AFL Grand Final Day

Initially written in my trusty notepad, 26/9/09 - AFL Grand Final day: St Kilda Saints (woo) vs. Geelong Cats (boo).

After hopping on the wrong tram and ending up half way to Brighton (once more proving my dizziness knows no bounds), I eventually arrived in the southern Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. The whole place was adorned with banners in the colours of its revered grand finalists in a sport nobody outside Australia neither knows nor cares about. They were everywhere from the obvious places such as the town hall, to the not so obvious like the Gatwick Hotel - a classical drug den masquerading as a boarding house for the homeless. Not quite sure what a non-classical drug den masquerading as a boarding house for the homeless looks like. Perhaps it’s the same but minus the Greek pillars. Which the Gatwick doesn’t have. So it is, in fact, more a non-classical drug den masquerading as a boarding house for the homeless. But that’s beside the point. A gigantic St Kilda flag (I’ve no idea how they afforded) covered almost the entire frontage of the cracked-up and shit-crumbled building - suck up whatever substance abuse double-entendres you can from this sentence. There’ll be no more. In any case, I thought awwwwww, bless their little syringe-concealing socks!

Anyhow, I was moving to St Kilda from my CBD-based hostel after making a last-minute booking the previous night. Having lived there for over six months back in 06/07 it really feels like my home in Australia. The hilarious local junkies and whores help create a warm and entrancing ambience - a comical rawness other places can only hope/despair at boasting. Not that the council boasts about it that much. But seriously, it’s a cool place, marred by decades of widespread social deprivation, now really pulling itself together and coming into it’s own (and not in a Josef Frizel kind of way). The new hostel I’m in - Habitat HQ - is shaping up to be one of the best I’ve ever stayed in. Ever. Not to jinx it, but it’s really great and pretty much the cheapest too. Even if it does look like the Big Brother house, outside and in. But there’s far less wankers. Which is a good thing.

Right, to refocus: AFL. Aussie Football League. At this point I put my pen down to concentrate on the TV. Although it was mostly a bunch of bodily-obsessed, thick-as-shit Aussie males clad in their mincing sleeveless tops, thumping each other and dampening many a middle-aged Sheila’s crotch, I actually got suckered in. The last 20 minutes were genuinely exciting. Well, a bit anyway. The scores were tied at about 133672 a piece with about 90 seconds to go. People were getting kicked in all over the field, the ball more itself just a spectator, but finally and bastardly, Geelong clinched it right before the final whistle. The Cats’ victory thus ensuring there’ll be trouble at the Gatwick tonight. It’s a shame it’s not quite as rough here as in the US. I’d love to witness a proper sports-based riot with burning cars, petrol bombs and good old-fashioned police brutality. It doesn’t help that cannabis in Melbourne is everything but legal. Someone told me if you’re smoking a joint in the street, the cops might confiscate it. If they can be bothered. Compared to the mandatory three-year prison sentence for possession of any quantity in Malaysia. The point being, everyone of typical rioting age is likely to be high, or starting on someone who is high, so there’s no way a full scale ruckus could ever break out - they’re just too stoned. See Bill Hicks for more on that semi-stolen observation.

Anyway, this one just petered off because I got distracted again. Who knows where it was going, but I stepped off and sulked for an hour in order to recover from my (albeit very temporary) sports-based disappointment.

The hostel remained awesome and I urge any St Kilda-bound traveller to stay there. They’ll also give me 20 cents if you mention my name. So do it!