THAT’S about it, really.
Keeper? Yes. Would prefer an automatic next time.
DAY 255: Finding a pub in a paddock
13 May
WE’VE already driven past ‘The Homestead’ – a makeshift saloon on some land 20 minutes out of Launceston, at which you can tether your horse and hit the turps, and now here’s a pub in a paddock.
The sisters boozing on in the main bar are cleaners by trade, and save up every cent to go travelling once a year to see something new – more vital than owning a house back in Geelong, they testify.
They’ve gawked at a woman swimming with snakes in a tank at the Moulin Rouge, sampled olive oil that made them weep in Italy, and travelled the length and breadth of Australia.
Now they’re visiting the Pub in a Paddock (famed secondarily for Priscilla the Beer Drinking Pig) near St Columba Falls, and are quizzing locals on why it’s alleged most Tasmanians have two heads, while screaming in unison at the antics of “local character” Dale.
Dale could be a bushman from any of the black and white photos of loggers and pioneers lining the walls. He sports an unkempt beard, swagman’s hat, a holey jumper, and pants, from the legs of which pepper berries keep a-rolling. He’s keen to disprove the idea that Tasmanians are only interested in inbreeding, and so sings bawdy sea shanties and keeps up a relentless offensive on one sister, who he reckons he’s on a promise with. For every remark about places she should smear her gravy, though, Diane gives it back twice as hard. It’s like porno ping-pong.
Bruce didn't have the same finesse as Dale.
The barman supplies me with a bottle of light beer for a dollar and we all troop outside with a torch to feed Priscilla. (It’s okay, the RSPCA have approved the light beer; although they may not have endorsed 12 bottles a day.)
Priscilla’s not playing ball, having gone to bed, so I climb the fence and try to rouse her — but ominous growling from the sleeping quarters quickly sends me packing again.
Keeper? Best pub ever.
DAY 254: Stalking people
12 May
See?
WHEN I say ‘stalking’, I mean 90 per cent is a social experiment that can only further one’s development, and 10 per cent is personal enjoyment. Roughly.
In my continuing attempt to relate to others, I have decided to single out some strangers and follow them. This will sharpen my observational skills and encourage an interest in other people.
It turns out I only have time to kick off with one person today, but what a corker. The subject pops out of Flinders Street Station, dressed ordinarily enough in a grey tracksuit, but walking like a lunatic: fists clenched and swinging, chin up, holding his arse a touch gingerly. He’s moving at a cracking pace and definitely up to something.
It takes all my energy to keep up pace; he’s got a blatant disregard for road safety and at one point I almost lose him until he stops at the lights, shifting from one foot to the other. My mission is to follow him to his destination, and he finally climaxes at an undisclosed address on Queen Street, which a quick Google later reveals to be offices for lease; just the sort of place where a big drug deal would go down on any number of gritty Australian crime dramas I’ve seen.
Keeper? Yes. Extremely exciting.
DAY 253: The bush: as dry as a dead dingo’s donger
11 May
THE Screen Worlds exhibition at Melbourne’s ACMI is free, and tells the ‘story of film, television & digital culture’. A bit.
It was the Australiana I found most interesting.
The Bush: Through harsh, bleeding colour and the unforgiving calls of kookaburras and crows, filmmakers have long loved making the endless Australian bush seem claustrophobic – and sinister. Always sinister. Classic including Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Proposition and Wolf Creek are profiled here. Wake In Fright should definitely have been in there, in all its sunstroked, hungover hellishness, but I won’t quibble.
The Australian Accent: A video installation with clips from satirists like The Chaser and Chris Lilley, plus clips from The Castle, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, and various ocker types from sketch shows of yore.
The Mad Max Interceptor: Yep! It’s there! Complete with fingerprints from people who’ve leaned over the barricade to cop a feel.
Tracey Moffatt: The macabre, Brisbane-born artist’s various installations included a clip (above left) of an Aboriginal woman caring for her dying white mother – with barely constrained violence.
Keeper? Been now.
DAY 251: Being more welcoming
9 May
I DIDN’T realise how much I stereotype people till I moved to Australia. Not being able to place someone’s class or region by their accent, and add that ingredient to the great pudding of presumption, throws me.
From an early age in England I could distinguish between lower middle, middle middle and upper middle (and whether you were putting it on), which home county you were from, what your dad did for a living and how you held your fork, just from your voice.
Over here I can sometimes tell if you’re from Adelaide and that’s it.
‘Welcome’ by Lynette Wallworth is a video installation at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum, depicting life-size groups of people of varying nationalities and walks of life (including Oxfam workers and Pies supporters), alternately looking welcoming and threatening.
Without an audience I find myself laughing and grinning like a loon at all the clips of people cracking up and embracing. I’m not taking the hostile ones personally, so I’m not that bothered (although it is disturbing when the women scoop up their children and glare at you), but it’s interesting seeing a gang of Asian teenagers, say, go from ne’er-do-wells to goofy geeks in my perception in a matter of seconds.
Keeper? Yes. I’m going to smile warmly at everyone tomorrow and see if they smile back. They better, or they’ll see what a face-like-a-smacked-arse looks like.
DAY 250: Wondering why people look like they do
8 May
I’VE been trying to feel more empathy for strangers by looking at what they’re wearing and wondering what went through their heads when they picked it out — and not in a horrible way.
