Straya Day!

January 25: Workplace productivity is low, the temperature is up and so are the floodwaters if you’re reading this in Queensland or New South Wales (possibly on some kind of iPad flotation device, iFloat? Still better than the Costa Concordia’s navigation app “iTanic”). The whole nation watches as the day works its way to 5pm. It’s like the Melbourne Cup on a clock face; “and the minute had is resting at 4:59, but here comes the second hand, passing 10 o’clock. It’s at the 50, the 55, 57, 58, 59... IT’S 5 O’CLOCK!!!! It’s all over here for another year at the Clockwatching Cup. Pass me a beer, I’ve got tomorrow off”

The flag lowering ceremony was eagerly awaited

So I’ve read a few blogs and columns in the last couple of days about our annual tradition of taking a few moments (probably during office hours) to think about what it means to be Australian and what Australia Day is all about. We don’t do this thinking on Australia Day though, that’s valuable pool, beer and BBQ time. The usual questions come up; Who are we? Where are we going? Are we going to be ok? Are we too racist? And so on.

There seems to be a lot of concern about a bit of research that has been widely reported as “People with Aussie flags on their car: Racists”. What the very small report carried out by a few students for a research assignment actually reflected was more along the lines of “Leading questions in research makes conclusions easier to forecast, assignment easier to write. Tavern time also increased.” A bunch of students asked 500 people about their views of Australia on Australia Day. All these people were on the South Perth Foreshore and out of these about 100 admitted they have Australian flags hanging off their cars.

Of these 100 people, less than half admitted they were concerned about immigration, Australian culture, and had negative views of Aboriginals and Muslims in Australia. We’re not told whether this was Islamic Extremists, Islamic nations or even Islamic cricket players. Considering the news cycle at the time having a fair bit of coverage of boat people and various wars in the Middle East that had dragged on longer than The Lord of the Rings Exxxxtra Long Super Extended Directors Cut Collector’s Edition (with previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the behind-the-scenes special).

The story apparently is that while a few people with flags on their cars were concerned about stories the media and Today Tonight/A Current Affair/talk back radio had been bludgeoning people with. Hardly surprising really. I’m shocked that there weren’t more people openly displaying racist or downright obnoxious attitudes. This IS Australia Day on the South Perth foreshore remember? Not exactly the place you go for highbrow political discourse. Punch-ons at the flag pole? No worries. Australia’s foreign policy and multiculturalism... not so much.

Speaking from what I’ve seen of people opinions of Aussies overseas, we’re not all that bad. You hear stories of Indian students being the targets of racism in Australia? It’s even worse in some other parts of the world. People like Australians, we’re considered to be naturally good-humoured and friendly. We’re seen as a friendly, hard-working nation with beautiful women, beautiful beaches, and politicians which are easily ignored. We have a strong economy, business is booming, people want to come here to work. Sure we drink a lot, and we sometimes get into fights. But on the whole we’re doing alright.

Aussie pride is a bit overrated though, be proud to be Australian by sharing all that we love with everyone else. Show people why Australia is such a great place, NOT why Australia is better than everyone else.  It’s not a race, there is no “winner”. Be Australian be being cheerful, good-humoured and hard working. Nation-level narcissism to be point of being masturbatory is the providence of Americans, and they’re welcome to it. They can have their redneck “immigrants stole my job” mentality and their loud-mouthed decrying of everyone else who is slightly different.

I’m proud of the fact the when we’re given a day off for our nation, we spend it with those we care about, we get together, we share food and drinks (sharing a meal is one of the most ancient rituals or trust and respect), we enjoy the beautiful weather of our country (once again, except those currently being flooded or cycloned, bad luck).

We’re Australia. We’re Awesome. People know it, we don’t have to tell them.

Happy Australia Day everyone. We’re doing pretty bloody good.

-Worst Guy Ever

PS - Fun Game: Drink every time some blogger or journo uses the phrase "navel-gazing" when talking about Australia Day.

Rhetoric Kills

Speed doesn’t kill, that’s just another convenient excuse that’s been jammed down drivers throats for so long that it is now being trumpeted to the exclusion of all else. I’m sure it’s easier to fit on a billboard/coffee mug/key-ring/commemorative butt plug/whatever than “driving like a dick, not paying attention, not understanding the road rules and then passing all these habits on to your children which for some reason you are allowed to teach to drive... kills”. The unbelievable single-target focus of so many road safety campaigns has resulted in the greater public only being aware of one single variable in traffic accidents. Speed.

