Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Saturday

“Saturn dies” (Part 1)
Well my Saturday was BIG. I did a day shift in the bottlo. At about 6pm when I was about to finish I went to take a stack of cardboard boxes out the back of the pub to the big bin (cause recycling isn’t very popular in Perth, but that’s another blog). The flattened out boxes get stacked up on this strange, tall and unwieldy 3 wheel trolley. I decided to try riding it like my skateboard. It worked surprisingly well. I skated it back up to the bottlo and then thru the driveway to amuse the casuals who are a bit younger than me and cool guys and I guess I was showing off a bit, so I turned around and yelled out that I was gonna tackle the steep hill off the back of the hotel on my new mutant skater. It got real fast downhill real quick and I tried to bail out by stepping off the side of it, but I got into a tangle and flipped the bastard…hard. Banged my right hand, elbow and knee up pretty good. I had to stagger back up to the bottlo with the ridiculously unwieldy 3 wheel monster. My young co-worker Neil, who was in hysterics, wanted to go and see if the ‘stack’ was visible on any of the security cameras. I managed to convince him to not reveal my stupid stunt to everyone…I’m supposed to be the older experienced, responsible one! Hehehe.
I iced up my knee, whilst hiding out in the back storeroom for a bit, then knocked off. Went to Nin & Tim’s house in Wembley for a fireside bbq and a few beers. A few hours later I left the bbq and headed back to The Stadium (the pub where I work), to make an appearance at one of the staffs birthday get-togethers. Kicked on there for a bit, then against my better judgment, I went into Northbridge with the party people.

West. (Part 2)
“The cardinal point on the mariner's compass 270° clockwise from due north and directly opposite east.”
A massive nightclub called The Paramount. Drank way too much, got bought shooters, watched Australia get beaten in the cricket by Bangladesh, watched a hyper-professional cover band, with a DJ playing between sets. Ran out of money went out to find an ATM, saw a road rage fight, some guy nearly got bumped (and that’s about all) by a ute trying to turn left and he’s charged up to the car window and got right in the face of the driver. Then he’s staggered off diagonally across the intersection (read: theatre-in-the-round) He must’ve said something that really got to the driver because a few seconds later the brakelights went on and the driver and passenger bolted across the intersection (read: the dress circle) after the guy and the driver king hit the bloke who’d obviously had too much to drink, and he went straight down like a “long streak of piss” that wasn’t enough for the driver because then he mounted the prone guy and started belting him in the back of the head, like a UFC knockout, then some brave soul pushed him off the prone guy. The passenger and the driver then decided they’d attack this person, but at that moment police descended from everywhere, including two coppers mounted on fuck-off-massive white horses…The ute that had just been sitting doors open in the middle of the road now drives off…the invitation just too good to miss for some opportunist…and perhaps I should be slightly ashamed to admit, but I’m on the corner opposite laughing heartily at this latest development and right next to me some friendly looking chap of East African (I think) descent and he too has been watching in amazement and now he’s talking loudly to nobody in particular, that he’s gotta get home to his kids and what-n-earth is he doing out here amid all this 4am craziness…been trying to get a cab for 2 hours…and how’d he get so fucking wired…well he didn’t say that, but he should’ve, he was buzzing off his head. I got back to the club just in time to be bought a slippery nip shooter by some friendly English bird and see a cat fight break out between two groups of woman throwing punches spitting and hissing (so that’s why they’re called cat fights). The bouncers seemed to get confused and 3 of them became completely distracted dealing with one very angry chick, pushing her back and back, as one of her mates outflanked them and came straight on in to attack some other woman, I managed to stand in her way, (again all smiles, I’m not sure why), as the bouncers regained control.
Despite all this, the general vibe in the place was quite friendly, you can tell a lot by the way people pass you in tight crowds, the way they touch your arm or pat your shoulder as they try to get past. A little bit of eye contact and a quick smile.
There is however a wild frontier-ism at work in Northbridge…out on the street, the atmos was a bit like a steamy B&S ball or a big Saturday night in the centre of some country town… make that a really big centre in a really big country town. Wild West.

A girl kindly skippered us all to our various homes. She had a bit of freakout when, having dropped everyone but me home, and having just gone through a McDonalds drive-thru, she’s realised she didn’t have her handbag. So she retraced her footsteps as it were, back through all the stop offs, but after a couple she was ready to give up…freaked and desperate, and exhausted with it…somehow it'd become 6am.
I was so drunk and I was eating the McDonalds which we’d just bought. I was quite unconcerned and ebullient as she drove around and I ate all my hash browns, then all her hash browns, then as a kind of drunken after-thought I urged her to go back to the very first stop she’d made. Sure enough she found her bag there. I looked like a hero, despite having been fairly disinterested in anything other than keeping her busy while the mad eating frenzy sorted itself out. Booze-munchies-from-hell. So very drunk…
I woke up Sunday arvo with a throbbing hand, a knee that didn’t want to bend and a championship hangover. Sick as a mongrel dog as they say in the classics. Great night though, felt a sense of warmth and well being toward my fellow man, but booze aint really my shtick, tougher comedown than any drug I’ve ever known…so sickening.

Listening To:
The Notwist
- Pilot
-This Room

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