There are some weird bars in Australia, some of which are well known, whereas others are more of a “you know them if you know them” kind of situation.
Here are 4 of Australia’s most unusual bars:
Man, ya might not know it but the Perth comedy boom is finally happening. It’s like 1991 in New York right now – as if Paul F. Tompkins puked out a stream of perfectly formed highly sensitive clones and those clones travelled back in time to catch Pryor at the Hollywood Bowl and with those clones with lessons learned shot forward to 2015 and landed in Perth to bring forth the ultimate comedy extravaganza – I’m talking Frasier if the whole cast was just David Hyde Pierce.
For many of us, our Leavers week was the first introduction that we had to nightlife, partying and heavy alcohol consumption. Some of us remember it with fondness, others less so. There are also those of us who can’t remember it at all. For the young and young at heart, Leavers is indeed a kind of religious pilgrimage and a right of initiation.
Other than 17 year old sticker artists and people who slurp ‘Go-gurt’ out of used enema bags, is there anyone as perennially cool as a DJ? These guys have somehow managed to monetise a job that used to be done for free by drunken uncles at weddings, turning an artform that started as a unique mode of expression for African-Americans in the urban jungle into a tool for meeting barely legals at schoolies and embarking on wild ‘finerbangathons’ that us non-DJs can only dream about.
When foreign travellers visiting our shores ruminate the national characteristics of Australia, drinking and partying is often featured towards the top of the list. This observation seems accurate as many of us enjoy the chaotic auditorium that is the nightlife scene and the boozing that goes along with it.
Pt 2 of Bars And Nightclubs’ election special
In 1966 Harold Holt, having finally finished planning his disappearance in a year’s time, held public swimming lessons at Bondi beach. Said he to himself, “I’m the only one here that appreciates the brilliance of this piece of publicity.” And indeed, a year later, only Holt and his fellow Chinese submariners were able to laugh over his brilliant punch-line, the ultimate PR stunt.
“Johnson’s Friend”, “Pink Colgate”, “Jar Jar Jam” – these are just some of the street names given to ‘Bungle’, a popular gel like designer drug that has been making the round in Perth’s nightlife scene for the past six or so weeks. Coloured pink and with a consistency similar to children’s toothpaste, Bungle is a very expensive disassociate/upper that has become the fashionable drug of choice for Perth’s young and rich.
Ok, so I generally loathe the term ‘indie’ or ‘hipster’, but like racist terms in the 1930s, they get people’s attention, allowing us to gather around the hate-monger fire and pretend we are better than people that we are actually just as awful as. I would consider myself a ‘geek’ in the sense that I’ve spent most my life dry-humping the orifices of pop-culture and wishing I could still afford Warhammer.
Unless you live in the western suburbs (note: for non-Perthians, that is the rich ‘hood) and the police give you a free pass to down two bottles of red and drive home in the BMW your parents gifted you at graduation, then getting home from Perth CBD after a night out can be a bit of a pain.
Perth is a strange little berg so isolated from the rest of the world and you “t’other siders” on the east coast that we’ve developed our own unique dialect. Seeing as my state’s sole love is to dig things up and repave roads, I imagine that in 10 to 15 years time, the city will be nothing more than a giant pit surrounded by cranes, perhaps in the shape of Clive Palmer’s scrotum.