The Raw Obscenity of Tom Waterhouse & Associated Social Decays

This stinking age we live in, Christ. A return to the age of the cave looks more and more appealing. This, and I’m not even depressed. Fun Fact: I’m too bone-tired to feel depressed over the summer months because I’m busy working like a goddamned Aesop grasshopper so as I can spend the autumn and early winter months idle and unhinged, fully immersed in neuroses, woe and NRL.

And still -  through this brutal summer landscape -  blasts a drugs in sports scandal. I was very shook up and wretched for the first week following the announcement, braced for turbulence, calling and haranguing my mother spluttering IT’S NOT JUST THE RANK ILLEGALITY THAT OFFENDS -  -  and then getting rolling and shouting overwrought things like THE CLUBS HAVE FAILED IN THEIR DUTY OF CARE THOSE FUCKERS HAVE FAILED THEIR LEAGUES THEIR PLAYERS THEIR FANS -  -  spouting vicious theories regarding lax administration, festering corruption and Machiavellian plotting and then rounding it all off with some rude references to Tom Waterhouse.  

Well, why not? Waterhouse’s high visibility and shit-licker visage make him an obvious poster-boy for the unease surrounding the morphing of sport into the entertainment industry and the unprecedented extent to which it has been seduced and subverted by gambling interests and oriental fish tattoos.

And then the Raiders were named. The Raiders?? The Raiders!! They of the hapless fadeouts and injuries in endemic proportions? Is there no decency at all remaining in this heinous fucking age? These are dark waters.

But three weeks later and the whole thing has become a tremulous melodrama with unsavory political associations and the consistency of your mother’s Christmas trifle. You know, wobbly.  And here, the murk descends.

Because Australian sport is about much more than sport.

For most of us, our first and most powerful response is emotional. My earliest memory of rugby league is my big brother crawling under his bed in the manner of a dying dog after Penrith beat Canberra in the grand final and not coming out for quite some time.

And because sport is essentially human drama. I suspected this deeply at the time of that grand final loss, and adult hindsight confirms the impression.

And now, twenty two years after that Raiders Panthers game, the totally unsurprising revelation that the brutal, pigs-at-the-trough commercialisation of sporting codes has correspondingly commercialised the market for performance enhancing drugs. Professionalism gives winning an obscenely greater value than merely competing. And a win at all costs culture cultivates fertile soil for corruption. All of this is a rank affront ; the shadow, the murk, the stupidity, the limping bullshit, the lies. We are all under our beds now.

Mark Geyer is Great.

Mark Geyer rode a bull the other day. I don’t know why. He said “I’m 43 with five kids, I don’t need this” but then he did it anyway. First he rode a smaller bull called Ginger, but then he climbed aboard the ominously named Chainsaw Massacre. “They say it is the toughest eight seconds in world sport. I experienced two seconds and I have to agree. I came straight home to bed – after buying two longnecks on the way.”

James Metallica Hetfield is releasing his own line of fashionable eyewear. He says it is “built to look faster than a speeding riff and to handle the life of a road dog like me”. I think MG should be doing something like this too, I would buy MG merch. Who wouldn’t? He was some player. He was big boned and short tempered; a strange and dangerous individual who on no account should have been approached.

Then he married one of Brandy Alexander’s sisters. In today’s terms, this would be like Benji Marshall marrying Robbie Farah’s sister. Awesome, in other words.

Sister Alexander and Geyer babies – five of them – all given bogan names furnished with extra vowels and probably even some apostrophes too. I love it. Inter-team breeding should be encouraged. Players who cooperate should be awarded with cash and boat bonuses. Dynasties are sort of a thing of the past but they should be promoted as the way forward. It starts here.

Postscript:  At the very start of the season Mark Geyer picked the Bulldogs as the team to win the competition. I laughed, the people on the panel with him laughed, we all laughed. Well. Jesus Christ. The man is the Nostradamus of Penrith.

