A TRIBUTE OF SORTS

I learnt that Jim Stynes had passed away today when I awoke to the sound of my son crying. He needed a cuddle, so I grabbed him and chucked on some peaceful music for us on the iPad. A message on the screen had popped up from one of my sisters : Rest in peace beautiful Jimmy Stynes...so dignified and authentic. Keep that signed photo...the mark of a great man! And yes, I am my father's daughter. Glove you tresh. Skype later xoxoxoxoxo'

I sat there comforting my little man, and he in turn comforted me as I slowly digested what was going on. Sure, Jimmy had been sick, and I had tried to prepare myself for this moment by telling myself the severity of his cancer, the highly experimental nature of his treatment and the like. However, he also played 244 games straight for his mighty Demons. You don't do that without having mindblowing resources of strength to draw on, far more than us mere mortals. So his death still came as a shock.

You can read all the reasons why Jimmy was a champion; his exploits on and off the field are well known. There are not too many people who reach the pinnacle of individual achievement on the sporting field, yet achieve and reach out to far more people beyond it. So by all means, read about his wonderful exploits, and watch the documentary on him that served as inspiration to other cancer sufferers.

But it was what he did for a young boy from the country that I want to share with you.

When I was 2 my father gave me a choice of 4 teams to barrack for that hadn't won a premiership since 1969, the year he migrated to Australia. Thankfully I managed to look past St Kilda (see earlier posts about these blokes) and the Lions (folded), although Footscray are at least a bunch of battlers who I could barrack for if need be (ie they were playing Collingwood). I don't how Dad presented the options, and what criteria I selected on, but it was the Demons from then on.

So by the time Jim Stynes ran over the mark in that epic 1987 game, I was 6 years old, and already a tragic. For some reason I had already chosen Jim as my favourite player. Maybe being the 3rd shortest kid in my class made me yearn to be big, like Jim. I remember knowing that he was Irish - perhaps I felt like an outsider too. Who knows. But sometime that next year, I sent Jim a letter.

And some weeks later, I received back a large envelope, addressed by hand, to me. Imagine my delight when I read my name on the front, turned it over and found the back of the envelope covered in Melbourne player's autographs. The letter was hand written by Jim and urged me to stay true to the Demons, despite their poor showing that year. He included a signed photo that I had sent him.

I walked ten feet taller that day. And all the subsequent ones.

Sometime later, maybe 6 months or a year, I had a rare trip to Melbourne. I came down with my Mum on the train to meet my Dad, who was staying in the city that week. Dad was in his business suit, and after dinner he off we went. To Junction Oval, of all places. It was a cold and blustery night, and the Demons were running through their paces. Dad confided in me if we acted like we were meant to be there, we could comfidently walk into the changing rooms. So we did. It was little more than a tin shed and it smelt richly of that wonderful combination of sweat, dencorub and testosterone. Dad pointed out Jimmy Stynes, as if he needed to, and urged me over to chat with him. The rooms were filled with chatter and players showering and carrying on, but Jim bent down to me as I stood patiently waiting for his attention. I told him I had sent him a letter some 6 months or whatever earlier, and how he had written back to me. He told me he remembered me. He shook my hand and we had a chat, and as we did so he looked me in the eyes. I remember all sorts of things from the ensuing half hour spent in the clubrooms, some real, some imagined - a nude Rod Grinter giving my hair a ruffle (real), Alan Jakovich smoking a dart (imagined - he wouldn't debut for a few years yet). But I will always vividly remember that Jimmy Stynes gave me his time to chat, and that he remembered me.

It doesn't matter whether he remembered me or not. A young boy is not going to delve into the probabilities of that. It was that he told me he remembered me. I was so proud. So so proud.

Jim spent the rest of his off field life making people feel like champions, through conversations like the one described above, and through the organisation he founded, Reach, who's motto is this: 'Reach believes that every young person should have the support and self-belief they need to fulfil their potential and dare to dream.'

Says it all, really.

I have had many other people in my life who have made me feel like a champion in my life. One was my mum. She passed away over 12 years ago, yet I think about her every day. I could say euphemistically that depression claimed her life. I could lie, and tell you that cancer took her, just as it did Jim. I've done that before, to spare people the inevitable embarrassment when I tell them that she committed suicide.

