'Ferrari'

   Probably in the top few for brand recognition [alongside the All Blacks, Man United] the red t-shirt is synonymous with Ferrari and motor sport. This is also the simplest 'fancy dress' costume I've ever worn...
   My brother in law's birthday party had a German theme so I chose to go as Michael Schumacher [and so sorry for him and his family and friends that he is so gravely ill]. So to be clear, I wore my normal jeans, joggers and t-shirt which in this case happened to be red with the Ferrari stallion logo on the front. I used to have a Schumacher cap but just had a generic Ferrari one for the occasion... and left it in the car!!
   Since starting this blog it's a reminder to enter this t into the rotation alongside my predominantly black t collection!!

Midnight Oil "One for the Homeless"

   You might add two nights at Newcastle's Palais in Hunter St West to the list on this shirt!! 24th and 26th March 1991 served as warm ups for the 'One for the Homeless' Benefits and the Palais shows were amazing!! Seriously they were up there with Selina's at the Coogee Bay Hotel but not quite Sydney's Capitol Theatre.
   It was a strange venue with side metal rails and the bar along the wall, a former dancehall and later the beginnings of 'The Loft' youth venue. It was run down, hot and uncomfortable, but yet we sat on the floor waiting for the Oils, I can't recall a support act that night, might have been a DJ...
   This shirt reminds me of 'The Oils' whole organisation revolving around a Foundation and a range of worthy causes coordinated as part of their efforts in 'giving back' from Glebe Point Rd upstairs... and it reminds me of the chore that was being an Oils support act. It was an endearing feature of the passionate crowds that a few songs would be tolerated and eventually the mob would begin to chant "Ooooiiills Ooiillss!!" and drown out many a talented performer.
   At the Enmore Theatre for 'Scream in Blue' live album the band even sought applause for 'Tall Tales & True" after their opening salvo, recognising that the chant had started early and even the band tried to placate fans by claiming their own Oils fandom. I think 'Horsehead' heavy rock band were booked for Coogee one night because they might be loud enough to drown it out... instead one punter was so loud and insistant that the lead singer challenged him to take it out to the car park and threatened to throw a beer can at him mid song.
   'Nitocris' did well the most frantic night I've ever experienced at the same venue and 'Diesel' was stunning the last time I saw them live at Manly before Peter left the band [before WaveAid and Bushfire Relief brought them back] His sound was crystal clear and his vocals haunting... it was a celebration of contrast upstairs at Manly Leagues and it was the night I knew it was all over... just something about the vib and the best I'd heard the band for a couple of years.
   Back to the Palais, it was a night with a few friends and a chance to introduce a few mates to the genuine article live... they thanked me by shouting a ticket to the second night!!
 

"Stark Industries" The Ironman

   Tony Stark isn't happy to discover that his weapons and technology are for sale to the highest bidder and he attempts to shut down that part of Stark Industries while needing to maintain his own work to ensure the electro magnetic dynamo in his chest prevents his death... a brilliant acting performance from Robert Downey Jnr makes this corny series of films work!! 'Ironman' is also a great vehicle for Gwyneth Paltrow... Pepper Potts is a great character. As a Redbubble t-shirt this one is a bit disappointing, it's dulled a bit quickly and is not a genuine size BUT I still wear it in between seasons and look fwd to it fitting a bit better this year... It is one that's starts shop counter conversations though!!

'THINKING... Please be patient'

   There's a 'Tropfest' film story in the way I live my life in hindsight!! Part questioning confidence, part focused on listening and taking time to process what's really being said and part only figuring out the BEST response after the fact!! Whichever it is at any one time I thought this was a great t-shirt to sum up what needs to be in front of people when they encounter me... I especially wear it to meetings... things said that annoy, that I know I want to question but am not 100% sure why or how, great ideas that should be encouraged etc etc...
   The main tools to overcome this challenge involve inviting people to say more about their idea, opinion or thought [except in some cases where inviting people to stop talking would be better allround]... things like...

What's you answer/suggestion/worry/thought?
What makes you say that?
Tell me more about that?
If that is the problem, can you hear what others are saying?
If you see it that way, what do you see as the way forward?
What do you think makes the others see it their way?

I would write more, but I'm going to save this post and edit it again later...

