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- Written by Garry
I joined my family in Adelaide this week for my grandfather’s funeral. The funeral itself was relatively untraumatic. Actually it was a really nice ceremony; simple, solemn and dignified – just as he wanted.
The more emotional part of the week was spent in the shed Poppa had built behind the old family home. He was the sort of man who could never throw anything out. Everything was kept, squirrelled away in the shed because “It might come in handy one day.”
My father and I had the task of sorting through the contents of the shed to decide what should be kept, what should be passed to the church fete, and what should be (lovingly and respectfully) thrown out.
There were timber off-cuts from a hundred old home improvement projects (some completed, some not), scrap metal, old oil rags, unused photographic paper, dried up paint in every colour imaginable, empty oxygen tanks and at least twenty different kinds of spanner. We could have set up a museum exhibit entitled “Plastic and metal containers of the twentieth century” and still another entitled “The evolution of computer hardware from the nineteen eighties onward.”
But among the dust, we also found undeniable testament to a man who loved his family and treasured his memories of them; old boy scout handbooks, my aunt’s thirty year old stamp collection, various high school wood-work projects and at least five boxes full of souvenirs from family holidays all over the world. None of them were necessary, and they certainly weren’t useful. But they were important.
I’m looking up at my shelves as I write this, contemplating the amount of stuff I have in my room. I’ve only been in Sydney for just over a year, but I can already see considerable piles of evidence that I may have inherited more from my father’s side of the family than just grey hair and a taste for Barossa Valley reds. But I think the most conclusive proof that my grandfather lives on in his descendants came when I took my eight year old cousin into the shed to look for spare parts for her cubby house. When she requested that I dig out an oddly shaped wooden step ladder out from behind a stack of cardboard boxes, I asked her what she wanted to use it for.
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but it might come in handy one day.”
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
I've been undergoing something of an identity crisis lately. It centres around the fact that the church I'm going to has an abundance of highly skilled pianists available, and a small number of significantly lower skilled bass players. I'm only too happy to help out where I can, so I'm on bass two weeks out of four, which is great, but having people know I can play the bass and not know that I play the piano is playing havoc with my established order of social interaction.
It came to a head last night while I was chatting with my pastor. He was talking about how he often sees me up there playing, and wonders (tongue in cheek) why the piano or the saxophone always get the solo. "You never get to see a good bass solo," he said. I casually replied that bass players don't need solos because they're big enough posers as it is. He laughed and said "Yes. Maybe it's better that you stay up the back." I realised in horror that having so frequently seen me playing the bass at church, and never having seen me playing keys, those at the church who don't know me so well have got it into their heads that I'm some kind of ... bass player.
I mean obviously I'm a bass player if we're defining bass player as "one who plays the bass," but anyone who has had any involvement with any band ever will understand that the term "bass player" communicates a lot more than just "the one with the bass guitar". It communicates a certain personality, a certain social status, a certain gravitational effect on members of the opposite sex (no-one knows why, by the way) and a certain predisposition towards being a complete poser. And I really don't identify with any of those. Well... maybe the poser bit, but even that's a completely different genre of posing.
Most people who play the bass don't actually fall under this classification, since it is reserved chiefly for people whose first instrument is the bass guitar, or who made the jump from guitar to bass early enough for it to count as a first instrument. Having the bass guitar as one's musical background has some sort of mystical affect on a person's approach to other instruments, music in general, and basically life, the universe and everything.
True bass players are a fascinating, if simple, sub-species. It's not that they're necessarily good-looking, charming, witty, sensitive or literate (although they can be). Bass players don't acquire any inherent traits to which we may attribute their automatic popularity the moment they first pick up a guitar. It's just a fundamental property of the universe. The sky is blue, light is fast, water flows downhill and bass players are popular. That's just how it is. Your average after-church conversation with a bass player goes something like this:
"Hey Matty. I really liked your playing tonight." (All bass players are called Matt, Chris, or Adam. Again, no-one knows why)
"Hey, thanks (insert name here). We had a really great time up there tonight."