On a recent trip back home from overseas I realised exactly how bad things are. People have absorbed the message “drop 5, save lives” like it had been chemically introduced into the water supply. I feel like this might be a once off type thing and this is the only message the government has ever been able to pound into people brains. What a waste! If I was going to get the population of a city to absorb only one message I could think of hundreds that would have been more useful. Think about it, you could have had the whole population thinking;

n   Stop being self-centred for the next 5 minutes.

n   Watching The Biggest Loser does not count as exercise, put down the chips and step away from the couch.

n   Buy beers for everyone in the bar.

n   Stop playing the pokies, you’re not going to get rich, spend that money on soap instead. Please.

n   Tits out for the boys.

n   Does anyone REALLY give a crap about this facebook status?

But no, instead people now think “drive slower than speed limit, be superhero”. It was great to see people driving along in a 100kph zone doing 80kph chatting away to the person next to them. That’s great, well done, please stop drifting into my lane... screw this, have some HOOOOOORRN (I wish i had a bigger horn, the kind that destroys eardrums). And then they look surprised!

“How dare you blow your horn at me sir! I’m a safe driver! I drive well below the speed limit, usually in the right-hand lane because it’s my right as a road user!”. This right here is how people end up in shallow graves. They harp on about their Rights and ignore their Responsibilities, like paying attention while driving (to the road, not the phone/kids/GPS in the middle of their windscreen).

Who the hell decided that driving 5kph slower was a good idea anyway? Aren’t speed limits designed to be the safe speed at which to travel on any given road? If that speed limit was 5kph too fast, wouldn’t that be changed? Aside from the blanket 10kph speed reduction on all roads across the state a few years ago, which has been largely regarded as an easy way to increase the number of people getting caught for minor speeding offences, what has improved?

Certainly not the quality of driver training. The current requirement to take an L-plater for an educational spin is having a full drivers licence for 4 years. That’s it. 4 years of not indicating, failing to give way, talking on your phone and having no concept of how a round-a-bout works. That gives you the experience necessary to pass on all these horrible traits to a new driver. You can’t avoid it, even if you have lessons with a professional driving instructor you still have to complete your P-plate log book by spending hours listening to Johnny-No-Brakes telling you that you don’t _really_ need to indicate there, or you can just get away with mounting the curb there. Nothing like having to spend hour after hour in a confined space with someone supervising you to help reinforce their bad habits. Good work to whichever bloody genius had that stroke of logic:

(Read in a posh British accent, just because) “We have a bunch of crap drivers on the road, we should make new drivers practice for longer under the supervision of experienced drivers. That will solve this problem!”

It was a good idea right up until it turned out the people who are currently crap drivers are the ones training the future of crap driving.

So next time you’re driving home plastered at 3am with your headlights off and trying to text a booty call, remember that to be a safe driver all you have to do is slow down from 50kph to 45kph on those suburban roads... verge, footpath... whatever. Mind that letterbox.

-Worst Guy Ever

Free drinks for ladies? That's bloody criminal!

I often talk about my deep hatred for crap journalism. There’s just something about a writer going for a sensationalist approach to something in order to provoke fear or outrage from parents and the kind of people who interfere with other peoples lives “for their own good”. The kind of people that would ban anything remotely dangerous and put a tax on going to bed later than 9pm. These are the sort of people who write angry letters to libraries insisting that Harry Potter books be banned because they encourage witchcraft, or that Brave New World be removed because it was considered anti-family. The mere fact that these people are concerned that the books in their local library are going to turn children into deviants should be a clue as to how out of touch these people really are. Simple test: Ask three people today if they have a library card. An actual library card, not a student ID card. See what I mean? Ok.

The reason I’ve been brought around to this topic is thanks to the fine people at Adelaide’s Sunday Mail recently suggesting “Offering free vodka to women 'should be criminal' ”. That’s not an out of context quote by me, that’s the actual headline of the article. The online article has also been garnished with an old image of a girl apparently injured as the result of binge drinking, so terrified parents can immediately draw a link between cheap drinks and the death or maiming of their precious little darlings (that have finally escaped the suffocating cotton-wool cushioning of overprotective parenting that they spent the previous twenty-odd years of their lives smothered in).

