Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

I lost another old friend and role model yesterday. And this time it’s not an actor or a rock star. This time it’s personal.

She was a great woman of God, who was part of the team that taught not just me, but dozens of other Darwin Christians roughly my age how to own our faith and be serious about the things we claim to believe. Even as she battled cancer she was a source of joy to all those who knew her, especially her husband and young children, who now prepare to enter a very different world.

It comes as a bit of a kick up the trousers for me too. There’s the pain and sadness of losing an old friend for starters. But something deeper than that twists when I think back on all the truth and charisma that was imparted to us back in the day. And how for the last eighteen months or so I’ve been so vocal and bombastic about carrying on those ideas now I’m old enough to do something about it. And how I’ve done basically nothing at all about it.

Lately it seems I’m dealing with the vanishing or flat out destruction of some pillar of my youth every other week. I suppose that’s how it should be, as I’m far too old to be standing on pillars these days. But when I look around I don’t see many signs of reconstruction. I’m not over-awed by the abundance of great role models like I was when I was a starry eyed teenager at Easter Camp.

Maybe I’m getting old, or maybe I’m just a cranky cynic whining about how they don’t make them like they used to.

The obvious solution is to do it myself. “You wanna see a miracle son? Be the miracle.” And while it’s all very inspiring and self congratulatory to imagine stepping up to become the very hero I looked up to as a kid, the more I look back on those days the more I question whether I’ve got anything like what it takes. They really don’t make them like the used to.

For today, it’s enough to mourn and remember the life of a magnificent woman of God. Tomorrow is a question for tomorrow.



Garry with 2 Rs
In memory of Krysti Etherington

Three Sixty Degrees

I’m a big fan of U2’s work, both musically and humanitarian…ly so last week while I was in Brisbane I went to the U2 360° concert. I’ve been trying for three days since to find the best way describe the experience in writing. I’ve decided that it probably can’t be done. But I’ve always held that just because something is impossible is no reason not to do it. So here, in my typically sophisticated, eloquent, counter clockwise and totally-not-a-squealing-fan-girl style, is my literary portrayal of U2 360°. Enjoy.

We queued up for about five hours but it was definitely worth it because we managed to get a spot right next to the circle stage under the dome set which was freaking huge and shaped like a giant green and orange space invader and once we got inside we watched three guys getting harnessed into the lighting rig and hoisted up about twenty feet above the crowd to run the lights show which was spectacular but even so you would normally think that putting on such a grandiose display would make the band themselves seem small by comparison, but Bono and his mates rocked out and made the whole space ship seem exactly the right size, mainly because all four of them are basically built out of solidified charisma and next thing I know they're out walking along the stage and I'm a metre and half away from The Edge which is just nuts, not to take anything away from the awesomeness of the set which swirled around and set off a light show that would have been literally mind boggling if that was semantically possible and then there was the sound blasting out of speakers that really were the size of my unit playing all my favourite songs and celebrating with Aung San Suu Kyi and then playing “In The Name of Love” and my head just about exploded (that one’s probably purely figurative) but that might have had as much to do with getting a lung full of smoke machine and then Bono wanders out in a leather jacket with lazer pointers sewn into it  shooting beams everywhere and two days later my ears were still ringing (really) and I still couldn’t stop smiling and I bought a T shirt.

But I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.

Garry with 2 Rs

Farewell Old Friend

Famous people are always making the news. They’re getting married, or they’re getting divorced, or they’re going into rehab or they’re going into politics or they have a baby or they die or whatever. It’s all over the mainstream media and it flows straight over me like so much hot air.

Celebrities really don’t interest me. I mean, I’ll pass an approving comment if they make a good movie/song/political point/sporting achievement or whatever. But in general the births, deaths and marriages of the rich and famous go on around me like background noise at a soccer match; you can’t really avoid it, but you can tune out to it if you’re focussed enough on the stuff that matters.

This week was different. This week it wasn’t just another star from a TV show I’ll never watch dating a singer of songs I’ll never listen to. This week I lost a childhood icon. When I learned on Monday morning that Leslie Nielsen had passed away, I was genuinely affected by it in a way that celebrity news never achieves with me. As I read the headline on a news website, I actually exclaimed “Oh No!” out loud in the middle of my open plan office, prompting co-workers around me to enquire as to what was wrong. As I explained that Leslie Nielsen had died, all the cool ones joined me in a reflective chorus of “Surely you can’t be serious!”

