First stop for the day was the Junction Oval for the Tsunami charity cricket game between Melbourne and Collingwood FC’s. Now I’m dubious about cricket at the best of times, even when there’s professionals involved so the prospect of seeing rank amateurs and a couple of has-been ring-ins going the tonk at a ground nobody has taken seriously since 1956 hardly thrilled. But it was for charity, I’m starved of AFL related events, it’s just around the corner and promised to give us some cheap laughs. Of course rather than comedy the first thing that I saw pissed me off as several absolute CHEAPSKATES of the highest order stood outside the Junction Oval fence and watched the game for free. I said I’d give them the benefit of the doubt until the first ball was bowled and then it was open season. Not surprisingly the army of cheap fucks, including one in a Collingwood hat for god’s sake didn’t budge and as the first ball went down I turned around and gave it some “Any danger you lot are going to pay for this?”, expecting that the rest of the crowd would see the scam taking place and join in for a massive public outrage. Sadly they were all 200% softcocks and didn’t go with it. One of them even started a conversation with the Kollingwood Kunt through the fence. Collaborators one and all. We seemed to be the only people who saw the problem with people watching a charity game for free. And it’s not like anyone was there for the quality of the sports.
So, I thought to myself, it’s time to make as bold a public statement as was possible at such an event. As we were being treated to the live comic stylings of Scott Cummings, Steven (?) Febey and some radio bogan over the Junction Oval PA system I resolved to find them and demand they make an announcement inviting the people in question to fit in or fuck off. It looked like a failed enterprise from the start as our attempts to find the commentary box led only to us walking straight into the Collingwood change rooms to be confronted with a stern faced woman who demanded “Are you alright?” and Anthony Rocca giving me dirty looks. When I pulled out the response of “Umm, we’re looking for the commentary box. We’ve got a message for them” For some reason she then switched into ultra-helpful mode and directed us right to it. Thanks mad Collingwood woman!
Eventually we got up there, via randomly walking past my mum perving on the entire Melbourne FC list and half of Collingwood’s as well - which, if I hadn’t seen it before, would be a psychiatry moment to the extreme. Thankfully they had an open window and I managed to get the point across via the following free and frank exchange of ideas,
Adam: “Hello. I have a request”
Cummings: “Yes?”
Adam: “Can you make an announcement for all the cheapskates who are watching for free from behind the fence to pay up or piss off?”
Cummings: “Where are they?” (as if I was making it up… I pointed them out)
Random Stooge: “CALL THEM TIGHTARSES!”
I don’t think he was taking me seriously until the random stooge just fired up. I didn’t even wait for him to say yes or no, just walked off confident that justice would prevail and he’d let rip. Then for about two minutes he talked about the game. I was starting to lose faith in him for the first time since … well his 2nd game to be honest.. but then he must have been spurred on by the stooge again because not only did he do a bitter announcement about people being cheap and watching a charity game for free but he fired up and labelled them as ‘tightarses’ too. Just like the random had called for. And the crowd went mild. A few people applauded, and we tried to fire them up, but it was just general apathy. I swear people just go “I’ve done my bit. Don’t look at me!” I walked back over to the fence and let another spray go, hoping that now the assembled bogans would join in now that it was Cummings-endorsed but they just sat there again. Didn’t even look. Fuck ‘em - my conscience is clean.
The cricket itself was distressingly dire. Simon Godfrey took a hat-trick, which was unexpected and Collingwood racked up some ridiculous total of 14/150-something off their 20 overs. 14 batsmen indeed. What a farce. I didn’t even stay to see Melbourne bat, I’d paid my contribution and didn’t need to see the game of cricket destroyed any further. So we walked out and went on a random pre-soccer road-trip to Burwood K-Mart. On the way SEN (a dodgy sports radio station for you non-Melbourne viewers) were having an earnest debate about whether the 20/20 format is an absolute farce. I said yes, and they said yes. One of their announcers made the exact point that I’ve been pushing ever since this shit was launched - that it’s only good for charity tonkathons and park cricket. Then he went mad and suggested that One Day International’s were rubbish as well. So fuck him.
