"I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!"
-Dorothea Mackellar
It only took me one quarter to get hoarse. Thirty minutes of warm-up cheering, followed by the first 15 minutes of Rice’s stomping, and my voice had gone the way of Western Michigan’s pass defense.
So I’m sorry if my lack of vociferousness cost us a couple shots at catching the Broncos with a false start. But can you really blame me? Because if you were sitting, standing, working, or playing at the Texas Bowl, I’m sure you can understand why my voice went so quickly.
After all, it had been only 54 years since Rice looked like it had a shot at grabbing a bowl-game victory. And while I haven’t been privy to that half-century of angst — the closest I can come is watching Wonder Years, That 70s Show, and Everybody Loves Chris, in that order — I can understand where the desire to see your team, your crew, your boys succeed at the highest level possible.
The Texas Bowl was not full of neither Tostitos, oranges, nor national champions, but what it lacked in bravado it made up for in sheer existence. With its invitation earlier this month, the Texas Bowl instantly became the focal point for Owls fans across the world, leapfrogging the EagleBank Bowl and the Papajohns.com Bowl and nestling in as our favorite bowl of this wintry holiday break.
If you’re reading this blog, you already know the reasons why. A shot at a double-digit win total, considered by only the most fanciful — and fanatical — back in September. A chance to replace the 1954 Cotton Bowl trophy with a more recent set of hardware. An attempt to give Chase Clement and Jarett Dillard, our two most cherished gridiron giants, a proper farewell in front of a quasi-hometown crowd.
With paint painfully cracking from my chest, I looked up at the cobalt sky of Reliant Stadium, knowing I would be seeing these two in Rice threads for the last time. A bittersweet tinge filled my gut, but I could only imagine what it would be like for the two of them, with records, history, and friendship behind them that will guide them into the annals of Rice history.
And that's to say nothing of the other seniors: Brian Raines, ever the casted gladiator, out there once again; David Berken, always-underappreciatedlineman; Tommy Henderson, just a second late and an inch short of Dillar; and Ja'Corey Shepherd, whose ability to pump up a crowd was sorely needed during the games that saw lower attendance than a Detroit Lions awards dinner.
So the reasons for my voice going ballistic were evident.
What I didn't anticipate, however, is that the team would require us to yell and scream (and jump and clap and high-five) on end throughout the entire contest. Every time we looked up, it seemed that the Owls were set to kick off, stuffing a Broncos receiver, or finding another receiver (even Clement once) to snag the endzone toss. The breaks were few, and without the necessity of television commercials, I don't think my fumes would have lasted me through the light-rail swing back home.
If tonight was not perfect, it was damn close. Clement and Dillard, as ever, were two peas in a pod, stretching their record to 52 shared touchdowns -- although the 51st, from Dillard to a wide-open Clement, showed that tandem isn't just a one-trick pony. James Casey and Toren Dixon continued their superb play, C.J. Ugokwe barrelled down the Broncos and ate important minutes off the clock, and the defense -- boy, the defense -- held the Broncos' offense to 13 less first downs and 177 less yards.
The play-calling, emphasizing running early, threw the Broncos' defense awry, opening up options down-field as the game progressed. I wasn't privy to the sideline decision-making, but offensive coordinator Tom Hermann and head coach David Bailiff had their game-plan set with Rhino Glue and a dash of kahones. Our cheerleaders were prim, the MOB refrained from name-calling, and the Gray and Blue was out en masse, splled from the student section into John and Jane Doe of greater Houston.
This bowl game was magnificent, superb, and without compare. It's superlative to say that much has changed since Rice last won a bowl game: cell phones have eliminated landlines, Ford is currently drowning, and while North Korea may still be saber-rattling, our incoming Administration looks ready to pursue peace rather than war-mongering. Those who witnessed both the 1954 Cotton Bowl and the 2008 Texas Bowl number less than the wins that the Owls had, but those who will watch Rice return to their next bowl game will undoubtedly tally in the thousands.
(BTW It looks like my voice came back as the game's trophy presentation waned -- a second half full of calm awe at Rice's demolishing of Western Michigan's heart was, it appears, a panacea):
Lake Pukaki is not the biggest lake in New Zealand, nor is it the oldest, nor is it the coldest. It does not have the most fauna; it’s neither the bluest nor the most breathtaking.
But it was my first exposure to an authentic New Zealand crowd-pleaser, which is why I’ll always remember it well.
Lake Pukaki was, like the hundreds of other massive lakes scattered across the country, carved by glaciers and mastodons, meaning that the water filling its shores was fresh, freezing, and the remnants of a river of ice. The air of the quasi-alpine setting didn’t bring blizzards and ice sheets to mind, but the range of snow-capped ridges, peering from beyond the lake, reminded us that the countryside still experienced chills. As we approached the lake, we found that the hairy mastodons had been replaced by a copper collie, erected in 1968 in memory of those who helped graze the wild countryside. The dog, peering out along the shore -- which was dotted by purple lupins, fighting the rocky ground -- stood between the lake and its curator, the Church of the Good Shepherd. Born in 1935, the Church was little more than a stone-masoned shed, but its clear glass looked out over the lake, making a serene setting for weddings and spying on tourists.
As the elderly waddled, slowly, back into the bus, our bus driver began telling us the legend of our next stop: Aoraki. The largest, eldest son of the Creator, Aoraki was filled with jealousy at his father's love of Mother Earth and joined his three brothers in an excursion to our world. Apparently, motorized transport did not exist in pre-human times, as the four brothers' canoe was soon overturned in the choppy waters. The wind whipped away the warmth, and, unable to move, the brothers have were frozen in stone. (Kind of like what will happen to Portland if this damn storm doesn't soon pass.)
As crazy as my cynical self thought this story -- silly pre-science peoples! -- I quickly understood its influence when I caught a distant glimpse of Aoraki peeking through the distant clouds. More commonly referred to as Mt. Cook, this behemoth towered at 12,000 feet, higher than anything in New Zealand (besides my Kiwi roommate, who enjoyed the ganga, and how!) The top member of the Southern Alps, Aoraki had quite the history under its rather impressive belt. During the 1940s-earl 1950s, the peak was a tried and true staging ground for Sir Edmund Hillary's eventual assault on Mt. Everest. Hillary, whose impressive height should have been enough to tower over his fellow humans, grew up not far from Aoraki, and credited the mountain's hard, harsh conditions with leathering his skin and weathering his soul enough to become (presumably) the first human to conquer Everest, way back in 1953.
Aoraki towers over Lake Tekapo, a mammoth lake that stretches dozens of kilometers in length. (That's Aoraki, tiny, next to my head.)
I'm not sure if there's a Crayola factory nearby, but the lake look like it was constructed of billions of melted-down Robin's-Egg Blue crayons. Never have I seen a lake this vibrant, this thick with color, as Tekapo. The color drowned out the reflections of the Alps in a way that would have made Peter Jackson proud. After a couple snapshots of the lake -- we were never close enough to actually swim in the crayon-y gunk -- we were on our way to get a closer glimpse of the mountain named for what Mr. T would exclaim during his right with Sylvester Stallone never mind, terrible joke.
Next stop: Encountering Aoraki, eating cherries, and arriving in Queenstown
[End of post disclaimer: I finally put our cubic tonnes of snow to use today and went sledding four nearly four hours with some neighbors. Apparently, my Dad's not the only one whose age has caught his body off-guard (although I'm still yet to be hungover from a few after-dinner drinks like him), and I feel like I've been trampled by a herd of overweight rhinoceroses. Thus I'm about as useless as clothes while you get tased, so I hope this post didn't disappoint! Now, back to stomping on some Terrible Towels.]
Really, really cold. Like, 20 degrees cold. Like, 30 degrees below what it should be. The reason many people enjoy the Portland weather is for a temperance that would make the Prohibitionists proud (and consequently angry, seeing as pride is a Deadly Sin). Never have I seen a storm this prolonged, and if you've lived in the city under 30 years, neither have you.
But I guess I should have seen this coming. After all, it was only 10 days ago that, walking to Tracy's car, the marshmallow-sized flakes flew around us, nearly big enough to be audible as they hit the ground. Not in New York -- in Houston. I have friends from Rice who have never seen snow, who believe its existence is like global warming -- factually-based, but something that, without visual evidence, is only discussed.
Well, they've seen it now. But I'm glad they aren't joining me for the holidays in Portland, because they may not have been able to compute this much frost, flowing sideways across my cars and covering everything in a blanket of Alaskan white. I'm barely able to fathom this much snow myself. Portland's had a couple memorable snowstorms in recent years -- in 2004, a week of school was axed, while in 2006, slip-sliding down the hills on garbage bags and lunch trays was the mode of transport over a two-day stretch.
Yup, you read that right. I'm peeved at this white stuff. It's cramping my style, it's impinging on my plans, and it's keeping me from going out and exploring the Portland I had every intention of picking apart. After reading the Portland Mercury blog for the last four months, I was looking forward to all the Powell's readings and the concerts at the Aladdin Theater. All the nooks and crannies of the under-21 Portland were ready to be parsed. But then this damn storm hit, and I'm stuck inside, blogging my complaints and illegally downloading borrowing Starcraft from friends I've never met. So much for my plans of exploring the city I've only superficially met. I know the Starbucks on 23rd, I know the Hollywood District, but, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there are places I know I don't know. (I never understood the criticism for his statement - it's pretty simple, if you think about it.)
In the meantime, I'll be watching my Dad stack our life-saving logs -- albeit in a damper-less fireplace -- and my Mom sing the first line "Tiny Bubbles" over, and over, and over, and over, and over....someone needs to introduce her to music that's come out since 1967. My brother, currently, is sledding Dead Man's Hill with a purple headband and a gang of college hooligans. The pets, of course, are fat and content, lolling by the fire and waiting (surprisingly) patiently on meals. As for me, I have every intention of finally consuming a Taco Bell meal, six months in the making.
And I'll be doing by best impression of Robert Falcon Scott, the great Antarctic explorer whom New Zealanders absolutely revere. Upon my return to the house, I have every intention of striking this pose, followed by heating some popcorn, watching some movies, and dominating my family in Scrabble.
Heck, that doesn't sound too bad. Maybe this snow isn't quite so annoying as I thought. Let's just hope my Taco Bell isn't cold by the time I get back.
Please, don’t take offense, Phil. And Elisha, it’s nothing personal.
But guys, it’s time to grow up.
Maybe I’ve been subscribing too much to the Judd Apatow School of Crude, Base, and Immoral Thoughts, but there’s no reason for last week’s uproar surrounding the golfer and the girlfriend.
For those who may not have seen the recent news, Phil Mickelson, he of southpaw putts and a penchant for heartbreaking losses, was addressed by someone else’s caddie in rather odious terms. The word seems to have, ahem, pricked at the thin skin of Mickelson, a golfer known more for his pudgy, pouty dregs than his powerful, prolonged drives. But the real crime, it appears, was not that Mickelson’s tender feelings were trod upon; rather, it’s the fact that the name-calling came from the caddie of the GOAT, Tiger Woods.
In similar straits as the droopy Mickelson is Elisha Cuthbert, best known as “The Girl Next Door,” who seems to have made a few enemies along her way to stardom. Cuthbert may have broken onto the scene as Jack Bauer’s daughter that girl from “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”, but she’s since broken the heart of the wrong hockey player. With his spirit charred by Cuthbert’s burn, former boyfriend Sean Avery, late of the Dallas Stars, resorted to throwing Cuthbert back into her “Next Door” role by calling her an alliterative synonym for “unkempt after-firsts”. (Sorry, there aren’t many synonyms for “seconds.”)
According to the fervor meeting each “offensive” disturbance, you’d think that Avery and Williams had been pulling Bernard Madoff’s strings or were at least responsible for the (hilarious) shoe-throwing fiasco of Bush’s victory lap.
But in fact, these two professionals did something far more unseemly, far more insidious than actual ruining bank accounts or expressing their disgust at the pointless loss of thousands of lives. They called other people names.
That’s right. These two men, decidedly successful at the highest levels -- granted, Williams is simply an intelligent pack mule, but can you name any other caddies on the circuit? -- brought out their second-grade weapons of derisiveness and bombarded their enemies with (shudder) names.
Now, you’d think that these two would have earned certain leeway when it comes to expressing their opinions. After all, Williams has prodded Woods to become God’s gift to golfers, eclipsing record upon record and earning the most words of accolade since JFK. And while Avery may not have earned the hardware that lines Woods’ yacht, he has, arguably, accomplished something far more noteworthy: piqued my (and many others’) interest in the NHL. As much as Gary Bettman turns me off with his elfish looks and corporate folly, it’s the crazed warriors like Avery that keep me returning to the once-moribund NHL.
However, it seems like Bettman, with his penchant for rash decisions, has once again decided that must steer away from the best interests of his sport. Claiming that Avery had stepped the invisible line of offensiveness, Bettman promptly suspended the left winger from the league. As much as I hate to say it, I can begrudgingly see where Bettman is coming from on this one. Avery’s comments were not a flash in the pan, rarer-than-a-Dick-Cheney-supporter occurrence. In recent years, the Canadian has not necessarily been the perfect little angel of the sport: From calling Mighty Ducks announcer Brian Hayward a gritty pretty bad player and announcer to calling his the NHLPA’s management a pack of liars, Avery’s past has been more checkered than a Guy Ritchie movie. But for Avery to be suspended in a matter of personal relations, at a time when the only thing controversial about the NHL is whether to leave the Wrigley Field ivy up in next year’s outdoor game, is simply stupid. The guy had a slip of the tongue, perhaps, but for him to lose both pay and prestige is misguided and sets an ugly precedent.
Like Avery, Williams’ days in the sunshine have netted a share of hoopla. The Kiwi has often clashed with fans attempting to snapshot the Woods, at one point snatching a spectators’ camera and depositing it, $7,000-lens-down, into a nearby lake. As the Rahm Emanuel to Woods’s Barack Obama, Williams hasn’t hesitated to crack a few heads along the links. Fortunately for the sake of good humor, Woods understood his caddie’s sentiment and smirkingly noted that Williams would, of course, be back behind the bag.
The latest rounds of controversy may have forced a couple people to check out Urban Dictionary, but let me assure you, there are worst things out there. There are worse names, there are worse intentions, and there are worse ways to run afoul of fans, teammates, and sponsors. The Dallas Stars’ management appears to have skin as thin as the NHL’s margin of error, and Avery has been axed for the remainder of the season, unleashing a purported barbarity in the sport of barbarians. Meanwhile, by forgoing punishment, the generally stiff-upper-lipped gentry of golf actually let the content dictate their standards, rather than the other way around. They -- and the game of golf -- are better for it.
No one threw sticks, no one heaved stones, and no one trudged home with broken bones.
And Phil, Elisha, I hope I don’t offend you when I tell you to grow up, and grow a pair.
And it's true, you don't. Kiss. Car. Bionicle Lego set. All of them memorable, keepsakes, safe from the hurricane of emotion and turmoil that the rest of life turns over.
So it's safe to say that even without the otherworldly performance of Brandon Roy, tonight's Blazers game, my first of The Resurgence, would find its place in the lockbox of the heart.
But then Roy had to go and roar, deafeningly, like he did. Then Travis Outlaw had to snipe with stepback swishes. Then Greg Oden had to bash Shaq, ptu away soul-shaking dunks, and swipe two huge offensive rebounds in the waning moments. Then the Blazers had to go and play like they did, in the first game I could watch all year.
See, Australia's NBA contract is about as existent as the Bush Administration's limits on terror, meaning that the only Down Under shots I saw of the Blazers were the chopped-up dregs of the internet. Without download speed belonging to the dial-up dinosaurs of the '90s ("Crack Bing Zzzzzzzzp Doom, Doom, Enchhhhhhhhxxxxxxxxx: The Soundtrack of the Decade"), I went without seeing Oden suited up, without watching Rudy Fernandez float like a Spanish butterfly, without catching Roy continue his development to transcendentalism.
But tonight, braving both snow and the extra 30 pounds wrought by my Mom's desserts, I found myself finally ready to see the fruits of the team's labors. Kyle's 52-inch TV held the goods, and with Marv Albert calling the shots, I was ready to return to Blazermania.
Welcoming the Phoenix Suns, a team they hadn't beaten since 2006 (11 straight games, enough to qualify as "bothersome"), the Blazers did not take long to recall my feelings of fandom. Sure, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but 5,000 miles of distance could not hold a candle to seeing the team finally coalesce on the court. The most welcome sight, as you may have guessed, was a clean-shaven Oden - finally looking on this side of 40 - in his Blazers threads. And in the first few minutes, Oden looked the part that he will undoubtedly become. Matching against Shaq in the red-and-black paint -- in their previous meetings, Oden had only notched a paltry five points -- the rookie looked like Zeus warring with Kronos; I'd never seen the generational split more pointed than tonight. Shaq had clearly invested in the Butterbean diet, looking more like his gravitational pull would click into effect than ever before. The two opened the contest as if on a one-on-one mission, trading pound-and-dunks before finally realizing the others on the floor were teammates, not just fans dressed like the battling monsters. Oden, I dare say, showed up Shaq with a monster block on Amare Stoudamire, but foul trouble limited the 20-year-old to the bench for much of the game. The battle for the Rose Garden's heart, it appeared, would be fought on another battleground.
Gettysburg. Metropolis. The Rose Garden's backcourt. All places where heroes have been born. All places that Brandon Roy would thrive. But (as far as I know) in only the latter could Roy show that he is truly a star.
As the Blazers and the Suns traded baskets, it was soon apparent that the game would be a shootout. The halftime score was 66-59, and while fans looked toward chalupas, Roy was warming up for a run that would put Usain Bolt to shame.
Phoenix kept up the pressure, using Amare's gifts and Matt Barnes' threes to keep the game just out of reach for Portland. Soon, a double-digit lead arose, and as time wound down in the third, it looked like head coach Nate McMillan's plans for a win were heading out the door.
But the Roy did what he does best, which, frankly, is exactly what I, and the thousands of Blazers fans watching, expected. He turned the compassion dial down, keyed his Terminator ignition and kicked his game into overdrive. You could almost see his pupils turn an blazing red.
Roy, top of the key, Barnes five feet back, dribble through the legs, back up front, quick jump shot from the arc, swish.
Roy, fast break, going lefty, backboard-then-net, And One.
Roy, crowded with a pair of defenders and a Steve Blake handoff, leaping right to drain the three.
Roy, one-two-stepping, see ya, Shaq.
Roy, with the game tied 119-119 and 1:01 left, put up a game-breaker that everyone knew would fall. And so it did. A pair of Roy free throws later -- with a 19-21 night from the charity stripe, you knew those were going in too -- the Suns' fate was sealed.
After the dust settled, the chalupas were consumed, and Craig Sager's jacket was hung, Roy was credited with 52 points. (FIFTY-TWO POINTS!) A career high, and second only to Damon Stoudamire's 54 points in 2005 in Blazers history. (Side note: The Stoudamire allusion doesn't count as foreshadowing. But maybe this note does. But can foreshadowing be self-aware? And doesn't it have to avoid being self-evident? Oh, the questions the English language poses.) The game ball, snug on his hip as time expired, was one Roy would be keeping with him for a long, long time.
Kinda like my memories of this game, I guess.
Listen to this!!!
Ever since I saw her serenading on Elf, I've always had something of a schoolboy crush on Zooey Deschanel. Maybe it's her half-dollar eyes, maybe it's her sweeter-than-thou attitude, or maybe it's just the fact that the girl can sing. Think Dusty Springfield meets Ellen Page. And after checking out NPR's Top 25 Songs of 2008, now I learn she's in a band: She and Him, comprising herself and Portland's own M. Ward. Try as I might, I can't pull myself away from She and Him's "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?", which I now humbly present as listening fodder. Of course, you could always try out her doppelganger Katy Perry, if you're more of a cherry chapstick kind of girl.
The closest I ever came to suffocating was in high school, when some friends felt the need to exploit my ticklish tendencies. That episode ended with a blue face and my knuckles meeting someone else’s nose.
However, when I was suffocating in New Zealand, I felt no desire to punch the country in the face. Instead, I reveled in my breathlessness, which occurred over, over, and over again.
“New Zealand: Redundantly Breathtaking” has a nice ring, doesn’t it?
I flew into Christchurch, a terribly-named hub on the South Island, after the friendliest plane ride I’d ever met. (I suppose it helped that I watched The Dark Knight for about 90 percent of the ride.) The sister city of Seattle was nothing more than a quick stopover, a nap-break standing between me and my catered, cushioned voyage.
As I woke on that first day, I was at ease. My finals, somewhere between effortless and rigorous, were behind me, as was a kitchen full of fly-infested dishes and the constant bickering over whose turn it was to take out the recycling (certainly not mine, I can assure you). I was facing a new country, not altogether foreign — NZ nearly became part of the Australian Federation of 1901, and, like its big sibling, shared currency that looked more Monopoly than monetary. Lord of the Rings rang through my head, riding alongside excerpts from Flight of the Conchords, that too-awkward-for-words duo that sings about business socks and how she’s the prettiest girls in the…room.
As the trip was at my own expense, I started a pattern by skipping breakfast, so I don’t know if the shivers as I waited were from the dewy chill or the stomach pains.
After what seemed liked weeks, the bus air-braked up. With two stories and a seven-car girth, the bus looked more like an apartment complex than a mode of transportation, but it got the job done. The passengers I joined were…not like me. Whether Japanese, geriatric, or oftentimes both, I felt more unique than my Americana would have alone produced. Near the front of the bus, I don’t think any of the Greatest Generationers saw my looks of unease as the first thoughts of inaction crossed my mind.
A tour of adventure, this would not be. Comfort would be the game, and our ride commenced.
A quick fact about New Zealand: With 4 million people in tow on more land than the British Isles, the population density of the country is minuscule. Fortunately, the country isn’t entirely vacuumized — the empty areas are brimming with the country’s main export (and also it’s main inside joke), sheep. 38 million of them. Look at that ratio. Now imagine what the sheep-herders, lonely from the bare expanses between civilization, get about doing in the middle of the star-speckled nights. Baaaaad (pun intended) news.
So, when I tell you that I saw more sheep than I know how to describe, you’ll hold your cries of lethargy. These sheep were everywhere, like pieces of lint on New Zealand’s sweater (which would, of course, be sewn out of lint), spilling out at every opportune moment. Just when you thought you’d escaped the hordes, you’d turn to find more. There are so many sheep that one rancher has resorted to helicoptering his flock into herds; there are so many sheep that New Zealand’s most famous person is actually Shrek, a Merino sheep who lost 60 lbs. of wool after seven years of dormancy. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening could have made a killing by replacing deadly tree toxins (ooooh!) with murderous sheep. Oh wait, that may have already been done:
With the sheep dotting the land as far as my eyes could stretch, I lulled in between consciousness and sleep. The bus driver informed us that Icebreakers was one of the country’s most well-known exports, and we should watch for billboards pointing toward their headquarters. I drowsily imagined hobbits smacking some Icebreakers gum during Fellowship of the Rings, wondering how much the cross-promotion cost and whether or not Peter Jackson held a controlling stake in the company, or if he ever blew bubbles and found it sticking in his beard.
The next thing I knew, we were pulling up to a tourist cafe, and any dreams I’d had of a pig-tailed Peter Jackson popped. As I entered the store, I saw that Icebreakers didn’t have anything to do with gum — instead, it was the name of the leading wool company of this tiny nation. I picked up a mini-magazine sporting their goods but found it nearly impossible to get beyond the cover. There stood a nude man with a tanned, muscular human body — think me with a darker ethnicity — with a well-placed leg and, strikingly, a giant ram’s head in place of a normal top. Clinging to his arm was a pale waif of a woman as they leapt over a glass-like pond. Nowhere could you find any hint of the company’s goods; rather, all I could see was some avant-garde attempt at an Other whisking away an attractive female. I felt my base instincts rising. “No! These ram-men can’t steal our females! They must be stopped at all cost! I must support those shear these terrible creatures! I must buy Icebreakers!”
So on second thought, it looks like the cover worked, and the magazine is currently sitting up in my room. (Fortunately, my adamancy at pinching pennies meant I didn’t cause any sheep to go without their winter coats.)
Next installment: The first of New Zealand’s natural beauties.
Listen to this!!!
I’ve never been the biggest fan of NPR — no offense Garrison, but the second you cast Lindsay Lohan in the film adaptation of “This American Life,” I looked elsewhere for entertainment. However, NPR may have redeemed itself, although Garrison’s still in my doghouse. Courtesy of their audience’s input, NPR has released the top 25 songs of 2008. Although they whiffed with Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal,” I finally had an excuse to listen to Vampire Weekend, a poppy rock band from New Yawk. And now I can’t stop. (Too bad Pringles has the whole “Once you pop, you can’t stop” slogan under wraps.)
Stop whatever you're doing. Stop lounging, stop eating, stop reading this infantile blog. Stop that confused look you have on your face, wondering just why I would ask you to stop digesting these words.
Stop it all, and go to New Zealand. Go to Expedia, find the cheapest tickets, and buy them, right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year - now.
I'm a patient guy; I'll wait. I'll catch you in a couple days, and then I'll tell you about my voyage.
Something to whet your appetite? How about the Milford Sound, aka the most redundantly breathtaking sight in the world:
In the meantime, there are far too many videos to mull over, videos that should have been shared over the last few weeks, but have fallen through the cracks of either New Zealanding or resuming the adventures of Rice:
The Greatest Trailer Known To Man
The Greatest Trailer Known to Trekkies
[Side note: At Sunday's President's Study Break, I munched on a gyro as Chuck Throckmorton, the hirsute leader of Rice's Marching Owl Band, paced the stage eagerly attempting to dole out moon pies to informed students. As he began a question about molecular-bonding, I turned to my pals, and made an altogether whiny comment about how English majors are maligned at Rice trivia nights. But when Throckmorton threw the word "Ferengi" into the question, I instinctively yelled out "Quark!", not really knowing if I was right but more than willing to make my return known to the Grand Hall crowd. A half-second later, a fellow Star Trek fan yelled out the same thing, but my cry reached Throckmorton first. I immediately felt like Brad Lidge during Game 5, pumping my arms and turning my face into a strong visage of well-earned jubilee. Yeah, I won. As Throckmorton brought over a four-foot inflatable blue alien, I made sure to let everyone know who the champ was: Pointing to my alien's nether-region, I yelled "Suck on that!" to whoever would listen. Anyway, that's a weird story, so back to the videos!]
Captain's (B)log, 120308: I've just returned from the land of verdant greens, aqua skies, shimmering waterfalls, and glacial carvings. The locals refer to it as New Zealand, but in all my years of traversing this varied and diverse earth, no land holds my esteem higher. Thus, I've dubbed this land, "Heaven."
Unfortunately, before I delve into the intricacies of Heaven - and the natives, their kindness, their thrift, their settings, and their unimaginable fortune - it looks as if the semester has officially wound down. No more class-based tedium (not full of Marx, but full of marks, both on essays and exams), no more charred, albeit delicious, cooking, and no more revolting Australian television. No, now is the time to pack.
My suitcases are beckoning, but fear not - this is not the last dispatch from the land Down Under. I'm not sure when the next notification will come. It may be tomorrow, it may be next week, or it may be Christmas morning (but probably not). But this blog is not yet over, for I still have a few adventures - and nifty pictures - my fingertips are ready to convey.
And now, for some blackened, crusty, delectable dinner.
Wagga Wagga. Where Dreams Comes True, and Where Chinese Food Will Do the Riverdance in Your Stomach.
If you weren’t privy to my Facebook status the other day — unfortunately, that does not include my Mom, who froze hell with her recent foray into social networking — then you must have thought I spent the weekend simply skating by with my pals James Bond and Jim Beam (not the truth, just a line paraphrased from some country song). In reality, I was in the social/cultural/bogan capital of Australia, Wagga Wagga.
