Hot Children In The City

I wrote this back in June 09 about my adventures in good ol' Melbourne town on a fresh winter's night... 

Enjoy!

HOT CHILDREN IN THE CITY

By Carol Howden

21/6/09

The perspective of an almost 45 year old single suburban mother - that would be I -  was sorely tested last night, as I ventured upon an alien planet known as "the city."  It's a place I cannot remember being this way from my own wild adolescence, and I'm happy never to return.

But let me begin at the beginning.  Saturday night, cool winter evening in Melbourne (which would later become freezing, but I had no plans to be out in it that long).  I had hooked up with my friend Elly, a previously suburban single mum of one 20 year old boy, who had moved to the big bad city last year to "find a life".  I had plans with her to hit the town for dinner, maybe some dancing, some drinking, and back to her chic city pad early so we could do some cycling city-style the next morning, preferably without a hangover.  Well, that was the plan.

The first part went according to plan; dinner at a funky little pub around the corner from her place, charmingly called "The Local".  The obligatory parma and a couple of pots went down very well, the talk was interesting, and the rest of the place didn't matter.  We whiled away a couple of hours there, and then went in search of some music to tap our toes to.

We stepped into several pubs all within walking distance of Elly's place, but apart from a very realistic 80s band (complete with dreadful outfits and miming skills which put Milli Vanilli to shame) there was nothing of any quality to be had.  There were a few stray souls at the other pubs, and another venue which was touted as "the place to be if you're over 35" had four people mooching about hopefully as we walked up.  Then there was another place which was rather humming, but where the doorman said to me, "There's lots of older people in here, 30 to 35s," and smiled encouragingly at me.  He of course was about 14.  We did stick our ageing heads in the door, and promptly pulled them out again and walked on.

Our next plan of attack was to go into Big City Proper, on our pushbikes of all things, thereby incorporating healthy cycling activity into what was to become quite an adventure.  Interpretation: if you live too close to the city, no cab will take you to/from there.  Moral: either live IN there, but if you don't live in there, make sure you don't live NEAR there, because that means you won't be able to GO there and GET HOME afterwards. 

Elly's son was at a venue in town, extremely drunk (which apparently was how he spent all his weekends) and for some reason he rang wanting his mother there.  This struck me as somewhat unusual, but the reasons became plain once we arrived there.  By then, I felt like I wanted mine there as well!  My father also.

The bike ride was fast, furious and dangerous, but we survived it, we cycling mamas.   We had detoured past the casino, along the Southbank, dodging lots and lots of people who were still able to walk at that stage.  Had I have known what a rare species I was passing, I would have been taking photos as I rode.  We then went down some seedy back ways where I rode like the wind out of a sense of self preservation, and finally we pulled up at our destination.  We could hear the place rocking when we were still half a km away from it.

The venue was like a big glass box, packed to the rafters, thumping music and raised voices spilling out of it like an overstuffed bag about to explode.  Elly's son Joseph was hanging out of the lung cancer enclosure, eyeballs like pin pricks in the snow, waving his arms enthusiastically.  We could feel the love.

My impulse was to climb over the enclosure, pull him out over the top of it, and get him out of there, but the baboon at the door had firm control of the situation, insisting we queue up for the privilege of entering the mother ship.  So we duly did, along with approximately 100 others of various shapes, sizes, ages and states of sobriety and undress. 

It was a bit like queuing at a Sizzler restaurant; as you stood in the queue you could see all the excesses going on within, but like Sizzler, you often weren't very keen to get in amongst it and get started because you knew it wasn't going to taste any good.

There was the obligatory Asian prostitute dressed in what looked like a red satin handkerchief, which her young Aussie boozehound was trying desperately to relieve her of, and was succeeding on many levels, or maybe he was just trying to blow his nose on it.; and watched by our bored queue of waiting fellow thrillseekers.  There were drunken disheveled young women wandering out of the place, and then wavering back in, or falling back in, drinks sloshing in hand, lit ciggies clenched firmly between highly varnished fingertips, all breasts and legs and items that should be hidden spilling out everywhere.