Muscular Menace...Luke Lewis

A hot and savage wind roared through my house yesterday and dislodged three Todd Carney pictures I had hanging in the kitchen. I found two on the floor and one in my cats' water dish. Coincidence? Or something more suggestive, perhaps -  the terrible truth that perhaps Toddy lacks moral substance and fortitude? I mean, I have pictures of several others - Dugan, and Joel Monaghan, and Braith Anasta with his brain about to leak out of his face - and they didn't blow down at the slightest hint of a change in the weather, did they*?


*Upon closer inspection and a degree of overnight reflection, that was well out of order. Forgive me my vague air of futility, Toddy, and go forth on your journey toward a higher realm. It's just...it can get tiring, this business of supporting you. Lonely. too. *Reassembles public face*...  Don't mind me and my psychic strain.

So. Moving right along, Luke Lewis, that big blonde behemoth, said the other day that he would welcome Toddy "with open arms". So would I, Luke, so would I.

I can't be sure but I assume he was talking about the possibility of Toddy going to the Panthers. Sweet baby Jesus. Wouldn't that be something. I don't think I much like the idea. I can't imagine Gus Gould would either, thankfully. No, Penrith is no place for the likes of Toddy. It's a fucking no-man's land out there; a veritable wasteland - even by my not-exactly-lofty standards. One doesn't want to be too much of a cultural chauvinist but, honestly, Penrith is no place for a ressurection. It's a place for Everlast athletic gear and corned beef sandwiches and enormous leagues clubs that warrant their own postcodes. The best thing for Toddy to do now is to get aboard the Cronulla train and ride it hard, all stops to redemption. YES. DO THAT.

Still, what a lovely sentiment from Luke Lewis. Further proof that men who bite their beer bottles open are far more capable of warm hearted sentiment than your garden-variety quiche eating nancy.

Luke Lewis has that disconcerting blend of menace and charm about him. It's indefinable, which makes it all the more arresting. Alls I can say is that he carries a perpetual aura of faintly muscular menace. I think it's hotter than a Saigon summer, but you're welcome to draw your own conclusions.

Also, I think I once described him on here as the type of man who would spend his downtime sprawled on patio furniture with one nut hanging out of his shorts. Or did I just think that? I can't be sure; such is the blurring of the lines. Anyway as it happens he has a very well dressed and stylish wife. She was my pick for best dressed at the Dally M's. That's right, Jodi Gordon, not you - you heard. Inexpicably, there is no photo of her from this year. Last year, yes. Close enough.

He looked both sun scorched and sweetly absurd in his suit - show me a footballer who doesn't - but she was lovely and languid and cool as a cold drink in a tall glass on a hot day. Despite this, I still stand by my earlier assertion in regards to her husband, and the vivid image I conjured up for myself - oddly pleasing to my mind's nasty eye.

Wait, what? I intended this to be a retrospective look at Toddy's time at the Roosters, what is this westerly direction I have veered in and why do I kind of like it out here? L'Obscuritee! Christ. Ima stay here among the weed strewn backblocks until I sufficiently pull myself together enough to return for that Roosters retrospective, although to what end one can now only shudder to imagine.........

In Loosely Tied Shorts We Trust. Tight Ones Too.

Rivalry round, bitches!  Gird those Loins!

I am a total whore for history. I think it's because I feel so profoundly uncomfortable and ill at ease in the here and now. The prospect of a sepia-tinged rivalry round never fails to stoke my imagination, even though I don't really buy what the NRL are selling here.


Apparently this round is meant to evoke ideas of bloodstained histories, proud heritages, simmering grudges and ongoing class divides. This is what we're supposed to believe, anyway. I don't know if any of it exists anymore, I really don't. But we allow meaning to be ascribed to things far more unbelievable than this, so I'm happy to play along and indulge in a little embellished imagining.

It would be immeasurably easier to do this if the NRL actually got into the spirit of things and abstained from blanketing the field with alcohol advertising, and maybe suspended forcing Centrebet plugs down our throats for a minute. That'd be nice, wouldn't it - imagine not being urged to have a punt FOR A WHOLE ROUND! What would they fill all the those extra minutes spent telling us the odds with, actual talk? That would be some heritage-listed shit right there. Pies in the sky, I know, I know.