As you may remember, my flatmate (Brendon) Boney was reared in WW, and as last Friday marked the end of my week of type-as-many-fluff-words-just-to-meet-the-minimum-count essays, I decided to pay a visit to his hometown. Of course, it helped that he was heading that way for a gig, allowing me to clamber over the front seat’s CD cases, fast food wrappings, jacket linings, and random accoutrements and hitch a ride.
The five-hour ride south comprised of a 45-minute turn-around (after he realized he left his phone laying around in our living room), an impeccably Australian sunset, a late-night McDonald’s pit stop, and an ELO sing-along that put me in an Almost Famous frame of mind. (Also, the new name of Boney’s band will be the Jeff Lynne-inspired Acoustic Folk Duet.)
Passing signs for Canberra, Woolongong, and Jugiong (population 150!), we finally entered into Wagga’s outskirts with the stars scattered above. As we meandered through the town’s suburbs — who knew 60,000-plus populations warranted suburbs? — Boney reminded me of how his high school persona ran the town. Tales of scavenger hunts, loose mothers (er…), and a tight circle of friends painted Wagga as a screenwriter’s dream, not as an actual center of business and family life.
My first tour of town was bereft with dark alleys, shady vagabonds, and shadowed war machinery — mainly because it was about 11 p.m., but also because tanks and planes lined the roads, somewhat eerily. Rumor has it that an RAAF base was not far off — its products, affectionately known as “RAAFeys” (Raffi?) apparently painted the town red in their buzz cuts and $150 aviators — but such a conspicuous display of Australian military might made me wish I had Donald Rumsfeld in the backseat.
The brief nighttime tour led us past a hospital, a KFC, and an RSL Club — the elderly purportedly play Aussie Rules Football there, but I’m not so sure, seeing as it’s no longer 1962 — before we arrived at Boney’s house. His dad, a former boxing champ, stayed past the final bell to keep awake (terrible analogy, sorry), letting us into the house. (I’ve never met an Aboriginal father before, so I wasn’t quite sure if the chewed-off earlobe was typical, but Boney later informed me that his dad was the original Evander Holyfield.)
Hilariously, Athol made Boney sleep on the floor while I got his bed, so I awoke next morning refreshed and ready to tackle Wagga. My enthusiasm was furthered by the homemade brekky, and after washing down the eggs with some salsa and toast, we headed out.
The day was cool and blustery — I’m eternally grateful to Boney’s mom for gifting me a sweater — and while the driveway’s basketball hoop wouldn’t blow over until that afternoon, my first foray into the city wasn’t met with the sunny glow I was expecting. (But at least it felt like home?) That being said, there’s nothing to deter a true blue Aussie from hitting up the beach, not the pelting rain, and certainly not the fact that you may be dozens of miles inland from the nearest ocean.
Yeah, Wagga Wagga has a beach. This sign is proof. But not all beaches are created equal, and, sometimes, inside jokes garner public financing.
The “beach,” renowned throughout the area, is actually just a sandy spit since deserted by the Murrumbidgee River, no more than a football field in length and, seeing as we were miles away from what could be termed “Baywatch babes,” not necessarily the most keen of spots to spend a weekend sunning. Still, the Waggamen and Waggawomen have taken quite the liking to it, and its awkwardness and undeniable uniqueness have made it a town jewel. Plus, it’s a great pit stop to restock your drink cooler as you float down the river (or so I’ve been told).
After walking through the Veterans’ garden — and hearing about what Boney did on each bench to which girl — we decided that the time had come to prepare for the night’s gig. And by prepare, of course, I mean head to the nearby liquor store. Seeing as I’ll be underage in only a week and a half, I had no qualms about taking a 2 p.m. advantage of my current situation.
With drinks in hand, a couple games of pool, behind-the-back-darts, and some lessons on cricket nuance, courtesy of Boney’s 11-years-old-and-nearly-as-tall-as-me brother, followed. I also got a chance to see the behind-the-scenes photos from Boney’s Australian Idol experience, and while I don’t know any of the names in the photos, it was pretty apparent that Australia will do anything that America does some of the people have gone on to do bigger and better things (although collaborating with Flo Rida really shouldn’t count).
The show that evening was going to be held at The Red Steer, and as Athol dropped us off, it was quick to see that I would be more out of my element than hydrogen at a noble gas party (ha, my high school chemistry teacher would be so proud). The setting was unlike anything I could have imagined (mainly since I’m too lazy, and I don’t really write fiction). I was bordered by a rarely-used fireplace, a booth of betting tabs underneath the TV greyhounds, a guy with a sinewy guy with a mohawk mullet (just think about that one), and the pregame show of the Australia-New Zealand Rugby League World Cup match, and the only things moving were the video game bucks on the back-of-the-bar arcades.
This was going to be sweet.
Boney began setting up the gear, and I collected a couple drinks to keep warm. We were greeted by Jay, a semi-professional footballer and full-time drunk (11:30 a.m. is pushing it, even for a college student), whose words were more slurred than some of the nicknames Boney has garnered from his xenophobic friends. As Australia began to pile on New Zealand, 9 p.m. rolled around, and the set began.
For a while, I sat around by myself, heckling Boney and trying to convince him to play songs he didn’t know (and if I was lucky, getting other people to join me). A 45-minute set went by quickly, and another round brought both drinks and company. People began filling up the main area of the Steer, guys and gals alike, and excited, quasi-drunken chatter — the kind you’d typically find at a bar? — began to fill the air. Andrew, a sweater’d 37-year old husband of Boney’s high school math teacher, brought us both beers and questions about why I would ever support someone as terrible and ungifted as Boney. Scotty, his cricket-playing pal, then asked, on a grid, which part of America I was from (the top left part) and what I’d thought of Wagga so far (incoherent mumbling on my part, saved by the beginning of Boney’s next set). As soon as Keith Urban broke from Boney’s guitar, the two most enthusiastic girls stepped up to the plate, dragging their boyfriends behind, and unleashing their unending renditions of “Belt This Tune As Loud As Possible, But Don’t Forget To Take A Swig Of Alky After.”
And so the night went. Scotty attempted the Worm a few times, Andrew ended up break dancing on his back, and the girls made sure to recharge with some more Toohey’s. When I heard my name called from the back of the bar, I saw Athol with a smile, and I looked up to see that midnight, and the end of the set, had rolled around. One more Keith Urban song followed, and after that, the nightcap — which included some more bars, a “dirty kebab,” and, at last, a picture of me next to the Wagga Wagga sign — ensued.
As we drove home the next day, feeling like the Carlton Draught had replaced the Chinese food as the Lords of the Nauseating Dance, I made sure to shape up for our pit stops, half-heartedly napping in between. The first came in Gundagai, home of local-made brooms (who would buy them, I have no idea), but more importantly, the Dog on the Tuckerbox.
According to Boney, the dog represented the eternal loyalty of man’s best friend to those who serve in the Australian military. But according to the sign we saw, the dog belonged to a hungry drover, whose food was now in the dog’s stomach. One of those stories has a higher ceiling of romanticization, but I’m not going to tell you which.
The other stop along the way home was to appease me, in Goulburn. Ever since Bill Bryson told me of Australia’s “Big Things,” I knew I had to lay my eyes on at least one. Four months had passed in this country, and still, not one “Big Thing” has graced my presence.
Until yesterday.
Finally, I got to see a “Big Thing,” a pointlessly pork-barrel construction, serving no purpose other than to continue the legacy of other “Big Things,” all roadside attractions that inevitably bring people together in awe and utter confusion. [EDIT: According to Wikipedia, the Captain Cook in Cairns was the first "Big Thing" I saw! This semester just got so much better!] My “Big Thing” was a sheep the size of seventeen school buses, or a young Refrigerator Perry. Blocking a McDonald’s from the freeway, the sheep was not doing much, as sheep are wont to do. Simply standing there, idling by, holding his ground as tourist after tourist streamed off the freeway and into the adjacent parking lot. With a Mona Lisa-smirk, the sheep was just…there. And that, my friends, is the essence of these “Big Things.” Whether they’re koalas, prawns, or bananas, these mammoth feats of human endeavor are just…there.
Which is the great thing about Australia. Things like Wagga, like bogan beaches, and like this sheep. You may not know it exists, but you’re happy to have found it.
Unfortunately, that also includes middle-aged guys trying to do head-spins on the dance floor, which pretty much negates everything else.
Since my gears have been grinding over final papers this past week -- and since I'm sure you guys aren't interested in the notions of Empire and exoticism of late Victorian Era fiction (although maybe you care about Australian colonial literary identity, the topic for the other paper I finished yesterday) -- I figured I'd oil up the machine with a piece on the new Mariners manager, Mr. Don Wakamatsu. (For those who have chimed in about the recent spate of M's writing littering this site *cough* lmtao *cough*, the writing stems from a recent promotion to Mariners Co-Community Leader at Bleacher Report.) But if you'd rather have me discuss the merits of sentencing grids in Australian courts, just leave me a message, and I'll write on it the next time around.
An open letter to Don Wakamatsu, from a gray-haired, prune-munching, gout-having M’s fan, still waiting on his meatloaf:
So you’re the new guy, huh? Just came aboard a couple days ago, didn’t you? Mr. Don Waka-something, the new Mariners manager, the replacement for ol’ leather-face Jim Riggleman, right?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. I remember your days of playing ball in Hood River, Oregon, back before that town was overrun with microbreweries and wind-surfers. You put up some mean numbers, and if I remember correctly, you were once a catcher in the M’s system. Too bad you couldn’t pull onto the big-league squad, or you coulda contributed to the losingest organization of the 1980s.
Now, those teams knew how to lose. Not like these knew guys, these pampered, light-their-cigars-with-Benjamins types who roll into town, plug softball-sized holes into their bats and gloves, and then pout when they don’t get their playing time. These new guys, the free agents and their ilk, they’re the ones who are the new losers.
But the boys from the 80s, they were something else. They were as inept as an Alaskan voter, and they owned it. They knew they were bad; they understood that Gaylord Perry, in town for all of a year and half, was the best thing that would ever happen to the organization — even though he went 13-22 while he was here.
But I curmudgeonly digress. These new boys aren’t born losers — they are, as you say, “a young, talented team.” Maybe not 95-win talented, but certainly not a typical member of the 100-loss/$100-million payroll club (then again, as the charter members, there isn’t really anything to compare them to). These boys — Mr. Ich-i-ro, Mr. Felix the Cat, Mr. Yummy Tennis Court, or whatever his name is — they know how to play. That big Sexson, Paul Bunyan’s unskilled brother, is outta here, and so is Jose Zero, er, Vidro. I don’t know if Raul’s coming back, or if that Bell Tray kid will bring back his fancy glove — with the economy the way it is, good thing he’s got so much gold! [Groan…] — but I do know that the team’s not nearly as terrible as those boys runnin’ General Motors.
I couldn’t find anything on the telegraph line, so I flipped on the inner-net to look up some stats on you. Looks like you know the division pretty well — bench coach for the A’s, third base coach for the Rangers. Now, I’m no fan of espionage, but if you could tell us everything you know, that’d sure help, and if you remember any of their signs, well, why don’t you just tell your old teams that “you forgot.” Then we could win some ball games! Also, I checked out that cute picture over on the Seattle Times site. Cute kid, you got. But does that mean she’s the one who inspired the unnamed Mariner to knock out Ichiro last year? Back in my day, if a random-o had threatened me, I woulda gone up to each and every one of my teammates and fed them a knuckle sammitch, because that’s just how teams ran back then. Then again, I always ended up with a face of pulp, so maybe it wasn’t the best course of action.
Too bad you beat out our old firestarter, Mr. Joey “Before Griffey in ’95, I Had to Scora” Cora. Woulda been nice to see the munchkin kicking dirt on the shoes of the looming umps, trying to make eye contact but only finding the blue’s naval. Heh. Reminds me of my days watching Bob Hope, when he once…Eh? Oh, yeah, Cora. Good guy. But I trust this Jack Jury’n’Chick, that new General Manager. He may have less hair than me, but his mop musta been constraining his creative powers. In just a couple days, he’s cleared house, bringing in his boys and is starting a stats department. I tell you, I may be old, but I know a successful saber-mattress-in when I see one.
And I hear you’re the first Asian-American to become a manager, eh? Good on ya for that — maybe you can talk some sense into Hiroshi Yamauchi for that crazy-as-Lizzy-Borden contract he gave Ken G. Joe G. Maw, or however you spell his darned name. (You want to know what caused the financial crisis? Contracts like that.) I was durn sad when Kim Ng wasn’t offered Jack’s position, but it looks like the team’s making up for their backward-thinking. A stat department, the first Asian-American manager…what’s next, a World Series appearance? Well, that might be a stretch, but I’ve got faith in you.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is, welcome aboard. These kids might not know, but we old seabirds understand that a true Mariner can weather even the choppiest of seas — and with you helming from the dugout, we may finally get a chance to break out of this storm.
Now, go win us some ballgames. And try not to let the dugout get bought out by microbreweries and wind-surfers.
If Canberra is the heart of Australia, then it’s time to call the funeral parlor.
The capital of Australia, the only resident of the Australian Capital Territory, the only Western capital in which it’s possible to see from one end to the other — from the town’s center — Canberra, sadly, makes Salem look like Babylon, though I’m not sure the Babylonians could produce chips as delicious as these. After months of wishing, hoping, and praying for the day to come, Kate, my high school pal, finally leant me the keys to Canberra with a weekend invite. Chomping at the bit to finally explore the house of Australia’s government — and possibly meet the coolest guy in the room, PM Kevin Rudd — I shoved some underwear, deodorant, and a camera into my backpack, hitched a ride with Microwave Jenny, who were heading to Wagga Wagga, and found myself crunched in the backseat as we headed south.
The three-hour excursion was largely uneventful, but there were some highlights. Not only did I swipe a “milkshake” cup from the Wahroonga shopping center — their “milkshakes” were about as thin as my Dad’s hair (ZING!) — we discovered that the freshly-minted iPod adapter was a bit to fresh (or minted?) for Boney’s stereo system. Jason Mraz filled up the car with his syrupy, doppelganger-esque sounds (little did I know that my ears would bleed to Jesse McCartney on the way back…ugh).
Arriving in Canberra was, actually, not my first time. While volunteering at Tidbinbilla a few weeks back, Rodney The Guide offered to trek us into the city on a Friday night. With my best anti-kangaroo clothing in tow, we skirted into town around 9 p.m. or so, tired from a day of shoveling but eager to blow a couple bucks. Unfortunately, Rodney forgot to mention that our tour of the town would be comprised of circular driving in search of a gas station, thus nixing any chance we had of ever getting out to join the dressy people milling about. At least I got a Snickers bar at the servo.
Ah, Canberra. Or is it, ah, crap, Canberra?
Arriving in Canberra was, actually, not my first time. While volunteering at Tidbinbilla a few weeks back, Rodney The Guide offered to trek us into the city on a Friday night. With my best anti-kangaroo clothing in tow, we skirted into town around 9 p.m. or so, tired from a day of shoveling but eager to blow a couple bucks. Unfortunately, Rodney forgot to mention that our tour of the town would be comprised of circular driving in search of a gas station, thus nixing any chance we had of ever getting out to join the dressy people milling about. At least I got a Snickers bar at the servo.
This time, though, was different. Not only did I quickly bail from Boney’s car — I could only get so many assertions from Jason Mraz that I was his — but I found that Canberra in the light was…well, I hadn’t really explored the city yet, so why pass judgment from a street corner surrounded by construction, a thoroughfare, and a glaring, 95-degree sun? Kate and her friend Flick (aside: great name, although not her legal one) whisked me off and we headed to the shopping center for alcohol and leggings — always a good match.
As we meandered back to Australian National University, passing towering skyscrapers, marvelous fountains, and brilliant white doves cooing through the air, I shook myself from the daydream to find a lone, tree’d main street, a duo of restaurant’d avenues, and about three people looking as befuddled as I was. Where were the magnificent displays of Australian austerity? Where was the conviction, the determination to ostensibly display the greatest architectural jewels of the world? Where was the silly affirmation that “We’re Number 1”???
About as apparent as Joan River’s actual skin.
I mean, it’s possible that Australia acquiesced to America’s claims of Number-1-hood, but more than likely, the architects of this city, in typical Australian fashion stayed out for one-too-many beers with the blokes and forgot to turn in their assignment. The government then had to look through the recycling bin to find a meaningful design, but in the end, there was no way to salvage the hopes of their capital.
If Washington D.C. is the turkey at the capitals’ Thanksgiving, then Canberra is the dumpling - cute and necessary, but still bland and filled with doughy white fluff.
Luckily, ANU made up for the dearth of interessant in the, ahem, “city”. At last, I felt like I was at a real college, the kind that Rice and Animal House embody so well. There were the rank stairwells, the stained dorm hallways, and the burn-your-tongue greases over the meal-planned food. There were the kitchy, hand-made “Welcome to College!” signs still tacked to doors, there were the arches of balloons celebrating someone’s birthday, and there was the common room, the leather couches complete with semi-translucent white stains.
And yes, there was the campy, iTunes-infused music/dance/drink-in-one-room party that Macquarie has gone without.
Needless to say, that first night at ANU was wonderful. Following a few rounds of talk-laugh-drink-repeats, I found myself wandering into downtown Canberra, where the streets are aglow in, um, streetlights and the people are as sparse as John McCain’s remaining brain cells. The rest of the evening is a blur, but upon later inspection, I had a wonderful time. From apparently threatening to kick automobiles in body parts to clearing the dance floor with my mind-of-its-own rump, I apparently made quite the impression on Kate’s friends — although not as much of an impression as Kate made on some certain gentlemen. (For further details, feel free to Facebook her. Hey Kate!)
I knew Saturday would be memorable from the second I woke up in my jeans. And, of course, by remarkable I mean full of recovery. Although 8:30 jolted me awake, I pawed around for a good six hours, not wanting to move for fear that my dizziness would spill into the nearby garbage can. (Ewwww.)
My youthful resiliency fortunately kept me as sober as Norwood-now-at-college, and we scrounged the energy to go to an American football game. Canberra has a preponderously high influx of foreign kids, so gridiron in Australia isn’t always relegated to 4 a.m. NFL games. Unfortunately, the talent still is, and we could only watch so the quarterbacks run around like headless, and armless, chickens before we called it a night.
Well, I guess there are some things worth seeing in Canberra
Sunday morning, my last day in Canberra, rolled around in a sweaty balm, and a plate of Eggs Benedict (“Have some Hollandaise during your Holidays!” is patent-pending) got my day started. Since there wasn’t much time before the Microwave Jenny-mobile swung into town, Kate decided we could only check Parliament, which was fine by me. After all, I hadn’t seen K-Rudd either day before — so I figured my best would be at the pulpit where he always makes snide comments about George Bush.
I got to see Ruddy!...kinda
Alas, no Krudd was to be found — a mere facsimile of his gleaming face was all I could find — but I did stumble upon a piece of history that I feel, quite frankly, should be lost to history: The Magna Carta. Wait, hold on — THE MAGNA CARTA. You know, the one from 1297? The one that lays out the essence of worker’s rights? The one that is the basis for all Western political procedure? Yep, that’s the one. That’s the exact freakin’ one.
And it’s in Australia.
All together now: Huh?
Well it turns out that this Magna Carta, “one of only four known surviving originals” from King Edward I’s confirmation, wasn’t much heralded over the last 700 years. It was kept at the King’s School in Bruton, Somerset, when some lucky stumbled onto it in 1936. The National Library of Australia broke the bank in 1952, shelling out 12,500 pounds for the tree pulp and ink, although today it “would certainly cost several million dollars”. Now that is something I’d like to see on The Antiques Roadshow.
Yeah, you know — that’s the Magna Carta
And the greatest thing? It wasn’t even the oldest thing in the building — that honor belonged to a twelfth-century Norman mace. Basically, artifacts are to Parliament what retirees are to Florida — they only come old.
After latching on to a couple Asian tours, admiring the booster seats that certain Senators need to get comfortable, nodding along with the Chinese guide (in hindsight, I should have exclaimed “Fung pay?!” which translates directly into “Who farted!?”), and picking out just the right spoon to go with my girlfriend’s crazy collection, we were on our way. Goodbyes ensued, although I’ll be seeing Kate the second day I’m back in Portland — possibly to get dessert at Papa Haydn with one of her Australian friends, who will preferably pay. Microwave Jenny whisked me up and away from the city, and just like that, we left the heart of the country.
Which, in the end, is a good thing, because funeral parlors can be expensive, and everyone know how cheap I am.
Could it really be? With more struggles Dubya and more fans jumping ship than the Lusitania, have the Mariners finally begun atoning for their wrongs? And, in the process, has a distant inkling of an M’s fanboy finally come to fruition?
That’s right. The same Cora who broke into stardom as the Mariners All-Star second-baseman of the late ’90s. The same Cora whose bunt, sprint, and Matrix-like dodge of Don Mattingly allowed Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez to oust the New York Yankees in the 1995 playoffs. The same Cora whose encumbered tears following the ’95 ALCS still resonate with Mariners fans across the globe.
Yeah, that Joey Cora.
Cora was always overshadowed by his larger-than-life compadres. Griffey had the swing, A-Rod had the youth, Edgar had the heart, and Buhner had the dome. But somehow, Cora carved a spot in the hearts of M’s fans, eliminating Harold Reynolds from the second-base podium and bringing some vim to the position.
When Cora’s ’95 tears soaked a clubhouse towel, Alex Rodriguez wrapped a throwing arm around his diminutive teammate, confidently assuring him that the Mariners would be back next season.
But a year later, we weren’t back. Nor were we back a decade later. That season, that shot-in-the-dark moment, was a blast into the memorable that the organization has yet to recreate.
Seeing as I’m a typical M’s fan, I have an unhealthy obsession with the 1995-2001 clubs, with a childish preference for the first couple campaigns during that heyday. The Joey Cora poster still lining my room — at three-feet tall, it could well be life-sized — has always reminded me of the team’s scrappiness, its bygone grit, infused by Lou Piniella and implemented by Cora and his fellow foot-soldiers.
When Cora left, the headlines didn’t break hearts, nor did the rabid fans demand Woody Woodward’s head. Granted, a few female M’s fans were saddened — no “Marry me, Joey!” signs have since graced the Kingdome — but his 1998 swap for David Bell went largely unnoticed.
And now, a decade later, with a World Series ring and a two-fold education, stemming from a first-rate Vanderbilt schooling and the tutelage of the crazy-as-Hugo-Chavez Ozzie Guillen, Cora could get a final shot at fulfilling A-Rod’s promise.
Cora’s competition is deep, but it’s fair to say that he is toward the front of Jack Zduriencik’s pack of seven finalists. With Jim Riggleman now sitting comfortably aside Manny Acta, Cora comes in as one of the most weathered coaches on the list, despite his youth.
Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills may have a leg-up with Boston’s recent successes, but word on his interview is yet to leak. Randy Ready, manager of San Diego’s AAA affiliate, the Portland Beavers manager, left a great impression the few times I spoke with him last year, and yet his ascension probably won’t come with the Mariners.
A few others, such as A’s bench coach Don Wakamatsu, Diamondbacks third base coach Chip Hale, Cardinals third base coach Jose Oquendo, and Red Sox third base coach DeMarlo Hale are all relative unknowns, and may not own the experience necessary to helm this young squad.
Thus, Cora floats to the top.
Aside from Cora’s experience, the former Mariners will bring a sense of ease to the clubhouse. Long knows for his good-naturedness, Cora is still relatively young, allowing him to associate with the green crew stacking the team’s lineup.
His demeanor is fluid and his MO is reserved, not exactly harking to the firebrand he has worked under. As he told the Seattle PI’s John Hickey, “I'm not Ozzie. He is maybe the other side of the coin. We made decisions based on that, and so far we have been very successful, winning the World Series (in 2005) and making the playoffs this year.” Cora was there to balance Ozzie’s belligerence, and it is his coolness that has brought him respect among both his peers and, apparently, Zduriencik.
The decision on the new manager is looming, much as the choices about Raul Ibanez’s future or Jose Lopez’s position. Unfortunately, the fans won’t know the minutiae of the interview process: what Zduriencik asks, how the candidates respond, or whether or not Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong are somehow bugging the room. (My guess: probably.)
If history is any indicator, however, there’s no reason to avoid hiring Joey Cora. With his history, his experience, and his demeanor, the guy would be a return to gravity for a team lost in space.
But let’s just hope he won’t cry after every loss.
[Warning: Rambling 2 a.m. blog post ahead. Proceed with caution.]
There are some days that won’t make it into the history books, days that provide nothing more than fodder for complacency and notions of calm.
Today, I am fortunate to say, was one of those days.
Sure, complacency may not be the most admirable of attributes — after all, only conflict can bring change — but sometimes a sense of comfort can beat all the change in the world. (Sorry, Barack.)
The day began a bit ominously, with a noise I’ll never cherish — an alarm clock’s beep. 8:15 a.m. was here, but since I had been tossing for a good hour, the racket didn’t shake me from any stupor. With a bowl of Weet-Box —Australia’s thieving “Breakfast of Champions” — in my gut, I turned to my computer to start the day’s business.
First order on the agenda: Interview for Alternative Spring Break group. As I shook the cobwebs from my attic, I signed on to Skype with and actual hitch in my throat. For someone who’s typically as cool as the other side of the pillow, wouldn’t you know it, the nerves had begun their terrible game of torment! Fortunately, the early-morning grog had some latent effects, but I could still sense an oncoming gaffe coming like a freight train.
For all my worries, the interview actually went relatively smoothly. The two girls I interviewed with, Sarah and Hilary, were both informative, polite, and forgiving of my early-morning jitters. I managed to touch on my perpetual rosy outlook, my pride in my family, and my girlfriend’s insistence that I get upset when I should (as opposed to just laughing her concerns off. She may be on to something there….) As I hung up, I was hopeful that they would select me to travel to Chicago next spring break to help at the Boys & Girls Club, trading Jamaican lounging for bettering the lives of underprivileged kids. (Cue: “Aww.”)
I talked with Tracy for a bit after that — no more jitters there —but my blasted internet kept cutting out like the Soviets from Afghanistan. As Tracy and I were wrapping up the conversation, the call was dropped, so I immediately rang her back to say I loved her. Unfortunately, the voice responded with a different sentiment than I was expecting: “Huh?”
I just called Hilary. Crap.
“Ah, sorry Hilary, that was supposed to be for Tracy! I mean, not that I don’t love, uh, wait, um, yeah, I guess I’ll let you guys get back to work.”
Yeah, Tracy loved that one.
The next order of business, as any Gen Y’er will tell you, was checking the email and Facebook, typically simultaneously. As I deflected the spam from Viagra knockoffs and Nigerian princes (not connected, thankfully), I noticed a message from a good pal, Nick Farris. And immediately, I was reminded of a dream I’d had the previous doze. Brian Lee and I were at my buddy Sam’s house, alongside Nick and our other pal Justin (or J Puff, as he’s known in certain circles). Brian and I talk quite frequently, so his presence was pretty typical (not that I dream about him, just that he and I would be hanging out). Sam, J Puff and Nick, on the other hand, hadn’t heard from me in quite a while — my fault more than anyone else’s. Soon, Sam, Nick, and J Puff were trying on some tuxedos, but when Brian and I asked what for, they replied that they were attending an event to which we weren’t invited.
Ah, there’s the elephant in my psyche. High school friendships, crumbling like the Kingdome, right before my eyes. Doomsday-ish? Maybe. But steeped in reality, I suppose.
Anyway, this message from Nick was more than a bit eerie to receive. I hadn’t talked to him in months, had just dreamt that our friendship had bit the dust, and boom, there he is, reaching out to us. Tragically, the email detailed the loss of a friend of his — a grim reminder that our perceived teenage invincibility is going the way of the dinosaurs. But Nick used the friend’s passing as a reminder that he still cared for us, deeply, and that the friendships we all shared were still as fresh as ever. Still, the email was tinged with a sense of etherealness, a quasi-illogical step toward the unexplained and phenomenal. Eerie Moment No. 1.
Moments later, with Facebook in view, that sentiment was strengthened by a message I’d received from Sam, not detailing anything as stark as Nick’s email, but a sign that he was still there nonetheless. Eerie Moment No. 2.
After shooting off emails to my Dad about Verizon’s unwillingness to cooperate vis-Ã -vis stop-charging-us-money, you-dad-gum-corporate-conglomerate, I noticed I received another Facebook message, but from neither Nick nor Sam. This one, as you may have guessed, was from Justin. Again, the subject material was relatively unimportant —Tupac was prescient and is surely alive, and is undoubtedly proud of Obama — but the fact that it was there, on my wall, alongside Sam and chasing Nick, was more than enough to get me to question everything I’d believed about logic and rationality. Yup, that was Eerie Moment No. 3.
Fortunately, that final sally met the day’s quota for eeriness, and the day sailed smoothly until our final day of my Colonial Literature course. Interested in the future plans of our 20-something female teacher — she hadn’t been teaching long, so I was wondering whether or not she would continue next year — I asked, innocently, “So what are you doing after this class?”
Boy, am I good with words, or what?
It took me a moment (and dozens of giggling girls) for me to realize what I’d actually said, but by then my cheeks were as red as a barn door. Suffice it to say, I never got a straight answer, but the teacher and I are going out for coffee tomorrow (JOKING). After wrapping up the course, I decided to brush for the final paper, due in a week. As I plopped down outside, I figured I’d get some sun, so I unveiled my chest’s Casper-like complexion for the envious world to see. (Currently, it’s almost as red as my barn-cheeks, but it was totally worth it.) I prodded the pages of different Australian tomes, memes, and biographies, piecing together the essay still in my mind. But I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t concentrate on the lines and dots of the pages, not only from the insipidness they were evoking — I’m sure someone finds “digitized homogeny” interesting, but not me — but also from the ornithological wonders that were reveling in my backyard.
There was a family of Pied Currawongs, sheer and dichotomized, with the father bashing a pretzel against a chair, a mom flitting through the trees in search of food, and a molting baby squawking as incessantly as Rush Linbaugh. There was a foursome of Cockatoos, massive remnants of the Jurassic epoch, with Mohawks in full bloom as the bounced along the ten-pounds-too-thin branches of the bright gum trees. There was the waddling troop of ducklings, growing ever-larger as the parents grew ever-fiercer toward the human neighbors. There was the Purple Swamphen, coming within a body-length of an intrigued student, only to dutifully remember it had children down the path to attend to. And there was the Noisy Miner, the smallest flier but the one most intent on harassing anything that had two legs and a beating heart.
For all the bouts of homesickness I’ve had this semester, for all the times I’ve been ready to pack it in and leap into the company of my States-based friends, this country keeps finding a way to pull me back in. In another life, with a different path and better (and earlier) science teachers, I would be out here permanently, remarking on the wildlife as a profession rather than a hobby. Until that lifetime comes, I’m just going to have to tick these animals off in my mental scrapbook, compiling the memory banks so that one day my grandkids will want to hear all the tales of grandpa’s crazy bouts with flying monsters. (Who said I couldn’t embellish every once in a while?)
A few hours of lulled interest passed, and soon it was time for the Tuesday/Thursday Spin class and Ab Blast. According to one of the cops from Superbad, Spin class is a great way to meet girls. Ironically, the cop who claimed that was about 75 pounds heftier than I am, so if he can do it, I can too, right? Nope. If I’m ever single again, I’m going to stick to farmer’s markets and Match.com. Spin class is 45 minutes of the most hellish physical output known to (this) man, and the lack of breaks or breathers is matched only by the insistence of the teacher to go harder, faster, and stronger with each ensuing music track. Whether she is bionic or inhuman, I’ve yet to determine, but I do know a couple months of this have turned me into a handsomer Lance Armstrong.
Compounding matters, our Spin class teacher also leads Ab Blast, so she gets to see me suffer doubly as I try in vain to keep up with her lessons. (Although, to be fair to myself, I was only one of two people in the class of thirty to be able to complete all of our routines today. The teacher called me “a machine,” and since logic dictates that “it takes one to know one,” I’ve come to the conclusion that she is, indeed, bionic.) A semester of this hasn’t quite turned me into a member of the 300 clan, but people won’t laugh at me anymore when they draw on eight-pack abs.
So I’d had interviews, slip-ups, class closures, nature watches, and unbelievable physical exertion, all within the span of 15 hours. What could possible finish it off? Why, an evening at the cinemas, of course!
Whoever said Guy Ritchie wasn’t a genius is obviously on some type of hallucinogen, because after seeing Ritchie’s new “Rocknrolla”, a film about sex, thugs, and rock’n’roll, there’s no one else I want directing my biopic. In a world of English house-of-cards capitalism, the only solution is a group of underground that have thrived the whole time. The plot is tighter than a jar of old-school mayonnaise, the cinematography is entirely unique, and the editing — whew, the editing — is out of this world. A must see for any fan of action- and coherency-based plot.
What a way to cap off a day. Not one for the history books, I’m afraid, but one to warrant the longest blog post on this site.
So I'm lying in bed, recovering from a post-finals-paper-induced grog, and I'm wondering what there is to write about in the world of Australia. In politics, there's John Key's improbable win in the New Zealand prime minister elections — "Yes, We Can...Eventually Matter" — and there's Kevin Rudd's futile attempt at horse-racing. In exercise, there's spin class, the 45 minutes from hell I dread every Tuesday and Thursday, although my thighs are now as steely as Daniel Craig's gaze. In food, there's the Casey's Crunchy Burrito, a spicy mixture of tortilla, onions, capsicum, and veal, usually consumed after a breakfast of oatmeal and Nutella and before a dinner of stir fry and cookies.
But none of these topics are interesting enough to warrant a full blog post (even though I fully intend on relaying my semester of Pilates debacles in the near future). Instead, what do you say that we have a debate, mano-a-mano, on one of the most high-minded topics to ever grace this fair blog: The Greatest Sport in the World!
Here's my argument:
What sport, above all others, embodies the fire of the human spirit? What sport combines more grit, guts, and gregariousness than Odysseus or Ulysses ever knew? What sport propels men, women, and children beyond their hardened limits and into the world of excellence and legend?
Most of you, I’m sure, have already guessed the answer. Maybe you got it from my last name, or maybe you have actually experienced the ethereal, emotive responses that this exercise engenders. Regardless of the reason, you get my eternal props for your correct answer, and I’ll be mailing you the transcripts of some “Ozzie Guillen as Obama’s Press Secretary” outtakes.
For the rest of you, the heaven-sent sport in question was the progenitor of civility, the preeminent judge of one’s character, and the original wear-your-slacks-and-drink-some-tea pastime.
That’s right — I’m talking about the sport of croquet.
Now, there may be a few of you inbred ingrates who chuckle at the thought of croquet being the epitome of human achievement. But lest ye forget, there were also people who laughed at Picasso, Petey Pablo, and Puff, the Magic Dragon. If these cultural and intellectual giants had bowed to the gaggle of giggles, the modern world would be without their unsurpassable talent and gifts, to say nothing of the greatness of “Freek-A-Leek.”
Fortunately, the founding fathers of croquet did not hide from those ignorant chortles. They stood their ground, rightly believing that what they had produced would one day change the world for the better. Now, as we stand on the eve of a new era in America, we can look to the future knowing that the past and present will always be held together by the glue of croquet. This sport may be old, but in accordance with the all-inclusiveness (and obesity) of the 21st-century, can any sport match croquet in welcoming both athletes and non-athletes alike?
But it’s recently come to my understanding that, inexplicably, there are those who have not partaken in this greatest of sports. I can’t help but feel the deepest pangs of sympathy, and although I may not know you personally, I feel that it is my duty to enlighten you as to the courage and temerity that croquet exemplifies.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I have the aforementioned greatness in my bloodlines — my grandfather, Jean-Claude Michel, is the inspiration for the annual Jay Michel Memorial Croquet Tournament in Seattle, Wash. Please, don’t be jealous, but feel free to deride your grandparents for not attaining the importance that mine did.)
Before defining its perfect nuance, let’s take a look at why croquet gives other sports more shame than Nieman Marcus gave Sarah Palin. Basketball and soccer may have the fluidity of Coca-Cola, but you’ll end up tired and — I shudder just thinking of this — sweaty. Baseball may be “America’s pastime,” but could you really fit a baseball diamond in Camp David? Tennis may pride itself on its sportsmanlike demeanor, but croquet gives you the opportunity to whack your opponent’s ball into oblivion, or at least the neighbor’s yard. Why John McEnroe chose tennis, we’ll never know.
Sure, croquet can be described as “just another game you play with your family by the estate in [insert overtly-pompous European grounds],” but there are key differences between croquet and other sports you can play whilst decrying the loss of upper-class tax breaks. Lawn darts supposedly stump croquet in terms of danger, but as the ribs of a friend of mine can attest, croquet mallets are often harder than Michael Chiklis. And while bocce ball may always own ties to the Mafia, croquet traces its roots back to the rebellious French nobility. (Side note: The mallets can also double as sabres, leading many notable croquet historians to theorize that the Three Musketeers may have originally begun as croquet maestros. En garde!)
Croquet has surpassed all sports, even in the realm of the marital matters. Though they were
unavailable for comment — likely debating what to get me for Christmas — I can attest that the marriage of Jules and Kathy “Inaugural Winner of the Jay Michel Tournament” Michel frequently cracks during a heated game of croquet. Either Jules enjoys sleeping on the couch, or he unwittingly believes that he may some day beat Kathy. Either way, croquet has influenced their marriage in ways their children could only dream of.
Truly, croquet is both the sport of kings and the king of sports. Its impact is often compared with the invention of fire, and is said to have inspired the Taj Mahal and Einstein’s theory of relativity. Clearly, the world would be a worse place without it.
For those who’ve yet to enjoy the game’s unimaginable bliss, I can only hope that you come out of your shell and play a round with us, because in the end, it’s the greatest thing you shall ever do.
I mean, unless you’re listening to “Freek-A-Leek.” But that’s on a whole different level.
Jack, to my Mom: "I beat grandma!" Mom, to herself: "F*$%^@# kids."
I don’t have the years under my belt, the historical research grants, or the proximity to Selma, Montgomery, or Birmingham, but I still felt it. I felt it like a blanket on my chest, I felt it like a flush of the eyes, I felt it like a pride I’ve yet to know. It was there, and it was real.
Barack Obama, a Hawaiian of rhetorical hope and Kenyan and Kansan descent, just became the first African-American president in the history of the United States of America. In my lifetime. In your lifetime. In our lifetime. In a country as divided as a Subway Series, as dichotomous as a chess board, and as cynical as Keith Olbermann, we — we — came together to put a man, a moment, into a position of fixing the ills of the most powerful nation on earth.
This was not merely a symbol. This was a concrete example of the goodness, of the heart, that a country as jaded and declined (and disinclined) as the US and her patrons can still possess. At last, America shares the national stage as a beacon on the mount, a city on the hill, and as a model for which all others can strive.
Hyperbolic? Sure. But unrealistic? Not anymore.
After a full day of boring into Australian TV, being shaken between American broadcasting and Aussie punditry, I’ve ended in a strange, euphoric state of mind. My fears of an Obama nomination being anticlimactic were unfounded, and when Charlie Gibson revealed that California, Washington, and my beloved Oregon would clinch the nomination for Obama, a surge of warmth filled my gut, and my cheeks couldn’t hold back a smile many months in the making.
The marathon was over, and we had won.
How many dreams have come true with this election? How many dreams have been created with this result? How many people saw Obama’s gaze, McCain’s conciliation, and Oprah’s tears, and remained unmoved?
Not those in my living room, or those in the Uni-Bar, or those at the American Consulate, or those at Grant Park in Chicago.
To remain emotionless in these times is to be irrational, and to be uninspired on this day is to be inhuman. The face of a nation is changed. Barack Obama becomes the first non-white "leader of the world" since Saladin, Genghis Khan, and the pharaohs. And we witnessed it.
The mantras of the past are swept into the dustbin, and America’s successful path in a multi-polar world is better for it.
I just pulled a Michelle Obama; for the first time, I’m really proud of my country. For all of this nation’s trivial strife, monumental blunders, and reprehensible acts of inhumanity, the slate is washed, perhaps not clean, but at least with minimal crumbs remaining. It’s no longer ‘Yes, We Can’ — it’s now ‘Yes, We Did.’
Pardon me while I stand and applaud, for that was amazing.
November is here, bringing cooked turkeys, tossed pigskins, and a close to the lengthiest election ever seen. While I look forward to all three, it’s safe to say that November also lands me in the throes of depression, despair, and dejection. Not because I won’t function without my daily dose of JibJab or crazy McCain supporters (yeehaw, Texas!).
The coming of November means that Halloween is over.
If you have ever swung by our house come October, you’ll understand why the passing of the 10th month brings a tear to my eye. For years, my basement has been to Halloween supplies what the Yucca Mountains are to toxic waste. With boxes, bags, and used futons filled with Halloween gags, our lowest floor is a veritable wonderland of ghouls and ghosts, something that would make Stephen King grin from ear to ear.
Who’s fault is this? Have my parents raised me on Wicca and witchcraft? Is there some hunchbacked troll that lives under our stairs, nipping Halloween decorations from the neighbors and tossing them into the dark and dank of the basement?
Uh, no — at least, not to my knowledge. If anything, this hoarding of all things terrifying is a family affair, a Michel effort (Micheffort?), a pitched team stab at bringing horror and capitalism together as one. My Dad has headed up the effort for some time, tying fluorescent ghosts to our living room fan, cloaking ladders with robes and red-eyed skulls, creeping out our neighbors and bringing an unhealthy smile to my face. Coupled with my Mom’s ‘be-a-smart-shopper-and-stock-up-on-Halloween-goodies-on-Nov. 1’ mentality, my family was a force to be reckoned with come Halloween. Even the pets get in on the action:
The tradition has continued at the house this year, although I think it stems more from my Mom going off the rocker in Norwood's absence than anything else:
Our house was one of the block’s jewels, and when you consider that my (in hindsight, blasphemous) Catholic elementary school put on the district’s top haunted house — to this day, I recall my best friend’s witch-Mom bringing me to tears — it’s no surprise that my affinity for Halloween has surpassed normal bounds. As Tracy today reminded me, not everyone continues to trick-or-treat into their 20s, nor do many take pride when their dorm room unsettles visitors. Fortunately, last year Aunt Mary bankrolled my attempts at decorating the room, to great success.
So when I first arrived in July and felt the brisk, cool night air, a part of me lit up with anticipation of Halloween’s imminent arrival. The cutting breeze, the open sky, and the presence of candy all conspired to get my hopes up that this year’s Halloween would be the greatest yet — better than my Frankenstein night at McMenamin’s, my freshman-year haunted house fright (where my Mom entrusted Katie Northcott with our lives), or last year’s floor-wide trick-or-treating extravaganza.
Since I love dumb jokes, I’ll give you a hint how it went:
Question: What noise does an Australian Halloween make?
Answer: A spook-tacluar flop.
Yep, that’s right. Like Bob Dole from the podium, the Australian Halloween fell from its perceived perch, and will now live in ignominious infamy (but, thankfully, no Viagra commercials). I knew the Aussies were lax when it came to most things — work, chores, healthy livers — but their apathy toward this greatest of holidays bordered on sacrilege.
There was not a single Halloween decoration on campus, nor could I find any downtown. Hotel lobbies were clean, underground pubs were the same, and the McDonalds were filled not with candy corn or Fun-Sized Snickers, but Christmas trees. In October. (And I thought Americans were bad).
Australia, my friend, you have sincerely and regrettably dropped the ball, and for that, you will remain shamed.
Fortunately, with Americans comes a spirit that is not easily doused, a desire to dress as ghastly (or promiscuously) as humanly possible on the 31st of October. We’ve grown up with this holiday, shared in its screams and frights, and come to expect it like a Yankees fan expects the playoffs. (Oh, wait….) We were not about to let the disdain of the Aussies get in the way of some fake blood and vampire teeth, and seemingly of one mind — or maybe it was just Facebook — a Halloween party emerged.
Four hours and 18 wrong directions after setting out yesterday, me and Noah from Arizona found a costume shop to survey. After deciding against Cher, a bumblebee, and Batman — why would I want to go as myself? — I settled on a simple, historically accurate outfit. I would be Thor, Norse Viking, wielder of plastic axes and red mullets. (Once the pictures are online, I’ll be sure to send them along.) Noah settled on Kurt Cobain, much to the glee of our checkout lady’s boyfriend, and just like that, Halloween was returned to the land.
The Halloween party that evening was, to use a parlance of our times, ‘off the hook.’ Never have I seen so many college-aged she-devils, pajama’d cows, or break-dancing Jokers in my life. People enjoyed Thor’s mullet, and, unfortunately, his ax, which ended up being broken (talk about a blow to my Viking ego). Alas, the party was too good to be true — two non-residents couldn’t decide whose costume was better, and came to blows in defense of their tailors. Cops came, flashlights shone, and buzzes were killed.
And you want to know the worst part?
The cops didn’t even have candy.
Plus, for the second Halloween in three years, my phone was a casualty. My phone survives! Thank you, random dude who found it! Now I can call my parents and ask for money to recharge my phone! Woohoo!
Video of the day!
In the end, I wound up back at my house, watching this clip and counting down the days until next year:
Seriously, you don’t. That’s not an insult — it’s the truth, and you know it.
It’s cool though, because I don’t know Jack either.
But does that make us stupid? Ignorant? Laughable? Does that bring us down a notch, Stump-the-Schwab-wise? Will people look at us with smirks and jeers, whispers and sneers?
Nah, they won’t. Because the Schwab, in his infinite, Dunkin’-Donuts-induced wisdom, doesn’t know Jack, either. In fact, no one really does.
Which is why I hesitate on applauding Jack’s hiring as the newly-appointed Mariners general manager.
Jack Zduriencik, usurping Lee Pelekoudas’ throne, is the latest Northwest gunslinger. A scouting man by trade, the Z-man — whose name sounds more like a Polish independence movement than a baseball lifer — made his reputation by stockpiling the Milwaukee Brewers’ farm system in ways that would make Billy Beane proud. As Scouting Director of the once-moribund Brew Crew, Zduriencik oversaw a greater facelift than the Joan Rivers Experience, helping Milwaukee eclipse the playoff threshold for the first time since M*A*S*H went off the air.
See if these names ring a bell: Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy, Prince Fielder, Dana Eveland, Tony Gwynn Jr., Yovani Gallardo, Rickie Weeks, Ryan Braun, Cole Gillespie. All property of Zduriencik’s foresight, all succeeding in ways Mariners’ draftees could only dream.
While they’re still young, the three best M’s picks in recent years have stagnated at the big-league level. Jeff Clement? Can’t hit. Wladimir Balentin? Can’t hit, can barely field. Brandon Morrow? Showing Felix-like promise, but still unproven. On that same parallel, the Brewers’ top three have had more success than US Special Forces in Syria. (Er….) Braun? Too many rookie awards to count. Fielder? Holds the Brewers’ record for jacks in a season, with 50. Gallardo? A meager 3.35 ERA in a healthy 134.1 innings tossed.
But the Mariners weren’t looking for favorable posturing. If they were, Kim Ng would be helming the Mariners’ future. Nor are Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong looking to update to a 21st-century, numbers-only mantra. If they were, Tony LaCava or Jerry DiPoto would be steering the Mariners back toward respectability. No, the M’s were looking for someone that would get the job done without the frills or pomp that had invaded the previous executive box.
Zduriencik is old-school, a 57-year old, suit-and-tie, as-much-flash-as-a-potato kind of guy. He’s not made of flair and fluff; from his initial press conference, the guy believes in both stoicism and minimalism. He’s a man of few words, and unlike Bill “Jarrod-Washburn-is-Cy-Young-Material” Bavasi, Zduriencik looks to let his actions speak for themselves.
Unfortunately, Zduriencik already comes to the club with a stigma attached: He is a product of an Armstrong-Lincoln decision. For those keeping score at home, these two knuckleheads, who seem to be on a decade-long audition for the “Dumb and Dumber” reboot, have run a once-promising franchise into the ground, and are threatening to break underneath China if not soon stopped. While the Z-man has claimed that he will have as much autonomy as anyone else, the numerous people turning down GM interviews were obviously influenced by Armstrong’s call for a “collaborative and inclusive” work environment. This style of management was rampant before Bavasi endure the “hot seat” of ’07-’08, but it’s not as if the preceding cooperative era of Carl "Dinosaurs-Ain't-Real" Everett and Charles "Spiderman" Gipson was much better.
Suffice it to say, the duo of Armstrong and Lincoln would have made Lehman Brothers upper management look good over the last couple years, which is why I worry, fret, and fear for Jack. Ultimately, Zduriencik’s success will ride on his ability to coax Armstrong and Lincoln out of the room and onto Edgar Martinez Drive, allowing the new GM to focus on the changes needed (which, if you haven’t noticed, run aplenty).
When he finds a new center fielder, DH, and first baseman, we’ll know Jack. When he decides the future of Raul Ibanez and Adrian Beltre, we’ll get an idea about Jack. When the Mariners’ new manager strides to the plate on Opening Day, we’ll have formulated an opinion on Jack.
Right now, though, we just don’t know jack about Jack.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who's had a rough go of it over the past eight years. When the original video came out eight years ago, a cultural staple was born, and 'Hey' fell into the 20th century. I'm not going to spoil the video, but, well, I'm sure you'll get it in about 11 seconds:
Eight years ago, I dribbled a worn basketball in my cracked driveway.
“Beat LA!” yelled the blue-shirted dude passing on his bike.
“Yeah,” I offered, meekly, turning my back to the guy. Try as I might, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the reason I was outside, dejectedly displaying my Rucker Park game for all the neighbors to see.
We weren’t going to beat L.A. We weren’t even going to have another shot.
My Trail Blazers, the only team I’d shared a city, a home, and a ’hood with, were about to be ousted from the 2000 NBA Western Conference Finals after owning a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter. Portland’s pride, the NBA team most often compared to the Green Bay Packers, was staring down the barrel of a Game 7 Shaq attack, and there was nothing the dreadlocked Brian Grant or I could do about it. So I cowered, running outside and avoiding the on-court onslaught.
That may have made you laugh, but just remembering those names brings a Medusa-stopping cringe to my face.
There’s no getting around it — those eight seasons sucked.
Sure, you could argue that karmic fortune got the ping pong ball rolling when 2007’s No. 1 pick came to town. Or you could say this Rose City Renaissance began with the 2006 draft, a haul that netted the indomitable LaMarcus Aldridge and the incomparable Brandon Roy. Heck, you could even mark the reboot at Kevin Pritchard’s ascension to assistant general manager a couple years back.
But you’d be wrong. Those examples are nice, no doubt — but you’re forgetting Zach “Stat-Bo” Randolph, Darius “Head-Bop” Miles, and the 21 “wins” of 2006; you’re omitting Oden’s microfracture and Paul Allen’s bankruptcy; and you’re overlooking the still-maligned Chris Paul debacle.
After all, it was just last year that Rick Reilly, pre-Bill Simmonsized at ESPN, told Oden that if Portland picked him, he’d get to see his teammates in orange jumpsuits.
Suffice it to say, I’d rather give Rosie O’Donnell a Thai massage while watching every Nicholas Cage movie than have to relive those years.
Fortunately, Blockbuster was out of The Wicker Man and Rosie’s publicist never called me back, so I can look to the ’08-’09 season with my innocence and sanity intact. A new season is just around the corner, and just like Bush from the White House, eight years of abject failure are about to be swept into the past, replaced by change, hope, and, above all, some basketball IQ. (Is it any coincidence that Barack Obama’s brother-in-law is now the head coach at Oregon State University?)
The era of the Great Northwest crime wave appears to be over, and we once again have a team to pack the Rose Garden for. No matter what NBA preview you’ve read, the basketball brains are all saying one thing: The Blazers will be a force from the opening tip till the first round of the postseason, and possibly beyond. In the toughest conference across the sporting world, one of the youngest teams in the game’s history should find itself hosting an above-.500 record, a Rookie of the Year — not necessarily named Oden — and a playoff game or two.
But it’s not just the fact that we can, technically, ball. Any team can with shoelaces and some leather can find net. The reason my eyes glint while talking about the Blazers is because these are guys who could hang out with your Mom, guys you would want to watch your kids, guys who wouldn’t say no to a neighborhood potluck. These are amiable, affable, and downright approachable people, all of whom are proud, right-minded citizens of a proud, left-minded city. Channing Frye wants your advice on artwork, Travis Outlaw drives around in a Neon-Hulk Impala, and Greg Oden has diversity that only Philip Seymour Hoffman could rival.
See? You can’t help but smile, can you?
You know, there’s a reason that NBA commissioner David Stern claimed, after shining Clay Bennett’s shoes, that the Blazers were the team he’s looking forward to the most.
Portland may not take the scepter, crown, or throne this year — it’s only fair that we let Madman Artest and his gang of Houston misfits get a shot — but the next decade will be ours. Behind Roy’s acumen, Aldridge’s deftness, Rudy’s YouTubery, and the Tower of Oden, the Blazers’ reemergence will surprise no one, yet astound everyone. Our future is mind-numbingly open for success, bright in ways that only Stephen Hawking could imagine.
And yes, the bandwagon will be up and running — Sonics fans automatically get the front seat — but feel free to join the likes of Magic Johnson, J.A. Adande, and the whole Sports Illustrated crew when the postseason winds its way through an Oregon trail.
Unless you’re busy spending $150,000 on clothes and makeup — and therefore spreading the wealth! — you’ve undoubtedly heard that my Trail Blazers are back. With Oden’s beard, Roy’s stealth, and Coach Nate’s bark, these P-Towners are set to squash Western Conference bottom-feeders and force the looming giants to take heed of their future replacement.
And that’s good news for you, because the Blazers Backers’ recruitment office is currently taking applications for bandwagoners.
The requirements are simple and straightforward, and remember, please note how many times an airport screener has discovered your tinfoil-covered marijuana. (We can’t explicitly deny entry to Damon Stoudamire, but we’re going to try everything we can.)
No cutting, unless it’s on a backdoor pick, and please, no head tattoos or calls to “Get caught up in life!” Sonics fans should form in the quick-pass line, while those abandoning the Suns’ ship, busy going down in flames, might take a bit longer to organize their burning paperwork.
The requirements are as follows:
• Must despise being surrounded by four walls, especially while awake. As a parallel requirement, you must scale at least one mountain per year, kayak one river per six months, and hike a national park every other week.
• Must be willing to deface anything at a moment’s notice, so long as said item contains gold and/or purple. If anything in your house — be it clothes, faucets, satin sheets, or shrines to Omar Cook — is colored gold or purple, discontinue reading, because we don’t want you.
• Must display bike rage at ignorant motorists breathing down your neck as you pedal along I-84. If you have to get a license plate on your bike, then, heck, you should be able to cruise along the highways, right?
• Must believe in Sasquatch. (Sonics fans may have a leg up in this area.)
• Must be willing to slash tires of any U-Dub or Wazzoo fan, but willing to root for the Ducks or Beavers no matter the opponent.
• Must sign a petition to return Boomer the Beaver to his rightful place in PGE Park.
