Australian Pride - Sport and Punk

How good is it that we have always PUNCHED ABOVE OUR WEIGHT as a sporting nation?

Australia Rocks at sport Man!
(except in one day international and 20 20 cricket... now)

I'm a sports mad goon. I love soccer and AFL, Cricket and the Tour De France... I've travelled overseas to watch the Socceroos at the world cup in Germany, I signed up for tickets to the next world cup in South Africa and I'm a member of the Melbourne Victory.

However, I feel like Australia has short man syndrome.

Maybe as a collective nation we feel culturally insignificant, or maybe we're not as tough or big or important as other countries so we have to smash weights at the gym, stick our chests out and beat everyone at sport then shout out loud about it.

image from the couch gymnast my new favorite blog

It really annoys me that our sense of national identity and pride is so reliant on our performances in the sporting arena.

Here's some stats from the BEIJING OLYMPICS (from http://simon.forsyth.net/olympicsGDP2008.html):

• Australia came 5th overall on the medals tally - impressive yeah?
  
• Australia came 6th overall in the 'medals per capita' - still pretty impressive hey?
  
• We came 18th overall on the medals per capita tally and 18th in the medals per GDP (Gross Domestic Product) - hmmm... not as impressive
  

But... here's something not very impressive at all.

Government funding for Australia's elite athletes in preparation for the Beijing Olympics was allocated at the ratio of 40 million dollars per Gold Medal

f*ckloads.
waaaaayyyy toooooo much

And now people are in tears because if we don't add another 100 million to our olympic funding, we'll win EVEN LESS MEDALS! http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/18/2339445.htm

I've got an idea.

Let's forgo one Olympic Gold Medal and spend 40 million dollars on independent music...

Let's forgo another gold medal which will fund a fully functioning Victorian College Of The Arts and will allow the Australian National Academy of Music (a selective school for Australia's most talented young classical musicians) to function finally without risking being shut down.

You get my drift.

Maybe we could educate some people that we have things to proud of besides victory

Here's a reason I'm Proud of being an Australian.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring paid $1500 to make Australia's best record of 2008.
It won the Australian Music Prize, was nominated for an ARIA and won an AIR Award.
What other country has a music public, a music media that can recognise and foster brilliant music like this? Values, character, attitude, energy and songwriting.
Can you imagine ECSR winning a mercury music prize in the UK or the Shortlist prize in the USA?
even dicko loves it


(thanks to Stu for showing me the ECSR videos)

Maybe we could spend some of the gold medal money educating people about where some of our greatest musicians fit in the pantheon of worldwide culture.
I'll give one example.

This is also something that everyone of us should be proud of... The Saints are recognised in Australia's National Film and Sound Archive.
They formed the same year as the Ramones and predated the sex pistols, the buzzcocks, the clash... I realise I may be preaching to the converted here. But every time I listen to The Saints I reckon it needs to be said again. and again.

This song isn't what they're most famous for... but it was their biggest hit. It got to number 34 in the UK in 1977. It's my favorite Saints song. I think it's as scintillatingly rad as music gets...