The story behind the outrage and fear is that apparently there are bars in South Australia offering alcoholic drinks at low prices for ladies. That’s it. Someone in the news room heard this and dug into it a bit thought this might make a brilliant SNPCATM (Story No Parent Can Afford To Miss). Also there’s a chance a couple of journo’s figured they’d get to “research” these bars that were apparently full of drunk young women. Probably need to “interview” a few of them too. Yep, all we need now is from someone to introduce themself as a “producer” and we’re moments away from a casting-couch grope-fest. *cue porno music*

From what I can decipher from this overflowing bedpan of moral-outrage dressed up as news, some bars and clubs have been offering their female patrons a variety of inducements to get them through the door; two free drinks on entry, free entry (the nerve of them!), cheap drinks, 2-for-1 cocktails, etc. Most of these aren’t that unusual in bars around the world where managers know that a bar full of women makes for a mostly trouble-free night, a popular venue, and plenty of profit. Why would a manager want their venue to be full of women? Well;

-          They’re less likely to get into fights (and if they do, they’re easier to break up once everyone lets go of everyone else’s hair)

-          Guys will sometimes fight over a girl, this is less likely to happen if there are plenty of others to choose from

-          Bars full of women are usually fairly popular with the gents, be it by reputation or just by seeing a bar full of women as you walk down the street

-          Once a bar is popular enough that you know it will be busy most nights, you can start picking and choosing your clientele. That means you can turn away the trouble makers and let in the respectable people who will spend more money

-          The people mentioned above will often try and impress ladies by buying them an expensive drink, bars make more profit on these (managers like profit)

-          If nothing else, the manager improves his own prospects for the night and makes his work environment a bit easier on the eyes

I know this may come as a complete surprise to a lot of you but bars need a good reputation to survive. Bars usually need to be a popular place to go, because of good service, good music, or a good crowd. A room full of attractive young women is a good crowd in the eyes of most men and quite a few women, partly because the romantic advances of the male part of the crowd are spread over a broader area. They probably don’t like the longer line for the girl’s bathroom, but you can’t win everything.

My biggest problem with this article is the blatant bias being presented as a factual news story not an opinion piece. Fear inducing phrases have been thrown in through the article to try and make a connection in the mind of the reader between “two free drinks for ladies between 9-10pm”, road fatalities, rapists and brain damage. Littered throughout the realistically short article is fear-padding so think you could mistake it for a very creepy crash mat (probably shaped like Margret Thatcher’s thighs).  Parents of teenage girls everywhere are clutching their chests in fear for their little princess. Christ I hate Helen Lovejoy moments.

What the hell is with the huge leap of reasoning in the headline suggesting free drinks, specifically vodka, should result in criminal charges. One person said that? And he’s the leader of an anti-alcohol group? Can I get my own headline if I say fat people in leggings should be criminal? Would it help if I was the leader of an anti-dry-retching group?

 Below are some of my favourite “how is this related to ‘girls get two free drinks’ night?” quotes from the article:

Women's advocates and health professionals also fear the promotions encourage young women to binge drink to cash in on the discounts, putting their safety at risk and making them more vulnerable to men loitering around known "ladies night" events.

Vulnerable to men? What? Did I read that right? Women should be protected from men? Probably a good thing really, we fellas just can’t help ourselves from raping. Wake up in the morning, rape me some women. Go out at night, just looking for someone to do the raping all over. Monday: raping, Tuesday: raping, Wednesday:  Team building exercise (gang-rape).

Men are “loitering” near bars in order to find women? Are you sure that wasn’t a line for a nightclub or kebab shop? Why the hell would they be outside (except for smokers who have been banished from clubs) the booze any women are inside! 

The above except suggests that women can’t be trusted with alcohol, will buy something (other than shoes) just because they’re getting it at a discount, and men are all secretly rapists. I get the feeling the writer might be substituting “Women’s advocate” for “Man-hating militant dyke”.

"We know excessive alcohol is related to a failure to develop brain function in young adults and obviously associated with presentations to the emergency departments and car accidents," he said.

Ahhh, I see the connection now. 2 free drinks for ladies – car crash – hospital. It’s two free drinks, not a litre of moonshine and a moped. THAT will land you in hospital, a couple of vodka-lime-soda’s probably won’t kill you and I doubt it will cause any serious brain damage. If you buy another 20 drinks after that, well that was all you. You really can’t blame the first two drinks of the night for a hangover without eyeballing the bunch of tequila shots in the corner whistling innocently while trying to sneak off.

Bella, 18, and Rachael, 18, celebrating the end of their school exams, named another city venue that "does the best drinks ever so cheap and they don't even taste like alcohol".

