Here Come the Tigers

The winds have changed. Every 15-20 years there is an earthly shift, marked by a modern phenomena, the Tigers (Balmain/Wests) win (or are robbed of) one or many premierships over a short burst. There’s a fashion rule that says trends can repeat every 20 years. Don’t be distracted by the result last weekend, this is much deeper, it’s about the tension between human drives for efficiency, and the desire for freedom, play and expression, it’s a planetary rhythm, astrological in its essence.

The first wave of the Tigers burst, happened from 1911-24 with 10 premierships being cleaned up, in parallel during this period the First World War occurred; “the War to end all Wars” featuring amongst many waves of human destruction, the 1916 Battle of the Somme with over a million casualties and 300,000 dead, the first day of the battle remaining one of the deadliest single days in human history.

World War 1 ended and the Spanish Flu arrived, with another 2 years of huge waves of destruction, this time virally, with between 25-50 million lives lost. And then we entered the roaring 20s where the world threw itself into an age of Jazz, of improv, of moving with each other, by the mid 20s, the Tigers stopped their run of winning Premierships, and the next 15 years saw a great depression, the rise of some of our earth’s most sickening dictators, mass shifts in automation, and the emergence of a Second World War.

As the Second World War opened, the Tigers won again and between 1939-47 they won 4 premierships, the Second World War skyrocketed technological advancement with movement by air becoming normalised, and weaponry moving to a scale where we could now wipe ourselves out as a species with the invention and destructive deployment of the Atomic bom.

It would be another 22 years until the Tigers would win again, after World War 2, Alan Turing (who helped cracked the code and win the war for the Allies - told in the modern film The Imitation Game), and his mates in Building 20 at MIT Media Labs set the foundations over this 20 year period for Building 20 to unearth some of the world’s largest breakthrough’s in design, Amar Bose did his early research into loudspeakers in the building, early hacker culture evolved in the space via the Tech Model Railroad Club, microwaves originated out of the same building, and in total 9 Nobel prize winners would spend time in Building 20.  

The waves of conservatism and governed exclusion started to erode in the 20 years before the Tigers won again in 1969. By 1969 My mum and Grandad had for 2 years being included as citizens in Australia. In 1969 Woodstock lit up our collective imaginations to symbolise the global movement for peace and unity. To remind us as Harry Belafonte says “When the music is strong, the movement is Strong”. And by 1969 Mandela had been in Prison on Robben Island for 5 years. 

Almost 20 years later the Tigers were robbed of two premierships, the first in 1988 when Terry Lamb illegally whacked Ellery “eats celery” Hanley, the tigers star, in the first play of the game, and when Ellery was stretchered off that was the match. And the second when the wind changed again and a wobbly drop kick couldn’t find the way, and I saw my Dad break down for the first time wailing “why oh why” at the TV screen, as I watched on as a four year old. 

In those 20 years leading into the 80s, we as a species emerged socially with rich weaves appearing; we ended the Vietnam war, Singapore solved homelessness with a rich complex inclusive public housing program, Japan exploded as a storytelling and design with Studio Ghilbi becoming a global beacon of imaginative storytelling, born in the same year as me.

In 1988 Bicentenary protest took place in Australia on the 26th of January sparking a 30 year movement that is still running for the most basic of human decency in our Australian narrative, that we as Indigenous people exist, have value, and intelligence, and should have our place respected in the Australian story, now, before and beyond.

It would be almost another 20 years until the Tigers, now merged with the Magpies, would find their way into a grand final, this time to raise the trophy. In that time Mandela walked out of Prison and united a nation in a rainbow. Rudd apologised. The US had got ready to begin to usher in it’s first Black president and Technology was on the march. From personal video games, to the mobile phone, Google was founded in 1998, Facebook in 2004 and YouTube in 2005, and the iPhone in 2007. From Woodstock to Silicon Valley. We were about to wade into 20 years of the most dangerous intrusive network design, on a scale never before seen. With human being giving up our freedom, for ease of distraction, and opening up advertisers into our pockets, our homes, our memories, and our minds.