If you want my opinion, sexual abuse as a child is what killed my mum. She grew up in a family where the vulnerable were preyed on, where alcohol, low self esteem and deep shame combined in a cocktail of abuse and unhappiness. To me, that kind of start to life can never be overcome. As an adult, she was able to shake off bouts of depression for years at a time. But that bloody black dog of depression would always come back to visit.

My mum was an amazingly kind person. Always giving the benefit of the doubt, always encouraging. I remember when I needed some cricket practice to prepare for the weekend's game. Dad was away and Mum volunteered to roll the arm over. As she was bowling to me, she asked me for some encouragement as to how she was doing. I weep now to think that she needed her son to tell her how well she was bowling, of all things. And if you are wondering, she was bowling quite well.

I also remember the last tennis game I played. It was against my Mum. She was completely outplaying me, and kept offering encouragement and loving comments as her winning shots would inevitably elude my desperate lunges. It infuriated the angsty teenage me to the point where I threw my racket and hurled abuse. She kept lovingly encouraging me. I forfeited the match and never raised the racket again.

Above all, she was a brave, loyal, and a fighter, just like Jimmy. If she was on your side, she would always be on your side. I vividly recall her defending my honour when I had been dobbed on for drinking beer on a school bus. On a phone hook up with two of the mothers on the self appointed disclipline commitee she said 'Well I'd prefer my child to be drinking beer than being the snitch who told on them!'. She raised 4 champion children, had a loving marriage for 30 years and did it fighting low self esteem and depression, right to the very end. She broke a cycle of sexual abuse, and did it by showering her children in love and support, and telling us we could be whatever we wanted to be.

Sexual abuse can occur anywhere, amongst any socioeconomic class, but it is prevalent amongst the vulnerable, the shamed, the low self esteem sufferers. The people who don't feel they have the voice that some of us are lucky enough to have. Those that feel too shamed by their experiences to speak up.

It may be too long a bow to draw to say that Jimmy's and my mum's lives were intertwined. But I wonder how many children he has reached out to, children who were once like my Mum, those that have been given the self belief they need to succeed and be happy in life. What a wonderful legacy.

You might not be able to reach out to as many people as Jimmy did. But if you love your family and friends, speak up when you hear of something that doesn't sound right, and above all believe in your friends and family if they feel something has happened, we will all be better off. Above all, listen to the voice and encourage people to speak out.

The people that make us believe in ourselves are the most powerful of all. Much more powerful than the people exploiting vulnerable children all over the world. Jimmy made an entire football club and generations of people believe in themselves. My mum helped me and my family believe in ourselves, not to mention the other depression sufferers she shared her battle with.

Rest in peace, Jimmy.

And you too, Mum.

http://www.reach.org.au/

I got the doctor to check me yesterday - yes, the heart beats true...

LAST NIGHT A DJ SAVED MY LIFE

I'm sure there's many a DJ with first aid training and a few band-aids in the disc crate just on the off chance they could save some poor soul's life and thus bring literal meaning to the song title.

But if any DJ was going to save you, like 'bleeding from the femoral artery' save you, it'd be the bloke who wrote the song. He'd whip out the defibrillator and zap you quicker than you could say 'Hey I feel a weird tingling in my arm....and I've been really stressed lately'. From the look of him, he'd be able to adminster morphine too. Just so he could feel you up. He'd give breast inspections. With some KY jelly and his hands. He'd check prostates. With KY, but without his hands.....

Check him out at 3 minutes 10 seconds into the song.....

 

Makes you think though, what if DJs were trained as paramedics? Would the Notorious B.I.G still be with us? Would Tupac still be alive?

Trick question. Tupac and Biggie are alive and well, sippin margaritas and smokin blunts at the Black House. You think Barrack Obama got elected all by himself? You think Kim Jong-Il died of cancer? Jay-Z got Beyonce pregnant? Uh-uh. Wait till they hear Kanye West has his own fashion line. They are not going to be happy.