That’s probably because there’s bugger all alcohol those drinks girls. I’ve seen this done in bars before, cheap drinks with cheap, low alcohol spirits. Most bars have a selection of generic cocktail spirits lying around. Blue Curacao, Crème de Menthe, cherry brandy, peach, banana, raspberry flavoured liqueurs, that sort of thing. They’re usually there to help flavour cheap cocktails but they go alright with a mixer. They’re also about 16-20% alcohol content (vodkas, rums and whiskeys are usually 37-42%). You pour a girl a cherry brandy and coke and she’s going to love it, it tastes like cherry coke, it’s complete lolly water, it doesn’t have a harsh alcoholic taste and she can drink a dozen of them before she feels drunk. Why? Because there’s about 0.5 standard drinks in each glass (a pint of full strength beer is usually 2.2-2.5 standard drinks). To put this is reference, when she’s had 6 drinks, she’s had 3 standard drinks. When you’ve had 6 pints, you’ve had 13-15 standard drinks.

How can I suggest that offering girls free drinks doesn’t result in people chucking up in the gutter and raping each other into third degree friction burns? Because you can find a bar almost every night of the week in Dubai that has a "Ladies night” with offers ranging from a couple of free champagnes to free cocktails all night. One nightclub even offers a VIP table and free bottle of vodka for any group of 5 or more girls. Try getting THAT in Australia.

But the rules roll on and the outrage continues along it’s cheerfully hypocritical path. Don’t believe me? Wait until you see someone in their 40’s sipping on their third Irish coffee complaining about how damaging a vodka-red bull is. “Why?” I asked. “The caffeine and alcohol are a terrible mix! Makes them all drunk and all hyped up, send the kids bloody crazy.” The wise customer replies. Whiskey and coffee is a completely different thing...

How do you argue with logic like that?

-Worst Guy Ever.

Midget Fucking? Offensive?

Why are people getting so offended these days? I’ve read a few articles this week about the difficulties of censorship because describing what you’re censoring has to be censored. Australian customs recently seized someone’s midget porn. That’s right. I know you’re shocked, I said “midget”. Apparently it should have been described as “vertically challenged porn”. Penis? Vagina? No worries! Foul language? Quite alright. Midget? Whoa there, someone might get (a little) upset over that.

It appears someone has been caught short (yay! Midget jokes!) by the politically correct army of tools who have developed an industry out of making sure people aren’t offending other people or being insensitive. I have no idea who honestly would want to employ any of these people, but it appears they get hired “because we probably need one”. Much in the same way IT and telemarketing companies have Health and Safety reps giving tips on how to lift heavy things, because you do that a lot in a deskbound job. I guess they might get offended if their special brand of over-protective mothering of the entire planet was no longer needed. Oh god, i said mothering, not parenting! That’s discriminatory against fathers who work just as hard and are just as valuable, oh no! But of course they don’t understand what a woman goes through with pregnancy and childbirth and we have to respect that. It’s a sacred thing! Oh fuck! I said “oh god” before! Now religious people are going to be offended, and I used a small ‘g’ not a big one. That’s disrespectful to some deity because I didn’t treat it as a proper noun and that somehow makes him less real! And i called it a him! When it could be a her! Or it might not exist! Aaaahhhhhh!!!!!

Wait, is God (big ‘g’ this time) actually going to be offended if I believe he/she exists and he/she doesn’t? If a deity doesn’t exist in the woods, and no-one’s around, does it still ruin fun? I’m also curious about the connection between religion and silly hats but I’ll examine that some other time.

You know what? Fuck it. Fuck you too. Sometimes you get so worried about something that you just do it to get over it because the fear of the event is worse than the event itself. So, in honour of every poor bastard who has had to tone down an article, or rephrase a hundred different terms in a short essay or who has developed RSI from adapting non-gender specific formats for a generic MacDonald’s application form, I give you the following:

n   Your skin colour is inferior to all other skin colours,

n   Your sexual orientation is the subject of ridicule,

n   Your favourite colour is the international colour of autofelatio,

n   Your mother’s cooking is comparable to prison food/sex,

n   Your favourite band is shit and the lead singer is going to kill the whole thing when his ego launches its own solo career which lasts only slightly longer than you in bed,

n   Your political leanings suggest you want to live for free on the government purse/are a common-as-muck bogan/sip lattes in ovary towers/want to do the sodomy all over Barnaby Joyce (just because his name sounds delightfully old fashioned),

n   Your family tree has so many pricks it’s best described as a cactus,

n   Your girlfriend inspired ‘blue waffle’.

