Out To The Wastelands And Back Again

I worked in Thomastown, my, my, my isn’t Thomastown ugly. The wastelands, dotted with cheap orange brick veneers that weren’t even nice when they were new. Rows and rows of them, it is unrelenting. It is flat and uninteresting. Although, not so far out of the city.

The government has successfully convinced the general moronic public that Melbourne has grown too big and that now we need medium density housing? The great unwashed believe this now to be true unquestioningly, so they will now accept whatever destruction this wreaks on any of our suburbs willingly.

Go on, test it out? “They” are convinced.

“Well, you know, we can’t afford to let Melbourne keep growing the way it is.”

I say that it is bullshit and that it is political. It is nothing more than the politicians keeping their generous political donors happy. Otherwise, why is it always in Smith Street Fitzroy? Or Nelson Place, Williamstown? Or Marine Parade St Kilda? Why? That is where the property developers who donate generously to the political funds of both political parties can maximise their profits.

Let’s take Thomastown? It is not so far out of the city. There is nothing there that needs to be preserved. In fact, if you bulldozed the lot, cleared it all, you could build sustainable housing of any height you wanted and it would probably only prove to improve the area.

There are many locations just like Thomastown through out Melbourne though, for non-politically motivated development.

I could have been finished in an hour.

10.23. I’m in Thomastown at a client. Diagonal polished pine boards line the walls in the offices, which are attached to a big warehouse, your usual warehouse/manufacturing set up, thirty, forty years old. Stained, brown nylon carpet covers the floors, the whole place smells a little metallic, or oily, or is that a combination of both? I’m sitting at a seventies brown stained desk, everything feels just a little dirty, or is that just old? I could really be finished now, but I am trying to stretch the time out, you know, to maximise my pay. I feel the chill of dishonesty, the thrill of getting away with something, as I delay and delay and delay, which is not really getting away with anything at all, really. No, it is just slightly sad and kind of lonely and a little devious. I’m bored with “the stretching of time” maybe I want to scream. The blokes are talking in an office across the landing. Their voices suddenly rise up and then die down in natural men’s business laughter. The sound makes me horny. I wonder what they’d do if I screamed? I feel like an outsider, a ring in, an imposter, that’s because I am. I don’t belong here, I’ve just been called in to clean up their year for them. I don’t think I want to do this any more, delaying after a few hours so I can stretch it out for more money. For a pittance extra. It is boring. It is destructive to one’s psyche, scrambling for crumbs, on a go slow for meagre extra ratios. I must get myself a real job and focus my skills on me, for me. I’ve delayed for 25 minutes, thus far. It only serves to make me feel somewhat undeserving and second rate. Oh could you imagine if I accidently left this piece of paper on the desk. Could you imagine? I’m putting it in my brief case and getting back to work now.

I was finished by midday. At least the sun was shining as I drove out the driveway.

It’s funny, the name Thomastown conjures up, well in my mind anyway, the area belonging to a big strapping blond boy in overalls and a tool belt. Y-Gen, well built, good looking, a bit bisexual on the right occasion, not that he’d talk about that. I pictured electric blue overalls, with a number 1 on the back, boxers not briefs so you could see his todger moving about underneath the thick cotton, long blonde hair and a sexy smile.

I laughed to myself, as I turned left out of the driveway and merged into the traffic as my blinker sounded click click, click click.

He’d have a really pretty cock, you know that don’t you? Thomas.

Next right. At the traffic lights. Turn right… and accelerate.

I went to a bakery café to buy lunch on the way home. I wanted luscious, I wanted a dazzling array of choices, I wanted colour, I wanted texture, I wanted fatty food as far as I could see.

They had four pies heating in the warmer and some jam tarts and a white plastic tray of cinnamon donuts. They had grey linoleum and stainless steel cabinets, as in spongeable, not fashionable. It was all pretty ordinary, really. I could feel my fingers twitch and my mouth just naturally curl down into a grimace.

I wanted amazing pastries. I wanted transportation, I wanted Kansas, I wanted Toto. I wanted relief from the urban dysfunction. I should have got out as soon as I saw the state of the place, but I hesitated and the man was behind the counter looking at me before I thought to escape.

