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- Written by Garry
Like many Aussie guys, when I was a kid I dreamed of one day playing cricket for Australia. My childhood heroes were guys like Allan Border, David Boon, the Waugh brothers and (of course) Richie Benaud. As primary schoolers, our following of the sport was nothing short of obsession; every break we would be outside with a bat, a ball and (to the perpetual frustration of the groundsman) a rubbish bin that had been used as wickets so consistently it was dented and squashed hopelessly out of shape. On the weekends we played grade cricket in the dry and indoor cricket in the wet. I played under thirteens and then under fifteens and had a great time, although I remember being quite annoyed by the fact that I wasn’t very good at it.
It didn’t take very long for me to abandon my dream of playing for Australia, but all through high school I kept on following the game with the same passion. Of course, it helped that it was easy to get behind the Australian cricket team at that time, as we spent most of the late nineties being practically invincible. The old heroes were gone, but had been replaced by such legends as McGrath, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer and Martyn to name just a few. I had to stop playing grade cricket to focus more on school and music, but I would still join mates occasionally for a backyard game. And every time I did, I would be quietly struggling to deal with the fact that for all my passion and enthusiasm, I wasn’t very good at it.
My university years were a time of great change. We could no longer rely on the great heroes of the past, and some of the core assumptions about our role in the world were being challenged. In 2005 the unthinkable happened: we lost the Ashes. Everything we thought we knew about the world had fallen around us, leaving us questioning even our fundamental understanding of the game. If ever there was a time to rally and stay true to our belief in ourselves, in our team mates and in the game, while everything else around us was in flux, this was it. I remember trying out rather optimistically for our college cricket side with fairly tragic results. I really wasn’t very good at it.
In 2009 I stepped out into a brave new world, and a brave new country. Even in the exotic lands of central Spain, I found ways to continue my connection with the game. My exploits with the Madrid Cricket Club have been well documented here, although they’re unlikely to be remembered anywhere else. And while everyone else at the summer school was down at the beach, I was in the internet café checking the score in the test match. But even though I could hold my own in the field against the English staff, it really wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. As the only Aussie English teacher, it was important that I could beat the English at cricket even if, once again, our test side couldn’t. And I did, but it didn’t matter. I still wasn’t very good at it.
I’ve been home in Darwin for two and a half years now. My relationship with the game is still strong, but changing all the time. I don’t watch it religiously on TV like I used to, mainly because the commentary team, rather than inspiring and educating me, now makes me want to throw things (Michael Slater, I’m throwing them at you). These days they spend more time cross promoting other Channel Nine products and selling us commemorative merchandise than analysing the game play. And when they do get around to commenting on the game, it’s nothing but a series of inane clichés. So now I just follow the games on the internet and keep tabs on the boys while they’re away on tour. Back at home, I’m part way through my third season of local grade cricket. I’ve been dutifully heading down to training twice a week and out for games on Sundays. After all those endless afternoons running around the mid-wicket boundary, I’ve come realise an important fact about cricket:
I’m not very good at it.
After all these years, you might expect that I would have developed an ability to bowl straight, hit a ball properly or catch with some sort of reliability. After nearly three decades of persistence, the time has come for me to face up to the fact that not only am I never going to play for Australia, I’m never going to play B-grade local competition in Darwin. And as the period of my life loosely referred to as ‘youth’ gradually approaches the tea break, I’ve finally reached a place in my life where I can say I’m alright with that.
This afternoon I called my E-grade captain and told him I was pulling out of the competition.
It was a surprisingly easy decision in the end; if I take the eight hours a week I was spending trying to learn to bowl and spend them working on something I’m good at, God only knows what I might achieve. And while I’ll have to start looking for new ways to keep active, for now it’s time to appreciate the game the way the rest of the country does: on the couch with a beer.
And I’m extremely good at that.
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
It’s only May, but already 2012 has marked itself as a year for changing seasons. A new job, a new ministry, a new brother in law and a new choir. What else can possibly happen?
Well… a new church.
Okay, not actually a new church, more a return to an old one. A few weeks ago I was approached by the leadership at my old stomping grounds Darwin Memorial Uniting Church with a distress call. The incumbent organist has left to be with his family in Melbourne. I’ve been asked to move in and take over the running of the worship team there, which will be exciting and challenging. So the time has come to move.
It will be an interesting change shifting from a contemporary Pentecostal congregation to a more conservative Uniting Church congregation, but one of the advantages of being me is that I’m equally at home in either one. It’s one of the great side effects of NOT BEING PLANTED.
I’m still phasing myself out of Abundant Life church, so I haven’t quite taken up residence at DMUC yet. I’ll be there from July, after I get back from my sister’s wedding. So really, this post should have been saved up until then. But I don’t really have anything else to write about this week. So… yeah.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
So I’ve joined the Darwin Chorale.
It’s something that I’ve always managed to avoid doing, though to be honest I’m not really sure why, given that I enjoy singing in choirs. I think most of the problem is that until recently I’d never heard the Chorale sing anything that I could really get excited about. Last year they did a great all singing all dancing show full of the twentieth century’s greatest love songs.
I hate love songs.
Meanwhile, I’ve been getting my choral fixes by tagging along with the local Operatunity company. And as far as my ability to spend extended amounts of time in a room with an entire section of sopranos goes, that has been quite enough, thank you very much. Occasionally those of the Operatunity fold who were also in the Chorale (that is, most of them) would remark more loudly than was necessary about how much they were enjoying the rehearsals for the Chorale’s latest project, and how they wish they could find more tenors. This would be backed up by a meaningful glance in my direction, and followed by a stealth retreat and exit-left on my part. And so an unstable but mutual understanding has developed between the Chorale and me: They don’t bug me and I don’t bug them.