(Giggling incessantly) "So... how's your weekend been?"
"Pretty cool, I guess. I was down the beach yesterday for a surf, then I had work in the afternoon."
"Where do you work?"
"I have a part time job at the uni giving guitar lessons to supermodels."
"Wow... that must be so interesting and rewarding."
"Yeah, it's a pretty sweet deal. Not as sweet as you though." (cheeky wink)
"Oh, that's so nice" (collapses in a fit of unrestrainable giggling).
Whereas your average after-church conversation with Garry cunningly disguised as a bass player goes something like this:
"Hi Garry. I really liked your playing tonight."
"Thanks. We had a good time"
"So... how's your weekend been?"
"Fairly relaxing actually. I got some match preparation in yesterday, and caught up with some old linguist friends from uni for lunch this afternoon."
"Match preparation? What do you play?"
"Chess. I've got an open tournament game on Tuesday night"
"Chess? Linguistics? Wait a minute!"
"What?"
"You're not really cool and dreamy at all, are you?"
"What?"
"GUARDS! GUARDS! Seize this imposter, and cast him into outer darkness, where there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth."
"What? Hey! Unhand me, you fiends!"
Okay, so our church doesn't actually have guards. Furthermore, I am aware that the above descriptions of conversations are probably sexist. Get over it. For the record, obviously female bass players do exist, but they're rare, since most girls' first instrument is the flute, violin or piano. They don't attract the same amount of attention as male bass players do because they are usually already going out with the drummer. And I'm not implying that all church-going girls are as predictable as the one in the conversations. Just the ones that hang off bass players. And you can't blame them for that. Telling them not to would be like asking the sun not to rise in the morning. It's not an optional occurrence; it just happens that way.
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
The time has come at last and the skyline of Sydney cries out in anticipation. Expectant tremors jitter through the city's spiritual faultlines as an excited and jubilant populace prepares for the long awaited event.
From all across the country, and indeed the Asia-Pacific region, pilgrims are flocking to the city, hoping for a week of liturgical rejuvenation and maybe, just maybe, a hint of doctrinal excitation. Desperate for the fabled chance that they may stand in the presence of their revered religious leaders and gain some small part of the blessings which purportedly manifest themselves around the very presence of these most holy and righteous of people.
Across the urban landscape, the infrastructure braces itself for the most testing, but also rewarding and redeeming challenge since the Olympic games.
It promises to be the most uplifting, awe-inspring and culturally revolutionary ... Hillsong Conference in recent memory.
I've been laughing all week at the ads on the radio talking up "the biggest line-up of special guests ever" that are presenting at the conference this year. I'm pretty sure the Catholic Church has got them thoroughly trumped no matter how many American super-pastors they bring out.
I was listening in amused horror to the radio broadcasts this morning coming live from Homebush where the convention is held. The presenters were giving the regular morning traffic reports, which went something like this: "Slow traffic this morning along the M4 due to ... The Hillsong Conference! (exultant cheering in the background) Major delays for east-bounders are expected." Woo-hoo! We're causing such a public nuisance that it made the traffic report! Lost the plot much? Throwing huge conventions is fine if you go for that sort of thing, but rejoicing in the inconvenience they cause seems a little bit... dumb.
Sigh. I can't wait until next week when things get back to normal...
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
Okay, okay. This one really is about World Youth Day. You didn't actually think I was going to let this one through to the keeper did you?
What I'm not going to do is start whinging and pontificating (pun completely intended) about road closures, crowded trains or noisy concerts. I don't care how much tax payer's money has been spent on it, and I don't care how much of a boost to the fiscal budget 150 000 catholics are likely to bring. I'm not interested if you got abused by a deranged priest 20 years ago and want a signed apology from George Pell. Just for this week, I don't even care about gay rights, civil liberties, contraception, papal iconicry or which company produced the Pope's red shoes.