• Must be willing to spend at least seven straight hours in a bookstore. If illiteracy is your thing, then I have no idea how you’re understanding this, but I’m intrigued, and you may continue your application.
• Must wear a bullet-proof vest when traveling on the East Side. (Ok, this one’s a joke — Portland’s safer than the Bubble Boy, and Hawthorne St.’s bistro-and Shins-lovers won’t try to hustle you as you pass them by, unless it’s for your opinion on Gus Van Sant.)
• Must be terrified of three centimeters of snow.
• Must not time travel to 1815 and get Shanghai’d in one of Portland’s underground tunnels. I mean, you can, but do you really want to sweep the poop deck as some pirate’s slave?
• Must always see a Major League Baseball team just beyond the horizon, knowing that one day, the politicians, team owners, and city officials will all be on the same page, bringing the Portland Cascades from my dreams to a downtown ballpark.
• Must convince at least three people to place “Nader/LaDuke 2000” signs in their front yards, and keep them there through Nov. 4.
• Must have seen The Hunted, Mr. Brooks, and Are We There Yet? and despised every one of them.
• Must know what geoducks and tree octopi are. (If not, feel free to look them up — you won’t be disappointed. Well, maybe you will, but that really depends on your standards.)
• Must claim East Coast bias on everything from NBA predictions to food reviews, because let’s face it, it’s always there.
• Must revile Bob Whitsitt, love Martell’s shooting stroke, guess Oden’s age, miss Kevin Duckworth, grow Brian Grant’s dreads, want Bill Schonely as a surrogate grandfather, admire Jason Quick, feel for Sam Bowie, smoke with Bill Walton, and name first child “Clyde” (or, if it’s a girl, “The Glide.”)
If you have read and understood the stipulations for Blazers bandwagoning and are still interested in this unique and vaunted position, please contact recruiters at Remember1977@RoseGarden.com, JRRidersnipple@ArvydasSabonisWasSmoove.com, or DariusLovesMoCheeks@BonziBlackouts.com.
NB: If you use umbrellas, nuh-uh, thanks but no thanks. None of those namby-pamby water shields — only Columbia Sportswear up here, kid.
Have you ever felt that you’re living someone else’s life?
Have you ever been swept away by some feeling, some event, that seems beyond the realm of possibility, breaking the back of the proverbial camel in the best way possible, and landing you with a smile that normal circumstance cannot explain?
I hope you have, because the feeling is wondrous. And today, for Buddha-deemed reason, was my day to claim that feeling.
Not simply Greg-Oden-finally-recovering-from-surgery wondrous, for that was to be expected; rather, wondrous with a four-leaf clover, rare-as-a-drunk-Stephanie-Rice atypicality. A sense of uniqueness that arises only in Disney movies or Mariah Carey music videos. A sentiment that arises with aligned cosmos, hemorrhaging of rabbit’s feet, and just a pinch of Gilda dust.
Something that blows your mind.
The other day, Tracy let slip that Norwood was sending me something in the mail. (As you may recall, the day-to-day tragedy of an unfruitful mailbox has beset me since the days before Katy Perry “Kissed A Girl” — for those non-Gen Y’ers, that means it’s been a while.) Before I had a chance to ask the little bro what he was shipping my way — not to mention how he figured out my address is 59/122 Culloden Rd, Marsfield, NSW 2122, Australia — I got an email from the Admin office, the holders of the keys to the postal service kingdom, that I had a parcel in need of my ownership.
After a full day of kebab-eating and resume-printing (and as I secretly expected, I’ve only realized how much I omitted after spending 45 minutes waiting for a library computer), I trekked over to the West Side of the Macquarie University Village, where the previous Sunday I’d reveled in Domino’s pizza and a projector screening of Iron Man (“Yeah, I can fly”) to ask the friendly hostess for my mail.
She brought back a thin, flat envelope, and it only took one look at the return address to realize that my girlfriend was a liar….but only in the best way.
You see, the package wasn’t from my Big-Sky-livin’ brother — it was from the cosmopolitan (no pun intended) who goes by Miss Dansker.
I somehow made it back to my bedroom without spilling its contents. Sprawling on my bed, I poured the papers out of the container, and it quickly dawned on me that I may have again been mistaken. You see, this envelope wasn’t just from her — it was from all of the best mates a boy could ask for.
Yes, the feeling was wondrous.
There was the scrawled, scratchy handwriting from Matt and Mark; there was the colorful collage of ’stache-laced football players Liang Embie used to remind me how much I was missed at the Thresher; there was the burrito-stuffed, googly-eyed guy Peter must keep mistaking me for; there was Mollie’s letter with news on Brown sports and our new, Casey-will-eventually-dominate-this-like-only-Sam-Bowie-knows basketball hoop; there were Chris’ edits to Mollie’s article — “After giving up on another Indian’s playoff berth masturbation, I settled for a .500 season and ruining other teams’ playoff berths Tracy” — and notes on an improved beer pong game; there was Jazzle-Dazzle’s reminder that I refer to him as a terrorist (which I’d let slide in recent months); and there was Tim’s autographed wang, not necessarily life-like, but a valiant attempt nonetheless.
And there was the signature of the enabler, the one whose ideas never cease to amaze me. (Again, not Norwood. Still waiting, little buddy….)
After reading, pondering, and re-reading these miscellany, I tacked them on the board next to my desk. (Unfortunately, that meant I had to remove my “Oregon Voting Stipulations” form, which I never got a chance to comb through…hopefully I filled in all those vote-bubbles correctly!) See for yourself:
Before I opened the package, I knew the end of my semester was arriving a bit quicker than I had anticipated, and I was tinged with distress. But after I remembered what I get to come home to, I can’t help but count down the days until I feel the States under my feet.
I’m a lucky guy.
Video of the day!
Courtesy of Ferras Vinh, the future Rick Davis:
(Watch till the end — it is worth every second.)
News story of the day!
Oh tear of tears, oh shame of shame,/It’s safe to say the drinking world will never be the same: Goodbye, Zima.
Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad. Thank you, adolescent influences. Thank you for not raising me to be a convict.
Being a free citizen never felt so good, and yet giving back to Australia never felt so painful.
I just spent the weekend at the Tidbinbilla National Refuge with the sole purpose of helping the native animalia and vegetation restore their dominance over imported creatures. As we left on Friday morning, picked up by a semi-toothless old man named Rodney — whose stories ranged from watching mountain gorillas in Uganda to, uh, well nothing else; he really knew how to keep to himself — I sat through the four-hour ride, half-asleep, thinking of all the smiling wallabies and thankful ferns awaiting us.
But feet of rock-hard mulch, skin-piercing thorns, and piles of porous pitchforks later, I ended with a different view on the experience.
Nope, the convict life — replanting Lemura grasses, spreading piles of weed-repressing mulch, and reppin’ neon-yellow vests — is not for me. Of course, my obstinacy stems from my actual history of volunteerism. In high school, I scraped by riding shotgun as my Mom drove to the homes of the senile and handicapped, walking from the car to the door with hot food in tow. The worst part about that gig was probably the sour-milk smell I could never shake from my nostrils, but, in hindsight, listening to the radio and talking to my Mom about her family history are undoubtedly favored to Tidbinbilla.
But for all the hands full of blisters, arms full of burns, and legs full of bull ant bites, it’s safe to say I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Aside from the dancing brolga, territorial koalas, games of charades, magnificent stir-fry, star-blazed nights, and rampaging kangaroos — more on that later — this trip finally allowed me to escape the cabin fever that’s infected me the last week. After my mid-semester break allowed me to escape the confines of suburbia, I returned to find myself inundated with newfound internship options. So with approximately 1,932 hours of staring at an unrelenting computer screen over the last couple days, I was ready to head out.
An uneventful drive landed us at the Tidbinbilla National Refuge, only 37 clicks from Canberra, the capitol city of Australia. Finally, I’d arrived in the elusive, mythical, tiny Australian Capital Territory! Maybe I could finally see my favorite politician, Kevin Rudd! (Alas, that didn’t happen — he was probably too busy saving the Australian economy to visit the Tidbinbilla sanctuary.) We saw the rewardingly-elaborate displays of ACT animals, checked out the stuffed echidnas, and, as a treat for waking up so early, bought ice cream cones — little did we know, Rodney was going to buy us all ice cream tomorrow. (Although quieter than a wombat, Rodney was a champ.) And I finally saw my first wild emu, unblinking eyes and everything!
The packing list called for a sleeping bag, so, being the Northwesterner I am, I figured a camp and a Coleman stove would be in order. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in actual cabins, with a mess hall, shower, and ropes course all within shouting distance. But what the refuge lacked in rustic amenities it made up for in sheer volume of kangaroos.
They were everywhere. Everywhere. Since they were wild, they never got within rasslin’ proximity, but when you hear a kangaroo snuffling around your door at 3 a.m., you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.
Ok, I guess this is a good spot for the rampaging ’roos story. The second day of the trip, after we had mangled mulch for the last four hours, we were resting at base camp. The typical tourist, I left the cabin with camera in hand, seeking to get some good shots of the kangaroos out there. Doing my best ninja impression, I stalked a “mob” of kangaroos (that’s actually the proper term, hilariously enough), coming close enough to gain their attention in my camera lens. As I began to snap my shots, the kangaroo in sight turned his head to my right, facing a low rumbling noise that had just caught my ears. I looked to the hill on my right, unable to discern whether a semi was rumbling by or if a rockslide was taking place. What I saw made me catch my breath, for this was no rockslide.
These were kangaroos. Dozens of them. All leaping down the hill, only 100 meters away.
All leaping right at me.
I’d lie if I said I didn’t turn and run — have you seen their claws — but I soon realized that they weren’t pursuing me directly. Instead, they were creating a horseshoe, blocking my exits and forcing me away from camp.
They’re organizing my demise, I thought.
Crap.
With some 75 kangaroos all on their hind legs, boring me down with their eyes, I rationalized my situation by reminding myself that this would at least me a story my friends would love to tell. But then, putting to use the thousands of dollars my parents had invested in my education, I remembered that horseshoes aren’t connected — there’s always a way out. So with my knowledge of shapes in mind, I found the far exit of the mob, meandered through the woods for a bit, and finally found a dirt path that would lead me back to base camp. Yeah, my heart was in my throat, but better that than a joey’s teeth.
The dangers, fortunately, stopped there, although we did see a Red-Bellied Black Snake, one of the most poisonous in Australia, smashed into the asphalt outside camp. (Some others in the group saw its cousins in the park, but on three separate occasions, I missed it quicker than you can say “How are the Rays still in the playoffs?”) The bull ants, each a couple centimeters in length, weren’t necessarily life-threatening, but boy, did their bite — through my jeans — make me yelp.
But not all the animals were out to get me, I swear. A sighting of a rare Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallaby, a species with only ~20 left in the wild, provided a reminder of the fragility of the ecosystem we’ve taken over. (The one we saw was in captivity, where about 100 more exist, so its sighting was still something remarkable.) And while we didn’t see any platypuses, we spotted some Australian Pelicans outstretched in the sun, a Black Swan and her brood, and a gaggle of emus hiding while we refilled their grub selection.
At camp, while we weren’t busy reenacting scenes from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — that only took about, oh, 30 hours to guess — or elbowing each other in the nose during a violent game of Spoons, we found ourselves exploring the landscape, or at least what the kangaroos would allow us. On the second day, me, Mark from Colorado, and Danial from California scaled a 1,000-foot hill, out of breath from both the hike and the views we found atop the hill’s crowning granite boulders. The weirdest part? With no service in the base camp, I was still able to receive a drunk dial at the top of the hill.
Volunteering is what we came for, and, thus, volunteering was the focus. But as you can see, there was so much more.
And I didn’t even end with the sour-milk smell in my nose.
[I’ll have some more pictures on Facebook tomorrow.]
Videos of the day!
I just can’t get enough:
…and again…
And for those handful of you who don't share my schoolboy crush on Sarah Palin, here's something to satiate your Caped Crusader appetite. The parallels are...uncanny? eerie? absolutely, unequivocally, clear-as-glass true?
Since I've been busy staring at a computer screen for, oh, the last 48 hours - applying to newspapers across the country has given me such an appreciation for, um, excessive typing? - I figured I'd reward myself (and you!) with another dose of the Orwellian life of Sarah Palin:
On a related note, I've missed cable news - watching Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd talk economic policies just is not the same as having Keith Olbermann's doomsday saber-rattling [insert terrifying buzzword] going in the background.
Anyway, hope to have more wit, irony, and humorous insight coming your way after I figure out 500 words on a significant moment in my life. (My first Stanich burger? Doing my laundry? Getting eight-pack abs?)
There's always going to be debate about the civic duty of voting vs. keeping the uninformed watching Jerry Springer come Election Day. With so many "Get Our and Vote"-style ads, campaigns, and slogans aimed toward the "young voter," it could be easy to assume that the youth of America are the sole transgressors of the "politically illiterate" (polilliterate?) camp. At least, that's what 20/20 seemed to think in this clip:
Fortunately, a hometown hero, the Bus Project's Jefferson Smith, flipped the argument on its head, and took to downtown Portland to expose our politically anemic (polanemic?) elders:
Either way, it seems that America is screwed. So what time does Maury start again?
No, these are not the newest options of aero-themed Christmas gifts. These are the names of some of the different birds I encountered on yesterday’s day-tour of the Hawkesbury Wetlands.
While you were busy listening to The Kaiser Chiefs' new single, I was bouncing around some dirt roads alongside a gaggle of geriatrics, stopping at every other lagoon, tree path, or picturesque pastoral landscape that overlooked the slow-moving Hawkesbury River. And, you know, see what little winged creatures were flitting about.
As you may have gathered from some previous posts, I have an affinity for ornithology, stemming from a one-credit course I took senior year in high school Sole requirements: show up…or at least, since we were seniors, be somewhere on campus, but preferably not napping in the teacher’s lounge (KIDDING. The class was actually quite informative, and, as you can see, has stuck with me.) Ever since, much of my travels have involved the perfunctory binoculars, camera, and heavily-scribbled birding book (and at least one person referring to me as “that weird bird guy.”)
The day began early enough — again, anytime before the “p.m.” pops up on the laptop screen is too early — and by 8 a.m., a bus and train had landed me at the Killara Rail Station. Ominously Tellingly, the stop featured a tree with a swarm of Sulpher-Crested Cockatoos, still screeching worse than hemorrhoid-filled dinosaurs, locking claws (literally!) with a Galah.
As soon as my fellow birders began to congregate, I felt like I was the only one who hadn’t voted for Dwight Eisenhower. It seemed that everyone who joined me at the pick-up point would be experiencing their Golden Years with me. “Depends” would have had a field day with this group. Needless to say, I felt a bit displaced. I’m sure I would have loved Rita Hayworth as a 1950s teenager, but I really don’t think that was something I was going to get across with these birders.Fortunately, the conversation didn’t consist solely of applesauce and the Lone Ranger. One of the women, admittedly pushing 80, caught me by surprise when she fluently fixed “internet” into the conversation.
But age, antithetical to the post above this one, does not necessarily mean senility. After, oh, about two seconds of birding, noticed that our guide, Yorkshire Keith, was the most knowledgeable antipodean ornithologist I’d ever seen. I don’t plan on being a diminutive, leather-skinned guide when I grow up, but, dang, do I have respect for anyone who can identify a speeding black bullet with the sun ceaselessly beating down through your pupils. Not only did he amaze me time and again, but it gave me the opportunity to feel totally unaccomplished (or accomplished, as it were) as I ticked the birds off my list.
The birds, as you can imagine, didn’t disappoint. From the hovering Nankeen Kestrels to the Black Swans, tailed by some kids, to the wandering Brown Quail — which I somehow spotted amidst the low brush — the life list I keep kept on growing. The highlight of the birding afternoon came when a White-bellied Sea-Eagle, tailed by a pair of Whistling Kites, barrel-rolled out of the way, dropping both altitude and his pursuers in fantastic fashion.
All told, I saw or heard some 100 species throughout the day, including around 20 new ones and my very first crake (which is kind of like a snipe, which is kind of like a godwit, which is kind of like a plover, which is kind of like a sandpiper…). It may not have been worth the $100 I shelled out*, lugging around bruised bananas and damp PB&J’s, or feeling like everyone on the bus was going to start complaining about those new-fangled pagers they just came out with, but, yeah, it was fun.
Unfortunately, my college-bred malaise has gotten the best of me, and I haven’t put the photos on my computer yet. Once I get off this couch, stop watching my roommate play music on TV, and wash my sheets for the first time in three months — woohoo! — I’ll get them up, I promise.. Picture time!
Apparently, you have to be a member of AARP to bird. Guess I missed the memo.
I now know what I want for Christmas.
Overlooking the Tidbinbilla plains, where birds absolutely love to not pose for me and my non-zoom lens.
For more tantalizingly blurry bird photos, go here.
*I made up for the loss of monies later in the evening when, instead of buying beverages at the Ivy Nightclub, Noah from Arizona and I stole people’s drinks when they weren’t looking. Not only did my budget stay fit, but I had the most fun possible this side of a phonebook and a fire extinguisher (man, the things you do in college). Unethical? Yes. Inexpensive? Yes. Two free bottles of champagne? Yes.
Video of the day!
Thanks to late-night Australian TV, I, sadly, had to watch this commercial:
They are more terrifying than Donald Trump’s hair, Mike Tyson’s mind, and season three of Are You Afraid of the Dark?
They are the New Zealand All Blacks, and they’re coming for you.
Well, okay, maybe not you specifically, since you don’t play on a national rugby team. But if, in another life, you find yourself as a member of the Australia Wallabies or the South Africa Springboks, then you’ll be more screwed than Sarah Palin in a Katie Couric interview.
And how do I know that the All Blacks are the embodiment of Bane, Charles Manson, and Hades, or that their parents are the Hulk and a harem of banshees? Because even though I’m (purportedly) a rugby-loathin’ “Amurrican,” the All Blacks’ moniker rang a familiar refrain in my mind.
Still, this rampage squad was mostly rumor and hearsay before I arrived Down Under. Tales of demon-possessed New Zealanders and their haka, some will.i.am-inspired dance routine or something, were all I knew of these terrors from the South Pacific.
So it was without hesitation that I bought a Wallabies jacket in August — not only was it comfortable, but hey, I got it on sale, which my Mom would be proud to hear.
And now, two months later, I rue that day, trembling in fear that the All Blacks will find me out.
Why?
Because I finally saw what they could do to anyone who stood in their way. Last month, the Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks were all competing for the Tri Nations Cup, an annual competition for a big shiny trophy. Set outside the typical international competition, the tournament began in 1996, although the contests between Australia and the sheep-shaggers, er, New Zealand — oh man, I hope they don’t read this column — started in 1903. Ever since, the rivalries between the three nations have grown quicker than John McCain’s nose, and as any rugby player can attest, so have the friendships.
But friendliness and camaraderie come after the tournament, when the on-field blood, sweat, and tears — the latter often coming from the Wallabies and the Springboks — dissipate and the beer flows through the night. It’s the midst of the competition, when the hearts are pumping and the eyes are focused, that won’t get Barney singing anytime soon.
If you check Wikipedia, you’ll see that the All Blacks had won eight of the previous twelve Tri Nations Cups (and if you blur your eyes, Australia’s flag starts to look like New Zealand’s, which gives the Kiwis a couple more wins). So it should have come as little surprise that the All Blacks came into 2008 as odds-on favorites yet again.
With South Africa’s hopes quickly going the way of the Tasmanian Tiger, Australia ended up hosting New Zealand in last month’s final. Attempting not to singe my stir fry, I flipped the television on just as the players began their pre-game jog. I watched the behemoths striding and secretly wondered if my Pilates would ever get me to look like that. (Nope.)
And then, as I took my first bite of burned noodles, the crowd got silent. Across from the checkered All Blacks, the Wallabies lined up, not dissimilar to an old-school firing range. And something strange, something eerie, something blood-curdling began.
The haka.
It’s as if the All Blacks were held by Lucifer’s highly-choreographed minions, bulging their eyes, sharpening their teeth, and turning these He-Men into terrors of the night.
As I sat in a dread-driven stupor, I found extremities going cold and my organs beginning to shut down. How did the indigenous people explain the terror of European guns? How could the Japanese express their horror of Godzilla? How will you tell your kids about Paris Hilton?
There are places where English comes up short. Embarrassingly, as I’m an English major, this was one such instance.
Needless to say, the Wallabies rolled over quicker than a 1998 Ford Explorer. With tries falling, scrums writhing, and muscles that seemed ready to burst, New Zealand ran roughshod over the poor Australian blokes, easily capturing the Tri Nations Cup for the ninth time in 13 years.
Ever since I witnessed this rugby drubbing, away from the safety of a loving family or supportive Thresher staff, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that the All Blacks are out there, roaming, sacking, and pillaging the Australian landscape. And there’s nothing I, nor anyone else, can do about it.
I never get anything in the mail. It's quite the sad sight, seeing me approach my mailbox, a gleam in my eye that hey, maybe today will be different. But, as always, that gleam turns into a tear, and a little piece of my heart breaks off every time the aluminum (or, Australianly, 'aluminium') box remains barren. I can only imagine that the residents next to the mail enclave have started a drinking game, imbibing every time I dejectedly walk away.
Fortunately, the US government has my back. (That's probably the most oxymoronical statement you can find, but bear with me.)
For those of you wearing earmuffs and living under a rock in Fallujah, the presidential election is fast approaching. And after years of watching cool cable news graphics of George W. Bush's slams on Gore and Kerry - I was too young to remember Clinton saxophoning his way past Dole in '96 - I can finally vote.
And, boy, have I taken full advantage of it. If Sarah Palin can claim she's keeping Tina Fey in business, then I can say that I've been keeping cnn.com, politico.com, and time-blog.com/swampland/ in the black for a good couple months.
Sadly, upon arrival Down Under, my lethargy had gotten the best of me, and my absentee forms were still like Palin's opinions on the Bush Doctrine: blank. Finally, an email from my Dad prompted me to make my opinions heard, and thus, the process officially began.
The last two week were remarkable in every aspect - including the ironic fact that the first Victorian book I read, The Moonstone, I left in a hostel - so, needless to say, the ballot's arrival slipped my mind. It just wasn't on my mind. (What was? Training Day, which I had watched the night before. Seriously, Denzel should be cast as Greg Oden in the Blazer's biopic. Can you imagine Oden, after slamming the ball over Yao Ming, screaming "King Kong ain't got shit on me!"? But I digress....) With that ever-returning gleam still nestled in my eyes, I keyed the door to my mailbox, saw that there was more than just metal and darkness, and tried to swallow my heart back down (it tends to get lodged in my throat during instances of wonder).
There it was. My ballot. My ballot. (Go get your own!)
Time to vote.
So why did I do it? Why go to the effort of voting for a candidate who has the state locked up? Why spend $2.35 - which could easily buy me, oh, nearly half of a beer - on the required postage? Why even bother on becoming a drop in the ocean? Well, it's simple: It's my right. My ancestors didn't immigrate to the United States seeking an oppressive dictatorship - they sought the means to fight injustice (whoops, that's Bruce Wayne) to make their voice count in a constructive, worthwhile manner. They came here because the freedom to vote was attainable, unique, and new. They came here because they wanted to have a say in my existence, in my future, and in my happiness. Through voting, I can ensure that I perpetuate their purpose, and I honor the commitments they made for me and my countrymen.
But my reasoning doesn't stop there. Not long ago, I interviewed my born-in-1917 grandmother about her experiences during the 1960s. The talk naturally turned to her years leading up to that decade, and I remember her telling me that she couldn't recall whom she voted for when first casting a ballot. That fact, bless my grandmother's heart, resonated with me, and she helped me learn from her experience to never forget which candidate I believed in most (or which I believe was the lesser of two evils, depending on perspective). Thus, with my vote and voice now delivered, I will be able to relay to my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren (yes, Mom, I eat my vegetables, so I'll still be around) that I participated early, and I participated often.
Lastly, there's a a reason which, unfortunately, didn't come to my attention until one of the literary and journalistic greats of our time passed away. David Foster Wallace, who took his own life but a few weeks ago, was highly-praised and much-heralded for his clever insight and deep and constructive writing style. I hadn't read anything by him until he was no longer with us, but now that I have, his previously meaningless death now carries weight. The best piece I've found comes from Rolling Stone Magazine, circa 2000, when Wallace tailed McCain's "Straight Talk Express" in the days leading up to the South Carolina Primary. I would highly recommend reading the entire piece - it would only take 30 minutes of your time to see how far the (ahem) mighty have fallen - but this excerpt will sum up why, especially as a young voter, casting your ballot carries added meaning:
"If you are demographically a Young Voter, it is again worth a moment of your valuable time to consider the implications of [not voting]. If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who are not dumb and are keenly aware that it's in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV Spring Break on Primary Day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote." [Thanks to Common Sense Dancing for the link.]
Perpetuating my ancestor's and my country's integrity, being honest with my children, and eliminating the doubling of another vote. That's why I did it. (Well, that, and keeping McCain's "goodies" out of the White House. Side note: After watching that video, since when does the ATL crew hang out at car washes?)
And, honestly, I haven't been prouder of myself in a good, long while.
Actually, I may have been prouder today, as I finally got back my first big papers of the term. Since writing comes pretty naturally to my keyboard (I'm just the button-masher - he's the real hero), I've always done better in essay-intensive courses than with multiple choice, memorize-the-mass-of-the-Earth tests. With my returned papers, obviously, came the grades, and instantly I was thrown back into the days of impossible-to-get-an-A Catlin Gabel high school. I hadn't seen numbers - yes, they do percentages here; don't ask me how - this low since I checked the Mariners' 2008 winning percentage. I cringed, I grimaced, I questioned. Had I really slacked off that much since I'd arrived?
Well, yeah - but then I realized I was forgetting something.
Australia is a wonderful place. It's got those fluffy marsupials, an easy-tan sun, and people who care nothing for enunciating. And it's also got the toughest grading system I've ever encountered, difficult enough to make a dingo wail and thorough enough to send a Death Adder into hiding.
My papers served as a case in point. It looked like a miniature samurai, with a pencil instead of a sword, had gone to town on the pages. Scribbles here, curlicues there - a plethora of criticism reigned down in a fiery ball of question marks and rewording, and my essays ended up more graphite than ink.
Fortunately for me (and every other American student in my classes) with Australia's stringent grades come lowered expectations. That's why anything above 85% is an A+, above 75% is an A, etc., etc. To paraphrase a friend of mine, it's like everything is on a permanent curve.
So if you heard some hurricane-like gusts rattling your windows today, that was just my sigh of relief.
WHEW.
Now, back to slacking off.
Video of the day!
It is such, such a good time to be a Blazers fan. This is Rudy Fernandez, a newly-minted Blazer, turning two-time All-Star Dwight Howard into his own personal ironing board.
Even though I'm out of the States, this whole intertubeweb thing has kept me pretty abreast with the sports of my homeland. So...
With the NBA season fast approaching, let's take a peek at how the 30 squads will compare to one another. And for all you cinephiles out there, try to spot the movie reference accompanying each team (which will be about as difficult as making Manu Ginobli flop)!
Atlantic Division
1. Boston Celtics, 58-24: With Rajon Rondo’s post-season ascension, a clever media takes to calling him, KG, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen the Fantastic 4. Following the script, Rondo, as the Invisible Woman, will end up marrying Garnett in this year’s sequel.
2. Philadelphia 76ers, 45-37: Looming larger than life in his new town, Philly fans and teammate look in awe at the terrifying Elton Brand. With zero fourth-quarter assists on the year, it’s apparent no one wants to take the Monster’s Ball, at least not with the game on the line.