I took a couple of pictures of the game but they were complete shit and nothing was happening in them, so I just junked them and decided to post yet another picture of me looking as sick as a dog. Ladies calm thyself,
Does it for me. Please note that the obscured t-shirt bares the legendary slogan “Politically Correct Cunt”. I was hiding it from the kiddies at the time. Who said I was a complete bastard? Might have been me to be honest.
Nothing interesting happened on our road-trip. I bought a chair. We then drove past a computer swap meet and with time to waste combining with happy memories of buying shonky pirated software in 1995 we dropped in. Oh - my - god. I swear that every second white male there looked like a child molestor. I was quite creeped out by the whole experience and hid outside while the Lebo perused expensive hardware. Only my “what the fuck are you doing in there?” SMS saved him from buying several thousand dollars worth of useless equipment from somebody on the sex offenders register.
Then the path was set - Bob Jane Stadium via the Cricket Club Hotel. Again we fired up SEN and when I heard the magic word QUIZ as we passed through Richmond - and ironically straight past SEN HQ - I dived for the phone. For once it rang - which means they have no listeners. Usually I’m in these things just to get on the radio, apart from my farcical performance on the Gold FM free money minute at 6.40am once last year where I won $30 after bombing out by mistaking addition for multiplication I hadn’t won a radio quiz for years. Last time was some shonky 70’s quiz on Gold (natch) in about 2000 where I got a gimme handball on a question about Elton John from somebody who’d bombed out on the second question, then I answered correct that Laverne and Shirley worked at Schotz brewery (though I wanted to call it Schotzenfelder Incorporated - a’la the theme song - until the radio bogan off-air told me to just answer “Schotz”) and then that Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics. All I got for this remarkable handicap victory (given that in ‘76 I was -5 years old) was a double pass to some shithouse IMAX ghost movie that I never used. No glory, no decent prize. What’s the point?
Anyway I went into this one hoping for a good run - then they announced that the whole point to it was that they’d tell you a sporting arena and you had to tell them what country it was on. Thanks - for - playing. I can’t even remember what the first few were but a couple of callers came and went. Suffice to say I would have gotten them all. Then as fate would have it the guy who bombed out before me died on one I didn’t know - thank god I had the Lebo there to tell me that the A-1 Ring motor racing circuit is in Austria because I haven’t watched the sport since they put a race there. So part of my success is down to him - but not enough for me to share.
The rest of it went a bit like this. I may have screwed the order up a bit because I was as nervous as. Even though I knew I was only going to win a tennis racquet.
Horse Racing circuit “The Curragh”. Republic of Ireland - got it. Even said “Republic of” which should have got me more points
Rugby stadium “The Millenium Stadium”. Wales. Too easy - even if it’s a soccer football stadium to me. What’s Rugby?
Soccer stadium “The Maracana”. Brazil. Despite being the biggest sitter of them all I actually balked on this one for a split second. I had to think about it before getting it right.
Snooker stadium “The Crucible”. England. As I said live to air “I narrowed it down to the only place in the world that cares about snooker”.
Cricket ground “The Wanderers”. South Africa. Ultra-quick process of elimination said it had to be from an anglo-esque country, that they’d already done one from the West Indies before I came on and that it wasn’t Australian, English or from New Zealand. Done.
There were more. I can’t remember what they were now. Tension was too high.
The final one - they were pumping me up on air and saying what a gun I was so I couldn’t possibly fail on this or all would be lost. No tennis racquet, reputation shattered, no tennis racquet.
Baseball stadium - (at this point I knew I was home) “The Skydome”. Canada. Thanks for playing. Let’s all go have a tennis tonk. When they said Baseball as a final question I knew it wasn’t going to be somewhere in the USA and that if it was Japanese or Mexican the name would have given it away. Waves of relief rippled throughout the car. Victory was mine. An eight question blast that destroyed the line-up of bogans they had hanging on the line waiting for me to fail. The rest of the trip was spent analysing the hairier moments in the quiz. Given his contribution to the start of my streak Amul is given the right to have tennis balls waffled at him from the new racquet. Lucky boy.
The rest of the evening - coming in the next post. Get excited.
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