Kangaroo Rodeo

A Losing Streak

2008-09-28T15:34:00.007-05:00

In honor of today's 112th annual Grand Finals in Melbourne, I thought I'd devote a few minutes to demystifying the bloodsport that is Aussie Rules Football. I have found that most Americans think Aussie Rules is cool, and I have determined that there are three reasons for this:

1- Their football looks like ours, so it is familiar.
2- We don't really have any idea how their game is played, so it is exotic.
3- We respect the fact that they, like us, have resisted the urge to be hip and global and concentrate on soccer like the rest of the world.
4- A game where you get to tackle without wearing helmets or pads reminds of us the playground in grade school. It also satisfies our thirst for blood.

I must say, helmets are kind of nice. Sure, they reduce your vision on the field. But I bet you wish you had one if, for example, you get drunk with your mates and then decide to streak at the local footy match. Especially if you begin to attempt a naked cartwheel at midfield, then change your mind in mid-air, and end up nose-diving into the dirt and knocking yourself unconscious, Just ask Nathan Roberts, who recently suffered this insult upon injury at Virginia Oval north of Adelaide Source . Health problems had cut short his career as a player, but like many athletes past their prime, he missed the thrill of competing and being in the spotlight. With the help of liquid courage, he ignored pneumonia, fluid on his lungs, and an inflamed liver and spleen, to run one last ballsy play. The first twenty seconds of this video are well worth a peek:

After making a comparative analysis that is as objective as possible, I believe American football is, on its face, a better game. I try to explain to Jo the beauty of a team full of specialists running elaborate plays and using multiple strategies to move an army of beefcakes down the field. The stop-start nature of our game combined with the technical wonders of the modern TV sports broadcast create the perfect combination for socializing and spectating. You watch a play, then eat, drink, cheer, jeer, watch the replay, and then repeat. And everyone gets to be an expert.

In all fairness, however, I may be comparing apples and oranges. If American football is like an amazing succession of outdoor fireworks, then Aussie Rules is like the Burning Man festival. The action is frenzied and continuous, and the scores are astronomical. During the occasional timeout or game break, at least half the crowd leaves their seats and runs around on the field. And yes, it's not uncommon for some of them to do so naked. Here's the game as it was explained to me:

You score by getting the ball between the uprights, whether by land, air, sea, or budgy smuggling. There are four posts; you earn 6 points for scoring between the middle two, and one point if your aim is only good enough to split the outer posts. You have several ways to advance the ball. First, you can kick it, which is hard enough due to the footy's wobbly shape. Second, you can run with it, but after 10 yards or so you have to dribble it like a basketball. This is just silly. Finally, you can pass it to a teammate, but you cannot throw it. You have to punch it, like an angry kangaroo. The result of all this is a game something like my brothers and I used to invent in the backyard when we were bored in the summertime.

I asked Jo's brother if the teams were running any kind of formations or employing planned strategies. "I suppose they could, but no one would much be able to tell the difference," he laughed. "It's organized chaos." So you have a field full of powerful athletic specimens trying to do absurd things with a lopsided ball while everyone in the stands screams at the referees and hopes for victory. There is something refreshing about a game where you do not have to pretend to be an expert with all the other "Monday morning quarterbacks." Just stand in the eye of the storm and make noise with your mates in an arena that is part gladiator ring, part college kegger, and part Naked Special Olympics.

To continue to the next post, click here: (not yet available)

Homeward Bound

2008-09-26T10:45:00.007-05:00

The fat lady is reaching for the microphone and the driver is warming up the bus. It's time to go home, but I don't wanna. Jo and I pick up our bags and step into the Skybus Super Shuttle that will take us from Melbourne's Southern Cross Station out to the airport. The hanging metal grips and steely storage bars add an odd jailhouse motif to an otherwise comfortable ride. We make our way down the aisle and find a seat. As we sit in silence, I prepare to breathe in my last half-hour of this amazing penal colony that made it good.

I've never understood those people who say they get restless and start missing their job and routine after a few days away. I could happily vacation every day for the rest of my existence. Maybe in another life I was an explorer. Or a lazy prince. At any rate, I didn't come here to sit still. Jo and I could probably have used a couple of weeks on the couch--catching up, relaxing, and making plans for the future. But I came here on a mission--to fully experience Australia. For two and a half weeks I have tried to absorb as much as possible of the life, land, and culture here. I wanted to find out if this is a place I could ever call home. Over the next few posts, I'll break down for you what I discovered.

The only thing I didn't do that I really wanted to on this trip was meet up with Terry here in Melbourne. Terry was the Aussie I randomly met in New Orleans a couple months ago whose go-get-'em attitude inspired me to get proactive with this journey. In my hustle to get to the airport, I left the torn napkin with his phone number on my bedside table back home. When I arrived in Melbourne for the first time, however, a pleasant surprise awaited me.

I was sitting by the Virgin Blue terminal window, sipping a VB and waiting for my connection into Adelaide. An old-timer with squinty eyes, weathered skin, and bad teeth sat down next to me and struck up a conversation. He was some kind of laborer, zig-zagging from one corner of the continent to another, travelling from job to job. That afternoon, he was flying to Sydney to visit his son, who is my age. We chatted for a while, and then I noticed a man with a thick white beard sitting near us, eavesdropping. I had never seen a beard like this one back home. It was sort of an uber-goatee--thick, long, and bushy, like something out of another century. Maybe a Viking, or a Philistine, or something. I recognized him from my New Zealand flight, so I asked him if he was gong to Adelaide also. He was, and he turned out to be more of a corporate type. He was chatty also, and soon the three of us were best buds. I was even glad when our flight was delayed by 45 minutes, I was having such a good time. He would not be the last friendly Australian that I would meet, nor the last wearer of a beard like that.

On the flight into Adelaide, I had a seat buddy named Doug, I thought I would catch a little shut-eye on this flight, but instead, Doug felt obliged to give me a proper welcome to Australia and share both insider secrets as well as stories about his family. He was the one who told me about the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna. At the Crowne Casino in Melbourne, the guys at the poker table wanted to know all about New Orleans and Barack Obama. Then there was Jo's brother, who taught me the rules of footy, and his friend, who showed me a video clip on his cell phone where he jumped off a bridge to win a $500 bet. There was also the happy drunk at an Adelaide nightspot who serenaded me in the bathroom with a wooden flute. And, of course, there was Uncle Bruce.

Speaking of Uncle Bruce, Jo sent me this picture yesterday:

Point is, as good an ambassador as Terry is for his country, it appears that he is but one of many examples of the cheerful, outgoing, straight-ahead Aussie personality.

In spite of all the idiosyncrasies that make Australia endearing, I can't help but notice how similar it is to home. I spent a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon exploring the Immigration Museum in downtown Melbourne. The pictures and stories of the immigrants arriving in Sydney were reminiscent of images of Ellis Island. For a century and a half now, Australia has been a place where people come from all over the world to escape persecution, political unrest, starvation, or sheer boredom to start a better life. No wonder I don't want to go home. This is not a place you leave. This is a place you come. In fact, one out of four Aussies were born on another continent. They are used to being around people different from themselves.

Before I arrived Down Under, Jo's brother warned her 4-year-old niece, Ruby: "Now Matt will have a funny accent. He's from America." Ruby looked at my picture and replied, "But he has a face like ours."

You know, if I were about to be leaving Germany, or Peru, or even Portland, the trip would seem so long and I would feel so very far from home. Today, though, even though I'm still on the other side of the planet, it just feels like I'm flying home to North Carolina for Christmas. It's funny how your perception of time and space changes when things are so familiar.

To continue to the next post, click here: (A Losing Streak)

Footy Streaker Knocks Himself Out

2008-09-25T01:32:00.001-05:00

In honor of today's 112th annual Grand Finals in Melbourne, I thought I'd devote a few minutes to demystifying the bloodsport that is Aussie Rules Football. I have found that most Americans think Aussie Rules is cool, and I have determined that there are three reasons for this:

1- Their football looks like ours, so it is familiar.
2- We don't really have any idea how their game is played, so it is exotic.
3- We respect the fact that they, like us, have resisted the urge to be hip and global and concentrate on soccer like the rest of the world.
4- A game where you get to tackle without wearing helmets or pads reminds of us the playground in grade school. It also satisfies our thirst for blood.

I must say, helmets are kind of nice. Sure, they reduce your vision on the field. But I bet you wish you had one if, for example, you get drunk with your mates and then decide to streak at the local footy match. Especially if begin to attempt a naked cartwheel at midfield, then change your mind in mid-air, and end up nose-diving into the dirt and knocking yourself unconscious, Just ask Nathan Roberts, who recently suffered this insult upon injury at Virginia Oval north of Adelaide Source . Health problems had cut short his career as a player, but like many athletes past their prime, he missed the thrill of competing and being in the spotlight. With the help of liquid courage, he ignored pneumonia, fluid on his lungs, and an inflamed liver and spleen, to run one last ballsy play. The first twenty seconds of this video are well worth a peek:

After making a comparative analysis that is as objective as possible, I believe American football is, on its face, a better game. I try to explain to Jo the beauty of a team full of specialists running elaborate plays and using multiple strategies to move an army of beefcakes down the field. The stop-start nature of our game combined with the technical wonders of the modern TV sports broadcast create the perfect combination for socializing and spectating. You watch a play, then eat, drink, cheer, jeer, watch the replay, and then repeat. And everyone gets to be an expert.

In all fairness, however, I may be comparing apples and oranges. If American football is like an amazing succession of outdoor fireworks, then Aussie Rules is like attending Burning Man. The action is frenzied and continuous, and the scores are astronomical. During the occasional timeout or game break, at least half the crowd leaves their seats and runs around on the field. And yes, it's not uncommon for some of them to do so naked. Here's the game as it was explained to me:

You score by getting the ball between the uprights, whether by land, air, sea, or budgy smuggling. There are four posts; you earn 6 points for scoring between the middle two, and one point if your aim is only good enough to split the outer posts. You have several ways to advance the ball. First, you can kick it, which is hard enough due to the footy's wobbly shape. Second, you can run with it, but after 10 yards or so you have to dribble it like a basketball. This is just silly. Finally, you can pass it to a teammate, but you cannot throw it. You have to punch it, like an angry kangaroo. The result of all this is a game something like my brothers and I used to invent in the backyard when we were bored in the summertime.

I asked Jo's brother if the teams were running any kind of formations or employing planned strategies. "I suppose they could, but no one would much be able to tell the difference," he laughed. "It's organized chaos." So you have a field full of powerful athletic specimens trying to do absurd things with a wobbly ball while everyone in the stands screams at the referees and hopes for victory. There is something refreshing about a game where you do not have to pretend to be an expert with all the other "Monday morning quarterbacks" in the stands. Just stand in the eye of the storm and make noise with your buddies in an arena that is part gladiator ring, part college kegger, and part Naked Special Olympics.

To continue to the next post, click here: (not yet available)

Aussie Rules Football: A Losing Streak

2008-09-22T13:39:00.001-05:00

In honor of today's 112th annual Grand Finals in Melbourne, I thought I'd devote a few minutes to demystifying the bloodsport that is Aussie Rules Football. I have found that most Americans think Aussie Rules is cool, and I have determined that there are three reasons for this:

1- Their football looks like ours, so it is familiar.
2- We don't really have any idea how their game is played, so it is exotic.
3- We respect the fact that they, like us, have resisted the urge to be hip and global and concentrate on soccer like the rest of the world.
4- A game where you get to tackle without wearing helmets or pads reminds of us the playground in grade school. It also satisfies our thirst for blood.

I must say, helmets are kind of nice. Sure, they reduce your vision on the field. But I bet you wish you had one if, for example, you get drunk with your mates and then decide to streak at the local footy match. Especially if begin to attempt a naked cartwheel at midfield, then change your mind in mid-air, and end up nose-diving into the dirt and knocking yourself unconscious, Just ask Nathan Roberts, who recently suffered this insult upon injury at Virginia Oval north of Adelaide Source . Health problems had cut short his career as a player, but like many athletes past their prime, he missed the thrill of competing and being in the spotlight. With the help of liquid courage, he ignored pneumonia, fluid on his lungs, and an inflamed liver and spleen, to run one last ballsy play. The first twenty seconds of this video are well worth a peek:

After making a comparative analysis that is as objective as possible, I believe American football is, on its face, a better game. I try to explain to Jo the beauty of a team full of specialists running elaborate plays and using multiple strategies to move an army of beefcakes down the field. The stop-start nature of our game combined with the technical wonders of the modern TV sports broadcast create the perfect combination for socializing and spectating. You watch a play, then eat, drink, cheer, jeer, watch the replay, and then repeat. And everyone gets to be an expert.

In all fairness, however, I may be comparing apples and oranges. If American football is like an amazing succession of outdoor fireworks, then Aussie Rules is like attending Burning Man. The action is frenzied and continuous, and the scores are astronomical. During the occasional timeout or game break, at least half the crowd leaves their seats and runs around on the field. And yes, it's not uncommon for some of them to do so naked. Here's the game as it was explained to me:

You score by getting the ball between the uprights, whether by land, air, sea, or budgy smuggling. There are four posts; you earn 6 points for scoring between the middle two, and one point if your aim is only good enough to split the outer posts. You have several ways to advance the ball. First, you can kick it, which is hard enough due to the footy's wobbly shape. Second, you can run with it, but after 10 yards or so you have to dribble it like a basketball. This is just silly. Finally, you can pass it to a teammate, but you cannot throw it. You have to punch it, like an angry kangaroo. The result of all this is a game something like my brothers and I used to invent in the backyard when we were bored in the summertime.

I asked Jo's brother if the teams were running any kind of formations or employing planned strategies. "I suppose they could, but no one would much be able to tell the difference," he laughed. "It's organized chaos." So you have a field full of powerful athletic specimens trying to do absurd things with a wobbly ball while everyone in the stands screams at the referees and hopes for victory. There is something refreshing about a game where you do not have to pretend to be an expert with all the other "Monday morning quarterbacks" in the stands. Just stand in the eye of the storm and make noise with your buddies in an arena that is part gladiator ring, part college kegger, and part Naked Special Olympics.

To continue to the next post, click here: (not yet available)

Island Cycle Tours: How I Got Frostbit by Lord Wellington on the ICICLE Tour

2008-09-21T03:21:00.003-05:00

Bike rides are supposed to be fun. Especially downhill rides with scenic views on beautiful spring days. That's what we signed on for this afternoon when the Island Cycle tour van rolled up to chauffeur us from our hotel up to the top of Mount Wellington. According to our Lonely Planet guidebook, the mountain "towers like a benevolent overlord" over the city of Hobart, Tasmania, providing "reassurance" to its citizens in its "constant, solid presence." Even if the sky is overcast, the book adds, "often the peak rises above cloud level and looks out over a magical ocean of rolling white cloud-tops."

This is not fun. This is painful. I am freezing. And I am careening down an icy serpentine mountain road, navigating my way between plunging drop-offs on the left and intrusive dolerite cliffs poking out from the right. We are about 9 kilometers into a 22K descent through a glacial sleetstorm. I can barely see my handlebars through the icicles pelting my eyelids, and I am soaked to the core. Is this for real? I have been having bad dreams lately, and this is ridiculous. I extricate my left hand from the front brake and pinch my exposed cheek.

Nothing. Good. Now this is a great opportunity to take a lucid field trip. Maybe I'll ditch the bike and fly back down to Hobart. Or perhaps I'll say a magic word and turn this malevolent mountain overlord into a warmer and more hospitable Great Barrier Reef. We should have probably taken that Gold Coast vacation that Jo proposed in the first place. Frostbite was the last scenario I had envisioned in a country where half the population contracts skin cancer from the heat rays.

Wait a second. That's why I can't feel anything. My body has gone into survival mode. It is now becoming quite liberal in its assignment of what constitutes an unnecessary appendage. At least five minutes have passed since I last felt my fingers or toes, and now my legs are starting to go. I decide to see if I can out scream the howling wind. Maybe I can will myself out of this misery.
"Yippeeeeeee!
Woo-hoooooooo!
Shamma-lamma-ding-dong!"

No good. My outbursts turn petulant now. I must admit, cursing the wind does provide a quick fix of masochistic relief from this blustery tribulation. Somethin's gotta give, though. Either I am going to lose my fingers, or I am going to lose control of the bike and sail over the precipice around the next sharp corner. Where did everyone else go, anyway? I started the ride up front behind Mark, the lead guide, but he is now gone from view. Maybe the rest of the group has already retired to the warm tour bus trailing behind. I do feel like one of Hell's Snow Angels for staying on the bike this long.

Jo and I realized yesterday this may be more than we bargained for. As we were driving on highway A3 across the bridge in to Hobart, we first saw the snow-capped mountain--all 1270 meters of it--looming over the historic port city. "Wow, it's a lot bigger than I expected," Jo remarked anxiously.

"Hey, it's not a party if you're not a little scared," I chuckled. Blindly signing the liability waiver has become a ritual for us whenever I choose the field trip. Watching Jo squirm helps me keep my mind off any clear and present danger. After over a week of continuous traveling and scurrying from one gathering and sightseeing expedition to another, Hobart was supposed to be the place where we stopped to relax and smell the roses. But I couldn't resist one last rodeo.

(to be continued. . . )

To continue to the next post, click here: (Numb and Number)

The Rainbow Connection

2008-09-18T09:23:00.012-05:00

(continued from Icicle Ride and Numb and Number)

Jo's tumble provides good reason for us to get off the road and crawl into the van. "Are you riding with me too?" Dan asks me in a slightly scolding tone as he loads our bikes into the trailer.

"Yeah, I'm gonna stay with her 'til she's good to go," I reply, lobbing his little condescending look right back. What kind of person would leave their partner shivering, embarrassed, and temporarily paralyzed on top of a mountain thousands of miles from home?

Evidently, a Saffa would. While she is gleefully whizzing around Lord Wellington like a kid on a water slide, her husband, the young Eugene Levy, has fallen to the very back of the pack. He is standing motionless now by his bike with a dazed look on his face. He is suffering, but he does not seem to know why.

I know why. "Almighty Dollar," I mutter to Jo as we trade in our sloppy gloves for dry replacements and huddle together in the van. These guys know better. What kind of sick puppy throws a bunch of under-dressed novices into the Ice Capades? They could have started us out farther down the mountain. Like, say, at the timberline. I guess they are afraid someone might ask for a refund if they don't get the complete advertised experience. Me, I'm more concerned about getting more than the advertised experience: equipment, transportation, and gangrene. I'd pay double just to be back down in Hobart with some warm socks. Right now, I might as well be standing barefoot in an ice chest full of Tassie's finest.

After a fair amount of cajoling, I persuade Jo to ditch her damp fitted jacket in exchange for a dry, albeit less stylish, secondhand overcoat. Five minutes later, we arrive at "The Springs," the midway point in our ride. Evidently, many years ago, there was a hotel and spa there by that name. No actual springs of any sort are to be seen, but there is a fireplace in an outdoor shelter near the public toilets. The rest of the group is kneeling around it, warming their hands over an open flame.

The rest of the group minus the Saffa, that is. In her blind lust for speed and kicks, she did not notice the guide pull over at the Springs, and continued her downward fearless flight alone. Mark and Dan now have something greater to be concerned about than refund requests. Waiver or no waiver, dead bikers are bad for business.

I am busy quizzing the other riders. "How do your fingers feel? Are they numb like mine? This is crazy, right? Are you guys getting back on your bikes?" Everyone else, including the stranded rider we picked up, seems willing to follow instructions and promptly get back on the road. I, meanwhile, am trying to determine the true nature of my discomfort. Maybe it's psychosomatic, and I am dwelling too much on the pain. Maybe it's my general nature to question authority and not be a sheep. Maybe the other riders are wearing extra thermal layers and thick shoes. Maybe the Brit is accustomed to weather like this. And the Aussies, now wrapping up three months of winter, may be on top of it as well. As it turns out, none of this matters because Jo is still not ready to ride either. Once again, she is my salvation.

Back in the van, we manage to thaw out a bit over the next four kilometers . I can feel my legs now, and the general overall throbbing has subsided. Through the front window, we can see Mark rounding up the group by the side of the road near a clearing in the woods. The snow and rain has stopped, and the fall in altitude has pushed the temperature up by at least ten degrees. "All right, guys. . . " Dan says, turning to us and clearing his throat. "Mark is taking you all on an off road trail for a while."

"Can we join them farther along when they get back on the main road?" I ask.

"Well, I may have to go up ahead and look for the rider we lost," he replies.

"OK. We'll get out and take it from here." I look at Jo. She bites her lip and puts on her game face. The off road ride is fun, but sluggish. Jo's chain starts slipping, and then finally falls off. Eugene Levy has never ridden a bike with gears: "Do I still have to pedal after I change gears? Is there a clutch?" I show him how his gears work. I stop and help him up when he falls. I even trade bikes with him for a while to show him that his equipment is not faulty. I have felt the pain of humiliation myself today. Out of principle, I feel it is my duty to help.

Just when he seems to be getting the hang of it, Levy runs over a big rock and pops his rear tire. Mark stops the group for ten minutes while he changes the flat. . By the time we make it back to the main road, and then down to our last rest stop, the Cascade Brewery, it is 4:30. We are supposed to be finished by now.

We inhale some instant coffee and ANZAC biscuits (a cookie made with rolled oats and coconuts) and then, lo and behold, who rocks up but. . . the Saffa. "I got lost!" she exclaims, laughing. "And then I met this lady, and she invited me into her house, and gave me free coffee. And now, I'm getting more free coffee. This is great!" Do they not have coffee in South Africa? I glare at her, but her clownish permagrin remains intact. Neither she nor her husband, who is shivering over by the coffee urn, appear aware of each others presence.