Anyway, this week a chopping board saved my life. Sort of. It saved my hands ands face anyway. See, I glued cut up bits of chopping board to a set of gardening gloves in order to save my soft mitts from the harsh realities of bitumen and gravity when skateboarding. You can witness the chopping board, and myself, in action here:

 

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

When Plax was born, I was inducted to a place that I never even knew existed; the baby shop. This is a place you can buy a thermometer from for $10 when the same one retails in the hardware for $5. Among a plethora of goodies we bought was special laundry detergent for babies. Well, baby clothes, anyway. (Washing babies involves developing hand muscles to the point where I could comfortably wrestle with a python in a pit full of olive oil).

As I set about easing the burden on my darling wife by doing loads of washing, my mother-in-law advised me on the washing machine. Given it only speaks Japanese (the machine, that is. Mamiko is fluent in both Japanese and English and can intimidate in every language), I was a little nervy about the whole thing in case I inadvertently pressed 'hot wash' and immediately ruined $500 worth of baby clothes and dashed the goodwill of so many friends and family. I could just see it: 'How does that gorgeous little Ralph Lauren outfit look on him?' 'Er, about that......'

Mamiko advised that a) I should use the special baby only liquid and that b) I shouldn't wash any of my jocks and socks with the baby clothes 'in case of infection'.

A rush of emotions hit me. First of all, how can laundry detergent be only for babies? I mean I'm sure that babies are delicate and all that, but did they have this babies only stuff when I was born? I'm sure my mum would've used normal soap. And more to the point, look how I turned out; on the positive side, I was 30 years old with a full time job and some friends; on the flip side I was 30 years old, with plaits in my hair and with an unmatched ability to recite the lines to Madonna songs. I wanted to cry out to the world 'MY MUM USED NORMAL SOAP AND I TURNED OUT PERFECT, JUST LOOK AT ME', quickly followed by 'MY MUM DIDN'T USE BABY DETERGENT, AND NOW I SIT DOWN TO PEE!' and sob in Mamiko's arms.

I quickly overcame this emotion, and I don't think Mamiko suspected a thing.

However, I was also disturbed by the second part of what she'd said: 'in case of infection'. Had I been carrying diseases in my pants all this time without knowing it? Or more to the point, did I look like someone who carries infections in the pants region? Is that what everyone thinks when they see me? "Oh yeah, Paul, nice guy, sure, just don't go near his boxers". I was appalled and hurt by this, and resolved to stop playing with myself in her presence to allay her concerns about what may or may not be occuring below the belt.

I was certain that I could've used the normal detergent but raw unadulterated fear of hurting my little one overcame me and I used the baby stuff. Which incidentally retails for about double the cost of regular detergent. As the label is in Japanese I can't even analyse whats in it....

 

Makes ya wonder though, what is in normal detergent that makes it fine for us and not babies?

Anyway, whoever invented the stuff* is printing money. But this is not the product of the week.....I encountered the elusive product when I was treated out to dinner. I looked at the menu and rawed at the waitress:

'DON'T COME THE RAW PRAWN WITH ME......

Unless you have some soy sauce and wasabi to accompany it'

She acquiesced, and here we are...

 

EXTREME COURTESY OF THE WEEK

Recycling. In my apartment block in Melbourne, there is an area in the car park loosely referred to as the recycling depot. My fellow apartment dwellers, who can't be named, as I do not know their names, haven't quite grasped the whole paper in the 1st bin, other recyclables in the 2nd bin, and garbage in the large bin concept. They lump it all in together and it DRIVES ME CRAZY. Cretins probably don't separate their whites from their coloureds when they do the washing either. Probably wear odd socks. Put tomato sauce on their dim sims. Drink red wine with chicken. You get the gist.

Anyway, it was a welcome sight at the recycling depot here. People take it seriously here. Don't know whether racial categorization and plastic categorization go hand in hand, but the Japanese excel at both. Often they combine the two, and assume that white people can't separate their recyclables properly. I'm here to dispel that hurtful portrayal of us white people as large, benignly smiling folk who don't know their polyethylene terephtalate from their polypropylene. Unfortunately, my first go at recycling did nothing to dispel this myth, as I blundered about putting plastic coated styrofoam in with the normal styrofoam. Oh the shame.