3: Toronto Raptors, 43-39: Rumor has it Andrea Bargnani, the No. 1 pick from 2006, underwent an intense offseason workout regimen. Secretly, though, Bargnani has been training as an undercover assassin, as succeeding in the NBA not something he ever really Wanted (as evidenced by last season’s abysmal performance).
4: New Jersey Nets, 34-48: On a new squad and still utilizing incomprehensible English, Yi Jianlian continues his transformation into Wall-E by befriending one of the Continental Airlines Arena cockroaches (and, in a scientific find of the decade, inadvertently discovering actual vegetation in North Jersey).
5: New York Knicks, 12-70: Stephon Marbury’s downward spiral continues as the point guard claims he goes spelunking in the nude, eats live pigeons before gamedays, and actually enjoyed The Happening. Somewhere, Freud and Isiah Thomas smile.
Central Division
1. Cleveland Cavaliers, 52-30: With a swift rebuke from Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, King James comes clean on his future in Cleveland: Will he stay? “Definitely, (Maybe).”
2. Detroit Pistons, 50-32: After Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince, and Rip Hamilton all retire to form a break-dance troupe, “The Motown Movers,” first-year Pistons coach Michael Curry looks to Rodney Stuckey to Step Up. Stuckey feels the beat, leading the Pistons back to the Eastern Conference Finals.
3: Chicago Bulls, 40-42: Seeking Atonement for last year’s horrific implosion, Joakim Noah offers to sacrifice his hair, turning it into some Hot Fuzz via blowtorch. (Oh man, two movies for the price of one Joakim Noah-has-awful-hair joke! Sweet!)
4: Milwaukee Bucks, 31-51: Still smarting from his team’s humiliating loss to the USA in the Olympics, Andrew Bogut, a native of Australia, retaliates by sending every member of the Redeem Team live crocodiles. And thus, the legacy of Steve Irwin lives on.
5: Indiana Pacers, 18-64: This team’s highest-paid players, in order, are Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, and Rasho Nesterovic. Is Will Ferrell filming a sequel to Semi-Pro, or does Larry Bird just not care anymore?
Southeast Division
1. Atlanta Hawks, 59-23: With Josh Childress soaking up the Hellenic rays, general manager Rick Sund has a midseason Nightmare Before Christmas when he dreams that the former Hawk’s ’fro is still taking up cap space.
2: Washington Wizards, 49-33 In a recent blog entry, Agent Zero asks his fans to share a Quantum of Solace for his brittle legs before every home game. Deshawn Stevenson pleads for the same, as multiple fungi have started taking over his beard. (Meanwhile, Jay-Z formulates a ‘Yo, Dat Fungus is Humongous’ riff.)
3: Miami Heat, 46-36: Stealing the cape from his in-state neighbor, Dwyane Wade uses the 2008-09 season to show that when Superman Returns, he does so with a vengeance. (Plus, Chris Quinn could pull off a Lex Luthor, don’t you think?)
4. Orlando Magic, 31-51: After being on the wrong end of Rudy Fernandez’s Olympic YouTubery, Dwight Howard switches superhero personas but regresses more than Sam Raimi did with Spiderman 3 as the Magic fall from playoff contention.
5: Charlotte Bobcats, 30-52: With apathy and approaching senility, Larry Brown spends most of the season lounging on the Carolina coast, earning the moniker of Old Man and the Sea. To everyone’s surprise, Adam Morrison eventually grows a beard and wins a Hemingway look-alike contest.
Pacific Division
1. Los Angeles Clippers, 60-22: The Life of Brian Skinner entails many things, such as riding the pine, picking up Baron Davis’ water bottles, and cowering from the Cloverfield monster, Marcus Camby. And although no one knows who Skinner is, at least he’s not as ugly as Chris Kaman!
2. Los Angeles Lakers, 58-24: With Pau as Brian, Odom as Champ, Kobe and Ron, and Bynum as Brick, this Laker squad succeeds both on the court and in the newsroom. (What, you didn’t know Phil Jackson coaches Anchorman reenactments in his spare time?)
4: Sacramento Kings, 48-34: Kevin Martin plays out of his brain, sneaking his surprising team to the second round of the playoffs. As congratulations, Shaq sends K-Mart a copy of The Queen.
3: Golden State Warriors, 41-41: After being axed as the Warriors’ mascot, “Thunder” finds success of the set of the upcoming Smurfs film, awkwardly playing Smurfette’s sexy pool boy.
5: Phoenix Suns, 28-54: Looking to reclaim the run’n’gun offense from the departed Mike D’Antoni, Steve Nash and company average 299 points for the season. Unfortunately, their opponents average 300.
Southwest Division
1. Houston Rockets, 64-18: In order to protect his (deep breath) back, neck, shoulders, wrist, knee, ankle, and hamstrings, T-Mac constructs a protective suit of gold alloy for game-day. Much to his chagrin, the non-element-savvy media still tags him as Iron Man.
2. New Orleans Hornets, 60-22: Now that people actually recognize him, David West lies awake at night, just waiting for someone to come forward and produce a picture of his 1987-89 stint as a Jerry-curled Wedding Singer. Think Calvin Murphy, but with falsetto.
3: Dallas Mavericks, 43-39: Using the Pineapple Express to take his game to the highest level, Josh Howard helps Dallas smoke out the regular-season competition. (Not to be blunt, but Howard also loves the ganja.)
4: San Antonio Spurs, 29-67: Trying to will his way past stale teammates and an aging core, Tim Duncan toughens up and adopts the moniker of American Gangster. However, people quickly remember he’s from the Virgin Islands, and the Big Easy reverts to being softer than a marshmallow Peep.
5: Memphis Grizzlies, 22-60: As brother of Pau, Marc Gasol may always be considered Almost Famous, but he reaches the apex of Google searches when he stands on top of the FedEx Forum and screams, “I am a golden god!”
Northwest Division
1. Utah Jazz, 56-26: After carrying the Russian flag through the Opening Ceremonies, Andrei Kirilenko decides to continue the tradition at all Jazz home games. Alas, David Stern is a big fan of Red Dawn, and quickly nixes Skeletor’s Kirilenko’s idea.
2. Portland Trail Blazers, 48-34: Calls are still out to Danny Glover, a Portland native, to portray Greg Oden in the sequel to The Rookie, so long as Glover can look a bit older.
3: Denver Nuggets, 41-41: Deciding that it was frugal to ride to Denver together on a moped, AI and ’Melo give new meaning to Dumb and Dumber when they decide to try some of Chris Andersen’s, um, “prescriptions” along the way.
4: Minnesota Timberwolves, 30-52: Kevin Love’s weight continues to balloon as the rookie devours anything he can get his hands on. Kevin McHale cringes when, during a road trip to NYC, Love mistakes the city’s power cords for black licorice and throws Gotham into The Dark (K)night.
5: Oklahoma City Thunder, 12-70: Acting out scenes from Superbad, the utter boredom of OKC leads Kevin Durant and Jeff Green to get the baby-faced Russell Westbrook, a.k.a. McLovin’, to buy them some booze. “The funny thing about my hook shot is that it’s located on my…”
Manager, in semi-amazement: 'Was that you out in the bush earlier? Me, flush-faced from the heat: 'Yeah, wanted to get some sun, see what was out there, you know.' Manager, hearing my American accent, understanding I'm an idiot: 'Yeah, we were watching you from the locomotive. Now, you know we have the three deadliest snakes out there, right?' Me: 'Uh….' Manager, returning to semi-amazement: 'Sometimes we see them scurry across the track, so we were really just waiting for you to go down out there.' Me, staring: '......'
Well, at least they were looking out for me. — Spent 14 hours (traveling between Uluru/Kings Canyon/Kata Tjuta and Alice) in a car befriending a native Moldovan, and Italian technician, a Melbournian surfing dude and his travel agent quasi-girlfriend, a University of Arizona entrepreneur, a drunkardly tour-guide-in-training, a Buddhist/Aboriginal tour guide (who had taken private lessons from the Dalai Lama himself), and about 10 Japanese folks whose sole purpose seemed to be to sleep (and entertain us when their heads dropped and rose in unison). — Actually completed - and enjoyed - a Victorian novel. The Moonstone, which T.S. Eliot ignorantly called ‘the first and best detective novel,’ kept me company through the long stretches of train-induced ennui, and was a thoroughly enjoyable read. It’s inspired my next trip: Traveling to India, stealing a palm-sized diamond, and seeing what kind of adventures follow me back to my English mansion. Hopefully, somewhere in there I’ll get to say, ‘Egads! The diamond has gone missing!’ — Known that ‘cockchafer’ was a word (check out Chapter 13 of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which I began after the close of The Moonstone). — Wanted another Darwin crocodile burger immediately after finishing off the first one. Halibut can’t hold water to this Mesozoic monster meat. — Putted around on the lush Mary Ricer, flanked by elegant Brolgas, towering Jabiru, flocks of magpie geese, and Rajdah Ducks who were seemingly ignorant of the toothy dangers lurking not far from shore. — Gazed, awe-struck at murdering machines, ravenous reptilian rapiers of regrettable repercussions, whose sole purpose in life is to wreak more havoc than (hopefully) Greg Oden: crocodiles. You can’t see it right now, but I’ve just broken out in a nervous sweat. Thankfully, I wasn’t the idiotic American of a few years ago who dove into the river to recover his memory card with a croc only 30 meters away. — Heard tales of ‘salties’ (salt-water crocs) actually devouring ‘freshies’ (fresh-water crocs) and displaying their prize for a smattering of lucky tourists. — Eaten the seeds of lilypads, chomped off the aphrodisiacal stem, and utilized the veiny, hairy top as a head-covering. And just like that, I learned how to survive in Kakadu National Park. — Felt like the humidity in Darwin could actually choke you. Houston has nothing on this town. — Explored the Darwin coastline’s Bicentennial Park, replete with palm fronds, squawking birds, and WWII memorials - the Japanese Pearl Harbor vets killed 292, including 91 on the USS Peary, on Feb. 19, 1942, and continued air raids through 1943. — Seen plaques commemorating Cyclone Tracy, which, on the night of Christmas Eve, 1974, razed 60% of Darwin and bulldozed the few 19th-century buildings left untouched by the Japanese. Fortunately, my Tracy only bulldozes my heart…which probably doesn’t sound as romantic as I wanted it to . — Met a former employee of Lehman Brothers, who not only lost his accrued bonuses (stock options), but also hasn’t cooked a meal in the last five years. Let’s hope he can figure out ramen. — Felt desensitized - to the expansive rain forest, dewy sunrise, and Mayan ruins giant stones we traversed on the 900-meter trek to Jim Jim Falls - by the most recent Indiana Jones flick. — Splashed in a fresh-water destination for the currently barren Jim Jim Falls (who will awaken with the wet season in a few weeks), surrounded by sociable fish, magmatized sandstone rocks, and a concave tower of sheer rock 110 meters high, creating optical illusions and a sense of swimming in Narnia. — Failed to fathom what 5,000-year old artwork truly meant. Such a span is not only aged, but aged beyond compare. Maybe when I’m my parents’ age I’ll appreciate such ancientness more. Until then, I’ll just be glad I trekked across some hills where Crocodile Dundee was filmed. — Banged across a road of rock and emptiness for nearly two hours, feeling like I was unwillingly giving my seat a lapdance. (Unfortunately, no money changed hands.) — Created new, wonderfully non-linear tan lines on my back - seen by my tour group, a chatty kingfisher, and much of the city of Darwin - after I had explored Twin Falls. Fortunately, I shelled out for a t-shirt, although the selection was limited to beer advertisements and sexual innuendo. — Had someone recognize a Rice Owls hat (thanks Jon and Beth!) while I, with nothing better to do, strolled to a screening of Eagle Eye. — Had two Korean girls, who both spoke with broken English, titter to one another after they heard my name. ‘Casey’s a girl’s name!’, they laughed. Using that as inspiration, I’ve formulated the motif of the start of my autobiography: investigating how many people named Casey are gentlemen and scholars (such as my ego-stroking self). — Listened to so much damn Colplay in my life (so much for putting random songs on my iPod shuffle). — Stared up at a 65-year old, six-meter high termite mound. Since vacated, we couldn’t decide if the tower was the termite government’s high-rise project or actually a once-catchy abode that had fallen on hard times. — Spent two week traveling through the southern pastorals, central deserts, and northern rain forests of Australia, with no companions, no shaving, no cell phones (save for wishing Tracy a happy 21st), and only one backpack - and finally realized that my study-abroad education was not going to be found in a classroom.
There is only one Beer Bike. This fact is as undisputable as Dennis Rodman’s insanity and as well-renowned as my obsession with One Tree Hill. Its uniqueness stretches from the days of the rise of the crewcut, and its future looks as bright as Megan Fox’s…smile. So when I start a sentence with “ BLANK was the equivalent of Beer Bike,” you know I’m only pandering to hyperbole. After all, how many events can lay claim to 7 a.m. wake-up calls, 10 a.m. water balloon fights, and 1 p.m. bike races behind the football stadium, all the while hosting a school’s worth of intoxicated college students looking to blow off mid-semester steam? Not many.
So yes, there is only one Beer Bike.
But with that disclaimer in mind, it is without hesitation that I declare yesterday’s Conception Day the equivalent of Beer Bike.
Celebrating the “birth” of Macquarie some 39 years ago, I was not as interested in the specific event managing of the party as I was on the fact that I was rudely woken up at 6 a.m., car horns blasting outside my window, informing me to begin my day. I’d heard rumors, inklings, and suggestions about the goings-on — check out YouTube for many of those sources — so it wasn’t difficult to tell how the festivities would begin.
With the sun blasting through the ozone layer, I made my way outside, only to be bombarded with footballs and sights of pool-hopping college students. Everyone was awake, and everyone was, ahem, having a good time.
As I meandered through the neighborhood, I found sombreroed roommates, half-naked hosts, and a table full of all the breakfast brisket I could ask for.
After having my fill of ketchup and beef, I counted the hours until the actual festival opened, passing the time through conversations and, uh, constant hydration.
Finally, the time came to head into campus, throw open the doors of Conception Day, and revel in the brilliant day that lay ahead. Although I’d seen the construction going on in the previous few days, I hadn’t paid attention to the details until I could finally scan the innards of the grounds. Situated next to the gleaming Macquarie Lake, a bright blue fence enclosed an area soon to house some 10,000 students, and house them in style. In a setting bringing together fifth grade excursions and collegiate explorations of musical underworlds, a giant gurney-sack slide stood in juxtaposition to the all-black stage, which housed everything from Aussie rap-metal to a pair of keyboardists offering calls-returns in French. (I can’t tell if it was a dream or an effect of my inebriated state, but at some point yesterday I wanted nothing more than to start studying French again.) As if that weren’t enough, an inflatable obstacle course beckoned me on multiple occasions, and I have the latex burns and torn pants to prove it.
Unfortunately, with the sun wearing me and my friends down earlier than we would have liked, and the day was called by 4 p.m., and an evening of couch-lying, Collateral-watching, and 10 p.m. bedtimes was in store.
As for the day after, I’m fully recovered — save for the painful obstacle course injuries — and am counting down the hours until I leave for my Melbourne-Adelaide-Kangaroo Island-Alice Springs-Uluru-Darwin-Kakadu adventure. Since I probably won’t have internet for the next two weeks, here’s hoping I’ve trained you all well enough to find your own political thoughts (here’s a good start) and funny tidbits, such as:
— By the end of the 19th century, Sears was marketing a sewing machine for $1. Customers who responded to the ad received a needle and thread. (Ha! You got served, middling housewives!) — After the escalators’ introduction, nurses were originally stationed at the top of to help customers with ‘light-headedness’ — ‘Chicago’ appears to be from an Indian word meaning ‘place that stinks of onions’ (and here I only thought the city stunk like the post-1908 Cubbies) — However, the Windy City’s not as bad as ‘Idaho,’ which apparently has no meaning whatsoever — Congressmen just liked it — The world’s largest streetcar track, peaking in size in 1922, was located in…(ironic drum-roll please)…Los Angeles! — Charles Lindbergh was not only a super-socialist, but he also wasn’t all that he purported to be. In 1919, eight years before the Spirit of St. Louis touched down outside Paris, John Alcock and Arthur Brown of Great Britain flew from Newfoundland to Ireland non-stop. (Still, Lindbergh’s achievement shouldn’t be totally forgotten: Because a spare fuel take had been bolted on to the nose, Lindbergh had no forward visibility, so to see where he was going he had to put his head out the side window.)
Anyway, I’ll be back with pictures, notes, and battle-wounds in just over two weeks. So until then, go forth and procreate make the world a better place.
N.B.: As you may have seen from my Facebook status yesterday, Conception Day just so happened to coincide with my parents’ 21st anniversary. There are some things that are eerie, there are some things that belong on the Twilight Zone, and then there’s that.
The worst decision I’ve ever made regarding Owl-themed restaurants
I don’t know why I did it. Honestly. I thought I had learned my lesson from the first experience, which had resulted in distended bowels, depression for society, and an exorbitant thinning of my wallet.
But for a reason that’s as unknown as the Tampa Bay Rays’ success, I decided to give Hooters another shot.
Ugh.
(That’s me, my stomach, and my determination-to-never-let-my-daughter-work-there speaking.)
I guess I can blame it on my friend Garrett, whose phone call jolted me out of a mid-day catnap and created a gnawing in my stomach. Or I could blame it on the emasculation I had incurred earlier yesterday, when, in yet another completely unfathomable move, I enrolled in a class called BodyJam. (For the sake of my remaining pride, I will spare you the gory details. Just think of any type of 20-person dance troupe, with mirrors, techno rap, and a coked-out instructor. Oh, and imagine it with only one guy.)
Ugh.
Whatever the reason, I realized that I couldn’t bail from Garrett’s invite. I couldn’t tell him that the last time I ate at Hooter’s, I was with a group of 10 testosterone-laced freshmen guys, all experiencing college in its fullness for the first time, all willing to go anywhere and do almost anything because, hey, that’s what college kids did, right? (Here’s lookin’ at you, Dad!) Plus, what red-blooded American male passes on the opportunity to relish scantily-clad women, hard at work to bring you, the ultimate chauvinist, a basket of delicious hot wings?
So with an hour-long bus- and train-ride under my belt, there were the doors of Hooters, glowing with televised sports and the waitresses’, uh, smiles. (In an ironic twist, we were actually seated by a Middle Eastern man. Not exactly to be expected, but I appreciate Hooters shaking things up a bit.) The bottomless pit on my gut, the relief of finally arriving at our destination, and the Cowboys-Eagles (replayed) game on the tube all convinced me that this time, gosh-darnit, I would actually enjoy Hooters. A taste of home, a friendly wait-staff, and some gullet-quenching wings would be the cure-all for the mid-week blues.
UGH.
Twenty grease packets (wings), two depressing conversations with the “waitress,” and one amazing moment where the Middle Eastern dude revealed he had no idea what Ranch dressing was later, I was wishing for nothing more than a stomach pump and a hit on the guys who started Hooters. I’m still recovering from the filth I shoveled into my mouth, and it disgusts me to know I have extras in my refrigerator.
And you know what the worst of all was?
I already knew the outcome of the football game.
Making the parents proud: Casey’s trip to court
I’m a good kid, right? I manage my time, juggling school, sleep, and showering, all while finding time to eat and update the blog, right? I would never do anything to end up on my Mom’s favorite show, “Judge Judy,” right? (Don’t ever call her cell phone from 5-6 p.m. on weeknights — check who’s on channel 12, and you’ll see why.)
If you answered “yes” to all of these questions, then, well, jeez, thanks, but those questions have no bearing on my recent court excursion. Yes, my knack for presenting misleading phrases got the best of me again — my field trip was for nothing more than a court report. Bet that’s not as exciting as thinking I mugged a guy, huh?
As I sat through the driveling and gavelling of the judge, the shrugs and shiftiness of the criminals, and the verbosity and (anti-)verisimilitude of the lawyers barristers, I couldn’t help but actually want to commit a crime, just to make things exciting.
But no, I sat dutifully by, jotting notes about “managing” versus “doing” justice. (All the while a bald, ’roided, shifty-eyed druggie kept looking over at my notes, and I was convinced he was going to knock me down just so he could have something to trade for cannabis.) The judge magistrate, red in the face, kept doling out sterner and sterner advice to the multiple drink-drivers (what they’re called in Australia), so much to the point that the final person to be heard broke down in tears while being sentenced.
...
Actually, that’s a lie, because that would have actually been something worth writing about. In reality, courts are little more than verbalized processors, doing in twenty minutes what my hard-drive could do in a half-second. All the Draconian stipulations, all the dour looks, and all the never-ending repetitiveness made me glad I never went into law.
Instead, I went into English, where I’m now writing about law.
UGH.
And of course, for your viewing pleasure
With Tina Fey back in full force, here’s a little treat for those who missed it:
(If you haven't already gathered, I think Sarah Palin is a succubus who has entranced McCain and will devour his soul if they defeat Obama-Biden. Mike Murphy and Karl Rove wouldn't have it any other way.)
— I’ve got an impending STAT 280 course awaiting my return to Rice, so, since I’m as ignorant in statistics as Sarah Palin is in foreign affairs, I’m going to request an answer from those in the know: How many high schools are there in the Portland city limits? How many schools are there in the US that are a 3.5-hour drive from one another? And lastly, how many schools are there in Australia that are the same distance apart? Now, with those numbers in mind, what are the odds that someone would attend the same Portland high school, US colleges 3.5 hours apart and universities in Australia the same distance, all at the same time as one of their best friends from high school?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say the chances of that happening are about as small as those particles the scientists just created Earth-consuming black holes withsmashed together in Switzerland. (Hi Aunt Jeanne! Thanks for not ending the world! Roger Federer rules!)
Fortunately, in our century of globalization and insta-communication, the odds have grown to the point where such a miniscule occurrence can, and did, actually happen.
Yesterday, my good friend Kate made the 3.5 hours trek from Canberra — bastion of Aussie Parliament and, well, not much else — all the way to the heart of Sydney. Via texting and Facebook, I figured out her logistics, and sat patiently outside Town Hall to await her arrival. As usual, she nearly tackled me upon first sight — fortunately, she yelled out my name to make sure the guy turning her way was actually me — but I didn’t mind. To see someone from home so far away, in such a similar point in life, must have been one of the rarest occasions I’ve ever experienced. Originally, I thought it was mere stroke of luck that Kate and I would attend school so close together in the States (she at Trinity in San Antonio, me at Rice in Houston) — after all, how often two you find two Portlanders voluntarily spending four years of their life in Texas? (Following a San Antonio visit last spring at school, I can honestly say I got the raw end of the deal — I'm just happy I wasn’t in Houston to experience Ike’s flooding/wind damage/removal of showering privileges at Rice for the next few days. Ewww.)
Anyway, accompanied by her American and Australian friends, we ventured through downtown, buying gourmet cupcakes — $2! — and stumbling upon a Nepalese festival (have you ever tried busting a move to traditional Nepalese music?) before parting ways. It was great to reconnect, even for only a few hours. I promised I’d venture to Canberra — hopefully I’ll finally get the full story on that missing Prime Minister — so I’m sure it won’t be too long before me and Kate are hamming it up with Australian politicians over a pint of Toohey’s Extra Dry. And maybe if I’m lucky I can convince those politicos to give Americans monthly stipends, because I’m sure my Dad’s funding won’t last forever (because I just want to check out every seedy hostel I can!)
— Not too long ago I wrote about the atrocity known as Australian TV, ripping the Aussies’ best efforts to shreds and pining for the days of The Daily Show and its invalid offspring, The Colbert Report. Fortunately, I’ve since seen the error of my ways — literally. There’s a show here called Thank God You’re Here that, contrary to nearly everything else on the tube, Australia does better than America. It takes the set pieces of Who’s Line is it Anyway? but puts the comedians on a far bigger stage, with the actors completely ignorant to the situation into which they’re stepping. If that description doesn’t really paint the full picture, well, here you go.
Following TGYH comes a show which lambastes America, lampoons Kevin Rudd, and lampposts (?) everything else. The host goes by only Rove, and he is to Australia what Conan O’Brien, sans the red coif (did I really just use two French words?), is to the States. With Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as guests tonight — as both actors and innovators of the two-man pole vaulting competition — Rove was the first Australian talk show host to actually make me smile rather than cringe. Although my slow-as-a-obese-tortoise internet won’t load it, here’s a clip I’m going to assume is funny:
— I’ve been bored by cricket, with its endless rounds and meaningless tea breaks. I’ve been thrilled by Australia Rules Football, with its intriguing rules and penchant for thrills. But in the nearly two months since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen the sport Australians actually foam at the mouth for.
But last night, finally, finally, I got to watch some rugby. And when I say rugby, I mean, of course, the biggest, baddest, most pressure-packed game Australia has hosted since 2003.
With both the Tri-Nations Cup and the Bledisloe Cup on the line, Australia was playing the one team everyone, even Americans, know of.
The All-Blacks.
The love-child of lions and banshees. The most terrifying force known to man.
I shudder just thinking of them.
Is it too late to trade my Wallabies jacket in?
I’ll write more on the topic later, but I just want to let you all know I have a newfound appreciation for anyone willing to face down a group scarier than the ring-wraiths that terrorized Frodo. Pardon me while I go change my underpants. Yeesh, those guys are going give me nightmares.
For those wondering, the All-Blacks sent the Wallabies packing, maintaining their dominance that has stretched, I believe, since the beginning of time.
Boy, would I not want to be the Wallabies' therapist this week.
And now, for your reading pleasure, a scene from Lance Armstrong’s recent therapy session in which the chatty, highly-critical shrink dissects Lance’s recent decision to rejoin the Tour de France.
Tell me, Lance — who do you think you are? Michael Jordan?
Sure, you were both the greatest of your sport, bringing fans to their feet and royalty to their knees. And your names are both synonymous with complete success, although you never stuck your tongue out when crossing under L’Arc de Triomph. Your dedication to such a unique craft was unequaled and rewarded with the highest accolades Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon could ever bestow.
But MJ had it easy, Lance. He had actual teammates, not those punks you have out shoving rival riders to the side. He had Pippen, Horry, Kukoc, and the Worm. You have, what, Floyd Landis? The guy who blamed Jack Daniels on his failed drug test? Now, now, I’m not implying you doped too — you offered to post your lab results online, which is only fair — but to come back on a “team” sponsored by a city in Kazakhstan? Is this the sequel to Borat or something?
I know he got three more rings during the first comeback, but you gotta remember that MJ stayed in shape as a season-long promotion for the Birmingham Barons. You’ve merely toured the country (including Rice!) as a spokesperson for cancer research. Not exactly the most physically-exerting task, if you ask me.
And I don’t even need to remind you of MJ’s Washington Wizards campaign — although in fairness, at least you won’t have to team up with Kwame Brown.
Still, Lance, who do you think you are? Brett Favre?
Again, I see the resemblance — you’re both grizzled, you’ve both fought back from terrible adversity (you had testicular cancer, he’s from Mississippi), and you can both draw crowds bigger crowds than Woodstock.
But Favre’s decision to come back wasn’t without its share of problems, Lance. The guy’s return was more divisive than the Iraq War and Sarah Palin’s new haircut combined. There were cries of treason heard from the flowing hills of Appleton, Wisc., to the snow-covered cherry trees of Oshkosh, Wisc. And all the while the New York Jets, a team more forgotten than Roseanne Barr, were put back on the map. You’re not saying you want Roseanne back, are you, Lance?
Good.
But really Lance, who do you think you are? The premise for the show 90210?
Sure, you dabbled with Sheryl Crow, who seems pretty Californian. And you kinda look like Kirk Douglas, in the right light.
