular intervals.  The brass balls and freezing cold ferocity of storm ravaged onshore July and August are still being safely kept at arm’s length.

  In another twenty odd years a lot of the pastures to the east will be subdivided up and parceled into ¼ acre blocks all the way back to Jan Juc. Roads will be cut in and street lights will light up the asphalt. The folks who found the “sea change” lifestyle so appealing will have cluttered the coast with houses beyond their needs, big foreign cars and clogged the waves with snotty little grommets. Kids that have grown up within sight of the waves and been lured beyond the sand will populate the line ups with snarky fuck you-ness. Sadly, they have come to take the majesty of it all for granted, over indulgence being their ruin.   Frantic little “oy mister, misters” constantly hassling inside of the older blokes: age before grace, said no one ever.  To the west the tourism pimps at head office will rebrand the undulating Great Ocean Road “The surf coast”  From the Torquay foreshore all the way out to the majestic crumbling beauty of the twelve apostles.

  The cash will come rolling in, fat green wads in metaphorical seasonal waves. Quaint little hamlets like Lorne and Apollo Bay will blow up into obscene brawling magnets for city slickers. There’ll even be rock concerts and traffic snarls limping past places whose names are cemented in your memory forever.  Wye River and its snug harbor of a pub.  Separation creek and the wreck of the W B Godfrey, her anchor still visible above the reef, a grim reminder of the wretched mismanagement of the ship.  The well rutted road cut through the bush to remote Moonlight heads, where with the right factors in play, it is easy to imagine you are the last humans on Earth. 

  I don’t know any of this is going happen.  I am still young and the world is still an unfolding mystery.  Elvis Presley will fall of his perch in but a few short months and that sad event will  forever be a reference point of departure in my life: a time of leaving and change.  For the moment my feet are firmly planted in the present.  It will be years before I realize this was one of the greatest gifts I would ever be given. I’m not looking forward beyond this moment to the changes and storms that cloud a man’s life. The long road I will travel to the future will slowly be revealed, but only as I move along it.  For the moment I am here in a special harmony, the transcendence of the blended doings not yet reduced to a memory.

  Bernie Leddin jerks the old HK Holden (the Bernie mobile) onto the gravel shoulder at the crest of  Bones road and four gangly young men tumble out pushing and shoving to be first. Fit as trout’s and eager as we will rarely ever be able to be again. Lingering summer tans rising in autum goose bumps, four mates bantering in the antique language of the times. “A hoot man. I’m stoked mate. These waves will be so pogilant. Fucking grouse mate” The boards are battened down on the racks waiting.  A motley collection representative of the trends of the day. Single fin pin tails and rounded pins all just a wee bit shy of seven feet. All with a few home patched dings.   The creations of the backyard shapers whose names have not yet built a multi billion dollar global industry. Klemm Bell and Hot buttered Terry Fitzgerald.  The morose but not yet suicidal artistry of Alan Oke planing his legacy  into foam blanks in a Mordialloc store front.  His work a wonder to those of us involved in the knowing and the doing of the surf tribes of Southern Australia.

  In hindsight we probably looked like a bunch of dags, living as we were in what would come to be considered the least fashionable decade of the twentieth century.  Shagged hair cut like a mutated amalgam of poor doomed john Lennon and Greg Brady, whiskers sprouting. Decked out from head to toe in finery that would send a hippie bolting for the nearest showers and spa boutique.  Beanies and knit caps too warm the noggin.  Eyes still too eager for life too require hiding behind the fade of sunglasses. Puka shells adorning necks not yet fattened by the demands of work and responsibility.  Gaudy Hawaiian print shirts worn under snugly buttoned duffel coats warm corduroy dag daks and either thongs with socks or the precursor of the green recycling of future days. “Treads” Old radial tires cut into sturdy footwear.  Sweet Jesus, what a ratty mob.

  Surf trips are ritualistic affairs. Be it an after work scoot to Point Leo, a romp around a continent, or for the lucky cashed up few, exotic global jet setting.  It usually begins with a discussion and a loose plan between mates.   Destinations and options debated much like parliamentarians enact the laws that bind us.  Necessities and provisioning to be considered and equity for the passage pooled in a kitty.  The needs of the group and personal preferences discussed and passed in code along rotary dialed phone lines.  The days of a click on the computer mouse and a surf cam shot of the beach are still things belonging to an alien future some of the mates would not live to see. 

  On this April day we had collectively delivered our self by way of the isobars and dead reckoning of wind and tide to the west coast: gateway of the yet to be named and exploited  surf coast. Our bountiful option of waves lay like a smorgasbord before a fat man.  Slightly to the East lay “Boobs and Steps”. A crunchy left and right hand combo that smashed against a sharp shallow reef. It was just a sly unlocking of a farmers gate away but it could be a dicey day there if the swell kicked up a bit. The peeling fast right of  “Winkipop”  named after  a slang word for quick  available sex in the sixties beckoned  and even lazy centreside  and its neighbor Southside showed a flash of attraction to surf horny young men. But our direction today was cast in stone much as the sword in the mythical stone of Arthurian legend.  Bells beach and all her naked power lay but two clicks down the hill baiting us with her siren song.

  Bern pulled the HK past the welcoming white wave at the west car park. Really nothing more than a misshapen mud packed flat above the cliff. It was stacking up line on line to the horizon. A relentless surge of roaring classical foaming shapes easy 8 to ten feet and rising. We watched as a monster set closed out the bay all the way to winkipop. To be honest each man left to his own devices would probably have snuck back around the headland to gentle Anglsea or Point Roadknight but like the men of the western front who had gone before us, who answered their superiors whistling summons to action, retreating from the call could not be considered. One lonely bloke stood on the sands below us eying his options: he did not look too keen looking back to us atop the cliff and waving.

  Foz Foster unstrapped the boards and we pulled the thick neoprene wetsuits from back packs and began suiting up much like astronauts preparing for the hostile void of space. Jerky banter, observations and challenges being dished out to a man: this was a big day rising. Another car pulled in, two blokes got out blowing into and rubbing cold hands.  They didn’t say much to our tribe.  Just a “G’day grumbled into the dirt as they began to prepare with a watchful eye on the horizon.   
  The sand at Bells when a big swell is running cuts the beach violently so as when you face the water it’s a mad scramble down to the shore break and a banzai leap of faith across the top of the crashing wave. You scramble madly arms digging and scratching to gain the momentum too pass beyond the breaker.  When clear of the soup you start paddling purposefully forward a glance across your shoulder and the quiet bloke in the car park is now jabbering in your ear, bonding with you as you paddle strung out in a line.

  Lead balls Leddin is leading the way and you feel the quick relief of pissing in your wetsuit. Warm and sobering for just a moment around shrinking private parts.  The first guy off the beach is now far out beyond the lineup and for a quick moment he reminds you of an un-moored sphinx drifting off to Tasmania. A set pulls up, a big one, and the poor bugger is too slow to get over. He duck dives under, you blink and see his purple board sucked up over the falls his leash dragging him like a rag doll behind it. While the wave, a perfect creation, delivers itself to the shore. And for a moment you believe in a God you thought you had left behind in dusty Sunday school books.

  It’s getting bigger and you’re in a cluster bobbing and waiting together, eyes pinned and glued to the wraith like shifts on the horizon. You look back to the beach and more black neoprene bodies are making the trek from the shore.  Some cars pull away cutting new ruts into the mud. Bernie and Pete are a little to the outside as the monster rears up and it’s time to go. The other unknown bloke from the car park hoots encouragement. A banshee screams of unbridled adrenalin.  You turn, back neck and shoulders arched, feet kicking  for a little more momentum, arms scalloping into the blue water in a biting frenzy and you rise, and rise brutally aware of the energy sweeping you up, up and on. The wave feathers and peaks steep. You are alone looking down the line, committed as you step into the liquid.

