Which NBA team should Addster support?

The Indiana Pacers because I've been actively following that state's Colts in the NFL for several seasons now? Or, similarly, the Toronto Raptors 'cos I'm a Blue Jays fan in the MLB? Then again, the Los Angeles Lakers do share the distinctive purple, gold and white strip of my soon-to-be-reinstated-in-the-NBL Sydney Kings. They're consistently successful, too, unlike the Pacers and Raptors. On the wacky side, the lowly Washington Wizards seem like a snug fit with my fantasy and role-playing bent and it's fun to barrack for the underdog. Should I pledge allegiance to them and cop the losses? Or do I take the advice of a sporto I chatted NBA with at a colleague's 40th. He recommended I choose a team of talented youngsters as that would guarantee me years of happy spectating. (If he gave an example, it failed to lodge in my brain.) Applying his logic retroactively, the franchise which has given me arguably the greatest viewing pleasure to date is the San Antonio Spurs...except I just don't feel any connection to them. Ditto their rivals, the Phoenix Suns, in spite of Steve Nash being my favourite basketballer. I'm pretty sure I'd prefer to avoid the Boston Celtics. Partly because it might seem like bandwagon-jumping (at least I'd have an excuse, however lame, for going Lakers), and partly 'cos it's irksome the way their name is pronounced "seltic" and not "keltic". In summary: I haven't a clue.

How I rolled

Saturday's rollerderby show at the Hordern Pavilion brought back pleasant memories of going rollerskating as an eight- or nine-year-old in Raymond Terrace. As I recall, the rink was underneath the local footy grandstand. It may have only been open one day per week. It may also have been seasonal. Most of the boys I hung out with were older and I was envious of how much meaner-looking their rented skates were than the ones in my size. As soon as I'd clumsily laced my boots, though, my sole concern was getting around the track as quickly as possible, albeit with the occasional assist from the rail. The folks in charge played music and I fancy a large proportion was disco. That wouldn't have bothered me as I'd seen and bloody loved "Xanadu". What was annoying was when the announcer would order us kids to move to the sides so the teenagers could have a game of "Red Rover". From their perspective, it was probably the high point of the day - no more dodging wobbly eight- or nine-year-olds with a habit of veering towards the railing. Meanwhile, we longed to join in. What I don't remember is why I stopped going. Was the rink closed down? Did my friends suddenly declare rollerskating uncool? Or was I younger than I've calculated here, and yet to be swept up by the BMX wave (or watch "Xanadu")? I don't even really know how many times I went...but I have to believe it was magic. Hahahaha. Sorry.

Jet Bike Steve

JBS operates out of a secret hideout in Jet Cove, which he shares with centuries-old Viking Thor Gundersondonson, their mechanic(?) Spanners and a menagerie of animal pals that includes crabs, an octopus, seagulls, a dolphin and a dog.

JBS rides a sweet jet bike known as the Barack-uda. It appears to be self-aware as it once bought him a present on the Internet. Steve uses it to pillage yachts. Although it's armed, his weapon of choice is his steel-eye "glint attack".

JBS dates Sandy from the sandwich shop in Skeleton Bay. This babe has been favourably compared to Kirsten Dunst. Also keeping him busy is an on/off rivalry with the dastardly Dick Splash. Latterly, they bonded over a passion for brass bands.

JBS bears a freakish resemblance to Simon Pegg, whom he has publicly threatened. Cynical types have bandied about the term "alter ego". Steve's aquatic adventures are chronicled at twitter.com/realJBS - accept no substitute.


Cheers to CM for introducing me to this splendid chap.

Coming to the party

As the son of a staunch unionist and former FEDFA delegate, I have no satisfactory answer as to why it's taken me a decade to join the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance. It certainly wasn't any sort of rebellion. More a case of allowing myself to be dissuaded from doing so by older hands when I was a publishing greenhorn, then having no direct contact with the union for so long that I virtually forgot about it. (Yes, I now realise it was beavering away in my interests in the background.) I admit that on the rare occasions when the subject of the MEAA was raised, I permitted those same negative views to go unchallenged, so I must plead guilty on the count of apathy.

This situation finally changed a while back, when my sense of social obligation was stirred by that renowned rabblerouser SC, who invited me to an informal meeting with a union rep. Truth be told, I took almost no convincing of the worth of membership, because the basic tenets - fair conditions and working with a common purpose - are principles in which I've always believed. It's moral. It's rational. For me, it's in the blood. And I'll tell you what else it is - it's frankly embarrassing that I didn't sign up 10 years ago.

"Iron Man 3" predictions [spoiler warning]

Pepper Potts gets kidnapped by the new villain. While Tony Stark hunts for her, a rival love interest appears who may or may not be in cahoots with the baddie.

The only reason you bring a guy and gal together in a superhero yarn is so you can tear them apart. What, you thought they were just going to play happy families?

Still I wait

Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting For Godot" (1955*) is an important part of the history of theatre. Almost nothing happens in it. Two characters, Estragon and Vladimir, spend two nights waiting by a tree for the mysterious Godot. They meet three others - a boy, a bloke named Pozzo and his slave Lucky - and they talk. And yet the absurd dialogue - with its seeming aimlessness; its digressions, misunderstandings and repetition; its nonsense within sense within nonsense - somehow holds the audience's interest. Perhaps because it allows them to project so many different meanings onto what's being said.

My first encounter with "W/F/G" came in junior high, when my older cousin TH joked, "Godot is coming." He probably doesn't even remember it now, but I tended to idolise the dude, so I do. Of course, I had no idea what he was referring to, but I laughed and pretended that I did. I may even have repeated the line in a bid to impress an equally bewildered friend. See - I was a pretentious little shit then, too :-)

I didn't get around to actually reading the thing until my undergraduate days. There was a copy in the house that was either purchased by me for an English lecture I never attended or used by my sister AC in a drama elective. I picked it up on a whim and found "Gogo" and "Didi" bizarre, Pozzo and Lucky sinister, and all of them tragic and frustrating. But mostly I wished I'd been aware of the passage where the main duo discuss hanging themselves from the tree (touching on auto-erotic asphyxiation and the mandrake root legend) before I'd written a throwaway piece for the student paper about the use of the noose. See - I was, etc.

Now I have a ticket to a performance of the play at the Opera House in June. This production stars Gand...Sir Ian McKellen and is reportedly very funny. Funnily enough, the humour is something that came through a lot more when I revisited "W/F/G" recently, despite the number of amusing sequences - such as the hat-swapping - which are only described in the stage directions. I'm eager to see the whole thing interpreted by proper thesps rather than the shadowy amateurs in my mind. Can you feel my anticipation? Godot is coming!


* Beckett's English translation of his original French text.