Cameron Smith Making Me Say Wow Now

The Storm.

Sons of bitches know how to win a grand final.

What the hell kind of performance was that?

I don’t know. And critiquing high-caliber, clinical playing is not my forte what with the Raiders thing, you know…but I liked it, I loved it.  

It felt like a grand final. Last year’s was such an interminable affair that the only thing I can recall is Steve Matai’s bison- like head getting opened up right above the eye, a big scoop-n-split that sent blood flowing artfully down his face. Other than that I got nothing and I’m none the poorer for it. Let’s move on. Back to Sunday. To headier times.

To Joey Johns THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD behaving adorably even when ESPECIALLY WHEN being dispatched from a Blackhawk helicopter, fleeing from the Apocalypse Now-esque blade situation and fighting his way through the hurricane-strength wind that looked for all the world like it was going to tear away his suit pants and jacket in a spectacular wardrobe malfunction.

Speaking of tear-away pants how is this seedy photo of Channing Tatum from back when he was a stripper?

Anyway, the game.   

There was a good stink that caused Gus Gould to employ the words ‘brouhaha’, ‘melee’ and ‘fracas’, as well as the phrases ‘an allegation of biting’ and ‘they’re not exchanging Christmas cards’.

What he didn’t say was words to the effect of

“Allow me to give you a brief lesson in the human condition. Humans are about 70% water, and the rest is all guts, bone and minerals. But, although we are a highly evolved animal, we sometimes experience slippage and revert to raw savagery. James Graham appears to have suffered such a lapse by appearing to catch hold of Billy Slater’s ear with his teeth and appearing to tug at it with a good amount of force and barbarism.”

He didn’t have to say it. The implication was clearly there.   

There was the Storm being as clinical and cold of heart as ever. It would have been a harrowing, harrowing experience for Dogs supporters. They just didn’t get a goddam look in. Ever. It even depressed me for twenty minutes or so before I pulled myself together enough to revel in the splendour of the Storm and the stricken looks of the blue-and-white-wearing crowd as the experience became increasingly unbearable. Poor bastards. In football we try to grasp a feeling outside of ourselves and our tarnished existences. This is preposterous because very few of us, proportionally, follow a winning team. In reality, football, like life itself, is mostly about endurance and suffering.

Aside from or in spite of the cruel and awful nature of existence from which there is no escape outside of death my wish-list from a previous post was pretty well fulfilled. I take satisfaction from this, because if not this then what?..

1.Craig Bellamy got the Gatorade dumped on him. From behind. He shook his fist and grinned and looked a.) a bit like Mickey Rourke and b.) like he wanted to crash-tackle the culprits and grind them playfully into the ground. He looks so fun, what with his air of salaciousness. I would love to get loaded with him.  

- ‘Insiders’ who were at the Novotel after the game reported that Bellamy “was merrier” than any time they could remember, and that Billy Slater had “forgotten the bitten ear”.

2.Cameron Smith looked happy and relieved and gave a rousing, statesman-like speech. How can he be so laconic and so slick at the same time? He’s terribly talented. Authentic, too. This is where Cooper Cronk is lacking. His Clive Churchill medal acceptance speech sounded totally computer generated. When he addressed the team with a stilted “and to the playing group – you are my mates” it sounded exactly like those drooling aliens on The Simpsons when they had designs on becoming president and tried to talk as earthlings would.    

Anyway, Cameron Smith impressed me deeply and I really haven’t shaken off the sensation and it’s a little disconcerting but really, how good is he? Very, is the inevitable and undeniable answer. Very.

“I’ve been asked a few times whether this one would be sweeter,” Smith said after the game. “I guess there’s a small spot that says yes.”

Metallica Song Dedications For Rabbitoh Players

Damage Inc.  – Greg Inglis

Overkill – Adam Reynolds

Blitzkrieg – Michael Crocker

My World – Greg Inglis

Battery – Ben Lowe

King Nothing – John Sutton

Wherever I May Roam – Greg Inglis

Crash Course in Brain Surgery – Sam Burgess

Bad Seed – Isaac Luke

Motor Breath – Chris McQueen

Fixxxer – Greg Inglis

Don’t Tread on Me – Nathan Merritt

Master of Puppets – Greg Inglis

Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth) – Eddie Pettybourne

So What – Shaune Corrigan

The Frayed Ends of Sanity – Roy Asotasi

Nothing Else Matters – Greg Inglis

Aint My Bitch – Luke Burgess

Whiplash – Nathan Peats

All Within My Hands – Greg Inglis

Invisible Kid - Andrew Everingham

Carpe Diem Baby – Dylan Farrell

Better Than You – Greg Inglis

Trapped Under Ice  - Jason Clark

Leper Messiah – David Tyrrel

Human – Justin Hunt

Some Kind of Monster – Dave Taylor

Die. Die My Darling - Greg Inglis

Hero(es) of the Day – Josh Dugan, Sandor Earl, Joel Thompson, Blake Feguson, Reece Robinson, Josh McCrone, Sam Williams, David Shillington, Glenn Buttriss, Dane Tilse, Josh Papalii, Joe Picker, Shaun Fensom, Shaun Berrigan, Jack Wighton, Mark Nicholls, Tom Learoyd-Lars, Jarrad Kennedy, Travis Waddell.

Welcome Home (Sanitarium) – Greg Inglis

Fade To Black – Greg Inglis.

This is Pretty Much All I've Done With My Life So Far

OhMama MY MIND. I’m going out of it.

I thought last weekend was bad. This is worse. But by worse I really mean better. Because obviously it’s fucking awesome and exciting and this week I have been as happy as I ever expect to be.

The tension, though, it takes a toll. I have an edgy nature and a diagnosed anxiety disorder and have carefully assembled my life in such a way so as to remove or negate as many extraneously stressful or disruptive elements as possible. Friends, for example.

Finals football is taking me right to the edge and I’ve also ramped up my coffee intake which has in turn ramped up the strength and duration of my facial twitches and people have been confined to their beds with leather straps for less or so I’m told but anyway it’s been great it’s been real.

((I’m just kidding about the facial twitching business. The majority of my twitching occurs when I eat big green feta-stuffed olives at Christmas time and it’s usually confined to one eye.))

After taking Monday off and giving serious consideration to not going in all week I showed up on Tuesday but warned my boss not to expect much too much as “It’s a big week for me.” He is used to my nonsense and he doesn’t ask questions, aside from the rhetorical ones he barks continuously (see several posts back). Like yesterday, noticing that I was extremely early “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU SHIT THE BED DID YOU” at a volume that suggested he was communicating from the midst of a roaring blizzard and not, you know, leaning into my car window and about fifteen centimetres away from my face.  

All week I have been slightly obsessed with Josh Young Bull Papalii. His fiery exchanges with Paul Gal took me completely by surprise. They also seemed to surprise and unnerve Gallen. Here is what The Young Bull said: “Furnsey just told me to look after Gallen out there, it was a big ask and I still can’t believe I finished it off. He’s real experienced and a real scary guy, too.”

Here is what the Old Bull said: “I don’t really care about Papalii, he hit a dog shot with a swinging arm, and once in the back without the ball. He was coming from the blindside a lot. He got me high and from the back, he did well the boy.”

I feel terrible for Gal and wish the Sharks could have made it through too so I can’t go to town on this too much. I’ve tried. What happens is I think of Gal giving the Origin losers speech this year and last, and Gal being interviewed after the Raiders knocked them out, and Gal finishing his eighth double scotch of the evening at home in Cronulla every night since Saturday like a character out of a Raymond Carver story, blankly staring into the middle distance and considering the irrevocable march toward middle age, early-onset arthritis, death, and the very real possibility that the Sharks may not win a premiership on his watch and perhaps anybody else’s watch either during his lifetime which is rapidly ticking down tick tick tick jesus christ it’s enough to make you sick it’s enough to make any man take to drink hmmm that reminds me look at that mine’s empty again ANN?? ANN!!!!!  

But, Papalii. He really did do well. Every item written about him mentions his soft voice, his shy nature, his gentle soul and his enormous appetite. All viable topics. But - and I can scarcely believe it myself - no one has addressed the enormity of his thighs. I don’t know. Perhaps – just a hunch - my priorities differ from other people’s. Someone complained that this blog had become increasingly “unnecessarily homoerotik (sic)” to which I said a. no homoerotika (sic) is unnecessary and b. are you familiar with rugby league at all hello?