But you are a gunslinger from the Lone Star state, taking over the Texan throne that Roger Clemens vacated when he decided to let dudes stick needles in his butt. You and Beverly Hills go together as well as Shannon Doherty and the 21st century. (At least she’ll always have Scare Tactics to fall back on. Nope, wait, that’s hosted by Tracy Morgan now. Dang, things really aren’t looking up for ShanDo.)
So c’mon Lance, who do you think you are? Batman?
It’s been argued that the greatest graphic novel of all-time is Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Are you telling that you could be a retired, mid-50s Batman, still reeling from Robin’s demise but forcing yourself to face the Joker one last time? Actually, that may work — you’ve vanquished the French seven times now, so what harm is there in going for an eighth?
But here’s the thing, Lance — in TDKR, Batman’s hand is forced, and the Joker doesn’t quite make it. Are you implying you’d like to go mano-a-mano with French president Nicolas Sarkozy? I’m no bookie, but when a guy like Sarkozy can bed Carla Bruni —hi-yo! — he probably has a few tricks up his sleeve.
I’ll ask you one last time, Lance: Who do you think you are? Georgian territorial integrity?
I guess you’ve both been in the news recently, but really, how could you possibly compare yourself to a former Soviet Bloc? I don’t see you being trampled by Russian tanks. I don’t see Russian troops giving illegal passports or non-native currency to your breakaway provinces. And while you both have a fierce independent streak, I don’t think Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s eyes are nearly as blue as yours.
So Lance, even after all these comparisons, you’re telling me you still want to come out of retirement, crushing the dreams of those who thought a superstar might, for once, actually stay retired?
[Since I’ve hit a drag stretch in the last few weeks, caught between trips and, for whatever reason, focusing concertedly on homework - at least, more so than I’ve ever done at Rice - I’m going to go ahead and comment on a rather Americanized subject: football. I’m not the biggest pigskin fan out there - I can’t say I’m eagerly waiting to gain 400 lbs. and drink Miller Lite at 17-below in Lambeau Field - but, as an American, I feel it’s my red-blooded duty to have some sort of opinion on the king of sports. Here goes:]
Are you ready for some football?
Because I am. And so far, I’ve been about as satisfied as [insert some off-color comment about frequenters of the Amsterdam red light district, which is undergoing decentralization after numerous parents complained about the neighbors of their chosen day-care centers]. I know I’m in a different hemisphere, but 8 a.m. for the NFL Opening Day? Has anti-Americanism truly come to this?
No, I didn’t wake up. Not now, not before my trip, not once I return home (where I’ll find that I really, really like it when my parents take me out to eat, because that ‘stir fry’ I made tonight? Yeah, probably going to be buying Hot Pockets from here on out).
Getting up early is my own personal kryptonite. That’s the one reason I’m never running for president, never becoming a superhero, and never finding religion. The only thing I love more than sleep is fondue, but only in small doses. (Oops, let’s hope the girlfriend isn’t reading this.)*
So no, I’m not waking up at 8 a.m. for a dag-gum game of foosball.
But I will sit in front of a computer screen for three hours, watching lines appear ever thirty seconds with accompanying words and numbers running through the barebones details of the play. That’s right - I’ll GameCast it. Doesn’t that just sound deliciously mind-numbing?
Well, it is. But at least I can do it at noon, instead of the crack of 10:30 a.m.
The last two weekends I’ve partaken in this exercise in monotony, gaping at the molasses action happening on my screen. GameCast has a tendency for tedium - there are only so many plays in football, after all - but I’d never realized just how much of a leech the program is when it comes to football.
I’ve enjoyed GameCasting Mariners games in the past, seeing just how much Jose Lopez’s knees would have buckled on that 14” drop from Joe Nathan or just how fat that Carlos Silva changeup was that Dustin Pedroia parked over the Green Monster (let’s hope the Otts read this post!) Of course, baseball - like cricket, I’ve learned - is packed to the rafters with game-time numbers: ERA, pitch speed, contract extensions, number of fans eating hot dogs, number of fans eating hot dogs without mustard. You name it, there’s a number for it. (Not that that’s a good thing, as someone far wiser than I wrote last semester .)
But with GameCasted football, there’s a play, there’s a gain-loss, and then there’s a single line that goes on the field. No info on the tackle, or on the route, or even on the coach’s (hopefully maniacal) reaction. It’s like Ebenezer Scrooge is running the GameCast, and I’m a member of the Tiny Tim brigade hoping for one of Mr. Scrooge’s half-pence. And now I know I’ve become too engrossed in my Victorian Lit course, because I just made a Dickens reference in a sports commentary. Whoa.
‘Ah, silly Casey,’ you may think. ‘You simply fail to understand how economical a policy this is! That GameCast wants to save energy during this era of uncertainty should be lauded, not derided!’
Yeah, and Colonel Sanders actually served in the military. Sorry to burst your bubble, but GameCast, just like the Chicken King himself, is only interested in shortcuts and shortchanging the viewer/chicken sandwich muncher.
Anyway, after all this ranting about GameCast, there’s gotta be some reason I kept my eyes glued, mouth agape, and voice clutched these past couple weekends, right?
Right.
Rice football.
No, not the grain version of America’s No. 1 sport. I’m talking Rice University, the land of Beer Bike and the home of the Buckyball. And, for the past few decades, a school where the only time a Rice student stumbled across the team was when (s)he was searching for a punchline.
From 1962-2006, Rice didn’t make a single bowl game. Not one. From the year Kennedy announced we were heading to the moon (which, as any Rice administrator is happy to point out, was proclaimed at Rice’s football stadium**) to the year that I dove onto a tarp of oatmeal during O-Week, Rice’s postseason hopes were as serious as Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign.
Little did I understand the team’s abject failure before my oatmeal swan dive, but I certainly saw the implications firsthand when I cheered Rice on to the 2006 New Orleans Bowl against Troy. Looks like I was the good-luck charm. (Or was it the fact that I was forced to chug lukewarm, hair-filled water under the Houston moonlight only a few weeks? See, there’s a reason why I now refuse to chug anything.)
After being trumped by then-coach Todd Graham - only two days after signing a contract extension, the two-timer bolted for the Tulsa head coaching vacancy - Rice regressed to the mean during 2007. A 3-9 campaign was not what either the players or the new coach, the amiable, over-stuffed David Bailiff, had in mind.
Expectations were middling heading into this year. A bowl game was hoped for, but by no means anticipated. We had a gunslinger on wheels in quarterback Chase Clement - the guy led the team in rushing yards last year, for cripes sake - and the miniscule marauder of miraculous mitts, 5’9” receiver Jarett Dillard, who very nearly broke the record for consecutive games with a touchdown (and if that’s not enough, was the valedictorian of his high school). Although we don’t have a running game to speak of, Chase and Dillard are enough offense for the entire Bayou City - the two have combined for 36 touchdowns over their career, good for fifth (!!!) all-time in the NCAA. These two were tied to Rice from early on: Only the Owls recruited Dillard, while Army and Rice fought for Chase, a San Antonio native. Rumor has it that one take at the cold of the Northeast brought him scampering back to Houston. (Right, because I’m sure he loved the humidity. Whatever you say.)
Chase and JD have become something of campus legends these past couple years, leading Rice back to a place that only the geriatrics remember. They were joined last year by a He-Man of epic proportions, whose biceps could rival my gut for girth and yet who, as a freshman, found himself with a wife, a legal drinking age, and a fastball in the lower-mid ’90s. James Casey, or ‘Thor’ to those in the know, wasn’t exactly your typical frosh. At 23, Casey had spent the past five years playing professional baseball, but never cracking into the Bigs. With a body based on Hercules but no real football past - baseball had been his life, after all - Rice was going out on a limb when they gave him a shot.
And he hasn’t disappointed. As a “utility back,” the monster is a goal-line favorite at running back, the backup quarterback, and, as a receiver, the Conference USA Player of the Week.
This isn’t his first accolade, but the fact that he ended up with the award brings me squarely back to GameCast.
Two weeks ago, Rice squashed Southern Methodist University and their new savior coach, June Jones, Hawaii’s former offensive mastermind, by a score of 56-27. Somehow, Chase found the endzone with six throws, three of which JD corralled. I didn’t actually see the catches, per se, but I’d witnessed enough of their connections in the past to have a pretty solid picture.
But that was easy. That was in front of our home crowd, under the lights of ESPN, against a team in the throes of transition.
Memphis, on the other hand, is a different story. With a huge crowd at the Liberty Bowl, a formidable offense and a penchant for breaking the heart of the Owls’ faithful, Rice had its work cut out.
So when I turned on my computer at noon, I wasn’t surprised to find Rice down 35-20 in the middle of the second half. Disappointed, but not surprised.
No, the surprise came later. There was Rice, down 35-28 with only minutes left, the ball icon on their side but pinned deep in their own territory. There were a couple small bars, denoting Rice’s meager gains. And then there was a bar of three inches - three inches - with James Casey’s name attached.
Whoa. A 47-yard reception. Casey just broke the record for total receiving yards in a game, with 208. We’re back in the game. And, as you can imagine, the script wrote itself, as Chase, a few plays later, scrambled into the endzone with 1:15 left.
All tied up, according to the ‘scoreboard’ at the top of GameCast. Let’s hope this program is trustworthy.
Memphis got the ball back with less than a minute left, and, in what’s been an Achilles heel since the days of Troy (oh snap, that’s a double-reference: Rice’s bowl game opponent and the mythical home of Achilles), Rice gave up yardage. Lots of it. Lots of it. Memphis was within smelling distance of field goal range with under 20 seconds left.
And then, when I least expected it GameCast rewarded my hours of patient staring, intelligence-murdering weariness, and desperate yearning for actually video footage. There was a blue bar, but it wasn’t three inches, like Casey’s. No, this one was four inches.
Chris Jammer had intercepted a pass. And. He. Went. All. The. Way. (69 yards for the touchdown. 11 seconds left. The game was over.)
Thank you, GameCast. You broke down the game in ways that analysts can only imagine. You parsed the superfluous, picked out the unnecessary, and left me with what the game was about.
Rice 42, Memphis 35.
I’ll never chide GameCast again.
*Actually, I just realized there is one way I’d roll myself out of bed in the morning: In addition to an all-u-can-eat buffet of fondue, I would be willing to watch Tom Brady suffer a season-ending injury, just like he did last Sunday. Now that I would wake up to see. After all, Gisele’s not going to want to stay with a cripple, is she?
Now I really hope the girlfriend isn’t reading this.
**Kennedy propped up his argument with this quip: “Why does Rice play Texas? Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” And that, my friends, is why Rice football will never enjoy an undefeated season. Unless I watch it all on GameCast…?
I chosea bad semesterto take offfor my Australian adventure. (If you can't tell, these are all links. Make sure to check out the poll on the Facebook page. You'll understand. It looks like Gavin Degraw is may be coming to Rice, and I'm not going to be there. This is a guy who is arguably my favorite musician of all time, a guy whose music my girlfriend transcribed for piano as a birthday gift, and I'm not going to get to meet him. Arg.)
Unlike my American counterparts, the Aussie students here at Macquarie have the fortune of a free TV set in every common room. And with that comes the added bonus of Australian TV, right?
Well, not so much. As my Aussie housemate opined, "Aussie TV is shit."
You know that old adage that if a million monkeys were given enough time, they could write The Da Vinci Code? It seems that those monkeys have escaped and invaded the Australia TV studios. Whether the "Deal or No Deal" host tries to lighten things up with a fart joke or the CSI wannabes talk oh-so-frivolously about cooking class - while a murderer is on the loose! - it seems that the Aussies should really stick to kangaroo hunting.
Fortunately, we get our fair share of American TV populating the airwaves. Not only does Law & Order give everyone a great impression of my home (Direct, semi-joking quote: "Dude, Casey, how can you live there?" My response: "You buy a gun."), but all those great Fox comedies, starring heavy hitters like Brad Garrett and, uh, that other guy whose show got canceled after one season, well, they really just make me feel like I'm home.
Still, there is one thing I miss. I may not be, as Bill O'Reilly once said, a member of the "lazy, pot-smoking, Doritos-crunching demographic that keeps the show on air," but boy, do I love The Daily Show. It's not aired Down Under - I don't think the Aussies would appreciate Supreme Court nude photos - but with the invention of the interwebs, I'm not without some home-grown funny.
Anyway, the point of this post is what The Daily Show does best. Enjoy!
Before I came to Australia, I’ve never wanted to chug vegemite, punt a joey, or jump naked into a pool of hammerheads.
Then again, before I came to Australia I’d never watched cricket, either.
But after a cricket-filled afternoon last weekend, I’m sure I’d do anything to avoid watching it again, including snorting a funnel-web spider. Because, my friends, the rumors are true — cricket is really that mind-numbingly, tear-jerkingly, face-cringingly boring.
And trust me, I know boring sports. I got plenty of flak in high school for being a baseball fan. “After all,” they would say, “isn’t baseball just a dreary ol’ ‘pastime,’ brimming with fatsos and unathletic dimwits? Can any game where Marshmallow Man-ny Ramirez thrives really be considered a ‘sport?’
Since I wasn’t on the debate team, my responses generally utilized the phrase “your mom” (and if you’ve met me, you know that still rings true). But if I had better prepared my insult-ability, I would have simply carried the rulebook for the “sport” of cricket, doling it out to those who considered baseball tedious and tiresome.
Actually, on second thought, I probably would have brought someone who knows the rules, because to a layman like myself, cricket is about as understandable as a drunk Nigerian discussing quantum physics.
Through TV sessions and those random grad students on the IM Fields — who show up, unfailingly, every Saturday afternoon — I’ve pieced together a couple things about cricket, but you’ll have to bear with me. It looks like a batter, wielding a spanking paddle and a fencer’s helmet, takes a swing at a speeding, bounding ball, which is thrown by the pitcher. Actually, thrown isn’t the right term; “windmilled” is more like it. These pitchers, affectionately called “bowlers,” look like they belong in a ballet troupe as they contort their bodies into all kinds of artistic, unnatural poses.
So this batter, standing in front of some broken sticks, spanks the ball, sending it anywhere on the field — in front, behind, it doesn’t really matter — and runs about twenty feet away to some more broken sticks. The teams rinse, lather and repeat for days on end, until for some reason they switch sides. Once the squads have had enough naptimes, they count their “overs,” “runs,” and, I’m assuming, gallons of tea consumed, to determine which side came out on top.
Got that? Nope, neither do I.
But the Aussies sure do.
Since the land Down Under is a Commonwealth country, cricket has reigned supreme since the first convicts murdered and pillaged their way here 200 years ago. The Australia national “Test” cricket team is tied with Britain for the oldest in the world, dating back to 1877.
In the subsequent 130 years, the Aussies have become the most dominant force this side of RoboCop. They’ve taken the last three Cricket World Cups and, in a streak the Redeem Team can barely fathom, have won 29 straight World Cup matches.
But their success isn’t a recent phenomenon. The greatest batsman of all time, Donald Bradman, received a massive 100th birthday celebration a couple weeks ago, including the minting of a commemorative $5 Australian coin. The only downside? Bradman died seven years ago. Still, that didn’t stop 400 people from eating his cake.
With a position in the national spotlight, you’d think Australians would be proud to claim the best cricket team in the world, right? Eh, not so much. In fact, it’s the one thing all the travel brochures seem to skim over. There are the pictures of the rough-and-tumble rugby players, the cute koalas, and the picturesque Opera House, but nothing of the white-clothed cricketers and their spanking sticks. Could it be that the Aussies are finally coming around to how much this sport makes its audience want to tear its hair out?
Perhaps not, because as an Aussie TV commentator decreed the other day, “A nation isn’t civilized until it plays cricket.” Ouch. But, by golly, if me and my fellow Americans aren’t civilized, then so be it. In comparison to its Australian cousin, our game of baseball is like a sport-gasm, as exciting as Christmas morning and as exhilarating as your first kiss. There’s no way a country like ours will ever deign to the boredom, tedium, and monotony of cricket, nor will we ever approach that level with any of our other homegrown sports.
With the closing ceremonies last weekend, the Beijing Olympics have officially come to a close. These Games featured their share of exhilarating victories, devastating defeats, and questionable antics, just like the Olympiads of yore. So, barring any unforeseen Russian invasions of Georgian locker rooms, let’s see what we’ve learned: — The producers of Entourage had it backward: Michael Phelps, not Adrian Grenier, should have auditioned for the role of Aquaman. And just imagine how many more medals he would have won if he’d grown a Mark Spitz mustache? — After sweeping the medal stand, the U.S. women’s saber team should be sent to sort out the mess in Afghanistan. — The U.S. softball team needs to start preparing now if they want to reclaim that gold that Japan stole. Oh, wait…. — Pixar should partner with whoever put on the 55-second clip of the Opening Ceremony fireworks barrage, as long as the Chinese government lets them out of the basement. — Handball needs to catch on in America as badly as John McCain needs to come clean on his Viagra use. Actually, on second thought, that analogy is gross. My bad. Anyway, handball is awesome. — Usain Bolt, who showed that a steady diet of Chicken McNuggets doesn’t always leave you looking like an orca, should challenge Soulja Boy to a dance-off. — The underwater camera angles during the women’s water polo matches make me feel dirty. And not in a good way. — Ronaldinho is as unattractive as ever, but my oh my can he play fútbol. — The only thing that could rival U.S. gymnast Shawn Johnson for sheer compactness is a black hole (bet you didn’t think you’d see an astronomical reference in this column, huh?) — I hope it’s not too late for Coach K to recruit Kobe — who still has four years of eligibility, right? — to Duke. — I miss the Hamm brothers’ Rugrats impressions real voices. — The Chinese character for “13-year-old gymnast” is actually the same as “If you Google ‘Darfur’ one more time, you probably shouldn’t fall asleep tonight.” — It’s really hard to not make a joke about Tyson Gay dropping his partners stick in the 4x100 relay. — Anyone who devotes enough time to ping pong table tennis to be able to make the ball spin both ways on one shot, well, they should really get out more. — Speed-walking is as much a sport as speed-crawling, speed-crab-walking, or speed-knitting. C’mon, Jacques Rogge, this is in the Olympics, but dodgeball isn’t? — If I hear one more ripoff of the Olympic slogan, I’ll go Citius, Altius, Fortius Chuck Norrius on your ass. — While in Australia, you really shouldn’t make fun of the fact that they call their soccer team the “Olyroos,” or they’ll sic Russell Crowe on you. — Whoever designed the Bird’s Nest must have been going for the “what-if-a-building-was-attacked-by-Spiderman” aesthetic. — Those competing in the archery contests should challenge Legolas to a fight. I’d have money on the elf, but I’m sure it’d be interesting. — The irony that China’s 1.3 billion couldn’t even fill most of the Olympic venues nearly made my head explode. — Funmi Jimoh proved that not all Rice students go on to become bookish engineers, struggling English majors, or, um, Lance Berkman. — The highlight of the equestrian competition is making a horse switch its lead foot. Pardon me while I go watch paint dry. — Big Papi and Brian Urlacher should strongly consider badminton in the 2012 London Games. If those Vitamin Water commercials are any indication, they’ll do better than our zero male representatives during these Games. — The rifle-shooting competitors would be really good Halo hustlers. — Armenian women have taken up the mantle that the East German female weightlifters abandoned 20 years ago. Seriously, BALCO must also stand for “Ballsy Armenian Ladies Coming Over!” — And last but not least, if any of you aspire to sing the Chinese National Anthem as a buck-toothed seven-year-old girl, it’s time to look for a different vocation.
Do you guys remember the show Fear Factor? You know, where they would base jump while eating kittens? The one where the host's neck was thicker than a tree trunk and whose mom probably drank when she was pregnant?
Yeah, that show can’t hold a candle to what they do at the Australian Reptile Park.
Maybe the lab technicians there wouldn't scarf down raw goat brain or bathe themselves in cockroaches, but I'm pretty sure none of the contestants on the show would submit themselves to stealing the venom from arguably the most poisonous spider in the world. Which is exactly what goes down at this park — milking funnel-web spiders.
Before you imagine that these spiders resembled engorged cows, which is the same picture I had, know that the term 'milking' is used lightly here. In fact, a more proper term would be, 'situate yourself on the other side of tourist-protecting glass, open top of funnel-web home, nudge cold-blooded (literally!) killer a couple times, and then vacuum drops of venom that has eliminated 13 people, including seven children, in the last 100 years. Oh, and make sure to wear a headset so you can tell all the ogling, uneducated tourists what exactly you're doing.' (If people think driving while talking on a cell phone is dangerous, please don't tell them this story.)
Yes, it was thrilling. No, the spider didn't leap at the guy's jugular and then loose his friends on us. But just knowing that this spider could was more than enough to get my blood pumping.
Thus peaked the level of danger during my weekend of wildlife, although the peak of peril didn’t mean the rest was a waste.
Zoological disappointments/wonders
As the funnel-web adventure happened on Sunday, let’s go back a day. I should have known I was in for an ominous day when, upon walking to the Circular Quay, I spotted my first Captain Cook impersonator, decked from tri-cornered hat to cobbled shoes. Needless to say, this was the diehard mascot of Captain Cook Cruises, which Wisconsin Steve and California Elisabeth soon boarded for Taronga Zoo.
Situated 20 minutes away, on the north side of the harbor, the Zoo is one of the most touristy things you can do in Sydney, as opposed to simply see — Opera House, Harbor Bridge, etc. In fact, it’s so highly-regarded that the people behind the Lonely Planet series claim it’s one of the places you should visit if your stay in Sydney is shorter than Usain Bolt’s 100m run. Tiered on a massive, water-side hill, the zoo was supposed to be a gem of the city.
But after our trip, I now think ‘gem’ is Aussie slang for ‘crap.’
The visit began forebodingly as, upon landing, we were informed by our stout hostess that the sky-rail was under repair. I don’t think it had dropped anyone into the lion pits or anything — although the less tourists, the better, I’m sure — but the inconvenience meant that instead of cruising over the bears and sea lions we would instead have to walk up the steep face.
So walk we did. Past the semi-vacated aviary, past the absent chimpanzees, past the dried up seal pools, and past the gut-wrenching sight of the spider monkey huddled in the back of the cage, clinging to one another for warmth. (I swear, the primates in Sydney don’t know how to handle a little cold!)
With our confusion soon turning toward exasperation, we soon turned an uphill corner and nearly ran into a fence littered with pictures of animals saying ‘Our new home is under construction!’ Great. Not only are the animals speaking Australian, but they’re not even here to tell us the news themselves.
And it turned out that those pictures were the closest we would come to the gorillas, too. Upon walking to their cage, a sign rudely greeted us with ‘Gorilla husbandry in process, exhibit closed.’ Do I even need to make a joke here?
Anyway, the zoo wasn’t a complete loss. A free bird show managed to take flight through the bluster, with Dixie the Whistling Kite, a Barking Owl, a Barn Owl, and a Wedge-Tailed Eagle somehow navigating toward the airborne anchovies with impeccable accuracy. The nocturnal animal exhibit, featuring the long-eared Bilby and gecko-mice, whose ability to walk on glass gave me a monster for the next great horror movie. The Green Iguanas had a conversation via head-shaking — apparently they were in disagreement — and the active dingoes made me long for the days when my dogs were in shape.
And it turned out the sky-rail repairs were a blessing in disguise. Not only did the breathtaking views of the city remain the same (and will be shared once I find some suitable internet), but I found myself walking off…well, I would say lunch, but the zoo took my lunch money.
The day was not yet over, however. With the arrival of the Captain Cook Cruise, we were whisked off around the harbor, heading east toward the mouth and alongside Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s former penthouse. But we soon took a detour into Elizabeth Bay, not to admire the industrial area but to catch a glimpse of an animal not housed in the zoo — dolphins! Since the closest I’ve come to a dolphin is Joey Harrington (can’t believe I just made that joke), I was pretty excited when the blowholes surfaced and bodies flew through the air. We followed the flock for about five minutes, allowing everyone a glimpse of the rare visitors, and allowing me to tell my kids I saw fins in Sydney Harbor.
After hitting the mouth of the Harbor — and avoiding the old-man nude beaches when possible — we encountered the dolphins once again, this time getting close enough to see them actually swimming underwater.
And after the hiding Tasmanian Devils and lethargic zebras, it was nice to know that my money was well-spent.
What an oat-fiend
Whew, so now, back to Sunday (hopefully the pictures I’ll put up will be more entertaining than this mass of words). As soon as the fangs of the funnel-web were dried up, I knew that money was well-spent. Afterward, Wisconsin Steve and I debated riding the Galapagos Turtles, cooed at the sleeping Tassie Devils, and laughed at the waddling Common Wombat. Continuing on, we fed kangaroos for the second time, although this time around we saw just how desperate the marsupials were for a fix (in addition to a joey emerging from it’s mother’s pouch, but that was just too gross to detail here). After throwing some oats at the lounging alpha male, a smaller ’roo came hopping over.
But it didn’t stop when it reached the fence. Nor did it remain still when it reached my feet.
Instead, it stood up on its hind legs, stared me straight in the face, and said, ‘You’re next.’
Ok, no, it didn’t say that, but I gave it some oats before it could say anything. And in a hilarious moment of drug-like imagery, the kangaroos eyes drooped, its body sagged, and its mouth began to munch sloooowly on its addiction.
Who knew oats were the LSD of marsupials?
Fruit of the gods
From there, Wisconsin Steve and I boarded the bus for our final destination: Hunter Valley, home of some of Australia’s most well-known wineries.
Yes, Steve and I were on a wine-tasting tour. And I’d be lying if I said that I had enough breakfast in my stomach to handle it.
Of the fours wineries we visited (Savannah Estate, Tulloch’s, Lindemann’s, and Drayton’s), here’s what I learned: I’m neither a red wine nor a chardonnay guy, the bubbles of sparkling wine are meant to cut through the tannin, and port wine, which is infused with bourbon spirits halfway through the distillation process, is quite delicious.
Oh, and the alcohol sold at wineries is far cheaper than anything around campus. Economics 101 in a bottle, I suppose.
Needless to say, I’m still recovering — sleeping for 11 hours never felt so good. (But then again, neither did waking up at 6 a.m. on a Sunday.)
By the way, more photos here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003163&l=96c3e&id=1454130108
As I traipsed along Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens the other day, flanked by encamped Gray-Headed Flying Foxes and the serene Circular Quay, I decided to treat myself with a dollop of hazelnut gelato.
And after I had returned to the confines of the Mac Village, crashing into my weary bed and flipping open the awaiting ESPN.com, I perused the most recent musings of columnist Scoop Jackson.
Two scoops. Two things I enjoy, gelato and sports writing.
But only one left a good taste in my mouth.
Leaving the fact that I love hazelnut to the side, it really wasn’t that hard to decide which scoop I could digest easier. Take a look at that column. It begins innocuously enough, posing a simple question. ‘What should Fernando Gonzalez have done?’ (Apparently, Scoop is practicing to be a third-grade teacher.)
Seeing as my eyes had been previously epoxied to the Phelps extravaganza, I had barely registered that Gonzalez was the Chilean tennis pro who knocked off James Blake in the Olympic semifinals, one round after the American had trounced then-No. 1 Roger Federer.
Intrigued, I delved into the column, soon learning that Gonzalez had stolen victory with the help of a shot whose contentiousness made the Russia-Georgia conflict look like a pillow-fight. On a ‘pendulum point,’ the chair umpire botched what replays seem to have clearly shown: that the rocketed ball, which would have landed Blake one point from his first Olympic final, actually skimmed off Gonzalez’s racket before landing out of bounds.
To his credit, Blake contained his inner John McEnroe and merely pleaded with the Chilean to come clean to the umpire; to tell the chair that he felt the vibrations, heard the thudding as the ball ricocheted off his racket and into the green yonder; to put Blake a breath from the height of his career.