I glanced down at my own attire: Levis, red t-shirt and black leather jacket, and decided I was on the wrong planet.  Heck, you couldn’t even see I had breasts!  Would they even let me in?  We waited nonetheless.  Meanwhile three young chickies, obviously already intoxicated and beautifully dressed in Sexyland attire, staggered past us to be ushered into the lair by the door men, in exchange for leers and some fondlings.  I wondered if they'd want to fondle me., but decided my parcel was too tightly wrapped.

Finally we reached the rope, and the head baboon looked us over, finally grunted and lifted the rope reluctantly to admit us into the bowels of entertainment.  He probably figured we wouldn't be in there long, and if I had my way, he'd be correct on that one.  We then sailed into hell.

The first thing I noticed was the floor was sticky and crunchy---alcohol and broken glass.  Maybe a safety measure, as you can't fall over if you can't lift your feet off the goddam floor.  The floors were coated with alcohol, yes even in the ladies toilet where I ventured to go later.  But in the meanwhile, we shuffled forward into the ever thickening mass of bodies, subjecting ourselves to strange gestures and slurred words from the males, even a karate kick or two, some odd looks from the young females, all with glasses half full, half empty, sloshing, spilling, slopping, clinking, smashing…. And all the way through to the smoky doors of the cancer cell, where Joseph (a non smoker incidentally) was hanging out.  Literally.

As we entered that area, while the open air was a godsend, yet adding to the clinking, smashing, slopping mayhem going on around me was now about 3 million lit cigarettes, wafting, puffing, smoking, burning, flicking and dropping.  I was choking, suffocating, smelling, screaming inside my head "get me out of this toxic waste of human life," and I could feel what must have been at least 20 cigarette butts glueing themselves to my soles as I walked through this funhouse.

And then we found Joseph and his friend, with two girl-clones sporting the regulation straightened with military precision long black hair, complete with the three ultimate fashion accessories one had to have for peer acceptance; lit ciggie, sloshing glass and a mobile phone endlessly texting.  I felt like a deprived leper.

Their first question to us was "How old are you?"  Elly was quite taken aback, but admitted she was 53, to which they gushed how great she looked.  They then turned to me.  "64," I solemnly offered, and when they showed a kind of reverence about how well preserved I was, I did coyly admit to the odd shot of Botox of course.  This obviously was the highlight of their night (understandably so, I thought) and they spent the next hour staggering forth and bringing their peers over to point out my wondrously impressive aging process, and how it gave them all hope.  I wanted to tell them not to hold their breaths hoping to emulate same because they'd be lucky to make it to 25 the way they were going.  But instead I gritted my teeth and told them I was considering a facelift soon, as I wanted to look younger.  Like them.  They applauded that one, and I was a hit.  Yay..

Joseph was spilling his inebriated guts to his dear Ma (something apparently he never did sober, so of course his mother was all ears) and I entertained myself by fighting my way to the bar, trying not to lose my footwear on the way as the glue on the floor became more and more pervasive.  I briefly considered ordering a vat of beer and drowning myself in it to enable numbing myself into this environment proper, but then decided I'd rather pay $8 for two child sized bottles of water so I would have the wits to get out of there sooner rather than later.  Hell, if I wanted a real drink I could have just bent down and sucked on the lino.  I also attempted a visit to the toilet, but there was a longer queue to get in there than into Paris Hilton, and mixed with the smells of everything else, I could detect something even more unpleasant which I choose not to name..  I did a quick exit stage left and went back to ingest more "atmosphere".

All around me, people were texting.  There was the glow of 500 phones operating at full bore, and in a lot of cases people were just sitting alone, texting.  I saw three women sitting side by side, eyeballs glued to their phones, texting away, not speaking.  I wondered, can't they just do this at home?  They could sit in their PJs and do it in comfort.  Style even.

There was one young woman there, a fairly curvaceous girl who thankfully was fairly covered up as well, and she was sitting by herself smiling at the world at large.  She was the most attractive person in the room.  But nobody noticed her of course because they were too busy texting.

