- Details
- Written by Garry
I'm writing this from the visitors' accommodation in Milingimbi, just off the North coast of East Arnhem Land. Stranded from the rest of civilisation, and cut off from the internet (don't ask me how I'm posting this... wibbly wobbly timey wimey), it's just me, the land, the ocean, my bible, my notebook and my iPod.
Okay, okay. I also have a fridge, an air conditioner and a TV. But there's nothing on except repeats of Two and a Half Men, so my iPod's been getting a fair work out. I've been re-living and re-loving Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and I've decided that our lovable and piteous antihero wasn't that far off the mark.
Just before TAAHM, Channel Nine News informed me of the following:
Kevin Rudd's government has announced that after getting themselves elected by promising to open around 250 new childcare centres to relieve the chronic national shortage, they've decided they're going to build 38.
The Melbourne Storm have announced that they've been cheating for the last five years at least by rorting the salary cap system and have been stripped of three minor premierships, two premierships, a million dollars and all points for this season, past and present. No-one would ever have accused rugby league players of being able to count, but this sort of "do whatever it takes to win and bugger the spirit of the game" attitude really belongs in some other country. Like England.
In another brazen display from Rudd's goons, they've also gone and announced that an enquiry into the debacle that was the home insulation scheme has found that fixing the mess is likely to be really difficult, and really really expensive. So they've decided not to.
And did they send out Peter Garrett to face the music? No. He was hiding in an office deep within Parliament House somewhere. So did Kevin, who just two months ago was so keen to take responsibility and show us all how up front he was, front up? No. He was hiding in Tasmania. He would probably have been even further away, if it wasn't for that damned Icelandic volcano. Instead they arranged a press conference with some dubious looking assistant minister for who-cares-what? A man so otherwise irrelevant I'm not even going to bother looking up who it actually was.
On top of all that, and despite a very strongly worded request to join a Saturday league, I've been consigned to an E grade cricket team playing on Sundays, which means choosing between playing sport to do something about my physical fitness, and investing my Sundays in intercongregational activities to do something about the spiritual health of the local Church. I mean, I realise I'm close enough to useless and not getting anywhere, but this might just be the final insult.
I'm also rubbish at cricket.
Yes indeed, as the Horrible little Doctor put it:
"It's not about making money. It's about taking money; destroying the Status Quo. Because the Status is not Quo. The world's a mess and I just need to rule it."
I've been considering the various avenues available to me in terms of affecting the obviously necessary paradigmatic social change. I could become a politician myself, but they all seem to be increasingly useless. I could become a religious leader, but, for all I see, we have too many of them as it is (more on that later). I could found an underground resistance movement, but bringing a campaign of violence and destruction of property to the streets of Palmerston wouldn't actually set me apart from the local high school students. And no-one seems to pay them any attention.
So logically the only recourse left is to become a lone-wolf masked vigilante and prowl the streets at night, seeking out injustice and crushing it under the heel of my rocketboots. To the secret lab, Emilio!
No. There's no secret laboratory and no mad yet devoted assistant. And who calls their sidekick Emilio, anyway? Lame. I guess I'll just stay here in the visitors' accommodation and continue to combat the forces of evil by blogging them to death.
And that's the news for this Thursday the 22nd of April. A Current Affair is next, but for now: good night.
Garry with 2 Rs
P.S. I apologise for the overtly political tone this blog has now taken. We will be returning to the regular scheduled service of absurd sexist ecumenical idiocy as soon as possible.
P.P.S. Anyone else think Jonathan Uptin needs a more creative sign-off?
- Details
- Written by Garry
The most peculiar thing happened to me today as I was walking through Casuarina. I was strolling, coke bottle in hand (He is risen, baby!), through the older section near K-Mart when I was approached and stopped by a misty-eyed exotic stranger. I knew straight away what was happening, having had some experience with shopping mall charity spruikers in the past, but nonetheless having a pretty girl stop me to chat occurs infrequently enough that I just decided to go with it.
Alice (name changed to protect the ignorant; it was actually a really hot sounding Russian name that I couldn’t spell if I tried): How’re you going today?
Garry with 2 Rs: I’m going pretty well. How’re you?
Alice: Pretty good thanks. Would you like to take a couple of minutes to see what we’re doing here today?
Gw2Rs: I suppose I have a few minutes to spare (translates as “I’ll look at anything you want me to, just keep that James Bond villainess accent coming”).
Alice: My name’s Alice, by the way. What’s yours?
Gw2Rs: I’m Garry. Alice… that’s an unusual name.
Alice: It’s Russian. And congratulations: you’re the first person today to pronounce it correctly. Most people can’t do that.
Gw2Rs: I’m a linguist (said with smug confidence that didn’t really match the content, but what are you going to do?).
Alice: Oh wow! I did some Slavic philology at college back home.
Gw2Rs: Fantastic. That sounds fascinating. (Yeah! Suck on that, veterinary science students I went to uni with! Who’s talking to all the pretty girls now?)
