Month: February 2015

My Old Stompin’ Ground  (12.2.2007)

I had a great holiday – caught up with a lot of friends and visited some nice places. The Boneman had organised my first Friday night in Sydney – a visit to the old stompin’ ground of Mounties. Boney’s the go-to man for such outtings. I turned up early at Mounties (Mt Pritchard Community Club), as is my custom – I’ve maintained this habit for some twenty years, get in early and settle in to await the arrival of my drinkin’ mates. This Friday night, I was about 25 mins ahead of schedule – I decided to give the pokies a rattle (I used to blow five or ten bucks every Friday night with my co-loser, The Bis)

I rarely gamble these days – just don’t seem to frequent the venues that encourage such anti-social behaviour. Anyway, by the time the boys arrived, I was two hundred smackers up, which I stuck in my wallet, with a satisfied grin (Though not before informing all, of my skilful windfall!).

Most of the old crowd turned up again – I’m told that my infrequent visits back home are the only times many can find a valid excuse for their spouses, to warrant a big night of stepping high – like the old days. Though, to be honest, it’s a far cry from the antics of the old days – it’s like Toby Keith says – ‘I ain’t as good as I once was….’

So, while we still give it a nudge, it’s nowhere near as hard and fast as years ago. With schooner sculls, Cointreau & ‘Buca shots on the toss of a card, and various other self-destructive rituals, that simply punctuated the continuous flow of Resches and Jimmy. Till the early hours kick-out call, at which point one just changed venues and continued, though usually a bit closer to a dance floor.

These days however, I do still enjoy catching up with the old crew – especially the girls – Linda, Nicky, Kerrie, Kerrie, Sharon, Leesa and others at times – they’re still all beautiful girls, making the most of their thirties. I usually keep in regular contact with most of the blokes throughout the year anyway – and they’re ugly – so they’re not so much of a thrill.

For a bloke that spent a good percentage of his younger days (and more than one fortune) within the (then) hallowed walls of Mounties, it’s rather amusing (and more so, kind of sad) to see the same old faces doing the same old things after twenty years. The old grey-haired bloke still singing “A White Sports Coat” at the karaoke every Friday night – he was never any good on his best day. Every Friday arvo for twenty years, he hops out of the shower, hitches up his RM moleskins and warms up his voice, grabs the old-girl and down they go, to get plastered and ‘entertain’ the crowd at his standing Friday night gig. Then there’s the long-haired, lengthy-bearded stalwart of the snooker club’s chicken run. This dude still wears his girl-jeans, hoisted a little too high up the abdomen, and skilfully steers his way round the premises, guided by the magical schooner of Resches held directly in front, like a fighter-pilots joystick. I’d confidently postulate that Grant has nary missed a days attendance at Mounties for nigh on twenty-five years. This man must be forty-five years old and has never, ever held a job – though his schooner remains half full – he must be a very, very optimistic man indeed!

While I find this all amusing as I try to revisit my youth, one could easily be excused these days, for believing the non-English speaking cabbie had indeed delivered the unwary passenger to a Ho-Chi-Min City gambling den. Whilst dodging one’s way through the pokie room, there appears an endless sea of bobbing black heads, through a smoky haze and a raucous natter of alien voices. I feel like an unwelcome invader in a foreign land – I don’t speak the language, I don’t understand the customs – and the looks directed my way are clearly hostile. Welcome home, Son.

 

Patonga – Hangin’ Loose Like A Longneck Goose or Lookin’ Fine In Calvin Klein  (15.2.2007)

 

Well the kids hit the deck a-runnin when we arrived at Patonga. Taliah, Bailey and Nat took Indy down for a swim. Donk hopped around, shouting orders like Joey Johns in an Origin match, while Johnny and I commenced on putting the big new, three bedroom tent up. It was one pm on the 6^th January and it was a scorcher. It had been less than twelve hours since I’d been downing schooners at Mounties and the sweat was busting out of me at a rate of knots! After about the second hour of hard labour, my head started to tingle and I was looking down the barrel of heat stroke, dehydration and exhaustion (it is simply not a lazy man’s place to be under harness and hungover in the blistering summer sun!). With a little work remaining, I was sympathetically cut loose. I went immediately down for a swim with the kids – it was beautiful! (Johnny continued working till the brink of projectile vomit, before calling it a day, some sixty minutes later).

