Sorry for not getting back to y’all my little neglectorinos, it has not been a good week.
Miss R’s gramps finally lost the fight on wednesday, and we’ve been a bit preoccupied. I’m OK, but right now I need to be there for her - please don’t take it personally if I don’t have much to say .
I’ll be back in a few days, we just have a bit of a tough time to get through. Take care everyone and remember, grab life by the throat coz you never know when your time’s up.
At any large outdoor event where large crowds gather, I find people watching to be one of the most enjoyable aspects. I also wonder if perhaps you see a broader cross section of people at motorsport events than you might at say, the footy or the cricket. Yobs and Bogans literally rub shoulders with scantily clad promo girls, suburban mums and dads, wheelchair bound revheads, and middle aged chardonnay swilling sportscar fanatics. With a 70,000 strong crowd on Sunday, there were ample opportunities to see the best… and the worst… of both fashion sense and behaviour.
Each year, the merchandise machine wakes early from its summer slumber, readying a host of new items designed to extract the hard earned moolah of even the most scabbiest of race fans.
This year, the hot, sunny weather ensured the perennial skimpy little tops would be snapped up quickly by your motorchick, but the big hit with the ladies in ‘06 looks like being V8 Supercar underwear. Here we see the sweety to the left modeling two of Ford Racing’s offerings, the “X- strap” singlet and the “lacy and racy” t-bar panties. Note the light blue Ford coloured inset bordered by the black lace trim. Nice.
As with any event that, some may argue, appeals to a fairly simple minded audience, artificial skin pigments were well represented. I attempted to capture some of the ink on a couple of the larger, goatie bearded, shaven headed specimens, but man, you take your life in your hands photographing those guys. I must say though, their body art covered the full spectrum of your traditional bogan style “guns and roses” designs, to the more contemporary Dave Grohl look. One very, very brave punter even went so far as to get a Rotor tattooed onto his right shoulder. Getting the tatt is hardcore enough… but walking through the Holden marquee with it… well… the guy must have balls of steel.
But if you thought only the manfolk were using bodily cartoons to make permanent commitments to transient youthful ideals, you’d be sadly mistaken. Your tattooed girly was abundant, and came in many varieties from your “sharon bogan” to your “teen belly dolphin” look. Hugely popular this year though were Kanji symbols on either shoulder. Over the course of Saturday afternoon, I counted no less than 14 Kanji symbol tattooed chicks - most opting for the more traditional symbols representing elements like “Fire” or “Bravery”, but others going for the more contemporary “I’m easy”.
Music is also a prominent feature of your typical large motorsport event, and when served with several cans of overpriced liquor you can be assured of a certain degree of daggy dancing. For daggy dancing to take place, the music doesn’t have to be any good, in fact in some instances, no music is required at all. To the left you see a fearless bunch of revellers dancing like no-one’s watching as the roadie does a soundcheck. By the time the band actually started playing, they were lying face down on the grass wiping the vomit from their chins. Still none of them spilt a drop.
Once all the bars shut, and the band has done three encores, everyone streams out of the gates and onto public transport. No motorsport experience is complete without this final chance to mingle with fellow race fans in all their bourbon fueled glory. By now the sweat has fused with exhaust fumes, race fuel, oil, rubber and dust all over everyone’s skin, and dried, as they squeeze onto busses and trains where it’s standing room only. Surprisingly though, everyone is pretty well mannered and the mood is festive, with only occasional outbursts from paralytic flag waving fans along the lines of “GO THE (insert name of car here)
As the bus pulls out, I watch a guy in stone wash jeans stagger past carrying a complete door off one of the Falcon racecars over his shoulder. Looking back toward the racecourse I can just make out the large inflatable Lion above the Holden tent in the fading light, its purpose still a mystery to me. The sun sinks below the buildings, and the gentle breeze whipped up by the traffic carries plastic bags and empty beer cans along with it.
