The Big Texan’s Telenovela

DISCLAIMER: I started writing this post on 6 January (including the part about a brain-dump confession). I became distracted with other things before posting it. More to come (obviously) now a confession of sorts is coming …

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A few sketchy thoughts on the latest episode in the telenovela that is the Big Texan, something I have covered previously in this post. Sticking to the ‘Five Ws’ …

Who? Lance Armstrong, the greatest sociopath never to win a Tour de France.

What? Armstrong is reported to be considering admitting to using PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) and blood transfusions during his cycling career. ‘Considering admitting’. Is that even a thing? Yes. Think of the number of times you’ve seen expendable politician muse publicly on party leadership / policy. Create a shitstorm. See where the chips fall.

When? Armstrong’s camp launched the first salvo in the NYT on January 5, with a great tease: after denying that he had doped during his cycling career (in sworn testimony as well as to the media, the people ‘outside the bus’, himself), viciously denigrating anyone who said otherwise, and deploying an army of Armstrong Orcs (including athletes, authorities and Matthew McConaughey) against the ‘haters and cynics’, Lance is, according to people with direct knowledge of what goes on in his head (most likely Lance), thinking of telling the world & its mother that he’s been a cheatin’ & a lyin’.

Where? First reported in the New York Times, the ‘maybe, baby’ yarn tore through the media cycle (mainstream, sporting and social) faster than a barbed wire fence through lycra (apologies to Johnny Hoogerland).

Why? As I tweeted when the story broke, nothing this man does would surprise me, but here are a few motives, either reported (and my take on them) or invented by me (I’ll make those clear).

NYT:

“… he wants to persuade antidoping officials to restore his eligibility so he can resume his athletic career.” (Me: I don’t doubt this. Armstrong needs to compete. It’s his raison d’etre. Fake Twitter accounts won’t keep Juan Pelota happy for much longer).

“Wealthy supporters of Livestrong, the charity he founded after surviving testicular cancer, have been trying to persuade him to come forward so he could clear his conscience and save the organization from further damage, one person with knowledge of the situation said.” (Me: see below, under ‘Cancer Jesus’).

My theories:

Cash. Cash not here: In retirement, Armstrong relied on the continuing support of personal sponsorship from firms including Nike, Trek, SRAM & Oakley; lucrative ‘cycling with Lance Armstrong’ rides, and generally ‘Being Lance’ (South Australia, your tax dollars hard at work paying Armstrong’s Tour Down Under appearance fee). The sponsors have pulled the pin; dissatisfaction with his ‘riding for hire’ is being aired and ‘Being Lance’ isn’t what it was this time last year. Armstrong faces losing approximately $12.5 million in prizemoney, lawsuits and an estimated $30 million from endorsements alone. Despite a rumoured $100 million fortune, a tell-all book, complete with exclusive excerpt and interview deals, on the shelves in time for Father’s Day in the US (Sunday, 16 June … a nice tie-in with the cycling calendar, as well) will help a man ‘raising five children’. Mark the date in your diaries. Floral tributes gratefully accepted if I’m right. I’ll tweet, ‘I was wrong’ if I’m wrong.

Cancer Jesus: Apologies if you are offended by this sobriquet; I find it fitting. Armstrong has inspired many people (whether they have cancer, know someone with cancer, or just want to improve their lifestyle) to think positively, change, get healthy, but HE IS NOT THE BLOODY MESSIAH. He has not done more than anyone else to ‘fight cancer’ (copyright: Phil Liggett). Raising $500 million through LIVESTRONG is amazing; amazingly, the bulk of that money is not spent ‘fighting cancer’ at the frontline – in research labs, on nursing or palliative care, for example. It is spent ‘raising awareness’ of cancer and employing lobbyists to lobby governments for research funding and ‘cancer awareness’. Are you aware of cancer? Yes? Let’s move on.

Despite resigning as Chairman, The LIVESTRONG Foundation was, until recently,  ’The Lance Armstrong Foundation’. Not to be confused (although in all likelihood, very easily confused with http://www.lancearmstrong.com). Every day, its work is still associated with him. A confession may be the only thing that will guarantee its long-term credibility (see above paragraph from NYT). I doubt Lance will be getting many invitations to the Clinton Global Initiative or appear before state legislatures to ‘fight cancer’. Who still wears one of the formerly ubiquitous yellow bracelets or, more importantly, would buy one?

The Big House:

If the Justice Department joins Floyd Landis’ lawsuit, Lance is in trouble.

If the Justice Department decides the senior team (including Armstrong) which ran the US Postal squad defrauded the Federal Government by breaking the terms of its contract, Lance is in more trouble.

Facing time in the Big House is a very unappetising prospect. WWLD? (What Would Lance Do?). Throw everyone else under the bus. If I was Johan Bruyneel, I would be bricking it & moving to a country without an extradition treaty to the US.

cafuné (v. Portuguese)

cafuné: (m.) the act of fondling, or running one’s fingers through your lover’s hair.

“Cut it off.

“No, I don’t want to wait. I’ve been growing it for years, and for what purpose? None.

“I pull it up in a ponytail all of the time. That’s a sign that you should cut your hair.

“ I’m sure. Cut it.”