 

The next few days were very enjoyable. I’d usually be up fairly early – around sevenish, when I’d crawl out of the tent and find Johnny, Indyanah and Bailey lingering around the tent. We’d walk over to the park on Indy’s insistence and she’d run amok. After several heart-stopping incidents on the playground equipment with an adventurous two-year old (who thinks she’s sixteen!), I realised that Johnny and Donk must have thought me far more responsible than I considered myself! Initially, upon Indy clumsily climbing a ladder for the big slippery-dip, I’d be swinging my head in a desperate attempt to beckon support from her parents, only to find Johnny over yonder, watching Bailey swinging far too high! I realised I was on my own and totally responsible for Indy’s well being (and that her parents trusted me with this!). To the uninitiated, the weight of this responsibility sits very heavily upon your shoulders, though you quickly get used to the duty. In fact, I loved it. In the end, we’d go to the park and play in the morning, then head down to the water and play in the sand together. It can be a very slow and interesting walk, holding an observant and chatty little two-year-old’s hand, marching through a camping ground, heading for the beach.

 

 

So most of the next few days were spent lounging in the shade of the coral trees watching the kids fish, swim and play in the sand. A few cold brews appeared in the afternoon, along with some Southern Comfort and the odd bottle of Jump-about (Red wine). It was all so very relaxing and enjoyable.

Patonga for the most part, is a safe and friendly little fishing village, where hard working families tend to look out for each other. (Though Steve Waugh is a recent addition to the local home-owners club – not sure how hard he works these days?). So there is no concern when Bailey runs around to various fishing spots, like a rabid kelpie marking his territory. The girls however, Taliah and Natalie, are a different kettle of fish.

Being fourteen and eighteen years old and having avoided the dreaded Ugly-Stick, they tend to attract a certain amount of attention. It is here that my experience allows me to cast a protective eye and observe (and keep at bay) the sneaky little sons-of-hard-workers who may aim to share the shade of our coral trees for a spell!

Now I’ve never claimed to be a fashion guru, in fact I still see nothing wrong with the clothes we were wearing in the 80’s…….and further, if they still fit, I’d likely still be wearing them today! Though I am aware that certain sections of today’s community may not subscribe to legitimacy of this thought. I see people wearing stupid things all the time that I just don’t get – including those stupid earrings through the eyebrow. Also, the middle-aged women who think they are either artistic or powerfully modern and try to prove this by matching a short, ugly bob-type haircut, with some kind of outlandishly colourful, thick framed, elongated oblong shaped eye-glasses. The actual lens in these ridiculous things is about the size of a coin-slot. I think the image they are striving to project must be “Look at me everyone – I’m ugly and I can’t see shit, but I don’t care, ’cause I’m artistic and femininely powerful!” Newsflash Tegan – you look stupid!

 

For me personally though, the all-time winner in the retarded fashion stakes, is a little ensemble, proudly carted about by the current crop of up-and-coming young bucks.

I’ve watched them with much contempt as I ponder how this trend could ever possibly have become acceptable in public. That is, these skinny young whippersnappers that hoick their fifty dollar Calvin Klein under-dungers halfway up their guts and then proceed to drag their all-too baggy dacks way down, round their scrawny little arses, to within an angry pimple of falling completely off! “Hey Dane, I got news for you too – you look stupid!”

 

I’ve watched them dragging their jocks up and checking themselves out to make sure the band sits just so. In fact, I watched one such clown stop on the road upon which he’d been walking (about 20 metres from the coral trees), run his thumbs round the inner circuit of his CK’s, then ever-so purposefully, drag the back of his denim shorts down. He then scrutinised the result like Darrell Hair considering a Pakistani wicket appeal. In the end he was satisfied and recommenced his careless strut past the girls (and the big bloke in the shade, shooting daggers).

Another young cove who’d ridden his BMX bike down to the boat ramp, must have been new to the young-stud game. For while he arrived with his arse hanging out by about the accepted proportion (which appears approximately two thirds of the way down the crack), several times I saw him fight the natural urge to pull them back up, to a more comfortable height. He posed on his bike for the girls, shirtless and tanned but was obviously entrenched in an internal psycho-physical battle between comfort and projected studliness. Goose.

I’m sure many of us can relate to the vulnerability of this young man’s position – I’ve had the elastic go in my tracky dacks on more than one occasion. It’s never easy to maintain your cool when you’re teetering on the edge of indecent exposure and causing a public mischief.