The last leg of the ride is a treat. Finally, I am able to enjoy the ride unencumbered. Well, almost unencumbered. I am riding at the back of the line behind Eugene Levy, who occasionally and for no particular reason, veers out into the middle of the winding two-lane highway. "Car!" I yell as I hear the rumble of impending traffic behind me. No response. "Car!" I yell louder and repeatedly until finally, he veers back over into formation. Every couple of minutes we repeat this routine. Who is gonna look after this guy when this ride ends, I wonder.

I ease up on my haunches and feel the asphalt zip beneath me as the bike responds to every tilt of my hips and touch of my half-warmed fingers. As we zoom into town, I think to myself, now if we can catch a killer sunset over the skyline, this might actually be worth it. We pull up to an intersection, and I hear someone exclaim, "Look--there's a double--up in the sky."

And there it is--arcing across the full horizon from the hills of North Hobart, soaring over the river, and descending into the historic village of Battery Point--a perfect rainbow.
My visit Down Under has been Jo's birthday gift to me, and as I take in the best sight of the trip, it's like unwrapping the final package. Oddly enough, the last time I was so lucky was last year on my birthday. Jo took me to Biloxi, Mississippi, where across a beautiful sunset in a light rain, she presented a similar dazzling display that rose up out of the Gulf of Mexico and landed about fifty feet from us in the calm sun-struck water. It's a tradition I think I can get used to.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Homeward Bound)

They Don't Just Punch the Kangaroos! Brutal Pillowfights: Aussie twin breaks twin sisters nose

2008-09-12T04:56:00.009-05:00

The Internet is full of quirky, eye-catching advertisements and headlines. At this very second, the Yahoo! portal informs me that "Italian priest organizes beauty contest for Nuns" and "Thieves Rob Ugandan Orphan Choir." I don't have time to read every new piece of celebrity gossip or try every new cheeseburger, but some stuff is just too far out to ignore. You know me. I like the violent stuff. "Man punches out kangaroo." "Pest exterminator eats termites." "Crocodile eats boy's arm." Stuff like that.

Last night I got an e-mail titled, "I am officially a breaker of bones." Normally that wouldn't be enough of a lure to move me to action, but I opened it because it came from my fiancee. At 6 p.m. this evening I'll be climbing into an airplane that will take me on the first leg of my journey to visit her in Australia. She has been supportive of my writing and my interest in strange Australian happenings and occasionally forwards me news stories now that I might miss in the States. This week, for example, the mayor of some Outback mining town was begging women to come live there because the predominantly male population was so lonely. I figured Jo was sending me a story about the Yowie, or maybe a forwarded joke, or some last-minute information about my flights.

If I had written the title for Jo's e-mail, here's what I would have written: "Aussie girl breaks twin sister's nose in brutal pillow fight." Here's the story, in her words:

Ok so it turns out Natalie has a fractured upper nose... so it's broken I guess. If you want to be technical, then I actually gave her the broken nose. I feel terrible. it was a stupid accident. We were playing around, laughing and throwing cushions and things at each other, except i happened to get her in the wrong side of the nose, and caught it awkwardly, you know like when you get hit by a pillow in a pillow fight and it actually hurts... oops. My Bad. Immediately she was convinced it was broken... it swelled up and well this morning she has a small bruise but nothing too bad... but off to the doctor she went. He x-rayed it and there is a clear fracture on the top. But thank God nothing serious... she was telling me that i have to pony up the money for cosmetic surgery when we discover that it will never look the same again.. hahaha.

so yeah, the swelling should go down in a couple of days, the pain in a week and well she just has to be careful not to do any more damage for the next month. I guess there isn't much you can do for a broken nose. I've never broken a bone before (except my little toe, so that doesn't really counts), i can't believe i just broke her nose. i feel like such a bad person. Didn't sleep at all last night cos i was worried about her waking up with 2 black eyes like a panda! So if her nose is still a bit swollen and bruised when you get here, I'm sure she will be very self conscious about it... especially if my brothers get to see it as they will have a field day on her. :(

Now I can't say this came completely out of nowhere. Both Nat and I have seen Jo display her prowess on the Nintendo Wii boxing, but I never thought she was that kind of a brute.

It's funny--just two nights ago, an old friend came by to see me at work and congratulate me on the engagement. When I told him she was Australian, he said, "Oh, that's good. She'll make an excellent wife. She can help you pull the plough." I must admit, Jo is quite industrious, and an attractive woman with a big heart and a great work ethic--this is a no-brainer, folks. I guess I just never considered the inherent danger of her unharnessed power.

Jo and Nat are practically joined at the hip. If Jo could turn on her own flesh and blood, is there any doubt what damage she might wreak upon yours truly? Pillow fighting is supposed to be FUN. It's not a bloodsport, it's a GAME. Hey, for some folks, it's a fantasy. Add this to the list of things to watch out for Down Under. Snakes, sharks, hungry thylacines, angry Yowies, and flying pillows. Is there no safe haven?

To continue to the next post, click here: (A Wandering Mind)

Numb and Number

2008-09-09T16:02:00.006-05:00

(continued from Icicle Ride)

During the van ride up the mountain, the guides seemed a little nervous. "It could be a bit windy up there today," advised Mark. "When we get to the top, we'll take a look about, and depending on the conditions, we may start our ride a couple of kilometers down the road at the Point."

No one in our group looked particularly athletic. There was a couple from New South Wales that didn't know much about bikes but were at least dressed for cold weather. Then there was a fussy British gal in a bright yellow jacket, anxious to get the ride over on time so she could drive up to Devonport later tonight. Finally there was a young Aussie version of Eugene Levy

and his chipper Saffa (South African) wife. Clearly, Jo and I would be the most capable pair on this tour. I bike regularly back home in sub-tropical swamp fog, and Jo is a freestyle boxer and certified fitness instructor currently in top form. I attended her Body Pump torture session last week at the Viva Gym in Adelaide, and for the entire hour, I chanted to the beat: "Aussie, Aussie. Ow. Ow. Ow. "

As we wound our way up an increasingly agitated Overlord Wellington, the air grew chillier and the sky cloudier. "It snowed about three weeks ago," Mark informed us, "but by now it's mostly melted." Clearly not in the mood to deal with whining Chicken Littles all day, he tried to put the ride in perspective for us:

"Every November, the Cascade Brewery hosts a Fun Run up the mountain. It takes a little more than half an hour to drive up the mountain, and the record for running up it is 1 1/2 hours. Back in the day, before they built the road, they called it the 'Come As You Please Run.' You chose whatever route you liked. So when you got to the top, you'd have a drink, and then, of course, you'd have to run back down."

You'd think that running down the mountain would be the easy part. And we weren't even running. We would be rolling. But when we reached the summit, we were greeted by a couple of bad omens. First, the snow wasn't melting. It was falling. Falling fast, just like the temperature, which had dropped below freezing with a serious wind chill to boot. We might as well have been at the South Pole. Second, we were greeted by a stranded cyclist banging on the van window. "I misjudged the conditions, mate." he murmured. "Would you guys mind sharing a lift down the mountain?" This guy was neither a tourist nor a novice. In his red racing jacket and matching helmet, he looked like a Tasmanian Lance Armstrong. Trying his best not to look like a pansy, he passed on our guides' offer of extra clothes. He crawled into the back of the van, where he hung his head quietly as he warmed up.

Dan, the other guide, drove us down to the Point, where we bundled up in extra layers and waited for a reprieve from the windstorm. After about ten minutes, it finally eased up for a second, and off we went.

I ease up and come to a stop. My fingers have turned from icicles to burning embers and the pain is searing and relentless. I fully expect to stand here shivering for a while until the van full of my riding mates arrives. To my surprise, after only a few seconds, Jo rides up, still on her bike but visibly shattered. "Is this hurting you like it is me?" I ask, shaking.

Jo can't speak through her chattering teeth and blistered cheeks, but she nods and looks at me, bug-eyed. As we stand there helplessly, I see something coming fast behind us on the road. I hear a gleeful "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" as the Saffa whizzes past us with a dumb grin on her face and no righteous respect for the elements. "This is soooooooo fun!" Her voice echoes off the mountain walls as she rounds the corner. Jo and I look at each other sheepishly and climb back onto our death chariots.

I push off first into the middle of the road and then ease back to the left in case there is incoming traffic. Apparently I cut Jo off because I hear her groan and squeeze her brakes. When you can't feel your fingers, it's hard to move them all with equal pressure. She lays too heavy on the front brake and the bike tosses her head over handlebars. She takes it hard in the bottom of the breadbasket as both she and the bike bite it. Ouch. As she looks at me with scorn, I can't help but feel a tinge of joy. Not at her misfortune, but because now we both have a valid excuse to climb into that van and save ourselves, if not our pride.

"You pulled in front of me," she growls, wincing.

"I'm sorry, Jo. I was trying to stay out of the road." The rest of the group cruises past us and the van pulls up beside us. I whisper in her ear, "But I need you to be a big sissy right now. I can't ride anymore."

"Good. Me neither," she replies.

(to be continued in the RAINBOW CONNECTION. . . )

To continue to the next post, click here: (RAINBOW CONNECTION)

Icicle Ride

2008-09-08T04:08:00.009-05:00

Desperately Seeking Something

2008-09-05T02:28:00.008-05:00

(continued from Let's Go Outback Tonight)

The main road from Adelaide to Port Augusta was about what I expected--lots of shrubs, a few gum trees and farmhouses, and the occasional passing truck. It was when we turned north onto Port Germein Gorge Road and started snaking into a mountainous wilderness that I started to appreciate why Jo was hesitant about this ride. Every five miles or so we came upon a stray goat or a wasted woodshed. But no signs, no power lines, no proof of human life. And we still had three hours of driving to go. Deeper and farther into the land of Nil.

We reached Melrose and decided to press on west toward Quorn. By the time we got there, the long ride was wearing Jo down physically and the isolation was doing me in psychologically. Staring at the strip of highway that gradually narrowed but never disappeared began to hypnotize me. Across my periphery, blue skies reflected weird prisms of light off the land, and all I could think of was one word--Para. . . Chil. . . Na. it was Mecca, Medina, the Holy Grail, the Copacabana. It was the oasis of hope and humanity that would reward us at the finish line of our foolish marathon on borrowed wheels.

Jo was none too impressed with my notion of a Pot of Gold Watering Hole, but she wanted to let me exhaust my curiosity once and for all. “I just can’t wait to get there and hang out with a couple of bearded, bath-dodging, two-toothed serial killers. It’s gonna be awesome,” she scoffed. I would see that Australians don’t go Outback because THERE’S NOTHING THERE.

The guidebooks had differing statistics on the population of Parachilna. One said seven. The other said five. Not five thousand, or even five hundred. Five like the fingers. I was convinced that these were five party planners, so Jo and I made a bet as to how many people, including management, would be waiting for us at the Parachilna Pub. The over/under was ten. If you go half an hour past Parachilna, the paved road ends. And the gravel driveway to hell begins.

As it turned out, the last leg of our pilgrimage, a two-hour haul out past Wilpena Pound to the end of the Ranges, was more fantastic than I could have imagined. Beautiful vistas opened up as spiny barren mountains rose up to the left and the right. The lonesome two-lane highway dipped and wound gradually through dry riverbeds, sloping mountain passes, and open ranges. I would have let the engine roar and peel the highway ribbon away if it hadn’t been so late in the day. We had been well warned about the likelihood and danger of kangaroos darting out from behind roadside shrubbery around dusk.

One guy told me a story about his uncle, who had a kangaroo collision out here while driving a big flat-front tractor-trailer. The roo bounded into the passenger side of the king cab and crashed through the window as the driver hit the brakes and started to skid. As he clung to the wheel, trying to keep the truck right side up, the crazed roo kicked him mercilessly in the ribs. When the medics arrived, they found the walls of the cab covered with blood and both the roo and the uncle sprawled unconscious across the seat.

I drove carefully, inspecting the right side of the road while Jo watched the left. We passed a couple of wandering emus and a few crows, but never did a kangaroo come into sight. After a while, the big rocks by the road started to look like loaves of bread and then they started to wiggle. Trust me. Jo saw it too. Finally, with just minutes to go before the sun dipped beneath the westernmost edge of the visible sky, we saw our sign--”Parachilna: 5km.”

We rolled into a place that was everything I had imagined. . . snug accommodations, friendly innkeepers, a gourmet feast, and a cheery pub crowd of over twenty travellers just as crazy as me. If Australia is proof that there is life on Mars, then Parachilna proves there is life on its moon.

Why had we all pushed so hard to go so far just to make sure there actually was nothing in the middle of nowhere? For the same reason people meditate and medicate themselves silly to try and rid themselves of the cluttered frustrations and distractions of everyday life. It’s then that you can enjoy the experience of completely unpredictable thoughts and feelings.

And once upon a Parachilna, when you do come upon something to look at or someone to talk to, you are fully present to appreciate and engage them. The Outback is not something to see. It’s something to get lost in.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Icicle Ride)

Let's Go Outback Tonight

2008-09-03T07:32:00.007-05:00

About two weeks before I left for Australia, I got it in my head that I had to see the Outback. Maybe it was the Australian movies I was watching. Or maybe it’s because I never took that road trip out West that I always intended to. I was looking at maps and travel stuff online when I realized that the Flinders Ranges, some of the most beautiful and accessible Outback regions, were within a day’s drive of Adelaide.

Now exactly what constitutes a day’s drive is arguable. Where the Outback officially begins is also up for grabs. After planning everything else we wanted to do, Jo and I only had two days left if we wanted to add a desert getaway to our itinerary. I looked in my Lonely Planet book and came across Port Augusta. It sits at the foot of the Flinders about three and a half hours from Adelaide. Port Augusta is billed as the “Crossroads to the Outback” and the “Fresh Seafood Capitol” of Australia. Hmmm. . . Maybe we can pay an easy overnight visit to Port Augusta, enjoy fresh barramundi over a gorgeous desert vista, and check this off the list, I thought.

Jo popped that bubble for me real quick. “Yuck. Porta Gutta,” she muttered over the phone. “There’s nothin’ there but bogans and drunks.” As much as I wanted to look at some real bogans, that sounded too much like New Orleans without the culture. Okay, back to the drawing board. We could take a scenic drive up to the dusty little town of Quorn. That’s the size of Whitakers, NC, where I grew up. Quorn does indeed sit at the foot of the Outback. But there’s nothing there. Is it worth driving four hours each way just to stop and look at nothing with a horizon full of nothing beyond it? There is probably a better way to spend two days.

I put the idea on hold until it came up in a conversation with a guy named Doug sitting next to me on the plane into Adelaide. “You gotta go to Parachilna,” he said. “To the hotel there. It’s an authentically Australian experience. The vibe is just so. . . warm. And the people are beautiful. And you can charter a flight to see the Ranges.”

“Should I drop your name?” I inquired.

He pondered that for a second and then shook his head. “Nah. Probably not. But when you walk in, you’ll see a horse trough on the right. I’ve passed out in there a few times,” he said with a hearty laugh. Parachilna it would be.

Jo and I decided to take the longer, scenic route around Mount Remarkable and the southern tip of the Ranges to avoid Porta Gutta. On the north side of the mountain there is a little town called Melrose that is supposed to be the very first Flinders town. We could end our trip there and do some bushwalking in the event we were too tired to make it all the way to Parachilna.

We told Jo’s friends and family about our plan. From the raised eyebrows we were met with, I gather that Parachilna is not a normal overnight road trip for Adelaide folk. We decided to take a rental car to be on the safe side.
(to be continued. . .)

To continue to the next post, click here: (Desperately Seeking Something)

Uncle Bruce

2008-09-02T07:33:00.004-05:00

Monday afternoon we were supposed to be sneaking through the scrub, one foot in front of the other, hunting wild kangaroos. The late winter weather, however, was not accomodating. By ten after two, when Jo called Uncle Bruce, a steady drizzle was underway. “If it keeps rainin', we won't be able to go out cuz the roos won't come out,” he told Jo. “But come over anyway.”

We took Victoria Road out to the west side of town and then headed down Bay Road. Turning onto Whaler's Road, we came upon Uncle Bruce's house near the bluff over Encounter Bay. It is situated on the top of a hill with rolling farmland in every direction. Uncle Bruce and his yapping dogs came out to greet us and lead us in through his enclosed veranda. It was filled with a variety of plants, dog houses, assorted tools, antiques, and odds and ends.

In the living room, “Dances with Wolves” was playing on the tube and several logs were burning in the fireplace. Jo told me that he cooks wild game there on large homemade skewers. Collectible coffee mugs lined the walls and a couple surfboards stood next to a table covered with surfing trophies, medals, and pictures. Bruce and his wife Brenda and daughter Mel entertained us with stories of swimming with whales, hunting roos, riding big waves, and living in the country.

Uncle Bruce is a lean, happy-go-lucky cross between Crocodile Dundee and Gary Busey. When “Dances with Wolves” ended, he took it out of the VCR and put in “Riding Giants,” an old surfing documentary. I got the impression that he watches these movies everyday. I wanted to hear about the big mulloway, of course. “So Jo's brothers told me I should ask you about the mulloway. . .” I hinted.

Oh yeah, I think we have a picture around here somewhere.” Aunt Brenda went looking for it while Mel chimed in: “I was out with him that day. He used to pick us up after school in his ute (utility truck) and bring us homemade iced coffee and vegetable snacks. We had to give the coffee a bit of a shake, you know, cuz all the sugar was on the bottom. He would always play the same tape in the ute. It was the soundtracks from all his surfing movies. . . We had to connect the tape recorder to the VCR to make it.”

She giggled and added, “So you could still hear the voices from the movie talking over the music, you know. Anyway, I was standing on the beach and I saw him coming out of the water holding onto something, and I couldn't see his leg, so I'm thinking, 'What had he done now?'”

Uncle Bruce interrupted her: “I'll take it from here. So I was surfing, and I felt this big fish swim up next to me, so I grabbed it by the tail.”

“Were you trying to surf on it or catch it?” I asked.

“Catch. But you can't hold that tail for long. They'll shake loose, but if you can grab a hold of those guys by the mouth, I've heard of people catching them, and they're good to eat.”

Brenda returned with some pictures of Bruce holding fish, but she couldn't find the giant mulloway.

Uncle Bruce continued: “So I decided to grab it by the mouth with me leg rope, but they have these huge sharp gills down the sides that can slice ya up real nice, so I picked my spot, lunged for it, and I got lucky, I guess. When I got to the shore, there were cameras going off everywhere.”

Mel finished the story: “He yells to me, 'Get the baseball bat from the ute!' So I pull it out, all bloody and covered with rabbit fur, and hand it to him. And right there in front of all the kids and grandmas, he smacks it across the head one time.”

I looked over at Uncle Bruce, who was sitting back on the couch with his arms crossed and a broad grin on his face. Suddenly, he lunged forward and pointed at the television. “Look, Matt! Check this out. You don't wanna miss this wave. . . "

P.S. (added on Sept. 26)

OK, I finally found a picture:

(Incidentally, while looking online for that newspaper article about Uncle Bruce, I found a story about an Aussie man drunk on vodka who caught a shark with his bare hands last year. Further proof that the iconic Bushland hero is alive and well down here.)

To continue to the next post, click here: (Let's Go Outback Tonight)

March of the Penguins

2008-09-01T08:35:00.005-05:00

I woke up in Victor Harbor on Monday morning to a crisp breeze and bright blue skies. At this time of the week and year, it's a sleepy little resort town. It's not as quiet, however, as my where I'm from. In the wake of a mandatory evacuation order, New Orleans has become a ghost town.

Jo and I watched Channel Ten broadcast the images of miles upon miles of cars fleeing the Big Easy to make way for Hurricane Gustav. I couldn't be in a better place right now. My hurrication evacuation was timed perfectly. Australians don't get hurricanes, and the southern coast is particularly well-sheltered. Still, I can't help but feel nervous about things back home—my roof, my stuff, my job, my friends, my future. After living through Katrina and the 3-year rebuilding process that ensued, my mood is swinging back and forth between hopeful and frustrated.

The highs and lows of living in Hurricane Alley pale in comparison, however, to the struggle for survival that some folks endure. Take, for example, the little blue penguins. They are exclusive to South Australia and New Zealand and can only live on islands because they are so vulnerable to mainland predators like foxes. They avoid walking around until after dusk in order to steer clear of hungry owls and sea gulls.

Last night we went to Granite Island after dark to watch the nightly penguin parade. We were guided by the Steve Irwin of little penguins and his sidekick Roy. Roy is a little blue penguin minus a heartbeat and all the necessary internal organs. Basically, he is a teddy bear for grown-ups. . . grown-up penguin stalkers.

Steve the penguinologist took us on a hike around the island with a special low-level amber flashlight so we could see the penguins scurrying home to feed the kids after a long day at the office. A little penguin's commute to work entails a long swim in the ocean—as far as 100 miles round trip to find food for the family. They live in tiny secluded burrows that the males dig out between large rocks.

After setting up his pad, the male penguin holds an open house for the ladies. If a female penguin digs his digs, she moves in for some boot-knockin'. Pretty soon she pops out a couple of eggs—little penguin babies come as twins to increase the likelihood that the family name lives on. Dinner time at the penguin house is nothin' nice. We witnessed the daily ritual of the hungry, feisty kids (sometimes larger than their folks) yowling and tackling the parent and beating each other up to get to the food. By food, we're talking about a few spittles worth of regurgitated energy-packed oil. And you thought that picking up Chinese take-out after a 45-minute commute was tiring. . .

As I watched this fascinating display of survival, I whispered a quick prayer for New Orleans, while keeping a wary eye on my little penguin twin.

Dinner time was approaching.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Uncle Bruce)

A Family Affair

2008-08-31T23:06:00.004-05:00

Before venturing down to Victor Harbor on Sunday night, we spent the afternoon in Aldinga Beach with Jo’s family at her parent’s house. My research before the trip served me well during the dinner conversation. One of Jo’s brothers tested me on drop bears and asked if I minded being called a Seppo. Jo’s mom talked about bogans, and her dad noted that Aussie rhyming slang is losing ground to American slang. The other brother admitted that rhyming slang is kind of dumb, but taught me some new expressions anyway . Everyone wanted to make sure we watched out for kangaroos crossing the highway.

Jo’s sister-in-law told a story about ramming her car into a fence and sustaining $400 in damage all to avoid a steaming pile of dog poo. Her best story, though, was about an animal she actually hit:

“ I woke up on a Sunday morning feeling rough, so I went to get some greasy burgers at Macca’s. I was near our old house in Woodville when, all of a sudden, I saw a yappy chihuahua crossing in front of me, but it was too late. I hit it two times—Boom Boom. . . Boom Boom, front and back. It went straight under. I stopped and walked around to pick it up, and when I did, it grabbed hold of my pinkie finger and wouldn’t bloody let go. I guess it was still in shock.”

“It was still alive?” I interrupted.

“Yeah, I don’t know how, but it got run over right on the stomach and missed the vital organs. I had to take it to the vet, and by the time it was all over, my Macca’s was cold,” she moaned. “I had to go get a tetanus shot and everything.”

I mentioned that we were driving out to visit Jo’s Uncle Bruce on Monday, and everyone perked up.

“Oh yeah, he’s a wild man.”

“He makes his living all kinds of ways. One day he’s out shootin’ ducks and roos. Other days he’s building things. And if he’s not buying a piece of junk for a dollar, he’s selling it for two the next day.”

“One time he surfed into Victor Harbor on a huge mulloway,” Jo’s brother recounted. “He made the newspaper—Man catches 6-Foot Mulloway with Bare Hand. There he was. . . holding a big fish by the gills, next to his board, wearing one gumboot and a pair of budgy smugglers.”

I couldn’t wait.

To continue to the next post, click here: (March of the Penguins)

Another One Bites the Dust

2008-08-30T04:21:00.007-05:00

I knew I was gonna see a kangaroo on this trip. The deck was heavily stacked in my favor. Jo’s mom warned her about driving out to her home in Aldinga at dusk because of wild roos crossing the highway. Jo’s uncle has offered to take us on a wild roo chase in Victor Harbor. And there are plenty of wildlife reserves just in case. I did not, however, expect to see a dead kangaroo at the Melbourne airport. I didn’t want to put it on my main page, so click here --->(DEAD ROO) to see it and read the rest of this post. Don’t worry, it’s a tasteful shot: (as much as you could imagine, anyway). . .

To continue to the next post, click here: (A Family Affair)

EWW. ROO.

2008-08-29T00:14:00.005-05:00

After I snapped this photo, I ate that roo. I couldn’t resist filet ‘o roo, cooked to medium and served with potato rosti, wilted baby spinach, sweet potato chips, and red onion jam. There it was on the menu, saddled between the bangers ‘n mash and the Irish corned beef. I was sitting in P.J. O’Brien’s at the airport, and I had six hours to kill before my connection into Adelaide. I was kind of surprised to see it on the menu, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. It’s a standard Aussie dish, and was enthusiastically recommended by the barkeep. At the supermarket it is displayed in the meat aisle as a “Lean and Healthy” item, next to the turkey. I guess it's good for you. To me, it tasted like somewhere between a bland piece of steak and one of my Mom’s crock pot roasts.

The strangest thing about eating kangaroo is dealing with the thoughts that go through your mind as you chew the sinewy dead marsupial. You think about it’s rat-like skin. That’s kind of gross. Then you think about what a cool animal it is. And that makes you feel guilty. For me, eating roo was a way to go ahead and try to get over even worse guilt. We are planning to go roo shootin’ with Jo’s uncle in a couple of days. I figure that pulling a shotgun trigger from the back of a four-wheel drive and then watching a man skin a roo must be an even more visceral experience than putting a fork in your mouth. But how can I pass up this opportunity? If the guilt persists, I’ll just pretend I'm on a nutria hunt in St. Bernard Parish back in New Orleans.

As I was eating, I noticed a man wearing a soccer jersey at the table next to mine. The jersey said “Socceroos.” The Socceroos are Australia’ s national soccer team. Besides being the Olympic mascot and the national animal, the kangaroo is the mascot for many an Australian sports squad. . . the Hockey Roos, the Boomers, and on and on. I think it is the fact that the kangaroo is a mascot that makes it seem unfit for dinner. No one eats eagles, or tigers, Golden Lions, or beavers. Not where I come from. Today I was watching an Aussie rules football match in Adelaide with Jo’s family. When I told her brother I had eaten roo meat, he laughed and said, “So you had to eat our mascot, huh?”

I knew I wasn’t crazy for feeling twisted about it all. I strained to think of another mascot people eat and then it dawned on me.

"Ducks."

The Mighty Ducks.

To continue to the next post, click here: (not yet available)

Flyin' High (in the Friendly Sky)

2008-08-27T22:11:00.005-05:00

The International Terminal in New Zealand's Auckland Airport is half mall, half natural IMAX theatre. I arrived there at 5:30 a.m., just in time to catch a sunrise to go with my mocha latte. I spotted an unclaimed leather couch amidst the assorted art deco furniture. I sprawled out, waited and watched.

The sky was dark and thick, but soon beams of light started to slice through the fog. Like theatre spotlights on a rock and roll band, they began to illuminate the featured players. One by one, these celestial lasers lit up the Boeing jets right outside, then the bright green fields in the foreground, and finally, the dark high hills across the horizon. A lush Gothic landscape slowly came into being.

Of all the scenic views I plan to admire on this trip, I'm sure this was the the least of them. Still, it was stunning, especially for someone who so rarely sees a proper dawn. My backwards lifestyle usually precludes these opportunities, but Down Under I am right side up. During my red eye from San Fransisco to New Zealand, I slep from 8 p.m. Til 5 a.m. That's 3 a.m. to noon New Orleans time. Perfect.

The pace and vibe at the Auckland Airport were relaxed. Everyone was dressed casually, and no one seemed to be travelling for business. The lines were short and the conversations were quiet. Both the airline and airport personnel were chipper and matter-of-fact—a marked contrast from their American counterparts. American flight attendants have that sugary corporate sweetness that is so forced it's painful to watch: “Buh-bye now. . . I'm soooooooo sorry. We're all out of apple juice. Thank you. Buh-bye. Buh-bye.” You can literally see them peeling off their game faces when they step off the plane.

The Air New Zealand staff, on the other hand, seems much more natural and sincere, even when peppering their sentences with superlatives: “Absolutely. . . That's quite alright. . . Yes, our water is indeed the finest.” They wear crisp blue univorms, walk with their chins held high, and me you feel like you are voyaging on a luxury liner from an earlier era. The hot meals are delicious, the cocktails are free, and the entertainment options are overwhelming—82 movies, 18 video games, 162 TV shows, and a custom “Airshow” for your flight route in progress. It was too much for me. After 45 minutes of flipping in awe through the channels, I decided to read my book.

I had specifically requested a window seat on the right side of the plane so I could sleep in a somewhat natural position. I ended up having the entire row to myself. I guess that's the benefit of flying in the off-season.

On the way to New Zealand, I got called “mate” for the first time by a stranger. He accidentally bumped into me with his luggage as I was stowing away my backpack. “I'm sorry, mate,” he piped over my shoulder. Under normal circumstances, a physical intrusion on my personal space would leave me slightly annoyed, but not on this occasion. The apology felt like a hearty “Welcome!” and a slap on the back. For the first time, I got it. It's the perfect word—mate. It's very much in the present. We are sharing a particular experience, a particular moment, a particular space. Therefore, we are mates. It always sounded a little cheesy to me before. But what are the alternatives?

“I'm sorry, sir.” ? Too formal. And supplicating.

“I'm sorry, man.” ? Too casual, like you don't really mean it.

“I'm sorry, brother.” ? Too dated, and possibly perpetrating.

Yep, mate is just about right.

During the leapfrog leg from the tip of New Zealand over to Melbourne, I was exiting the bathroom with a paper coffee cup in my hand. A middle-aged Aussie woman and a younger man were waiting in line outside the the door. As I passed them, they giggled and said something. I could tell by their glowing cheeky faces that it was probably about me, but I wasn't sure. I couldn't quite make the words out. I checked my zipper, looked back, and returned to my seat.

Then it registered. The words unjumbled themselves and reached my cerebrum about seven seconds after the fact: “Is that a coffee or a specimen?”

I settled back into my empty row on the great ship Mateship. Oz or bust.

To continue to the next post, click here: (not yet available)

A Wandering Mind

2008-08-26T19:13:00.021-05:00

Last night I was jogging the streetcar tracks on St. Charles Avenue at 3 a.m. My neighbors think I'm crazy, but that's the only time of day in New Orleans this time of the year that running doesn't feel like swimming. And I'm no Michael Phelps.

It was unseasonably cool out thanks to a storm named Fay. Fay has been whipping up on Florida all week, bobbing and weaving in a zigzag course toward the Gulf Coast. Yesterday a worn-out Fay cut across southern Louisiana, dumping a heap of rain on us and flooding the streets. In her wake, she left misplaced Caribbean crosswinds and a light, eerie mist.

When you don't have to worry about pushing through an endless wall of humidity and blinking away the sweaty insect repellant pouring off your forehead, you are actually able to enjoy a little late-night zen. I let my mind begin to wander as I crossed St. Charles and Peniston, and I felt the early adrenaline tingle of a runner's high coming on. Jo's e-mail (link) about the pillowfight crossed my mind, and I laughed to myself as I remembered something I had somehow forgotten.

Back in March, Jo and I flew to Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Music Festival. That weekend was a success, as we had been able to visit my college buddy Rattbones, see Australian folk singer Paul Kelly in concert, and bust out our new jumpsuits on Sixth Street. The surprise of the trip, however, had come at a downtown party hosted by Austin's Roller Derby Girls. They had one of those inflatable castles and were using it for a no-holds-barred boxing ring. Jo had been eager to not only get into that bouncy castle, but to get me in there with her. I made a bargain with her that in retrospect, may have saved my life, or at least my face. I insisted that she first prove her valor by defeating one of the Roller Girls in the ring.

Lucky for me, and unluckily for Jo, she drew a true monster for an opponent, a tiny turnin'urn of burnin' spunk. Angry feminine rage. While Jo suavely danced around the ring showing off her Body Blast moves and bangin' physique, the roller devil went aerial. Using the bouncing castle floor as a catapult, she vaulted back and forth like a crazy ping-pong ball, laying crushing blows to Jo's head with each landing. Jo made a worthy effort toward the end, but she couldn't reverse the Roller Girl's momentum. She exited the ring tired and ready for a new activity. I couldn't have been more relieved.

As I ran past my landlord's mansion on Marengo Street, I also recalled saying that we should call that kangaroo killer from Melbourne Joe Boxer. So now we have two Jo(e) Boxers. Yes, I do amuse myself often.

Now Monday night, here I am in the Las Vegas airport. I had a 90-minute layover, and I mistook my next seat assignment for my terminal number. That's what happens when you let your mind wander in a busy airport. My confusion led me out of the right terminal through the main concourse and all the way to the other end of the airport, to the wrong terminal. I finally realized my mistake and after going through security again, headed back through the concourse. Amidst all the clinking coins and blinking neon, what did I see to my left but a store called "Mr. Boxer."

Hmmm. . . I thought. This might be the perfect place for a last minute impulse buy. I noticed a pair of black yoga pants on the wall emblazoned with pink letters across the backside: "Las Vegas Knockout." They screamed "JO." I snatched them off the rack and then headed over to the accessories, where I saw some miniature boxing keychains. That would make a great gift for Nat.

But wait a minute--it's Jo whose bare knuckles need to be cushioned to shield the public from further damage. OK, I'll add that to her surprise box. But what for Nat then? Suddenly, across the room, something caught my eye. There, hanging beneath a gaudy strobe light next to a "Sale" sign was the perfect one-two punch. . . Nat:
and Jo:

To continue to the next post, click here: (Flyin High (in the Friendly Sky)

Friendly Fire

2008-08-25T00:00:00.020-05:00

Now I can't say this came completely out of nowhere. Both Nat and I have seen Jo display her prowess on the Nintendo Wii boxing, but I never thought she was that kind of a brute.

To continue to the next post, click here: (A Wandering Mind)

Bucket List

2008-08-24T23:56:00.008-05:00

I have found that usually, when I tell someone that I am going to Australia, they will respond like this: "Oh, cool. I hear Australia's great. Where are you going, Sydney?"

When I say, "No, Adelaide," they look bewildered, so I tell them,

"It's not too far from Melbourne."

Then they hesitate and mumble, "Oh, OK. "

Evidently the Olympics and the Opera House earned Sydney a monopoly on American conventional wisdom about Australian geography. Actually, Adelaide is a full days drive from Melbourne, but by Aussie standards, that's pretty close. They have a tenth of our population, but the continent itself is nearly as big as the United States. Just to keep things in perspective, consider this: At 723 miles apart, Adelaide and Sydney are as close to each other as New Orleans and Otterville, Illinois. Or put it this way: it is the same as driving from Virginia Beach to Canada.

Click on the V-log titled "Where I'll Be" to the right of this post for a more detailed itinerary of my trip ----------------------->

In closing, let me make note of the things I would like to do Down Under before I die. Hopefully, my final demise will not transpire on this junket. (I think we have all had enough of the stupid human/angry animal combination for a while.) In no particular order, they are:

Wild animal watching
Koala tickling
VB tasting
Budgie Smuggler dodging
In-law meeting
Bush walking
Footy attending
Bogan photographing
Vegemite analyzing
Tassie hunting
Sunset basking
Wrong-side-of-the-road motoring
Fiancee harassing
Yowie scouting
and finally, as far as those roos are concerned, I think I know too much about them now to be excited about getting real close to one. But when I do see one, I want to see him punch SOMETHING.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Friendly Fire)

Searching for Sasquatch (Part II): YOWIE WOWIE

2008-08-23T16:45:00.006-05:00

(continued from Part I: BACK TO BOGGY CREEK)

I have held off on writing about the recent Bigfoot news simply because I wanted to make sure I finished examining the crazy creatures of Australia that we know DO exist. I did continue following the story, however. This is how it ended:

One of the things that did baffle me was why the Bigfoot story did not break in the New Orleans newspaper until three days after Jo sent me the Australian article. I went back and gave the story a closer look. The header for that e-mail attachment looked like this:

NEWS.com.au
August 14, 2008
Bigfoot hunters claim to have found creature's body
Say they will present photo and DNA proof to press
Aussie Yowie man not going wowie just yet

Who is the Aussie Yowie man, I wondered.

Turns out, "Tim the Yowie man" achieved fame and became Australia's leading cryptonaturalist after he reported seeing a "Yowie" in Canberra's Brindabella Mountains in 1994. The "Yowie" is Australia's version of Bigfoot. Of COURSE Australia would have its own nocturnal carniverous creep. What was I thinking? It's probably even a marsupial. Evidently it's been around for thousands of years, and our understanding of it stems from Aboriginal legends. Don't get too excited. Remember the Aboriginal platypus story? Ahem. . .

Anyway, as usual, the Aussie version is bigger and weirder and scarier than ours. The Yowie has big red eyes on the side of his head, no neck, big canine teeth, and large fangs. Whereas the American Bigfoot is notorious for snagging chickens and pigs for midnight snacks, the Yowie will abduct human babies.

I wanted to learn a little more about this Yowie man. When I went searching for him online, I found that he is not alone. Rex Gilroy is also the self-proclaimed "Yowie man."

He's been chasing Australia' version of the Yeti for more than 50 years and has collected over 3,000 reports of its existence.

Gilroy is sure there are Yowie enclaves in remote regions such as th e Carrai-Bellbrook wilds, where he is planning a research trip for the fall. He'll be taking a special night camera and plaster to take footprints (source) .

And there are others, like Jeremy Armstrong and Gary Houston.

They say they have heard Yowie noises in the bush around Springbrook (source). I'm pretty sure they are bogans. They don't have mullets, but they do have the tell-tale wife-beaters, I mean singlets.

Bigfoot has been much in the news lately. Earlier this month Australian newspapers reported that suspected yeti hairs from a tree in India have been handed over to scientists for DNA analysis.

"Yowies are still being observed in Springbrook, Border Ranges and behind Mullumbimby," environmental scientist and ABC radio wildlife expert Gary Opit says on the ABC website. "In fact I heard recently of one chap who was buying and feeding them roast meat (source)."

This new book is sure to be Australia's version

of the Legend of Boggy Creek.

Besides the Tasmanian tiger and the Yowie, there is another mysterious beast that has been reported around Australia's North Coast over 50 times since 1964. It is described as a cross between a dog and a kangaroo and is called a devil dog, the Billinudgel beast, and the Mullumbimby monster. A lake monster known as the bunyip has also long been reported.

As if there's not already enough scary beasts in Australia.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Bucket List, not yet available)

Searching for Sasquatch (Part I): BACK to BOGGY CREEK

2008-08-22T15:04:00.007-05:00

Last Thursday, I got this e-mail attachment from Jo:

Att: Bigfoot body 'found and put in freezer' (NEWS.com.au Article)

A couple of Bigfoot hunters had allegedly found Bigfoot in the woods of north Georgia and were keeping his body in a freezer. Supposedly he was seven and a half feet tall and weighed over 500 pounds. This find was getting more press than usual because it was a Clayton County cop and an ex-correctional officer making the claim. Furthermore, the Bigfoot's DNA had been "confirmed" by a supposed expert, Tom Biscardi .

Beneath the attachment was a simple message from Jo:
"I guess we were looking in the wrong part of the States."

She was referring to a Bigfoot hunting expedition we had taken deep into the boonies of Arkansas. Back in January, I had happened upon an article that said there was a town, Fouke, Arkansas, that ranked as one of the top ten places in the world to find Bigfoot. Hundreds of sightings have been reported over the last century in the nearby woods outside of the tiny town along Boggy Creek . Since Jo had just flown into New Orleans from a Christmas break back home in Australia, I figured she would be stoked to sit in a pickup truck for a thousand-mile road trip.

We didn't find Bigfoot, but the trip wasn't altogether a failure. We did find the gas station where the granddaughter of Travis Crabtree works. Travis Crabtree was a Fouke resident whose Bigfoot encounters spawned a book and a series of movies in the 1970's. Most people in the town at the time had played themselves in the original movie.

The gas station had a Bigfoot gift counter tucked away in the back, so we picked up the original book and movie to accompany the turkey sandwich we bought to try to lure the Sasquatch out for a photo op.

Travis' granddaughter was off that day. After some arm-twisting, we got the girl who was working to cough up the general location for our quest. We walked across the street to the Fouke general store to buy some weapons and batteries for the camera, which was running low. It was in the store that we saw the most conclusive evidence that the Boggy Creek Swamp Monster is alive and well. In the lane next to us there were four twentysomething local guys, and one of them was missing BOTH ARMS. I elbowed Jo in the ribs. She grunted and whispered, "I know. I saw him already."

"Well?" I shot back, pointing at the camera, which she was holding.

She frowned disapprovingly at me and walked outside with the camera to smoke a cigarette while I finished picking out a beginner's bow and arrow kit. I had been trying to shoot documentary footage with my new digital camera just in case we stumbled across the Barbaric Beast or at least some clues. I felt like this new development was promising. But I think Jo was a little tired of me and my camera. After all, I had already interviewed and secretly taped the McDonald's drive-thru girl, the entire staff of Hooters in Texarkana, a hotel owner and a massage therapist in Hot Springs, Arksansas, and that gas station attendant across the street. Plus, we had driven across miles and miles of nothing to get here. To Nowheresville.

I didn't want Jo to run out of Sasquatch-chasin' steam just before the apex of our journey--the excursion into the woods by the bayou on the outskirts of town. I also realized that it was getting late into the afternoon and we were running out of daylight. An accidental brush with a Fouke local in the woods could be just as scary as stumbling upon Sasquatch himself. I left her alone for a minute and wrapped up my shopping.

When I walked outside, Jo was not smoking. She was standing expressionless in the parking lot with a ghostly pale over her face. "What happened?" I asked.

"You're never gonna believe what happened," she replied softly. "Those guys. . . the one you wanted to take a picture of . . . they just got into a truck and drove off. All of them."

"And. . .?"

"The one with no arms. . . he was the one driving."

Jo still says that image of the young man pressing his chin forward and his stubs up against the wheel was an image she will never forget. Something strange was going on in Fouke, Arkansas. Something weird indeed.

"Well did you get a picture of that?" I inquired with new hope.

"I tried to, but the batteries had just died."

Oh, the intervention of fate at the moment of truth.

It's that mysterious enigma that keeps us from proving and ever fully understanding some of the most curious anomalies of life on this planet.

Don't miss this quick clip from someone who knows Fouke, Arksansas at least as well as I do:

If you have further interest in this topic, you may wanna check out the Mystery Science 3000 episode where they watch the original Boggy Creek movie. It's posted in its entirety on You Tube.
You definitely want to check out Part II of this post, which I will finish tomorrow. . .

To continue to the next post, click here: (Yowie Wowie, available tomorrow)

Who's Afraid of Australia's Wolf?

2008-08-21T20:29:00.020-05:00

One of the nice things about being in a foreign country is that you have a built-in excuse for doing things wrong and saying things funny. Maybe things are different where you're from. No one can be quite sure.

