I watched one of the great rugby league grand finals in a northside
hostilery which will remain nameless because they took all my money and
are not getting any free kicks to boot.
You remember the northern suburbs of Brisbane? That was where a bloke was
able to get a job in a factory and pull in a reasonable wage by working
overtime. You’d buy a boat on the never-never, root the foreman’s
missus, lust after the teenage girl across the road (teenage boy if you
were a Brothers’ supporter) and drink in the pub on Friday nights till
the wife or girlfriend – or when totally sprung, both – would
drag you out and embarrass you in front of your mates,
All in all, a halfway decent lifestyle. Until that legendary Conservative
prime minister, Bob Hawke went on record saying he was gunna do something
about THE BIG PROBLEM facing modern Australia. That big problem, according
to Hawke, was that workers were getting too big a slice of the economic
cake and the capos were getting too little.
Of course. Of course. Of course. Why hadn’t the penny dropped earlier?
Why hadn’t we seen it ourselves? The big picture was that you and I
had too much money and Kerry Packer had too little money.
The two Conservative prime ministers who followed Hawke like proper turd-strangling
Tories did not change a comma of the Hawke edict. Paul Keating wore two
clock dials about it some of the time, but John Howard-Cunningham grabbed
the little Hawke ball without blanching and ran to billy-o with it.
Fuck it, ruminated Howard deeply– the working class, give ‘em
fucking nothing. Howard claims, only to close friends but, that, in 1959
he saw a poster beneath two flying ducks in Prime Minister Menzies’
lounge room that said that very thing. The working class, give ‘em
fucking nothing.
Good doses of unemployment and starvation wages will make us a nation of
arse-lickers, and all will be right with the world and its colonial outposts.
But the workers’ town of Newcastle decided to throw a spanner into
what passes for Howard’s works by deciding to kick, rather than lick,
arse. To be specific, to kick Manly arse - silvertails!
And wasn’t it a treat to see the likes of Toovey, Menzies and Lyons
squeal like stuck capo pigs when Newcastle wasn’t buying that Manly
was born to rule in 1997.
It was a bit of a disappointment that no Knights player had the good sense
to punch Howard-Cunningham's lights out during the presentation ceremony.
I can only put the missed opportunity down to the muddleheadedness of the
euphoria of victory.
At least some federal public servants were thinking straight when they stuck
it to Howard by opening up the touted travel rorts affair. One of our number
at the northside hostilery was a public servant who had a chuckle over that
one. Just as Newcastle proved the victor over Manly, the public service
decide to contest the Liberal government over who was gunna give whom the
Kyber Pass.
The thing is you can’t talk to these Tory wankers, even if you wanted
to. I mean, they wanna rabbit on about billion dollar Telstra floats, when
we wanna whinge about $100 phone bills. They’re talking seagreen Ferraris
when we’re spruiking birdshit green Holdens.
No, you can’t talk to ‘em. Like Newcastle, you just gotta hang
in there and show ‘em in the end.
I haven’t been caught dead or alive in Manly for a decade.
The last experience was enough to tell me Manly is the wrong end of town.
I was tonguing for a drink and the closest place was this wine bar/bistro/speakcraphouse.
Anyways, I gets chatting with this blonde sheila.
Despite the fact that she had this private school accent, and was tarted
up like an airhead game show hostess, we get on like a house on fire. Until
about 9.30.
At this time, she looks at me and says. “Bobby, I’m going to tell
you something that I have never told another man. I’m telling you this
because you seem such a sensitive guy.”
I leaned closer because this stuck-up Manly blonde piece had picked me in
one.
“Bobby,” she said softly, “My father made me a nymphomaniac.”
Well I was stunned – for maybe a second and a half. Then I replied
with the utmost sincerity: “If I gave him the latex, do you think he
could make me one.”
She threw white wine over me and stormed out. See what I mean. You just
can’t talk to them.
It was a shame that the ARL’s planned pre-match entertainment did not come off.
Desperate to top Olivia Neutron Bomb's Super Leek performance, the ARL consulted all the scientists planning the Far North Queensland Space Base which certain National party ministers get excited over whenever the Coral sea breezes whistle through the spaces between their ears.
Using the most sophisticated microphones, amps and mixers, the ARL had
planned to have Elle McPherson’s foetus singing: “You’ve
got me under your skin.” Didn’t come off as I said, but at least
thinking laterally or in this case, uterally.
Pisspot airhead bimbos in the media are sprouting peace signs because
Rupert Mudrake gave the flick flick pass to the Western Reds, the bucket-arse
of Super Leek which last year passed 10 million dollars.
All getting rid of the Reds shows is that Super Leek, despite its huge grand
final attendance, was a floperoonie in its first year.
I am sure that The Bash is not the only true league fan who does not want
to see a unified comp bled dry by Nudes Unlimited. Let the battle continue.
When I was a youngster, I always wanted to get on the piss with Honor Blackman. It was but a dream.
Till next we meet in a strange bar in a strange part of a strange city.
Maybe not tonight
Maybe not tomorrow
But soon and
for the rest
of it, if you have eaten that hill of baked beans again, everybody’ll
know that Ellen Barkin’s brother, Ring is back in town.
Cop-u-lata
The Bash.