So, everything is separated. Caps from bottles. PET from PEET. Coloured glass from clear glass. Everything must be washed before it is accepted and put into the large bins. Each local depot is looked over by a group of men, generally smoking cheap cigarettes. They enforce the regulations, cheerfully help out and appear to love doing so.

See that sign on the closest bin in the photo above? My Japanese is still a work in progress, but I believe it says 'The first time you put the wrongly coded plastic in here we will chop your finger off. Next time it will be your hand'.

These men, salt of the earth, are the sole reason why Japan has more than double the recycling rate than Australia. Indeed, as I consider that Australia has a skills shortage in the recycling sorting department, I will be sponsoring a couple of septuagerians from the village to come and live in South Melbourne with me.

PLAYS OF THE WEEK

I went on record (if Twitter counts) recently as being willing to lose a finger if it meant that Jack Grimes, the injury prone co-captain of Melbourne Football Club, and his fellow co-captain, Jack Trengove, could get through a season of football injury free. Shortly after posting it though, I began to think a little more deeply about my comment, which was intended to be humorous.

Like how much would a hand get me? A premiership?

Anyway, I decided to conduct a test of my own idiocy in the pursuit of vicarious sporting pleasure, with the Melbourne versus Collingwood game acting as the control:

• Could a find a live video stream of the game in acceptable quality that I could follow on my iPad
• Could I tone down my emotions to an acceptably nonchalant level, as befitting of a pre-season game
• Could I refrain from saying morally wrong things while watching the football with my son in the room

The answers were yes, no and fuck no. I said out loud some of the harshest things I have ever even thought. I may have even invented some new swear words. At one point, I accused Daisy Thomas of being a combination of all the transgressions St Kilda players have committed in recent memory. Needless to say it was a lengthy, harsh and deeply disturbing diatribe, both in deed and description.

However, given the dire state of affairs that has befallen the Melbourne Football Club since that, dare I say it, magical Saturday not two weeks ago, (WHEN WE BEAT COLLINGWOOD, SO GO SUCK A FAT ONE EDDIE MCGUIRE YOU PARASITIC LEECH) I need to go elsewhere for Play of the Week. (In case you were wondering, the calamities involve, in no particular order: an initiated indigenous community elder, a machete, Buddy Franklin, and a broken finger. Oh how I wish these things were interrelated)

So here, I bring you happier days:

 

Which brings us to.....

WHINGE OF THE WEEK

Open letter to Robbie Deans, coach of the Australian Rugby Team, the Wallabies.

 

Hey Robbie

Reeves-dogg here. Say, remember that thing that happened last year. Around the 15th of October last year. That thing. That thing that involved the pride of Australia, the thing that makes me forget all the mediocre politicians, our horrendous policies on refugees and our pathetic approach to reconciliation with the traditional owners of our lovely little spot down under.

That thing when the pride of Australia, the Wallabies, lost to the All Blacks. I remember it, Robbie. I was there. But perhaps you didn't get the full impact of that.

I'll give you a bit of a history lesson, for free. The Howards years, as the years of '96 - '07 would later be known, were dark years politically for left leaning, Che Guevara shirt wearing pinko communists like myself. However, depending on your ideological viewpoint, these years could also be viewed as the Gregan - Larkham years. And this would inevitably put a smile on your face, as you would indulge in memories of those heady days when we used to roll the All Blacks and South Africa like sleeping cows. Once we knocked South Africa out of the World Cup by a drop goal. As a joke. When France beat the All Blacks in the corresponding semi final I laughed so hard a tiny bit of wee came out.

However, since you've been on board, I've had to put up with Kevin 'Fair shake of the sauce bottle' Rudd, Julia 'I am a sauce bottle' Gillard and Tony 'Sauce bottles? Send them back. We've got enough of our own here' Abbot. And you.

In keeping with my open minded policy on all things sex and race related (particularly sex), I didn't blink when they appointed you, a Kiwi and a former All Black to boot, as the Wallabies coach. Your lauded 'technical understanding of the game' and exploits with the Crusaders left me almost excited.