Ah, that’s a relief, now that I don’t have to worry about offending anyone. I’m pretty sure anyone with some soft sensibilities is frothing at the mouth with rage now and is either reaching for their blood pressure medication or smashing their keyboard to pieces writing an angry letter to me and copying in every authority they can think of. I can hear the sounds of hundreds of caps lock keys being fingered in the foreshadowing of a vengeful fury of indignant outrage (by the way, my complaints line is HorseDicksAimed@YourMouth.org).  Yeah, I put an email address joke in there.

Why is it such a big deal to be offended? I’d be more worried about being stabbed. That hurts a lot more. A bloke recently gave a co-worker a novelty apron with a set of fake plastic tits as a joke gift. The thought it was funny, the recipient thought it was funny, some cheerless dick in the same office as these people made a complaint. To which I’m pretty certain the correct reply would have been “And who the fuck are you? These two guys had a joke, it was a joke between them, you’re sitting over there getting upset because you witnessed a plastic tit. Well I’m seeing a tit right now, he’s still sitting in my office thinking of things to complain about to avoid work!”

Who really submits a harassment complaint on behalf of someone else they feel might have been offended? It’s like calling the police to a boxing match because the two blokes in the ring were assaulting each other.

As people we need to stop being self centred and self righteous. That person offended ME. That could be offensive to other people, I should do something. If blind people could see that picture, their feelings might be hurt, I’M going to put a stop to this. Why would someone to this? Because it satisfies three conflicting human urges:

1)        To help other people

2)        To wreck shit for other people

3)        To prove we matter by influencing our surroundings.

When some do-gooder dick complains about a bus stop advert and gets it taken down, they get to see proof that they matter. For good or bad, they’ve made someone else do what they want. They suddenly feel powerful. Now we are dealing with an idiot with delusions of power.

You’ve all felt the effect of this. People who complain about service in a restaurant to get a discount, whinge about the government in a letter to a newspaper, whinge about music in an office, bikini calendars in a workshop, even a Christmas pageant in the city. All this whining because someone MIGHT BE offended.

Take the risk, offend someone, be a Good Samaritan and help them develop a thicker skin.

Like the big guy says: “Harden the fuck up, Australia”

-Worst Guy Ever

The Second Coming-Back (with beer)

Welcome back to part 2 of the story of the first Kareoke Sunday at a bar I used to work at. By this point the story is less about karaoke (blessedly) and more about the after party. When we left off my car was hurtling from pub to party late on a Sunday night (when respectable people are getting a good night’s sleep before work on Monday morning). At this point my car contained (sung to the tune of “12 days of Christmas”):

-          7 (different) sets of directions,

-          6 pints of lager (Pablo grabbed a spare “for the road”)

-          5 drunken bar staff,

-          4 bottles of wine,

-          3 full cartons,

-          2 spirit bottles,

-          And not a hope of finding this place...

After taking about half an hour to drive to a house two suburbs away, we arrived at the chef’s house where the party was continuing as it had started. By this I mean that everyone was pouring as much alcohol down their throats as possible to the musical accompaniment of two or three piss wrecks on Singstar. What followed was pretty much standard for those days and that house. People jumped in the spa in their underwear, girls jumped in the shower and discussed the finer points of their boobs (with comparisons), wrestling became a completely reasonable social activity and our alcohol supply was starting to look like Batman’s parents (it was getting murdered too). I was relaxing in my boxers in the spa talking to one of my managers about the finer points of marketing strategy. This was made surprisingly difficult by strategy being a bastard of a word to understand when the speaker is slurring as badly as I was.

I’m sure there have been studies into this, I can imagine there’d be a bloody big queue to sign up to be part of a study like this, but apparently drinking in a spa gets you drunker, quicker than drinking not-in-a-spa (if that makes sense). It’s something about the bubbly, warm water and your body absorbing alcohol faster. Try it with champagne and a girl in a spa, you get the idea. Seriously though, that may be the best scientific experiment of all time. Can you imagine the funding request? “You need a dozen young women in bikini’s, a hot tub, and two kegs of beer? Are you sure this is for science young man?”

So I’ve wandered back inside to pour myself another whatever-the-hell-we-have-left and coke and discovered that our alcohol supply is looking lighter than that barmaid we fired because of her “eating disorder” (crack addiction is apparently an eating disorder). As I gazed across this sea of broken dreams, empty bottles and a tipsy looking housecat I decided that something needed to be done. I had a carton in the fridge at home, I could go get that! (brilliant logic, thank you alcohol impaired brain function).

So I’ve jumped in my car, reversed over the letter box, aimed for home and shot off to bring life and alcohol back to the party. I would be hailed a hero by the drunken masses, they’ll probably give me a medal or something. Yep, this is a great idea!

So I had been driving for about 30 seconds and now was completely lost in the back suburbs of bloody nowhere, vacant blocks on the right, housing estates on the left, cop car up ahead... wait, what?! Yeah, that’s a cop car. It’s about 3am on a Monday morning, I’m the only car on the road,  and my car looks like rolling probable cause most days anyway. I’m suddenly hoping for someone to get murdered nearby so the cops have something to keep them busy.

I stop at a set of lights, the cops stop on the other side of the intersection. Lights go green, I drive through, the cops turn right through the intersection. Ok, they didn’t do a u-turn. I’m ok... why are there headlights behind me? Oohhh... crap.

I take the next left into a housing estate hoping they’ll keep going straight, no luck. I take the next left, then another left and then pull into the first driveway I see. Lights off, engine off, I climb out of the car trying my best to look completely inconspicuous. The police car rolls down the street, they drive slowly past me and keep going. Have I got away with it? I’m not going to stand here and try and find out. Like Dr. Frankenstein discovering a way to hold his monster’s head on, I bolt it. Cops go one way, I make a run for the other, before they knew what was happening I was around the corner, down the street and across the road, where I found the park I had passed a few moments ago.

I could hear the cop car racing up behind me so without breaking stride I dived full tilt into some native bushes. I have no idea how I managed to land without breaking my neck but somehow I’ve ended up crouched behind these bushes watching the police car’s spotlight scanning the area.

*Ring ring*

Oh fuck.

*Ring –bash, bang, shtthfckup!*

Me: “Nyello?”

Jim (still at the party): “Mate, where are you?”

Me: “...Hiding from cops in the bushes?”

Jim: “... why?”

Me: “Because I’m not real keen on getting breathalysed right now?”

Jim: “You drove? Where the hell are you?”

Me: “I told you, in the bushes in some park somewhere. More details to follow from my arrest report unless you shut the hell up!”

Jim: “Again? Do I need to find a driver to come get you?”

Me (watching cop car race off down the road): “Nah, I’ll be ok. I’ll call a taxi. Promise I won’t drive again”

Jim: “Good. No Driving.”

Me: “yes Mum, see you later” -click-

So once the cops had definitely left the area, either looking for me or they found something more important to do, I jumped back in my car, immediately broke my promise, and proceeded to un-lose myself back to the party. Sadly without alcohol but with a good story anyway.

Apparently most of the party had heard the details of that phone conversation so by the time I came back there was a (small) collection being passed around for bail money and a (large) pool going on my odds of making it back alive. A few people tried to talk me in to turning myself in until they were told that it didn't count and they still lost the bet. Cheerful bastards...

The story must have gotten around, because by the time I turned up to work the next day the section on the notice board marked “Things to Remember” read something like:

-          Beer of the month is Millers, $5/stb

-          We’ve run out of the venison

-          Wine of the month is somethingorother

-          Parkland bushes are a great place to hide from the cops.

Important things to know in life

-Worst Guy Ever

Kareoke: The Tone-Deaf Killer

This story is from back when I worked in some bars that were unlikely to feature on any tourist guide. The delightful clientele varied their tastes from “jacksancoke” to “jacksstubbee” and their partners usually drank the most over-sugared, brightly coloured cocktails we could invent. Usually with stupid names (the “Smurf in a Blender” used to sell quite well). We regularly heard questions like "whaddya got inna can?" and "got anything stronger than metho?". Yes, this was a place where your regulars included uniformed police and we occasionally closed early because we ran out of glassware that wasn’t being used to stab someone.

Somehow the idea that our Sunday nights were a bit lacking in the quantity and quality of patrons got up to management and, after what I’m sure was a severe drinking session, enough brain cells had been duly silenced for a karaoke night to sound like a good idea. Apparently no-one considered half-smashed bogans belting out their favourite tracks from that bible-on-CD of musical taste “Best Beer Drinking Songs in the World Ever (Volume 2)” to be bad for business. Thanks to this idea Sundays suddenly became a ghost town. You couldn’t even get staff in the place. That’s right, people who were being paid to be there would honestly have paid money to be somewhere else. The music was so bad and so loud that deaf people would show up to sit around, watch people’s facial expressions and feel better about their lot in life. But that came later.

