Birthday celebarations in Darwin, the croc capital of Australia this weekend past. Scott McCall turned forty today. Last night a family feast of mub crabs and wild caught barramundi was served up at the McCall residence resulting in
a shameless exhibition of brotherly love by these four angry young men caught on camera by the indefatigable fb poster, e-funk.
The birthday boy is third from the left.
He’s hardly aged a day since I met him thirteen years ago. We attended a unit together on ethics – Human Identity and Changes – back in 1998 at the Queensland University of Technology. Scott came into uni with all the skepticism of a man who had seen hard years working in outback Indigineous communities, now facing the prospect of three years of listening to academics ponitificate and theorise about social issues affecting everyday people in the here and now. Scott was the angry young man of the class – shaved head, big black boots and paradoxically enough, a tie-dye T-shirt. A militant hippy regular.
One of the major themes of this unit was a crisis of masculine identity, often snowballing into tales of testicular cancer amongst other complex challenges facing the male psyche. Scott was juggling custody and child payments for his three daughters, two of which were part of a marraige that had shortly ended and the fallout from that relationship was still in full effect as he berated our unit’s lecturer, the mild-mannerred and demure David Massey, about the volume of his speech.
Straight after the lecture, me all scared as hell of this crazy guy in the tie-dyed t-shirt and combat boots, we went down to the pub and over several cold lagers in a conversation ranging from personal histories to the state of the world in social justice today, we discovered a kindred spirit in each other.
Thirteen years later Scott has five kids including two strapping boys with his beautiful wife, Annie. His second eldest daughter is about to have his first grandchild. All of his kids were there at the party except his eldest currently travelling in Europe after working for Dad for 12 months, teaching reading and writing skills to Aboriginal communities.
Scott runs a successful company for himself where he doesn’t have to be told by government agencies or gray academics what is ethical and what is not. He wields his own burning brand of social justice, delivering services to Aboriginal communities and helping other young angry men come to terms with their loves and hatreds to build a better life.
Still the angry young man, he has not finished his university degree(s).
This one’s for the angry young men