And now almost 20 years on, we emerge into the 2023 NRL season. At another critical juncture in human history, the plates are shifting, we are experiencing the end of another pandemic, just like after the Tigers first wave of wins in the early 20th century, we are experiencing climate inequity and impending disaster like we haven’t seen before, and the answer is where we were in 1969, with peace and love and kindness at the core of our species. A coming together. We are experiencing a wave of automation that have never seen before, Chat GBT can now do the assignments of kids, up to 40% of jobs are at risk of being automated in the next 20 years, and in this time, in this space, over the last 20 years the Rugby League game, alongside all other professional sport has followed the Henry ford efficiency playbook. Find the code, train the code, apply the code, robot not human, glorify those that have discipline and work hard. Remove imagination. Remove play. As the robots do our homework and take our jobs, we must find another way for the next 20 years to move as a species, and that is by finding the joy in our life, the love in our soul, the kindness with each other, and the ability to tell big stories, to entertain and dazzle, to surprise and wonder.

Enter the Tigers, to the untrained eye yesterday’s loss would look like a team that didn’t know how to catch a ball, but with a historical context and understanding of galactic patterns it becomes clear that the Tiger Moon is rising, the winds have changed, and what we witnessed last weekend as the players stared down at their hands in disbelief was akin to the Hulk trying to understand what had happened the first time he transformed. They are now running down hill. The best of us would struggle to adjust immediately to suddenly running downhill with more power than ever before. Mark my words, this is the epoch of the Tiger, they’ll win the comp this year or the next and in the next 20 years we’ll see a shift from social to relational networks, we’ll see a shift from automation to imagination, we’ll reward joy, and reclaim our role as a species as the custodians of planet earth, from nature to nature. 

It’s as inevitable as the earth rotating the Sun. Here come the tigers, the change is afoot.

The Day I Quit Drinking

6th January 2022 (was the date I made this decision and started drafting this piece).

Through a crazy pandemic, a desire to try & change the world, and having my own family, a partner and daughter, I’ve wrestled with what life is worth, how to handle the stress and pressures, where to resist and where to release. BRAT was born during this time like a star explosion fuelled by the pandemic - and the rest of my life, a pure energy release.

I was talking to Mum the other night who said our grandfather on his deathbed said to her “Bronny but I just had so much more I wanted to do.” I feel that there are so many more books I want to read, so many more stories I want to write, so much more music to feel, relations to deepen, life to be lived. Growing up, inspired by her Dad’s parting message, Mum said to us “kids, live 3 lives if you can”, I’ve turboed that challenge to try and live 10 lives in one.

As a result I’m now in this gnarly position where despite the pandemic I’m really stoked with my life. I have a magical partner, a strong daughter, a job where I get to connect people and make the world a little fairer, and this world of BRAT, a space where I can write, paint, create and let the inner BRAT out. I share my life with people who have the richest asset in the world - minds at work, who I get to learn from, and live with. That’s who you are.

I feel very lucky, in many ways like I’m staring at paradise, and yet in spite of this, I’ve had a shadow nagging at me.

For 22 of my 36 years on planet earth Alcohol has been in my life. My heroes in sport drowned in it as religion. In chasing my own professional sporting career I was shocked early in my life how players would drink in the dressing room instead of hydrating, by the end of my time in cricket I’d learned to love a beer.

Alcohol was there during my teens and 20s, it was a social lubricant, it was a way to find escape from the pressure of founding AIME at 19, and trying to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. And look, it was really fun a lot of the time. Some of my friends got really dark when they drank, I was for the most part able to experience joy, and play.

6 years ago the sport dream ended, and I entered my 30s. I travelled and had 6 months in America, landing in NYC and fell in love. And then went on a wild ride of becoming a Dad and building our own little family. I wanted desperately to be a good Dad. To be a good partner. In the throws of the pressure of parenthood Alcohol has been a companion, a release. The kicker being, I’m not now exercising like a pro athlete, and with our particular model of child, we got one that didn’t sleep. The drinking of a nighttime made me more irritable when woken, more tired the next day, and the pattern built.

When the pandemic landed, I thought my job, which had been my life’s work to date, was cooked, daily I electrified myself with currents of hope and possibility in the face of the fear for life the pandemic presented.  At night I huddled in the refuge of Alcohol as a cuddle and used it as medicine to try and transition from the endless zoom calls and mania of work land, into family life and trying to be fun with our daughter and have joy and energy with my partner.

Over time I’ve realised I’ve become momentarily trapped.

I’ve drank not just alcohol, but the story of alcohol, almost my whole life, through advertising, social narratives, films, songs, adult life has been weaved with alcohol in it, watching sport - gotta have a beer, earning a drink on the weekend, partying being the reward for living. These patterns, they become adopted into our own story. Before we know it, we are an adult, and it can feel at times like all roads of success lead to Alcohol. 

For me it doesn’t stack up - it’s also, not very imaginative. I’m a pretty imaginative dude and love exploring all the riches of life, and I’d love to open up space to explore different rewards.