And the circus rolls quietly out of town.
oooooh… almost made her smile, or maybe I just freaked her out. I ‘ll try the brunette.
kerrr-ching!
We’re sitting up on the 8th floor, and suddenly there’s this slow rumble… that gets louder… and louder… and louder. My cubicle buddy jokes that the much feared outlaw motorcycle gang showdown must have finally eventuated, and what we were hearing was the sound of a hundred Harley’s thundering into the city. But then I hear one of them gun the engine… “it must be just outside our building!!” I squeal. Grabbing my camera I bolt for the lift, several other of my office bretheren and sisteren in hot pursuit. I get to the ground foor, and there’s people everywhere, so I run off in the general direction of the roar. As I round the corner a huge plume of smoke erupts from the street, and I am soon engulfed by the unmistakleable smell of burning rubber and racing fuel. I watch the tail of the car flick to the left as the huge tyres suddenly bite on the hot tar, and the crowd lets out a huge cheer.
This is the curtain raiser to how I will spend my weekend, at the annual 4 day rev-fest that consumes my quiet little city every March. Oh? You didn’t know I was a rev-head? Uh huh… that’s right… I like stuff that makes lots of noise and goes very, very, fast. And these 620 odd horsepower brutes fulfil those requirements perfectly.
I have even been in training for it.
Apart from getting up to speed on who is driving for who, and all the specualtion a brand new motorsport season brings, I have also sworn off alcohol this week. I have been out running every night, and eaten the bear minimum I need to sustain me during the day. I have gone to bed by 10 each night. I have been a good general boy.
I do this, because over the next 3 days, all that is out the window.
This weekend, I’ll pay too much for beer and drink waaaay too much of it. I’ll stand up and yell “fwwooooooaaaarrrr!!!” when the FA18 flies after with the after burner on. I will eat nine hot dogs and 7 cups of hot chips. I will chase hot promo girls in clingy lycra costumes for photo opportunities. I will wear a stupid hat with some brand or other of car on it. The only excercise I get will be walking to the beer bar tent and stomping up and down the grandstand carrying said beer. I will cram two XD picture cards with photos, some of cars, and some of… ummm… scenery.
I’ll try and jump on sometime over the weekend and say hullo to y’all, but I am gonna be pretty flat out. I guess that nicely sums up the weekend, huh? Flat out… y’know… like the… oh nevermind…
Stay safe my little pomme d’terres, I’ll be back. 
I swear on any given morning, if I look at this patch of water I will see this exact same stingray cruise past. I wonder how many years he’s done this, how many surfers he’s freaked out, and how many kids folicking in the shorebreak he’s drifted gracefully by without them ever knowing.
Today the light was good, although there was a light offshore breeze adding little ripples to the water. Had it been glassy with no wind I could have got a better pic or Mr. Stingy. He’s not a biggy, only about 3 feet ( 1m ) from wingtip to wingtip - but I know of a much bigger one who often makes an appearance on a nearby reef. Grandpa Stingy has cruised right under me in the water several times, and I have surfed right over the top of him on about half a dozen occasions. He is almost 2m from tip to tip, and is quite impressive when you see the wake he leaves behind him. He’s also a bit scary when he cruises right up to you for a closer look, with only his wingtips flapping above the surface of the water - only diving under you at the very last moment!
I was a smart kid.
Please forgive me if this sounds like a brag, or some sad recollection of prodigious pre- adolescent talent overshadowed by adulthood mediocrity - it’s not like that.
From an early age, I knew I was a bit smarter than the other kids - but let me put this into perspective. First up, the other kids were pretty dumb… which gave me an advantage. Second, I was a streetwise city slicker kid dropped into a hic country school - where kids were often dropped off by their parents in a truck that also carried live pigs or chickens. And thirdly, I was no genius and I knew it… but as long as dumber kids were willing to call me “professor”, I was happy to let them believe I was. Bluff was a huge part of it… and is a cornerstone of what and who I am to this very day.