Alice: Well… anyway, I am here today representing Oxfam International.
And just like that, the spell was broken. I mean, I kept up the façade of being interested in what she was collecting for (something to do with sexually abused women building wells in Africa), but I knew what her real agenda was. It all starts off with a bit of innocent (well…) chit-chat. Next thing you know you’re buying a block of fair trade chocolate a week and pining over a forbidden love who starts making uninvited and frankly preposterous appearances in slightly embellished accounts of your European working holiday.
Not today, Alice!
Actually, it turns out Oxfam don’t even have a shop in Darwin. This sucks a bit because I left my make poverty history wristband on a table in Brisbane on my way through in November. These guys were based on the Gold Coast and were in town on the Darwin leg of a national tour. Somewhere, charity spokesperson got cross-wired with rockstar and I, for one, welcome the change.
And remember, it costs as little as a dollar a day to send as many cute Europeans to talk to Garry in shopping malls as it takes to buy just one cup of coffee a week. Give or take.
Over to you, ROOOOOOZ!
Garry with 2 Rs
What? Scraping the barrel a bit? Why yes. Yes I am.
- Details
- Written by Garry
Last week I was invited to an awards ceremony at my local library. I was a little bit surprised to receive the invitation, but I figured that my tireless work in support of… libraries was finally being recognised at an official level. They would probably unveil a plaque that said
“In grateful acknowledgement of occasional visits, this plaque was unveiled by his honour the Lord Mayor of Darwin, Graeme Sawyer on the 19th day of March 2010, and dedicated to the memory of Garry with 2 Rs, in whose name his beloved Andrea hath erected this monument.
“Sometimes he came here to borrow books.”
It seemed like a huge honour. I’ve always wanted my own plaque. Never mind the fact that I’m not dead yet. And who the hell is Andrea?
Okay, so the presentation was actually for a poetry competition. I was surprised to get invited because I didn’t really think my entry, which I only put in on a spur of the moment decision, would be in the running for anything. And with good reason.
It wasn’t.
I got invited because anyone who had bothered to enter got invited. It turns out Shakespearean sonnet writing contests don’t actually attract that many competitors, so they just invited the whole lot of us so that the winner would actually have someone there to cheer for him.
Actually, it was interesting to see the sort of crowd that would rock up for a sonnet competition presentation ceremony. Mostly older folk, but with a smattering of slightly younger English teachers and one extremely out-of-place twenty-something year old training officer/stunt linguist. In the end I was grateful not to have won. If I had walked out the front and read my entry aloud, I don’t think I could have absorbed the combined hatred of a dozen or so retirees all at once (I could totally have taken the English teachers though).
I’m pretty sure my poem came dead last. It was a Valentine’s Day competition, and my views on romance aren’t what you’d call universally well received. Nonetheless, I still got a free drink and meal out of it, which is more than can be said for most amateur poets.
Today’s episode was bought to you by the letter C and the number 17. Cum Tacent Clament is a production of the Children’s Television Network.*
Garry with 2 Rs
*Not really. They should probably keep children as far away from CTC as possible.
- Details
- Written by Garry
The extent to which I’ve become an inactive layabout is starting to annoy me. I spend far too much time with my computer (so I decided to blog about it… hmm…) and not nearly enough time outside.
This is partly due to the Darwin climate this time of year. When it’s not 33 and sticky, it’s 29 and pouring which makes outdoor pursuits a little inconvenient. However, the Dry is fast approaching and that means only one thing:
Cricket season.
Yes, I know that rest of Australia has only just got over the monumental waste of time that was this summer’s so called ‘competition’ (although as I’m typing this, Mitchell Johnson has just taken 10 wickets in the second test in Hamilton to clinch the series against New Zealand) and is stolidly pushing on with fanatic devotion to games played with balls that aren’t round.
But up here we do things the other way around: we play cricket in the dry season when it’s slightly cooler, less humid and not pouring with rain all the time. We play football in the wet season because if we didn’t, the guys playing both cricket and some code of football (which is generally half the team; there’s only a limited pool of players to draw from) would be screwed, and also because football players usually aren’t smart enough to realise that running around in the sun in November is a stupid idea.
You may already have read of my previous adventures in international cricket. It could probably be said that as a batsman I make an excellent spin bowler and that as a bowler I make a fantastic… goal keeper. Nonetheless, I’ve decided that in order to break out of the inactive slump that has elevated my pant size to unacceptable levels, I’m signing up for the next season.
The last time I played club cricket in Australia was when I was in high school, playing for Tracy Village, which was just around the corner from our old house in Wanguri. I managed to earn myself the nickname “Kamikaze” due to my distinctive ground fielding style and was renowned as the most consistent number ten in the league (I can’t remember the name of the guy who batted at eleven. He must have been woeful). I bowled occasionally, but spent most of my time running around at deep mid-wicket being noisy.
