Category Archives: Life

post

Western Australians all getting COVID because of Federal Election.

Posted on by

Bear with me. Slap on the tinfoil hat if you must. But I believe that our Labor Premier, Mark McGowan, was strong-armed from multiple directions into not only opening WA’s borders, but in dropping nearly every COVID Safety Precaution (or “Restrictions” if you’re one of those).

We were COVID free, you see. Our borders were closed. You couldn’t even book a ticket unless you were double-vaxxed and you couldn’t leave isolation until you tested clean after 14 days. We were getting it done.

Then Delta hits Australia and everybody over east is getting COVID. Tens of thousands test positive, thousands are very sick, hundreds die. We’re still safe in WA because we don’t let anybody in.

Well, technically that’s not true. We let plenty of people in, you just had to have done the right checks and applied appropriately.

Naturally, the media pushed the message that WA doesn’t let anybody in.

Mark McGollum and his Hermit Kingdom was pushed rather hard. The yobs here pissed and moaned about it, everybody over east pissed and moaned about it. Nobody pointed out that just about anybody could get in, they just needed to test clean, be vaxxed and quarantine.

They just didn’t fucking want to. They just wanted to fly in and get off the plane.

So then Omicron sneaks through with some French backpacker. Do we lock down? Do we get crazy and seal up? Nope. We carry on with all of our relaxed ways, but Mighty Mac is pressured, left, right and centre, to open the borders. The loudmouths and their protests here, the jealous shitstains over there, it’s coming from all sides.

So we do. We make a plan to get everybody vaxxed, then set a date. And Omicron blows up. So we move the date.

And you’d have thought he’d shot the fucking Queen.

Now it’s coming from everywhere, WA media especially, even Auntie ABC is shitting on McGowan whenever they can, calling his decision to postpone the date a “backflip”. Fuck me, it got stupid.

Then Mighty Mac throws the gates open and we buckle down. He’s weathered all the shit thrown at him for all the vaccine mandates (and some of those, yes, were a bit poorly-handled) and reckons we’re ready to get hit right in the face with the Viddy.

But that wasn’t enough. Because now the pressure, in my opinion, was internal. The Federal Labor Party.

See, a Federal Election was sure to be called soon. And Labor needs to win this one. We can’t have a MAJOR Labor Leader be seen as some asshole in the west that doesn’t let even his own Party in!

“Oh, and when we get there, we can’t have a bunch of press conferences and photo ops with us in fucking masks.

NO MORE MASKS, PLEASE.”

And the next thing you know, WA is hitting a COVID peak like nothing we’d ever seen.

**

So just in case I get Assange-inated. I’m writing this shit down.

I hope the families of the 131 people in WA that have died in 2022 of COVID personally write to the new PM (please be Albo, please) and remind him that when he wins the fuck out of WA, he’s done it with blood.

Maybe this’ll be different.

Posted on by

I had sent word to my dad to let him know when I’d be coming home for a visit after one of my earlier years of college, and I hadn’t heard back from him for several days. While never one for prompt correspondence, it was slightly unusual. But unlike other times when he’d explain his absence with a two-part summation involving an activity and location like “ice climbing” and “Mount Rainier” or “kayaking” and “Bighorn River” this time he simply said that he was sorry he hadn’t gotten back to me because he’d been “out of town for Sibyl’s funeral.”

That was how he told me my grandmother, his mother, was dead.

The years showed that this was neither out of the norm of the level I was involved nor the worst way he could deliver news, so it’s actually a perfect example.

Now I’m actually reeling, completely unprepared emotionally for what I’m feeling, in reading actual messages from the former family. I’m so out of the loop I had to ask my son who this person was with the cool name only to find out it’s my wife’s youngest brother, my boy’s own uncle. It sounds for all the world, for the first time, that someone out there that shares her blood is willing to set aside any and all of the ridiculous bullshit that’s kept them apart, for the sake of coming together.

And I don’t know how to feel about that.

That’s not actually true. I know how I feel about that. I’m elated. Overjoyed. Buoyed. Hopeful.

But those are all incredibly dangerous emotions when you’re already weakened, beaten down. Vulnerable.