In the early years, school never really challenged me, and that tended to make me a bit, well, smart arsed. It’s not that I didn’t respect authority figures - I was certainly no rebel - it’s just I was able to recognise idiocy in adults from about age 10. I remember one report card that came home, and the comments my teacher wrote. “General boy continually disrupts other students, and seems to have appointed himself ‘deputy teacher’. And she was right, I had - but only because it frustrated me no end that she professed to be “teaching” us, but either had limited knowledge of the subject matter, or had no idea how to convey it. I felt it my duty to fill in the gaps, and clarify, and simplify things to the others in my class - in language they could understand. My mum was absolutely furious when she read the comment. I remember her literally gouging the words “ROT!! ( see attached note )” in dark blue biro into the parent’s comments section at the bottom of the page.
By the time I left primary school, I was generally rated as the brightest young hopeful, and great things we expected of me. Typically, a large portion of this lay in my bluffing abilities, and also my knack of finding lazy ways to get things done faster. I remember a daily maths test we had in grade 5, and the teacher had a marking system that was simple so all of the kids could swap at the end and mark each others papers. To make it exciting, she timed it - and awarded prizes to whoever finished the test first, and kept a running scoreboard on the back wall. By about the third test I noticed something… a sequence in the numbers… that I could exploit. All I had to do was figure out the start point in the test, which changed all the time - but once I knew that, all I had to do was write down the sequence of answers without actually performing the arithmetic. I kept mum about this, but by the third week of me finishing the test in 6 seconds flat, while other students were yet to complete question 1, the teacher figured something fishy was going on. I feared I would be exposed as a cheat - but to my delight, I was instead congratulated on my resourcefulness. I thought it was obvious - I simply couldn’t believe no-one else had figured it out.
I would have run ins and get off side with several other teachers, and tell them in plain, honest language that I simply thought they weren’t up to the job. But among them were a small minority… a handful of sharp, funny, gentle people - who saw something and were able to bring out the best in me. These people probably influenced me more than they know, and I still remember them with some fondness. In my first year of High School I was put in all the “A” level classes, and set on a path heavy in science and mathematics. These things certainly interested me - they always had, and I greeted this with much anticipation.
In year eight I was put in Mrs Dridan’s maths class, with all the other “brainy” kids. This was a major change for someone who was used to blitzing simple farm kids in maths games of “bang pop”. Suddenly there were people who were significantly smarter than me… and I had trouble adjusting. Despite this, I still managed good grades for the first two terms - after which we were given a new teacher - Mr Jenkins.
While Mrs Dridans’s style was supportive, encouraging, and non-preferential, Jenkins’ was selective, destructive and divisive. He had a ready made “boys club”, being the local footy umpire and having several junior players in his class. They would never get poor grades, could joke and muck around without getting any strife, and generally cruise the whole maths year. Jenkins also thought it was good form to teach his four favourite students, and let them set the pace for the rest of us. They would streak off ahead, quickly grasping concepts and methods that became increasingly beyond the rest of the class - me included. Just to help me that little extra, in the last term Jenkins began singling me out for ridicule - regularly making an example of me when I volunteered an incorrect answer. This soon stopped me even trying, but this seemed to fill him with even more glee as he repeatedly picked me at random to attempt the most difficult questions. Very occasionally, I’d surprise him and get it right, but more often than not, I choked.
I was lucky enough to get Jenkins for year nine, and by the second term mum and dad were starting to get concerned at my falling grades. I pulled a C+ and scraped through, but in the last term the best I could manage was a D. They called in a maths tutor as I was falling behind, but while he was a reasonable mathematician and teacher, his tendency to down half a bottle of Scotch before turning up soon raised my parent’s ire. When I was dudded again in year 10, and put in Jenkin’s class, they decided enough was enough. Mum let fly at him at a parent teacher night after he remarked that I appeared to be “in the early stages of giving up”. She knew that it was starting to effect my other subjects, as my confidence in myself went into a nosedive. I started to believe I was, well, just dumb.