When I was a young fella, the minute someone caught a glimpse of your Bonds reluctantly peeking above your jeans (seriously, who’s gonna lay down a fifty for a pair of CK jocks when you can get a 7 pack for 7 bucks?!), they’d be set upon with all the agility of a peregrine falcon. They’d then be hoisted up that hard, your feet would leave the ground – and everyone would laugh – “Look at the spaz with his undies hanging out, hahaha!”

I don’t know when this look ever became cool? Though, always being one to embrace new trends, I’ve come up with an idea to look cool and be comfortable at the same time! I’m gonna buy a pair of Calvin’s – I’m gonna cut ’em off at about stalk height – and I’m gonna have them sewn onto the rim of my pants. That way, with an all in one garment, I will not only look just as hot and trendy, but I will avoid the insecure feeling of my dacks slipping right off the back of my arse and looking like an idiot!

Anyway, I’m sure Nat and Taliah were never impressed by BMX-Goose and his Road-Runner mate – probably never even noticed them………..

 

One night Donk (Kerrie) and Natnee (Natalie) got a-little-bit-longway drunk and decided to go for a walk down the creek. It was early am on a run-in tide and they discovered the magical natural luminescence of the freshly arrived plankton, known as phosforescence. In their heightened state of awareness, they thought it might be some kind of dangerous radiation polluting the area. All was settled in the morning, though I do agree, seeing the sand and water light up on a pitch black night really is a sight to behold and a phenomenon that will continue to impress men and women through the ages – though probably not nearly as much as a good pair of undies escaping baggy pants………….

 

Patonga – Preparations And International Cuisine  (15.2.2007)

So, I left Mounties at around two thirty am, on my first Friday back in the bigsmoke – a good time was had by all. In keeping with ancient tradition, I was compelled to stop by and say hello to Ahmed, as he prepared my ‘Chicken one with no onions, cheese and barbeque sauce’. The little fella was still there, sweating away in his little steaming kebab shack – not sure of the hygiene implications of this habit? Perhaps it is this very phenomenon that gives his kebabs their unique flavour? If the truth be known, the occupant of the little kebab van has probably changed twenty times in as many years – hell, I only named him Ahmed two decades ago, as a generic reference to his ethnicity. Whoever they are, in my experience, which was always hammered, at best, those little kebab-men seem a friendly bunch. Their breed do however, have an uncanny predisposition to fancy facial hair grooming. I have observed more permutations of side-burn, eyebrow and moustache combinations on these enigmatic entrepreneurs than one could poke a stick at!

Anyway, among the many things that Darwin does not have, is a Kebab stand – which I think is an open opportunity for an enterprising young man (with exotically styled facial hair, an over-active perspiration system and a caravan), to make an absolute killing – given all the drinkers up here! So every time I go back to Livo, I head to Mounties, get drunk and buy a kebab from Ahmed on the way home – and just like every other time (barring the time that Boneman shouted me one, soaked in chilli sauce!), this one too was beautiful. So’s not to awaken the sleeping Oldies, I snuck in at home, being super quiet (in that drunken, racket-making sort of way), and sat at the table till I polished it off. I grabbed a big bottle of water from the fridge (the Pump kind – so you can drink it without spilling too much, while you are still lying down and half- asleep), and headed for the cot.

I was awoken at about ten am – Mum knocking on the door saying something like “Kerrie says you have to get up now and go to Patonga with them, to help Johnny set up. Natalie’s going too but she has to be back on Tuesday to work. We’re gonna drive up on Tuesday to pick up you and Nat – she said to hop in the shower – you’ve got twenty minutes – she’ll have some nice pizza ready for your brekky when you get to her place!”

I had always planned to visit them at their camping spot at Patonga on the Central Coast of NSW, but in a couple of days time, when they’d settled in (I hadn’t planned on volunteering for the tent-erecting gang on a screaming hot summer’s day). I’ve never been able to say ‘no’ to girls (it’s a long-standing weakness I have) and Nat would make it even more interesting. Natalie’s a young eighteen-year-old chippie who lives next door to Donk – she’s a great girl (most of the time). So I had my shower, grabbed my bag (which was still pretty well packed from my trip down) and headed round for a breakfast of champions.

Next thing I know, after some re-vamped pizza, a bit of internal bickering and stress among the contenders, I was in the old man’s truck and heading to Patonga with young Johnny-Boy behind the wheel, as we ripped along the M7 and listened to JD’s INXS, The Chilli Peppers and the Fooey boys! Donk, Nat and the kids followed behind in the trusty Ford Falcon…..