About six months ago I started making Jo chauffeur me around once in a while so she could get used to driving in the left side of the car on the right side of the road. I learned that she is a brave and capable motorist. Except for two things--three point turns and parallel parking. She can't drive backwards. I figure this is probably due to a lack of practice. But maybe it's just because she's from Australia, and Australians, as we have learned (21st post), are forward-looking, putting the past behind them. Maybe Jo should be on the national coat of arms with the roo and the emu. (I'm gonna eat termites for this one. But I might be onto something.)

I remember the first time I heard Jo say the word squirrel. She was fascinated by the annoying little critters running across the power lines near my house: "Aww, look at those little skwoirls." It was subtle and it was cute. I asked her about it and that's when I found out they don't have skwoirls in Australia. One thing's for sure. Whenever Australia doesn't have any particular "normal" animal, it's because it has some weird uber-beast that is better adapted to its harsh ecosystem.

Take, for example, Oz's lions and tigers and bears. They are not normal lions and tigers and bears. They are marsupial versions, and they are deadly.

Well, they were deadly. The Tasmanian lion (thylacoleo)disappeared between 6 and 50,000 years ago. Scientists have been uncovering its fossils since the 1830's. In 2002 this skeleton was uncovered in a limestone cave:
This king of the Australian predators was the size of
an African lion and had a far more powerful bite. It employed bolt-cutter-like teeth to slice and devour its prey, unlike the big African cats of today, which mostly use their bite force to suffocate theirs.

Then there was the Tasmanian tiger. I mentioned him briefly back in Odoriferous Gangstas. The thylacine, or "Tassie," was declared extinct in 1986 , 50 years after the last known living specimen died. His name was Benjamin, and he died due to neglect in the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. Check him out. . .

His little dog-sized cousin, the Tasmanian devil, is keeping the dream alive in Tasmania. He's known for his vicious screech, foul odor, and voracious appetite. He can eat up to 40% of his body weight in 15 minutes, and he enjoys wolfing down a communal buffet with up to a dozen of his devil dawgs. His favorite meal is the wombat, but he will eat any small animal, including kittens and puppies.

But wait. Let's go back. Is the Tassie really dead? Since Benjamn died there have been thousands of reported thylacine sightings. I posted a video about this you can check out in "New Videos." A similarly described animal known as the Queensland tiger has also been allegedly encountered on the mainland.Like the Rolling Stones, the Tassie refuses to die. He has passed the torch to the Tasmanian devil, but every once in a while he puts on a quick show for the cameras. Just to show he's still got it. . .

Now on to the bears. . . In KoaLa La Land, I pointed out that koalas are not really bears. They just know that we like Ewoks and teddy bears and therefore will not cut down their eucalyptus trees and put them to work. How, you may ask, do the koalas constantly sleep in the trees without falling out?

The answer lies in their sharp little claws. The claws are a throwback to an earlier era when koalas had to defend themselves against predators that could reach them during their naps. Some of these koalas from the ancient clan (Phascolarctos stirtoni ) still exist, and they are often referred to as drop bears. These quasi-koalas are equipped to leap down from their treetop hangs to escape megafauna or tree-climbing thylacines. They are themselves carnivores and can also "drop" from the eucalyptus trees to attack their prey. Although there have been relatively few fatal attacks upon humans in the last half-century, there have been increasing numbers of injuries to agricultural workers and kangaroos. More and more people and animals are competing for less and less natural woodland.

I did some Internet research and found something very interesting: The chemical components in vegemite actually serve as a deterrent to drop bears. It is considered a staple of the bushwalker's backpacking gear. I always wondered why people bought that stuff. Evidently it helps to put a little of it on the back of your neck.

Anway, you are not likely to read about these less cuddly koalas in books like Let's Go: Australia due to the predictably negative effect this would have on eco-tourism in Australia. Being the son of an Eagle Scount, I however, will be fully prepared. I found this archival footage of drop bears attacking a kangaroo in the wild: (Click: Video LINK )

To continue to the next post, click here: (Back to Boggy Creek)

Bad Rat

2008-08-20T17:14:00.023-05:00

When, oh when will nice little girls learn to stay away from those bad, bad boys? I'm not talking about the mischievous fellow down the block. I mean the really dangerous one. The lone wolf from the bad side of town with the scruffy facial hair and the switchblade. The shadowy creep who only surfaces when the folks are away.

Take the example of Mallory McBeakley, better known as Duckie. One day she ignored her parents' advice and wandered away from the safe confines of her pond. After paddling downriver for a while, she got tired and started looking for a place to pull over and rest. Ahh, there along the bank of the river was a cozy pallet of grass. She hopped up onto the cushy knoll and shook herself dry. This would be the perfect place to catch a disco duck nap beneath the warm rays of the sun. She nodded off for a second, when suddenly, she heard a twig snap and a low growl. There he was, swaggering out of the brush and then hulking over her. It was Ricardo, one of those Water Rats she had been warned about.

He had an evil gleam in his eye, this dark, ugly beast. He resembled one of those fast-talking nutrias she had heard of from way over in New Orleans.

"Hey, babe. Wanna party?" he snarled.

Duckie realized that she had stumbled into the Rat's lair. He pulled her close and she screamed. A struggle ensued, but the poor lass was no match for her aggressor. At the point of a blade, he dragged her down into his underground lair and took her as his own.

Duckie's trip back home upriver that evening seemed to take forever. Weeks later, she laid eggs. When the day came for them to hatch, everyone ran over to see her new family. The first egg burst open and out came two webbed feet. But wait, now here came two more webbed feet. A four-footed duckling? Had Duckie drank some polluted water? On each of the duckling's hind legs, there was a sharp spike that eerily resembled the blade of the Water Rat's spear. As Duckie's babies finally stepped out of their shells, everyone realized in horror that, instead of feathers, the youngsters were covered in fur.

If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. But it sounded like this:
click: (LISTEN)

Duckie heard the snickering and low whispers. She shuffled away crying. The next day, her phone rang, and it was Montel Williams. News had traveled fast. A half-hour later, the phone rang again. This time it was someone from the Jerry Springer show.

"Oh, this is way too much," moaned Duckie, and she started gathering up her things and packing her bags. The next day she and her new family of duck-billed mutants rose with the sun and cruised out of the pond, this time heading upriver. They were off to start a new life in a new place with a new name. That name would be Platypus.

At least that's the way the Aborignal myth goes (link) .

Be kind to your web-footed friends. Cuz a duck could be somebody's mother.

When the Europeans first looked at a platypus sketch and pelt brought back from Down Under, their theory was only slightly more advanced. They figured someone had simply sewn the feet and bill of a duck onto the body of an otter and then attached a beaver's tail. English scientist George Shaw actually cut the skin open with a pair of scissors, looking for stitches.

Once they determined that the platypus was actually a real animal, scientists learned that it was a unique being inside as well as out. Those barbs on its hind legs carried a venom that could bring the pain to humans. Even stranger, it had a built-in GPS to locate its prey.

This truly bizarre cross-breed is a monotreme--it lays eggs like a bird; then it suckles its offspring like a mammal. Like an electric eel, it can detect electric signals spawned by muscular contractions. Only one other monotreme exists in the world, and it is called an echidna. Guess where it lives? Surprise, surprise.

The Australian echidna has the beak of a bird and spines like a hedgehog. It waddles around the countryside, looking for ant or termite nests to bury its head into. It sticks out its long tongue and slurps up all the bugs it can snarf down, along with lots of soil and nest material.
Hey, wait a minute, we know someone like that. THEO ROSMULDER (11th post)! I wonder if Theo's mom ever went sneaking down the river. Hmmmmmm. . .

To continue to the next post, click here: (Who's Afraid. . .)

KoaLa La Land

2008-08-19T01:52:00.005-05:00

Hey. You know who this guy is, right?

Of course. It's Matthew McConaughey, the laid-back Hollywood playboy who starred in such cultural gems as "The Wedding Planner" and "Making Sandwiches." (Okay, to be fair, he was also in "Dazed and Confused.") He's known as the celebrity most likely to preen and parade about shirtless for anyone that cares to watch. He totes A-list babes around town and was once dubbed "The Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine. A self-proclaimed maverick, he lives in an Airstream trailer, chooses not to wear deodorant, and has proudly coined this slogan: "Just keep livin.'"

OK. Now take a look at this dude.
Do you know who he is?

His name is Rooster. He is an oil pipeline supplier with a young son named Miller Lyte (yes, after the beer). He is Matthew's older brother, and until recently, he lived in quiet redneck anonymity. While his younger brother sails through life on the light breezes of charm and good looks, Rooster stays low to the ground and earns his keep by working hard. He has a beergut, a hefty Texas drawl, and lots of dirt beneath his nails. Such is life. Makes you wonder who the milkman was.

So it goes with the marsupial relatives, the koala and the wombat. Like Rooster, the wombat is shaped like a keg of beer. He is a burrowing animal that can out dig a man with a shovel and out run an Olympic sprinter. He uses his tough and prodigious bum to crush attackers and defend against sharp-toothed predators. He not only works hard, but plays hard as well, playing chase with his homies and wrassling in the dirt.

Meanwhile, hanging out up in the tree, is the koala--so cute and cuddly-looking that we often call him a koala "bear." This little scamp has the life. He spends 10% of his time sitting, 10% eating, and the other 80% sleeping. Now this is my kind of animal. He has a musky smell and he only eats one thing: eucalyptus leaves. I have a musky smell (I think it's nice) and I only eat one thing. . . Subway sandwiches. The more I learn about koalas, the more I realize this:

I AM A KOALA.
Or at least I was one in a very recent life.

A lot of people say koalas remind them of Ewoks, from the Star Wars movies. The noise they make, however, sounds more like Chewbacca to me. Listen to the koala clip: (LIVE KOALA NOISE)

If you combined Chewie's voice with a king-size belch, I think you have the koala. Now here's the really interesting part. I make these noises.

You know how sometimes when you try to be funny, everybody just looks at you like you are stupid. . . And then other times, by accident, you become an absolute hilarity? Well, Jo doesn't always laugh when I try to make her laugh. Sometimes she rolls her eyes. Sometimes she ignores me. Sometimes she gets angry. Hey, she's not perfect. Hehehe. BUT, she always giggles uncontrollably when I burp. Now that, my friends, is love. I think. Furthermore, one day, as I was trying to clear my throat, I accidentally made Chewie's Yedi sound. Again, a storm of chuckles. So now I always make sure to share when I feel these fun vocal emissions coming on.
I'm not saying I have the best Chewie impression out there, but it's still pretty funny. Now HERE's a dead-on ringer:

Oh, one last thing about koalas. Evidently, they are ticklish. Check out the koala getting tickled in my "New Videos." Yes, unfortunately, I am ticklish too.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Bad Rat)

KoaLa la Land

2008-08-18T15:15:00.023-05:00

Hey. You know who this guy is, right?

Of course. It's Matthew McConaughey, the laid-back Hollywood playboy who starred in such cultural gems as "The Wedding Planner" and "Making Sandwiches." (Okay, to be fair, he was also in "Dazed and Confused.") He's known as the celebrity most likely to preen and parade about shirtless for anyone that cares to watch. He totes A-list babes around town and was once dubbed "The Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine. A self-proclaimed maverick, he lives in an Airstream trailer, chooses not to wear deodorant, and has proudly coined this slogan: "Just keep livin.'"

OK. Now take a look at this dude.
Do you know who he is?

His name is Rooster. He is an oil pipeline supplier with a young son named Miller Lyte (yes, after the beer). He is Matthew's older brother, and until recently, he lived in quiet redneck anonymity. While his younger brother sails through life on the light breezes of charm and good looks, Rooster stays low to the ground and earns his keep by working hard. He has a beergut, a hefty Texas drawl, and lots of dirt beneath his nails. Such is life. Makes you wonder who the milkman was.

So it goes with the marsupial half-brothers, the koala and the wombat. Like Rooster, the wombat is shaped like a keg of beer. He is a burrowing animal that can out dig a man with a shovel and out run an Olympic sprinter. He uses his tough and prodigious bum to crush attackers and defend against sharp-toothed predators. He not only works hard, but plays hard as well, playing chase with his homies and wrassling in the dirt.

Meanwhile, hanging out up in the tree, is the koala--so cute and cuddly-looking that we often call him a koala "bear." This little scamp has the life. He spends 10% of his time sitting, 10% eating, and the other 80% sleeping. Now this is my kind of animal. He has a musky smell and he only east one thing: eucalyptus leaves. I have a musky smell (I think it's nice) and I only eat one thing. . . Subway sandwiches. The more I learn about koalas, the more I realize this:

I AM A KOALA.
Or at least I was one in a very recent life.

A lot of people say koalas remind them of Ewoks, from the Star Wars movies. The noise they make, however, sounds more like Chewbacca to me. Listen to the koala clip: (LIVE KOALA NOISE)

If you combined Chewie's voice with a king-size belch, I think you have the koala. Now here's the really interesting part. I make these noises.

You know how sometimes when you try to be funny, everybody just looks at you like you are stupid. . . And then other times, by accident, you become an absolute hilarity? Well, Jo doesn't always laugh when I try to make her laugh. Sometimes she rolls her eyes. Sometimes she ignores me. Sometimes she gets angry. Hey, she's not perfect. Hehehe. BUT, she always giggles uncontrollably when I burp. Now that, my friends, is love. I think. Furthermore, one day, as I was trying to clear my throat, I accidentally made Chewie's Yedi sound. Again, a storm of chuckles. So now I always make sure to share when I feel these fun vocal emissions coming on.
I'm not saying I have the best Chewie impression out there, but it's still pretty funny. Now HERE's a dead-on ringer:

Oh, one last thing about koalas. Evidently, they are ticklish. Check out the koala getting tickled in my "New Videos." Yes, unfortunately, I am ticklish too.

To continue to the next post, click here: (not yet available)

IF YOU ARE A SUBSCRIBER to this blog, you can ignore my posts today. I am re-publishing previous posts under alternate titles for search purposes.

2008-08-18T13:25:00.001-05:00

TONIGHT at midnight, I'll publish my next new post, #22, "KoaLa La Land."

Marsupials: Australia's Strange Animals

2008-08-18T13:23:00.001-05:00

Men are from Mars. Marsupials are from Australia (21st post)

I rented a couple movies to watch this week and get in the mood. This afternoon I was watching "Quigley Down Under." I know, it's not that great, but there was one line that I liked: "They say God made Australia cuz he got tired of making everything else the same." From the pictures of the animals I'm looking at, that appears to be the case. Australia has many of the same wild animals that we do, only their versions are even deadlier. I posted a little video clip in post 19, and that'll do for now. I don't want to have bad dreams about sharks or spiders.

I do want to spend a minute or two on some of the more exotic Australian animals. Many of them seem to be strange variations of the same thing. Science was never my thing, so here's the nutshell from a layman's point of view. Imagine you went to the backside of Mars and found a bizarro version of the earth that we inhabit. It would probably look like Australia. There would be alien pop stars with names like Barry Crocker wearing floss marketed as budgy smugglers (see Hanging Out...). Out in the backyard you would see peculiar animals called MARSupials. Marsupial babies are born in an immature state and live in their mothers' pouches where they attach themselves to a nipple until they are ready to rock.

In America, our resident marsupial is the opossum. Opossums remind me of an ugly, obese wharf rat we have down here in Louisiana called the nutria rat. Nutrias, like some other New Orleans folk, are bad citizens, and a threat to our wetlands. A couple plans of attack have been set in motion to get rid of them. One idea was to cook them and serve them in fine New Orleans restaurants. Needless to say, that one didn't really go over, so the government decided to put a bounty on the heads of these varmints. That spawned a rip-roaring subculture of late-night, shotgun-waving nutria hunts from the backs of speeding pickup trucks. For a slightly more civilized version of this, watch the new video I posted of Harry Lee, the former sheriff, and his SWAT team in action.

Australia has its own versions of possums, but over there they have the whole extended family to hang out with.

If you had to pick your run-of-the-mill, boy-next-door marsupial, it would probably be the wallaby. He's a mid-sized , fairly nondescript rascal, and he looks like a midget kangaroo. Actually, by definition, the kangaroos are themselves just really large wallabies. Since they fall harder, they jump faster and farther. Therefore they are cooler. But the smaller wallabies can still jump and box. In the new video I posted, those small boxing "kangaroos" are actually wallabies. Other marsupials in this family include the rock wallaby, the hare wallaby, the swamp wallaby, the walleroo, and the little pademelon.

Even the non-marsupial animals in Australia act like marsupials. You've got hopping mice and kangaroo rats. Australia is also home of the emu, a large bird that cannot fly. That's weird. Birds are supposed to fly, right? Like the kangaroo, the emu cannot walk backwards. This trait landed both animals a place on the shield on the Australian Coat of Arms. They are a metaphor for the Australian trait of leaving baggage in the past and looking optimistically ahead .

Speaking of looking ahead, in the next post, I will reveal an UNBELIEVABLE discovery that I have made. It blew my mind and will likely blow yours too. I'll see you tomorrow with the second part of this Marsupial Extravaganza. . .

To continue to the next post, click here: (not yet available)

Laughing at Others: Insult upon Injury

2008-08-18T13:20:00.001-05:00

The Shoecake Game (20th Post)

It is becoming clear to me just how black the Aussie sense of humor can be. The possibility of injury in Australia is only amplified by the certainty of insult thereafter.

Take Harold Holt, for example. He was the prime minister of Australia who mysteriously disappeared in 1967. While taking a dip with friends at his favorite swimming hole, Cheviot Beach, he simply vanished into the current. The United States honored his memory by naming a Navy destroyer after him. In Australia, he was most famously commemorated by the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre in a Melbourne suburb.

If you disappear suddenly without explanation from a social gathering in Australia, you may be accused of "doing the Harry." Like doing a Harold Holt. Like doing a "bolt." In my circle, we used to call that "pulling a Cathy," but her story wasn't quite as poignant. (for more rhyming slang, see 18th post)

I don't mind having a giggle at someone else's misfortune, if it's funny enough.

One of my favorite games to play at work is the "Shoecake" game.This game can be played on a busy weekend night on Bourbon Street when the mounted police are on the beat. Most people like seeing the police horses because of their natural beauty. Occasionally these impressive animals will actually trot through the open doors and sally right up to the bar. They know that we have cinnamon candies and maraschino cherries and lots of love. Cameras start flashing and everyone wants to pet the horses and chat up the cops.

I like seeing the horses because it means we might get to play the game. If the horses are out long enough, it is inevitable that at some point a zesty whopping pile will be deposited smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian thoroughfare. At this point the game begins. It's kind of like that game you played when you were a kid and you picked a color for the cars that might pass by, and whoever had more, say, green cars, pass by would win.

In the Shoecake game, you look out the window and select a random stranger coming up the street who seems most likely to be distracted by the neon lights and carnal temptations to the left and to the right. If your mark hits his mark, you get points. When his foot disappears into the muck and he shows us all his soul, you can get more points for predicting his reaction.

Some people can take a surprise shoecake in stride.
Others are oblivious.
And some folks are just angry human beings.

This can be a betting game, a drinking game, or simply for kicks.

Maybe that's why horses wear blinders. So they don't end up becoming unwitting victims of the game they helped create.

Check it out:

Well, I've gotta do a Harry. Time to shave and go to work.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Men are from Mars...)

Australia and America: a Cultural Comparison

2008-08-18T13:19:00.000-05:00

Hangin' Out with a Long-Lost Twin (19th post)

As an American, learning about Australia is like meeting a twin you never knew you had. Both countries are about the same physical size, share common European ancestry, and developed in relatively isolated geographic contexts. Both were founded upon lands inhabited by indigenous populations.

Because we share so much in common, the differences seem that much more surreal.

Australia was settled by prisoners.
We were settled by Puritans.

Australia has Australian rules football.
We have American football.

Australia has cricket.
We have baseball.

Australia has Tasmania.
We have Hawaii.

Australia has the Outback.
We have Arkansas. And the Outback Steakhouse.

Australia has rhyming slang
We have Snoop-speak.

I'm starting to get used to the Aussie rhymes. I've got a couple of them under my belt now:
"Time to hit the frog and toad (road)."
"Get off the dog and bone (phone)."
"I, Matt, take you, Jo, to be my trouble and strife (wife)."
Hehehe.

Now back to the twin-off.

Australia has Barry Crocker.
We have Robert Goulet, Kenny Rogers, and Grizzly Adams.

(It takes a village to match that dude.)

Australia gave us Speedos and Budgy Smugglers.
We gave them Britney Spears and McDonalds.
They call it "Maccas.""
Jo calls it "McChucks." As in "upchucks."

Budgies, by the way, are small Australian parrots, shown in the picture at the top. And concerning the Speedos, look guys--I realize it's hot Down Under, but seriously. . . Can't you make people take some kind of a fitness test and get a license to wear those things in public? You've got national health care and an Institute of Sport. Why not get them all on the same page? Set a good example for your banana-hammock-wearing European friends.

Australia has too many camels--the world's largest wild population, actually.
We have virtually none, although they originated here.

Australia has kangaroos, koalas, and emus.
We have raccoons. And coonasses:)
We also have deer and squirrels, which they don't, but they just don't seem that exotic.

Speaking of animals, I know we've spent a lot of time dealing with the Animal Kingdom. That wasn't necessarily my intention. My attitude toward the subject matter at the Kangaroo Rodeo is that it should be "not based on any calendar but based on conditions on the ground," in the words of John Howard. (source). It's not my fault that lately,the epic battle of man vs. nature has been much in the news (see posts 9-12). Since I am planning on going to Tasmania, hiking in the bush, and surfing in Victor Harbor, I better cover a few more animals I'll be watching out for. . .

To continue to the next post, click here: (the Shoecake Game)

Australian humor (humour): the real Barry Crocker

2008-08-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

Cheers, Big Ears (18th post)

An Australian raises his glass to you and says to you cheekily, "Cheers, big ears." What's the appropriate response?