This story is about the opening night of karaoke though. That fun, lively first night that was like that first sip of beer after a long hard day at work (the following weeks were more like eating the entire carton of beer bottles, then trying to pass the resulting shards the next day on the toilet). That first night most of the usual crew decided to hang around after their shifts to see how this would go, and maybe see who was brave enough to get on stage (hint: not me, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket).

Jim and me both finished up nice and early so we settled down with a couple of pints and some dinner before the show started. Dinner ended up being a monstrous chicken parmi and 4 pints. Jim had knocked back about 3 pints as well by this point and we agreed that in the interest of road safety, one of us should be the designated driver. We had both had a few too many to pull this off legally, so we figured the next best thing was to halve our chances of getting caught by only one of us driving (Brilliant plan, drunk logic). Since Jim lived closer, we figured we’d drop his car home and then I’d drive us both back. We both had bought similar sports cars and spent more time and money than I’d like to admit trying to make them go fast (or fixing things we broke) so it was going to be a quick trip. One of the apprentice chefs caught wind of this and asked if he and his attractive female friend could come along for the ride. Attractive female friend? Sure there’s room!

What happened next wasn’t responsible, or safe, or good for anyone’s tyres. It involved phrases like “yellow light... fuckit, I can make it” and a girl clawing at the dashboard while shrieking like a cheerleader. When you’re cornering through a set of lights that have been yellow for what feels like forever at 90kph and the guy in the passenger seat asks “was that a cop car?” while pointing to traffic on the opposite side of the road, you can only hope to put as much distance between you and him as possible. As quickly as possible. Sadly that wasn’t my only brush with the law that night (more about that in part 2). I won’t go into much more detail about that trip, but bragging rights extend as far as claiming to have survived it (and if Jim’s to be believed, the wet patch the girl left on his seat).

One we had returned to the bar and grabbed another round of drinks we settled in to watch a few hours of sheepish looking regulars and a few staff climb on stage to try the odd duet. It was like the outtakes of Australian Idol. Not the hilariously bad ones, just the average and less-than-average singers. Luckily we didn’t really mind, a few more rounds had helped soften the blows of the jarringly missed notes and slurred lyrics.

Suddenly it was getting towards closing time and the head chef suggested we keep drinking back at her place. The call went out “who has a car?” and being one of the very few people who worked at the pub that had both a car and a licence I put my hand in the air and said those classic words: “sure, i’m fiiiiine”. At this point that was about as good as it was going to get from the assembled train-wreck of waisted waitresses and blitzed bartenders, so a few of us piled back into my cramped car and raced off towards the nearest bottle shop. Pablo was in the passenger seat and had worked at this particular place (picture a riot with a 6 drink minimum) prior to moving to my slightly less blood-stained venue, so he was able to convince the manager to sell us a couple of cartons and a few bottles despite having already closed for the night. The stories Pablo would tell about that place never ceased to amaze me.

Now with all of us crammed back into the car with the addition of a few crates of booze we dashed back to the bar and our gratefully awaiting friends. Who had already left for chef’s house. Dicks. On the upside, Sunday night was also pour-off night. This was the night we cleaned the beer lines, and to clean them, you had to empty out the beer first, and there’s no sense in wasting good beer, so why not have a drink while you do it. We arrived back on the scene to see a line of fresh pints waiting on the bar, not that we could take them with us to the party though. It would be stealing to take glasses from a bar and stealing is wrong...

So now we had a very small car with 5 very drunk people in it, each holding a pint, and 3 cartons of booze squeezed in on top. It would’ve been dangerous to light a match anywhere near us. Somehow still being the designated driver for the night, we’ve headed off to the chef’s house. It took about 10 minutes of driving before we figured out that no one actually knew where the chef lived and started making the appropriate phone calls. I’m not going to tell you about the quality of the directions I received, but the number of times I heard “wait! Turn here!” caused me to corner so sharply that Pablo in the passenger seat had to hold my pint for me.

I hate to leave you guys hanging, but I don’t want to make these too long. So it looks like this will have to be a two-part series.

Next week, Part Two: The Second Coming-Back (with beer).

-Worst Guy Ever

Chivalry is severly maimed and on life support

Chivalry is dead. There, I’ve opened with a cliché. Now put a sheet down over the carpet, because I’m about to lay this thing out and it could get messy.