I run my fingers up my neck and into my hair, following the curve of my spine, grasping the crop until I reach the spot where my hair levels with my ears, the place where the length graduates. I close my eyes sometimes. I watch other people rub their necks. They close their eyes, but the way they rub their necks, impatiently, trying to start a car on a cold morning, is strange to me. Enough people pushing and pulling at their upper vertebrae for me to close my eyes and inhale as my fingers carve a pathway through the centimetres and brush my palm down again.

 ~~~

“Put your fingers through my hair.

“Feel the back of my neck and run your hand across my hair.”

The man took this as a sign that I wanted to be dominated. That I was somehow submitting. You’re so stupid. No, stop the thought. It’s not his fault. There’s a way to do it. How do you explain it? Imagine you’re standing beside a lioness? A great big cat who wanted to feel the rough tongue of another on her neck. They’re my favourite animals. The males, so showy with their manes. The lionesses, their coats as ready for a hunt as their hearts and eyes. I too can turn and flash my teeth, if you want to play, but I would prefer you coaxed me, make me arch my back and inhale as you hit the sweet spot, the soft skin that covers the side of my skull, behind my ears. There’s a way to do it and I can’t explain it so pull my hair instead and try and tame me.

~~~

“Honey, can I wash your hair?”

I dip my face underwater and roll around so I face you. I’m still learning how to let someone touch me without pulling away.

“Wash my hair? Why do you want to wash my hair? Oh, honestly, you make me laugh.”

I turn again, resting the back of my head on your chest. I close my eyes and make a mental snapshot of your legs, wrapped around mine in the cooling, soapy water.

“It is not a laughing thing. It’s very nice for you. I can’t explain. It’s not ‘wash’ like a shampoo. I’m not a hairdresser! Honey, come on, sit up.”

My hair is cut in a shortish bob. It curls into ringlets. There’s literally something in the water here. Unwillingly, I disentangle myself from you and sit up.

“Remember: no massages. I don’t like massages.”

The flesh of your palm is against my neck. I close my eyes and don’t pull away. You weave your fingers through the mass of dripping ringlets. Your hand keeps moving, slowly until my neck arches back, seeking your fingers, and I draw my knees up to my chest. Both of your hands caress my scalp. I inhale, understanding now. I don’t even want you to kiss me. Just run your fingers through my hair.

… that place, between sleep and awake …

You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming?

That’s where I will always love you, Peter Pan.

That’s where I will be waiting.

1 January, 2013, 5am: watching people stagger, swagger on the streets below and flicking through social media accounts, posting pictures of fireworks. Welcome to 2013. The century, someone writes, is a teenager. I’ve seen old years out the window in other places and nothing screams, ‘teenage century’ quite as effectively as a teenage city. Sydney is allowing you into her room, she wants to start kissing at 11.59pm and part at 12.01am. She’s awkward around you as you draw breath because she finds you attractive and she wants you to feel it. Sydney knows she’ll feature on New Year’s Eve celebration packages on a billion televisions, she knows the glint of her gap-toothed smile is captivating.

I’m captivated, content, and finally alone in the dark and my own head. I’ve caroused, parlaying a bottle of champagne on the roof into a party. The lift … of course, the lift is broken, but we make it down the fire stairs without skipping one or smashing anything. I never go to bed before I make an effort to sober up, so I sit by the window and watch, water bottle and lip balm on the sill. I watch and I write, sometimes I make short films about you in my head. Did you know that? Two young men turn the corner. Action. He’s awkward, the one with the folded arms, because he finds you attractive and hasn’t grasped your visual cues, your open stance, bottom lip fidgeting between your teeth. Someone walks past the corner and you both slouch along the wall. Cut! The story may need a rewrite. A drug deal? I preferred my tentative love story, the one where you kiss for two minutes before breaking away. These films rely on my actors’ movement and expression as much as my imagination. You’re giving me nothing to work with. I summon Peter Pan and send a still unanswered message.

Living in LA LA Land

“Anyone who imagines they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is, no one ascends alone.”

Lance Armstrong, It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

Lance Armstrong knew all about teamwork.

For every grimace in the face of an outrageous mountain gradient; for every second split in a bunch sprint; for every sinew straining in the race of truth … Lance Armstrong climbed to the top of the Tour de France podium seven times as part of a team.

Sportspeople rarely claim their spoils as individuals. Tennis players thank everyone in ‘their corner’, just as boxers do; some athletes have an annoying tendency to speak of themselves in the third person. Cyclists have their team on the road, and off it. Everyone from the soigneurs to the directeurs sportif is part of the team.

Last week, the world learnt just how far Lance Armstrong’s ‘team’ went to ensure their companion’s ascent, and what happened to those people who didn’t play by Armstrong’s rules.

On 10 October 2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) released this statement and its 202-page ‘Reasoned Decision’ on the Disqualification and Ineligibility of Lance Armstrong and supporting information to the Union Cycliste International (UCI), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC).

Some of the language is hyperbolic:

The evidence shows beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.

I disagree. For me, that title will forever belong to State Plan 14:25, the systemic, state-controlled, barbaric doping of approximately 10,000 East German athletes. US Postal may have been more sophisticated in its methods, more professional at hiding the truth and staying ahead of the testing regime, but even seven Tour de France victories pale in comparison to the image built for the DDR by their ‘ambassadors in tracksuits’. Those in charge of the programme poisoned children; their experiments and drugs leaving wounds that have long-outlasted the Cold War.

That said, the statement from USADA Chief Executive, Travis Tygart, provides in one paragraph a great summary of the key issues and defences Armstrong, his cronies in the press and the peloton have used, repeatedly, to damn those who came forward before USADA built its case:

The evidence of the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team-run scheme is overwhelming and is in excess of 1000 pages, and includes sworn testimony from 26 people, including 15 riders with knowledge of the US Postal Service Team (USPS Team) and its participants’ doping activities. The evidence also includes direct documentary evidence including financial payments, emails, scientific data and laboratory test results that further prove the use, possession and distribution of performance enhancing drugs by Lance Armstrong and confirm the disappointing truth about the deceptive activities of the USPS Team, a team that received tens of millions of American taxpayer dollars in funding.

