Sunday, February 19, 2012

Food And Fear And Silliness Is Queer And Maybe, You Know, We Should Have Just Had A Beer?

We walked to Carlton, to that Malaysian restaurant on Swanston Street where we haven’t eaten before. The one between all the student accommodation, the one we have been meaning to eat at, but have never seemed to get around to it. The one we pass on our walks and say, we must eat there.

As we walked up Gertrude Street, there was this girl walking towards us, clinging to the fence. You know, that ridiculous "me'ness." Not budging, oom pah pah! Our eyes locked. Try it! Smile. I think she realised that I had the position by the fence and that I wasn’t giving it up for her, my eyes met her eyes with that kind of gaze. On this realisation, she looked nervous and noticeably hesitated, scared, like we are all trained to be now a days.
“She looked nervous,” I said.
“She thinks you are going to tear her apart,” Sam said dramatically.
“Tear her apart, you think?”
“Yes, tear her apart.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Grab her by the leg, you think, and pull so she splits at the vagina, like a button fly popping open? Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!”
“Yes.”
"Or the staples in a fat reduced stomach giving way. Ble, ble, ble, ble, ble, ble, ble."
"Yes."
“So, she tears all the way around until she is nothing but a six metre vagina, effectively turned inside out. Flapping in the wind?”
“Yes.”
“Two legs with a giant vagina hanging off them? Like a giant torn purse attached to two drumstick bones?”
“Yes.”
“A marionette cunt?”
“Yes, I think that is what she thought.”
“Like a giant flesh balloon I could hold up to the breeze and float away on?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what you think?”
“That’s what she thought.”
“A GaGa bonnet?”
“a la the meat dress. Yes.”
"Really?"
"Yes."

Of course, Sam thinks I am anti woman, which I'm not, some of my best friends... He bases this mostly on, what I call, the screamy ads on TV. You know the ones, with the rat-face voice-over women who ratchet up the intensity thinking shouting at us is the way to get their message across, is the way they encourage us to buy their goods.
(Oh yes, I know it is the ad people and she is just the messenger, however, it is “the screamer” who I have contact with)
“She deserves to be raped by a football team,” I mumble, Sam would say scream, but I deny it, as I reach for the remote. “Ahhhhhh. Where is the remote? Where is the remote?”  I hate those ads. They make the best invention in the world obvious… the remote control.
Apparently, this is the reason I am anti woman. But no, this is a non-discriminatory rape policy. It is not the sex, but the screaming that really makes me, er, um, screamy!
“Oh no, no no, that bloke screaming at us from the Harvey Norman ad deserves to be raped by a football team too. Or the BAM man! Or The Doors Plus guy, or many of the male voice over ads that yell at us and make us smaller and weaker and make us want to scream! Raped by a sadistic bunch of, um, er, sadists in zipped up leather face masks, while they are having their faces, specifically their mouths, rammed into the floor, till there is blood.”
“You will not scream at us!” Bang! Bang! Bang! “Repeat after me, You will not scream at us!” Bang! Bang! Bang! Repeat…
I hate those screamy ads, the ones that are suddenly assaulting us in the very place where we live and where we should be safe from such attacks. You want to talk about tough on crime, do something about the “screamy” television adverts. “AH!”

Anyway… thank goodness for the remote control, to quell such horrible thoughts engendered… so I won’t turn into some mad man attacking people who talk above a normal speaking voice.
But, I ask you, despite me being a little dramatic, okay a lot dramatic, above, don’t you feel that the world today is just screaming at you some days? A cacophony of voices trying to get your attention for this product, or that product, or this thing, or that thing?


Too black? Grimace? Today, in our pull your coat around yourself, conservative times, senses of humour are beiger and narrower than that, Christian. You should know, as even you wonder about it as you read over it.


Ha, ha.
Perhaps I should have just let her have the fence to walk along? Perhaps, it was like some kind of security blanket, one side is caged off and safe and she only had to watch them coming from one side. I didn't care. I was having a leisurely walk in the sunshine with my guy, I wasn’t nervous about anything.
People are nervous today, though, you have to agree?


The food was good at the non-eaten-at-before Malaysian restaurant in Swanston Street. It was great for $6.50. The boys behind the counter were cute and attentive. After whiney old me complained about how hot it was inside the shop, one of the boys behind the counter rushed outside ahead of us and popped up an umbrella to guard us from the suns rays. Lovely.


The guy at the next table had an annoying laugh, like a machine gun.
The tofu was in sweet chilli, the lamb was curry, the chicken was in a sweet, maybe plum, sauce.

As he reached up and secured the umbrella in the up position, his t-shirt rode up his back exposing his white undies elastic and perhaps more of the soft white cotton than he meant to... and his big, chunky bum. He had a big arse, I could see the big round tops of his cheeks. I can’t imagine what you do with a boy with an arse as large as he had. It was way bigger than two handfuls, let me tell you. Way bigger! The guy at the next table had an annoying laugh, like a machine gun. Er!
The tofu was in sweet chilli, the lamb was curry, the chicken was in a sweet, maybe plum, sauce.

It was a beautiful day walking home in the glorious sunshine. The boys in the skate park made clack clack sounds with their skateboards. Shirtless boys with flat stomachs and long hair. The trees shimmered in the air. We chatted and laughed, me and Sam, as we do.
We cut through between the museum and the Exhibition Buildings, where the people milled about, where we walked under the big shade awning for respite from the sun.
Food and a walk. Be it a dawdle, it was a walk none the less.

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