Leslie Nielsen taught me how to be funny. Some might argue that he didn’t do a particularly good job, but that’s neither here nor there. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many of our teenaged hours my mates and I spent on various lounge room floors watching the Naked Gun or Flying High (AKA Airplane) movies. Very rarely do the terms ‘laugh out loud’ and ‘roll on the floor laughing’ literally mean what they say, but watching those films, even for the fourth or fifth time, they certainly did. I’ve never heard of anyone literally laughing his or her arse off, but if anyone could have induced such a phenomenon, it was Lieutenant Frank Drebin. They really don’t make films like that anymore. More’s the pity.

It probably says something about my rather non-standard cultural upbringing that I can provide an endless selection of Naked Gun quotes, and yet to this day have never seen Titanic, Top Gun or any of the Terminator movies, all of which were massivly popular amongst my peers during my school years and all of which start with T. Admittedly, Top Gun was released when I was only three, but there again, Flying High was released before I was born. Make of that what you will.

Leslie Nielsen was the one who first taught me the value of saying something utterly absurd and keeping a straight face while doing it. As I grew older my appreciation of this undervalued art would be shaped by the likes of the Monty Python crew and Shaun Micallef, but Leslie will always be my first. His most famous reply: “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley” is still the benchmark for deadpan delivery styles.

“She was the kind of woman who made you want to get down on your knees and thank God you were a man. She had breasts that seemed to say ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ Yep; she reminded me of my mother alright.”

So farewell my old friend. Eighty four was a good innings, and you can go to your rest knowing that you helped shape at least one horribly confused teenager into the only slightly less confused man that he is today.

Good luck, and we’re all counting on you back here.

Garry with 2 Rs

Holy Cultural Dislocation, Batman!

Okay, okay. This one really is about World Youth Day. You didn't actually think I was going to let this one through to the keeper did you?

What I'm not going to do is start whinging and pontificating (pun completely intended) about road closures, crowded trains or noisy concerts. I don't care how much tax payer's money has been spent on it, and I don't care how much of a boost to the fiscal budget 150 000 catholics are likely to bring. I'm not interested if you got abused by a deranged priest 20 years ago and want a signed apology from George Pell. Just for this week, I don't even care about gay rights, civil liberties, contraception, papal iconicry or which company produced the Pope's red shoes.

Actually, for once I have no intention of complaining at all. In truth, despite applying my considerable cynical clout with as much force as I could muster I wouldn't really describe my impression of WYD as bad at all , from an outsiders perspective. Nope the word I'm using for it is...

Odd.

Really odd. Not odd in the sense of "how come all these guys are singing in the streets and playing tambourines in public?". Not odd in the sense of "how could so many young people be attracted to such an outdated and outmoded religion?". Not odd in the sense of "I don't understand why you would line the streets to watch a cleric drive past in an armour-plated golf-buggy." And not even odd in the sense of "Does anyone else think Pope Benedict XVI (or B16 as he likes to be known amongst the kids) bears a striking resemblance to Emperor Sidius?" Nope, while I don't choose them for myself, I can at least respect and, to a certain extent, understand all that stuff. What makes the whole thing really odd for me is the very fact that I'm looking at it from an outsiders's perspective in the first place.

Let me explain. It all started with Batman (as these things often do).

Weeks ago some friends and I decided to book tickets to go and watch the Dark Knight at the Imax this week (An awesome decision, and a fantastic film, by the way). We overlooked the fact that the night we had booked to go see it at Darling Harbour was the night that the Pope was being welcomed to the city with a huge parade. It didn't matter too much, as the cinema was the perfect place to hide from the thronging masses outside. The confusing part came when we tried to leave the city centre by train at the same time as six million catholics tried to do the same thing.

At that point I suddenly realised why the whole thing seemed so strange. If we were caught up in the middle of the International Car-Enthusiast's Convention, or the Asia Pacific Militant Feminism Forum, or the fifth annual Global Convergence of People Who Grow Their Own Spinach, then it would have been perfectly natural for me to feel completely alienated from it. But this was an international Christian convention (I'm not fielding any questions on the distinction between Catholicism and Christianity, by the way. They're both just labels) and yet, despite having been a Christian for longer than some of these kids had been alive, I felt as out of place as I would have if I were walking with the spinach guys.