Nevertheless. The Passion still rages. How else to explain these good folk?

So. I looked forward to the Roosters Rabbitohs game like some heavily armed zealot looks forward to Zion. I wanted to see if the Roosters could hold it together after last week, and, on the flipside, I really, really wanted to see the Rabbitohs come undone. Those were my two objectives. Both of these are entirely legitimate reasons to watch a game, of course. Is there a team in the NRL who are able to unravel with such spectaucular, theatrical flair as the Rabbitohs? No, no there isn't. When they are off, the Rabbitohs are operatic in their awfulness. It's a skill worth bottling.  Or baking into a cake. Mmmmm, the taste of Failure!

The Rabbitohs are that one team for me - the team that I loathe but love to watch. Not so much when they play well, but that hardly ever happens so I'm rarely troubled. The other teams I hate passionately I have no interest in watching - Broncos, Dragons, Titans, STORM, Manly - but this may be because, with the exception of the Titans, they're all highly competent and clinical sides who defend like fucking wolves in territorial takeover mode.

Just on that - this is the lowest scoring season since 1993 or some absurd date. I blame teams like those mentioned above grinding their opponents into the fucking ground with relentless, tedious tenacity. They make my eyes glaze over and my jaw lose all elasticity.


Anyway, here's what happened, according to me.

-Russell Crowe was there. I'm not gonna lie. Knowing he was on the premises definately added a certain frisson and a handful of stardust to proceedings, even if he was wearing a fug anorak. And having Todd Carney, Braith Anasta AND Russell Crowe under the same roof? Talk about star power, it nearly blew my superficial little starcrossed mind and I wasn't even there breathing their air and experiencing severe heart arrhythmia.

Crowe was in man-of-steel mode last night, meaning he did not emote freely and extravagantly as he has in the past.

-Mitchell Pearce did good from the get go. He threw a ball in the tenth minute that made me stop chewing my toasted cheese sandwich for at least twenty seconds. Sam Perrett lost it and got thrown into touch but no matter, no matter at all. Exquisite.

-Baby Burgess was out there for the Bunnies. I could tell it was him because his flanks were whiter than a water-logged corpse.

-The Bunnies started in on the bizarre play early in the piece, predictable as ever. Nathan Merritt let a Carney kick bounce in very curious circumstances. A minute later Eddy Pettybourne lost a loose ball and bellowed at - HOW DARE HE - my favourite ref Brett Suttor in frightening fashion. Audio picked up Suttor snapping peevishly at the other ref that "he's swearing at me and I don't appreciate it". Neither would I, Brett, neither would I.

-Things started going a little haywire from here on in. The Chooks repeatedly rip open the Rabbits like they're casually segmenting an orange. John Sutton does nothing much other than prowl around looking surly as hell. Ex-outlaw sandwich technician Jake Friend works like a maniac and wins my approval. The Roosters play some promising footy but fail to make anything of it. No-one seems at all interested in giving Greg Inglis the ball. He looks incredible, by the way. Staying well away from the white bread, by the look of it. I don't despise him nearly as much as I used to, I can't figure out why, and I worry briefly that this will knock on to the other players I hate - will I start feeling a dim affection for them too? This is not a line of thought I want to continue with, so I cease and desist.

Bra Boys represent.

Chris Sandow, represent.

Second Half.

-Braith ("It's Braith, Bitch") Anasta blows his stack and several fuses when the Bunnies score off a dubious pass that looks blatantly forward. Braith blowing up gives me an enormous sense of well being. I feel like he'd be the guy you'd want with you in a hospital emergency room or any place where the causing of a scene in order to get urgent attention is necessary. No wonder Jodi Gordan wants him to put a ring on it. WHO WOULDN'T? is my unanswerable question.

-A bit later, in the corner of the screen, Braith plays the ball and Chris Sandow gets up on his tippytoes and pushes his hand into Braith's head with what looks to be a fair bit of force. Braith makes a lunge and I get ready to start miming uppercuts. Nothing comes of it, sadly. That is a fight I would climb over my mother to see, trust.