Wanderers Rugby Football Club

 
   With the Wanderers Rugby Club celebrating 90 years it's a fitting time to pull out this gem from towards the end of my coaching stint... a highly successful era and year for the Club which prides itself on Club Championship alongside any individual grades success!! Rugby players mostly enjoy running with the ball and we made not only a motto of this but tried really hard to play an attacking brand of footy with the usual 4th Grade blend of youth, experience and dinosaurs!!
   At every opportunity in my player coach days I reminded higher grade players that these Grand Final experiences meant just as much to lower grade players. One Presentation Night I did describe lower grade rugby as being like "sex with one arm tied behind your back... it looks kind of familiar but somethings not quite right" It got the appropriate level of laughter and "what did he just say"...
   It's a sport, a game played by people of all shapes and sizes and it's full of life lessons. Preparation, teamwork, adversity, injury, different personalities, the contest, handling referees...
   I look forward to involvement with the Club again this year in relation to player welfare and helping out with a few aspects of what it means to participate in such a great Club...

Canterbury Clothing Company of New Zealand "Rugby"

   There was a time when 'Canterbury of New Zealand' was the only rugby union jersey to wear. Before fitted ones they were strong, good sizings and the right sized collars and sleeves width and length... there were quality 'uglies', teams jerseys, shorts and also t-shirts. The photo on this t-shirt is a famous All Blacks image the featured in the 1990s in b&w and this harlequin style as a celebration of the brands history. I loved this t-shirt because it was the sport I played and celebrated the best team playing it by a long stretch. In recent times the Wallabies and others have had their moments and Rugby World Cups have been won by others. This was just the perfect t-shirt to keep your mind on preparartions for upcoming seasons through summer and was a great conversation starter so you could share anecdotes everyone had heard before many times, just by some poor innocent asking a question about the photo!!

NFL Gridiron American Football

   Tomorrow is Superbowl XLVIII and yes normally I'm the last person to celebrate over the top USA cultural 'Manhattanisation' BUT this is a celebration of the best and worst of that all rolled into one Football Grand Final.

Yes It's:

- Called 'The Big Dance'

- Classic grandstanding to be called 'World Champions'

- A day of drinking games and heart attack inducing food in the US

- It's a difficult game to follow

- a game worth billions of dollars and top players earn millions

- The advertising spots are the world's most expensive to make and to show

- The halftime shows waver between a huge yawn and amazing spectacles

- The show at which Janet Jackson flashed a bare breast to a worldwide audience

- They stop for commercial breaks

- Concussions and illness later in life are a serious consequence

- Yada yada yada...

   It's a relatively short season of an interesting hybrid game invented from Rugby Union and I watch it all season on Foxtel or free to air and have done for as long as it's been on Oz TV.

My team is 'The Raiders' of Oakland/LA/Oakland though I have cheered for other sides over the last 20 years in lean times for the 'Black and Silver'

   I liked Dallas, Washington and San Francisco of the late 1980s and early 1990. I have enjoyed watching NY Giants, the Manning led Colts and the Patriots in recent years!! I don't know who to cheer for tomorrow in the Denver Broncos v Seattle Seahawks match up. I ill enjoy my beverages and lunch regardless!!

   Both these t-shirts were purchased in the US on seperate trips to NYC. The Jets at a dedicated store, the Raiders at Niketown on sale. I did come back from one trip with 13 new t-shirts... too many!!

   The Yanks love their sports played in regional Divisions and Conferences that date back to seperate competitions that have then agreed to play a Grand Final and interweave games during the year. It builds traditional rivalries and some teams can spend years trying to surpass a rival in order to have a crack at higher honours. It does rule out certain GF match ups as only the top teams from the AFC and NFC can play each other in the 'Superbowl.'

   The game is like chess and has tactics to match. Time in posession of the football is critical amd teams can get out to significant leads but be run down by teams who then keep the ball for several 'drives' into the opposition territory and attempts to score 'touchdowns.' A small number of Aussies have played at this top level, most as kickers.

   The Raiders have built a reputation on a working class image but an ethic of 'excellence' and there is no better sports uniform colour than black. Years ago they sold many times more merchandise than any other team.