That is, until now.
Operatunity aren’t doing a show this year. And the Chorale are doing a fun show in June, which will be a review of all the best bits from Broadway shows. The usual plea for more men went out, only this time in more earnest. I got a personal phone call from the musical director, which was weird, but nice. So I went along to one rehearsal to check it out. I had kind of thought that joining a choir the size and reputation of the Darwin Chorale, even in Darwin, I might at last have the chance to sing with a decent sized tenor section.
Not so much. I discovered quickly that when they called me up to say they were desperate for tenors, they meant it. We had three on my first night there. I was ready to walk out in disgust. Then they pulled a clever political manoeuvre by offering me a solo, which I decided was too much fun to reject.
So now I’m in the Chorale. And I have to learn a part for an ensemble with proper singers. And a duet with a soprano. And I’m freaking out a bit.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
I don’t know how it came to this.
I’ve been with Samantha for a long time now. It’s been ten great years. Sometimes it seems like forty (even though I’m only twenty-mumble years old) and sometimes it seems like just two weeks, like we’re only just getting to know each other all over again. Every week we’re discovering new sounds, new ideas and new ways to complement each other. I never fail to be amazed by what happens when we’re together, and she’s always been there for me.
There was a time when the comforting and familiar straight lines of her silver casing would bring a smile to my face as I wandered back home after a hard day of doing … whatever it is I do, to say nothing of the joy of turning her on and watching her touch screen light up. Even when other keyboards came along like my old flame Mary, Sasha from the church or even Mary’s successor Marian, it’s always been us; Garry and Samantha. Just a simple guy and his disturbingly anthropomorphised electric piano.
It can happen so fast, can’t it? All it takes is one unexpected meeting; a flash of curvy red chrome across a low lit room, a manual interface that’s so fresh, new and dangerous. And weighted keys. It was just a night of laughs among friends; and then a couple of drinks later, before I even knew what was happening (impro comedy will do that…) I was on stage with my hands on another keyboard. It was all a swirl of lights, passion, retro interfaces and music (obviously). It was so exciting to be lost in another world, just for a night.
God, I didn’t even know her name.
And now I face the long, cold walk back to my flat in Malak. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have to know. It doesn’t matter that it was a one time thing. It doesn’t even matter that the long cold walk is in a car, and that the air-con is on because even at half past eleven at night it’s still pretty warm for May. And still raining. How can I be worried about inapplicable environmental metaphors at a time like this?
I know she’ll still be there. I’ll walk in late and the touch screen will light up room like always. But somehow the light will be a little dimmer. The response will be a little less smooth. The rotary speaker effect will be just that little less Waaahwawawawawawaawaawaaawaaaaaaaa-y.
Things will never be the same again.
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
My new(ish) job as a researcher with the Aboriginal Interpreter Service does on occasion require me to do research. Most of the time I can do this just fine with a combination of Google, Wikipedia and … making it up and finding a source somewhere who agrees with me. But every now and again I actually have to go and look something up properly like a big boy. This week was one of those weeks.
In my capacity as legal interpreting team researcher, I’ve been granted access to the NT Supreme Court Library. That doesn’t sound very impressive, mainly because it isn’t, but the weird part is that you can’t just wander in there and use it any old time. Your name has to be on a list of approved library users. My name is now on that list. How exciting.
I presented myself at the Supreme Court lobby for an introduction to the library systems. My first challenge was getting past security; Supreme Court lawyers can smell an arts graduate a block and a half away, and won’t hesitate to press the button that releases the hounds. I showed my ID to the security guard, passed my bag through the X-ray scanner and sprayed myself with the specially made salve that would help to prevent me from catching fire once I was inside the library itself.
The security guard waved his swipe card over the lift controls and I was transported into a magical world of academic nirvana, where the walls were made of wood panels and the floor was made of gold. It was hard to believe it was the same building, just three floors up. But here, suspended high above the rabble of the public gallery, even the quiet hum of the air conditioner seemed to whisper “You don’t belong here.”
I prised open the enormous wooden doors and approached the front desk. The record keeper from the Jedi archive, or possibly her sister, greeted me with a stare that could have frozen a bottle of vodka. I introduced myself and apologised for existing, but explained that I needed a tour of the research facilities.
She was kind enough to point out which shelves held dusty old books that hadn’t been touched for centuries, and which shelves held different dusty old books that hadn’t been touched for centuries (Yes, I know the Supreme Court building is only twenty years old. These books were here before we were, I’m sure of it.) Then she introduced me to the SC online catalogue.
SC computers do not have direct access to the internet at large for whatever reason, but have access to what would probably be a very impressive list of research databases if I had any idea what they did. The librarian was very excited to show me the Lexis Nexis database, but unfortunately it wasn’t working that day due to a problem with a login script, so she decided to show me AGIS instead. That wasn’t working either. Instead she showed me how to use the simple SC internal catalogue, which was much more interesting until she pointed out that you can access that externally via the commoners’ intertron. Eventually even that logged me off and asked for more passwords, which I wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of being asked for. Even the computer system seemed convinced that I really wasn’t supposed to be there. Fortunately I had written the details of my article down, so I just went and found the book on the shelves myself. Sometimes (actually, most of the time) that’s easier.
I thanked the lady for her time and got myself the hell out of there. I had passed my initiation, and strode from the lobby with my head held a little higher with the knowledge that I was one of the elite now. I was a library user. Fear me. And while it may not have been particularly useful, my visit to the elite world of exclusive libraries has at least given me something to write about, which is, I suppose, what libraries are for after all.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs