gerard ... or ... buddy?On Friday morning, the eaglet was plonked on the living room floor with one of his favourite pop up dinosaur books. This one is top shelf. (There are many, of varying calibres.) Out of the blue, I was reminded that the eaglet can get a fright, that causes him to unleash the shrillest scream, just from coming face to face with the 3D t-rex which emerges from page 11. This even though he’s seen it a good few dozen times.
Repetition doesn’t seem to nullify things for some. But I don’t handle it nearly as well. This year, adult life has taken on a repetitiousness that perhaps we assume we are destined for in growing up, having bills and children, cars whose tyres flatten, tasks and storage and proper jobs. I wouldn’t call it a flatline (yet), just lacking in deviations. I don’t handle it well.
It may come partly from growing up between two cultures and countries, frequent childhood travel and the always present obligation to be on both sides of the world. It may come from living under the flight path – constant reminders of my submerged wanderlust as the jumbos carve up the airspace above our hills hoist. It may be – as is often the case – the book I am currently taking to bed. I’ve been reading Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates, that great chronicler of mid 20th century American middle class lives and, more often than not, their disappointments.
I was talking to Gai about it shortly after the dinosaur incident. On the mundanity and repetition, she said, while possibly biting the inside of her cheek, ‘You just have to be zen about it.’ She’s right of course. [I wonder if Brad Johnson is managing to feel zen, after the repetition of his Round 9 after-the-siren miss – two in two seasons!]
But, then again, it was Friday night. But not any old Friday night. It was round 9 – blackfella round. A far easier solution than zen. Flick on the ABC and seek out some proxy highs. We’ve seen the Indigenous fellas play a good few dozen times but somehow their impact can still ignite my imagination just like the great carnivore that had the eaglet in a spin.
The Indigenous contribution is difficult to address without suggestions of exoticism or reverse racism. Adam Goodes collected some criticism when he wrote, on the 150th anniversary of the game last year, that the Indigenous boys were ‘born to play’. As if by association he had suggested the white boys weren’t. He didn’t. But the blackfellas do appear to be born to play. There, I’ve said it.
Over the course of last weekend, my imagination was thoroughly peppered by the skills of the best of the 82 Indigenous players in the League: Neon Leon Davis, Andrew Lovett, Magic O’Loughlin, Andrew McLeod, Motlop, Pearce, Wells, Betts, Bateman, Rioli … the return of Docker Des Headland and the beginning of Docker Hill. The list goes on and on. There is no doubt that they offer real dash and carry, biting side steps and dummies, a bit of twinkle and spin, a bit of cheek in their daring, a kind of rhythm in their bio mechanics that seems almost syncopated at times, when they need it to be. They bedazzle.
Martin Flanagan described some of the Bombers’ moves against St Kilda in the Age on Saturday:
‘They have Alwyn Davey. Did you see the "swoop" when he took the ball at his ankles while running at helter-skelter pace through a crowd of players in last Sunday's game? Or that other move, the backward sway with the old soft-shoe shuffle, that sent not one but two St Kilda defenders shooting past like people on a train who just missed their stop? Commentator Gerard Healey said it was one of the best sidesteps you'll see in footy.’They are a delight to watch cause you know you’re going to get a bit of the t-rex factor. It’s unpredictable even though you’ve seen it before. Short and sweet – like many an Indigenous forward pocket – they’ve got something special. There, I said it. And I thank them for my weekend piece of it.
Undoubtedly, the highest of the highs of the round for me was the pride on display. How many of those Indigenous players actually said that they wanted to perform extra feats for this round? And they walked the talk. How many of them were encouraged to express their pride and an awareness of their supreme skills? How refreshing for this rightful cockiness to be unswaddled from a sense that we all have to be equal in order to be equal, no highs and no lows. That ain’t what made old t-rex so impressive.
There haven’t been any dinosaur books this week. Omar spent Sunday, Monday and Tuesday mornings in the back garden doing his ‘morning Motlops’. He has spent Monday and Tuesday afternoons, a little white boy in the suburbs, being Wirrapanda and Goodes and Lovett and Magic – it always comes back to Mickey. He knows the way to his mother’s heart. I must remind him of Gavin Wanganeen.
And just to prove that I am not guilty of exoticism, that I have not completely succumbed to the stereotypical white girl fantasy of the black male, I am extending my understanding of the tolerance and diversity message and revealing my real crush of the round.
I am ready to admit, this week, my ‘fondness’ for Gerard Whateley.
He is the opposite of your Nathan Lovett-Murray, the opposite of your Lance Buddy Franklin, the opposite of your Aaron Davey. He is the anchor of ABC Grandstand’s football commentary team. He is the small, pale man with a beak of a nose, who wears purple and pink striped shirts, brown shoes with grey pants, coifs his hair into a spiked arrangement to conceal the beginning of baldness and speaks with the nasal twang of a private schoolgirl. He may not have emanated the same feats as Travis Varcoe on Friday night, but he was the man who called a pass between Bulldogs Cross and Hahn – ‘the accidental perfect pass’. I am easily charmed by a man who is good with words. Even thrilled.
Happy tipping!
doing his motlops ...
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