Here are a few tips on being a gentleman. Let’s look at the word though, Gentle – Man. You take the raw testosterone of being a kill-a-bear-with-a-big-rock man and refine it, add some class, something smooth... you take those rugged good looks and sharp wit and pour it over ice like a fine cognac.

If you’ve never helped a woman with something heavy, opened a door for someone, let someone else get served before you because they were waiting longer or general stopped being a completely self-centred fuckwit for 5 minutes, I need to ask a favour. Get sterilised. Or move to the US. Just get the hell away from the normal people until you learn one tenth of being a gentleman. What follows is a brief summary of some of the finer points of being a modern gentleman:

Opening the door for her – In these modern times of gender equality and lesbians, it might be a bit difficult to figure out if the short-haired, overall wearing, crotch-grabbing individual walking towards you is an under-developed teenager or a kid with bitch-tits and awful clothes. Ok, that’s not the point but it just bugs the crap out of me sometimes. Rule of thumb: can’t tell, don’t ask. Boy or girl, pregnant or fat, ironic or actually-that-stupid. This applies to all of the above. ...What was I saying? Right.

Opening the door for her (really this time) – how hard is it to open a damn door? No-one is in so much of a rush that they can’t hold a door for a woman (regardless of age, 18 or 80). Don’t expect a thank you for it, that’s like expecting presents on your birthday: it should happen, but you’re not about to whine and complain if it doesn’t. I’ve had women snap at me saying “I’m a grown woman! I can open my own doors!” I’m sure she was on her way to her smashing the glass ceiling and raging against the constraints of some kind of man-spiracy, but that’s in the minority. Most of the time opening a door for someone else is a clear demonstration of a thoughtful person. You’re demonstrating that you aren’t self-centred and have thought about the people around you for more than a couple of seconds, you’re also demonstrating a basic grasp of the mechanical concept of a “door handle” which some people still seem to struggle with. This is also a great way to break the ice with a pretty girl or find out if a granny has a hot female relative your age (I once got set up with a cute little thing because I gave her mum a jump-start in a rainy car park one afternoon).

Get your wallet out – If you’re a gentleman you are master of your finances, regardless of how large or small. Managing your money is important; don’t go to fancy, expensive bars and restaurants if you’re living on a uni student’s poverty budget. In any case, buy a girl a drink, not because she thinks she deserves it, but because you’re a generous soul and understand that a happy friend or a smile from a pretty girl is worth more than a few dollars in your pocket. What were you going to spend that money on anyway? Another beer for yourself? Whether you’re out with friends or on a date, spend a little extra, buy the girl a cocktail, pick something from the top shelf. Be generous. Why? Because you work hard and earn enough that you have a little left over to share (if you don’t work hard and earn enough to share, go change that). A friend on your side is worth more than a dollar in your pocket.

Drink a proper drink – A Gentleman has taste. Jim Beam & Cola in a can is not taste. That’s mass produced crap that you’re struggling to digest. Even Fred Booker Noe III (7^th generation Jim Beam Distiller) considers Jim Beam Black Label to be the entry level Jim Beam product (White Label is a watered down version to reduce sales tax). He’s a man that knows a lot about bourbon, but isn’t so blind as to accept nothing else. I had the pleasure of attending a bourbon tasting presented by the legend himself and he spoke of scotches and rums he enjoyed as well, not just the bourbon he produces. An honest and balanced opinion. That said, occasionally try something from the top shelf, or just a step up from the basics. You’ll be amazed at the difference between a house scotch and something that might cost and extra 20%. You might also develop a more refined palate and a bit of sophistication. Don’t be fooled, no-one was born appreciating fine wine, liquor or art, it’s something that is developed. In any case, if you’re going to be a man of the world you should experience more than basics. Drink beer other than the stuff on tap at your local or on special in the retail liquor chain. Look for something unique and different. Learn something new about it, even if it’s just that absinthe cause’s loss of memories and eyebrows.

These are three little tips to try in modern life, two of them can be precticed in a bar! You really have no excuse not to try this. i don't care if you're a mormon and can't drink. You're already going to hell for laughing at the stuff I write. Bottoms up!

Being a Modern Gentleman isn’t easy, but it’s different. And that seems to be what so many people are looking for these days. Something other than the same crap you see out every weekend, the same drinks, the same shirts, the same hair, the same fights. It might be worth trying a different path for a while. This one isn’t currently having a dozen vodka-lime-and-soda’s spewed onto it.

-Worst Guy Ever