Her grandmother passed on Sunday. How we found out is too pitarded and inane to let only these words at, so I’m foregoing that part. We found out and it wasn’t directed towards us, ’nuff said.

Now Uncle CoolName tells my son that my wife’s auntie, long-estranged for reasons no doubt as stupid as ours, died the Thursday before. Cancer.

And I had one of those instant thoughts, the kind that make you anxious that they’re inappropriate or weird or wrong. My first thought was, “Did Nan know? Somehow, through her dementia, did it make it in that her youngest daughter was dead? Did that cause a ripple effect that eventually moved her on as well?”

Suffice to say that anytime in your late 90’s is a perfect acceptable, needs no explanation, time to pass on. But still. The thought was there.

And in this, the time afterward, where we’re floating and stuck and forgotten and neither she nor I nor our children have ANY FUCKING IDEA what it was that we did that was so awful, so despicable, so unforgivable, that we were simply excised from the entire family. In this time, I wonder to myself, what comes next?

Where do we go from here?

The truth is probably that people that have been shitty are still going to be shitty, and people that were neutral or ineffectual or fence-sitting are probably going to still be like that too. No one has really changed, nor will they. They were what they were and they are what they are, and maybe it’s our foolish egos that keep wondering what it is about US that makes these people be this way.

I mean, there’s nothing in any way to suggest in my life that I wouldn’t want to know about my Grammy passing on, yet my father simply didn’t think of that. Maybe it’s something similar with people that have never considered even the smallest of things, like the fact that everyone in the entire family knew who Nan’s miniatures were meant to go to rightfully.

Maybe all these things just never occur to them. And here we are wondering what it is about us that’s gotten us here. Maybe the truth is: Nothing. This is just who they are. This is just who we are.

Maybe if we’re all better at accepting that, moving forward into this, the time after The Great Nonsense, we’ll do better at doing it together.

Fear.

Posted on by

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
– Elbert Hubbard

This.

This is me.

When I was younger, a boy growing up in rural Montana, I had little to no real joy.  I simply existed, in fear, from one day to the next.  I had little to look forward to and little to enjoy, particularly with anyone else.

I still live in fear.  Fear of not just making a mistake (or many) but also fear of the unknown and unforeseen Bad Luck.  It’s hit before and there’s no reason to think it won’t hit again.  Despite my inner belief that fear and anxiety draw negativities towards them with the same prevalence that joy and positivity attract good things, I sometimes can’t shake the worry, the fear.

I’ve never played to win, really, only playing Not To Lose.  It’s a shitty way to do this Life thing.

The first time I ever actually played to win, throwing myself completely into something, was hockey.  Hell, for a long time that was the only thing.

Then I met her.  And I didn’t just throw myself, I cascaded headlong into the abyss.  I rocketed towards her with everything I had and I’ve never looked back.

No.  Not once.  Not ever.

And it’s been hard.  And it’s been miserable at times.  It’s been a constant barrage of shit at times.

And I’ve never looked back.

Sure, there’s been fear.  But it’s the same silly fear that is simply nameless, faceless anxiety that sits in the back of your brain and says ridiculous things.  Like the ghost of Elvis in the bathroom mirror, taunting you while you rinse your face, it’s back there.

But it’s not present, front and centre, and she is.

And THEY are.  Four of ’em.

The fear is there with them especially, but the joy is louder.  The joy is there and even though there are times that I have to dig it out with a pickaxe, I can find it.

I frequently tell them that I know I’ve made mistakes and I’ll make many more.  So will they.  Living in fear of them is, in and of itself, a mistake.  Let’s just live.  Find some joy.

Without fear.

It’s not just an ice rink, it’s our home.

Posted on by

From the AIHL’s Sydney Bears to The Hills Shire Council,

Hockey to us is a lifestyle. It’s waking up every morning after dreaming you’ve scored a big goal in an even bigger game. It’s about giving it your all on the ice even when your mind tells you to quit but your heart and pride tells you to carry on. It’s about the blood, the sweat and the tears you sacrifice day in and day out for your team. It’s about losing your mind when you win and the pain you feel when you lose. It’s about the friendships you forge with your teammates. It’s not just a game, but also a tradition. We love hockey. It has given us joy, it has given us pain but most importantly, it has given us a home. This is what you want to knock down for a profit. Not just an ice rink, but our home.