   The NY JETS shared 'The Meadowlands' in New Jersey with the NY Giants and now a new stadium which plays host to this years game. Sadly neither team really looked like playing in this game at home.

AND in this years SUPERBOWL it's NFL royalty in Peyton Manning vs a new kid on the block in a Seattle side who will give it a big shove. The media love stories, labels, talk of legacies and key moments and Manning has missed out to close rivals Tom Brady and the New England Patriots when he was at the Colts, but this year has been amazing at Denver post Tim Tebow. So the narrative around Manning will be his comeback from neck surgery and those times he's missed out and whether those misses or this and other successes will be the story after his career.

   Seattle are flashy up and comers with a modern looking Nike uniform, trash talkers and some skilled individuals not so well know here in Oz. They'll play different styles of football and it could be experience vs nerves or one side having peaked and the other bringing surprises. Seattle did a great job to get past the 49ers and into this game!! 

"JEDI" an old favourite!!

   Some storytellers like to start their story in the middle. "Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope" is a defining example of this from George Lucas. It was a timeless tale, an old fashioned western set in a galaxy far away. Through 'the force' and a classic battle between good and evil, Lucas set out in part to explore a faith that would embrace all and offend none.The Sith and the Jedi are engaged in a battle for hearts, minds and power with the unfolding story of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. All the links are there, they just didn't all make sense first time around. I love how the technology didn't exist to do some things and even 'Industrial Light & Magic' had to wait for the remastered versions to have some animals move, to animate Jabba the Hut and sadly to edit out the Stormtrooper who bangs his head in a doorway from Ep IV.
   Be that as it may, like Star Wars itself, my JEDI t-shirt has other layers of meaning. My friends and I have joked for many years that in the battle for the legitimacy of ministry with young people as Youth Workers [and yes I prefer that to Youth Pastor or Youth Minister, but that's a rant for another time] to be ordained a Minister of the Word was to 'turn to the darkside'... then in all seriousness, whether some acknowledge it or not, one path to legitimacy has been to say something different about the nature of same and to invite Youth Workers to explore their call in this way [church speak sorry]. But only Youth Workers could live with the idea that volunteers, lay leaders and ordained folks all have a place... none is junior, waiting to head into 'real' ministry.
   This t-shirt reminds me of mentors and pioneers I know, it reminds me of 25+ years of growing and using my gifts and abilities in doing stuff I love to do and feel 'called' to give time and energy to. Despite the pain, weariness, prophetic push back and disappointments along the way.
   All ministry is at it's heart relational and each of us would do well to focus on the things that give us energy and to collaborate, be honest and seek to "make space for the leadership of others, through serving." In a lighthearted way, that's always seemed to me to be a Jedi kind of thing. I'm no guru and while I can be stubborn and assertive in my own way, nothing is more exciting than seeing someone else do stuff they are good at because at least in some small way you've worked to see that as possible...
   To be fair I'm most stubborn when I'm in modelling or experimenting mode, trying to show by doing that things like: inclusion; different imaging of God; use of many mediums; experiments; listening; learning to think for yourself and engage the wisdom of others and life in your search; and a focus on what the recipient/participant or learner is experiencing/receiving or being taught [to name just a few things].
   I don't believe that the way I learnt about being in a community of faith, what it means to be a follower of Jesus, or how I encountered the story is the best way it'll happen for young people today [but lots of people don't seem to 'get that']. When he talks/writes about relating together as people and seeking to discover who Jesus is in our midst [and words to that effect] Andy Root has helped me to begin to articulate ideas about that I've had since my 20s. If we are the people we've encountered, the stories we've heard and the choices we've made, then this is of huge importance!! This is the stuff youth ministry is about, not the froth of slogans, banners, pick n choose social justice symbolism, single verse theology, best practice, excellence, or clever stuff that'll stick... That's why it's so hard and I still have lots to learn. We need diverse talents and approaches, we have different ways people explore and share their story... I just get sick of having to justify, against the flow...
   My JEDI t-shirt reminds me it's not 'playing' but is about a story with depth, individuality and at the end of the day it's also fun... besides, having turned 'to the darkside' shouldn't it be the iSith one that's available on redbubble?
 
 
 
 
 

"The Cassette Tape" from Redbubble

  

   Whether it's a mixtape, recordings of Monty Python or a bands new album, this was the music buying technology of my formative years. You'll see those memes on Facebook suggesting you're old if you know what these and a HB pencil have in common... when the cassette lost tension or struggled you would insert a bevel edged pencil or biro into the left or right wheel and turn it to run the thin brown magnetic tape from one reel to the other. These were revolutionary compared to the old reel to reel deck on which Dad played endless recordings of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.

   ABBA's 'Arrival' was one of my first bought cassettes but I had been taping TV shows through the audio aux plug for ages. We often sat in a corridor listening to Monty Python to escape school for a lunch break. I also had a lot of tapes of 'Hogan's Heroes' at one stage. By the time I bought Adman's ghetto blaster off him it was all about the music. I first heard Midnight Oil's 10,9,8... on cassette on an early SONY Walkman. Later came the cassette you inserted into your car stereo to play an external audio source in the car!!

   This t-shirt connects me with a bygone era and is about my youth and music but interestingly the conversations I have are not with young people asking me what it is, rather they are older folks speculating whether young people do ask... and yes, I did make a few mix tapes for a few girls over the years...

   One recording I would like to hear again and convert [but no longer have a functioning player for myself] is my competition winning [3-4] question sports star interview taped for ABC 1233 Local Radio in Newcastle in 1994. I spent an afternoon in the studio chatting with former World Cup winning Wallaby Skipper and halfback, Nick Farr Jones, from his law firm offices in Sydney. Craig Hamilton liked the questions someone else wanted to ask Michael Jordan then suddenly realised it might not be possible to arrange so my questions were chosen!!

   

"Roy & HG" This Sporting Life

   I enjoy the comedic work of 'Rampaging Roy Slaven' and 'HG Nelson' aka John Doyle and Greg Pickhaver right from their stint as silhouettes with Andrew Denton on TV and their early 2JJ 'Festival of the Boot' ghost calls of the Rugby League Grand Final. One year I was able with assistance to record the radio commentary with the TV vision to watch the rerun with Roy & HG having being distracted by friends at the party. For some they will recognise the chat show analysis and highlights from 'The Dream' alongside the Sydney Olympics which is part of pop culture history!!

Testament to their influence is the way their comedy has become part of our everyday fun speech...
   Origin league players are known as 'The Brick with Eyes', 'Back Door Benny' or my favourite is Alan Langer as 'Deborah Kerr.' Yes that's right, from playing alongside Wally Lewis you get 'the King and I' starring Yul Brynner and ... that's right, Deborah Kerr!! Then there's the 'battered sav', the 'hello boys'... from Olympic gymnastics.

  I love my sport and so have been subjected to all kinds of commentary for years. Roy & HG struck a rich vein of comedy through the absolute commitment to your view, until you change it... they would praise a player as a world beater until the match tide turned or one small incident and then mercilessly change their rhetoric and be just as passionate with a conflicting view... amplifying what we all hear in any sports match!!

   Add to that Roy's own sparkling career for Orange CYMS, his racing pedigree or HG's expert opinion or spin on a story lifted directly from the Daily Telegraph newspaper [ouch, I've heard plenty of serious sports casters using that authoritative source...].

   This t-shirt has long been part of my collection, bought from the ABC Shop in Sydney's QVB but signed many years on when HG was launching his post Olympics book and we chatted about the Rabbitohs and the Rugby!!

   I spent many a lazy afternoon tuning in [and there was a time people would rive places so as to be able to listen to Roy & HG] as Roy in particular asked callers how they'd put in the afternoon. Uni studies, banana cake icing, plumbing tips or light reading were no struggle for the well read, sharp and ironic humour of John Doyle as he easily slipped from topic to topic no matter what the caller had been up to.

POSTSCRIPT
   It seems Roy & HG have just signed with Oz network TEN to do a show as part of their Socchi Winter Olympic coverage... suddenly I have 'some' interest in them... no wonder it's being announced now as TEN, so enthusiastic about their coverage, were just about the last resort, bargain network. Nobody really wanted to have to do it!!        
   I look fwd to the sporting great 'Rampaging' Roy Slaven [coached by 'Grassy' Grannell] interviewing 'Chumpy' Pullin... gotta love a #nickname