If you were thinking of nodding your head, raising your glass, and responding with a "Cheers!" in kind, then you were wrong. According to the online Urban Dictionary, you could have picked either of two correct responses: a) "Same goes, big nose " or b) "Up your nose with a rubber hose."

Mateship and mockery go hand in hand in Australia. Combine a British heritage with tall poppy syndrome and you have more low blows than a Yo' Mama joke convention. If you choose to engage in the dark art of Australian humor, make sure you have a few basic moves in your repertoire.

First, there is the back-handed compliment. This is a play I have some familiarity with and am often accused of. I'll let Triumph the Insult Comic Dog illustrate this one:

It's gotten to where I can't say anything nice to Jo without her staring at me hard and pursing her lips. She's waiting for what she calls the "stinger"--the qualifier at the end that pops the balloon.

Next, there is the straight-up fabrication. This one is always good when you want to exaggerate, or be ironic or self-deprecating. One of the reasons Australians are comfortable making fun of you is that they are so used to making fun of themselves. It goes with the territory in a country founded as a penal colony. Between dealing with the harsh elements outside and ill-tempered prison guards inside, Australians learned the necessity of going with the flow and improvising. They are laid back and they have thick skin. Those who are naive or out of their element best beware.

In junior high school I had a friend named Becky who was the queen of sardonicism. One day she was ribbing her classmate Sherry for being such an easy mark for pranks: "Sherry, you are sooooooooo gullible."
"What's gullible?" asked Sherry.
"It's a North African freshwater fish known to eat small animals."
"Oh. How am I one?" was the response.

I cannot claim to be free of culpability when it comes to telling a fable to an aggravating tourist or two. Sometimes the truth is just not what they wanna hear. "Oh, yeah, that's where Jean Lafitte and Napoleon used to play poker." "Is this place haunted? Absolutely." "The ingredients in this drink come from one of Marie Laveau's well-kept secret recipes." "Sure, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie hang out here all the time."

But let's get back to "Cheers, big ears" for a minute. It illustrates the true Aussie way of messing with people. They have a three-part method for mockery, and this is where things differ from what we are used to. See, not only do they like to draw first blood and use silly slang. They are also suckers for things that rhyme. Jo explained it to me one day when we were driving through Mid-City.

"It's like if you see someone wearing a ridiculous outfit, you might say, 'What a shocker.' But we say, 'What a Barry Crocker.'"

"Okay. Who's Barry Crocker?"

"Oh, nobody. Everybody just says that."

"Can you put in other names that rhyme instead? Like Joe Cocker?"

"Sure. But everybody knows Barry Crocker."

Never one to settle for a simple explanation, I had to find out if Barry Crocker was a real person. You better believe he is. He's a famous Australian crooner, and I know some of you will get a kick out this video I found. Best I can tell, he is a strange Aussie cross-breed of Elvis, Neil Diamond, and Barry from the Bee Gees.

At least he doesn't take himself too seriously. That's him in the funny shoes at the top of this page.

Check this one out. In America, "brass" is slang for the leaders in an organization. It is a fairly obvious visual reference to the medals worn by military commanders. In Australia, "brass" is slang for a prostitute. Jo explained it to me online in an instant message the other night: "brass" = brass nail = tail = prostitute."

If someone takes offense to one of these inside rhyming jokes, an Aussie will usually giggle as he apologizes. . . "Sorry, but it's such a funny rhyme." If that doesn't explain things or ease the tension, then he will then point out that this rhyming humor comes from Britain anyway. Take for example, the word "seppo." This is Aussie slang for all Americans, and it is tossed around sort of the way "gringo" is used in Latin America. It comes from England, where Americans are called Yanks. That sounds like "tank," so to be funny they say "septic tank." Australians picked that up and shortened it to Seppo. Before you go getting too upset, remember that Aussies love Americans. You can call them Skips if you want to.

I know. Kangaroos are a bit better name to be called than a sewage container. That's what we get for letting them pick the game and pick the names. Forgive them and raise your glass. They just have a bad case of tall poppy syndrome (see 13th post).

To continue to the next post, click here: (Hangin' Out with a Long-Lost Twin)

the Degenerate Chef

2008-08-18T13:11:00.001-05:00

Chef Scary (15th post)

(continued from post #14 : Click: "A storm's a' comin'")

Chef Scary's rhetorical squalling is likely directed toward me, but I learned long ago to just ignore his outburts. He has his own special form of Tourette's syndrome that, like diabetes or lung cancer, he has induced by years of hard living. In a town full of degenerates and lowlifes, Scary is a special kind of zombie.

The stories that detail his personal life are too vile to repeat. In his current public persona, he is the old guy sitting on the barstool six feet away drinking Coke, smoking cigarettes, and looking like Captain Kangaroo on crack. He twitches and squints and sits quietly until his inner pot starts to boil and he begins his rants. He carps about the weather. He gripes about the bus schedule. He croaks about his ailments, and he bemoans his constant cash flow shortage.

Scary comes to work two hours early every day to sit at the corner of the bar and perform this tired ritual. I guess in his own weird way he is finding his center. Fortunately, I am only working a daytime shift today as a favor to my boss. I remember a couple summers ago I was covering a similar shift when Scary arrived 31/2 hours before his regular shift. I asked him why he was gracing me with his presence so early, and he mumbled, "I'm on vacation, brah."

"What brings you to your place of employment on a holiday, Scary?"

"Chattabox, brah," he grunted matter-of-factly, flashing a shrug and a weak smile.

The Chatterbox is the hotel's employee cafeteria where half-warmed pans of yesterdays leftovers are strewn out for only the most desperate and destitute hotel staffers. Why Scary makes the 5-mile trek via public transportation downtown so he can indulge in this culinary nightmare on his day off is a function of his depravity that only he can truly understand. Oh, the secrets a man locks away in his heart.

If he could manage to stock his own kitchen, Scary would do well for himself. He is not technically a chef, but with over 20 years of service under his belt, he is one of the longest-serving hotel employees and one of the most reliable line cooks you'll ever find. During Katrina, while the rest of the city starved and drowned and bled, he bunkered down in the back kitchen with all the provisions he could muster. For the next six weeks the city was on lockdown and Scary was an Iron Chef, single-handedly feeding thousands of emergency personnel as well as the rest of the staff and stranded guests.

For his diligence and perseverance in the line of fire, Scary was duly rewarded with a huge bonus check when all the smoke had cleared. Sadly, within a couple of days, all of the funcioning video poker machines on the block were flush with cash and Chef Scary was back to bumming two dollars for the bus.

To continue to the next blog post, click: not yet posted

Hurricane Season in New Orleans

2008-08-18T13:08:00.000-05:00

A Storm's a Comin' (14th post)

"A storm's 'a comin'. A storm's a comin', bay-beh!" Dirk bops through the corner of my empty bar on his way out to the street for a smoke break. A bit of an old maid, he sounds like the Creole ladies who work at Mother's diner over on Poydras Street. The slang and cadence of Nwaaarhlins-speak is infectious and pervasive throughout all the social strata here. "Where y'at?" "I'm 'a holla atcha." "Yeah you right." Just those three can be heard hundreds of times a night even among the bluebloods. Whereas Australia is a country with its own English slang (see link: post #4), New Orleans is a city with its own unique lingo.

Dirk has been working inside the hotel all morning, and this is his first look at the storm brewing above the city. Under a darkening midday sky, the palm trees across the street are curtsying and doing a hand jive in the skittering flurry. Occasionally they pause and rest while a light sheet of rain blankets Bourbon Street. Once the spray stops, the trees re-commence their rain dance.

The storm's name is Edouard--the first tropical storm of the season to head in our general direction. Not Edward, which sounds benign enough, or even the swarthier Eduardo. "Ay-twar." Check out the pronunciation: (click on: audio link). It's a French name, like the painter Manet. In New Orleans we are quite familiar with French things. We may not pronounce them right, but we are definitely not threatened by them.

As a matter of fact, I don't think I can say "Edouard" properly without pinching my thumb against the tips of my fingers and, with gusto, releasing imaginary fairy dust into the air as the vowels are emancipated from my lips.

I am doing the crossword and waiting for Dirk to pass back through so I can razz him for getting edgy over such an effete weather disturbance. Instead, Chef Scary shambles into the room and sits two seats down from me on the sipping side of the bar. I nod and try to inhale the last few moments of relative peace. "A Rainy Night in Georgia" is floating down from the speakers on the wall. The music on cable radio is programmed days in advance by computers, but it always seems like songs about rain come on when it is raining. "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head." "Riders on the Storm." You name it.

I don't know if those corporate computers factor the weather report into their programming or if it's just one of those quinky-dinks of the Truman Show that is my life. It's like the fact that at least two times out of three, when I look at a watch or a clock, the digits will all be the same. For example, 5:55 p.m. 1:11 a.m. Hmmm. Let's see. Sure enough. It's 2:22. Gotta love it.

Suddenly, my reverie is broken. "HOW THE ----- DOES HE KNOW IT'S RAINING?!!!" Scary caterwauls.

To continue to the next blog post, click: (Chef Scary)

The Underdog Spirit: Australia

2008-08-18T13:07:00.000-05:00

TALL POPPY SYNDROME (13th post)

In 2004 the boxing kangaroo came out of semi-retirement to replace Willy the koala bear as Australia's Olympic mascot. His personality profile explained: "The boxing kangaroo has a huge amount of self-confidence and epitomises the Australian fighting spirit. [But] he's not a lout, nor is he aggressive or arrogant. He is, however, assertive when it comes to defending his country's honour." (smh.com.au)

I've heard Jo (link) refer to this underdog spirit when talking about the Australian attitude before. She calls it "tall poppy syndrome." Usually it comes up when she deals a dirty little blow to my ego, and then shrugs and explains, "Tall poppies, you know. . . We gotta cut 'em down." According to Wikipedia, the phrase denotes "the ordinary Australia's lack of respect for wealth, power and assorted pretensions. This social leveling attitude went hand in hand with belief in concepts such as giving everyone a 'a fair go.'" (Wikipedia)

Here in Louisiana we have the Angola Prison Rodeo, where the most violent of our murdering and raping set put themselves at the mercy of angry bulls. With virtually no rodeo experience or preparation, they dance a crazy tango with 2,000 pound beasts for a chance to win fifty bucks. (NY Times article)

But it's more than that. The convicts get to, if only for a brief moment in their wasted lives, don the robes of the noble underdog and be a hero. In all likelihood, the throngs of screaming spectators harbor neither adoration nor pity for the animals or the convicts. Why do they fill the bleachers every Sunday in October? To root for the underdog and watch a great spectacle. A documentary titled "Six Seconds of Glory" has been made about this event.(post #2)
Oddly enough, six seconds is about how long the poor boxer lasted in the ring against the roo in the original video clip I posted in Chapter One. (post #1)
The kangaroos may suffer the indignities of circus clowns, annoying zoo audiences, heartless industrialists, and hot-tempered dog owners. But all that fades away when Skippy delivers his left hook and knocks the Tall Poppy down. It's his one shining moment.

Every dog has its day.
(Just not necessarily when he is tangling with a kangaroo.)
So I'm off to Australia. . .to root for the underdog and to watch a great spectacle.

--AS A POSTSCRIPT,
let me offer a few words of advice for some of our new friends. I guess I'm just feeling generous.

Theo Rosmulder, (11th post) if you're reading this: If you ever decide to give up your gold rushing fantasies and return to the world of termite extermination, why not open your own outfit? I think we all know what your business model would be. But how about this for a slogan: "If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em." Huh? Huh? Talk about personal service. . .

Devin Funck, (12th post) I read in the paper today that the surgeons couldn't re-connect your arm. Sorry to hear about that. But hey, maybe it wasn't even yours anyway. You think this was the first time Big Joe ever got tired of eating sushi for lunch? He didn't become BIG Joe by accident. I know you miss your PlayStation, but why not ask for a Nintendo Wii for Christmas? You only need one hand to play the games in the Wii Sports pack that comes with the system. Well, except for the boxing. But let's leave the boxing to the Australians anyway, OK?

Which brings us to Joe (9th post) I don't know your last name because evidently it is not being reported in the press. That's a good thing. We'll just call you Joe Blow. Ha. Oh, wait a minute, I've got one even better. Joe Boxer. How 'bout you just lay low and stop giving those radio interviews. We don't care how big and mean that roo was that you smacked down. We like kangaroos and that's final. And leave bald eagles alone too, please. Maybe you could make some money doing one of these ads for K-mart:

NOTE @ VIDEO CLIP:
I noticed that YouTube has removed the six-second video clip I posted in Post #1 to kick off this blog. I have posted a new link to another similar clip, albeit from a movie. That clip can be found in post #1 now as well as in the "Previous Videos" video player at the bottom of the web page. It is: Boxing Kangaroo on the Silver Screen

To continue to the next post, click here: (A Storm's a' Comin')

Crocodile Eats Boy's Arm

2008-08-18T13:02:00.000-05:00

Big Joe Don't Play (12th Post)

What in the world is going on? No sooner have I dealt with the issue of Australians having afternoon slugfests with kangaroos and all-you-can-eat buffets with termites, than here comes this headline right out of my own backyard: "Boy's arm cut from gator's belly." An 11-year old boy named Devin Funck goes swimming in his neighborhood pond in a New Orleans suburb and gets attacked by a 500-pound crocodile named Big Joe. Big Joe bites Devin's left arm completely off and swims away. As Devin is rushed to the hospital, authorities start combing the pond for the perpetrator. A couple hours later, they hunt him down and kill him.

Is my online treatment on the oddities of the food chain somehow interfering with the natural order of things and disrupting a cosmic balance? Or has "Fear Factor" brought the era of the gladiator back into vogue? Who knows? Maybe this is just more of what Cole Porter warned us about in "Anything Goes." At any rate, two elements of today's story bear particular mention.

First, the good news. Upon bringing Big Joe to justice, the sheriff's deputy sliced him open and, lo and behold, there was Devin's arm, fully intact inside the gator's belly. Knowing that Devin's arm still had a chance, the deputy threw it into an ice chest and rushed it to the hospital. As I am writing, surgeons are now working at Ochsner Medical Center to reattach the arm to its rightful owner. Maybe the deputy's heroics can be attributed to keen foresight and emergency management expertise. Or maybe he remembered the story of John and Lorena Bobbitt and just happened to have a six-pack cooling in the back seat of his squad car . Either way, he became a hero yesterday.

Now back to the bad news. Devin is, after all, in critical condition. His aunt was interviewed as he went into surgery. "You hear about this happening, but you never think it's going to happen to someone you know," she said. Ahhh, the inevitable question: Why? As humans, it is in our nature to search for explanations in times of tragedy.

One thing is for sure. It's way more likely for this to happen to Devin than, let's say, someone who doesn't regularly swim in a alligator-infested lake. Someone who doesn't know a living, monstrous dinosaur on a first-name basis. Someone like me. At least that's what I'm hoping. There is no amount of first-aid medication I can pack for my Australia trip that will realistically address accidental amputations. Devin's mother acknowledged that there are alligators in all the canals and ponds around their neighborhood. According to 15-year old P.G. Borkowski, who swims in the same lake every day in the summer, "The gators never bother us; they just swim around and live in holes deep at the bottom." After the incident, Devin's first words to his mother were, "How am I going to play my Playstation now?"

I don't want to accuse this poor kid of not being particularly bright, but who SWIMS WITH CROCODILES? Oh, that's right, Steve Irwin. Past tense. Maybe there's some kind of Aussie/American connection here. I mean, at least old Theo went plunging into the termite pile out of sheer necessity. And Joe, the kangaroo killer, is casting himself as the victim of epic battle with a vicious seven-foot roo. (Source) At the very least, he was trying to defend his dog.

Or was he? It appears a lot of people don't really want to believe Joe's story. Never mind the massive gash across Joe's face or everything we know about the brutal capabilities of kanga-kickboxing. A woman who heard but did not see much of the bout went on the radio this week offering a more conspiratorial version of events. For her story, click here.

Folks don't like to think of kangaroos being ruthless or out of line. Several of you have e-mailed me notes commenting how docile kangaroos are, or that you think you could out-box a roo . If there is anything to be learned from nature's engagements this week, I think it is this: when humans or animals are taken out the confines of their normal, comfortable interactions (or non-interactions) with other species, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, and violent outcomes are likely.

To continue to the next post, click here: Tall Poppy Syndrome

Stayin' Alive: Eating Termites (Theo Rosmulder)

2008-08-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

MAN vs. NATURE III: Finger Lickin' Good (11th Post)

Pop quiz, hotshot. You're been lost in the Outback for days, teetering under the merciless glare of the sun. Dehydration has taken the stage to warm up the crowd for tonight's featured attraction, Rigor Mortis. Armed with only your flashlight and pocketknife, you try to jog your memory. . . what would the early explorers in Australia have done?

Oh, wait a minute. I forgot something. You also have your metal detector. That's what got you into this mess in the first place. You had decided to spit in the face of modern convention and instead indulge in the most time-honored of traditions--a gold-mining vacation into the desert.

Anyway, how have others managed to survive in these most God-forsaken of circumstances? The most primal and worst-case scenarios come to mind. . . cannibalism. . . drinking your own. . . well, you know what I mean. You've read about that stuff. But not even those treats are available at this point. Death is nigh and you almost hope for some otherworldly prehistoric-looking beast to come along and devour you to end the suffering.

Let me interrupt myself for a moment by assuring you that this blog is NOT sponsored by the Discovery Channel. It is NOT part of the Steve Irwin Corporation, Biology 101, or any other institution that is trying to educate people or instill a love for nature in general. My intention with these posts is to chronicle my own personal discovery of a new continent and a new culture.

In less than a month I will be Down Under for a two week jaunt. Right now I am trying to get prepared so I can have the most interesting and meaningful visit possible. I will be spending the rest of my life with an Australian, and this is my crash course for the world she comes from and a glimpse of what living in Australia might be like.

That being said, I realize that in the last couple posts I may have started sounding like a zookeeper. After "Odoriferous Gangstas," my plan was to do a third and final "Man vs. Nature" entry that would address more philosophically what I mean by my notion of the Kangaroo Rodeo. Then, hopefully, I would move along to some captivating cultural issues as well as my thoughts and plans for the trip itself. I have postponed that agenda in light of gnarly events that you may have read about in the paper earlier this morning. . .

So please, come along with me. Let's return to the wild and wooly world of nature, exotic animals and humanity's battle for survival. Let's go Outback to-niiiight. . .
Before the party's o-o-ver. . .
Ha. Now you've got the jingle stuck in your head too (you Americans know what I mean). Alright. How's this for a solution to your wilderness predicament--YOU BURY YOUR HEAD IN A FECAL-RIDDEN CLAY MOUND THE SIZE OF A GARBAGE DUMPSTER AND FEAST ON LIVE TERMITES!!! That's what Theo Rosmulder did over the weekend while you were out drinking martinis and
that guy in Templestowe Park was giving a kangaroo a bare-knuckled beating. (Link: 9th post)
How do I know this, you ask? Am I a complete nerd? Well, like I said before, I guess I was looking for trouble on Monday when I typed "kangaroo" into my Google Search box. This morning was a different story. I had just returned from biking down to the St. Charles Taven for a chicken and shrimp salad. I would have preferred to save the money and eat at home, but it was 5:30 a.m. and I didn't want to wake my roommate or neighbors by clanging around in the kitchen. I sat down on my bed to check my e-mail, and there it was on top of my Yahoo browser screen--one of the top five stories of the day: "Pest exterminator survives on bugs." (Source: AP, by Kristen Gelineau) HA HA Ha Ha Ha! That's right. I'm laughing out loud. Did you read that? Theo is a former Pest EXTERMINATOR. Now that's one way to do it. Theo goes on to describe his termite souffle as if he were a 4 year-old burying his face in a chocolate cake: "I just hit the top of a termite nest off and got stuck into them."

You know me. I had to know more. I know now that people have been punching kangaroos for a long time, but have they been eating termites as well? A' searching I went. And what did I find? They have indeed. You betcha. Aardvarks, anteaters, gorillas, and HUMANS--they all eat termites . Or at least some of them do. Over in Africa. And now, evidently, Australia. What a sheltered life I still have. To think, I had left perfectly good boneless turkey in my fridge that I was scared to eat because of the NOISE I might make.

One final and even more disturbing note--if you enter "humans eating termites" as a search term, you may come across an article about human-eating termites. . . ravenous flesh-eating termites that can devour human beings. (Source: Flesh-eating termites attack campers at Red River Gorge) Allegedly, unregulated chemical dumping resulted in termite gene mutation. That story gets even worse, but I don't have the time to get into it. Point is, if humans are eating termites, and termites are eating humans, the world just got a little bit uglier.

You know, last week when Terry told me that Tasmania still offered places where no human had set foot, I have to admit it sounded a bit romantic. I was almost disappointed that I would not be able to carry on my camping gear for the transcontinental flight. But considering the fact that I have been to the emergency room on this side of the planet three times in the last seven years for being bitten by a brown recluse spider, ganged up on by a harem of black tree slugs, and swarmed by kamikaze Guatemalan mountain bees, respectively, the IMAX theater is starting to sound pretty good.

To continue to the next post, click here: Big Joe Don't Play

How Kangaroos Fight

2008-08-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

MAN vs. NATURE II: Odoriferous Gangstas (10th Post)

(cont'd from Part I in the 9th Post)
To go back and read Part I, click on this link:PART I: BAD NEWS FROM RANGER RICK

Kangaroos actually fight the same way as your regular old human whackers. They push and shove and try to look tough, usually to impress the ladies. But actual boxing--that's a stretch. About a foot long stretch. Their arms are tiny in proportion to the rest of their body. It's their legs that are powerful. The big roos can bound at speeds over forty miles an hour. They can leap over basketball goals. And they can drop kick you like Jesus through the goal posts of life. (Bobby Bare: Greatest Hits) The crazy thing is that they actually expend less energy the faster they are moving. Their frame design does not allow them to maneuver well slowly and they cannot walk backwards. Actually they can''t really walk frontwards either. Using their tail as a tripod, they lower their arms to the ground and sort of hop/crawl forward with their legs. All they really want to do is jump.

