Those things you love to hate

Southern Mel
Daily Mercury, September 15 2010

DON’T you hate it when...?


Don’t you hate it when some random guy asks to sip your mojito, and when you say “no” their friend says “good choice, he’s got aids”?

Don’t you hate it when someone doesn’t pull their weight, especially when they appear to be carrying the most of it?

Don’t you hate it when you move into a new house and scratch your car on the side of the carport when you have only lived there two days and your housemate did exactly the same thing the day before?

Don’t you hate it when you move to a regional centre in Queensland and realise it’s the only one without a Sizzler and an all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut is four hours up the road?

Don’t you hate it when you have to go back to Melbourne where it’s wet and horrible, while it’s sunny and 27 degrees in Mackay?

Don’t you hate it when someone tells you a story then delivers the same one five times even though they know you are still within earshot?

Don’t you hate it when someone hacks your Facebook account and puts on your status that you were intimate with someone last night when you haven’t been getting “intimate” for some time?

Don’t you hate it when an adult has a hissy fit like a 13-year-old and then proceeds to sulk for a week when they realise nobody appreciated it?

Don’t you hate it when you realise you went one beer too far?

Don’t you hate it when people dirty your bed sheet, especially when they didn’t ask to sleep in your bed?

Don’t you hate it when someone presumes you don’t like Mackay just because you’re a southerner?

Don’t you hate it when your friend gets drunk and stains your carpet, smears fingerprints all over your car windscreen or steals your alcohol?

Don’t you hate when someone spends more time whinging about their workload than they spend doing actual work?

Don’t you hate it when, don’t you just hate it when?!

Don’t you hate it when you get to the end of a column and realise there was no point to it? Sorry, I knew you may have hated it but I just had to do it.

One-eyed footy fan in finals heaven

Southern Mel
Daily Mercury, September 8 2010

SEPTEMBER and I have had a love affair for as long as I can remember.


I’ve always loved the first month of spring and it’s got nothing to do with my birthday or the smell of orange blossoms in the air.

It’s because of... FOOTY!

And when I say footy I’m not talking about that game which has scrums and tries.

Nor am I talking about that other game with nets and goal keepers.

I’m talking about real footy, the game with screamers, torpedos and bananas from the boundary line.

To me, there is only one real footy code and it’s AFL. It’s the code that boasts the best spectacle, the best bods as well as the most passionate – and feral – supporters.

Sadly, my team is often mistaken for the most feral of them all. You can tell as many ‘toothless’ Collingwood supporter jokes as you like. It’s a misrepresentation and no matter what you say my support for my beloved Pies won’t waver.

My love affair with September becomes even more passionate when Collingwood are on the march. But even when they’re not, there’s just something about the four-week battle to make it to that last Saturday in September.

Humble houses in suburban Melbourne become temples for die-hard fans of teams in the AFL finals race.

Country towns have decorations of biblical proportions if their local team qualifies for the district grand final.

The Mecca, the MCG, comes alive. The atmosphere is electric and anyone who has experienced it knows the chill that goes down your spine when 90,000 supporters let loose as the first siren sounds.

You see, footy is a religion in Victoria. It’s just such a shame that North Queensland is yet to be converted. But there’s still time.

If you haven’t been to an AFL game, it’s not too late to see one in Mackay this year. It may not be the MCG, but Harrup Park is a pretty good place to catch a game of footy.

And what better time than this Saturday when the Mackay City Hawks and Whitsunday Sea Eagles fight it out for Mackay’s own Holy Grail.

Rat's tail can't cut it with the girls

Southern Mel,
Daily Mercury, September 1 2010

AMY Winehouse has the bird’s nest. Donald Trump has the comb over. Joe Dirt has the mullet. Mackay has... err, the rat’s tail.

When I arrived in Mackay I thought I had stepped back in time to the early 1990s when MC Hammer was cool and acid wash jeans were all the rage.

I’m probably about to hit a nerve, but there is no way I, in the words of MC Hammer, ‘can’t touch this’ subject.

Before I moved to Mackay, I hadn’t seen a rat’s tail for at least 15 years.

Actually, I reckon the last time I saw one was on my younger brother when he was about five. For some reason my mum, who gave me my beautiful blunt fringe as a youngster, decided it would be a good idea for my bro to grow a rat’s tail. I remember that my nanna kept threatening to get out the scissors and cut it off.

At the time, I thought my nanna was being mean but now I realise that she had good reason to want to give his rat’s tail the big chop.

Guys, I am yet to talk to any girl who thinks a long tail of hair sprouting from the back of a man’s head is attractive.

And I’m pretty sure the circa 1990s hairstyle won’t do you any favours when it comes to getting a job.

So why do so many guys sport rat’s tails in Mackay? Is it because they absorb the sweat dripping down their necks in the hot, humid weather?

Do they provide a good conversation starter down at Sails on a Sunday? Am I missing something here?

What I didn’t miss one night at the gym were the six guys with rat’s tails working out.

Maybe this gives credence to the sweat theory, but boys your buff bodies won’t be the first thing a gal notices. It will be the hair sprouting from the back of your neck.

My housemate is Mackay born and bred and also struggles to explain this rat’s tail phenomena. And we think it’s no coincidence that a giant’s rat’s tail is also a noxious weed.

I was happy to escape Melbourne’s bad emo hairstyles and mohawk resurgence.