So meetings were called, and co-ordinators consulted, and plans made. Jenkins gave an assurance that he would do his utmost to help arrest my flagging grades, even offering after school time in a special coaching class. So it seemed maybe I had dropped the ball, and maybe I did need to work harder - maybe I just misunderstood him and all he was trying to do was help me.
So you can imagine my utter amazement when, on the first day of term 2 in year 10, he let fly at me 5 minutes into the lesson with a vicious and personal verbal assault. At first it seemed completely unprovoked - and I am convinced I actually went part way into shock. But then I thought about the meetings, and how perhaps someone had given him some sort of warning about his methods in the light of an official complaint. And now he was going to make my life hell for it.
This went on for another 6 months - and eventually I started not turning up, since copping a truancy rap was preferable to sitting through more of Jenkins’ vitriol. I failed maths miserably for the year, and also Physics due to the frighteningly similar teaching style of one Mr. Watkins. I just scraped through Chem - but only because my smart arse sense of humour and “creative” style of writing reports amused my dry-witted teacher, Mrs Tregowan.
I finally managed to shake Jenkins in year 11, but despite several interesting subjects and a personable new maths teacher, by then the rot had well and truly set in. All I wanted to do was leave, now utterly convinced I was too stupid and inept to ever go to University. I set my heart instead on getting out, and getting an apprenticeship - and my independence. I followed this plan, but my fear of maths and my confidence in my ability took several years to recover. Having not been nurtured in those formative years, I knew I would never catch up.
Years later I decided I had to exorcise the Maths demon - and set about a vague plan to enroll at uni. I took a night class exclusively in technical maths, and to my amazement found I was doing OK at it. By the end of the 20 weeks I was starting to believe that maybe I could do this - so I took the plunge and did the entrance exam. I cruised it, and before I knew what was happening to me, I was a full time student.
That piece of paper got me my first “grown up” job, helped along in a major way by an old school buddy. Funnily enough, Shane also had Jenkins as a maths teacher, but being a good footballer he was always one of the “chosen ones” who never failed. We’d talk about Jenkins from time to time, but I’d bite my tongue since Shane had that “sportsground respect” thing for him. My job was at times maths heavy, and sometimes I would struggle - but I would eventually figure things out. In the back of my mind though, I wondered how much better at it I could have been. I was still angry for the years of my life he crushed my confidence - even after he was no longer in it.
One day Shane came in to work, and looked very downcast. I asked him what was up, and he said hadn’t I heard about Jenkins? And it turned out that he set up a business in the country town I grew up in that went bust, so he became a local politician but didn’t get elected. The night of the election defeat, Jenkins went home, grabbed a beer from his fridge, and wandered out to his poolroom. There he set up the balls as if he was going to have a practice game, then opened the case on the wall and removed the 12 gauge shotgun. He sat on one of the barstools, inserted two fresh rounds, put the muzzle in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
His family was devastated, his two teenage boys now fatherless and his wife left a widow. They say when the cops came to do the investigation, Jenkins had left a note. No-one really knows what it said, but the cops asked about the pool table. It was obvious Jenkins had set up the game, but something was missing. The cops asked a distraught Mrs Jenkins if the table had never had a black ball, and she answered that of course the table had a black ball - it always had. The cops scoured the property for 2 days, and never found it.
No-one ever did.
…and general boy management deeply regrets any confusion the earlier post denying being Will Anderson may have causedHe just stood there and looked at his shoes, his arms limp by his sides, while her shoulders rocked, and she held two trembling hands to her mouth. Her eyes were wide pools of despair, staring at the remains of something splintered into one million pieces on the hard concrete. Like the hunter who sees the arrow go in for the first time, and out the other side, he was stunned at the devastation. He could not believe mere words could do this.
The girl on the corner took me back to a place I’d sooner forget.