Waiting for the great leap forward

 I I am getting coffee in a funky little coffee house in San Diego. I spy one of those community billboards. You know, where folks post things, like it is the old fashioned 1980's on the local campus. Business cards, posters for local events, babysitters, self help groups for uninsured people who suffer with Bipolar disorder and the hopeful little flyers with the tab at the bottom with a phone number. It looks interesting; you yank it off and whack it in the fob pocket of your jeans which promptly go into the wash. You never ever do get around to collaborating with John Lennon, or the 72 year old guitar player that is into RATT, Van Halen and Bela Bartok. I figure I’ll pin a couple of business cards onto the cork board. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flyer with a picture of a beat down dog. Now I am, like Mark Twain, a big believer in the pure true love a dog gives willingly to a man. Nothing raises my hackles like a mistreated dog. So I am reading through the text and it turns out it is a flyer for the Occupy San Diego group. They have a pretty compelling script as to why you should rip the tab off the flyer. Bailouts of huge trans global corporations who crashed the school bus, taking the future of a generation not yet born with them off of dead man's curve. Indebtedness to Brazil, of all places and some Godless communists, to the tune of 15 trillion dollars. Homelessness, poverty foreclosure, outsourcing. The failure too muster the energy and national will to put a miner on the moon, and the sad plight of 54 million people who can't go see a Doctor. There is one pitiful tab pulled off the flyer. It's dated February 14th, the flyer next it, as I squish my business card in between them (also whacked up on Valentines Day) offers tennis lessons. All the little pull off tabs are gone. Tucked safely into wallets, jeans, saved to the I-Phone. I'm a little perplexed and leave a little troubled that the local tennis pro is whacking balls across the net backwards and forwards too no good purpose beyond cardiac health, while an earnest person who's trying to save America is sitting in the coffee shop waiting for the phone to ring. I wonder if the lonely heart occupier is texting his/her Tea party booty call for some anonymous, angry, yet somehow satisfying discourse. The radio in the car is jammed up with talk show stations. So I start humming a tune I hadn't thought of in years, as the traffic stalls in front of the ARCO station where people are lining up like compliant communists too buy gas from Mr. Chavez.( It's cheaper by a nickel than the pan handling SHELL MOB across the road.) Suddenly I find the words. "It may have been Camelot for Jack & Jacqueline but on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline Fidel Castro's brother sees a rich lady who's crying over luxuries disappointments, and he walks over too remind her, that the third world is just around the corner." The announcer on the radio parrots a bunch of nonsense about these disembodied wraiths that are running for President in about 10 odd states. Taking time off from the golf course, or a working day in congress, telling me they're on my kid’s side. But they're not. They are liars, hypocrites and carpetbaggers. Who spend money assassinating each others character on the radio, the TV, internet and the Santee drive in. Millions of fucking dollars. And I’m thinking my 3rd graders teacher's aide, as opposed to a well appointed congressional aide, has asked me if I could fix the leaking pipes in her apartment because she's scared her fucking rent farming "landlord" will jack the rent on her if she asks for it to be fixed. (Renting is the new hot commodity too speculate on.) I load up some tools, thank her for the work she is doing helping my kid catch up for the weeks she missed when she was out sick with her epilepsy. I fix the pipe with a bunch of parts that all shipped in like bed bugs from China. I drive away and the man on the radio is still talking about a bunch of narcisstic fucking sociopaths, who do not give a fucking rat’s ass about a teacher’s aide making 22 K a year and the pipe leaking fecal matter into her apartment. Maybe she should hire an attorney. Hell, they run the country and look where that has gotten America. And the name of the song pops into my mind. 'WAITING FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD."

Waiting for the great leap forward.