And I’ve also realised, I’m a seriously good designer. For my adult life I’ve worked with others on how to turn obstacles into opportunities. Always working ways to flip the script. To find a new narrative. Often it’s easier to coach others than to practice yourself. In BRAT land the process I have developed is to follow what I feel might be a mistake. To release myself from shame and judgement - to not have to be perfect.

I feel like I’ve been circling a realisation that has just arrived.

I have to turn an obstacle into an opportunity. I have a chance to design a different life, and I’m motivated to do this because of my daughter, and a seriously incredible partner who both love me and I really love them.

I love reading books.

I love writing stories.

I love making something outta nothing with energy.

I love life.

And so, today, on the 6th January, 2022, I’m going to close a chapter on one long relationship in my life. 22 years is a good stint - I’m saying goodbye to Alcohol, forever. I’m saying goodbye to a narrative that is shaped for me, and hello to the “10” lives Mum challenged me to live.

I’m saying hello to time, to time I hadn’t planned for, shaping new patterns, building new social shapes, releasing a drug from my life, and having a new set of opportunities.

I’m saying hello to night time reading and writing, I’m saying hello to the books that are waiting on the bookshelf, I’m saying hello to life before and after work hours and before and after my daughter sleeps. I’m saying hello to you, to the ideas you might have for what we could do together with this new time.

With this new space, in addition to taking my day job to the next level, I want to keep building my life as an artist, crafting my own story. I wanna let it out, I wanna write, make films, shape stories, sit in nature, be awed by this blue dot we are on and and share the wandering with you. Through this digital paper I’ll share my dreams with you. And I hope you’ll share yours with me. My goal will be to bring good vibes, energy, insight, and ideally magic into your life.

I wanna travel into world’s of imagining and share it with you.

As I say goodbye to Alcohol, it feels both important and so basic. It only feels a bit gnarly cos it’s such a lubricated part of Australian life. In terms of life adventures, pushing limits, pushing my potential, this is small fry I reckon, and the prize through this self examination is an understanding that my self, my life, is a life that is woven through others, my life is relational, it’s in ideas, it’s in nature, it’s in my daughter and partners hearts.

I don’t have to set up some strange bee bop doo wop dichotomy where there’s work time, and family time, and BRAT time and Jack time, it’s all of me, and I’m in it, so time to cut the Alcohol bungee line and fly.

I’d love you to write back to me, I love words, I love stories, and I’d love this to be a safe BRAT space for you. Let’s create together. Let’s adventure together.

In the end we are better together - That’s all part of the magic.

So now what? Dead and buried is now Alcohol’s 22 Years existence in my life and enlivened is the number 22, and the next 22 weeks, the next 22+ years.

Every 22 weeks I’ll send this crew a piece of writing/thinking/art. And some dreams for where we might be able to create together.

With my new time, new space, here’s some of the things I wanna try create in the next 22 weeks. Let me know if you wanna produce, create, make, play with me on any or all of the above:

1) I wanna set up a drive in cinema experience (nationally or globally) to give people during COVID something to look for. I was thinking we could do it in Carparks and make is immersive theatre, or in Ports could be cool too.

2) I wanna do a virtual exhibition with 9 other artists

3) I’ve got a film I’ve wanted to write since I was 19.. I’ve got the sketches… it’s called Coin - the journey of a coin through people’s hands through a lifetime of a coin, showcasing life in Australia through the 20th century, starting with a minted 5c coin in 1950, through to the beginning of the end of cash in 2020.

4) I’ve got my BRAT studio in Bellambi (Wollongong) region - anyone that wants to put on events let’s do something together - https://www.brattheartist.com/studio

5) I really really love writing in teams, with people, building stories, if you have anything you wanna write that you are working on and want a teammate, put me in the game coach.

6) I also can nerd out and build websites for fun so can do that if you need someone to build you a website

7) DAO’s/NFT’s - keen to explore more here and yarn to those of you that wanna play in this space.

8) I almost spun up this immersive theatre festival called UNSTUCK but COVID got us covered. Here’s a vibe if you’re keen to play - https://exultant-muenster-ae5.notion.site/UNSTUCK-Treatment-Map-Story-3eaa588b7f4d4a4191f1987ea91f2004

9) Help great people change the world

10) Improv on the idea you send back to me.

Let’s see what flows as we release our inner BRAT’s, turn obstacles into opportunities, and make the most of this tiny tiny tiny moment we have on this gnarly spinning rock.

Much love - we write the next chapter.

BRAT

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