As demonstrated in the "Killer Willard" video, boxing a kangaroo is like boxing a very drunk person from a town where too many people are related. I don't mean to single anyone out here, but when I visited Lafayette, Louisiana a couple summers ago, I saw more than 3 people with more than 10 toes a piece. But they were making some beautiful music and breeding some pretty ladies. So there you go. Everyone has their fortes. The only case of a fatal kangaroo attack was in 1936 when a hunter was trying to . . . guess what? Rescue his dogs. (This might be a good place for one of those notes to self.)

So why do kangaroos have it out for dogs? Thank the dingoes for that.
Wild and wolfish, they are Australia's only native dogs. For thousands of years they have been hunting kangaroos and they can be some mean little puppies. Consider this: the dingo is largely blamed for the extinction of the Tasmanian Tiger on mainland Australia. Wow wo wee wow. The closest living relative of the Tazzy is the Tasmanian Devil.

Now from time to time you hear about the dingoes threatening the survival of the kangaroos. But then you hear about how the kangaroos are threatening the grasslands. I don't know if the grasslands are threatening anything, but there are quite a few "Save the Dingoes" websites. Rah rah rah. Wank wank wank. My money's on the kangaroos. From what I've read, the kangaroos have quite a system for survival. They may not be able to walk a straight line if a cop pulls them over, but they drive fast and fight dirty.

If a kangaroo is forced to rumble, he may not have the wingspan to punch you, but be forewarned: he is packing heat. Remember, he is part of the Cosa Nostra. And he is a martial artist. Think back-alley kickboxer with a switchblade. With his sharpened toenails, he defends himself by disemboweling his opponent. Look at the claws of the kangaroo that got KO'd in the park on Friday. This dude can't punch, but if he gets ready to lean back on that go-go-gadget tail and heave both his Freddy Krueger hind legs in your direction, it's time to cry uncle. Oh yes. Granny is waiting for you in the closet with a baseball bat. Something tells me those boxing circus clowns were stocked up on toenail clippers.

Oh, one more resume-booster. Not only is the kangaroo a speedy survivalist, an Olympic high-jumper, and an ultimate-fighting ninja who can dice you up faster than Emeril Lagasse can cut an onion, . . .
(all you "globally conscious" folks out there are gonna get real turned on by this one). . . he is a vegetarian and his farts don't stink. I'm not lying. Thanks to a special stomach bacteria, kangaroo flatulence emits no methane. Compare this to other livestock, whose rotten methane bombs cause a greenhouse gas effect 23 times greater than carbon dioxide. (Source: theage.com.au) The putrid gasesous emissions of sheep causes up to 50% of New Zealand's global warming. Yuck.

I know what you are thinking. I've heard it before. Word has already leaked out. Maybe the scientists are lying to us. You know, you can never trust those scientists. Maybe the kangaroos are eating red beans and rice, effectuating colossal silent eruptions that generate their fantastic leaps, and then blaming nearby cows. Hey, I would say to that kangaroo what the Australians say. "Good on ya' mate." You gotta love a kangaroo with a sense of humor.

To continue to the next blog post, click: Part III: Finger Lickin' Good

Man Punches Kangaroo's Lights Out

2008-08-18T12:57:00.000-05:00

MAN vs. NATURE I: Bad News from Ranger Rick (9th Post)

So last night I decided to do a Google Search on "kangaroo" to see if there was any evidence of anyone ever riding a kangaroo. I realize that you Aussies think we Yanks are oafish for harboring such crazy notions, but bear in mind the difference in our cultural programming. You grew up with Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, while we grew up with images like this one:

Evidently there are two basic kinds of kangaroo--the big red ones like Scooby Race Roo, and the smaller grey ones like Skippy, who was basically an Australian version of Lassie. Although scientists do speak of ginormous prehistoric kangaroos, I found no mention of documented roo-riding.

What I did find was a recent news headline, which, like most news, was tragic. And fascinating. This weekend in a park on the northeast suburbs of Melbourne, a man punched a kangaroo to death.

Mannington Leader article 2008/07/25

That's right, according to the Mannington Leader newspaper, he "repeatedly punched the kangaroo until it died." After the melee had ended, rueful (pun intended) folks from the neighborhood laid flowers on the dead animal. Ranger Rick Young said people need to "respect nature and keep a safe distance from the animals."

Why did this happen? Kangaroos are not generally considered a threat to humans, unless they jump in front of a car on the highway. Besides, I read that the red kangaroos that grow to over six feet tall are usually found in the more central desert regions. Ranger Rick's roo was typical of the small Western Grey kangaroos that can be found in Victoria and South Australia. It turns out that the man was trying to rescue his dog, which had jumped out of the car to go chase a mob of kangaroos hopping through the park. That's right, that's the technical term, like a flock of seagulls or a murder of crows. Or a lamentation of swans, or a blessing of unicorns. Hey, I didn't make up these names.

Dumb dog. Then again, isn't that a dog up there riding the Race Roo? Figures. Well, the owner ended up in a fight for his own life, and lucky for him, he had seen Rocky V (is that the good one?). Or maybe he remembered the Mighty Boosh episode where push came to shove in the ring with a roo. (Mighty Boosh: Boxing Practice)

This urban warrior was not, of course, the first human to go to blows with a kangaroo. For most of the twentieth century, boxing kangaroos were a staple of carnivals and circuses in America and elsewhere. It seems, however, that nobody ever took the time to tell the animals what they were supposed to do. Maybe it fell upon the boxing clown to train his opponent. You know how busy clowns can be. In 1966 Woody Allen went to London and got in the ring with an outback kangaroo for a variety show. The kangaroo seemed mellow and uninterested. Maybe he was stoned like everybody else in the 60's. Or maybe he didn't exactly feel challenged by the scrawny young comedian with the baggy shorts and geeky horn-rimmed glasses.
At any rate, he decided to go after the referee instead, knocking him to the mat with a swift hook to the testicles. Predictably, Woody went running for cover.

In October of the same year U.S. President Lyndon Johnson visited Australia. He urged Robert Donovan, an American reporter in his entourage, to box a kangaroo. In his book, Boxing the Kangaroo: A Reporter's Memoir, Donovan explains how kangaroos fight:

"He was not a puncher, which might have hurt an opponent, but a pusher. To my surprise, each of his arms was only about 12 inches long. He could not, as far as I could observe, protect his jaw, but neither could his boxing gloves hit my jaw. Since this was supposed to be a boxing match, I tapped his nose a couple of times. He just kept pumping up with his glove, against mine, pushing me backward. I had no intention of punching his defenseless face. I rather liked the old boy, who kept pushing his nose toward mine in the manner of Lyndon Johnson's famous 'treatment' of shoving his nose toward another man's as a way to dominate him."

(For a good example of this,check out "Killer Willard:"

TO CONTINUE on TO PART II, click here: "ODORIFEROUS GANGSTAS:" (10th Post)

The Friendly Australian: A Winning Personality

2008-08-18T12:56:00.000-05:00

TERRY (8th Post)

I picked up the mullet man's empty glass and swiped a rag over the copper top of the bar where he had been sitting. I was carrying the glass back down to the dishwasher at the other end, when suddenly, the Australian spoke up.
"Do you know how much a six-pack of beer costs in Australia? "

I turned around with a bit of a dumb look on my face."Fifteen dollars," he informed me.I thought about that and nodded. Okay. I could do this. His question had been only slightly more profound than my question about his shirt. He continued.

"And a pack of cigarettes...twelve dollars. But we got health care. Our government takes care of our people," he added matter-of-factly. I nodded as I prepared to jump into the water.But he continued, "Petrol--seven bucks a gallon." A smile appeared on his face as he relished both the value of his currency and the relatively low cost of things in the States.

"Well, we're catching up with you on that one," I piped in.
"Yeah, you're gettin' there, aren'tcha" he grinned. He was enjoying himself and his money the way I do when I go south of the border. "

It was my turn. "Doesn't bode well for me. I'll actually be in Australia in in a month."
"Oh yeah?" he said. "Where?"
"Adelaide, that's where my girl's from."
"I'm sorry," he kidded. "I'm from Melbourne."
"That's her favorite city. We'll be going there as well." He just looked at me for a second and I realized he was only half kidding. He was quite proud to be from Melbourne.

"Ahhhh, Melbourne's great. Very cosmopolitan. Got the best food in the world. Italian, Greek, Thai, Japanese . . . we even got Mexican food," he laughed. I noticed that the business man sitting two seats down from the Aussie was leaning in, listening to our conversation. Americans love that accent and the rambunctious, jovial personality all Aussies seem to have.

"Mexican food?" inquired the businessman.
"Oh yeah . . . we got it all. We've even got Mexicans!" he laughed. "That's what we call the Kiwis, anyway."

I stuck out my hand. "I'm Matt.""Terry," he said.

"So where else are ya going in Australia?"
"Well, we were talking about the Gold Coast . . . " I wanted to see his reaction. I had heard about the beautiful beaches there, and of course, everyone has heard about the Great Barrier Reef, which is not too far away. But I had also been reading, just that day, about how the Gold Coast, which is the northeastern edge of Australia, has become awfully cheesy and commercialized.

"Just like Florida," he warned, wrinkling his nose. "Go to Tasmania. It's beautiful--the most underrated part of Australia. And they've got parts of it where, still, no one's ever been."

Fantastic. Now this was my travelers' karma kicking in. Not only had I met a friendly person from Australia who was OK with me taking their women, but he was giving me expert advice for my vacation. Jo hadn't even mentioned Tasmania.

I told Terry that I had been reading In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson to get warmed up for the trip.
"Good book," he said. "You know what else you should read? They're a Weird Mob. I think it was written by an Italian. Have you seen The Castle?"

"No, I don't know of that one."

"Well, you've gotta watch that. It will give you a good insight into the errrr....psyche...of Australians."

"Is it a documentary or a regular movie?" I inquired.

"Regular movie, he replied."

We talked for a while. He encouraged me to catch one of the "footie" (Australian Rules Football) semifinals while I was in Melbourne. He told me that I should call Jo's favorite team, the Adelaide Crows, the Crow-Eaters. And he invited me to join him and some of his "good old boys" for a Victoria Bitter, or "VB," as they call it, when I get to Melbourne. He lives in Yarraville, which he described as a funky little village within the city.

And that's how I met Terry. I can't recall exactly what he looked like. He did, however, remind me a little bit of Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, what with the way he threw his shoulders back and his beergut forward as he strode out the door.

>

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:Bad News from Ranger Rick

Marrying an Australian: Cultural Expectations

2008-08-18T12:54:00.001-05:00

On PILLAGING (7th post)

Talking to an Australian should be an easy thing for me to do. Four months ago my Australian girlfriend Jo bought me an airline ticket to come visit her on her continent for three weeks beginning in late August. She told me it was an early birthday present and that she had found a really good deal online that required quick action. I considered this quite a gift since my birthday would not arrive until October. Furthermore, an airline ticket from New Orleans to Adelaide, Australia actually entails five different connecting flights each way. Plus, Jo wanted to do some sightseeing once in Australia that would require more flying, since nothing in Australia is very close to anything else.

My travelers' karma is good, but it's not that good, and I knew that her gift was partly her way of letting me know that she was serious enough about our trans-continental relationship to take it to the next level. As it turned out, I was one step ahead of the game as I had already purchased a diamond ring and was busy plotting a scheme to drag her out of state for a surprise proposal. A couple weeks later, we jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 14,000 feet over Rosharon, Texas, and when we hit the ground, I popped the question.

And here we are.

But despite the fact that I've been talking to an Australian every day for almost a year now, I was a bit hesitant to pursue any more chit chat with the man in the Jazz Fest shirt. The imminence of my trip and my wedding have suddenly made me a little self-conscious. It's not that I'm nervous around foreigners. I love learning about different cultures and I feel outgoing and alive when traveling abroad. In my experiences and exchanges with Australians in particular over the years, I have always found them to be of the most laid-back and receptive nature. This is likely because they travel so much and because they share so many cultural similarities with Americans.

Going to a new country as a fiancee is a whole new ball of wax. I am no longer a university student abroad, opening my mind to a more global point of view. I am not an American consumer abroad, shielded by the power of the once-almighty American dollar. I am a Turk, come to take away something beautiful. And there is nothing that a human being will throw off his shirt to fight for more quickly than a beautiful woman. Even if we return to the Land Down Under to live a few years from now, my identity will always be that of a foreigner. Will I fit in there? I'll have to learn the rules of strange new sports. I'll have to learn a whole new national history. And I will be the one talking funny. (Of course, being from North Carolina does give me some preparation for that ritual).

All these thoughts were swimming through my head, and suddenly I felt an obligation to be some sort of larger-than-life multicultural superhero. I had to be someone so wise and so worldly and so irresistible that no Australian in his right mind could possibly accuse me of barbarism, abduction, or cultural perpetration.

I was not up to the challenge. This was, after all, my Friday. All I had to do was get through this shift. Why lay myself at the mercy of this man to be scrutinized, tested, and absolved? Besides, he hadn't shown me any signs that he was going to make this easy. He had ignored my feeble attempt at idle chatter just as I would have done were I off the clock. Better that he passed me off as uninterested or even uninteresting. I busied myself with putting glasses in the dishwasher and then headed back in the direction of Special Agent Monsieur Mullet. His glass was empty and I asked him, "Can I get you anything else?" with all the empathy of a hospital nurse who has just given you two shots of morphine, brought you lunch, handed you the TV remote and a stack of magazines, and is about to finish her shift.

He looked at me hard, pondering whether I had the patience to put up with another round of his yammering or if I would just walk away like last time. He turned to his wife. "Honey, do you want anything else?"
"Oh no." The words were out of her mouth before he could even finish.
"So you're ready to go?"
Silence.
But she made the slightest little puppy dog face that indicated her eagerness to go do her makeup, or trim her toenails, or somehow carve out a little peace and quiet in her day. I guess when you have the luxury and security of being married to James Bond, you learn to be coy and keep your opinions to yourself. And so the mullet lives on.

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:Terry

Aussie Slang: a Quick Lesson

2008-08-18T12:53:00.000-05:00

AUSSIEISMS (4th post)
Ok, now let's take a quick break for a primer on Aussie slang:

and now, for an intermediate lesson from a couple qualified instructors, Peter and Brady. . . (Brady's Aussiesms are followed by Peter's standard English translation)

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:Waltzing Matilda

The Bartender's Life

2008-08-18T12:51:00.000-05:00

The MULLET MAN (3rd post)

I live a backwards life. When most people are punching out of work at 6 o' clock on Friday afternoon, I am punching in. Friday night is my Monday morning. As a New Orleans bartender working the second shift, I am living the inverse existence to yours. While you relax and play and rest, I move and shake. When I see the bright light of the morning creep out from beneath my curtains and sprawl across the wall, I know that I am late to bed while you are probably late to work.

The backwards life certainly isn't for everyone, but it does offer some considerable advantages. Every night a quiet house awaits me . The neighbors are deep into their dreams as I warm up my turkey sandwich and lean back with the newspaper. I never sit in traffic. I see the commuters in the outbound lanes inching along, squirming and talking on their cell phones with strained looks on their faces. I breeze past them as I cruise into the city center preparing my mind for the challenges of the evening. Making doctor and dentist appointments is easy, and I nod at the housewives who, like me, run their errands casually in the middle of the day. I don't worry about whether there may be something interesting or important on television, because Judge Alex and Dr. Phil can't possibly tell me anything I shouldn't have learned by 33.

My favorite thing about living the backwards life, however, is not the fact that it affords me such relative peace of mind. What I relish about my routine is that I get to deal with everyone else while THEY are allowing themselves to relax. For many people, it is the one block of time in their day, in their week, that they are not burdened by the affairs of their household or the identities of their profession. They get to be real human beings and talk about things outside of themselves and their circles. They can tell jokes and compare ideas and experiences, and talk about books and movies and travels.

Now don't get me wrong. It's not always a bed of roses, and oftentimes the comfortable, real side that a person allows himself to reveal is not all that pleasant. Like, for example, two nights ago. It was Monday around 7 p.m. A bunch of high-profile politicos were in town for a legislators' convention, so most of the folks in the bar were wearing suits talking shop. I, however, was suffering through the ramblings of man with a mullet. Now looking at people with mullets is one of my favorite things to do. But TALKING to people with mullets.... that's a different story.

What I had gathered was that he was some sort of contractor with a shrouded past in military Special Forces of some kind. Uncle Sam had recently given him an offer he couldn't refuse...he would move to the Bahamas to do some kind of secretive work while the government would pay all of his bills and send him comfortably into retirement. Now he hadn't just come out and told me any of this. He had unraveled his ball of yarn methodically by making comments about the world at large, and then offhandedly remarking how little they really affected him. He would lean in slowly, and with a feigned and smug nonchalance, tell me something like, "Now I can't really talk about it, but let's just say . . . there's a lot of money involved." Or, "there's some pretty heavy stuff at stake." Or, "I guess they think I'm really, really, good at what I do." Or, "when you can put fifty percent down and pay $10,000 a month, they're still willing to give you a pretty nice interest rate." His wife, reasonably pretty and quiet, was by his side filing her nails and watching the passersby. Clearly she was enjoying the fact that at least temporarily, SHE wasn't the one caught in the cross hairs of her husband's self-involved spiels.

All I could think was, "Rah rah rah . . . wank wank wank." Roughly equivalent to "Well, la dee freakin' dah," it's what my fiancee Jo would be saying if she heard all this. She's from Australia, and as it turned out, so was my next customer.

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:Aussieisms

Angola Prison Rodeo: Convict Poker

2008-08-18T12:50:00.001-05:00

SIX SECONDS of FREEDOM (2nd post)

Are you starting to get my drift?

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:the Mullet Man

IF YOU ARE A SUBSCRIBER to this blog, you can ignore my posts today. I am re-publishing previous posts under alternate titles for search purposes.

2008-08-18T12:00:00.010-05:00

TONIGHT at midnight, I'll publish my next new post, #22, "KoaLa La Land."

Kangaroo Boxing

2008-08-18T12:00:00.009-05:00

KANGARODEO (1st post)

The You Tube video I loaded below has recently been disabled (Aug 1), so I have added this link for a good similar clip, albeit from a movie. Click here: KANGAROO BOXING

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:6 Seconds of Freedom

Men are from Mars. Marsupials are from Australia

2008-08-17T06:40:00.018-05:00

I rented a couple movies to watch this week and get in the mood. This afternoon I was watching "Quigley Down Under." I know, it's not that great, but there was one line that I liked: "They say God made Australia cuz he got tired of making everything else the same." From the pictures of the animals I'm looking at, that appears to be the case. Australia has many of the same wild animals that we do, only their versions are even deadlier. I posted a little video clip in post 19, and that'll do for now. I don't want to have bad dreams about sharks or spiders.

I do want to spend a minute or two on some of the more exotic Australian animals. Many of them seem to be strange variations of the same thing. Science was never my thing, so here's the nutshell from a layman's point of view. Imagine you went to the backside of Mars and found a bizarro version of the earth that we inhabit. It would probably look like Australia. There would be alien pop stars with names like Barry Crocker wearing floss marketed as budgy smugglers (see Hangin' Out...). Out in the backyard you would see peculiar animals called MARSupials. Marsupial babies are born in an immature state and live in their mothers' pouches where they attach themselves to a nipple until they are ready to rock.

In America, our resident marsupial is the opossum. Opossums remind me of an ugly, obese wharf rat we have down here in Louisiana called the nutria rat. Nutrias, like some other New Orleans folk, are bad citizens, and a threat to our wetlands. A couple plans of attack have been set in motion to get rid of them. One idea was to cook them and serve them in fine New Orleans restaurants. Needless to say, that one didn't really go over, so the government decided to put a bounty on the heads of these varmints. That spawned a rip-roaring subculture of late-night, shotgun-waving nutria hunts from the backs of speeding pickup trucks. For a slightly more civilized version of this, watch the new video I posted of Harry Lee, the former sheriff, and his SWAT team in action.

Australia has its own versions of possums, but over there they have the whole extended family to hang out with.

If you had to pick your run-of-the-mill, boy-next-door marsupial, it would probably be the wallaby. He's a mid-sized , fairly nondescript rascal, and he looks like a midget kangaroo. Actually, by definition, the kangaroos are themselves just really large wallabies. Since they fall harder, they jump faster and farther. Therefore they are cooler. But the smaller wallabies can still jump and box. In the new video I posted, those small boxing "kangaroos" are actually wallabies. Other marsupials in this family include the rock wallaby, the hare wallaby, the swamp wallaby, the walleroo, and the little pademelon.

Even the non-marsupial animals in Australia act like marsupials. You've got hopping mice and kangaroo rats. Australia is also home of the emu, a large bird that cannot fly. That's weird. Birds are supposed to fly, right? Like the kangaroo, the emu cannot walk backwards. This trait landed both animals a place on the shield on the Australian Coat of Arms. They are a metaphor for the Australian trait of leaving baggage in the past and looking optimistically ahead .

Speaking of looking ahead, in the next post, I will reveal an UNBELIEVABLE discovery that I have made. It blew my mind and will likely blow yours too. I'll see you tomorrow with the second part of this Marsupial Extravaganza. . .

To continue to the next post, click here: (KoaLa La Land)

The Shoecake Game

2008-08-16T03:44:00.004-05:00

It is becoming clear to me just how black the Aussie sense of humor can be. The possibility of injury in Australia is only amplified by the certainty of insult thereafter.