Firstly, anyone who reads even the 202-page version is living on the Planet Ignorant or the Planet Stupid if they can dismiss the evidence USADA has collected. A lot of it has been heard before, because people like Frankie and Betsy Andreu, Emma O’Reilly and Filippo Simeoni had the guts to take a stand against Armstrong very early on. They paid a hefty price for breaking the silence against Dr Michele Ferrari or alleging Superman was a Supercheat. Ostracised from the peloton, careers crippled, businesses and reputations destroyed. I urge you to go further, and read the affidavits of all 26 witnesses. It was easy for Armstrong to take pot shots at Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton. They were ‘known drug cheats’ and ‘liars’. It becomes more problematic when the list of witnesses includes names such as Michael Barry, Levi Leipheimer, Jonathan Vaughters, Dave Zabriskie, Tom Danielson, Christian Vande Velde, and the granddaddy of them all … Armstrong’s most loyal lieutenant, his ‘bro’, George Hincapie. Danielson, Leipheimer, Vande Velde and Zabriskie are still part of the peloton. It was Hincapie’s recent retirement which made me believe USADA had more than a couple of ‘disgraced’ riders and some ‘bitter ex-employees’ giving sworn evidence against Armstrong. Some of the stories are painful to read. Hincapie’s cold detail; I cried when I read Simeoni’s story – even though I knew it – of Armstrong bullying his way around the 18^th stage of the 2004 Tour de France peloton to catch Simeoni in a breakaway, with the now infamous ‘zip your lips’ gesture (see 18 second mark, and between the 40 – 1 minute 40 second mark for the agitated encounter), a sign that Simeoni should not have testified in 2000 to doping under the guidance of Ferrari. Of Simeoni dropping back through the pack, crying and being spat upon by the group. Zabriskie’s affidavit is plain sad. A man who had grown up the son of a drug-addicted father, turned to cycling as a clean release, refused to dope and had his wages slashed in return, and then crossed the threshold to doper … some of them will make you white-hot with anger. No one covers themselves in glory by staying silent for all of these years, especially giants of the sport who could have made a difference, such as George Hincapie. The ‘omerta’ or Code of Silence was strong in these ones; yet none of them leaves me with any doubts that these events happened, and that Lance Armstrong was Doper-in-Chief. As pages 6-7 of the Reasoned Decision state:

“It was not enough that his teammates give maximum effort on the bike, he also required that they adhere to the doping program outlined for them or be replaced. He was not just a part of the doping culture on his team, he enforced and re-enforced it.” (for more, see pp. 16-87)

The financial records – especially the payments to the good doctor – make me think I went into the wrong business. A million or so Euros? A lazy 25,000 Euros in cash? Give me strength. The emails between Armstrong and Stefano Ferrari (Dr Ferrari’s son) detail the financial transactions, and offer an insight into Armstrong’s attitude to his teammates and rivals and confirm he was in close contact with Dr Ferrari during a period he has previously denied.

It’s easy to make light of some of the ways Armstrong distributed performance enhancing drugs, especially “Motoman” (pp 30-35 of the Reasoned Decision), but the way Lance Armstrong and USPS avoided being caught (pp 129-139) is dark. The scientific data and laboratory tests (pp 139-144), stopped exaggerating the number of doping tests he’s been through, or claim (falsely) that he’s never failed one.

Together, the evidence – which USADA is at pains to stress was not provided by US law enforcement – making a bigger mockery of Phil Liggett’s bizarre old-man rant Skype interview with Ballz Radio and his fellow commentator and Armstrong-booster, Paul Sherwen’s tweet that he was, ‘not sure if (it was) Al Capone or Alien (he was) reading’. I truly hope SBS dumps them both from commentating on cycling next year. Firstly, because we just don’t need them anymore – we have our own talent; secondly, I can’t see either of them admitting they’ve been very wrong, for many years (NB: Liggett has finally tonight said on Australia’s ‘4Corners’ programme that ‘everyone was doing it … so I can’t see how Lance wasn’t doing it’. This investigation is no witch hunt, nor was it a waste of taxpayers’ money, as Armstrong claimed, somewhat despicably in light of the fact that US Postal took tens of millions of American taxpayer dollars in funding.

There are people who, despite all of the evidence presented by USADA, the personal testimonies of 26 people, the emails, the positive samples, the relationship and payments to the disgraced Dr Michele Ferrari, this weekend’s ‘parting of the ways’ between Armstrong’s US Postal Team manager, Johan Bruyneel, and his employer, Radioshack-Nissan Trek (for more on Bruyneel, see pp. 107-115) will continue to support Armstrong. Those people who read his books and are inspired by the ‘Big Texan’. It’s a compelling story – the comeback from cancer and the ‘unparalleled’ record in the grande dame of grand tours. Millions of people around the world to whom Lance remains a hero, the person who drew them into the Euro-centric world of men’s road racing, or insist that it doesn’t matter if he doped because the Lance Armstrong Foundation (or LIVESTRONG) ‘fights cancer’ (for the record, I don’t believe that raising $470 million and spending it largely on awareness campaigns helps ‘fight cancer’). I disagree with those who say you can separate the work of LIVESTRONG from Lance Armstrong. LIVESTRONG would not exist without Lance Armstrong. It may be a false equivalence, but do you think people would give money to the Floyd Landis Foundation? When you are so closely associated with good deeds, does it give you carte blanche to do so much wrong?