Like, what thought old men put into their hats, and whether teenage girls are trying to emphasise helplessness when they have sleeves too long for their arms, and if snug jumpers are chosen to feel warm or to feel safe.
Of course, I could completely be wrong about their motives, hopes and desires, but the point is it’s making me put myself in other people’s shoes, even when I wouldn’t necessarily wear those shoes myself.
(NB: this is a completely different reasoning to Drawing Naked Commuters, which served no philanthropic purpose.)
On the same tack, I decide to get a portrait artist on Swanston Street to draw my picture, to see what a stranger thinks when he looks at me.
I think this looks more like me than photos do. Apart from the massive chin.
John doesn’t approve of caricaturists as, unlike him, they don’t “see the soul”. Twenty minutes and a small crowd later, he’s done. I think he’s summed up my demeanour – detached ambivalence with a small attempt at appearing polite – very well, which means I am succeeding with my facial expressions.
Keeper? Yes, will carry on questioning people’s fashion decisions.
DAY 249: Buying some art in the street
7 May
A MAN sitting on Swanston Street has ‘4SALE’ chalked on the pavement in front of some meticulously penned drawings of buildings.
I ask him how much he is selling them for and he says you can’t put a price on art — which might mean a million bucks in his head, or it might mean nothing; so I split the difference and give him a tenner.
The story behind my picture is it’s a combination of houses that exist in his imagination.
Keeper? Might buy more things in the street.
DAY 248: Getting inflamed by an African menu
6 May
It's supposed to hurt.
THE drinks list alone of the Nyala African Restaurant in Fitzroy is like a Shakespearean drama:
“The first cup is bitter, like life,” the menu says of the mint tea, “the second is sweet, like love; the third is gentle, like death.”
I order a coffee, which promises “passionate flavour”. If that’s not code for “even more alluringly vicious than Vietnamese coffee”, I don’t know what is.
I’ve never been to an African restaurant before – which is shameful, as Nyala’s been here for 20 years – and I’m pretty excited. The décor here’s warm and welcoming, and it smells like comfort food.
When my coffee arrives it’s thick and tarry and gives me a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. My fella’s beer smells as yeasty and syrupy as a brewery. In good ways. Sometimes you want a drink to really hurt.
Then my meal arrives, and it’s hurty spicy. The fluffy bread is lighter than celestial pancakes, and the hearty Ethiopian stew (you’ll find dishes here from all over the continent) suggests this cow has been marinading since infancy.
Look how fluffy.
Keeper? Yes.
DAY 247: Writing a murder ballad about Hamilton, then being nice to Nhill
5 May
I thought you'd prefer a picture of Victoria Hamilton than Hamilton, Victoria.
IF YOU can’t say anything nice you shouldn’t say anything at all… but there’s a town way out on the Glenelg Highway that just prompts an astonished outburst or two.
At first glance all the Colorbond fences in Hamilton lead you to believe it’s a sprawling green and orange home for the elderly, but then I go into the McDonald’s for a wash and there they all are, the real natives: hemmed in like the apocalypse has hit. Nobody walks – they shuffle. And everyone has a murderous look.
Struggling to find us some camping gear so early in the morning, the bush pirate and I circle the town and its infernal roundabout system for a good hour, taking in the disused wool sheds and careworn shop fronts with violent puns for names. Graffiti on the door of one of the public toilets says: “Fuck you I am going to kill you” in six-inch high letters, without even discriminating.
For many kays now, the bush pirate has been urging me to join him in the construction of a new Nick Cave murder ballad with a biblical bent. I’d been struck dumb by the need for coffee, but now my imagination is fired, and out comes the lurching tale of a bad son of Hamilton who slaughters people in their beds and then can’t escape himself because of woeful local signposting.
Many verses later I leave Hamilton invigorated, but the bush pirate is disquieted by my character assassination of the little town. I forget sometimes that such behaviour is considered unsporting in Australia.
In an effort to redress the balance, when we later pull into the western Victoria town of Nhill the bush pirate suggests we only say nice things.
He demonstrates by going into Coles and having a good ol’ chinwag with the checkout woman about the ridiculous price of avocados in Grampians compared to a sensible town like this. Soon enough, the elasticity returns to her face and she recounts the rigours and routines of her weekend.
Nhill is already famous.
Next it’s a stop at the bottle shop, and having overheard how lovely the bush pirate’s last conversation was, the woman behind the till is eager to have one too. Both women dig out some bargain beery buys for us, and when we leave it’s waves all round.
There are two pubs in town, and we choose the no-nonsense joint that refuses to bow and scrape to progress. The landlord seems surprised to see us – and not best pleased, as he’s watching Goodbye Mr Chips – but he rouses himself from his chair and pours us some drinks.
This pub was a snark-free zone.
Within minutes, the bush pirate’s honeyed his ear with talk of our journey and our good fortune for pulling into an honest knockabout like Nhill. Brightening, the landlord sticks money in the jukebox and picks out some Garth Brooks favourites, leaving the rest of the selection for us. The beers keep coming and the pool games are free.
We leave Nhill feeling proper restored. There’s no chance of feeling nhillistic in a town whose main employer is called Luv-a-Duck, anyway.
Keeper? Strictly speaking I was only nice-by-proxy, but now I know how it’s done I’ll give it a whirl.
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Australia 2012. It's okay, we're friends.
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