-The 70s called Steve McQueen, they want their hairstyle back.

-The Roosters keep touching and hugging each other, it's hot.

-Shannon McPherson bangs heads with Frank Paul Nuasala and comes up with a massive crevass-like gash over his eye. He gets several metres of white bandage and an entire roll of electrical tape wrapped around it, and while that happens we are treated to at least four super slow-mo replays of the collision, from every conceivable angle.

-Souths sabotage themselves every time momentum swings their way. This falls squarely into the 'what I like to see' category.

-Sandow struggles out of a tackle and unloads into Shaun Kenny Dowell with tiny fists of fury. He is a runt, so he looks ridiculous and terrier-like. SKD, who is tall and lithe, appears untroubled by the flurry of punches being thrown somewhere below him, in the direction of his mid section. I once saw a Rooster fan with a sign that said SKD ROW. Brilliant.

Pearce & SKD & Carney have happyclappy times last year. This seems a long time ago.

-The Roosters respond to Sandow's inanity by taking the ball the length of the field to score in the next set. Cut to John Lang writhing in his sideline seat in obvious and unadulterated anguish. Doubley brilliant.

-Anthony Mitchell is finally injected into the game in the 68th minute. I approve of this because he's adorable and he looks awful pretty in his new Roosters colours. I thought when he left the Eels he might leave a gaping, handsome-man-sized hole in the team but Reni Matuia sailed right on in after his two year suspension and refilled the hot quota to capacity. Well played, coach Kearney, well played.

-Croker - I have no idea what his first name is - drives his whole head into Nate Myles' torso in a tackle. He gets flung back and hits the ground like a felled tree, flat on his back, lights extinguished. Everybody holds their breath, everybody wonders if he's broken his enormous neck ala Ben Ross. The medi-van arrives to ferry him off but he hauls himself to his feet like a bear recovering from a tranquilser-dart induced coma and lumbers off to the side. Everybody exhales.

-The game goes to golden point. Frenzied scenes in the stands.

-The awful pretty Anthony Mitchell gets KO'd and departs for Disneyland. When he makes it to his feet he reels and staggers drunkenly and a minute later, when he gets the ball from a scrum the effects of his concussion become clear because as well as his eyes being rolled well back in his head, he passes to Jason Ryles instead of, oh, say, Anasta or Carney, both of whom are waiting to receive the ball and win the game. Ryles is forced to try for field goal and throws up his hands in astonishment and disbelief the minute the ball leaves his boot. Mitchell remains serene, i.e. OUT.OF.IT.

-Chris Sandow brings Russell Crowe to his knees when he pots a 49 metre field goal. This is an unfortunate outcome, and one I wish to forget immediately.

I managed to do this because the good times kept coming. Was that a night for rugby league lovers OR WHAT? If Gus Gould had been commentating he would have melted down from the excitement of it all  - he would have seen me my heart arrhythmia and raised me a stroke, for reals.

Anyway, more golden point out at Penrith, more heart-in-mouth stuff.

Luke Lewis got caned and caused me to murmur "oohh, mein schatz" - 'my precious', in other (English) words, Jarryd Hayne had a blinder at five-eighth and Reni Matuia looked reptilian and scary and hot all at the same time. He has mad skills, does Reni. And cold snake eyes that burn, too.

Anyway, what happened was that Parramatta failed to rage against the dying of the light and Penrith snuffed them out and as a result Nathan Hindmarsh's smile after the game - his 300th - had a somewhat forced, 'fuck this shit' quality to it. This was a shame.

Still, he managed to maintain the tradition of repeatedly losing his loosely tied shorts and, for me, that was more historically significant than any rivalry round or anniversary occassion.

The Burgess Rabbit - Another Pest from England

Because rugby league is a ravenous and constantly evolving organism you gotta keep up or be eaten up. In an effort to stay up to speed - it was Bob Dylan who said get out of the road if you can't lend a hand and truer words have never been spoken (Matt Orford take note) - here are some loose notes. This is what comes of me blathering on all day and still not being able to keep up; loose, unadulterated notes.