People are flawed. I am a huge hypocrite when it comes to doping in cycling. I love the sport. I still shout my support for many riders who have been caught doping. Unlike some, who demand apologies from dopers, I don’t want them to self-flagellate for my benefit. Anyone who follows my cycling tweets knows I am a huge fan of Alberto Contador. His ‘it was the steak what done it’ excuse for testing positive to clenbuterol may be pathetic, but I’ve never heard him blame anyone – not even the team cook. I like the irrepressible Alexandre ‘Vino’ Vinokourov. I get tingly over ‘Tommeke’ (Tom Boonen). I believe that as the size of the English-speaking contingent in the peloton has increased, a certain amount of prejudice has grown among cycling fans toward non-English speaking dopers, especially those who express no remorse for what they did, such as Alejandro Valverde; that unless you publish mea culpa after mea culpa a la David Millar, you’re forever a filthy drug cheat instead of a reformed drug cheat. Do I think there are riders who continue to dope, teams which find new ways of beating the system? Yes. Do I think there are riders who do it clean? Yes. Are there certain riders I would be devastated to learn had doped? Yes. The rumour mill in the cycling fraternity never stops whirling. Perhaps I would even admire Armstrong if he just copped the ban. I don’t want him to say ‘sorry’. If people want to keep buying plastic wristbands to ‘fight cancer’, in much the same way as you can stop child soldiering by buying a Kony 2012 pack for $39.99, then that’s their call. Just stop bullshit like this:

“To all the cynics, I’m sorry for you … I’m sorry you can’t believe in miracles. This is a great sporting event and hard work wins it.”

The Tour de France is a great sporting event. Hard work wins it; but the only miracle Lance Armstrong was involved with was the one that kept his myth alive for so long.

To bastardise his own words, Armstrong has chosen to descend alone.

L’ensorceleuse

Sport strips away personality, letting the white bone of character shine through.

~ Rita Mae Brown

“I just wanted to sing the song one more time.”

My fellow Sydney Swans’ member and friend, Marc, is guilty of one of sport’s seven deadly sins (see p82 of my self-published ‘Almanac for all Sporting Fans’), in that he barracks for two AFL clubs. Guyanan-born, English-raised, Marc first lived in Melbourne when he moved here, and the Tottenham Hotspur man had fallen in love with the Australian football code … and a club named Hawthorn.

He stood there, singing their club song on our home ground. All game I resisted the urge to give him a good pinch as he cheered them. As he cheered when Shaun Burgoyne cleared the ball from the centre and the Swans lost, 102-95.

He stood, looking at me, waiting for me to grab my bag and go. Fuck him. I stayed seated, chin resting on arms folded atop the railing in front of my seat in the O’Reilly Stand.

“I just wanted to sing the song one more time.”

Round 22 of the 2012 AFL home and away season. Our last game at the Sydney Cricket Ground. All week I read the various permutations of where we would finish going into the finals. The Swans, forever ‘flying under the radar’ as they stood aloft the ladder, could drop to third, or fourth … or was it even fifth? I headed for the consolation of the lost, and sank bottomless schooners of Old at The Cricketer’s Arms.

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Round 23: away to Geelong. The Melbourne pundits, salivating over the prospect of a Cats-Hawks Grand Final, didn’t rate our chances. Having been to Kardinia Park when it was Skilled Stadium (but before it became Simonds), I was nervous … and this is watching the game on television, kitted out as usual in full match-day gear, including lucky underwear (NB: there is more than one set). We lost, the commentators all but crowned the Cats as Premiers, and we would have to travel to Adelaide for the first week of the finals.

—

Father’s Day: “How are you?” Mum said as she picked me up from the train station. “Really well,” I replied, and for once, meaning it. ”Except for the Swannies, though?” Mum replied.

I don’t know what was written on my face. I have so much other shit, real life total bullshit facing my family, & was a bloody game of football all that I was showing emotion about?

Mum: “What does that mean for the finals … do you still get a final?”

Me: “Not next week. They (not we) have to travel to Adelaide.”

Mum: “Are you going?”

Me: “Nah, can’t afford it.”

Mum: “I’ll lend you the money.”

—-

AAMI Stadium, Week One: the bizarro choir greeting the squad at  Adelaide Airport; the allergy of Crows’ fans to queuing to get a beer; the, ‘oh, jesus … this was supposed to be the AWAY supporters bay, right on the arc of the back pocket’; the constant booing at every Swan taking a set shot or refereeing decision which went against the home side; the everything. It all disappeared in the beauty of the Swans’ 29-point win. We replaced them. I couldn’t see the tears of the man I call Mighty Mouse, Ben McGlynn, as he was subbed out of the game with a hamstring injury that would probably end his season. The unexpected text message. The missed telephone message from my Dad, a proud rugby league man converted to this game. There was only one person to call. From the glamour of the queue for the ladies’ bathroom, I phoned the number.

“Mummy, Mummy … WE DID IT! Thank you so much, Mummy! I love you for making this possible. It’s mad here but … Mummy, Mummy … we did it.”

NB: I wasn’t speaking to Shane Mumford. I call my Mother, ‘Mummy’ when I am  drunk (tick), child-like with joy (tick), or very ill (not at the time).

I had to get back to the airport. Again, the Adelaide allergy to queuing came to the fore. As I had done on the way to AAMI Stadium, I asked the Swans’ supporters around me if they could fit one more into their cab. Sure thing.

Walking toward the terminal, a man asked who had won the game.

“We did! Are you a Port supporter?” It seemed like a fair ask. He wasn’t wearing any team colours.

“No,” the man replied. “How was it?”

Me: “We were magnificent. We stood up to everything. We stopped them … and we ran and we carried and we kicked straight and we were magnificent.”

Man: “Any one stand out?”

Me: “Oh, our defensive structure was outstanding and the midfield we killed them in the mids, and Mitch Morton kicked two – MITCH MORTON?!? I’ll tell you something: no one rates us a chance. No one thought we would win. I believe in these fellas. Goodesy’s coming on, and Teddy Richards, what a star. Bloody hell, my, ‘oh jesus ker-ist on crutches’ player, LRT, was strong … but you know the bloke who’s come into a rich vein of form in the last few weeks? Jarrad McVeigh. Goodesy gets all the attention, and I love him, he’s a bloody star, but McVeigh … he’s building each week.”