Actually, for once I have no intention of complaining at all. In truth, despite applying my considerable cynical clout with as much force as I could muster I wouldn't really describe my impression of WYD as bad at all , from an outsiders perspective. Nope the word I'm using for it is...
Odd.
Really odd. Not odd in the sense of "how come all these guys are singing in the streets and playing tambourines in public?". Not odd in the sense of "how could so many young people be attracted to such an outdated and outmoded religion?". Not odd in the sense of "I don't understand why you would line the streets to watch a cleric drive past in an armour-plated golf-buggy." And not even odd in the sense of "Does anyone else think Pope Benedict XVI (or B16 as he likes to be known amongst the kids) bears a striking resemblance to Emperor Sidius?" Nope, while I don't choose them for myself, I can at least respect and, to a certain extent, understand all that stuff. What makes the whole thing really odd for me is the very fact that I'm looking at it from an outsiders's perspective in the first place.
Let me explain. It all started with Batman (as these things often do).
Weeks ago some friends and I decided to book tickets to go and watch the Dark Knight at the Imax this week (An awesome decision, and a fantastic film, by the way). We overlooked the fact that the night we had booked to go see it at Darling Harbour was the night that the Pope was being welcomed to the city with a huge parade. It didn't matter too much, as the cinema was the perfect place to hide from the thronging masses outside. The confusing part came when we tried to leave the city centre by train at the same time as six million catholics tried to do the same thing.
At that point I suddenly realised why the whole thing seemed so strange. If we were caught up in the middle of the International Car-Enthusiast's Convention, or the Asia Pacific Militant Feminism Forum, or the fifth annual Global Convergence of People Who Grow Their Own Spinach, then it would have been perfectly natural for me to feel completely alienated from it. But this was an international Christian convention (I'm not fielding any questions on the distinction between Catholicism and Christianity, by the way. They're both just labels) and yet, despite having been a Christian for longer than some of these kids had been alive, I felt as out of place as I would have if I were walking with the spinach guys.
That was weird enough, but then a vocally passionate group somewhere behind us started singing. Most of the singing people have been singing in Korean, or Maori, or Classical Latin, which is fine, because whatever isn't communicated by the words comes across fairly clearly in the enthusiasm levels.
These guys were singing in English, and what's more they were singing all the popular Hillsong songs and classic P&W that I was brought up on. It's hard to explain how weird it was to be watching that, but not be part of it. It was a bit like watching a movie of your life, with someone else playing the role of you. I actually felt really creeped out between the theatre and Central Station, but I think probably only half of that was due to the catholics. The other half was Heath Ledger.
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs
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- Written by Garry
I’ve just come back from ten days in Darwin, the home town of both myself, and, I like to think, God. I’m trying to think of any time in the last five years that I have felt as refreshed as I do at the moment, and I can’t. It was that good. Of course, it will all evaporate tomorrow morning when I go back to work, but that can wait until tomorrow.
When I first moved to Sydney, it took me about two months to get myself sorted out for a chess club. It took me over six months to get myself onto the music team at church. After twelve months, I still haven’t been able to connect with a social sports team, and the lack of regular exercise is starting to show. None of this is necessarily a poor reflection on Sydney (especially the exercise part – that’s all me), it’s just the way things go in a city with plenty of people to choose from.
Compare this to Darwin; after being in the city for less than three days, in one day I was asked to serve as a communion steward at one church, a worship musician at another and a fill-in batsman for a social indoor cricket team.
I did all the necessary stuff; I spent a day at Litchfield, an evening at Mindil Beach, a couple of afternoons at Casuarina, and several days doing basically bugger-all. All of this without the requisite stress and constant forward planning that goes with living in Sydney. For ten whole days I felt more at peace than I have for ages. Of course, some of that was to do with the fact that I was on holidays, but I think a large part is also to do with Darwin being so much more awesome than Sydney.
I’ve said in earlier posts that I plan on getting over Sydney and moving back home at some stage. I think I’ve just picked up a resolution to actually put some sort of plan together. If only I was any good with plans.
Far from home
Garry with 2 Rs