I don’t think it matters what I write about the thighs. If your world view is anything like mine and you see the chilling dystopian landscape through a graphic, luridly perverted lens you will be mesmerised by the comically muscular thighs and the unfortunate cut of short from which said thighs burst forth from volcanically in the above photo and will find your eyes swiveling back there because you find the sight so attractively appalling.

His head is also hilarious. My brother says it reminds him of a totem pole. I say it looks like something you would see on Easter Island. Either way, it too is enormous, and awesome, obviously.  - *Automatic eyeball swivel* -  But sweet jesus those are some truly thick thighs!! Thicker than molasses. Thicker than thieves. Thicker than Trent Barrett. Not as thick as Mark Gasnier.

Issues My Brother and I Have Discussed This Week

A List of issues my brother and I have raised and discussed re. the Raiders Rabbits game over the course of the week, bearing in mind that every communication has ended with one or usually both of us sighing and murmuring “heady times”, “isn’t it exciting” or “I’M SO FUCKING EXCITED I WANT TO KICK SOMEONE IN THE SPINE”

1. Who will Josh Palalii who we now refer to only as The Young Bull be instructed to get on top of this time? Taylor? Or Crocker? We have decided that we hope it is Crocker. We hope he unsettles Crocker like he did Gallen, and causes him to blow whatever fuses are left in the burned-out back-lots of his brain, thereby earning him time in the sin-bin. This is highly likely.

2. Jack Boom is back! We love Jack Boom. We are happy for Jack Boom. We expect to see him come off the bench and inject exuberant youthful aggression into the game. Jack Boom!

3. What is Joe Picker doing in the starting lineup? He was in the game for the final fifteen minutes last week and had no touches and made no tackles. He was a ghost player, in other words. Joe Picker needs to step up “or it’s back to the Bega Roosters for him.” Joe Picker also needs a haircut. He looks like an extra, sex unspecified, from a Motley Crue video. Absurd.

4. Only two forwards are on the bench. We hope that is enough for the big men of Souths.

5. “The odds between Souths and Canberra are widening. You know what that means don’t you?” “No, what does it mean?” “Souths have a very large supporter base who like to have a punt…And they punt with their hearts, not their heads. In other words, it means they are stupid!”

6. Dugan will be goal kicker. We hope he has been practicing by day and by night, as well as visualising himself popping curling hooking and landing clean balls as he listens to Tupac and as he sleeps. We hope it doesn’t come down to a penalty kick ala 2010 Raiders Tigers ie. THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED AND A PART OF JARRED CROKER DID TOO. We hope someone else is practicing too, in case one of Dugan’s flimsy limbs malfunctions or is bent backwards and twisted like an allen-key by someone again like how Jeremy Smith did last week THAT DOG THIS IS THE REASON NODDY KIMMORLEY LAPSED INTO A REVERENTIAL TONE AND CALLED HIM “ONE OF THE GREATEST THUGS OF THE MODERN ERA” RECENTLY DON’T FUCK WITH BAMBI BITCH AND ANYWAY HAHA YOU’RE PLAYING FOR THE KNIGHTS NEXT YEAR LOL WHO?

7. Greg Inglis must be shut down. It is essential. If you feel this point needs further elaboration or embellishment, seek out Joey Johns.  

8. How much we hate Souths.

9. How much we hate Souths.

10. How much we hate Souths.

Paul Gallen Boo-Boo

From the I Fucked Up files:

I have made an appalling discovery no not microphones hidden in the kitty litter worse than that it’s the sudden realisation that I have been spelling Paul Gallen’s name wrong FOR TWO YEARS. The only legitimate explanation aside from me being retarded is that the mere thought of Paul Gallen puts me in an altered state of consciousness and he’s lucky I’ve been able to type his name at all such is the brain-scrambling effect he has on me. He gives me vertigo. Well, I’m sorry.   

Anyway, here is evidence that Gal can be light of heart. Unless he is choking on that apple. Why is he even eating an apple anyway it doesn't seem right. Fruit? Pooh to fruit. He should be eating roasted swan.

There’s more.

ToddBlog would like the record to state that the person identified as J-bo in the previous post’s photo was not J-bo but in fact  - as she astutely pointed out -  “a short, stocky man”. J-bo is not short, she is not stocky and she is not a man. ToddBlog made a boo boo. Toddblog apologises for any distress this may have caused. ToddBlog was suffering from strobing eyes for most of yesterday after the heady night prior. ToddBlog is only now recovering its equilibrium.

