Friday, June 17, 2011

The State of Things

I guess I am in a state of ignorance about some things Australian. Certainly, I've come to find a way to drive on a different side of the road, awake in the morning to the sound of magpies screaming at each other as if their domestic troubles edthe entire neighborhood's attention, and I've come to enjoy the way Australians begin their sentences with either 'yeah, no' or 'Look..." and end their sentences with, 'but anyway.'

For instance, here might be a typical conversation I had in the last week:

Me: So (I like to start my sentences with that word) did you enjoy the State of Origin match on Wednesday night?

Australian: Yeah, no, it didn't turn out the way I wanted it too. The New South Welsh (which I found out was the plural for multiple New South Wales people) thrashed the Maroons (which is the mascot, or color of the absent mascot of the State Rugby Team that played the New South Wales Blues - also absent of a mascot which I will get to later. I did enjoy that the 'blue' is not a deep, dark royal blue but almost a baby, powdery blue that made me want to cuddle the NS Welshmen.)

Me: I didn't understand the game much. Is this typical of Australian rugby?

Australian: Look, the world of Queensland revolves around whether the Maroons (which they pronounce 'maroans' - I've come to tease Christine that the satellite circling our beloved earth is the 'moan') win the Origin series (pause) but anyway...

It is these very differences in colloquialisms and mannerisms of speaking that bring great joy to my day. I love the fact that I hear a different slang almost every day, and I mean that very literally, almost every day. The other day I was asking one of the teachers about a song that some students were going to sing for chapel and the teacher said, "Perhaps you should have a sticky beak about that." I kind of screwed up my face, as if I'd sucked the rind off a lemon and asked, 'what in the world does that mean?" By nature I can usually connect the dots, find a way to unravel the context, but 'sticky beak?' The teacher said, "Go poke your nose in their song. See if it's what you want... but anyway..."

So, I've been getting my beak sticky with regards to the State of Origin. I poked into its history and according to the incredibly reliable Wikipedia files, the State of Origin series has been occurring since 1908 and described as 'the best rugby played anywhere in the world.' Each team draws from the national teams but the players on each side, from Queensland and New South Wales, play for the state where they played their first senior rugby match - thus, their own state of origin. From what I understand, it's like the Superbowl of rugby in Australia, and as I watched the game, there was obviously a love hate relationship for the players. The irony of this game is that after it is done, the players, who have spent the previous 80 minutes bloodying (not a swear word in this context) each others' faces, then shake hands and return to their normal teams, some of them playing on the same team.

During the three game matches, the players, clubs and states despise each other so much that they have, according to my reliable source, given each other monikers, or mascots befitting what they think of their rival neighbor states. The Queensland team is called the cane toads, which are the rampantly overpopulated amphibians which have overrun the state and are categorically hated by pretty much everyone I've met, while the New South Wales team is called the cockroaches, which I think are pretty much despised and loathed by the whole world. I think it would be pretty funny if the two teams actually had those mascots and people would come dressed to the game in wart-filled headgear and alternatively freakishly ugly legs with disgusting underbellies. I guess I would say I would rather be a cane toad than a cockroach, but anyway...

So, last Wednesday, I was invited by two of the students to view the second, of three, State of Origin game on the big screen at the school. I arrived as the pregame was occurring, all sorts of advertising was being promoted. Then, there was this small television bit regarding a group of ten thousand people who had donned powder blue wigs (the game was in New South Wales). I remember when I was growing up the only people that had blue hair were members of the ladies auxiliary and they were all eighty years old. But here they were, ten thousand strong, and the leader of the rabble was a thirty-year-old man who, five or six years before, had been taken to the game by his mates for a bucks' party (bachelor party - I don't know if bachelor, in Australian, is spelled 'bachelour' - they add a 'u' into many words). All twenty-five of them, rabid Blue's fans, wore blue wigs of the same color as that famous American cartoon annoying non-talking dog, Blue - from Blue's clues. The idea caught on and the next year there were a hundred people wearing blue wigs, then a thousand and then this year, there was a sea of blue hair - it looked like an AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) convention.

The commentator, who was interviewing the original (pun intended) blue hair, said something quite profound, which I would later understand is a rarity at Australian rugby matches. He said, 'It's amazing how this caught on. It's like everyone here, wearing the blue wigs, understands that they are part of something bigger than themselves."

I would like to go off on a mini-Christian devotional about how Christians would like to see themselves as marked for something bigger than themselves, but I can smell the eggs and toast in the kitchen and it's time to wrap this up, but anyway...

I want to finish writing about the game. As the players lined up, preparing their bodies for full contact battle, no padding, very few mouth guards - basically walking concussions - I noticed that these men were so disproportionately large I had trouble even looking at them. I was in a state of ignorance as to how these men could move with legs the size of beer barrels and arms which looked like they could be deflated with a poke of a pin. Their physiques truly looked as if they had donned one of the inflatable muscle suits you find at novelty shops. I approached the big screen just to see if I could find the little rubber capped plug where the suit was blown up.

But anyway...

These men gathered full steam, screaming down the field to chase the man who had the ball and pulverize him, pile drive him into the ground and then sit on his face until it looked as if he was having a grand mal seizure. I watched with horror the first time I saw this, the man who had been smeared was flopping on the ground like a chicken with its head cut off, but all those around were laughing as if this were normal.

"Why are they flopping like that? Are they injured? Shouldn't the medic go out onto the field?"

Australian: "Look, he's just trying to get up off the ground so that he can start the next play."

Whatever you say. So many times during the match one of the player would literally peel himself from the turf, gash in his forehead, dislocated shoulder, knee buckling and then push the trainer back to the sideline saying, "Yeah, no, I'm right, mate. She'll be good. I've got me other arm still working."

It was a fine night to hear the voices of the commentators screaming into their microphones, enjoying the gladiatorial atmosphere of the night. I watched with amusement at the students and the teachers as they watched with gnawed fingernails in mouth for the Cane Toads and Cockroaches to finish the battle. I watched the contestants, cruising down the field on tree trunk like legs bowl into each other and was quite aware that at any minute one of them would break a limb. It was a feast for the senses filled with the fruits of anxiousness. And even though I was in a state of awe and shock (and ignorance, for that fact) I enjoyed every minute of it.

But anyway...

The Pit

In the beginning was the pit. Yesterday, I did something I hadn't done in a quarter century. To be entirely frank, that quarter century ...