Now I feel the urge to carry a pair of scissors in my bag in fear of that dreaded hairy rat.

Loaded question has no answer

Southern Mel
Daily Mercury, 25 August 2010

“ARE you from here?” I paused, as any Mackay resident from down south would.

“Do you live here?” Ah yes, a much simpler question to answer. “Yes, I live here, but I’m originally from Melbourne,” I replied as we stood waiting in the taxi rank.

Now the first question may sound simple, but it’s not one for me, or any other southerner for that matter.

And it’s not because we are ashamed to say we live in Mackay. Far from it. It’s because we are in the midst of an identity crisis.

If I said yes to the initial question I would have felt I was being dishonest. If I said no, I would have felt like I was dissing Mackay.

Well, I am glad I waited for the follow-up question, as the two girls I was chatting to were tourists. “We are from Rockhampton. Is the wait for taxis always this bad?”

I told them it was usually busy on a Saturday night.

“Argh, we never have to wait this long in Rocky,” one of the girls moaned.

I guess sometimes the wait was a bit tedious. But I could only compare it to Melbourne where you could virtually hail a cab from any corner.

“Another question. Why are the clubs so expensive to get into here?” Another question I couldn’t answer. Again, I could only compare to Melbourne where there were more clubs to choose from, thus it was easier to avoid a cover charge.

“Well obviously people are happy to pay it,” was all I could offer. Fortunately, the

girls then jumped in a cab. It was far too early in the morning for them to fire off more questions I couldn’t answer.

But on the way home I wondered why that first question was so difficult to answer. How long do I have to live here before I can say I’m from Mackay? Will I always be from Melbourne? When I went to Melbourne for a week I was keen to get back to Mackay.

Does that count for anything?

Halfway home now, I fired off my own question. “Are you from here?” The cab driver paused for a second before replying: “Well, I’m originally from Brisbane but I moved up here three years ago.” Looks like I’ll grapple with this one for a wee bit longer.

Waiting to have health put first

Southern Mel,
Daily Mercury, August 18 2010

“PRAISE the Lord!” There he stood, about five foot ten with a two-day growth, and his arms, one bleeding, spread like a bird while yelling hallelujah.

No, this wasn’t a scene out of Passion of the Christ or another religious movie. It was the scene in a hospital emergency room in suburban Melbourne.

“Praise the Lord. I thought I was going to bleed to death,” he said as a roomful of about 50 watched on. It had been a boring four-hour wait, so watching this guy make a scene was quite amusing indeed. The doctor quietly told the bleeding man to control himself before whisking him down the hallway.

I recalled this amusing, but serious, sight as I wrote an article about TomGraham’s 31-hour wait for surgery on a severed finger a couple of weeks ago.

I had heard a lot about Queensland’s ailing health system before arriving in Mackay. But it really hit home when I wrote that Mr Graham, a Moranbah miner, severed his ring finger at 2.30pm one day in a freak drill accident but wasn’t operated on until 10pm the next day.

I don’t think the man with the two-day growth waited as long as Mr Graham for surgery.

But when I watched him struggle to stem the bleeding with a homemade bandage it was clear he needed medical attention. ASAP.

All I know is he was in the waiting room before I arrived with my broken thumb. My thumb had been broken for more than 24 hours, so I had no problem letting more critical patients go first – particularly those who claimed they would die waiting.

I’m sure Mr Graham also had no dramas with those with more serious ailments being treated first. But nobody with a severed finger should wait as long as he did for surgery.

So this week I had my own “praise the Lord” moment when Prime Minister Julia Gillard firmly put health on the agenda at her official campaign launch in Brisbane.

Every Australian deserves a first-class health system. Let’s hope we don’t die waiting, regardless of the outcome of Saturday’s poll.

From down Mexico Way

Southern Mel
Daily Mercury, August 11

I’ve got a confession to make. No I’m not a man. Nor do I have six toes. Although some readers may consider it a deformity.

Here it goes… I’m from down south, way south. Melbourne’s suburbs to be exact. Yes, that’s right I’m a Mexican.

If I had a dollar for every time someone here called me one I would be rich. Okay, maybe $50 richer. Actually, I’d probably have more in my back pocket if I had $1 for every Mexican I’ve met in the Mack. Melbournites, Sydneysiders, South Australians and even Tasmanians have invaded the city. And we’re all here to take your jobs and whine and moan about the state of the place.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Mackay. But like every Mexican, I am guilty of sometimes starting my sentences with ‘down south we…’. Moving to a regional city, like Mackay, requires a lot of adjustment and I’m still getting there.

I remember how fast my heart sank when I discovered, upon my arrival, that I couldn’t shop on a Sunday. I also remember the time I drove to the shops on a Friday night only to discover they were shut. Woops, I forgot I was about 2300kms north of the fashion capital.

Come to think of it, Mackay is the same distance from the nation’s sporting capital and home of the AFL, Australia’s greatest game. You may disagree, but there is only Holy Grail and it’s not State of Origin glory.

Although, I will admit that I quite enjoyed the clean-sweep. I may be from down south, but it sure feels good to crush a cockroach. It would also feel good to get a dollar every time I commented on my Melbourne friends’ Facebook statuses that said ‘I’m freezing’, ‘over this rain’, or ‘finally shaking the flu’.

There’s one thing I don’t miss about Melbourne – and that’s the weather. Mum and Dad, I’ll see you when the sun comes out in September for the march to the Holy Grail.