Here is a nice photo to smooth things over. J-bo IS NOT PICTURED although she does look a lot like Drew Barrymore now that I think about it. Jesus Christ my eyes must really have been malfunctioning yesterday. Sorry girl.

"And now Blake Ferguson's gran-mama 'aint the only girl callin' him baby"

 - Raiders Sharks Semi-Final -

Joey Johns picked Blake Ferguson as his “impact player” yesterday which as I understand it is the ‘player’ he thinks will make an ‘impact’ of some significance. He would have been my choice too, had Channel Nine have asked me to contribute. I had actually opened up 60 minutes of my schedule to specifically address the “impact player” issue in the hours prior but the call never came through..

I love Blake Ferguson. As well as being my favourite “impact player” I also pick him as my favourite ever “DOCS graduate”. Not only because he wasn’t found dead and stuffed in a suitcase as a baby, but because he is just generally awesome and adorable and athletically freaky WHAT IS WITH HIS FINGERTIP CONTROL HOW DOES HE GET THOSE PICKUPS AND HAVE YOU SEEN HIM UNDER A HIGHBALL WHAT ABOUT WHEN HE ACCELERATES HOLY FUCK HE GOES LIKE A GREEN STREAK AND HOW ABOUT THE WAY HE CAN TIPPY-TOE WHO TAUGHT HIM TO TIPPY-TOE LIKE THAT IS IT A NATURAL GIFT OR WAS IT COACHING STAFF AT THE SHARKS BEFORE HE DISSED THEM AND UNCEREMONIOUSLY DEPARTED FOR THE RAIDERS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF PERSONAL HAPPINESS AND PREMIERSHIP GLORY THAT HE DID NOT BELIEVE THE SHARKS OFFERED BUT BELIEVED THE RAIDERS DID AND DOESN’T THAT APPEAR TO BE THE BEST DECISION OF HIS LIFE HOW HAPPY DOES HE LOOK PLAYING ALONGSIDE SANDOR EARL AND JOSH DUGAN HOW GANGSTER ARE THEY HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING CUTER NO YOU HAVEN’T HAVE YOU EXCEPT MAYBE WHEN HE SAYS HI TO HIS GRANDPARENTS AFTER A GAME THAT’S PRETTY CUTE TOO ISN’T IT HUH HUH HELLO IS THIS THING ON  -  -  -

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Paul Gallen & Graciousness

Yesterday I had to suspend my feelings for Paul Gallen. I thought this was going to be a problem. I thought I would be emotionally conflicted and in turmoil. The reasons for this are manifold but the basic thrust of it is that Gallen is more than just a player. Gallen is an ideology.

But when the Raiders ran out into ALL THAT GREEN I dismissed him entirely. In any case, I was busy shedding some polite tears. They were the type of tears that the Raiders, who are a gracious and dignified team, would have approved of. Just like them, they were nothing hysterical or showy or too overwrought. Just a quick weep and a series of small, full-body shudders punctuated by an abrupt re-gather.

Histrionics in general are met with quiet but pointed disapproval in Canberra. You have to understand that the whole city is a monument to failed ambition. This lends it its unique air of bleak, burnt out wistfulness. Drive around civic on a Sunday afternoon when all that stirs are the falling leaves. It’s the most melancholy place in Australia and probably, excluding certain cities of Eastern Europe, the world.  

The general tone and ambience is one of faded down-trodden dignity.  

Inside of course I was frothing with nervous hysteria and a churning, roiling nausea (who wasn’t?) even though I knew that they would win and would win well. Which they did.

See the gracious way I mentioned that? That’s how it’s done.

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There was also Todd Carney to put out of my mind. I didn’t know how I would handle having Josh Dugan and Todd Carney -  two players of impeccable deportment and lethal elegance -  on the field together but in the event Carney didn’t prove any trouble at all, either to me or the Raiders. Which is sad, in hindsight.

Fittler’s sideline interview with Carney after he was carried off injured and reappeared iced and strapped and bundled into a parachute jacket and altogether devastated didn’t go very well. Hushed tones and overt sympathy that verges on pity make even the most stoic person feel like crying lavishly Fittler you fuck!! Carney kept his composure though. He maintained a steadiness of voice and gaze common to someone who knows their way around a disappointment or two.