********

This is my excerpt, from the petition I signed on Change.org this morning:

Because Australia is more than roos and barbies and crocs.  It’s rapidly gaining international recognition as a place to send budding hockey stars to get some more experience.  With the increasing exposure through livestream’s the sport is growing now more than ever before.  Facebook has shrunken the world and the AIHL is only going to get bigger.

Plus, let’s not forget the people that frequent this rink.  The families that enjoy an afternoon skate every now and again, the kids learning to bonk around in pads for the first time and little Jessica, who is 7, and wants very much to be both a ballerina on ice and a goal-scoring right wing.  With this rink near her house, she’ll never know that she lives in Australia and there’s no natural ice here and that ice hockey isn’t a native sport.  She’ll have every opportunity that little Emily has in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, but with our Aussie life.

Finally, let’s not forget that industrious corporate ambition rarely does ANYTHING GOOD for this planet and the people that live on it.  The vast majority of this kind of action is designed to do one thing: Make Someone Richer.  That’s right, “richer” because they’re never Not Rich to start with and they NEVER undertake these projects thinking, “Ya know, I’d like to build some affordable housing around here to give something back to the community…”  They do it for greed, pure and simple.

So this is me, one man, one voice, asking you not to forget these things.  I sincerely hope you don’t.

********

So go there and sign this thing.  It’s a good thing to do.

Nobody ever had to beg me to play hockey

Posted on by

“You know,” my roommate said to me over the wind and traffic noise in his CJ7 Jeep as we blasted down the highway, “Nobody ever had to beg me to play hockey.”

We were roommates and teammates on Colorado’s 2nd-ever team in the Major League Roller Hockey comp. The 1st-ever team was the region’s Golden Boys, the top players and shiniest roller hockey heroes in Denver’s surrounds. The Rocky Mountain Wolverines boasted years and years of collegiate and junior ice hockey talent and the leftovers, politically and otherwise, tried out for the “other” team in a bit of a coup (or a fu-coup, as it were).

Our coach/owner was as ragtag as we were and we all loved the idea that nobody expected us to even form a team, let alone win anything. Coach was as full of big talk and big promises as he was empty when the bar tab came around. We exchanged looks at times, but we all believed because we wanted to play so badly.

We started out as the Mile High Moose and we played a couple of interesting games against the Wolverines to kick off MLRH’s sophomore season, even besting them in the second game (while their best player was at a tournament in Vegas). Coach played with the team finances and had plans for our compensation comensurate on selling merchandise and tickets. We were sure we could do it, even if the money was tight. Coach hired out buses to haul us to our “home rink” an hour north of Denver in Greeley for our games and sometimes even practices.

The questions on his suitability in regards to finances began immediately and this didn’t help. A string of canceled home games against neighbouring state’s teams brought even more questions. The Fort Worth and Salt Lake City teams were both hesitant to make any trip to play the newcomers, even the highly-touted Wolverines.

Cinderella Falls Flat

Only a few weeks into the season and the bottom dropped out. Practice was canceled when the rink owner came and told us all to either pay up or get out. Coach was nowhere to be found, nor was he answering his phone, and every entity the team had contact with came forth with bills showing all that we owed. We were a team that hadn’t paid a dime to anyone but had made promises to everyone. We were dropped like hot rocks and had all gone home to cry in our beers while the impressive Wolverines kept playing and kept winning and kept impressing.

We as a team, had all ponied up our hard-earned dough to become a part of something with the promise that we’d get our gear comped, our rink time covered, our travel covered, and a nice check at the end of the season. We’d lost it all.

Then our phone rang. It was one of our captains, a former college player who was our lockerroom leader, if not the one wearing the actual “C” on his jersey. He’d spoken to the head of the league, just for giggles, and wanted to gauge interest in continuing the team for the season under new ownership. Player ownership.

He’d barely made three phone calls before the word spread like bushfire through the entire team. We were back on and all was forgiven at the rink, if not the bus depot. Roommate and I jabbered excitedly to each other in-between phone calls to teammates and sponsors, even members of the Wolverines!