Burgess brothers are coming out of the woodwork like roaches. We now have three on our hands, and I think there's a fourth still in utero/England? I googled Burgess brothers and here's what I got:

From left to right: Sam, George, Luke....

These pictures satisfied my curiosity perfectly, but then I saw photos of Sam getting lubed up at Bondi and who am I to resist a cultural stereotype?

The latest one has been described as "leaner than Sam and darker than George", which sounds promising, albeit mysterious. They are the NRL's equivalent to the Daddo brothers, basically, and just as whorey I imagine. How long since we've had a three-strong brotherhood? The Walters brothers?

Wassup with the Panthers? Arana Taumata (I know, doesn't ring any bells for me either) was accused of stealing a Penrith club doctor's prescription pad and using it to buy valium at pharmacies all over Paramatta and Campsie. Taumata's name appeared on the prescription sheets but when confronted he denied any involvement and told Gus Gould a teammate from the Windsor Wolves was responsible.

Remember when Todd McKenney was found sprawled over a park bench at 5am with GBH in his pocket and said "BUT OFFICER THEY'RE NOT MY PANTS" and got off the charges? I think that was a watershed moment that changed Australia's legal landscape forever. I know I filed that ingenious excuse away for future reference, anyway.

I'm no legal eagle but I have had the Jay Z and R. Kelly - he of the "BUT OFFICER SHE LOOKED LEGAL" defense - song  Guilty Until Proven Innocent on high rotation for the last week, and as such I am loath to cast uninformed aspersions. Still, the miniscule amount of research I did on Taumata showed that he's already had controversy-plagued stints at the Bulldogs and the Roosters (show me a player who hasn't), as well as at the Broncos, Storm, Tigers and Cowboys. Christ. I don't know about fire but that's a hell of a lot of smoke.

Anyway, that flight the Windsor Wolves took to New Zealand? That sounded like an abolute hoot. Taumata got turned around at Auckland airport and flown straight back to face Gus' great venegance and furious anger regarding the valium. Dane Laurie got hammered on the flight and was promptly sacked after a teammate dobbed him in. Someone else was forced to go home after discovering his passport had been through the wash - this is almost as funny as when that kid whose name eludes me packed his passport for his first ever away game in Queensland. Bless. Finally, Michael Jennings was fined $10 000  for drinking while off with injury. Seems a bit extreme, but there you are.

I noted with interest that the Panthers all managed to pull it together and turn up to a group appearance at Hooters in a gallant effort to promote the chain's push into the west. Apparantly even players who weren't required to attend came along and many have returned since on a regular basis. Trent Waterhouse is totally up in that Hooters shit, I can just tell.

Gus Gould going all Mao Zedong with his cultural revolution at the foot of the mountain is taking a terrible toll on his appearance. Is it just me or has he aged about a dozen years in the last few months? It's alarming. I don't know what goes on out there at Penrith but unless Sandor Earl is involved it's not pretty. I called them one of the uglier teams in the league last week and can I just say a) Not that there's anything wrong with that, and b) Manly are much uglier. Either way, Gus now looks to be going the way of Brandy Alexander: i.e. to shit. Brandy is one of the more intruiging statesmen to me, in that he looks like nothing so much as a rapidly aging accountant. I look at Brandy and see scarcely any resemblance to the guy who made me go for the Panthers back in my babycake days. It's true, I did.

Here's what I found written on the back of a magazine from last weekend:

"Brandy. So much eye makeup - eyes, eyebrows. He is cadaverous. Scurvy, maybe. Or AIDS"

Way harsh? Maybe, BUT HAVE YOU SEEN HIM? A Weekend at Bernie's type situation unfolding while he's live on air is not outside the realm of possibility, trust.

There were two other fragments scrawled onto the magazine : "Soward = Prick", and "Mini barking orders from the back"

Yep. Nothing gets past me and my hawk eye.