The next stage of the adventure was finally managing to depart Planet Hell..  At about 1.30am the baboon brigade came out to the cancer cell and herded all the inmates inside, as the cell was officially closed.  I couldn’t work out the logic behind this, it was like trying to squeeze your boobs into a bra three sizes too small; all those people being forced inside, as well as what was already in there, weren't going to go…but I figured that was their problem.  I was happy to be squeezed right out of the place, as the buns of the venue excreted me onto the footpath yonder.  Elly came with me, and Joseph wandered back inside like a puff of smoke, looking dazed as before.  I couldn't imagine letting anybody I cared about go back into that place, and said so…but apparently his friend would look after him.  Double yay.

Coming out to our bikes, and of course mine had a puncture, its first ever.  We then had a long walk along the boulevard, through dark corners and crannies with black shadows lurking, myself praying and promising I'd never do anything quite so stupid again, and wanting the safety of boring suburbia so badly it was almost a physical pain.

We arrived outside the casino, downed a couple of hot chocolates, and then debated what to do about our transport problem.  After I had a full on stoush with one taxi driver who refused to take me and my bike, or even me for that matter (hey it's only a five minute walk was his comment, although his Arabic translation of minutes equals kilometers was somewhat off the mark)  we decided the only thing to do was for Elly to ride back and get the car, and come back and get me.  Which she duly did.  So I stood about, warming myself up on the inside by worrying about her, as my outsides slowly refrigerated.

Meanwhile I hung around opposite the casino, in a well lit area.  A police car was there, and two police were in the process of trying to lift up a guy lying flat on the footpath.  He was either dead or dead drunk.  I figured whilst they were engaged in this activity I had the safety of their presence, so this was as good a place as any to hang..  By the time they finally had hauled him to his feet, he was spitting and heaving all over them, and they had become enraged enough to arrest him.  The police called for their garbage truck to come do a collection.  Meanwhile countless other staggering, abusive, vomiting straggling pieces of ex-humanity cruised past, singly and collectively,  and the unlucky arrestee obviously would have felt even more unlucky to be singled out in this way when there were so many obvious moving targets..  Behind me, two people who had been having a tongue-fest on the steps of Jeff's Shed were now having sex on the concrete like a pair of terriers, and someone else was vomiting loudly behind a pole nearby.  A great night out in our fair city..

My getaway car duly arrived, and we bundled my broken bicycle into it and left.  I couldn’t wait to return to suburban surety, and didn’t stay in Elly's chic city pad as planned, but drove on home instead at 4.00am.  As I drove, calmness descended upon me like a warm blankie, and I left the madness behind as a technicolour blip in my rearview mirror, with lots of disturbing memories and a lesson relatively well and cheaply learnt.

Elly's comment at the start of the night was that we needed another Ice Age so that humanity could begin anew, and now I can wholeheartedly concur.  What have we created, where are we going, and what's the big picture?  Young humanity has lost its way, I thought.  I think of my sweet not quite ten year old who would be fast asleep clutching her little stuffed leopard, and I smile.  Not yet.  There's hope.  This night is not wasted, and I have seen and learnt much.

Note to all those hot children in the city: (or some things your mothers should have told you, but obviously didn't):

If you need to become falling down drunk to tolerate a place, it's NOT the place to be.

If you need to display every body part you have in the freezing cold in order to attract attention, then this is NEGATIVE ATTENTION;

If you need to ingest vast quantities of toxic chemicals into your lungs in order to feel accepted, you are ACCEPTING YOUR WISH TO DIE YOUNG

And last but surely not least, if you submit yourself to all of the above in order to spend the evening texting, THIS CAN ACTUALLY BE DONE IN THE SAFETY OF YOUR OWN HOME!!!!        Wow!

Failing that, how do we kick start an Ice Age (apart from standing around outside the casino at 3am?)  Maybe Kevin Rudd's glorious government can borrow some more funds for this, and the beauty of it is that this loan won't need to be paid back…. J  

Telco Hell

Heaven help where this great land of ours is heading, where we can't even keep any of our service centres in our own country these days.

Calling a telco is a total nightmare, and I mean ANY telco!  Over the years, I've butted heads with Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Three.  Hmm, is that enough?

Vodafone wins hands down when it comes to BS.  I tried them twice, but can't imagine why.  The first time, I had  a mobile phone that used to drop its calls out around the western suburbs of Melbourne, such as Sunshine, which happens to be only about 10km for the CBD.  When I rang Vodafone to complain about it, their answer was, "Well, when you signed up, did you say you wanted to use it in Sunshine?"