‘What should Fernando Gonzalez have done?’
Now, I’m not sure what’s Spanish for ‘the right thing,’ but I sure as hell know how to say it en anglais. Because there’s no getting around it. Gonzalez, with a brush-of-a-bullet shot of adrenaline and a crumbling Blake across the net, saw his opportunity. And, ever the Machiavellian, he went for it.
Which is good enough for Scoop.
As the rest of his column goes on to detail, cheating your way to the top is acceptable — nay, admirable — as long as it takes place in the realm of sports. As long as the ref doesn’t see it, or if the zebras blow the call, all is fair in 40-love.
Apparently, Scoop missed the third-grade lesson about integrity.
For both the competitors and the game, cheating — or even turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to a transgression — cheapens the morals and the standards of both the competitors and the game. The fans don't get their money's worth, and the athletes, who fail to stand up to the challenge, blatantly diminish their skill-sets. Who wins?
Here’s Scoop’s logic, simple and concise: Since everyone else is doing it, why should you be different? (I would say he has a dash of Big Brother syndrome, but since he’s African-American, I’m worried Clement would chew me out [jk Clemdog, but you’re one of the few black friends I have, thus the reference.]) Scoop writes, ‘What athlete in his right (or left) hemisphere would give away a point that critical?’ Let’s equate that to, say, politics for a moment. What presidential hopeful would, in the dog days of the election, clamp down on the 527s, the 21st-century swift-boaters? Honestly, none, but that doesn’t mean we don’t wish they would. And if there was tangible, all-encompassing evidence that Obama or McCain had eradicated any semblance of these low-blowers, don’t you think the honesty could maybe, just maybe, give him a precious bump in the polls?
When Scoop allows conformity at this integrity-laden cost, do you know who he sounds like? Jose Canseco. Bill Romanowski. Any third-grader who makes faces at the teacher behind his/her back.
That being said, I suppose now would be a good time to come clean — that 3-2 curveball I saw with runners at the corners a couple years ago? Yeah, I didn’t check my swing. Not even close. But that’s not how the ump saw it. And according to Scoop, as long as the burden of failure lies on the umps’ shoulders, I have free run of the place. So why do I still feel like a jackass over that metaphotical totally truthful example?
Gonzalez choked, but not in the traditional sense. His unknown status has since been replaced by a dishonorable image, a slithering, slash-and-burn purveyor of the dark side of athletics. (Ah, hyperbole is the spice of life, isn't it?) Fortunately, as Scoop’s column signs off, the idea of ‘karma’ comes into play — and it is this ethereal influence (and raw, unabated talent) that landed Gonzalez under the sole of Rafael Nadal’s tennis footprint.
Third grade, like Gonzalez’s gold-medal hopes, may have come and gone, but integrity, that can last forever.
-Boarded a three-tiered cruise ship with the sole intent (after forking over $20) of enjoying Sydney Harbor in all its resplendent, nighttime glory. Granted, the free food and drink also caught my eye (if Peter Pan had brought pizza and beer, it would have been college kids, not young children, who would have followed him).
-Thought that a building whose sole purpose is to host ppera would steal my breath. I’ve harped on the Sydney Opera House’s lack of grandeur in the past, but the times, they are a-changin’; whoever coined the phrase ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ had it backward. This structure, under the full, luminous Australian moon, sparkled like the Hope Diamond…like the eyes of a newborn child…like the rims of 50 Cent’s Cadillac Escalade. Couple that with the sheer terrifying mass of the Sydney Harbor Bridge — nothing quite hammered home its breadth like being directly underneath it — and you can see how the cruise went pretty well. And the unanticipated terror quickly erased my dream of joining the homeless youth under the Burnside Bridge, which I'm sure my family thinks is a good thing.
-Witnessed a pair of karate/taekwan do/Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon talents go to town on one another, all the while trying to keep the beat of a techno-vamped didgeridoo master playing in the background. With China becoming Australia’s biggest trading partner in 2007, this showmanship on the Circular Quay was truly a sign that the Aussies had embraced the Asian culture. And were willing to sell didgeridoo CD’s for $10.
-Felt like my New Zealand roommate, who I knew only as ‘Kiwi’ for the first two weeks, purposely mixed Russian with Gaellic/Armenian, throwing in a dash of Zambian for good measure. Then, I realized that he was just speaking interminably fast. From then on out, I’ve made sure my headphones were on every time he walked by, so he wouldn’t be tempted to make my brain hurt trying to decipher what he was saying.
Actually, this anecdote reminds me of an episode from Flight of the Conchords, an HBO show in which Jemaine and Bret, ‘New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-parody duo,’ travel to the States. Murray is their agent and Dave is their American friend.
Murray: He may be dead. Dave: He maybe did what? Murray: He may be dead. Dave: I know, but what did he maybe do? Murray: He may be dead. Dave: Yeah, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. What did he maybe do? Bret: No, he may be dead. Dave: Are you guys fucking with me?
-Yelled at a bat that I’m Batman, and thus he should do as I command. Ok, actually that makes me sound like a lunatic, but in my defense, I was with my friends Steve and Will, and it was midday, and the sheer numbers of these Grey Headed Flying Foxes made me think that I could afford to tick off one. These bats were amazing, by the way. With thousands hanging from trees in the Royal Botanical Gardens, they resembled furry burritos, with a black, leathery tortilla. (If you’re waiting for pictures, I hate to disappoint, but my next bullet — or dash, or hyphen, or whatever it’s called — explains the wordiness of this post.)
-Missed nothing more than my good ol’ American internet. If Australia is five years behind the US in terms of culture, then it is twenty years behind in terms of internet speed. I would never have imagined that my high school internet would trump my college’s.
Then again, the high school I went to required you to buy a laptop, so maybe I’m just not as prescient as most.
-Had a professor haggle for five minutes with the lone Australian student in the class for a ride to the nearby train station. And once she acquiesced, he decided to end class 15 minutes early so her parking didn’t run out. My, what a difference changing school makes.
-Tried pilates. Do I really need to say more? Really? Fine - I sucked at it. Not only did my hip flexors feel like they were being smothered by a hot iron, but my I stayed on my ‘sitting bones’ as well as Mississippi Braves coach Phillip Wellman keeps his composure:
That’s not to say I didn’t get anything out of it — my abs, or ‘TA’ as the crew-cut female director termed it, will be feeling it tomorrow morning. And unlike ‘BodyBalance,’ which I tried a couple weeks ago, I wasn’t forced to metaphorically fingerpaint, turn into a gliding kite, or plant my roots deep into the ground, all the while listening to ‘The World’s Greatest’ by R. Kelly. Now there’s a memory I’ll try to repress.
-Gone so broke I’ve needed to ration my own food. With only pocket change to last me until the end of the month, and a prideful sense of self that won’t allow me to plead with my parents to let me eat, I now need a job like Halle needed Billy Bob in Monster’s Ball (which, upon last night’s viewing, convinced me to never live in rural Georgia). Of course, it didn’t help that I shelled out $100-plus for a Wine-Wildlife Tour of Hunter Valley this Sunday. But as my Dad told me, via paraphrase, ‘You should drink as much as you can, so you can expand your palette.’ (Or something like that.)
-Seen US basketball make the Australian team look like drugged-up dingos. If you’d seen the first half, when the US was only up by one, you’d have thought the game would end close, right? Nope, not when Kobe Bryant is making threes far enough away to be considered the Outback, nor when Chris Bosh is throwing down dunks so hard he could make toilets flush the right way. Now if only they had a spot open for Phelps on the team, the basketball tournament would be ratings gold.
There’s something to be said about labels, pride, and Americanism. There are also certain stigmas attached to each, stigmas which have both truths and fallacies as baggage. But during these last ten days, and especially in the wake of Michael Phelps’ (and his teammates’) miraculous underwater efforts, the effects of labels, pride, and Americanism have had nothing but a profound effect on the US expatriates that call the Macquarie University Village home.
For as much as I find labels stifling, or think pride selfish, or claim Americanism to be a mythic, ever-changing image — particularly now that experts predict that the white population will be in the minority by 2046 — these Beijing Olympics have somehow lit a sense of pride in my label of American.
I’m not talking 1980-Lake-Placid-Mircale pride, especially after my semi-joking chants of ‘USA’ were drowned by cries of mock hatred from my Aussie counterparts. These Olympics haven’t created a Cold War solidarity among my fellow ‘seppos’ — so far, bar-hopping seems to be the only activity to cultivate such a congregation.
These Games haven’t even aroused some quasi-sacrifice, an idea that if I make time to watch ‘The Redeem Team,’ then Carmelo, Lebron, and Kobe will somehow receive a palpable boost (it certainly didn’t work for the US’ soccer team’s 2 a.m. contest against Germany in the 2002 World Cup).
But what this prideful spark lacks in weight, it makes up for in its sheer existence.
My college years have jaded me, swayed my thoughts on certain ideas that childhood experiences hammered into me. ‘Patriotism,’ or at least the notion that American was ‘the greatest country in the world,’ was one such mantra, fed down my throat with daily Pledges of Allegiance and history books that somehow managed to skim over both the Chinese Exclusion Act and the American-Philippine War (thank goodness for Wikipedia). And as an avid fan of the Postmodern Era — save for Blade Runner, worse than a double root canal — I began to question certain truths, the concept of Patriotism being one.
The question remains, sans answer, but there is a growing, almost alien sense of pride which I now have for my country of origin. Who knew that, some 10,000 miles and hundreds of Taco Bells away, I would find myself with an ear-to-ear grin as Phelps shot to a body-length lead to close one of his races? Who would have imagined that, on the following race, I would scowl at our staticky, antennae-lacking TV as Natalie Coughlin choked her way to bronze? Who could have told me, straight-faced, that I would find myself on an elliptical machine with a boost of added adrenaline as the US women’s water polo found the back of the aquatic net against the Chinese squad?
Perhaps it’s the Olympics, which grips the world community oh-so-rarely in its (hopefully) un-politicized arms. Perhaps it’s ‘Stage 2’ of my trip, where the details (like the way we say ‘aluminum,’ or the lack of a school paper) make me pine for the comforts I’ve grown accustomed to. Or perhaps it’s just a natural progression, aided by Dmitri Medvedev’s aggression and the Chinese charades of the Opening Ceremony.
Whatever it is, seeing Phelps adorned in eight gold medals, seeing Team USA stomp Spain by 30 points, seeing the US fencers — two of whom are from Portland — sweep the medal stand in women’s sabre, elicits a pride of state I didn’t know was there.
What Phelps has accomplished is amazing, unheard of, and without compare. And no, I’m not just talking about portraying Baltimore in a light different than that seen on HBO’s The Wire. (And if Mark Spitz had shorn his speed-slowing mustache, I’m sure he’d still have the record.) And I’m not just talking about the medals, which have landed him as GOAT (Greatest Of All Time).
For the first time in my adult life - wow, that's a strange phrase - I feel proud to be labeled as an American.
Of course, this pride was completely squashed when Tyson Gay didn’t even make it to the men’s 100m final. How un-American of him.
There are things that are rare — a successful University of Houston alum, a commercial where the Trix rabbit actually gets some of the cereal — and then there are things that are unthinkable (which, before meeting Tracy, entailed ‘attractive Yankees fans’). For me, the existence of monotremes fell, until two days ago, squarely in the latter category.
Sure, I’d seen pictures of these awkwardly graceful creatures, but then again, I just saw a picture a picture of Bigfoot on CNN.com (although that could just be an unshaven Wolff Blitzer). With the existence of these genetic anomalies up in the air, I decided a trek to the Sydney Aquarium was in order.
Bypassing the plethora of Finding Nemo memorabilia — it seems like Pixar had a bigger impact on the city than the 2000 Olympics could have ever wished for — I meandered into the depths of the Aquarium, shaded on one side by the mammoth Murray Cod, the size of an obese child, and on the other by Eastern Water Dragons, stealthy catfish, and a puttering, sputtering Cinnamon Teal. Following the yellow ground-arrows, I blitzed past these bland, common-place animals and straight toward the main focus of the entire waterfront complex: the monotreme.
Ok, I guess since we’re not all biology majors — with far too little room to BS on tests, I discarded biology for English a long time ago — I’ll explain what a monotreme is. It’s a mammal….with, uh, the ability to lay eggs…that are unique to Australia…yeah, that’s about as much as I got from the not-so-explanatory signs. Needless to say, I’m sure that’s all you need to know to figure out that the monotreme du jour was none other than he duck-billed, deep-diving, ankle-barbed platypus.
They say you never forget your first (thanks Stephanie Rice). Clearly, ‘they’ were talking about platypus encounters.
In a five-meter long tank of frond- and root-filled water, with a graveled bottom and rocky outcroppings above the pond, a foot-long creature — and that’s the only way you can really describe it — darted up, down, and all around the semi-translucent pool. In one of the more farfetched comparisons I’ve ever found, the platypus in question reminded me of an electron (wow, I’m being really science-y today, huh): smaller than I imagined, but with a non-stop motor and a penchant for releasing more energy than the lackadaisical spearfish that surrounded him.
Everyone knows that platypus’ modus operandi. Alonside the kangaroo and the koala, the platypus — which Aboriginal populations viewed as sacred and thus inedible (think Hindus and cows) — rounds out the triumvirate of Australian animals. And rightly so. With a bird’s beak, a beaver’s pelt, a seal’s flippers, and a Lhasa Apso’s rotund torso, the platypus is truly on of evolution’s jokes. If there is a God, the platypus came directly from his/her closet of spare parts. It’s no wonder that English taxonomists thought the original specimen was a hoax.
Still, the animal’s uniqueness and homeliness — alongside the fact that ‘on land, they cannot see directly ahead and often run into obstacles — endear it to the fawning public. The platypus received far and away the most attention of all the marine life, although it couldn’t have cared less: for the entire 15 minutes I watched it, the animal’s sole purpose seemed to be digging a hole to China (or, since we’re in Australia, I guess it would be Mexico) in the vain search for food.
Of course, the platypus was not the only major player of the aquarium. From the ghostly ‘banana-peel’ eel to the waddling Little Penguins to the Southern Calamari Squid, whose manta ray head helped it fly from one end of the tank to the other, and back, and forth, and back, and forth…for hours on end, the aquarium was anything but a one-trick lobster (there were no ponies here, so I went with the next best thing). The Mourning cuttlefish, a small, beanie-baby-esque squid tugged at my heartstrings as, upon my approach, it started bumping into the glass (although on second thought, maybe it just thought I was food). There were the typical staples of marine life: a basking crocodile, hungry for tourists; a pooped-out seal, sun-bathing on the center rock (and thus unable to be seen from the tunnels below); the leafy sea-dragons playing neighbor to the highly-poisonous, highly-ornate lionfish; and, as always, the inspirations for the characters of Finding Nemo.
These foreign, floundering species all had beauty and intrigue on their own merit, and yet they were either too sloth-like or too cramped to be of any real significance in my eyes. So it was with great, anticipatory zeal — and a steady diet of Discovery Channel’s ‘Shark Week’ — that I descended into the bowels of the shark tunnels.
And disappointed, I was not.
With Harry Potter knockoff music filling the background, I (subconsciously) held my breath, took a step, and found myself immediately surrounded by the largest, densest, and most breathtaking display of mariner life I had ever seen. I immediately realized that ‘shark tunnel’ was a misnomer — a freckled, sheep-sized Ornate Wobbegong was napping on the top of the tunnel entrance, a three-meter Loggerhead Turtle soon glided by, and a manta ray that could have easily doubled for Aladdin’s flying carpet quickly made itself evident — but I was nowhere near bummed. With only three feet separating my head from the top of the tunnel, the proximity to these colossal beasts caught my heart and turned my eyes into saucers.
But it wasn’t only the upper half of my body that was affected. As soon as a Gray Nurse Shark landed over my head, I’m sure the knocking of my knees could have been mistaken for Morse Code. (It wasn’t till later that I realized that the Gray Nurse Sharks, whose populations have diminished almost to the point of no return, are nothing more than big puppies, preying solely on pencil-sized fish.) Sure, there was pressurized glass separating our worlds. And yeah, I may have been sharing the experience with dozens of Japanese tourists, none of whom understood the concept of ‘excuse me.’ But the few moments I spent in those tunnels made the entry fee worth every Australian penny.
Some more, (thankfully) final references to Nemo greeted me on the way out, but I didn’t mind. Somehow, a giant turtle had accomplished what a tear-jerkingly boring lecture on Victorian novels could not: bringing a smile to my face.
With a couple hours left to burn, I decided to mosey through downtown Sydney. If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again — this city is absolutely gorgeous. From tall, sprinkling skyscrapers to imposing 19-century façades, this city has encompassed its past and present in a way most cities can only dream of. And the way it’s been gift-wrapped and delivered to the cosmopolitan public only cements the fact that the city is unique. The Queen Victoria building may encompass this time-traveling sentiment best of all. Looking like a revamped, refurbished Parliament building, this block-long, multi-domed marvel is actually a high-class shopping mall, with clothing boutiques, chocolate factories, and an Adidas store calling it home. Located outside the mall are a twenty-foot high statue of the building’s namesake, shipped directly from the mother country, and a wishing well dedicated to her loving pooch (which comes directly with an English voiceover directly well-wishers how they should deposit their coins, arf, arf!)
Following the shopping extravaganza — don’t worry, since I’m already broke, I didn’t buy anything from Tiffany’s — I walked past the towering Town Hall and headed to Hyde Park, a three-block long tree-fest, home to the Anzac Memorial (which comes complete with Jesus strapped to a sword, which was just kind of awkward) and a statue of a dude beheading a minotaur, which must have symbolized the Greeks third-century B.C. conquest of New South Wales, right?
A stroll through the Royal Botanical Gardens finally yielded a picture of the elusive-but-only-because-I’m-lazy Sulpher-Crested Cockatoo, whose nest-building skills entailed finding a hole in a tree branch and lying down. Still, the Cockatoo wasn’t even the highlight of the Gardens. With however many hundreds of imported species calling the greens home, the RBG was a stupendous feat of botanical architecture, with herb gardens (make sure to pronounce the ‘h’ down here) flanking Jurassic mangrove trees, all while prancing statues looked on from the distance. If I ever have an appreciation for foliage, this is the place to go.
The final trek I made landed me at the feet of the Sydney Opera House, whose disappointments have dissipated somewhat — must be afflicted by some cousin of Stockholm Syndrome. I still needed to take my first snapshots of the oft-snapshotted (yeah, I just made that word up), and, well, here’s one.
Oh, one other thing I noticed on the walk through the city: It turns out the the Sydney Imax is the biggest in the world, which I did not know until a few days ago. Therefore, not only did I attend the New York City world premiere of The Dark Knight, not only did I attend the midnight showing, but I’ve also seen the movie on the biggest screen in the world.
One more nugget to tell my students when I’m teaching the one-hour ‘Batman: The Modern Myth, the Cultural Icon, and the American Staple’ course my senior year. (It turns out that those painful Victorian novel lectures are the perfect time to finalize my syllabus for the course.)
Is it any wonder that Australian Rules Football shares nearly all its distinct traits with a kangaroo? I’m not talking about having a tree-trunk tail or a penchant for being impaled by Aboriginal spears, although that would certainly up the ante. I’m talking about the basics: the kicking, the punching, the bouncing. All the actions people on the east side of the Pacific love kangaroos for — as opposed to the Australia, where they just love to eat them.
My internship in the States last summer allowed me a momentary glimpse into the underground world of the Portland Power, a local Aussie Rules Football club. But the vague, over-the-phone hints of bounding pigskins and marsupial mannerisms left me perplexed and, quite honestly, intrigued. So when I learned that I could attend an ARF game in Sydney, I chomped at the bit, eagerly looking past cuddling with koalas and toward the sport that had gripped the reigns of my imagination.
While probably unfamiliar to most ‘seppos’ — five bucks to whomever can figure out why Americans earned that name — Aussie Rules Football carries the same weight in Australia as the NBA, NHL, or, sadly, NASCAR carry back home. Granted, ARF can’t hold a candle to rock-’em, sock-’em rugby matches on the mainland, but from the southern swath to the Tasmanian hinterlands, this is the game to be watched.
And what a game it is.
I had the fortune of attending my first Aussie Football League match on Saturday, with a cheap bus ride followed by an equally cheap ticket landing me at the Sydney Swans contest against the Freemantle Dockers. As the Sydney Cricket Grounds stadium opened up, the emerald field sprawled as an oversized circle of grass. The field was pinched on two sides by eight multi-story posts, looking like hair-picks penetrating a giant green afro, and only a few chalk-lines to speak of.
But it wasn’t the massive expanse of the field that caught my eye. Nor was it the scarf-wearing, beanie-sated crowd. Nor, even, was it the pair of homemade, VW Beetle-sized pom-poms our neighbors had brought.
What caught my eye was exactly what I had set out for: the game.
Wielding the oblong, overly-inflated football, the ref began the match with the least traditional jump-ball I’d ever seen: Instead of tossing the ball high and straight, he ricocheted the balloon off the ground and into the air for the “ruckman,” or Aussie Yao Mings, to snag.
After the unorthodox beginning, it didn’t take to formulate the idea for this column, vis-á-vis comparing ARF to the ’roo. Unlike rugby or gridiron, ARF ball movement between teammates employs throwing as often as John McCain listens to Jay-Z. Therefore, the players resort to actions usually reserved for the star of the smash film Kangaroo Jack. The most common methods of sharing are punching or kicking — two styles of martial arts that feral kangaroos are best known for.
Furthermore, if the ball-carrier is forced to take more than an allotted amount of steps, he must resort to the kangaroos’ mode of transport: bouncing (the ball, not himself).
But just like the Mariners' front office, the game has some kinks to work out. Not only could no one tell me exactly how much time was in a quarter — ranging from 28-32 minutes, it’s apparently at the timekeeper’s discretion — and the trainers/waterboys/calf-massagers felt the need to show they could run more than those they were helping. The entire game, these staff members scurried around the field, distributing water bottles and medical tape in the middle of the contest and, since they were all about seven feet shorter than the athletes, resembling pesky, distracting gnats.
Aside from those annoying little people, the amalgamation of soccer, basketball, football, and marsupial all blended to create a free-flowing, highly-physical spectacle that brought me up to speed on what the Power guys were actually talking about. From the booming, no-look kicks splitting the uprights, to Sydney’s main enforcer — who must have been Ed Norton’s body-double in American History X — throwing his weight (and elbows) around, the entire, three-hour length contest was remarkable.
That night Sydney overcame a late deficit to down the Dockers, cementing their spot in the Top Four of the Aussie Football League and searing the similarities between ARF and kangaroos in my mind.
Because when you come to think of it, gnats annoy kangaroos too, don’t they?
On a completely unrelated note, here’s your ‘The World Is Smaller Than A Yankees Fan’s IQ’ Moment of the Day: After being seated at the AFL match, I noticed I was in the same row as Noah from Phoenix, whom I had met a couple nights earlier while scarfing down some potato bake. With him sat two girls who we included in the conversation. And as a microcosm of the topsy-turvy world in which we live in — a world in which Brett Favre is a Jet and people actually went to see The Mummy 3— Elizabeth from Atlanta revealed that not only had she nearly moved to Portland in fifth grade, but she was accepted to and ready to attend Catlin Gabel (which I attended for high school). Unfortunately, her asthmatic brother, the initial cause of their move from smog-laden Atlanta, couldn’t squeeze into the meager class sizes, so Elizabeth and I never got the chance to meet.
Until we sat next to each other, some six years later.
In a different hemisphere.
In the same row, at the same AFL game, with only one mutual friend between us and neither of us willing to shell out five bucks for a hot dog.
What a crazy world.
On another side note, we found this statue on the way to the game:
Looks like Mexican Revolution war hero Benito Juarez knows how to party.
And now for the first edition of Casey’s Magical Bout of ADD. Please keep all limbs inside the cart at all times, and remember to silence your cell phones (or, if you still think it’s 1995, your pagers an AOL dial-up).
- The Sydney Opera House sucked. There, I said it. See below for further details.
- Ok, no, the Opera House didn’t really suck. In fact, the first glimpse of the spectacle (whose financer, due to a glut of porn, was deported before its construction) is what will finally attune you to your arrival Down Under. Everything leading up to that point is either too similar to America or, if you’re somehow caught in the bush, likely to kill you and thus ruin the memories. It’s the Opera House, whose celestial shapes and harbor-side prominence draw the eye within moments, that truly caps the prominence of Sydney.
o That being said, the proprietors of Opera House photos must be whizzes at Photoshop, because the gleaming white spectacle I was expecting seems to be found only in magazines. When we crossed the Sydney Harbor Bridge - the arching steel behemoth known to the locals as the ‘Coat-Hanger’ - I originally thought the Opera House was for some reason covered in moldy netting. (‘Perhaps it was to symbolize the fishing culture of the water-based economy,’ I slyly thought.) Unfortunately, on closer inspection, I found that the lines of netting were in fact runs of gout spanning the entire outside of the conical high-rises. The more we circled the building, the more it dawned on me - the Opera House was just a glorified bathroom floor. And not even one privy to Oxy-Clean. Still, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind grabbing a smaller tile and affixing it to my Mom’s new kitchen floor (which should be in the works now that my Dad finally has his hog).
- Other than the Opera House letdown - and since the opera tends to grate my ears worse than my brother’s selection of rap, I won’t be heading inside anytime soon - the remainder of downtown Sydney remains a beauty. With sparkling skyscrapers, a free-standing needle pointing skyward, and a breathtaking 4bay of water, the city has ‘Seattle’ written all over it. Sydney may be a bit bigger and, due to the Olympics, more well-known, but the resemblances between the two towns is striking. And throw in the fact that both are cosmopolitan cities filled with genuine, caring people - I’ve yet to be snubbed when asking an irrelevant question (or which beer is best) - and I don’t feel so embarrassed walking around in a Mariners sweatshirt. (Hey, at least it’s not a Brett Favre jersey. ZING.)
- Speaking of bars, I believe I went to, quite literally, the coolest drinking establishment this side of the Arctic Circle. As part of the ‘Sydney Party Bus’ last Saturday (should have been nicknamed the ‘Sydney Eat-My-Money-In-The-Name-Of-A-Good-Time Shuttle’), a group of us decided to head to the Circular Quay to check what had become a frequent inside joke: 5-Below. No, this is not a term for the depth of the sharks patrolling the harbor; instead, it’s just what you think it is: a frozen bar. Cool, right? (Ok, that’s the last one, I swear.) The only thing hampering my dreams of shivering hands clutching a frozen cocktail (or, if my Mom is reading this, a Coke) was the price. Thirty smackers. Yeesh. Enough to buy ten pizzas from Dominos, or about four gallons of gas (seriously, we have it so easy in the States). Fortunately (Un-?) my friend Sean used my argument against me - you’re only in Sydney while you’re 20 once - so my conscience was soothed and my wallet was lightened. Anyway, the novelty of the experience - wearing knee-length parkas paper-thin gloves while trying not to get your tongue stuck on the ice-glass - soon wore off, and as soon as the manager told me I could slide on the floor, my vote was cast. Yes, it was a story I will tell for years to come (and probably embellish, as the bartender of future stories will have said, “Ice to meet you”), but, as with anything this side of Spiderman 3, it failed to live up to the hype. (There’s nothing memorable - [laughs to self] - about the rest of the night, other than drinking with middle-aged Aussies at the Fortune of War, the oldest pub in Sydney. And yes, I pulled out all the stops on the older women, just so that I could tell Tracy.)
- Question of the day: Aussies love calling Americans ‘seppos.’ Five bucks to anyone who can describe the origin of this word without Googling it.
