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.
They’re a proud part of Australia’s political history, even the massive failures like Pauline Hanson’s pork BBQ for self-hating Jews in ’98, and Mark Latham’s violent assaults of random citizens in 2003, the PR stunt is an integral part of our political tapestry, the vital spice of electioneering, the thing that reminds you that even powerful men are given to awkward moments of excruciating desperation.
And Bars And Nightclubs is in on it. We went clubbing with both major candidates, KRUDD (see previous article), and now ‘the lank who can’t wank’, Tony Abbott aka ‘TONE-ABS’.
LET THE PANDERING BEGIN!
Tony Abbott picked me up on a $11,000 Raleigh racing bike.
“You’re dinkying, faggot,” he says.
“Oh jeez…”
“Yeah, listen nonce, I’m not some pent up uh sausage-fingered uh mumma’s uh er boy uh like Kevin, I’m a machine, I’m an animal, and uh, this is gonna be strictly off the uh books. No staff uh I can er win this uh race by myself. Dob me in and I’ll rip ya fuckin throat out. Now saddle up!”
Abbott is dressed in board shorts, strap on sandals, a pink Quicksilver shirt with a garish design splashed on it, and a Billabong suit jacket. His face is both stretched back and sagging, he resembles a worn out Rudolph Hess, his head juts back and forth like a tortured goanna, and his grin is that of a crooked suicide-bomber in a kindergarten. The Liberal Party prides itself on its output of spineless, porcine, shrivel-lipped gimps, and Tony is their Ubermensch. Like KRUDD, he stinks of emptiness: tortured unlikability, a flailing cock in the wind that no one wants to go near. They could have been abused by the same priest in the same orphanage.
As we pull up to the club, Tony jumps off the bike and yells “Ghosty!” leaving me to careen into the bushes. “You’re meant to jump off, you poof!” he laughs.
I dust my self off and look up, “Clubba?”
“Course mate, that’s where all the best tuppy is, any time I’m over here in Perth, I hit up Clubba.”
(For those not in the know, Clubba is the kind of place where the floor is equal parts semen and Cruisers.)
“Y’see, people just don’t understand what a bloke like me will do to win. I’ve got this shit in the bag. I was talking to Rupert the other day and he said ‘Tony, don’t you worry about a bloody thing, I’ll make sure every pill-popping miner and good old fashion nutter from Wagin to Bondi will vote Liberal. Don’t you say or do a thing.’ And hell that’s what I’m doing, I ain’t talking to no homo press junket about shit they just don’t understand.”
“Right.”
“I don’t have to explain anything, I can do whatever I want.” And he kicked the bouncer in the gut and waltzed on in, dragging me behind him.
“Aw yeah boi! Can you smell the cunny!”
“No.”
“Fuck yeah, tonight is Tone-Abs night! Uh uh ah er eh OH YEAH!”
He gets a text message and looks down at his phone, “Oh it’s that queen Pine, he’s at some nonce bar up the road, he’s worse than Alexander Downer, who does he think he’s trickin’. I aint hanging with no queer on a night like this, being gay is just some bullshit fad anyway.”
“Jesus Tony, isn’t your sister homosexual?”
“That’s different, I love her very much. Come on, limp-wrist, lemme show ya how TONE ABS picks up.”
We loiter around the bar, Tony ogles the young ladies lining up for drinks.
“She’s got sex appeal.”
“No…this can’t be happening”
“Just watch the Abs, kid.” He sidles up to a girl, cornering her against the wall. “Hey baby, everyone wants to see my costings, but I wont let ‘em. Wanna be the first?”
“No, you are repulsive.”
“Uh no well er now come on uh um um, I’m friends with Joe Hockey.”
“Gross.”
At this Tony flips out a bit and punches the wall either side of the young woman’s head. She runs off terrified.
Tony comes back to my side.
“I flexed too hard, she was overwhelmed.”
“Yeah.”
“Man, I miss the nineties. I used to go out with Lil John and Malcolm – before he became a total taint – and we used to have sheilas falling all over us. Of course, they all went home with Malcolm…” he lets out a sigh.
“Yeah you guys were the national rat-pack of elected dickery for a long while.”
Tony looks at me, sadly. “Is it too much to want that back? To want Howard’s nineties back? Which were really just Menzies’ sixties?”
“If you’re a wealthy backwards thinking hyper-masculine regressionist, I guess not.”
“My point exactly.”
Over the next hour, Tony sits forlornly at the bar, and downs three virgin mint juleps.
“I’m gonna get fucking loaded”, he says.
“Cheer up Tony, you’re ahead in the polls. You’ve got little to no accountability. Nothing you do seems to have any consequence. You’re getting away with a lot!”
“Yeah…but uh…no one really uh…likes me.”
“What about Joe?”
“Look, don’t tell anyone this, but Joe is actually a giant bush pig that we shaved in ’98. We jammed a walkie-talkie down his throat and gave the other to a junkie in Fitzroy who is always trying to sort out how much cash he has for skag…I dunno…the system has worked so far but he’s not really a guy you can open up to.”
“That actually makes a lot of sense… What about Julie?”
“Great legs.”
“Pine?”
“Poof.”
“…Kevin?”
“Guy never shuts up. He’s such a dweeb. I was playing CoD with him and he kept camping and being mean to me.”
“…”
“I’ve said too much.”
“Does anyone…does anyone actually like you?”
At this he started sobbing violently, wet snot leaked from his nose and caught on his clothes, he shook violently like a dog rejecting poison, gagging and choking and crackling deep down in his bones, he started puking up a black sticky bile that melted through the bar, and stank like death and uselessness.
“Do uh *gurgle* you like uh ak ek me?”
“Nope.”
He lifted his head and spewed sludge into the air, the cracking of his ribs fought with the pounding dubstep.
Suddenly, a hair-bleached FiFO and some of his turbo buddies walked by:
“Oh fuck it’s Tony! HELL YEAH TONY, FUCK THE SHIP-COONS, I HATE BOAT BOONGS!”
“YEAH TONY, DON’T LET NO FAGS GET MARRIED!”
“AW THANK FUCK FOR YOU TONY, GETTIN RID OF THAT FUCKN WITCH!”
“IF THERE ISN’T A SURPLUS, I’LL EAT MY BABY!”
“REPEAL THE CARBON BOATS!”
“WE FUCKING LOVE YOU TONY! WE ARE YOUR LITTLE BATTLERS!” [guy wearing $987 watch]
“R-r-r-really?” smiled Tony, with that lop-sided ‘does he need medical attention’ grin.
“Yeah mate, policy is for pooftas, just stop dem fuckin boats!”
Tony bounced back smiling and took to the dance floor. He bowed to the nearest girl, grabbed her in his arms, and began awkwardly shuffling her back and forth in a Victorian era three step, the only dance he knows.
He made eye contact with me, winked, lifted his finger to his nose, and sniffed.
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