“I’ve played 12 years with the team and in my last game against Nimbin in my not terribly distinguished football career, we did, after winning only one game all year, until this final game at Eureka which we call The Fortress, under a beautiful blue black night sky in the hinterland, we were down one nil at half time. There were many famous Yeomen of the district watching like Laurie Axtens for example, a Stalwart of the Nimbin Football Club and Bruce what’s his name. All these guys I’ve seen around over the years. Mick Daley came and sat on the hill with Rebecca for this last game. We got on a roll… Our centre back dropped the ball straight over the right shoulder of their centre back and it landed in my path. I hit it the first time with my left foot, my non preferred side, straight past the Goal keeper. No-one was more surprised than me but everybody there was utterly astonished. There was cheering and much laughter. We scored another goal and that’s the end of my glorious career at Eureka. Nina and I had played there for the last two years.
Three years ago Nina had a massive operation to deal with Scoliosis. Nina went from being as bent as she was with acute Scoliosis, nearly 40 degrees, to now ram rod straight but flexible thanks to incredible technology. We started a six a side comp a few weeks ago and in the final Nina scored the winning goal. I mention all of that because Eureka was really important with Nina and family. Kathryn played, Thibault played and so many friends of mine. It was my way into life in the Northern Rivers. So many people come up here to join an intentional community or dare I say a cult or to look for something spiritual and I came up to Mullum Music Fest, stayed with an old girlfriend from high school. We hit it off and it was great but life really came alive up here with the incredibly diverse and wonderful group of people at Eureka Football Club. We had people with wildly successful businesses living in incredible properties and people on the bones of their arse struggling to pay the rent. It was a wonderful group of men, women and children and most of my friends come from that group. I’m forever grateful because it’s always an issue for men in middle age to maintain friendships, let alone find friends.
Eureka led to Dusty Esky. One night at Football Ant Solomon GP said to me – Do you Sing? Do you wanna join a choir? I said..Maybe! He said.. We sing in Russian. I said…I’m in!
Dusty Esky performed in Lismore at The Dusty Attic, Kate Stroud’s beautiful venue. We performed out the back unlawfully and it was one of our best shows to a small group of a hundred people. We were on fire that night. The answer to how many in the choir is however many turn up and there’s always 28 of us. A third of us can hold a tune, a third of us can really sing and a third of us are really good blokes to have a beer with. Over the years we got more and more serious. We were on Australian Story. During lockdowns we did one single gig all year at Habitat in Byron and we got famous in Australia from Australian Story and in Russia on Russia TV. We were discovered by the Russians in 2017. Glen Wright had the idea doing something like the Red Army Choir, Tom Whittaker came up with the name and Andrew Swain made the whole thing happen. Andrew’s ability to make a choir work is really remarkable and without his genuine skill and care none of it would have happened.
When the Russians invaded Ukraine we thought this isn’t fun anymore so we canned it and was just a question of being properly sensitive to people. We did a show last year at the Bangalow Film Festival. We essentially sang the soundtrack to an old Russian silent movie. Dusty Esky got me performing again which I hadn’t done anything for years. Whilst caring for my Dad I went nuts and I took a show I’d written to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I got 4 star and 2 star reviews. I had a long break and a decade later did one man shows at Comedy Festivals around Australia.
I wrote a book called ‘Making Australia slightly better than average again’ It was fun book and had a limited appeal to people. It was a satyrical but serious look at Australian politics and I did my own show at NORPA in the studio based on those concepts called Alternative Prime Minister.
It’s funny how things pan out. Work first took me to Lismore in the 90s and for the last 5 years it has increasingly taken me there. We love our little hole in the wall office in Woodlark St and we love the people we work for. I practically live at the Courts in Lismore now. That wasn’t the plan.
I want to say how I love Lismore. I love the Pie Cart and I used to love sitting in The Mecca eating toasties after doing The Sound Lounge at the ABC. I love the Lismore pool and the arcades and how it feels like a squished up city with its back alleys, civic buildings, old school pubs, shopping malls and fast food joints make me feel like I’m in the Australia I grew up in. It is a real and loveable place full of real and loveable people, and difficulty, honest difficulty. My life has been a random assemblage of largely wonderful things.”