Of course, I didn't think of that.

The second time was a couple of years ago, having a Vodafone internet experience this time with one of their USB stick internet things, which used to drop out every ten minutes or so.  They suggested I move my desk near the window.  And open the window.  And try and dangle the dongle out the window.  Being in the depths of a Melbourne winter, the strategy just held no appeal, so I sacked them.  Again.

I had a mobile service with Optus, but I had to stand on my back deck to get any service as there was none to be had inside the house.  Again, not a problem if you live somewhere warm.  I didn't.  But I persevered with them for the two years of the contract as they didn't think I had enough reason to "opt" out of it.  So I spent many chilly nights on the deck, until I decided it was easier and more comfortable just not to answer the phone anymore when the weather went bad.

You probably think by now I was living in the sticks somewhere, but actually I lived in a heavily populated suburb of Melbourne.

I also didn't get a broadband service until about five years after everyone else, because I apparently lived too far from the exchange.  So I was still on dial-up when everyone else was zooming on the 'band.

And then there was Telstra....

I think one of their best efforts was the "high speed cable broadband" which they sold to me as if it was the second coming.  Well, I thought so too, until it would drop out everytime it rained.  Apparently the pits used to fill up with water, so on rainy days there would always be dropouts, and sometimes outages that went on for days.  The salesman had helpfully omitted this minor detail when selling me the package, and even more helpfully, had departed his job at the local Telstra shop in Parkmore when I went over there to hang him out to dry.  He had probably taken a job in a call centre and relocated to Mumbai.

More recently, upon moving to Qld, I ordered an ADSL service, which took roughly a month to transfer across when I moved house again.  Given that I moved all of a kilometre, I couldn't understand the difficulty but apparently these things take time.  It's not just flicking a switch, and even when your new phone line gets connected, it takes at least four days for your internet to come on.  You also can't run them concurrently at your old house and your new house to alleviate the gap; they expect to turn off your old service, wait a minimum of four business days, and then hopefully be able to activate your new one.  I say hopefully, but mine took a month.  And I know others who have had a similar experience.  As my job depends on a stable internet service, this is extremely frustrating to say the least.  So they sold me a stick internet to use in the interim, which drops out roughly every ten minutes or so, costs a lung and a kidney in data, and often informs me that my computer is too old when I try to get it going.  Otherwise OK.

I had yet another outage last week, which occurred during the busiest part of my work day.  After dangling on the phone for two phone calls, each of around 40 minutes duration, the bright spark who was managing my second call decided to do a line check.  Voila!  I had an outage apparently, myself and ten other unfortunates in the area, and it would be reinstated in about five days time.  Well, THANK YOU for letting me know that one was coming, and great to spend 90 minutes on the phone to find that little gem out.

So when the internet finally deigned to return to me, which was over the weekend, I found my laptop could no longer wirelessly connect.  There followed a flurry of phone calls on the Saturday, roughly three hours in total, being put through to areas that were closed, which would then necessitate my having to ring back and start the whole process all over again.  I didn't know whether to scream, cry or drink.  The wireless thing is a big thing, simply because there is only a phone point in the kitchen (where everybody would be having their office, of course, not)  and therefore it would mean that to connect via cable, I'd either have to move my computer into the kitchen, or run about a 20 metre cord to the bedroom where I work. 

Anyway after spending all those hours on the phone talking to a succession of Indians who were increasingly hard to understand because I think my ears were just shutting out those accents in sheer protest in the end, of the fact that we can't have a person who speaks our language to help us anymore, the end result was pretty much as it was always going to be.  It was all my fault, my computer's fault for not recognising the modem wirelessly anymore, even though it was working fine when Telstra pulled the pin on me all those days ago, and I had three choices apparently: either get my computer fixed, buy a newer computer, or use a line extension so I could cable across to the modem.

I chose the third option in the end, $14.95 from Hardly Normal.  And I now have a squiggly phone cord that runs all the way from my kitchen bench, through my lounge, and into my bedroom.  It has been there since this morning, and I have tripped over it roughly 15 times today.  But at least I can work.

Too bad there was no work today, as it turned out.

I need a drink...