Compare Brandy Alexander to the man I believe to be the best-preserved and altogether most attractive statesman in league: Laurie Daly. He is the dead set Dorian Gray of the NRL, he looks fucking BOSS. I also think he's lovely. Brandy can tell a good yarn and he has a sort of hair-trigger twitchiness that I like but he seems a bit of a twit, frankly. Loz is the real deal. He says "Gorrrrn" for 'gone'. Plus I find his unwavering support for the Raiders and his absolute, steadfast refusal to ever tip against them to be beyond charming.

And that post I wrote on Matt Elliot being all elusive and enigmatic? That all came crashing down with the revelation that he was seen lunching at Gloria Jeans with Luke Lewis and Lachlan Coote. Way to ruin my cred, Elliot.

Speaking of credibility, I died a little when I heard that Gus Gould peppers his text messages with 'lol'. That is all shades of wrong and is akin to Laurie Daly weraing this Ed Hardy shirt:

On the opposite end of the scale, I fell a little more in love with JT when he said he listens to hip hop and rap. I mean, the writing  is on the wall, this pretty much makes us soulmates. We may as well have a Mickey and Mallory type hand-cutting, blood-mingling-for-all-eternity ceremony right now and be done with it, seriously. JT, call me.

Word is that last week post-game - in the showers, no less - an admiring Nathan Gardner told Paul Gallan "you're a modern day warrior". Gal's response? "You're an idiot".

Adorable. Bitch is real. He cares not for ice baths, dressing room physio and the compression garments that everyone is trussed up in like Christmas hams these days, AND his drink of choice is bourbon and coke. Word.

Let's all take a moment to reflect again on just how adorable Gal is:

Meanwhile, Chris Sandow continues to solidify his position as the game's biggest Grub. I still think he has a way to go before he strips Jamie Soward of the Grub King crown but damn if he isn't giving it a red hot go. Sandow needs to come to terms with the fact that Dave Coal Train Taylor he 'aint, and behave accordingly. Give up those ill-advised shoulder charges before you get flattened - or keep them up and get flattened, see if I care - but cut it out with the cannonball tackles already, they are unwarranted and filthy. We are hip to you and your carefully timed tactic of hurling yourself at a held up players unprotected legs and we find it and you very unpleasant. Cease and desist, bitch.

Those who pay close attention know that I don't like fouling my pristine posts with pictures of undesirables. You don't shit where you eat, people! So in the interests of keeping We Need To Talk About Todd nice I'm substituting Courtney Love and Lil Wayne for Chris Sandow.

In closing, I wish to make just one passing remark. It regards jerseys. If there is any group of men who should not be seen in round necked jerseys, it's NRL players. Not to put too fine a point on it but they're not exactly known for their swan-like necks, y'know. This is the reason they all look so good come international rep time - because the jerseys are V-neck. Not only that, but they have a natty collar. Even Billy Slater looks bitchin in such a garment, and trust me, I can  scarcely believe this myself.  See the comparisons below as evidence. Anyway, I'm all for improving aesthetics in the NRL and I don't understand why anyone would dress men already challenged in the neck stakes in jerseys that give the impression of almost total necklessness. It's very odd; and it doesn't seem right. Tell me something in this world that does, though.




Willie Mason. My brother calls him a "refrigerator with eyes", for obvious reasons.



Paul Gallan: WITNESS THE FITNESS. Fierce.

And the good ol days of V-Neck jerseys:

Some footnotes.

1) Once I said the notorious Arana Taumata's name out loud I realised he did ring a few bells -  none particularly positive.

2) On R. Kelly: I'd been listening to M.I.A.'s Arular for many a month before I picked i up on the choice gem of a line:

'Could it be/that me and he/are tighter than J.Lo in her jeans/and could it be/that me and he/are tighter than R. Kelly in his teens'. 

That just takes the biscuit in terms of awesome bad taste.

3) Chris Sandow's emergence as a grub-to-watch had me hastening to check the playing schedule in the hope that there are no upcoming Raider Rabbitohs gane. There is. Cue creeping dread. Of the apparently many thousand things Josh Dugan's precious Bambi legs do not need right now, Sandow throwing himself at them at knee height would have to be top of the list. Do not try it, Sandow. Seriously. Push me and I will push back.