Man, stops, props: “Yeh, he was all right.”

Me: “So are you a Swans man? Or a Collingwood spy?”

Man: “I’m Jarrad McVeigh’s Dad.”

Me, stopped: “Really?”

Man: “Really.”

Me: (babble, ZOMG I thought it was amazing when I met Nic Fosdike’s aunt today, wow, can I shake hands, congratulations on fathering the freshly-retired Essendon player, Mark McVeigh; then the genuine but irritating tears of a drunken stranger sucked in hard as I try to put into words how we all shared his family’s happiness at the safe delivery of Jarrad & Clementine’s daughter Lolita, and mourned the loss of Luella).

The whole time our hands are clasped.

—

Made the flight. Made it? Slayed it. The flight was delayed. Then I saw Brett Kirk, dressed impeccably, accompanied by some Channel 7 commentator whose name still escapes me. It had to be done.

Me: “Brett? Look I’m really sorry to bother you but I just had to say hello and thank you for everything you’ve done for the Swans,” … more babble as from the corner of my eye I can see the prick from Channel 7 drop back, thinking, ‘poor Kirky’.

Kirky: (DISTINCTLY UNIMPRESSED) “Yeh, they were good today. Thanks.”

Me: (dying on the inside) “OK, thanks for everything you’ve done for the club. Sorry for bothering you.”

Me: (unsaid) “WHAT THE FUCK WAS WITH THE, ‘KIRKY’S BANNED FROM THE SWANS’ ROOMS’ BULLSHIT 7 PUT OUT THERE?”

I had a little money left, so into the Cooper’s Alehouse for a bevvy it was. About 25 Swans fans watching the first quarter of the elimination final between Freo and Geelong. Or, to be more accurate, slack-jawed by what we were seeing and pretty bloody happy that the AFL media pack would be shitting themselves without more Geelong / Hawthorn yarns to write.

And then, a stream of men in red and white. Bags and beers abandoned, the still-standing stragglers bolted from the bar and cheered each player by name. We cheered the support staff, and we sang the song through an empty Adelaide airport. I looked at Ben McGlynn and the crutches and my heart sank. The players smiled and waved, Mitch Morton lapping up the love and enjoying the limelight at last after a year in the Ressies.

—

A week off. Home to Newcastle again for my friends’ joint 40th at a Newcastle pub … no AFL. Nervously checking the scores on my phone. West Coast couldn’t do it. We’d play Collingwood at ANZ in the preliminary final. Here we go …

—

The clichés tumble easily on the various football shows. Hoodoo. Ah, Collingwood. They were well beaten by the Hawks, but they’ll knock Sydney off the same way they did the Eagles. The unbeaten streak. Collingwood. Bloody hell. The Markgrook panel (except for Shelley and Leila) and the Footy Show panel: Crawf, Push Ups King, Milney, Garry Lyon … all backing the Pies; James Brayshaw, ‘The Swans have been chronically underrated since Round One’ … YA THINK?’, I tweeted. I re-watch the 2005 semi-finals. My favourite game – the night Nick Davis came to save us. The commentary as useful now: “That Davis goal, that was the freak of the night … you just can’t see it happening a lot more.” So tiresome. Still a team of grinders and grafters who had played uglier than everyone else to win a flag in 2005. I watch the world road racing championships. I refuse to see one of my oldest mates, a Pies fan, before the match because I knew I would be driven to boxing his ears. He’d never known what it was like to lose against us at ANZ.

I met up with fellow Swans and we board an Olympic Park train packed with red and white. There’s a big travelling Collingwood contingent, of course. As it became real, that this time we would catch that treno back to town victorious, I turned as feral as I’d ever been to the Pies fans leaving the stadium early:

“GO ON, YOU WEAK BASTARDS! LEAVE YOUR BOYS OUT THERE, ALONE … WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE DO THAT?”

We laughed at the sight of a miserable Joffa flashing up on the big screen, & jumped, wildly into the night as Jude Bolton kicked truly in his 300th game. Yes, Jude … 301 was going to be closer.

WE FUCKING DID IT! WE’RE IN THE GRAND FINAL!

I met up with Andrew, who’s become a great friend, a true Collingwood person but always first to acknowledge a better team and analyse the game, not dispassionately, but with care and honour. The kind of person who should be a pundit.

“No, congratulations Kimbo, well done, you’re going to come down for the Granny aren’t you? Your boys were too good, they deserve it, it’s not our year.”

At a pub in the city, three renditions (possibly more) of the Swans’ club song, a bastardised version of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish song, he’d reached peak tolerance. I’d reached peak adrenaline-induced exhaustion. Time for home. Time to sort things out. After Adelaide, I’d booked flights and accommodation in Melbourne for Grand Final weekend, not because of some magic tingling in my toes (OK, maybe a little … it is called the big dance, after all) but because I thought, ‘well, I have a guaranteed ticket, I might as well, I can always cancel if we don’t make it … but we will’.

—

Everything is ready to go. I’m nervous and distracted on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday. People at work are driving to Melbourne on Friday night. I think of Richard Hinds’ dismissive tweet, “You’re a Swans fan. There’s a difference.” I smile. “Yes, I am. And we’re going to prove you wrong. Although we shouldn’t have to prove anything.” By Thursday, I feel calm. There’s nothing I can do, with all my lucky charms and blood-red pedicure. I can’t kick the bloody goals for them, or make the decision to handball. I can’t stop almost everyone saying we cannot win the flag, or that it wasn’t fair that Hawthorn had one less day to recover, or that Lewis Jetta hadn’t bounced the bloody ball often enough in a 90 metre dash to the goal. I can’t sleep so I do my tax and watch the footy shows and pack eight outfits for a two-day trip, and smile at the Facebook messages from a friend in Ulan Bator asking if I could get help get his boss a ticket, the good luck tweets and the texts.