That was weird enough, but then a vocally passionate group somewhere behind us started singing. Most of the singing people have been singing in Korean, or Maori, or Classical Latin, which is fine, because whatever isn't communicated by the words comes across fairly clearly in the enthusiasm levels.

These guys were singing in English, and what's more they were singing all the popular Hillsong songs and classic P&W that I was brought up on. It's hard to explain how weird it was to be watching that, but not be part of it. It was a bit like watching a movie of your life, with someone else playing the role of you. I actually felt really creeped out between the theatre and Central Station, but I think probably only half of that was due to the catholics. The other half was Heath Ledger.

Far from home



Garry with 2 Rs

Mr Wonderful

I think the time has come for me to let loose on an issue that has been getting my goat for quite some time now. And, metaphorical though it may be, my goat is quite fast and difficult to pin down. Just like me.

Those of you who know me in person will possibly be thinking "wait… Garry is actually quite slow and could be pinned down without too much trouble by just about anyone." And you’d be right, more or less. But compared to the floppy-jacketed economic girly-man that has so incensed me for so long, I’m a veritable Andrew Symonds, keeping one step ahead of the pack with the speed and agility of… well, of a goat.

Now… what was I on about again (before I was so rudely interrupted)? Oh yes – a subject that has been… annoying me for a while now.

I had thought I was the only one who felt this way, but recently I heard a radio announcer discussing his opinions on the subject and was encouraged by the fact that they lined up fairly well with mine. This radio announcer was expressing his opinions on the behaviour and nature of a fictional character that has largely enjoyed the adoration of millions of fans without ever really having to stand up to any serious moral scrutiny. A character of book and films (or rather, films of the book) who is recognised all over western civilisation as Mr Wonderful.

You know who I’m on about, right? That ineffable gentleman whose name starts with “Mr D” and ends with “arsey”.

I’ll admit straight up that I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice. It’s on my list of things to do when I get bored. Really bored.

I have sat through the six hours of the BBC rendition wherein our hero was played Colin Firth. Twice (I got in trouble the second time for letting on that I was constructing alternative plot lines in my head, which may or may not have involved dinosaurs). As far as I can understand, the basic premise is this (correct me if I’m wrong):

He doesn’t like her because she is plain and ordinary and well below him in social standing (that’s the pride bit)

She doesn’t like him because he’s an anti-social git and, she is informed (unreliably it turns out) he mistreated some guy who was in the army (whose name I’ve forgotten). She finds it so easy to believe the worst of him because he’s an anti-social git (that’s the prejudice bit).

As the plot (I use the term loosely – basically it’s a series of dances and every so often a peripheral character gets married plus I think someone tries to buy their house at some point?) unfolds, Mr Darcy falls in love with her because… he likes her eyes. Initially she won’t have a bar of him because he is an anti-social git and mistreated her friend what’s-his-name. But once it is revealed that the stories about what’s-his-name aren’t actually true, she starts to warm to him. And what really clinches it is when her sister runs off to town with what’s-his-name and Mr. Darcy goes and fetches them back. Once this happens – Ka-Bam it’s a match made in Heaven.

We can discuss the implausibility of the plot at a later date. What really riles me up is that all of a sudden he’s Mr Wonderful. At no point has there been any hint of dealing with the fact that he’s an anti-social git.

Now by contrast, let’s look at England’s other most eligible bachelor; Prince William, who admittedly has the marked advantage of being less fictional, if no more realistic. Patriotic republican and renowned pommy-basher though I may be, even I am forced to admit that P.William has serious style. When the crown prince comes a-courting, does he take a turn about the estate and remark upon the weather? I don’t think so. Does he dress himself up in his best white blouse and throw himself in the duck pond? Hell no! What does Prince William do to show a girl his affection? He lands helicopter on his intended’s back lawn! Now that’s romance!

In light of this unmistakable demonstration of the proper way to do it, I’m going to add my voice to that of the radio presenter.

“Mr Darcy; you’re a disgrace”

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs