Latest Posts

Absolutely Everything

iSanta – The iDad Christmas Special

Posted on by Matthew Green

Press play below for a little theme music.


Christmas has always been a magical time of the year in our family ever since iDad was a baby himself. As soon as God Sakes learned to talk Bynel and Mynel became Gam-pa and Gam-mar, which made my mother very happy, and for as far back as I can remember their house has always been a Christmas wonderland. Tinsel hung from every corner of the ceiling while festoons of multicoloured fairy lights twinkled inside and out. The tree was never shorter than six foot two and adorned with baubles, candy canes (fake and real), glass ornaments and an old family heirloom angel on top. Lunch consisted of roasted turkey and pork with crunchy crackling. We had home made Christmas pudding with brandy sauce, baked vegetables, peas, beans and a big fat leg of ham. I’ve never seen such a stupendous spread as the one Gam-mar and Gam-pa dished out every 25th of December. How my mum managed to slave it out in the kitchen during those notoriously hot Christmas days I’ll never know.

There were always presents as far as the eye could see. No one who visited their home missed out on a gift, nor did many of their neighbours. Bing Crosby crooned about chestnuts roasting on an open fire before taking us all to Ireland to experience a Christmas in Killarney. After a massive feast for lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon in the swimming pool before the extended family descended upon us and we ate and drank all over again.

Competing with the Griswolds was going to be tough 😉

God Sakes, Granny and No.1 are excitable enough at the best of times, but with the promise of the fat bearded fellow in the bright red suit squeezing down the imaginary chimney with a sack full of happiness…. well I’m sure you can understand why December in our house was the longest month of the year.

‘Is it Christmas yet?’ [Excitable chatter from one little boy.]

‘Not yet sweety.’ [Kind and loving answer from a weary mother.]

‘Will it be Christmas tomorrow?’ [Equally enthused enquiry from same little boy.]

‘No honey.’ [Audible sigh.]

‘But I want it to be Christmas noooow!’ [Dejected whine from disappointed little boy.]

‘Don’t wish your life away darling.’ [Typical grown up answer that kids don’t understand.]

Gloomy little trooper leaves the room and is replaced by another hyperactive tyke with similar questions. Thus the Christmas circle of life continues to spin.

Poor Blue Eyes had to deal with this every single day from December first until Christmas Eve and each visit to the North Pole (Gam-mar and Gam-pa’s house) only made matters worse.

At least iDad got to go to work 🙂

By and large, the present shopping for little boys is very easy. Trust me when I tell you that you cannot go wrong with Tonka trucks and toy dinosaurs. Living within a meager budget, though, meant that Blue Eyes and I had to be creative with our purchases. A twenty-four pack of Matchbox cards could be split evenly amongst three children, as could a bag full of dinosaurs, and this trick served to really pad out the Christmas stocking. Kids don’t care if their T-Rex is made in Taiwan.

Special Christmas Tip 1: Substituting monsters from old Japanese horror films does not work. Any five-year-old boy can tell the difference between an Allosaur and Godzilla.

Wrapping on the other hand was an untidy mess. Carefully folding coloured paper over tiny individual odd-shaped items can be a frustrating experience filled with paper cuts and misplaced sticky tape. Did you know that children do not care about the paper you use? In fact, I have serious doubts that they even notice what images are printed on it. Its true! One year we ran out of Santa wrapping and had to use some old birthday paper to finish off. Granny’s rampage didn’t miss a beat regardless of whether the wrapping had Rudolph or birthday cake.

Finally the 24th arrives, the last window in the Advent calendar has been opened and excitement reaches fever pitch. Trying to get overly animated children to sit still in Church the night before all their dreams come true is hard enough. Getting them to go to bed is nigh on impossible. My boys were like sweaty pink pinballs ricocheting off invisible flippers, careening around the house, bouncing off the walls and crashing into the furniture, all without the aid of red cordial, Coca Cola or any other sugary stimulant. Like the energizer bunny they were wound up and without an ‘off switch’. Blue Eyes would manage to get one of them into bed but as soon as she left to grab another, the first child was up, out and wreaking havoc. It was a futile effort that soon gave way to a glass of Chardonnay as we watched God Sakes push Granny into the tree. Eventually they wore themselves out and we were able to corral our two-legged horses.

In spite of the shenanigans, Blue Eyes and I always enjoyed the manic antics of our boys. There is something absolutely beautiful in the look a child has when he or she is deliriously happy. Its the kind of joy that stays on their faces long after they have collapsed into unconsciousness and reminds you that even if you are unsure what you are doing, and lets face it most of us are not given a parenting manual on the day you conceive, today you got it right.

One more quick check to make sure they are still asleep and its time to go up into the attic to retrieve the presents from iSanta.

Special Christmas Tip 2: Attics have spiders – that’s a fact of life. So if a dirty great huntsman the size of a Landcruiser crawls over your hand try not to squeal like a pre-teen girl at a Justin Bieber concert and definitely do NOT hurl the gift you are holding across the room, especially if it is made of glass.

Click here for more theme music:

Monster arachnids aside, the only real problems I ever encountered at Christmas began with those infamous words, ‘Some Assembly Required’.

One year Blue Eyes decided that we would get the boys an outdoor swing set. Auntie Pedie and Uncle Bop had come over for ‘dinner and and a show’ so after the circus had left town for the night we pulled the pieces of my dark green nemesis out of the garage and got started. Blue Eyes and I had never been good at building things together. All our Ikea constructions ended up with her laughing and iDad spitting the dummy, usually after a bashed finger or cut hand. I remember the day we built a wardrobe. In the kit was a bag of approximately 900 panel pins. I made sure that I used absolutely every single one of them and they were all perfectly spaced apart. Moving the unit a few years later I spent three hours cursing the ‘idiot who put so many bloody nails in the back’. Some days you’re the rider, other days you’re the horse.

Wisely Blue Eyes suggested that Bop the BMW mechanic should help me. With his technical skills and my managerial abilities we should be done in time, right? WRONG!

It was a particularly hot Christmas Eve that eventually turned into a thunder storm and by the time we got the boys to bed it was still drizzling.

‘No problem’ says iDad, ‘the sliding back doors will be wide enough to get the swing set out. Let’s build it inside.’

Special Christmas Tip 3: Beer may be nice to drink on a hot day but you can be sure that it will also impede your motor skills and capacity for logical thought.

Two and a half hours later and without referring to the instructions, Bop and iDad stood proudly in the living room inspecting our Colosseum. It was a grand design with a single swing on the right, a two person swing  on the left and an enclosed swing seat for Granny in the middle. To top it all off, there was a shiny slippery dip bolted to the right hand side. Sheer beauty.

‘That’s not going out the back door, you know.’

Bop was right.

Thankfully the ales we had consumed had kept us in good humour so the concept of pulling apart our masterpiece and reassembling it in the backyard was not a huge worry. With the last of the libations in the Esky iDad and Bop stood in the dimly lit courtyard being eaten alive by mosquitoes and cursing the fact that Santa would be getting all the credit.

Some time after three a.m., I crawled in between the sheets. Luckily, the boys let me sleep until it was almost six. We had a rule in our house that if you woke up and the sun wasn’t shining, then you couldn’t get out of bed. Foolishly I had hoped that the storm clouds would still be present and I would get a little lie in. The Southerly buster that arrived just before dawn cooled the city down and blew away the grey skies. It was bright and sunny and the frenzied pinball machines were dancing on my head.

Aside from the exhaustion it was a perfect Christmas morning. The boys rode the swing set whilst iDad cooked ham and eggs on the BBQ. Afterwards we had ‘Jurassic Park’ in the lounge room complete with Velociraptors, plastic soldiers and a bright red Ferrari that God Sakes refused to let No.1’s Spinosaurus step on. Granny was lying in the remnants of the wrapping with a gold bow stuck in his hair trying desperately not to fall asleep. Every so often one of his brothers would throw a dinosaur at him and he would climb out of the detritus so his Brontosaurus could munch on a plastic Marine.