—

Friday, 28 September: arrive in Melbourne. Freezing cold, pissing down with rain and I’m essentially broke. Drop bag at hotel, head out to watch the Grand Final parade. Run into Erin, who cried real tears at last week’s win. Trying to get good photos is impossible as the players are (sensibly) riding inside the vehicles. Weave my way up to Treasury Place, listen to the speeches, back to the hotel. I want to write this blog post, but the words won’t come. I’m still calm; beyond excited at being here, but not worried about the match. Meet up with some tweeps I’d been dying to discover in real life at The Corner Hotel, Richmond. Comes in handy that I learn to catch a tram as I’m due back there at 11.30am tomorrow. After a night of being shouted pints on an empty stomach, the better angels tell me to leave. I arrive back at the hotel just after midnight. It’s Grand Final day.

—

Saturday, 29 September: I really should have eaten something. I haven’t eaten since Qantas gave me a muffin and passionfruit yoghurt yesterday morning. I shake off the dust. It’s 9am. It’s Grand Final Day. The iPod goes on & I start bouncing off the walls like the 27 year-old disco-biscuit machine I once was. I’ve made up essential mixes, everything from Jamelia’s ‘Superstar’ for Lewis Jetta to Mr Stevie Wonder’s “Master Blaster (Jammin’)”, my Adam Goodes anthem. General jumping around and answering tweets. Then, oh gaaaah what am I going to wear goddamn it, Melbourne. Fuck it. Shower, dress & lucky t-shirt underneath. Lucky underwear, natch. I manage not to ladder my tights. Remember that I have short hair, & can spend a few more minutes dorking around to The Jacksons. Shoes. Hair. Stop dorking around. Ticket, ticket, ticket. Pack all of my lucky charms. My 2012 membership card. Redback Club pin. Got my scarf, time for the final secret weapon in my list of superstitions: my favourite perfume, handcrafted in the south of France & still safe in its beautiful bottle & original stopper. I bought it in Avignon in 2005. It’s called, ‘L’ensorceleuse’. I’m not nervous. My heart is singing.

It’s not raining as I head down to catch the number 70. There’s an older man in Swans colours standing next to me at the tram stop.

Me: “Up the Swannies! Are you down from Sydney?”

Man: “No, I came up from Tasmania.”

Me: “That’s fantastic! So much for the Hawks Tasmanian supporter base! Are you a South Melbourne man?”

Man: “Well, yes. I’m Roy Cazaly’s nephew.”

Me: “Can I shake your hand?” (not said, but tweeted) BEST OMEN EVER: I JUST MET ROY CAZALY’S NEPHEW

Tram approaches. “Up the Swannies,” we say in unison. Unlike every sign on Swan Street, Richmond, which some admittedly clever buggers have changed to ‘Hawks Street’, the tram reads Swan Street when I jump on, advertising the Basil Sellers Art Prize. The Swans’ Sydney office is in the Basil Sellers Centre at the SCG. Another omen.

Arrive at The Corner. A sea of brown and gold. A few people in Swans colours. My fellas are running late, so I have a pint. Should have eaten. One by one they arrive and ply me with more pints, with the generous-to-a-fault Andrew making sure that I eat something. The boys start talking about the game and I start to get nervous. Please, don’t talk about Hawthorn getting a three goal start and it being all over. There is only so much I can take. I’m buzzing, I don’t want to think about the game. My brain will explode. The special one makes his way up. Everything’s Turning to White: I’m reminded I want to see Paul Kelly. There’s no awkwardness. Thank god for that. We head to the ‘G, all in different areas, saying let’s meet here at half-time. I pass Molly Meldrum on my way to Gate 5. “Love you, Molly,” I shout (wearing Hawks’ colours … seriously?). Make my way up to N12 and run into Rhys Muldoon – I’d tweeted him on Thursday that if the moon and stars aligned we’d see each other. The omens were buzzing around in my head. Realised that for $390, I was sitting in an area with no public bars, only corporate entertainment rooms. Gave Michael O’Loughlin a big wave as he stood safely inside the glassed wall between the lucky ones and the so-called ‘platinum’ ticketed seats WITH NO BLOODY PUBLIC BARS. Rhys & I sang along to Paul Kelly and then it was too late to get downstairs for a drink. “Let’s meet here at quarter time and go and get a drink,” Rhys said … never to be spotted again.

—

It’s time to take it all in. I make my way to my seat. A lady behind me proffers a Swans cardboard clapper. “Oh, I didn’t think they had them here, thank you so much,” I reply. “They don’t. I brought them from home.” If I thought my head was going to explode, that was the moment my heart gives in to the emotion. I grip her hand. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” The countdown to the first bounce begins, and then the siren.

The game is surreal. A few shaky moments from both teams early on, but no absolute shockers. The Hawks kick four and all I can think of is the boys’ dire prediction. We go into the first break trailing by 19 and more than a little lucky.

Second quarter goes BOOM! I think I spent more time leaping out of my seat than in it. The jitters have gone. The structures are right. The kicking is accurate and the effort is outstanding. I know the heart attack kings too well to think this will go on, but it is sweetness itself to watch six straight majors sail through, and your opponent at a one-point standstill. We’ve not only staunched the bleeding, we’ve hit the front.

Half-time: Downstairs for drinks. The rest is redacted.