- I’m not sure if it’s the water, the sun, or some type of airborne toxin á la The Happening, but Aussies are obsessed with sport. Look at this stat: Of the top four countries with the most medals from the 2004 Athens Olympics, Australia won one medal per 408,000 people, while the next closest, Russia, earned one medal per 1,532,000 commies heads. (Meanwhile, the US was clearly the laziest of the West, with only one medal per 3,000,000 Yanks.) That’s pretty impressive, no? Hammered into them from an early age, young Aussies idolize sport as much as American compatriots idolize Happy Meal (or maybe that was just me). Certainly they are the most sport-oriented, ‘sporiented,’ of the Commonwealth countries, or at least more clear about their passions than Canadians (they gotta keep warm up there somehow, I suppose):
Still, the only real exposure I’ve been allowed is the first Australia-New Zealand rugby union match since last spring’s World Cup. Sitting with a trio of Kiwis, I learned that the current Wallabies coach, Robbie Deans, is actually from NZ, a turncoat of sorts yet also one on his way to bigger and better things (such as coaching the All-Blacks when ‘that bloody wanker John Hart’ leaves). Unfortunately, I sat at the wrong table that evening in Cairns, as the All-Blacks, who ‘only lose on the biggest stage, those bloody wankers,’ caved under the pressures of the Sydney crowd. As the cavalcade of scoring went Australia’s way, I watched the match with the soundtrack of, ‘wanker, bloody wanker, fuckin’ bloody wankers!’ playing in my ear (and in surround-sound!) When the final whistle rang, I looked down to see my NZ mates had disappeared. And I thought we were friends! Bloody wankers…
- For further photos, you can check out this link. And if you have a Facebook account, don't hesitate to friend me, because it'll be super-great for my ego.
As a Batman fanatic, seeing The Dark Knight gave me a nerd-gasm.
As an English major and compulsive writer, it’s easy to give me a word-gasm.
And as an avid ornithological buff, Macquarie University has given me the ultimate bird-gasm.
Obviously, the fauna of Australia is more than a bit different than the critters encountered back home. From pouched, punching kangaroos to Gabe-like wombats, the Antipodean mammals are in a class all their own. Imagine, for a moment, that you are an early European settler (or, if you’re Brian Lee, a Korean settler), accustomed to rundown donkeys, gallant horses and fatted cows, but upon landing on this strange, massive isle, you encounter giant animals that neither run, gallop, trot, crawl, nor slither, but bounce. While the movie Alien was still light-years away from creation, you can see how these explorers could have imagined the land of Australia as an entirely different land (and considering that biologists on the western coast later found strolomites, the first organism to ever photosynthesize, perhaps time travel wasn’t out of the question either).
While I’ve been exposed to but a few of the many inhabitants of this foreign land - from a dinner-plate spider (the only point of comparison is the size of your face) to a behemoth, 15-foot, seemingly-plasticized saltwater crocodile (to call it terrifying would be like calling Manny Ramirez offbeat) - the creatures that have captured my imagination above all else are the birds. (On a semi-ironic note, referencing both baseball and birds in that sentence officially ties my years of Catlin - where I was “the baseball guy” - to Rice - where I am “the bird guy.”) I’ve alluded to the fact that Macquarie may or may not qualify as a zoo, but the sole propellers for this notion are the soaring, swimming, squawking inhabitants of the grounds.
It did not take me long to realize the utter blandness that the birds of the US now own. From the second I exited the Cairns airport walkway, camera in hand and ‘Birds of Australia’ tome in pocket, I was taken. (In another bit of semi-irony, the first bird I saw in Cairns is not in my birding literature, meaning that some sleuthing is in order). Never before had I been privy to a flock of Rainbow Lorakeets, whose glistening sheen of green, yellow, and red brought images of Johnny Depp raiding the British. Sure, their incessant jabbering caused some pain in my ears, but, as I said before, when the only thing you have to complain about are the parrots - parrots - do you really have anything to complain about?
After the Mynah Birds, Frigatebirds and Brown Boobies (how vulgar, I know) of Cairns passed - with close call, as a Frigatebird-vs.-Boobie fight nearly clipped our boat - settling on the Macquarie campus brought even more diversity. (If Catlin is so set on diversifying their campus, I might suggest bringing on tropical fauna, as opposed to blackberry-munching goats that are hidden in the bowels of the forest. And that was a really bad attempt at a joke. Sorry.) The grounds here resemble an open aviary, netless and expansive, with birds free to come, go, and harass at will.
And yes, I do mean harass. My first day of official Sydney bird-watching also happened to be the first day I found myself on the wrong side of a dive-bombing. As I was clearing the hill beyond the Macquarie University Village, our housing complex, I noticed a pair of Masked Lapwings crouched 50 yards away. Approaching to get a better look - their drooping, yellowed masks make it look like they enjoy mustard facials - I saw them lift off in a circular flight pattern. Thinking they were gone for good, I turned back toward the heart of campus to see what other birds I could discover. As I took my fifth step, a loud ‘POP’ emanated from directly behind my head (the only sound I can compare it to, I am sad to say, is the filling of Batman’s cape). Thinking immediately of Behind Enemy Lines, I realized that as an American citizen in foreign lands, people would obviously have it out for me. But as my knees buckled and I turned my head toward the source of the noise, I saw the underside of a Lapwing, mere feet from my face, veering off in the headwind and - thank God - away from me.
Catching my breath, I stood to revel in my good fortune. Not only did the bird miss me, but I now actually get to say I was attacked by a wild animal. What luck! So I picked myself up, paced my breathing to normal, and went on my way.
Until the second one decided to come at me.
Needless to say, these birds never actually hit me - clearly, they can see I’ve been working out - but the close proximity and the pop-rock noise they released actually kept me on edge the rest of the way. (Eventually, harrowingly, I staggered back up the hill, braving the bombers and finding what they were protecting - four nested eggs, milky brown with chocolate spots. And I haven’t been back since.)
Following the mildly unnerving near-death experience, I kept trekking, soaking in the sights that the campus gave me. There were the Sulpher-Crested Cockatoos, massive, glowing-white birds with lemon-lime Alfalfa tufts, whose beauty is matched in scale by the horrifying sound they release when they call (imagine a flying, ’roided-up velociraptor). There were the Laughing Kookaburras, arguably my favorite thus far, perched as Kingfishers periodically throughout the campus (it is only when two or more gather that their sense of humor is released). There were the Australian White Ibis’, hook-billed Egyptians that circled the giant campus lake. There were the Long-Billed Corellas, similar to Cockatoos except, according to my book (which I’m now starting to question), belong solely in southern Victoria. There were the Australian Magpies and Pied Currawongs, Australia’s answer to the Common Crow, sprucing up the grasslands with streaks of white and calls resembling dying cats. And there were the most insipid of them all, the much-maligned pigeons, getting in on the action - with a black feather-spike shooting from its head, the Crested Pigeon looks like it just strutted out of a Sex Pistols concert.
Now, as I gaze outside from the comforts of my couch, I see a pair of Galahs, ground-dwelling relatives of parrots, with pink chests and gray backs, munching on the seeded lawn. Just beyond them waddle a group of Australian Wood Ducks, some of whom own the aforementioned brood by the brook. And only minutes earlier, a Purple Swamphen, with spindly feet and a bright red horn, ambled by my sliding glass door, resembling an Animorphed Barney football as it searched in vain for by discarded apple core.
Now, I’m not saying that the Pileated Woodpeckers or the Bald Eagles of home are any less exhilarating - anyone who’s seen me around them (i.e. my Dad) knows how excitable I can get - but their uncommonness makes home appear, well, empty. Here, on the other hand, is a land that seems to be bursting at the seams with wonderful, vibrant creatures. And if this is what it’s like in the middle of a bustling, crammed city, imagine what it will be like when I get out.
(Note: Yesterday I saw The Dark Knight in Imax. And yes, I had a turd-gasm.)
My Dad’s a sentimental guy. There’s really no getting around this fact. If the CIA ever finds reason to pick apart my emailings, they’ll find late-homework excuses, amazon.com orders (mostly for Batman rehashings), and messages from my Dad reminding me that ‘these are the memories you will keep with you forever.’
Generally, these tokens of quasi-vicariousness (I only mean that in the best way, since many of my Dad’s college recollections have gone the way of the Seattle SuperSonics) are accepted as part of my daily routine. Yes, the added few seconds of text will keep me from moving on to rumors about which Mariner will depart next (please Jose Vidro please please please) but no, I don’t take things for granted as I once did.
With his wise, fortune-cookie mantra guiding me, my Dad has allowed me to broaden my horizons throughout my daily routine and appreciate that which may have gone unnoticed. And since ‘the friends [I] meet now are the ones I’ll keep for life,’ I suppose it’s just my luck that I stumbled across Brendon Boney.
For those few of you who are do not avidly salivate over Australian Idol, the name of Boney may mean little more than the Vanuatu College of Medicine’s decision to hire a new professor from Tonga (you can see the islander influence seeping into my semi-obscure references). However, I know that many of you consider Australian Idol the Godiva chocolate of Antipodean reality shows, so many of you remember that Boney strummed, hummed, and, um, bummed his way into the top 13 of the competition a few years back. With a guitar in hand and an acoustic version of Coolio’s “Gangasta’s Paradise” - the distant cousin to Ben Folds piano-addled “Bitches Ain’t Shit” - on his fingertips, Boney broke ground on YouTube, going so far as the top four on the most-viewed list, never quite crossing the Dramatic Squirrel threshold but maintaining a significant lead over the dated, Gen-X Dancing Baby.
Still, this Web-fame could not bump the joyous memories of playing professional soccer in Holland only a few years past. A broken shoulder may have stunted Boney’s career before he could become the preeminent Dutch defenseman, but when Boney’s hands transitioned from goal-mitts to guitars, a huskier, Aboriginal John Mayer came into being.
No, there’s no Wikipedia entry for Boney, nor, would one assume, an entry into Encyclopedia Brittanica. Instead, in my infinite grasp of all things trivial, I attained all information Boney-wise from the one source who would know most: himself. You see, Boney is one of four housemates that I’ve received thus far. Hailing from the nubile town of Waggawagga (‘the place of many crows,’ or, if you’re a fan of Aboriginal slang, ‘the place of the drunken man’), Boney stands as the lone representative of Australia in the abode of 59/122 Culloden Rd. With an Oregonian, a Rhode Islander, a Texan turned Californian, and a delayed Kiwi as house guests, the burden of local information has fallen on Boney. Unfortunately, the intricacies of Macquarie University’s business courses may be lost on the local - majoring in film will do that to you - but what he lacks in Macquarie acumen (Macumen?) he more than makes up for in intangibles.
After witnessing his life’s story in the form of guitar mastery - one prompt of Tom Petty revealed the best live version of ‘Free Falling’ I’d ever heard - I instantly wondered how I could repay someone with such free- falling flowing talent. My answer? Why, exploit his gifts for all they were worth, of course!
Last Tuesday, Boney informed me that he would be performing that night with his girlfriend, Tessa, the second member of the Microwave Jenny duet. The venue would be The Basement, located around Circular Quay, and the tandem would serve as the opening act for Gail Page, Australia’s Blues Singer of the Year. Never one to avoid an opportunity as a groupie, I agreed to view the pair that evening.
At $25, the ticket price turned away my tagalong expats, yet I would not be denied. (In hindsight, I should have worked my connections to the band for what they were worth.) I mean, I told him I’d be there, didn’t I? Apparently, Boney felt the same way. As I exited the bathroom of The Basement - Tessa stumbled upon me. ‘No way!,’ she exclaimed, rapidly revealing a million-watt grin. ‘He just went running up the block looking for you!’ Good choice for me to come, right?
(Here’s a link to their music if you don’t believe me http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=161514256)
Mixing Norah Jones-harmony with Jack Johnson-guitaring, Microwave Jenny literally sent shivers down my back. It’s clear that the chemistry between the two singers is at an apex on the stage, with each playing off one another’s patterns and stylings (and for added measure, Boney made sure to point out that they weren’t brother and sister.) Their gift was easy to see, and, if the crowd’s constant post-set badgering was any indication, I was not the only one who noticed the talent.
With a medium height and a semi-stocky build, Boney would stand only in a crowd of Oompa-Loompas, yet his chuckles are as reliable as the lack of Australian ozone. Part Aboriginal, part comic book nerd - our conversations have run the gamut from The Dark Knight plot complexities to the leaked Wolverine trailer - Boney is truly all you could ask for in a housemate.
So Dad, if you’re reading this, I just want to thank you for your advice - ‘remember your lessons; believe in your dreams; and follow your passions!’ - because I can now say that I’ve met someone whose fame I am sure if just beyond the corner.
By the way, did I mention he and Tessa made us a gourmet breakfast the other day?
Edit: When I said he makes up for his dearth of business-class knowledge in intangibles, I was overlooking one very palpable, very valuable asset he brings to the table: a car. Never have I seen such looks of pure, green envy when I tell my fellow Americans that my housemate not only has a car, but drives me to get groceries on a whim. What a life I lead, huh?
The campus of Macquarie University owns two main features quite unlike the campus of Rice University. First, the propensity of modern art scattered around the grounds gives the pedestrian a feeling of being Alice in Wonderland. With black scrap twisted into waterfalls and lounging, gelatinous human sculptures, a walk through the grasslands of Macquarie gives a surreal, discombobulating, and quasi-panaseic (time to make up a word) feeling to the viewer. (If only McMurtry’s collapse could be considered a form of art.)
Second, a stroll from one side of the property to the other creates a sense that, for no good reason, you are in a zoo. Actually, that’s not quite right - simply touching down in the Australian bush, pacing kangaroos and smuggling koalas, gives you the idea of one grand, free-range zoo.
Macquarie itself is less like a zoo - the dearth of wombats makes me pine for the days when leathery, fanged-pig-like animals could roam the campus at will - than an aviary (and trust me, this is not my “OMG I <3 BIRDS post…that should come as soon as I bring my camera outside my room and snap some shots).
But ANYWAY (thanks Chuck Klosterman), as the grounds begged for exploring yesterday, I stumbled across a pair of Australian Wood Ducks and, to my fortune, their waddling brood tailed the mates. Of course they were cute, of course they were cuddly, and of course I plucked one into my pocket to raise as my own (just kidding). As the entourage made their way across the street and hopped onto the dewy grass overlooking a culvert, I couldn’t help but follow.
And boy was I glad I did.
As soon as I crossed the waddlers’ path across the street, I heard a screeching from my left, the kind that the Rainbow Lorakeet’s cry through my window (crap, bird analogies are starting to seep through…). If memory serves correctly, it went a little something like this: “ALEX GET BACK HEAH OR AH’M GOIN’ TO SMACK YOU! AH’M SERIOUS! AH’M GOING TO SMACK YOU IF YOU DON’T GET BACK HEAH THIS INSTANT! GET BACK HERE!!!”
Not quite the babbling brook I was expecting culvert to produce.
Needless to say, a bob-haired, flush-faced woman was directing her tirade at a blue-parka’d two-year-old, a child smiling at nothing more than the ducks he had pointed out to the glaring woman. “Duck! Duck!” Someone get that kid a ‘Birds of Australia’ book for further identification!
This transfer went on for a couple more minutes before the woman braved the treacherous twenty feet between them, a path lined with slippery grass and possible spots of mud (I’m really thinking the livid 40-something was making a vain stab at stubbornness with the oblivious kid). Now, demands of return were replaced with “WHERE IS YOUR SHOE?? YOU BAD CHILD! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SHOE?? AH’M GOING TO SMACK YOU IF YOU DON’T FIND YOUR SHOE!”
“Duck!”
“AND YOUR SOCK?! AH’M GOING TO SMACK YOU IF YOU CAN’T FIND THAT SOCK!”
Meanwhile, the peaceful ducks were floating side by side in the chilled water. Sitting, swimming, cleaning, together.
— Had a burly Horizon Air stewardess claim that those who unbuckle early will stay to help clean plane rubbish. I would have laughed, had my trunk not been the size of her thigh. — Slept for five minutes - enough time to dream of British warfare on a ballfield (?) - on a cross-Pacific flight, breaking up a lovely afternoon/evening of 10,000 B.C. and Definitely, Maybe. (A Romeo Ryan Reynolds is about as believable as a Sincere Sacha Baren Cohen (if you can find why I just referenced SBC I’ll give you five bucks).) — Entered the Sydney airport with an empty stomach, stumbled across what, from the distance, looks like a Burger King, and found myself completely discombobulated when the BK moniker had been replaced by ‘Hungry Jack.’ As the tears cascaded down my oh-so-chiseled face, I learned that the Whopper would now be served alongside an Aussie Burger. Why must the King hide his identity? Is it because Australia, long part of the Commonwealth, is transitioning into a republic, and is afraid that he will be soon served the guillotine? — Thought that the Australian airport security was to safety what the sleep-20-hours-a-day koala is to physical activity. — Been greeted in the Cairns airport - after walking down a beautiful, palm-lined esplanade - by a shark-tattooed, highly-pierced, Jack Black-meets-Penn and Teller American expat, whose reminders of not forgetting Tamaguchis and card-trickery kept us doubled over on the edge of our seats for the next three days. — Met so many people from the University of San Diego, a Catholic, West Coast Conference school in which its seems mandatory to go abroad - nearly half of the school leaves at one time or another. They stay classy. (Get it?) — Learned that a hostile doesn’t always require roaches as tenants, as Gilligan’s’ refurbishments seemed to serve as a backpacker’s Trump Tower. Seriously. This place was swanky. With an adjoining club, Tongan security dudes (sure, they were more bowling ball than bodyguard, but I wouldn’t want them to roll me over), and a waterfall-pounded pool, Cairns knows how to treat the exploration-minded. — Been of age at a bar! Learned how expensive alcohol is outside America! Wished the Australian dollar (though plasticized and gaudy, it is currently stronger than the US) not felt like Monopoly money! Felt the after-evening pangs of legal drinking! — Taken a nauseating, teetering, hangover-infused bus ride up the hills surrounding Cairns, a ’roided-up coastal town, with a bus driver who felt his sole purpose was to show us he belonged in NASCAR. While one girl yakked her morning’s grub, it was only a matter of release before the Kennedy domino effect - one vomit leading to another leading to another - took full effect. — Expected a velociraptor to charge from the bush after an archaeopteryx, swerve to avoid the parading baboons while a T Rex munched on a goat in the background. Maybe it was the recent memory of 10,000 B.C., but this place’s resemblance to Jurassic Park was uncanny. — Ridden through the Australian rain forest in a DUKW, an amphibious beast forgotten from WWII, learning of silica-laced plants and centuries-old ferns lining the paths. — Felt like Indiana Jones as the one-mpg behemoth rolled into a murky lake, flanked by lizards and brilliant, fire-blue butterflies, and had our guide wave to the ‘Tokyo Express,’ another DUKW hauling a family of Nikon-toting Japanese. — Watched a supposed ‘koala expert’ recoil after the quasi-placid monster decided to filet her jugular - and thus make us witness to a marsupial murder - only to laugh at our terror seconds later (the koala’s claws failed to even break the skin). — Had a koala use my neck as a grappling hook, claws making permanent impressions in my shoulder-blades, and stand there while I turned into his own personal fire hydrant, courtesy of a secretion gland on his sternum. — Allowed a three-meter long female water python to coil into my scarf, minutes after Steve from Wisconsin’s face had turned ruby-red when the python turned into his very own neck-pretzel. — Stared down a flightless, helmeted Cassowary, one of only 1,500 of the remaining in the world, as one-inch ants crawled along the bars separating the tourist and the taloned, who last felled a human in 1926. — Approached a lounging, languid kangaroo, posed like a supermodel on the warm sand of a petting zoo, only to see the kangaroo lope a few feet over to both urinate and munch from someone else’s paws. Needless to say, my feelings were a bit hurt. Talk about kangaroo kruelty. — Retaliated against a marsupial by chowing down one of its cousins for dinner, when, at a Mexican Cantina, a kangaroo patty - tasting like a barbecued bovine - filled my gullet and brought a smile to my face. — Wanted Dramamine as badly as on the two-hour, serene and anticipatory boat ride out to the Great Barrier Reef. The week’s food stayed down, but wouldn’t it have been cool if my upchuck had attracted some sharks? — Found a hitch in my breath - normally relegated for the moment I look at my girlfriend - as my de-fogged goggles pierced the water over the Great Barrier Reef. — Realized that some things - The Dark Knight (of which I’ve already have four separate conversations), Kettle’s Chips, and now the Great Barrier Reef - can actually live up to the hype. — Practiced saying ‘Cheers, mate’ to Aussie sailors and, without a fault, been greeted with a grin every time. That look served as a microcosm for the thoroughly Australian - and hopefully universal - attitude of ‘Good on ya!’, holding attempts (whether successful or not) in higher esteem than merely sitting on the sidelines. — Sat alongside a trio of Kiwis - one of whose resemblance to a toned-down, clean-shaven Eddie Izzard quite nearly blew my mind - while the Wallabies and the All-Blacks threw themselves at each other on the rugby pitch of the big-screen. — Been ditched by a trio of Kiwis after New Zealand’s vaunted line caved against the home Aussies, falling 34-19 in a match that arose the jubilance of the remaining Gilligan’s crowd. — Left Cairns with fond memories - when the only complaint is that the flock of parrots (parrots!) squawked uncontrollably outside the bedroom window - and the knowledge that the spoiling of the Americans was now over. — Learned two hours before my Qantas flight back to Sydney that a Qantas flight from Italy to Melbourne made an emergency landing in Manila yesterday when a van-sized chunk of the front fuselage blew from the plane - possible caused by an overpressurized fire extinguisher - thus creating an ‘almighty bang’ and, in the subsequent article, that Qantas had employed an unlicensed airplane technician for 12 months on over 1000 international flights. Let’s go for a ride! — Blogged from Sydney, where a whole semester awaits.
Maybe it's the bed, with wayward blankets and clean, unfolded clothes near the foot. Maybe it's the Legos, piled en masse on my bedroom walls, collecting dust instead of remodeling. Maybe it's the table loaded to the breaking point with baseballs, some signed, some dirtied, all caring more than their fair share of accomplishments.
Or maybe it's just the fact that the cumbersomeness of this trip, the grand weight of the 4.5-month long endeavor, is just too big to fit in that little squiggly head muscle. Because for one reason or another, I'm just not feeling it. The clock is ticking down - only a few hours until the (highly-lauded because it's so late and therefore I can sleep like I was meant to) 5 p.m. flight time - but I'm still sitting in Portland, both physically and mentally.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course - Portland's got the wondrous Chinese Gardens (which, barring the $8 cover, sound absolutely marvelous), the loafing Powell's Books (the color-coated rooms, from "rose" to "coffee," tap the heart of Portland's hippie roots), and the gateway to the Pacific (as long as you survive the mean strip-malls of Beaverton). Still, it would be nice to feel a distinct tug off of my too-comfortable-for-my-fat-content mattress and into the open world (ironic, as I'm sure much of my time in Australia will be me planted, eyes glazed, fingers struggling to type in front of a computer screen).
At least I can see it on the horizon. I know - logically, at least - that I won't be in the same place in 24 hours. Save for a brief New York reprieve last week (and if you haven't heard the story about going to The Dark Knight premiere, boy will I enjoy recounting it for you), the monotony of this summer has been nearly overwrought and overbearing. Yet if nothing more, the tedium has given me the chance to crack open the few muck-covered books wailing to be saved from the bowels of my unsavory basement.
Which is where Bill Bryson, the epic travel-writer, steps in. I use 'epic' in a loose nature - the description comes not so much from his novelistic accomplishments, nor from his broad, exhilarating style and humor, but from the girth of his beard. Take a moment to soak in that beast's breadth. You could easily do a travel narrative just by hacking through Bryson's beard. Anyway, Bryson, as mentioned above, is an excellent writer, conveying pathos, wit, and a steady charm throughout his novels. To say that the man was born a genius may be untrue, but after working through A Brief History of Nearly Everything, the blueprint for becoming a genius becomes clear.
The first basement book to shake off its insalubrious muck was Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, and thus the obvious source of this blog's title. In a moment of postmodernism, Bryson's title actually came from Dorothea Mackellar's "My Country," Australia's adopted national anthem, the most well-cited part of which reads,
I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains.
Seeing the affinity between Australians and the poem, Bryson took the title and finagled 330 pages of the most pertinent, most helpful, and most gruesome information I could ever hope to find about my future host country. For example:
-Did you know that Australia boasts the most venomous spider (funnel web), octopus (blue-ringed), jellyfish (box), fish (stone-), and tick (paralysis...yeesh), in addition to the murdering crocodiles, sharks, and cassowaries (although the last recorded fatal cassowary slashing was in 1926...doesn't that mean they're due?)
-Australia is the only country I've ever heard of that had a presiding prime minister swept out to sea, never to be seen from again. In 1967, Harold Holt, against his own suggestion, paddled out into the ostensibly calm Pacific, where an eager riptide kept him from retaining his post.
-Australia is a country which features the oldest language, and arguably the oldest continual culture.
-Sir Eugene Gossens - the man who commissioned the famous Sydney Opera House, one of the most admired, picturesque, and captivating feats in modern architecture - never saw his dream in the flesh. Apparently, the Sydney Transit Authority was rubbed (no pun intended) the wrong way by Gossens's wide variety of pornographic materials, unearthed in the Sydney Airport in 1956, and the highly-esteemed head of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra expatriated himself to a land where he could enjoy his interests in the open (San Francisco, perhaps?)
These four points barely scratch the surface of the inane and insane stories that leave me doubled over in pain (or scared out of my brain, or eager to drive in the left lane....Ok, enough rhyming). Bryson has effectively succeeded where the sands of time have not - the slight pull Down Under has started to take hold.
Maybe it's the accent, curt and leisurely. Maybe it's the fauna, exotic, taloned, clawed, fanged, toothed, tentacled....Maybe it's the location, with the Southern Cross upending the Big Dipper and the lack of existence for 24 hours (let's hope July 23rd wasn't supposed to mean anything to me). Hell, maybe it's just the fact that the toilets flush the other way.
Australia, the least populous nation per mile (six people, with nearly 85% located in urban settings), is about to get one more.
TBJ Ep. 465: Not So Super
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*Monday to Friday, The Basketball Jones look at the big games and story
lines from the night before with a mix of in-depth analysis and irreverent
humor....
A Chance Encounter With The Commander-in-Chief
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Timing matters a lot in this business, and yesterday, New York Daily News
reporter James Gordon Meek's was excellent. The reason he happened to be
standing...
‘DOCK ELLIS AND THE LSD NO-NO’ FTW
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The awesomeness is emanating out of No Mas like butter through the pores of
an obese child being chased down the street. This is an incredibly well-done
an...
Greg Oden Wednesday night — what did that game mean?
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Well, all I can say is, yes, it was against a team that didn’t really have
the talent or system to challenge him. And yes, I want to see him against a
bett...
Thursday Bullets
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*By Henry Abbott*
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was a metric ton of hype. Then Oden was out for the year...
Digging Deeper Into Fort Hood
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This week's cover package looks at how the nature of terrorism is changing.
Plus: Joe Klein on the surge, Halperin travels with Palin. DETAILS: Get them
he...
More on the Yankees payroll arguments
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Khoi Vinh on the Yankees and Payroll For almost a decade, the Yankees have
consistently maintained the highest payroll in Major League Baseball while
faili...
Yo, JOE!
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The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde
Some delightful cameos in this lovingly crafted piece of art. I hate it when
I see something awesome on the inter...
Cultural Insensitivity
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Maybe I am being a little culturally insensitive, but sometimes cultural
stereotypes need to be expressed.
Working in a large international hotel chain giv...
Class is in Session
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There I was, my last day of work at Anthro Corporation, unwrapping my
going away gifts, which included sentimental mexican music and scented
candles, w...