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 I am getting coffee in a funky little coffee house in San Diego. I spy one of those community billboards. You know, where folks post things, like it is the old fashioned 1980's on the local campus. Business cards, posters for local events, babysitters, self help groups for uninsured people who suffer with Bipolar disorder and the hopeful little flyers with the tab at the bottom with a phone number. It looks interesting; you yank it off and whack it in the fob pocket of your jeans which promptly go into the wash. You never ever do get around to collaborating with John Lennon, or the 72 year old guitar player that is into RATT, Van Halen and Bela Bartok. I figure I’ll pin a couple of business cards onto the cork board. Out of the corner of my eye I see a flyer with a picture of a beat down dog. Now I am, like Mark Twain, a big believer in the pure true love a dog gives willingly to a man. Nothing raises my hackles like a mistreated dog. So I am reading through the text and it turns out it is a flyer for the Occupy San Diego group. They have a pretty compelling script as to why you should rip the tab off the flyer. Bailouts of huge trans global corporations who crashed the school bus, taking the future of a generation not yet born with them off of dead man's curve. Indebtedness to Brazil, of all places and some Godless communists, to the tune of 15 trillion dollars. Homelessness, poverty foreclosure, outsourcing. The failure too muster the energy and national will to put a miner on the moon, and the sad plight of 54 million people who can't go see a Doctor. There is one pitiful tab pulled off the flyer. It's dated February 14th, the flyer next it, as I squish my business card in between them (also whacked up on Valentines Day) offers tennis lessons. All the little pull off tabs are gone. Tucked safely into wallets, jeans, saved to the I-Phone. I'm a little perplexed and leave a little troubled that the local tennis pro is whacking balls across the net backwards and forwards too no good purpose beyond cardiac health, while an earnest person who's trying to save America is sitting in the coffee shop waiting for the phone to ring. I wonder if the lonely heart occupier is texting his/her Tea party booty call for some anonymous, angry, yet somehow satisfying discourse. The radio in the car is jammed up with talk show stations. So I start humming a tune I hadn't thought of in years, as the traffic stalls in front of the ARCO station where people are lining up like compliant communists too buy gas from Mr. Chavez.( It's cheaper by a nickel than the pan handling SHELL MOB across the road.) Suddenly I find the words. "It may have been Camelot for Jack & Jacqueline but on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline Fidel Castro's brother sees a rich lady who's crying over luxuries disappointments, and he walks over too remind her, that the third world is just around the corner." The announcer on the radio parrots a bunch of nonsense about these disembodied wraiths that are running for President in about 10 odd states. Taking time off from the golf course, or a working day in congress, telling me they're on my kid’s side. But they're not. They are liars, hypocrites and carpetbaggers. Who spend money assassinating each others character on the radio, the TV, internet and the Santee drive in. Millions of fucking dollars. And I’m thinking my 3rd graders teacher's aide, as opposed to a well appointed congressional aide, has asked me if I could fix the leaking pipes in her apartment because she's scared her fucking rent farming "landlord" will jack the rent on her if she asks for it to be fixed. (Renting is the new hot commodity too speculate on.) I load up some tools, thank her for the work she is doing helping my kid catch up for the weeks she missed when she was out sick with her epilepsy. I fix the pipe with a bunch of parts that all shipped in like bed bugs from China. I drive away and the man on the radio is still talking about a bunch of narcisstic fucking sociopaths, who do not give a fucking rat’s ass about a teacher’s aide making 22 K a year and the pipe leaking fecal matter into her apartment. Maybe she should hire an attorney. Hell, they run the country and look where that has gotten America. And the name of the song pops into my mind. 'WAITING FOR THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD."