Take Harold Holt, for example. He was the prime minister of Australia who mysteriously disappeared in 1967. While taking a dip with friends at his favorite swimming hole, Cheviot Beach, he simply vanished into the current. The United States honored his memory by naming a Navy destroyer after him. In Australia, he was most famously commemorated by the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre in a Melbourne suburb.

If you disappear suddenly without explanation from a social gathering in Australia, you may be accused of "doing the Harry." Like doing a Harold Holt. Like doing a "bolt." In my circle, we used to call that "pulling a Cathy," but her story wasn't quite as poignant. (for more rhyming slang, see 18th post)

I don't mind having a giggle at someone else's misfortune, if it's funny enough.

One of my favorite games to play at work is the "Shoecake" game.This game can be played on a busy weekend night on Bourbon Street when the mounted police are on the beat. Most people like seeing the police horses because of their natural beauty. Occasionally these impressive animals will actually trot through the open doors and sally right up to the bar. They know that we have cinnamon candies and maraschino cherries and lots of love. Cameras start flashing and everyone wants to pet the horses and chat up the cops.

I like seeing the horses because it means we might get to play the game. If the horses are out long enough, it is inevitable that at some point a zesty whopping pile will be deposited smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian thoroughfare. At this point the game begins. It's kind of like that game you played when you were a kid and you picked a color for the cars that might pass by, and whoever had more, say, green cars, pass by would win.

In the Shoecake game, you look out the window and select a random stranger coming up the street who seems most likely to be distracted by the neon lights and carnal temptations to the left and to the right. If your mark hits his mark, you get points. When his foot disappears into the muck and he shows us all his soul, you can get more points for predicting his reaction.

Some people can take a surprise shoecake in stride.
Others are oblivious.
And some folks are just angry human beings.

This can be a betting game, a drinking game, or simply for kicks.

Maybe that's why horses wear blinders. So they don't end up becoming unwitting victims of the game they helped create.

Check it out:

Well, I've gotta do a Harry. Time to shave and go to work.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Men are from Mars...)

Hangin' Out with a Long-Lost Twin

2008-08-15T00:31:00.016-05:00

As an American, learning about Australia is like meeting a twin you never knew you had. Both countries are about the same physical size, share common European ancestry, and developed in relatively isolated geographic contexts. Both were founded upon lands inhabited by indigenous populations.

Because we share so much in common, the differences seem that much more surreal.

Australia was settled by prisoners.
We were settled by Puritans.

Australia has Australian rules football.
We have American football.

Australia has cricket.
We have baseball.

Australia has Tasmania.
We have Hawaii.

Australia has the Outback.
We have Arkansas. And the Outback Steakhouse.

Australia has rhyming slang
We have Snoop-speak.

I'm starting to get used to the Aussie rhymes. I've got a couple of them under my belt now:
"Time to hit the frog and toad (road)."
"Get off the dog and bone (phone)."
"I, Matt, take you, Jo, to be my trouble and strife (wife)."
Hehehe.

Now back to the twin-off.

Australia has Barry Crocker.
We have Robert Goulet, Kenny Rogers, and Grizzly Adams.

(It takes a village to match that dude.)

Australia gave us Speedos and Budgy Smugglers.
We gave them Britney Spears and McDonalds.
They call it "Maccas.""
Jo calls it "McChucks." As in "upchucks."

Budgies, by the way, are small Australian parrots, shown in the picture at the top. And concerning the Speedos, look guys--I realize it's hot Down Under, but seriously. . . Can't you make people take some kind of a fitness test and get a license to wear those things in public? You've got national health care and an Institute of Sport. Why not get them all on the same page? Set a good example for your banana-hammock-wearing European friends.

Australia has too many camels--the world's largest wild population, actually.
We have virtually none, although they originated here.

Australia has kangaroos, koalas, and emus.
We have raccoons. And coonasses:)
We also have deer and squirrels, which they don't, but they just don't seem that exotic.

Speaking of animals, I know we've spent a lot of time dealing with the Animal Kingdom. That wasn't necessarily my intention. My attitude toward the subject matter at the Kangaroo Rodeo is that it should be "not based on any calendar but based on conditions on the ground," in the words of John Howard. (source). It's not my fault that lately,the epic battle of man vs. nature has been much in the news (see posts 9-12). Since I am planning on going to Tasmania, hiking in the bush, and surfing in Victor Harbor, I better cover a few more animals I'll be watching out for. . .

To continue to the next post, click here: (the Shoecake Game)

Mountain Biking down Mount Wellington: The Icicle Ride that Bites. Frostbites.

2008-08-14T21:09:00.029-05:00

Cheers, Big Ears

2008-08-13T00:14:00.020-05:00

An Australian raises his glass to you and says to you cheekily, "Cheers, big ears." What's the appropriate response?

If you were thinking of nodding your head, raising your glass, and responding with a "Cheers!" in kind, then you were wrong. According to the online Urban Dictionary, you could have picked either of two correct responses: a) "Same goes, big nose " or b) "Up your nose with a rubber hose."

Mateship and mockery go hand in hand in Australia. Combine a British heritage with tall poppy syndrome and you have more low blows than a Yo' Mama joke convention. If you choose to engage in the dark art of Australian humor, make sure you have a few basic moves in your repertoire.

First, there is the back-handed compliment. This is a play I have some familiarity with and am often accused of. I'll let Triumph the Insult Comic Dog illustrate this one:

It's gotten to where I can't say anything nice to Jo without her staring at me hard and pursing her lips. She's waiting for what she calls the "stinger"--the qualifier at the end that pops the balloon.

Next, there is the straight-up fabrication. This one is always good when you want to exaggerate, or be ironic or self-deprecating. One of the reasons Australians are comfortable making fun of you is that they are so used to making fun of themselves. It goes with the territory in a country founded as a penal colony. Between dealing with the harsh elements outside and ill-tempered prison guards inside, Australians learned the necessity of going with the flow and improvising. They are laid back and they have thick skin. Those who are naive or out of their element best beware.

In junior high school I had a friend named Becky who was the queen of sardonicism. One day she was ribbing her classmate Sherry for being such an easy mark for pranks: "Sherry, you are sooooooooo gullible."
"What's gullible?" asked Sherry.
"It's a North African freshwater fish known to eat small animals."
"Oh. How am I one?" was the response.

I cannot claim to be free of culpability when it comes to telling a fable to an aggravating tourist or two. Sometimes the truth is just not what they wanna hear. "Oh, yeah, that's where Jean Lafitte and Napoleon used to play poker." "Is this place haunted? Absolutely." "The ingredients in this drink come from one of Marie Laveau's well-kept secret recipes." "Sure, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie hang out here all the time."

But let's get back to "Cheers, big ears" for a minute. It illustrates the true Aussie way of messing with people. They have a three-part method for mockery, and this is where things differ from what we are used to. See, not only do they like to draw first blood and use silly slang. They are also suckers for things that rhyme. Jo explained it to me one day when we were driving through Mid-City.

"It's like if you see someone wearing a ridiculous outfit, you might say, 'What a shocker.' But we say, 'What a Barry Crocker.'"

"Okay. Who's Barry Crocker?"

"Oh, nobody. Everybody just says that."

"Can you put in other names that rhyme instead? Like Joe Cocker?"

"Sure. But everybody knows Barry Crocker."

Never one to settle for a simple explanation, I had to find out if Barry Crocker was a real person. You better believe he is. He's a famous Australian crooner, and I know some of you will get a kick out this video I found. Best I can tell, he is a strange Aussie cross-breed of Elvis, Neil Diamond, and Barry from the Bee Gees.

At least he doesn't take himself too seriously. That's him in the funny shoes at the top of this page.

Check this one out. In America, "brass" is slang for the leaders in an organization. It is a fairly obvious visual reference to the medals worn by military commanders. In Australia, "brass" is slang for a prostitute. Jo explained it to me online in an instant message the other night: "brass" = brass nail = tail = prostitute."

If someone takes offense to one of these inside rhyming jokes, an Aussie will usually giggle as he apologizes. . . "Sorry, but it's such a funny rhyme." If that doesn't explain things or ease the tension, then he will then point out that this rhyming humor comes from Britain anyway. Take for example, the word "seppo." This is Aussie slang for all Americans, and it is tossed around sort of the way "gringo" is used in Latin America. It comes from England, where Americans are called Yanks. That sounds like "tank," so to be funny they say "septic tank." Australians picked that up and shortened it to Seppo. Before you go getting too upset, remember that Aussies love Americans. You can call them Skips if you want to.

I know. Kangaroos are a bit better name to be called than a sewage container. That's what we get for letting them pick the game and pick the names. Forgive them and raise your glass. They just have a bad case of tall poppy syndrome (see 13th post).

To continue to the next post, click here: (Hangin' Out with a Long-Lost Twin)

Bogan Wonderland

2008-08-11T16:19:00.029-05:00

I realize that kangaroos are not the only fun indigenous animals in Australia, and I plan to take on some of the others later. Right now, however, I want to address a form of wildlife more closely related to you and me. They are actually part of the homo sapiens family, and they are known as "bogans." If you talk to an Australian, the term comes up quite often, so I did some internet research. After giving a fair go to the subject, I have concluded that only a live encounter with bogans in their natural habitat is going to satisfy my curiousity about this subspecies of humanity.

Here's what I do know. A bogan is a somewhat less perjorative term for what we in America call "white trash." Maybe the bogan is, by definition, slightly less offensive to the sensibilities than white trash. Or maybe these two are one and the same, but it's just that Down Under folks use the term in less of a catty and mean spirit. I'm sure that I have heard Jo (see post #7) use the word in the first person before. "You know, we bogans. . . " etc.

I don't believe that most Americans who are not white trash would refer to themselves as such, although we don't mind dressing up and playing the part at "White Trash" parties.

Maybe it's my cultural heritage that explains my fascination with this topic. I grew up in North Carolina and have spent most of my adult life in Louisiana. In the South, we have a number of interesting ways to classify folks. We use hick and hillbilly to talk about people who are really out in the boonies, strummin' their two-string banjos and whistling between their three teeth. They don't have much of a choice in the matter. Rednecks are hummin' a different tune. As a group they live alongside the dominant culture, yet reject assimilation. It is partly a function of post-Reconstruction attitudes and partly due to the recent prosperity of the New South. The "Redneck" has become a bit of counter-cultural hero who is what he is and rebels against acting respectable. His identity is what Jeff Foxworthy calls a "glorious absence of sophisication."

It may look funny from the outside, but what we are talking about is roots. In his song "Redneck Past," Ben Folds, one of my favorite musicians, talks about these "funny limbs that grow underground. . . that keep you from falling down."

Isolation often breeds interesting culture. In Louisiana we have the Cajuns, who have their own geographic territory as well as a unique lifestyle, language, type of music, and cooking. If you meet a Cajun person and ask him where he's from, he will say something like, "I'm from down 'da bayou. You ever heard of Galliano?"

When you say yes, he will chuckle and say, "Yeah, I'm a Coonass." Now that's even more descriptive than redneck. No one is really sure where these terms come from. There are many different theories. Some offer complex etymologies. Others are more literal. The general rule of ethnic epithets still applies, however: you can't really call someone that unless you are one.

Several years ago Ben Folds, also from North Carolina, married an Aussie girl and moved to Adelaide. His song "Adelaide" describes "dropping in from outer space" and seeing the "bogans at the motor race." "Here you know the world could turn and crash and burn and you would never know it," he says. It is with peeled eyes and the best of intentions that I am about to embark on a full-fledged Bogan Hunt.

But how will I be able to spot a bogan? As far as I know, there is no Bogan Zoo. Jo says "The Castle" is a good example of bogans, but I am not sure how much of this is parody or how much of it refers to Aussie culture as a whole. Evidently, bogans wear flannel shirts, wife beaters, and flip-flops, which Aussies call flannelettes, singlets, and thongs, respectively. And some of them have mullets. You already know about my affinity for a quality mullet, (3rd post) a.k.a. the drape ape, Wisconsin waterfall, or Mississippi mud flap. And of course there are the sub-classes of mullet like the femullet, the skullet, and Mexi-mullet.

I just found a wonderful Australian website called BOGAN.com--the Ultimate Bogan Resource. I must say it inspired me. That's saying something. I work on Bourbon Street at a place that could be duly titled "Front Row at the Jerry Springer Show." I have seen my fair share of Alabama truck stops and Carolina trailer parks, but I have NEVER seen a mullet this beautiful.

I just clicked on their link to become a volunteer reporter.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Cheers, Big Ears)

Hurrication Evacuation

2008-08-08T00:40:00.011-05:00

Evacuating for hurricanes is part of the cycle of life here. Tropical Storm Edouard (14th post) was the first noteworthy disturbance of the year, and as his name suggested, he turned out to be just a tinkle in the bucket. By New Orleans standards, it's been a quite reasonable summer so far, but August is always when it gets hot in the kitchen.

At nighttime the temperature hovers up in the same sweltering range as it does by day. Walking to your car is like swimming standing up. Whether it's due to your overheated body or the sauna you are walking through, your clothes immediately turn swampy. Weather commentary works its way into every conversation. And usually, right in the thick of it all, your air conditioning system mutters and sputters and quits. I am using the collective "you," which means that thousands of air conditioners call in sick at the same time. Unless you are super-handy, you will be waiting and suffering.

Desperate times call for ingenuity. During one of these AC outages a few summers ago, I walked to Harry's Ace Hardware store and picked up a sprinkler to connect to the water hose outside. I put it in the bed of my roommate's pickup truck in the driveway by the front door. For the rest of the day he and I sat on beach chairs on the front stoop, getting strafed by the Mississippi's finest. We cranked up the transistor radio, popped open some cold ones, and were happier than a couple of muskrats at a crawfish boil. People driving by stopped to stare, and our Garden District neighbors gave us dirty looks. I felt like white trash, and I didn't care.

Does that make me a bogan? I'm not sure yet. We'll deal with that shortly.

Anyway, every August and September we suffer through about six weeks of intolerable heat in addition to the death threats from unwelcome tropical visitors like Katrina and Ivan and Betsy and, yes, Edouard (audio link). We wait and wait until finally the light at the end of the tunnel arrives, and this is what it looks like: (CLICK HERE NOW.)

This year I've planned ahead and I'm beating the heat. I'll celebrate the third anniversary of Katrina on August 29 by waking up in an Australian bed for the very first time. And check this out: it will be WINTER. The seasons there run completely opposite to ours. Australia is the perfect accommodation for my backwards life (3rd post). On any given night in New Orleans, when I get off work from the bar at 2:30 a.m., my future in-laws are also clocking out. For them, however, it's 5:00 p.m. the next day. This makes long-distance communication a little bit simpler. I'm already on an Australian sleep schedule.

As it turns out, my return flight from Australia will land in New Orleans on Sept. 11, within five minutes of the exact seven-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks . It's another of those unplanned quinky-dinks (14th post)--my own personal National Disasters Holiday/ Getaway. That reminds me. I need to finish inventorying my personal property for my renter's insurance policy in case my pad gets looted while I'm away.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Bogan Wonderland)

it looks like this. . .

2008-08-07T20:06:00.010-05:00

Thats' why when the Saints lose, it's so depressing. It's an insult upon injury.

To continue to the next post, click here: (Hurrication Evacuation)

vid footage to accompany post

2008-08-06T16:23:00.011-05:00

Chef Scary

2008-08-05T21:13:00.011-05:00

(continued from post #14 : Click: "A storm's a' comin'")

Chef Scary's rhetorical squalling is likely directed toward me, but I learned long ago to just ignore his outburts. He has his own special form of Tourette's syndrome that, like diabetes or lung cancer, he has induced by years of hard living. In a town full of degenerates and lowlifes, Scary is a special kind of zombie.

The stories that detail his personal life are too vile to repeat. In his current public persona, he is the old guy sitting on the barstool six feet away drinking Coke, smoking cigarettes, and looking like Captain Kangaroo on crack. He twitches and squints and sits quietly until his inner pot starts to boil and he begins his rants. He carps about the weather. He gripes about the bus schedule. He croaks about his ailments, and he bemoans his constant cash flow shortage.

Scary comes to work two hours early every day to sit at the corner of the bar and perform this tired ritual. I guess in his own weird way he is finding his center. Fortunately, I am only working a daytime shift today as a favor to my boss. I remember a couple summers ago I was covering a similar shift when Scary arrived 31/2 hours before his regular shift. I asked him why he was gracing me with his presence so early, and he mumbled, "I'm on vacation, brah."

"What brings you to your place of employment on a holiday, Scary?"

"Chattabox, brah," he grunted matter-of-factly, flashing a shrug and a weak smile.

The Chatterbox is the hotel's employee cafeteria where half-warmed pans of yesterdays leftovers are strewn out for only the most desperate and destitute hotel staffers. Why Scary makes the 5-mile trek via public transportation downtown so he can indulge in this culinary nightmare on his day off is a function of his depravity that only he can truly understand. Oh, the secrets a man locks away in his heart.

If he could manage to stock his own kitchen, Scary would do well for himself. He is not technically a chef, but with over 20 years of service under his belt, he is one of the longest-serving hotel employees and one of the most reliable line cooks you'll ever find. During Katrina, while the rest of the city starved and drowned and bled, he bunkered down in the back kitchen with all the provisions he could muster. For the next six weeks the city was on lockdown and Scary was an Iron Chef, single-handedly feeding thousands of emergency personnel as well as the rest of the staff and stranded guests.

For his diligence and perseverance in the line of fire, Scary was duly rewarded with a huge bonus check when all the smoke had cleared. Sadly, within a couple of days, all of the funcioning video poker machines on the block were flush with cash and Chef Scary was back to bumming two dollars for the bus.

To continue to the next blog post, click: not yet posted

A Storm's a Comin'

2008-08-04T23:49:00.019-05:00

"A storm's 'a comin'. A storm's a comin', bay-beh!" Dirk bops through the corner of my empty bar on his way out to the street for a smoke break. A bit of an old maid, he sounds like the Creole ladies who work at Mother's diner over on Poydras Street. The slang and cadence of Nwaaarhlins-speak is infectious and pervasive throughout all the social strata here. "Where y'at?" "I'm 'a holla atcha." "Yeah you right." Just those three can be heard hundreds of times a night even among the bluebloods. Whereas Australia is a country with its own English slang (see link: post #4), New Orleans is a city with its own unique lingo.

Dirk has been working inside the hotel all morning, and this is his first look at the storm brewing above the city. Under a darkening midday sky, the palm trees across the street are curtsying and doing a hand jive in the skittering flurry. Occasionally they pause and rest while a light sheet of rain blankets Bourbon Street. Once the spray stops, the trees re-commence their rain dance.

The storm's name is Edouard--the first tropical storm of the season to head in our general direction. Not Edward, which sounds benign enough, or even the swarthier Eduardo. "Ay-twar." Check out the pronunciation: (click on: audio link). It's a French name, like the painter Manet. In New Orleans we are quite familiar with French things. We may not pronounce them right, but we are definitely not threatened by them.

As a matter of fact, I don't think I can say "Edouard" properly without pinching my thumb against the tips of my fingers and, with gusto, releasing imaginary fairy dust into the air as the vowels are emancipated from my lips.

I am doing the crossword and waiting for Dirk to pass back through so I can razz him for getting edgy over such an effete weather disturbance. Instead, Chef Scary shambles into the room and sits two seats down from me on the sipping side of the bar. I nod and try to inhale the last few moments of relative peace. "A Rainy Night in Georgia" is floating down from the speakers on the wall. The music on cable radio is programmed days in advance by computers, but it always seems like songs about rain come on when it is raining. "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head." "Riders on the Storm." You name it.

I don't know if those corporate computers factor the weather report into their programming or if it's just one of those quinky-dinks of the Truman Show that is my life. It's like the fact that at least two times out of three, when I look at a watch or a clock, the digits will all be the same. For example, 5:55 p.m. 1:11 a.m. Hmmm. Let's see. Sure enough. It's 2:22. Gotta love it.

Suddenly, my reverie is broken. "HOW THE ----- DOES HE KNOW IT'S RAINING?!!!" Scary caterwauls.

To continue to the next blog post, click: (Chef Scary)

TALL POPPY SYNDROME

2008-08-02T16:08:00.009-05:00

In 2004 the boxing kangaroo came out of semi-retirement to replace Willy the koala bear as Australia's Olympic mascot. His personality profile explained: "The boxing kangaroo has a huge amount of self-confidence and epitomises the Australian fighting spirit. [But] he's not a lout, nor is he aggressive or arrogant. He is, however, assertive when it comes to defending his country's honour." (smh.com.au)

I've heard Jo (link) refer to this underdog spirit when talking about the Australian attitude before. She calls it "tall poppy syndrome." Usually it comes up when she deals a dirty little blow to my ego, and then shrugs and explains, "Tall poppies, you know. . . We gotta cut 'em down." According to Wikipedia, the phrase denotes "the ordinary Australia's lack of respect for wealth, power and assorted pretensions. This social leveling attitude went hand in hand with belief in concepts such as giving everyone a 'a fair go.'" (Wikipedia)

Here in Louisiana we have the Angola Prison Rodeo, where the most violent of our murdering and raping set put themselves at the mercy of angry bulls. With virtually no rodeo experience or preparation, they dance a crazy tango with 2,000 pound beasts for a chance to win fifty bucks. (NY Times article)

But it's more than that. The convicts get to, if only for a brief moment in their wasted lives, don the robes of the noble underdog and be a hero. In all likelihood, the throngs of screaming spectators harbor neither adoration nor pity for the animals or the convicts. Why do they fill the bleachers every Sunday in October? To root for the underdog and watch a great spectacle. A documentary titled "Six Seconds of Glory" has been made about this event.(post #2)
Oddly enough, six seconds is about how long the poor boxer lasted in the ring against the roo in the original video clip I posted in Chapter One. (post #1)
The kangaroos may suffer the indignities of circus clowns, annoying zoo audiences, heartless industrialists, and hot-tempered dog owners. But all that fades away when Skippy delivers his left hook and knocks the Tall Poppy down. It's his one shining moment.

