Three Cheers For Sport

Been a bit busy and not just me. First of all Blaze has taken his diorama hobby to its illogical conclusion. When I went around his house yesterday he suggested he was now going to work on dioramas that are built at a scale of one centimetre equals one centimetre. I looked at him.

“So you are making your dioramas real life size then?” I asked. “And where are you going to build them?

“Well,” Blaze said, “Obviously I am going to build an extra room on the house which is really big so I can build the diorama in it.

 I then told Blaze I had even a better idea.

“Why not just make the diorama an extra room on your house.”

Which stopped him.

“Lets go and watch some football,” he said.

Blaze and I share an appreciation for American Football aka the NFL aka Gridiron. He supports the Chargers and I support the Seahawks. My team is based in Seattle and Blaze’s team is based in Los Angeles now, but was in San Diego last year.  I reckon if you are called the Chargers you can move to any city because “Chargers” is so generic. But Seattle Seahawks is a nice piece of alliteration. It just wouldn’t work as well anywhere else.

Buy money talks in the USA so teams will move where the coin is. The Los Angeles Raiders have moved to Oakland but will soon move to Las Vegas. Can you imagine the Parramatta Eels moving to Tamworth or the Sydney Swans moving to?  Oh wait, that’s right the Swans did actually move from Melbourne to Sydney.

Anyway the point is American football is pretty good and a underrated here in the lucky country due to some thoughts that we have about aspects of American culture invading our “dinky di Ozzie” sporting landscape. Which would laughable except it is true. We will take just about anything from the USA but don’t you dare introduce a new sport.

Anyway Blaze and I think American Football is an excellent combination of brute force, skill and strategy which if they didn’t have so many stoppages brought about by rule interpretations, replacements and of course TV commercials would be even better. Sure it takes awhile to understand and some of the bullshit behaviour by the players almost equals the crap that goes on in soccer but when it is good it is a spectacle and a half and cleverer than it first looks. So there.

On the subject of sport the Artist and I have just about racked up 25 years of marriage and it hasn’t hurt a bit. But that’s not the sport link.

She is not a sport fan so we don’t watch NFL or any other sport together. In fact a week or so ago she pointed out that it seems in Australia to be a national hero you are either a famous sportsman or fought in a war. Also you are not a woman. I reckon she has a point.

Australians like Flory, Marshall, Lingiari, Namatjira, Dunlop, Oliphant ,Hollows, Mawson, Humphries, Frazer, Kenny, Blackburn, Burnet, Nossal and Mabo have contributed so much to the Australia and the world in the fields of medicine, science, the arts, good society and law. There is some war service in there but only in a few cases and not in the traditional sense. No politicians, sportsmen, movie stars or singers.

There are good reasons why some of these people are celebrated by being on our bank notes or providing the names for your high school houses. Start with Wikipedia and check them out. We’re actually quite a clever country. Not that you would know it from our politics and our obsession with the past and of course sport.

As the two great Australian comedians and commentators Roy and H.G.  have often said, “When too much sport is barely enough.”

On the subject, well kind of, of marriage. Gatesy has been at sea while celebrating his wedding anniversary. There are many keys to having a happy life but as you get older you realise none are more important than marrying well.

Any man who can spend his wedding anniversary catching fish and crabs with the woman he loves has clearly married well. That doesn’t mean you have to do everything together but some common interests and values are going to help. Now given that a lot of marriages end in divorce with all the resultant mental anguish and financial pain it simply makes sense that if you are going to do it, do it right. Take a lesson from Gatesy, people. He is obviously got it worked out.

And me, well I have been working and thinking about hellraisers.  Those people who raise hell, party hard, live outrageous big lives, behave irresponsibly with a glorious don’t give a shit attitude. Today while I was driving I was thinking about hellraisers. Now if you are in certain socio economic settings or in certain professions you might be surrounded by hellraisers. Bikie gangs, rock bands and chefs are three pastimes/occupations where you would expect hellraisers galore. Not so much in libraries, the Liberal party and seminaries but you would be surprised. Hellraisers can be anywhere. There would be a few in the National Party and in the United Nations too.

Then I thought what would be the collective noun for hellraisers as I do not think there is one. I narrowed it down to a few possible options-

A blitzkrieg of hellraisers

An apocalypse of hellraisers

A shitfight of hellraisers

A riot of hellraisers

But none of these seem quite right to me so I am going to keep working at it.

Then I thought about when I met my first hellraiser. It was in grade 5 and his name was Rod*. *Name changed to protect the innocent.

Obviously in grade 5 he wasn’t brawlin and boozin and whorin but to me he had had a real didn’t give a shit attitude and he always wanted to have a good time. I hadn’t had a friend like that before. There were naughty kids of course and I knew I wasn’t one of those. Rod liked Slade and The Sweet just like I did and his sister would play spin the bottle with me so she was just as wild as he was I guess. Which I guess kind of made me a hellraiser too but I think I was easily led. Anyway we hell raised in a grade 5 way and I can recall my parents expressing some views one night about the unsuitability of my school friend.

We moved a year later and I only have ever seen Rod once since grade 6.

One night in the early 80s I was walking through the Coolum caravan park on my over to the pizza shop that was located next to the old cinema that is where Maccas is now.

I heard a voice calling my name from a tent. It must have been school holidays as the park was crowded. Anyway it was Rod who had recognised me from about 10 years earlier. He invited me into his tent and within 30 minutes I was monstrously stoned. I remember little from the night so I can’t remember what he was doing with his life or anything like that. The next morning I went back from where I was staying and the tent was gone. I have never seen Rod since.

Thanks to the wonderful Viz Magazine, the home of Roger Mellie, Buster Gonad and Finbarr Saunders for the cartoon.

6 Great Hellraisin’ songs

The all time champ from a man who raised some is of course

A Boy Named Sue – Johnny Cash

Fight For Your Right To Party – The Beastie Boys

Teenage Riot – Sonic Youth

I Predict a Riot – Kaiser Chiefs

Dirty Deeds – AC/DC

Get Off My Cloud – The Rolling Stones

and about a million country songs from Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams etc. etc.