Stale Meatloaf served cold

Australian rules football is a unique sporting spectacle. Played through the antipodean winter months it conjures a fervent passion for the game and the participating clubs that borders on religious fanaticism. Played over 26 brutal weeks it rises to a thundering  crescendo with the two best performed teams playing off in the Grand Final, for all the marbles, on the last Saturday in September. Near 100 thousand people have  packed themselves into the Melbourne Cricket Ground hungry for the contest. Suburban and state rivalries dating back to a time when America was fighting for her life in a civil war are open like raw wounds. Game on... But first things first. As this unique Aussie "Footy" league has evolved from a parochial love fest into an internationally televised event, the suits at AFL house and their CEO Andrew Demetriou have decided that the old pre game rituals of little leaguers chasing the pigskin, retiring players doing a lap of honor and a 100 yard sprint featuring Stawell gift hopefuls is passe. Because this is the big stage, and as such, the suits decree that a pregame concert is in order for which only a truly international act will suffice. So here we are...  2011 has waned into the history books and my team came up trumps against very stiff and worthy opposition and I am rapt, but I have an axe too grind. I am sitting with my American family and they are laughing at the grotesque spectacle of Meatloaf, washed up, fucking stale Meatloaf. The question is pointed at me. "Don't you guys have any good legendary rock n roll bands in Australia?? Did the AFL suits really fork out 600 grand for this crap??"  Ah yes, we sure do have some talented musicians, says I, and they could sure as shit use 600 K. So, today a little hungover, I am hoping that my good friend WAZ owner of Greville records, can drag that fucking  idiot Demetriou, with all the money too splash on "Talent" down to his shop and give him some musical coaching . The AFL’s talent buyers, so it seems, need a big pre season.  MY A TO Z OF AUSTRALIAN BANDS WHO COULD USE 600 K TO MAKE VITAL NEW MUSIC,BUY A FEW ROUNDS FOR THEIR  MATES WHO HUMPED THE GEAR, AND EVERYTHING WITH A PULSE , AND DEFRAY THE COST OF LIVING AGAINST THEIR MEAGRE  PENSIONS!!  

A: The Allusions. They could play Gypsy woman with seductively dressed woman peering into the cup too divine the winner. BETFAIR could sponsor the odds swirling in the cup live.

B: The Band that shot Liberty Valance. Fred Negro @ the G rocking out with his cock out.

C: Chris Bailey: He could crank out "Stranded" for those who cannot manage to go back to back. (My mob included.) 

D: The Dingoes. They could play "way out west "when the Dockers eventually  make a run at it.

E: Emmanuelle: Tommy & Phil. For some shitkicking virtuosity.

F:  Fish John West rejects. Because they are from Tassie and Tasmania deserves some God damned respect on the biggest stage of all.

G: Geyer, Renee. Just because, unlike Mr. Loaf, she can really sing. She could do "heading in the right direction" to assuage all the loyal club men with their heads on the chopping block)

 H: The Hollow men. Billy Baxter at the G. He coulda been a champion.

I.  Icehouse.  Just to see if Bob Kretchmers still got it.

J: Jo Jo Zep and the falcons. The classic Wayne Burt era lineup playing "Beating around the bush." (Where all the real coaches used to come from.)

 K: KUSH. Because seeing Jeff Duff in a leotard singing MacArthur Park would be beyond priceless.

L: Little River Band. Because some American sideman ripped off the name in the board room and the royalties from "Help is on the way" will eventually give comfort to the starving ex sidemen, of whom there are many, and Pies supporters.

M: Mad Turks from Istanbul. We fought there in a war and it's been good business pimping the "Great war" for the AFL over the  years.

N: No fixed address. A nod to the pioneers of indigenous roots music would be nice, and Demetriou's suit could trot out Kev, Archie, and Paul Kelly too.

 O: Olympic sideburns. Because hearing Maurice Frawley again would be worth the corporate price of admission.

P: Painters and Dockers. They could present the Norm Gallagher medal for slowest midfielder at the stoppages.

Q: Quill, Greg. He could play gypsy queen for the all the young draftees rocking off to GWS.

R: The Radiators. Because like the players they are warriors of the road and unlike Mr. Loaf, their rider strictly stipulates. “A dozen tinnies chilled. Thanks." 