Here are Carney and Freddy in happier times:

And after the game, Gallen’s face! Grim! Like something you would see at a Serbian truck stop. Also, he called Josh Papalli “the boy”. It wasn’t like when Bert Newton said it to Muhammad Ali but fucking hell it was patronising but that’s okay Gal I know you were in a good deal of psychological distress at the time so I will excuse you your chilling air of restrained and toxic menace and in any case I kind of liked it actually I totally loved it DON’T EVER CHANGE GAL.

And, because I am graciousness personified I’m not even going to dwell on the fact that Josh ‘The Boy’ Papalli totally won the spiteful battle he had going on with Paul ‘He’s got me twice I’m gonna get him back there’s nothing you can do about it’ Gallen suffice to say that it was deeply satisfying.

And if Papalli gets a NZ jersey which he totally will him and Gallen will get to go at it all over again next month and I will be under no obligation to be polite and Papalli won’t either and is rugby league awesome or what?

                                                                                
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Here are my friends J-bo and GavSpaz on the big screen yesterday. They are unspeakably cool, it doesn’t surprise me they showed up on the stadium screen. J-bo is the one down front left doing the huge full-body upward fist drive while her other hand is furnished with a can of beer. Awesome.

And here is J-bo’s thigh this morning, bruised from being slapped yesterday:

I don’t know, maybe I was wrong about Canberrans keeping a lid on things. There was that game in the first round of semifinals in 2010 when the Raiders beat the Panthers at Penrith and the travelling Raider fans were so overwrought they surged forward and collapsed the stadium barrier and fell all over the Raider players they were trying to congratulate, that was pretty wild…

In any case and as you can probably appreciate, after the game was won the string that holds my emotional baggage together came undone entirely. The last seven minutes of play I spent sobbing. Rugby league. What a great game.

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Raised Fist, Foaming Hysteria

Certain things leave an indelible impression. Imprinted once, impossible to unremember. Things happen; things are said and from then on and for forever you don’t just remember how you felt but where you were and what you were doing when you felt it.

Now, New Norfolk Tasmania will forever fire my core and stir in me an evocative emotional response. I will remember where I was walking and how the sky looked and that the man with the rats-tail and the Willie Loman posture was coming quite close to me jesus god why is he coming so close to me?...

Just prior I had said we need to stop in this town this town is extremely inbred and these people have many problems let’s mingle among them and flaunt our robust genetics and revel in the fact that we have roofs furnishing our mouths and let’s also buy some cream to spoon over the top of those strawberries we got…  

I couldn’t see a supermarket I stopped to ask the old ladies “five dollars forty nine for ONE CAULIFLOWER” “oh you’re JOKING Shirl” in Vinnie’s they directed me towards Woolworths and on the way my phone surged into service and started hemorrhaging messages.

The last three were from GavSpaz and unopened made my heart seize up and scrunch down into a fist inside my chest so that I was only able to wheeze words to the effect of I CAN’T OPEN THESE I CANNOT DEAL WITH WHAT WILL BE IN THESE MESSAGES I’M NOT READY

As I was summoning the courage to open them and face whatever realities lay within the phone rang in my hand a blast from the angel Gabriel’s trumpet it was a private number I just assumed it to be my brother and answered it by barking “YES, WELL WHAT WAS THE RESULT??!”

“What” he said, “didn’t you read your messages?”*

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I can’t really say what happened from there. I think there was a fist raised in the air, I think it was my fist but it could have belonged to Mussolini on the balcony, or Stanley Kowalski or Lleyton Hewitt or any of the Jersey Shore cast on the dance floor or anyone who has ever raised their fist held it aloft in the air and pumped it in a heightened/unhinged emotional state…

*These were his messages:

1.    Raiders look absolutely shithouse

2.    I hope you haven’t bothered driving somewhere to watch this, they fucking stink

3.    Dane Tilse kicking on the 6^th tackle sums up the day

4.    Coming good in the second half though….

5.    And Croker got a critical kick – there is something new!

6.    Ferguson having a blinder. He thinks this is fun!

7.    Great comeback. Huge! Down 22 to 6 halftime but came back and gave em a floggin, scored 36 unanswered points in 2^nd half to win 42 to 22