Every dog has its day.
(Just not necessarily when he is tangling with a kangaroo.)
So I'm off to Australia. . .to root for the underdog and to watch a great spectacle.

--AS A POSTSCRIPT,
let me offer a few words of advice for some of our new friends. I guess I'm just feeling generous.

Theo Rosmulder, (11th post) if you're reading this: If you ever decide to give up your gold rushing fantasies and return to the world of termite extermination, why not open your own outfit? I think we all know what your business model would be. But how about this for a slogan: "If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em." Huh? Huh? Talk about personal service. . .

Devin Funck, (12th post) I read in the paper today that the surgeons couldn't re-connect your arm. Sorry to hear about that. But hey, maybe it wasn't even yours anyway. You think this was the first time Big Joe ever got tired of eating sushi for lunch? He didn't become BIG Joe by accident. I know you miss your PlayStation, but why not ask for a Nintendo Wii for Christmas? You only need one hand to play the games in the Wii Sports pack that comes with the system. Well, except for the boxing. But let's leave the boxing to the Australians anyway, OK?

Which brings us to Joe (9th post) I don't know your last name because evidently it is not being reported in the press. That's a good thing. We'll just call you Joe Blow. Ha. Oh, wait a minute, I've got one even better. Joe Boxer. How 'bout you just lay low and stop giving those radio interviews. We don't care how big and mean that roo was that you smacked down. We like kangaroos and that's final. And leave bald eagles alone too, please. Maybe you could make some money doing one of these ads for K-mart:

NOTE @ VIDEO CLIP:
I noticed that YouTube has removed the six-second video clip I posted in Post #1 to kick off this blog. I have posted a new link to another similar clip, albeit from a movie. That clip can be found in post #1 now as well as in the "Previous Videos" video player at the bottom of the web page. It is: Boxing Kangaroo on the Silver Screen

To continue to the next post, click here: (A Storm's a' Comin')

Big Joe Don't Play

2008-08-01T05:30:00.013-05:00

What in the world is going on? No sooner have I dealt with the issue of Australians having afternoon slugfests with kangaroos and all-you-can-eat buffets with termites, than here comes this headline right out of my own backyard: "Boy's arm cut from gator's belly." An 11-year old boy named Devin Funck goes swimming in his neighborhood pond in a New Orleans suburb and gets attacked by a 500-pound crocodile named Big Joe. Big Joe bites Devin's left arm completely off and swims away. As Devin is rushed to the hospital, authorities start combing the pond for the perpetrator. A couple hours later, they hunt him down and kill him.

Is my online treatment on the oddities of the food chain somehow interfering with the natural order of things and disrupting a cosmic balance? Or has "Fear Factor" brought the era of the gladiator back into vogue? Who knows? Maybe this is just more of what Cole Porter warned us about in "Anything Goes." At any rate, two elements of today's story bear particular mention.

First, the good news. Upon bringing Big Joe to justice, the sheriff's deputy sliced him open and, lo and behold, there was Devin's arm, fully intact inside the gator's belly. Knowing that Devin's arm still had a chance, the deputy threw it into an ice chest and rushed it to the hospital. As I am writing, surgeons are now working at Ochsner Medical Center to reattach the arm to its rightful owner. Maybe the deputy's heroics can be attributed to keen foresight and emergency management expertise. Or maybe he remembered the story of John and Lorena Bobbitt and just happened to have a six-pack cooling in the back seat of his squad car . Either way, he became a hero yesterday.

Now back to the bad news. Devin is, after all, in critical condition. His aunt was interviewed as he went into surgery. "You hear about this happening, but you never think it's going to happen to someone you know," she said. Ahhh, the inevitable question: Why? As humans, it is in our nature to search for explanations in times of tragedy.

One thing is for sure. It's way more likely for this to happen to Devin than, let's say, someone who doesn't regularly swim in a alligator-infested lake. Someone who doesn't know a living, monstrous dinosaur on a first-name basis. Someone like me. At least that's what I'm hoping. There is no amount of first-aid medication I can pack for my Australia trip that will realistically address accidental amputations. Devin's mother acknowledged that there are alligators in all the canals and ponds around their neighborhood. According to 15-year old P.G. Borkowski, who swims in the same lake every day in the summer, "The gators never bother us; they just swim around and live in holes deep at the bottom." After the incident, Devin's first words to his mother were, "How am I going to play my Playstation now?"

I don't want to accuse this poor kid of not being particularly bright, but who SWIMS WITH CROCODILES? Oh, that's right, Steve Irwin. Past tense. Maybe there's some kind of Aussie/American connection here. I mean, at least old Theo went plunging into the termite pile out of sheer necessity. And Joe, the kangaroo killer, is casting himself as the victim of epic battle with a vicious seven-foot roo. (Source) At the very least, he was trying to defend his dog.

Or was he? It appears a lot of people don't really want to believe Joe's story. Never mind the massive gash across Joe's face or everything we know about the brutal capabilities of kanga-kickboxing. A woman who heard but did not see much of the bout went on the radio this week offering a more conspiratorial version of events. For her story, click here.

Folks don't like to think of kangaroos being ruthless or out of line. Several of you have e-mailed me notes commenting how docile kangaroos are, or that you think you could out-box a roo . If there is anything to be learned from nature's engagements this week, I think it is this: when humans or animals are taken out the confines of their normal, comfortable interactions (or non-interactions) with other species, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN, and violent outcomes are likely.

To continue to the next post, click here: Tall Poppy Syndrome

MAN vs. NATURE III: Finger Lickin' Good

2008-07-30T11:15:00.013-05:00

Pop quiz, hotshot. You're been lost in the Outback for days, teetering under the merciless glare of the sun. Dehydration has taken the stage to warm up the crowd for tonight's featured attraction, Rigor Mortis. Armed with only your flashlight and pocketknife, you try to jog your memory. . . what would the early explorers in Australia have done?

Oh, wait a minute. I forgot something. You also have your metal detector. That's what got you into this mess in the first place. You had decided to spit in the face of modern convention and instead indulge in the most time-honored of traditions--a gold-mining vacation into the desert.

Anyway, how have others managed to survive in these most God-forsaken of circumstances? The most primal and worst-case scenarios come to mind. . . cannibalism. . . drinking your own. . . well, you know what I mean. You've read about that stuff. But not even those treats are available at this point. Death is nigh and you almost hope for some otherworldly prehistoric-looking beast to come along and devour you to end the suffering.

Let me interrupt myself for a moment by assuring you that this blog is NOT sponsored by the Discovery Channel. It is NOT part of the Steve Irwin Corporation, Biology 101, or any other institution that is trying to educate people or instill a love for nature in general. My intention with these posts is to chronicle my own personal discovery of a new continent and a new culture.

In less than a month I will be Down Under for a two week jaunt. Right now I am trying to get prepared so I can have the most interesting and meaningful visit possible. I will be spending the rest of my life with an Australian, and this is my crash course for the world she comes from and a glimpse of what living in Australia might be like.

That being said, I realize that in the last couple posts I may have started sounding like a zookeeper. After "Odoriferous Gangstas," my plan was to do a third and final "Man vs. Nature" entry that would address more philosophically what I mean by my notion of the Kangaroo Rodeo. Then, hopefully, I would move along to some captivating cultural issues as well as my thoughts and plans for the trip itself. I have postponed that agenda in light of gnarly events that you may have read about in the paper earlier this morning. . .

So please, come along with me. Let's return to the wild and wooly world of nature, exotic animals and humanity's battle for survival. Let's go Outback to-niiiight. . .
Before the party's o-o-ver. . .
Ha. Now you've got the jingle stuck in your head too (you Americans know what I mean). Alright. How's this for a solution to your wilderness predicament--YOU BURY YOUR HEAD IN A FECAL-RIDDEN CLAY MOUND THE SIZE OF A GARBAGE DUMPSTER AND FEAST ON LIVE TERMITES!!! That's what Theo Rosmulder did over the weekend while you were out drinking martinis and
that guy in Templestowe Park was giving a kangaroo a bare-knuckled beating. (Link: 9th post)
How do I know this, you ask? Am I a complete nerd? Well, like I said before, I guess I was looking for trouble on Monday when I typed "kangaroo" into my Google Search box. This morning was a different story. I had just returned from biking down to the St. Charles Taven for a chicken and shrimp salad. I would have preferred to save the money and eat at home, but it was 5:30 a.m. and I didn't want to wake my roommate or neighbors by clanging around in the kitchen. I sat down on my bed to check my e-mail, and there it was on top of my Yahoo browser screen--one of the top five stories of the day: "Pest exterminator survives on bugs." (Source: AP, by Kristen Gelineau) HA HA Ha Ha Ha! That's right. I'm laughing out loud. Did you read that? Theo is a former Pest EXTERMINATOR. Now that's one way to do it. Theo goes on to describe his termite souffle as if he were a 4 year-old burying his face in a chocolate cake: "I just hit the top of a termite nest off and got stuck into them."

You know me. I had to know more. I know now that people have been punching kangaroos for a long time, but have they been eating termites as well? A' searching I went. And what did I find? They have indeed. You betcha. Aardvarks, anteaters, gorillas, and HUMANS--they all eat termites . Or at least some of them do. Over in Africa. And now, evidently, Australia. What a sheltered life I still have. To think, I had left perfectly good boneless turkey in my fridge that I was scared to eat because of the NOISE I might make.

One final and even more disturbing note--if you enter "humans eating termites" as a search term, you may come across an article about human-eating termites. . . ravenous flesh-eating termites that can devour human beings.

To continue to the next post, click here: Big Joe Don't Play

MAN vs. NATURE II: Odoriferous Gangstas

2008-07-28T02:53:00.028-05:00

(cont'd from Part I in the 9th Post)
To go back and read Part I, click on this link:PART I: BAD NEWS FROM RANGER RICK

Kangaroos actually fight the same way as your regular old human whackers. They push and shove and try to look tough, usually to impress the ladies. But actual boxing--that's a stretch. About a foot long stretch. Their arms are tiny in proportion to the rest of their body. It's their legs that are powerful. The big roos can bound at speeds over forty miles an hour. They can leap over basketball goals. And they can drop kick you like Jesus through the goal posts of life. (Bobby Bare: Greatest Hits) The crazy thing is that they actually expend less energy the faster they are moving. Their frame design does not allow them to maneuver well slowly and they cannot walk backwards. Actually they can''t really walk frontwards either. Using their tail as a tripod, they lower their arms to the ground and sort of hop/crawl forward with their legs. All they really want to do is jump.

As demonstrated in the "Killer Willard" video, boxing a kangaroo is like boxing a very drunk person from a town where too many people are related. I don't mean to single anyone out here, but when I visited Lafayette, Louisiana a couple summers ago, I saw more than 3 people with more than 10 toes a piece. But they were making some beautiful music and breeding some pretty ladies. So there you go. Everyone has their fortes. The only case of a fatal kangaroo attack was in 1936 when a hunter was trying to . . . guess what? Rescue his dogs. (This might be a good place for one of those notes to self.)

So why do kangaroos have it out for dogs? Thank the dingoes for that.
Wild and wolfish, they are Australia's only native dogs. For thousands of years they have been hunting kangaroos and they can be some mean little puppies. Consider this: the dingo is largely blamed for the extinction of the Tasmanian Tiger on mainland Australia. Wow wo wee wow. The closest living relative of the Tazzy is the Tasmanian Devil.

Now from time to time you hear about the dingoes threatening the survival of the kangaroos. But then you hear about how the kangaroos are threatening the grasslands. I don't know if the grasslands are threatening anything, but there are quite a few "Save the Dingoes" websites. Rah rah rah. Wank wank wank. My money's on the kangaroos. From what I've read, the kangaroos have quite a system for survival. They may not be able to walk a straight line if a cop pulls them over, but they drive fast and fight dirty.

If a kangaroo is forced to rumble, he may not have the wingspan to punch you, but be forewarned: he is packing heat. Remember, he is part of the Cosa Nostra. And he is a martial artist. Think back-alley kickboxer with a switchblade. With his sharpened toenails, he defends himself by disemboweling his opponent. Look at the claws of the kangaroo that got KO'd in the park on Friday. This dude can't punch, but if he gets ready to lean back on that go-go-gadget tail and heave both his Freddy Krueger hind legs in your direction, it's time to cry uncle. Oh yes. Granny is waiting for you in the closet with a baseball bat. Something tells me those boxing circus clowns were stocked up on toenail clippers.

Oh, one more resume-booster. Not only is the kangaroo a speedy survivalist, an Olympic high-jumper, and an ultimate-fighting ninja who can dice you up faster than Emeril Lagasse can cut an onion, . . .
(all you "globally conscious" folks out there are gonna get real turned on by this one). . . he is a vegetarian and his farts don't stink. I'm not lying. Thanks to a special stomach bacteria, kangaroo flatulence emits no methane. Compare this to other livestock, whose rotten methane bombs cause a greenhouse gas effect 23 times greater than carbon dioxide. (Source: theage.com.au) The putrid gasesous emissions of sheep cause up to 50% of New Zealand's global warming. Yuck.

I know what you are thinking. I've heard it before. Word has already leaked out. Maybe the scientists are lying to us. You know, you can never trust those scientists. Maybe the kangaroos are eating red beans and rice, effectuating colossal silent eruptions that generate their fantastic leaps, and then blaming nearby cows. Hey, I would say to that kangaroo what the Australians say. "Good on ya' mate." You gotta love a kangaroo with a sense of humor.

To continue to the next blog post, click: Part III: Finger Lickin' Good

MAN vs. NATURE I: Bad News from Ranger Rick

2008-07-28T00:49:00.062-05:00

So last night I decided to do a Google Search on "kangaroo" to see if there was any evidence of anyone ever riding a kangaroo. I realize that you Aussies think we Yanks are oafish for harboring such crazy notions, but bear in mind the difference in our cultural programming. You grew up with Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, while we grew up with images like this one:

Evidently there are two basic kinds of kangaroo--the big red ones like Scooby Race Roo, and the smaller grey ones like Skippy, who was basically an Australian version of Lassie. Although scientists do speak of ginormous prehistoric kangaroos, I found no mention of documented roo-riding.

What I did find was a recent news headline, which, like most news, was tragic. And fascinating. This weekend in a park on the northeast suburbs of Melbourne, a man punched a kangaroo to death.

Mannington Leader article 2008/07/25

That's right, according to the Mannington Leader newspaper, he "repeatedly punched the kangaroo until it died." After the melee had ended, rueful (pun intended) folks from the neighborhood laid flowers on the dead animal. Ranger Rick Young said people need to "respect nature and keep a safe distance from the animals."

Why did this happen? Kangaroos are not generally considered a threat to humans, unless they jump in front of a car on the highway. Besides, I read that the red kangaroos that grow to over six feet tall are usually found in the more central desert regions. Ranger Rick's roo was typical of the small Western Grey kangaroos that can be found in Victoria and South Australia. It turns out that the man was trying to rescue his dog, which had jumped out of the car to go chase a mob of kangaroos hopping through the park. That's right, that's the technical term, like a flock of seagulls or a murder of crows. Or a lamentation of swans, or a blessing of unicorns. Hey, I didn't make up these names.

Dumb dog. Then again, isn't that a dog up there riding the Race Roo? Figures. Well, the owner ended up in a fight for his own life, and lucky for him, he had seen Rocky V (is that the good one?). Or maybe he remembered the Mighty Boosh episode where push came to shove in the ring with a roo. (Mighty Boosh: Boxing Practice)

This urban warrior was not, of course, the first human to go to blows with a kangaroo. For most of the twentieth century, boxing kangaroos were a staple of carnivals and circuses in America and elsewhere. It seems, however, that nobody ever took the time to tell the animals what they were supposed to do. Maybe it fell upon the boxing clown to train his opponent. You know how busy clowns can be. In 1966 Woody Allen went to London and got in the ring with an outback kangaroo for a variety show. The kangaroo seemed mellow and uninterested. Maybe he was stoned like everybody else in the 60's. Or maybe he didn't exactly feel challenged by the scrawny young comedian with the baggy shorts and geeky horn-rimmed glasses.
At any rate, he decided to go after the referee instead, knocking him to the mat with a swift hook to the testicles. Predictably, Woody went running for cover.

In October of the same year U.S. President Lyndon Johnson visited Australia. He urged Robert Donovan, an American reporter in his entourage, to box a kangaroo. In his book, Boxing the Kangaroo: A Reporter's Memoir, Donovan explains how kangaroos fight:

"He was not a puncher, which might have hurt an opponent, but a pusher. To my surprise, each of his arms was only about 12 inches long. He could not, as far as I could observe, protect his jaw, but neither could his boxing gloves hit my jaw. Since this was supposed to be a boxing match, I tapped his nose a couple of times. He just kept pumping up with his glove, against mine, pushing me backward. I had no intention of punching his defenseless face. I rather liked the old boy, who kept pushing his nose toward mine in the manner of Lyndon Johnson's famous 'treatment' of shoving his nose toward another man's as a way to dominate him."

(For a good example of this,check out "Killer Willard:"

TO CONTINUE on TO PART II, click here: "ODORIFEROUS GANGSTAS:" (10th Post)

V-LOG and Video ARCHIVE

2008-07-27T06:04:00.004-05:00

TERRY

2008-07-25T07:31:00.017-05:00

"Well, we're catching up with you on that one," I piped in.
"Yeah, you're gettin' there, aren'tcha" he grinned. He was enjoying himself and his money the way I do when I go south of the border. "

I stuck out my hand. "I'm Matt.""Terry," he said.

"Just like Florida," he warned, wrinkling his nose. "Go to Tasmania. It's beautiful--the most underrated part of Australia. And they've got parts of it where, still, no one's ever been."

"No, I don't know of that one."

"Well, you've gotta watch that. It will give you a good insight into the errrr....psyche...of Australians."

"Is it a documentary or a regular movie?" I inquired.

"Regular movie, he replied."

>

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:Bad News from Ranger Rick

On PILLAGING

2008-07-24T00:32:00.010-05:00

Talking to an Australian should be an easy thing for me to do. Four months ago my Australian girlfriend Jo bought me an airline ticket to come visit her on her continent for three weeks beginning in late August. She told me it was an early birthday present and that she had found a really good deal online that required quick action. I considered this quite a gift since my birthday would not arrive until October. Furthermore, an airline ticket from New Orleans to Adelaide, Australia actually entails five different connecting flights each way. Plus, Jo wanted to do some sightseeing once in Australia that would require more flying, since nothing in Australia is very close to anything else.

My travelers' karma is good, but it's not that good, and I knew that her gift was partly her way of letting me know that she was serious enough about our trans-continental relationship to take it to the next level. As it turned out, I was one step ahead of the game as I had already purchased a diamond ring and was busy plotting a scheme to drag her out of state for a surprise proposal. A couple weeks later, we jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 14,000 feet over Rosharon, Texas, and when we hit the ground, I popped the question.

And here we are.

But despite the fact that I've been talking to an Australian every day for almost a year now, I was a bit hesitant to pursue any more chit chat with the man in the Jazz Fest shirt. The imminence of my trip and my wedding have suddenly made me a little self-conscious. It's not that I'm nervous around foreigners. I love learning about different cultures and I feel outgoing and alive when traveling abroad. In my experiences and exchanges with Australians in particular over the years, I have always found them to be of the most laid-back and receptive nature. This is likely because they travel so much and because they share so many cultural similarities with Americans.

Going to a new country as a fiancee is a whole new ball of wax. I am no longer a university student abroad, opening my mind to a more global point of view. I am not an American consumer abroad, shielded by the power of the once-almighty American dollar. I am a Turk, come to take away something beautiful. And there is nothing that a human being will throw off his shirt to fight for more quickly than a beautiful woman. Even if we return to the Land Down Under to live a few years from now, my identity will always be that of a foreigner. Will I fit in there? I'll have to learn the rules of strange new sports. I'll have to learn a whole new national history. And I will be the one talking funny. (Of course, being from North Carolina does give me some preparation for that ritual).

All these thoughts were swimming through my head, and suddenly I felt an obligation to be some sort of larger-than-life multicultural superhero. I had to be someone so wise and so worldly and so irresistible that no Australian in his right mind could possibly accuse me of barbarism, abduction, or cultural perpetration.

I was not up to the challenge. This was, after all, my Friday. All I had to do was get through this shift. Why lay myself at the mercy of this man to be scrutinized, tested, and absolved? Besides, he hadn't shown me any signs that he was going to make this easy. He had ignored my feeble attempt at idle chatter just as I would have done were I off the clock. Better that he passed me off as uninterested or even uninteresting. I busied myself with putting glasses in the dishwasher and then headed back in the direction of Special Agent Monsieur Mullet. His glass was empty and I asked him, "Can I get you anything else?" with all the empathy of a hospital nurse who has just given you two shots of morphine, brought you lunch, handed you the TV remote and a stack of magazines, and is about to finish her shift.

He looked at me hard, pondering whether I had the patience to put up with another round of his yammering or if I would just walk away like last time. He turned to his wife. "Honey, do you want anything else?"
"Oh no." The words were out of her mouth before he could even finish.
"So you're ready to go?"
Silence.
But she made the slightest little puppy dog face that indicated her eagerness to go do her makeup, or trim her toenails, or somehow carve out a little peace and quiet in her day. I guess when you have the luxury and security of being married to James Bond, you learn to be coy and keep your opinions to yourself. And so the mullet lives on.

TO CONTINUE on to the next post, click here:Terry