S: Salmon, Kim because blokes like him are the reason I am really composing this novella of information for the empty suits @ AFL house.

T: Taman Shud.  Because they could play Morning of the earth on the Jumbotron score board, surely a world first. 

U: Uncanny X men. There are really that few U bands in Australia. 

V: The valentines. Because they gave the world Bon Scott and could sure use a victory lap and some of Mr. Loafs 600 K.

W: Warner, Dave.  Half time at the football, mugs game = priceless. 

X: X. Because we could confuse newly rocking Andy D’s suit. Get him thinking he was really booking Exene, John Doe and Dave Alvin. (The American X.) Steve Lucas could pocket the 600K and tour the world setting the record straight.

Y: Young Home buyers. Because that’s where Greg Champion got his start and a young homebuyer could not afford the price of admission to the game that is required to provide for the upkeep of Meatloaf’s ranch in Texas. 

Z: Zoot. Because they won the Hoadley’s battle of the sounds in 1969 in pink tutus and it would be wonderful to see the worlds most well preserved man, Rick Springfield, bring his American soap opera voice back to Australia one last time before oxygen tents and  golf carts impinge on the performance.

So, there you have it. About 160 Australian musicians more worthy af a tilt at the 600 K than the faded and unfortunate Mr. M Loaf. To quote Gary Gray. “Nothing grows in Texas” Feel free to forward this to Mr. Demetriou’s suit. Thanks, this has been a public service announcement. Hey, and if he still has a hard on for American bands from back in the day, I can set him up with a Beat Farmers reunion tour. They don’t suck ass.

911,Dan Quayle and me.

911 remembered. It was our generations Pearl Harbor, but it was different. It was not an attack on a military installation by a nation state, it was an attack on civilian aviation and buildings of commerce. Orchestrated by, if you believe the 911 commission, a bunch of well financed lunatics drunk on their religion.  Or, if you follow other more skeptical lines of enquiry, anyone from the MOSSAD and Larry Silverstein, to nebulous cells within our own nations governance. Heavily cloaked and hidden from scrutiny, hopped up on a desire for revenge and control of far flung oil fields and their black gold. No matter how you slice it and dice it, what you choose to believe, or choose not too believe, it was a gob smacking human tragedy, especially for the children orphaned on that bitter day.

    A beautiful clear morning, full of promise 10 years ago, turned into fire and hatred that endures and intrudes daily into our lives a decade on. We all have that “where were we” moment etched into our memories and thankfully for most of us they are remote and not personal beyond the impotent rage of seeing the nation attacked. This is my memory, of that ill fated day.  I had just moved in with Graces mum and our future was bright and hopeful. I was working on a luxury condominium conversion in the Peoples Republic of Berkeley. Grace's mum was working as an architectural designer doing work for financial leviathan Morgan Stanley. I hit the radio in the shower and heard the first reports of the attack. Quick i said. "Turn on the TV, a plane has crashed into the World Trade Centre." (The Television was all snow as we were waiting for the cable guy who was scheduled to come sometime between 12 & 6 PM.)  Gracie’s mum says to me. “Oh, they are not going to be happy with me, I did not Fed EX my plans to the WTC yesterday.”   “Honey”, I said, divining the scope of the unfolding emergency from the snowy TV screen. “They have bigger problems than your FED EX boo boo.”

    We drink some coffee and eat some cereal, without saying much, probably just like all the folks whose lives have just been devoured on the East Coast, had done a scant few hours before us. It was scheduled to be a busy day on the job, so I kissed my girl goodbye and went about my business. There really was not much else one could do in far off Berkeley, California except try to glean some perspective and carry on. The news on the car radio is not good. The South tower had just collapsed, the Pentagon is on fire and it is obviously an overt act of war.  Confusion and speculation that planes are missing over the pacific bound for the West Coast is being reported as fact.  I arrive at the jobsite and it is mad confusion, outrage and anger. The guy I work for, Seth, is an interesting mish mash of personalities.  Part hard nosed businessman, with a portion of mystical Buddhist by way of Berkley yoga dude, with a splash of sinister sauce.