Third quarter … goes even more BOOM? Hawthorn start spreading the ball with disturbing ease. It’s a nightmare. Not because I thought they’d ever lie down, but because this part was also written in the stars. We kick 3.1 … Hawthorn kick 5.4. They’re inaccurate. I go back to my three keys to winning: effort, intensity and accuracy. We’re winning. We have a one point lead thanks to a Captain’s goal from the man who had run into a rich vein of form. I smile & think of his Dad.

Three-quarter time: I’m in my own head. I look towards the threatening skies. I close my eyes. Shake down the thunder, I pray, silently as the siren sounds …

Fourth quarter: you probably remember it more clearly. I haven’t seen the replay. I remember my badly injured co-captain kicking, just enough, a ball that sent the red and white sections of the crowd into a, ‘please, please, blow the bloody siren’ frenzy. I had dreamt it would be the final goal of the match. I’m glad to say it wasn’t.

—

I’m hugging people and practically mugging former club champions, and 300-gamer Paul Williams, softly says to me, ‘we’re a great club’.

We are a great club. It is our L’ensorceleuse (The Shining Hour). I sing the song, one more time.

30 Books That Changed My Life Part IV: The Children’s Wonder Book

My family home is being demolished soon. I spoke to my Mother briefly on Thursday evening; she and my Father have moved into the house owned by my recently departed Great Uncle and Godfather. My Mother is a stoic, bearing hard times with pragmatic wilfulness not to take a backward step. She enjoys her pleasures quietly. Not for her the braggadocio of her eldest daughter’s travels and handbag fetish. Not for her the mayor of the village tag worn so long by my Father. My Mother contemplates her crosswords (I always accuse her of cheating), runs around town to engage with every moment of her grandchildrens’ developing lives and discovered the joy of a pedicure and getting your hair coloured in a salon at the age of 45 (the horror of denying oneself for the better part of one’s life is lost on me entirely). If we were characters from a fable, we would be The Ant and the Grasshopper, she carrying the weight of the summer’s harvest inside for sustenance, me prancing about in the sunshine giving no care to the following day. When, a few weeks ago, my Great Uncle was buried with his ‘bible’ (the Australian Financial Review), I took the opportunity to photograph some of the features of the post-World War II part of the house. A little sentimental? More in keeping with my interest in all things built. The house had ceased to be ‘my’ home more than 20 years’ ago. My Mother was a bit choked up on the phone. It was the first house my parents had bought, around 1970, for $13,000. It was their home. Never mind that they’ll be back, having sold half the block for a tidy bit of lolly and building a lovely big shiny house on the side of the quarter-acre block with the best view.

Where does the book come in? I can’t remember, but I imagine shortly after they bought the house, my Mother found a few books in a wardrobe. Among the surprises was a book that now bears my name, but is dedicated to another girl, a Christmas present from ‘Ma and Aunt Sylvia’ in 1952. Like other 60 year olds, its spine is a bit worn and there’s evidence of water damage. This is the book of tales, fables, myths and poems that would lead me to start reading Twain, Defoe, Melville before my 10th birthday.

The Children’s Wonder Book, (ed. John R. Crossland and J.M. Parrish), Collins, first edition 1933

This big red book sits next to me, the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland in sunk relief on its cover. There are few colour plates inside, but almost every page is illustrated, some signed (Alice in Wonderland’s story with the work of Harry Rountree, a New Zealand-born artist who worked prodigiously in London from the turn of the 20th century), while Sindbad the Sailor is 1930s Orientalism from Arthur Mansbridge (who also worked on comic books) and Charles Kingsley’s 1863 work, The Water Babies features a later set of drawings, Jean Cruickshanks’ Art Nouveau work. It’s an amazing thing, this book, meandering through Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales, Aesop’s fables, to abridged versions of longer stories, such as Gulliver’s Travels, as well as “Legends of Our Islands”, which counts Irish stories together with  those of Northumbria.

For all its appeal to the small me, especially the Nonsense Rhymes and The Arabian Nights, there is more to this red volume. The poets include Keats, Burns and Yeats. Binyon’s For the Fallen I could recite from memory long before I became a regular turn at school ANZAC Day ceremonies. The splish-splosh of tears as I read (by myself) The Bronze Pig and The Death of Robin Hood.

This is a short post, in part because of the nature of the book. It’s a collection of things young English children were encouraged to find interesting almost 40 years before I was born. I don’t turn to it often, but I could never part with it. This is a book I read as a child not of my time; its old-fashioned outlook is certainly not of this time, yet it reminds me that even in the early 1970s, I wanted more; yes, we had Golden Books and later, Mr Men, but this big red book, all 512 pages, made me a little scornful. I wanted to read more, harder and faster. I was greedy for words and worlds I did not know but sailed along, carrying a compass and a map of places imaginary and real. For this most precious gift, I thank my Mother. My lovely, wise mainstay, who did an amazing thing in teaching me to love stories as a tall toddler, and to read by myself before I went to school. I love and thank my Mother every day for my love of words. As the editors, John R. Crossland and J.M. Parrish, write:

“So here is the book, and we hope it will become one of your dearest friends. It will never quarrel with you, but will always be ready to gladden your heart and take you away, on the magic carpet of your imagination, to fairy lands or distant countries, in the air or under the sea, to adventures and joyous happenings in which you may join without check or hindrance.”

You do believe, don’t you?

Books That Changed My Life, Pt III: My Travel Guides

I gave a clue in my last post that today I’d be writing about travel. Cheating here and including every travel guide I’ve ever read.

A lot of people scorn travel guides. You’re not a ‘real’ traveller if you have your nose buried in a Lonely Planet / Rough Guide to Wherever. I don’t subscribe to that view. Also, I don’t believe in rigidly following what travel guides set out. A lot of it is common sense and by the time the books hit the shelves, out of date.