However, your reign has been a tad underwhelming. Losing to Scotland. Losing to Samoa. Seriously?

I would have forgiven all for a ride all the way through to the World Cup Final. Which, as the seedings had it, was the least a Wallaby supporter could reasonably expect.

Then when James O'Connor failed to show up for the official World Cup photo shoot, I thought it was somewhat insightful that a bloke selected for what would be the highlight of his life, would choose to get on the cans and jeopardise his position in the squad. I would have been happy at that point if you sacked him and reinstated Giteau to the team. Or my Grandmother, for that matter.

But no. While this incident can hardly be blamed on you, it demonstrated the mindset leading into the world cup (although in my world you are utterly responsible for it. NB In my world there are midgets cruising around with beers a la Happy Gilmore too).. That we got served a big plate of #hardenthefuckup by Samoa was completely predictable, particularly since you had Nick Phipps starting at half back. The same Nick Phipps who was selected in the World Cup squad as back up back up half back.

How many half backs do you need?

Two more halfbacks than specialist breakaway flankers, I guess. Oh yeah, remember when David Pocock was injured for the Ireland match? I do, Robbie, I do. In case you've glossed over it, the way we played at the breakdown that night was absolutely shameful. I can imagine Phil Waugh and George Smith looking at the slop that was being served up and crying with shame. Richie McCaw was probably watching too, through tears of laughter as he got his mantelpiece measured up for the William Web Ellis Cup.

The most Australian we looked throughout the entire World Cup was when we beat South Africa, and that was through sheer guts and determination. It had nothing to do with your coaching. It was the players on the field that day that absolutely made it happen.

Before I completely combust, one more thing.

Pat McCabe. He is not an inside centre. Never was (in fact, he had never played the position prior to you, Robbie), and never will be. And yet you played him at inside centre for the entire World Cup, while everyone could see that Quade Cooper was screaming for a second playmaker to play outside him. And probably screaming at you to use your persona and reputation in New Zealand to try and influence the media to stop the hate campaign against him. Quade was vilified by the Kiwi media, and you sat back and did nothing. An Australian coach would not let that happen in a million years.

(To say nothing of the abuse that Australian fans copped from Kiwis. I'm always up for a giggle, even when losing, but I have never copped anything like this. Thanks for firing a few salvos at your countrymen over this one, too. Really appreciated it. Lets just say, Robbie, it took only a few minutes of the long walk back to the hotel from Eden Park to quickly sympathise with why France bombed the Rainbow Warrior. And I'm an environmentalist. Also, the NZ national anthem 'God Defend New Zealand' is entirely appropriate. Because noone else will)

Anyway, Pat McCabe played every game with a shoulder injury until he needed a shoulder reconstruction (he got one 2 days after the NZ game. Fact) while you had Berrick Barnes, the finest inside centre (and bloke) in world rugby, sitting on the bench. Here is empirical evidence Berrick Barnes is a top bloke:

 

See those chiselled forearms? Those angular cheekbones? The Queenslander sun-bleached hair? The strong yet caring brow? Golly I'm getting all a flustered just thinking about him.

Anyway.

Not saying that Pat McCabe doesn't have grit. But if Berrick Barnes played the bad guy in a movie, the audience would die. Most fly halves are right or left footed; very few are ambidextrous. BB just stares at the ball till it flies over the posts of its own accord. You hear about the floods in Queensland? It hadn't rained for 20 years. BB cried. You know what happened next.

That little nugget of brilliance, combined with picking a plethora of blokes with questionable injuries (Rob Horne? Dan Vickerman, who is retiring now with a stress fracture he had before and during the World Cup) is enough for me.

So to conclude in parlance you would understand: bugger off. Take Julia and Tony with you, and lets do the one thing all Australians would agree with:

Ewen McKenzie for Wallaby coach and President/Tin Pot Dictator of the newly created Australian Republic.

Quade Cooper can be Minister for Foreign Affairs. Berrick Barnes can do whatever he wants.

Yours sincerely,

Paul

 

 

*word has it Halliburton** makes all the baby goods in the world

 

**biggie and tupac own Halliburton