“Vhat vould you like?” He looked like he’d just come in from the back yard where he’d been burying the bodies.

“What flavour pies do you have?”

“Meat flavour.” I imagined he had a mincer out the back and not a shovel at all.

Only plain pies? And you call this a bakery. “I’ll have two thanks.”

A chill ran down my spine as I wondered how old they were?

Ah the suburbs, what a place to get the hell out of, I thought to myself, as I cross the road to my car.

I chatted to Mark on Skype for the longest time… eating the pies, which turned out okay. Mark was concerned about the terrible photo he thought I had posted on Facebook. He told me about how badly the restaurant is doing now that the Hanoi council has dug up the road… about the staff there, the good ones and the bad one. He distressed about what a bitch (his daughter) Jane has turned into. She is totally ignoring him now that he doesn’t have any money to give her. Mark says it makes him feel that she never really loved him in the first place, the only thing she loved was his money. And we talked about… how both of them have high standards for every one else, standards neither of them have to live up to. Mark says his new family in Hanoi makes him feel good and how he just has to accept the fact that he doesn’t have any children back in Australia.

Anyway… It’s Lady Ga Ga tonight at Rod Laver Arena. 7.30pm, be there or be…

Sam arrived early and hungry. He wanted to get food, more or less, as soon as he arrived. He was very hungry hippo.

“What time will the others be here?”

Shane had said something last night about getting dinner before we left.

“Oh, they won’t be here until the very last minute.” David is squeezing in a meeting with someone. And Shane is in “BIG WEEK” mode. He’s got big proposals to get in before June 30^th and he is SO busy and, roll of the eyes, it is a (probably another) BIG WEEK!

But doesn’t that just mean you have been disorganised up until this point and are rushing to do things at the last minute? I’m sorry, but it has been my experience that people who clam loudly and repeatedly to be SO BUSY, or have NO TIME, (more often than not, waste of space HR girls) are usually the incompetent employees.

“We should get dinner now, if we want to eat.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for them, you know, to be nice?”

“No.”

So we got Indian and it was lovely too. We both had butte chicken just because we both wanted it, when we’d usually get different dishes and share.

David arrived at 6.25pm, five minutes early, after his meeting. Shane had arrived home some minutes earlier exclaiming something about being SO busy and he ran up stairs saying he had to have a shower.

David laughed at Shane calling himself a top. I could hear by David’s tone exactly what he was thinking. You can’t be a top with a button for a dick.

Remember, David and Shane went out for a while. I guess that is what you’d call it. Desperate cohabitation of lonely souls may be another term for it. Whatever.

“I am a top,” exclaimed Shane like a child might insist he was a fireman.

“Yes,” David laughed. “Of course you are.”

Shane had told me that he had topped Ali and I don’t think he saw my raised eyebrows. Either Ali doesn’t like being fucked and he’s just being polite, or he took enough crystal and someone’s little finger would have felt good, or he has very low expectations about being fucked, or he has a congenitally small arse hole and it is good for him.

But, David wasn’t accepting it at all, the more Shane insisted that he was a top, the more David rejected the suggestion with a derisive tone. Maybe, Ali has a webbed bum hole.

Whoever Lady Starlight is she opened the show and she was worse than awful. I’m not sure if she sang, I’m not really sure what she did, other than ponce about the stage and make us all want to throw things and yell, “GET OFF!”

Lady Ga Ga was great, as you would expect. Great dancing, great singing, great sets and a great performance all around. Her dancers worked hard. The three people in white dresses gliding along the stage were amazing.

The bitch can sing! Like Madonna could only dream about.

My favourite song is still, You and I.

She didn’t chat as much as I would have liked her to. I’ve seen her chat much more in other concerts on dvd and I like my artists to stand there and talk. David said, and I don’t know if this is true, that they complained in Sydney because she talked too much. But, you know, that is, pretty much, the difference between Melbourne and Sydney. In Sydney, they only care about what you look like, in Melbourne we like to hear what you have to say.