Blue Eyes and I would sit with a cup of coffee and watch our little angels play. We’ve been doing this for seventeen years now and for me, these are the memories that make Christmas special.

Mele Kalikimaka everybody.

iDad © Matthew Green 2010

Strawberry Fields Forever

Posted on by Matthew Green

I was lucky enough to grow up as a child of the seventies. I say lucky because I was too young to worry about Vietnam. I was too young to experience that horrendous ‘come down’ from the drugged up love fest of the previous decade. And I had absolutely no idea who Charles Manson was.

Oh sure I got to wear flared hand-me-downs and leftover tie-dye; and yes we had Gough Whitlam’s ignominious exit from Parliament, Watergate, oil embargoes and nuclear disasters, but by and large it was a blissfully ignorant time of my life. The Big Mac arrived with its two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickled onions on a sesame seed bun (my mum had to sing the song in a restaurant one evening so my sister and I could win free t-shirts). Earth Day introduced the hippy concept of environmentalism to the mainstream population. ABBA seemed to be on everybody’s playlist and Evil Knievel was leaping over cars, buses and the Grand Canyon.

Music during the Seventies was cool – mostly.

Ok, before we go any further I am NOT referring to disco with my previous statement. Saturday Night Fever may have been an iconic movie that launched the career of John Travolta but no one should ever have to wear pants that tight. And don’t get me started on Hot Chocolate. There’s no way that Heaven was in the backseat of that guy’s Cadillac.

Lets start again. Apart from Disco, music in the seventies was pretty cool.

Except for Chuck Berry’s 1972 monstrosity – ‘My Ding A Ling‘ (what was he thinking?). Oh and that ridiculous song ‘Hooked on a Feeling‘ with the unforgettable Ooga-Chooga lyrics. Actually that Carpenters song ‘Calling Occupants’ (or octopus as my sister misinterpreted) was pretty awful too. Also, why was Michael Jackson singing about a rat and was Chuck E really in love with Rikki Lee Jones? And don’t get me started on the Osmonds, Leif Garret or either of the Cassidy’s.

Ok, third time lucky. Music in the seventies was rubbish with a few notable exceptions.

Kiss was made for loving you, Stevie Wonder was superstitious, Alice Cooper welcomed you to his nightmare, Supertramp was logical, Pilot were magic and Pink Floyd finished the decade comfortably numb. My parents had an eclectic taste in music with vinyl as far as the eye could see. From the big brassy voices of Bette Midler and Barbara Streisand through to Neil Diamond, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.

At meal times my father would select one of his favourite albums to listen to as we shared the family meal. Hot August Night got a fair amount of airplay, as did Billy Joel’s Piano Man, the Eagles and the Doobie Brothers. But it was dad’s collection of albums by Wings that lead me to discover the Beatles and the music of Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

Abbey Road had me hooked from the moment I heard it. Soft lyrics, driving guitars, and melodies that didn’t always end with the one song but often carried over into the next. As a six-year-old boy I was fascinated by the sick and twisted Maxwell with his silver hammer, and what child didn’t want to live in the Octopuses Garden? Let It Be, the White Album and Sergeant Peppers all became regular dinner music until the rest of the family decided that enough was enough. I was given my first tape recorder that year for my birthday and promptly taped every Beatles, Wings and John Lennon album I could find.

By age nine ‘Hey Jude’ had become my favourite song of all time and still is today. I actually took Jude for my confirmation name. He is the Patron Saint of Lost Causes – kind of ironic huh 🙂

I began to read everything I could about the Fab Four, which was rather difficult and a little bit expensive without the Internet. My mother hired ‘A Hard Days Night’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’ from the local video store for me and I actually found some books in the school library. I bought albums from Wings and the Plastic Ono Band with the money I made finding and selling lost golf balls and I made sure that at least one of my tapes got played in the car on those long family vacations.

‘Band on the Run‘ by Wings became one of my favourites alongside Lennon’s ‘Imagine‘. There is a line in the title track of McCartney’s album where a backing vocalist sings the words ‘…if we ever get out of here’. As a child I always thought that this was John Lennon doing a guest spot on the record, although I had a lot of trouble convincing anyone else. (Have a listen and see what you think – it happens right before the instrumental that precedes the line, ‘and the rain exploded with a mighty crash’).

Recently I listened to a copy of the bootleg album ‘A Toot and a Snore in ’74’. This is the only known recording session since the breakup of The Beatles where John Lennon and Paul McCartney played together and frankly – its pretty bad. The point is, this recording was made in March 1974. ‘Band on the Run‘ was released in December 1973. Obviously the pair were at least cordial with each other so why couldn’t it have been Lennon on backing vocals?

Ok enough conspiracy theory and wishful thinking 🙂

Being young and innocent (yes I was once) I really didn’t notice, and definitely didn’t pay any attention to, the troubles that surrounded my heroes. I’m sure that the breakup of the Beatles empire was a less than savoury experience for all concerned but the only question on my mind at the time was, when will the Beatles be getting back together?

Then it happened.

I still have a vivid recollection of that horrible morning when my whole world came crashing down. It was five days before my twelfth birthday and I was getting dressed for school whilst listening to 2SM. The headlines were announced as a lead in to the full news broadcast and I did a double take when the words ‘Lennon’ and ‘pronounced dead on arrival’ were mentioned in the same sentence. The reporter stated rather matter-of-factly that Mark David Chapman had shot John four times in the back and chest at approximately 10:55pm on Monday 8th December 1980 as he walked from his limousine to the entrance of the apartment building, where he lived with his wife Yoko and son Sean. I’d missed the news on television the night before and so I was unaware of the catastrophe until the next morning, Wednesday 10th December 1980.

The big, tough almost twelve year old sat on his bed and burst into tears.

I don’t know how long I wept. I only remember stopping when the call to ‘hurry up or you’ll be late’ came from downstairs. Then I began to feel stupid, big boys aren’t supposed to cry after all. I managed to mask my misery from mum and dad during breakfast and then sat silently in the back of the car on the way to school, secretly afraid of what my friends would think.

I walked stoically onto the playground that morning, doing my best to conceal my grief, and was surprised to find that I was not the only one who was hurting. Some kids were angry, others did their best to fight back the tears, but throughout the day we all spoke about what this tragedy meant to us and we realised that we weren’t alone in our sadness.

On the news that night I watched the throngs of sobbing fans gather in Central Park and around the Dakota Building where John had lived. They were holding hands, flowers and candles. Some were singing, some were crying but all of them were united in their feelings of loss and sorrow. It was an outpouring of grief the world hadn’t seen since Elvis passed away three years earlier, and wouldn’t see again until Lady Diana Spencer was killed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, 1997.

There is a definite healing power that comes with sharing your anguish openly with others. I coped with the loss of my idol privately but never forgot the experience. So when Steve Irwin died in 2006 I knew what my own children would be going through and I was able to be there for them.

Thirty years later I still get a lot of joy listening to the Fab Four and their solo albums. ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ does the rounds in my house during December along with ‘Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time’. ‘Band on the Run’, ‘Watching the Wheels’, ‘Mull of Kintyre’, ‘All Those Years Ago’ and ‘Jealous Guy’ are classic solo songs that frequently pop up on my iPod, along with dozens of Beatles tunes including John’s hauntingly beautiful ‘In My Life‘ from the ‘Rubber Soul‘ album.

But it is ‘Imagine’, with its simplistic view for a world united in peace, love and happiness, that will often bring a little tear to the corner of my eye.