Not much has changed, except that Tracy Village is no longer just around the corner. I’m living out in the wilderness of Woodroffe and I have a heart rending decision to make.
Palmerston cricket club trains at Woodroffe Oval, which is just around the corner from where I currently live. The logical thing for me to do is to sign up with them. But, as a born and bred northern suburbs boy, it seems a little unnatural. Like a boy from Longreach growing up to play State of Origin for New South Wales, or an Oxford law student rowing for Cambridge. Or a former Liberal leader crossing the floor to vote in favour of Labor’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Can I really bring myself to represent Palmerston on the cricket field?
I think convenience is probably going to win out over district loyalty. I also think the Tracy Village sports club can probably count themselves extremely fortunate. Either way, I’ll be spending less time in cyberspace and more time in the outfield, which can only be a good thing from my current perspective.
This has been another presentation from Nine’s Wide World of Sports.
Garry with 2 Rs
- Details
- Written by Garry
I was chatting with some mates the other day about the concepts behind different kinds of doctrine that get around the church; liberation theology, feminist theology, prosperity doctrine, pro-acacia ecumenicalism, legalism, etc. We spent a good fifteen minutes trying to figure out what ‘evangelicalism’ actually means (we never did work it out). Then, once that got boring, we got to talking about how different ideas and perspectives come and go, but the basic gist is still the same 2000 odd years on. Eventually someone brought up the question of whether we as a church get the balance right when it comes to the impact new ideas have on established practices. Do we cling on too tightly to traditions which have become stagnant, or is it the other way around? Are we too quick to throw the baby with the bath water as soon as we’ve finished our latest bible study series and moved onto the next one?
I disagreed, perhaps not surprisingly, with just about everyone.
My friends were unanimously of the opinion that the church lives in the past too much and needs to quit being held back by ideas that had relevance only in the culture as it stood a hundred and fifty or more years ago. While I agree with this in principle, I felt compelled to argue the case for the opposition. Part of this, I confess, is due simply to my sociopathic compulsion to refuse to do anything that everyone else is doing. However, I do sincerely believe that, in a season where ‘independent’ churches are the new black and ‘old school’ denominations are struggling for membership, we stand at far greater risk of losing touch with the great wisdom and experience of the past than of being held back by it.
Now relax; I’m not about to start railing against the use of PowerPoint slides in worship or kick-off a campaign to bring back Hymns Ancient and Modern or anything like that. I’m all in favour of innovation, experimentation and adaptation to changes to technology and cultural expression. As far as I’m concerned, you can do what you like to the medium, as long as the message remains unchanged and in sharp focus. And speaking of staying on message, the more observant among you might have noticed that all this has absolutely nothing to do with economics or nutrition.
That is, until now.
To add weight to my rather impulsive declaration of allegiance to the religious wisdom of the past, I’ve decided to do something that, until quite recently, I’ve always thought was completely pointless; I’m playing the ‘giving stuff up for Lent’ game.
It’s traditional not to drink alcohol for the 40 days leading up to Easter. These days, since abstinence from alcohol isn’t as closely linked with religious piety as it once was (or possibly because Christians these days are much fonder of a drink), some people give up other stuff like chocolate, ice-cream or red meat. I suspect that a fair whack of the time, this has more to do with dietary discipline than with religious observance, hence my previous conviction that it was a stupid idea.
I’ve already cut down on my ice-cream intake, and I don’t really drink enough alcohol to make giving it up worthwhile, but ever since about 3rd year uni I’ve been doing a slow but certain dance of death with caffeine addiction. Considering that I can’t stand the taste of coffee and avoid it like the plague, this might come as a surprise, but my vice is much more insidious.
Yep, I’ve given up Coca Cola for Lent. Those of you who aren’t used to seeing me go anywhere without a six hundred millilitre red-labelled bottle in my hand might not believe it, but we’re three weeks into Lent now and I haven’t touched it since Ash Wednesday. And now my hands have finally stopped shaking enough to blog about it.
And yes, I am making a giant hypocrite out of myself, in as much as my motivation is more likely a nutritional one than a religious one. I still don’t see the point of going without stuff just for its own sake, but when we get to Easter, I’ll be giving the equivalent of what I would have spent on Coke for six weeks to a Uniting Church charity drive to buy … actually I don’t even know what. Probably food for poor people or something. So there is at least some semblance of reason behind it.
However, since I haven’t given up drinking fluids altogether, just a certain type of it, I’m not actually saving any money, since I just spend it on other less disastrously addictive beverages. So the resulting donation is just that; a donation. It’s a bit like sponsoring yourself for the 40 hour famine. I’d do just as much good in the world by just handing over the money and skipping the caffeine withdrawals, but hard line traditionalists insist that that would be missing the point of the Lenten experience. And what is that mystical point?
No, I haven’t figured that one out yet either.
You stay classy San Diego.
Garry with 2 Rs