    He is arguing with Pat Downs an old Vietnam Vet as the Nth Tower crumbles into oblivion.  Pat wants to fly Old Glory above the building and is already talking about “fucking rag heads” and payback. Seth does not want to fly the flag as, in his mind, it would appear nationalistic and perhaps be offensive to the uppity, yet progressive neighbors. The ones who have already had enough of this awful construction nonsense intruding into their specialness. Seth, with an eye, as always, on the clock and the dollar, is trying to rally his shell shocked troops. “We don’t know that it was terrorists, let’s just do a good days work men” No one is buying it. This is a national tragedy.  We can already see that it is right up there with the Kennedy shooting and Pearl Harbor. Some of the crew have family on the East Coast and Levon Carters Dad even works at the Pentagon.   All of a sudden the boss mans phone rings; he steps aside to take the call. He is quiet, and this is the first time I have ever seen motor mouth Seth with no words tumbling from his lips. He calls my name and throws me the keys.  He says. “I don’t care what you do, just lock up the building.” He has a strange sad frown and takes off running at a good clip. We don’t see him for days and only find out later that his best friend and neighbor has been killed on flight 93.

   We agree to call it a day and head home to our loved ones. Just in case our dose is still coming I stop for Gas, which has already spiked 35 cents in a matter of hours and get last into line for groceries at Andronicos. I make sure too buy  beer, for today we will drown a lot of sorrows. I get home and there is no cable guy and we are stuck with sleet on the screen while history is smacking us hard in the face. Grace’s mum is worried about her colleagues working for Morgan Stanley at WTC 1. Not surprisingly they are not answering their phones. Beers are cracked and I am happy to be sitting safely in our house, on our purple couch with the woman I love.

    We have KTUV 20 on, as it is a little less hyper than the networks. A nice lady is interviewing a man I do not know, but he is calm and reassuring. He is talking about how the POTUS will immediately have to re task satellites over global trouble spots to gather intelligence. The need to get the air corridors on both Coasts secured. He yalks of the strategic capabilities of carrier strike groups, air wings and the scope of the various cabinet portfolios and the critical roles the will play in the dark days we have ahead of us. I say to my girl. “Hey this guys on top of it, he should be in charge. He should be POTUS” ( At this point George W Bush was MIA in Nebraska.) He sounds so poised and resolute, some how hardened.  The interviewer concluded the broadcast. “Thank you Mr. Vice President. “  And advises viewers that her interview subject, the engaging and wise in the way of international affairs and the nation’s governance, former Vice President Dan Quayle, has cancelled his speech at the Commonwealth club in San Francisco in light of the day’s tragic events.  My girl and i who have both been paying rapt attention  say as one did she just say Dan Quayle? Yes she did, and on September 11, 2001 the nation could have done far worse than have him in the oval office based on what i heard with my own ears.
   The day wears on and the unfolding horror of the event begins to shut down the senses. The catastrophe and its consequences, and hopefully the TV picture, will surely be clearer tomorrow. The cable guy never comes, we’ve given up on him, but do not bother too call a complaint in to his bosses. How could you?  It is obviously a small inconvenience that can wait until tomorrow. A new day whose challenges and frustrations I am yet to aspire too, and I realize that thousands of the yet uncounted dead will never know its promise.  About 11pm the phone rings and it is Graces mother’s MIA colleague. Some folks are still not accounted for, but he has temporary offices in mid town Manhattan and wants his plans. Hell, he wanted them yesterday, and he’s in no mood for left coast slackers. The sun rises, life goes on and a bruised nation endures. But for some, the widowed, the orphans of 911 and the wars that will soon follow that day of rage, nothing will ever truly be the same again.