That said, some guidebooks have changed my life. Researching my first ‘big’ overseas trip in 1996, I found a one way ticket to Amsterdam which came with a huge bonus: two free flights anywhere in Europe. I hadn’t really thought about where I wanted to go beyond the UK and the Republic of Ireland and figured I’d wing it from there on, but the flight deal was too good to pass up. I checked out my mammoth Lonely Planet Guide to Europe and hit upon an idea: why not squeeze the lemon for all it was worth? I went to the travel agent (hey, it was 1996) and we looked at a KLM flight map. Win. KLM flew to Istanbul … and the airport counted among its European destinations – so that was as far south-ish as I could get. Now for the second leg … just how far could I stretch the friendship eastward? Double win: St Petersburg was on the map. Booked the ticket. The rest I’d figure out as I went along.

The Istanbul leg was pretty simple at first … travel down the coastline and get a flight to Cairo. I’d always been fascinated by the Middle East (well, since hearing of Anwar Sadat’s assassination and asking my Mother if World War III would break out. Yes, she looked at me in a ‘what the actual eff is this child on?’ way). Pouring through my guidebook in my bedsit in Cardiff, Wales, another idea.  Why fly to Cairo when there was so much else to see? Result? Travelled overland from Istanbul to Ankara, got a visa to Syria and from there, worked south through Jordan to Egypt, south to Abu Simbel, north to Alexandria and south-west to Siwa before returning to Cairo and the minibus from hell trip across the Sinai to the border into Israel at Rafah. Well, crossing the border into Gaza. Talk about life changing.

I had to fly out of Istanbul and back to Amsterdam to fly to Russia. What the hell: get a cheap flight to the Turkish holiday resort of Antalya, skip around the Greek islands and head north from the Peloponnese. Athens, of course, but a guidebook convinced me that I couldn’t miss the Great Meteoron Monastery. What a thing of wonder. Mind you, there’s nada in a guidebook (as far as I can recall) about my hare-brained scheme of thinking I could walk across the Greece / Turkey border as I had done from Turkey to Syria. That would be USD10 in a taxi for a 50 metre trip.

Turkey for the third time. Did the pilgrimage to Çanakkale, returned to Istanbul and flew back to Amsterdam. Flew to Saint Petersburg. Utterly amazing city, so amazing you just wander around, slack-jawed, at its scale and grandeur. Time to turn west; a train ticket to Moscow was quoted at tourist rates (you can ask for things in Russian, but at that time, your shoes were a dead giveaway). Estonia was an unexpected delight and still one of my favourite countries; Lithuania will always be bittersweet for me. Beautiful place and people, but the guidebook made me curious to learn more about Vilnius’ past as the ‘Jerusalem of the North’. An elderly man guided me through ‘The Green House’ (the Holocaust museum). I learned more from him than I had at Israel’s Yad Vashem. Thinking about the room only brings memories of the commitment to honour the dead. The true horror of Vilnius (for me) was to come at the former KGB headquarters, now genocide museum, where we stood in line to be shut in a dank, pitch solitary confinement cell. I almost started screaming as the guide closed the door. The place was just as the KGB had left it a mere six years before.

This is becoming like a travelogue – apologies. The rest of that trip – Latvia, Poland, and the-then Czech Republic ended with me broke and needing to get back to England and find a job in a hurry. The great thing about travelling for that length of time is meeting people from all over the world. I stayed in a central Prague apartment thanks to a woman I met in Jerusalem. A Danish guy I met in Estonia made a trip to Copenhagen almost a freebie … and so my reliance on travel guides lessened. I didn’t buy books for a six-week sojourn to France and Italy in 2005, but I still bought a book for later adventures in India – mostly because the Indian tourism office’s range of free material was bloody hopeless. This time, I scoured it (and the internet) for at least a month, then left it at home.

The last travel books I bought were in 2010. I had a stack of leave and was ‘encouraged’ to take it. My entire office weighed in on my destination before I settled on New York, with a brief side trip to Washington D.C. My travel guides changed – I wanted to suck the marrow out of the ‘greatest city in the world’, so I bought books on architecture and a small moleskine city guide, with little maps of the different districts and plenty of space to plot my daily walks around Manhattan. After a few days, I looked purposeful enough for people to ask me the way to subway stations. I’ve seen a lot of the world, but never felt a city itself so alive. The streets hummed with energy. I rented an apartment in the West Village and felt at home. This was the place I was meant to be. My trip to Washington ended up as a mad dash between monuments. The only time I felt at peace was at Arlington National Cemetery. Armed with a map from the tourist centre, the best laugh I had in ages was trying to find the graves of the ‘Supremes’, in particular Chief Justice Earl Warren. I did, eventually, but not before asking a guard. “Justin Warren? Sorry ma’am, I’ve never heard of him.” Suppressing a scold and a giggle, I blamed my accent, which had never been a problem in NYC. In my hotel near the Capitol, I was asked by a fellow lobby barfly whether I spoke English after I quizzed the bar staff about the best bars to move on to. I probably did roll my eyes at that. The local tips were great, but I found the Washington bars cliquey, impenetrable, so I left ‘Marvin’ and a couple of other of the recommended bars before finding a home (and a friendly bartender) at The Saloon. Protip: tip early, and large. You will be richly rewarded. Free shots and straight out asking other patrons to buy the Aussie girl on her last night in America a beer. I barely remember the obligatory late night visit to Ben’s Chili Bowl and struggled, hungover and late, to make my train back to New York.

I haven’t travelled overseas since that trip. I probably won’t travel for a while (which KILLS me). What gets me through? Sometimes it’s scrolling through my travel guides (I’ve kept almost all of them) … but most of all, re-reading the best travel guides in the world: my journals.

Until tomorrow …