Cinderella Gets Back Up

Our first practice was the only rinktime we could get, 6 PM on a Tuesday. That meant ditching work early for us paid-by-the-hour fellas and a horrific hour+ drive in rush hour to Colorado’s smelliest city. We couldn’t have been happier to do it.

Top-down, sunburnt and running late, we piled out of the Jeep and into the lockerroom excitedly looking forward to seeing all of our teammates. A little over half were there, with apologies from 3 more. That was it. The absence of our former captain, a friend of the coach’s, was notable.

Reeling a bit, we took the Sport Court and practiced anyway, and it was grand. We stopped a bit early so that our “new” captain could address the team with all the specifics. We were now MLRH’s only player-owned, player-managed, team, and we were allowed in the league that season on a highly-probationary status only through the good graces of the league chairman and his belief in us. He reckoned we showed heart and he wanted to see what we could do, even covering the rink fees in the early stages.

We were now the Colorado Mustangs, and we were ready to actually get serious about winning.

Captain wasn’t done with the announcements either. One of the Wolverine’s golden boys, a friend and teammate on their top line, was dissatisfied with how that team was going. He wasn’t happy with the owner and he didn’t like the egos that swelled the second a paycheck was mentioned. His ice time had shrunk, sure, but he reckoned we showed heart too, and he wanted in.

Mustangs Ride

Roommate and I were excited but needed closure, so I used his for-work-only cellphone to ring each of the guys on the team that had missed our first official practice as a Miracle Team.

Responses, as expected, varied.

“Aw yeah, I ah… couldn’t ah… couldn’t get out of work, yeah.”

“Was that today? Oops. I’ll make the next one… I guess.”

“Yeah, I’m cool with the team and all, but driving to Greeley?!”

The former captain was at least up-front and candid with me, telling me that he’d lost his money too and was too damn old to go hanging on to “foolish hopes and dreams”.

Reaching the end of the list I hung up the phone and looked at Roommate, my face showing precisely how I felt about their responses. He just shook his head and pointed the Jeep south, toward our ramshackle place that reeked of hockey equipment and dog.

“You know, nobody ever had to beg me to play hockey. Never in my whole life have I ever had to be begged to play.”

I never have either

I’ve played on blistering blacktop in the height of a Houston summer, sweating so much that my equipment bag gained 13 pounds in one game. I’ve slept 14 to a double-bed room in a dive outside of Austin. I’ve hallucinated about seeing giant hockey skates covering the pre-dawn highway while driving a truckload of sleeping teammates back from an all-night tournament in Dallas. I’ve played 4 straight games in a tennis-court league because nobody’s goalies showed up on a 100-degree day.

When I left Texas A&M for Denver, I spent my unemployed days doing odd jobs, looking for work and parked in the stands of the roller hockey rink, sitting next to my bag and holding my stick aloft in adverstisement of my goaltending availabilities. I’ve played 5 nights a week for 6 teams while working and going to Uni full-time. I’ve played semi-pro roller hockey in the Major League.

The Colorado Mustangs won every game the rest of that season except our last two, losing to the Wolverines in the Regional Semi-final, with the winner promised a trip to Buffalo to take on the East Coast’s best.

I slept in shithole dives in Dallas and in the back of a truck in Salt Lake City. Whereas our first coach had told me unequivocally that I was only there in case his precious starting goalie got injured or shellacked for 20 goals and that I would probably NEVER see playing time, this “new” team saw me splitting time with that precious goalie and posting better numbers during our road trips, despite being 10 years older.

And nobody ever had to beg me to play.

Save the Canberra Knights

The AIHL’s Canberra Knights ownership has folded the team, first claiming monetary issues and then talent issues after informing the players via Facebook earlier this week. News stories abound and the Facebook discussion is as fervent as the supporter’s pledging money on the team’s crowd-sourcing page.

I just listened to Jordie Gavin’s interview on Canberra’s Sports Radio. He and the rest of the boys just want to play.

They just want to play.

And I don’t think anybody should stand in the way of that.

Good luck boys, I’m here if you need anybody in net during your Perth trips.

Here’s that DONATE link once again: https://www.mycause.com.au/page/canberraaihlteam