Driving: It's Not The Greatest

I have been driving for some time now. Unlike many people I know, I got my license as soon as I was legally able to. Of course that doesn't mean I really actually like driving. In my adult life I have been reliant on more modes of transport than most people: car, bicycle, scooter, public transport. And, to be honest, I don't really like driving a car. Quiet country roads are ok, but driving in traffic stresses me out more than you can imagine.

Admittedly, one of the best compliments I ever got for my driving was a guy who said in all sincerity:

"I like driving with you, Sarah. It's like being on a ride."

Th-thanks? I guess?

It's not that I'm not a good driver. I am, at the very least, competent in not causing people grievous bodily harm when I get behind the wheel. I remember talking to my first housemate about this subject once. She confessed that she'd had no less than 12 accidents in her driving career, all of which were her fault. Two of which involved her driving into shop fronts. I asked her how she possibly managed to get insured with a record like that and she informed me that her actual record was clean because she'd never reported any of the incidents. Guys: I'm not that bad.

My dislike for driving a car can probably be traced back to when I was first learning. I was being taught by my dad, driving around quiet streets in Newcastle. One day, we started getting a bit adventurous and ventured onto a slightly busier road. In a nightmarish scenario for anyone who is just learning to drive, the brakes failed. What makes it worse is that my father didn't believe me that the brakes had failed and just thought I was doing something wrong. Luckily, I managed to get us home safely with Dr Dad chastising me all the way for not using enough brake. I parked the car with the handbrake and went inside to collapse in my room in a nervous heap. About ten minutes later, he knocked on the door and confessed that he'd looked at the car and discovered that the brakes were actually completely shot and we were lucky that we hadn't been in a serious accident. Excellent news for any 16 year old L plater.

But I did go on to get my license and drive relatively safely for many years. When I moved to South Australia, I spent a long time not driving simply because I don't have a car. Luckily the public transport here is decent enough that I didn't really need one. Nowadays, Meattrain trusts me enough (for some reason) to let me borrow his car from time to time.

I can remember the first time this happened. It was late and Vegatrain and I wanted to do a Maccas run for some tasty no-meat cheeseburgers (don't knock it until you try it you guys). Meattrain said that if we brought him back some real man's food, I could borrow his car. The problem with that was that I hadn't driven a car in about six months and had spent the last three days playing a substantial amount of Grand Theft Auto. Not a great combination. I climbed behind the wheel and my instant reaction was 'Ok, let's ram some cop cars! What guns do we have in case we see some hookers?'

Luckily, our destination was only five minutes away so nothing drastic happened.

-Smackie Onassis

Autonomy Day

If you live in Newcastle you're kind of expected to be a raging alcoholic. Of course there are a lot of people that aren't, I'm in no way that saying teetotalers and moderate drinkers don't exist. I'm just saying those people are looked down on.

People drink a lot in my hometown. I remember when we all graduated school and started drinking in other parts of the world, we were all shocked to discover that it's not socially acceptable in most places to get absurdly drunk on a Wednesday. Or more accurately, every Wednesday without fail. I'm not joking, we were all honestly surprised. We talked about it. Wednesday night binge drinking was so acceptable in Newcastle that it actually seemed strange that it wasn't a big thing anywhere else. If you drank on Tuesday you had a problem, but Wednesday was fair game.

All of this drinking culminates in one absurdist university holiday. They call it Autonomy Day and it marks the celebration of Newcastle Uni splitting off from Sydney Uni and becoming an educational institute in its own right. Kind of like an Independence Day. And Newcastle uni students celebrate their independence the traditional way. By waking up early, going to school and getting mind-bendingly drunk.

Every year there are students who set their alarms earlier and earlier purely to be the first ones to start drinking. The earliest I ever heard was 4am. Autonomy Day is the only day of the year where it is socially acceptable to be passed out drunk before ten in the morning. The best thing is how well this activity is tolerated by the other townsfolk who all have to go to work as per usual. See, it's not actually a holiday in any official sense. It happens on a weekday and classes are still held. It's just that the few people who actually go to class are drunk and usually wearing togas. It really is amazing how well this event is received by the community. I heard a story a few years ago of a drunk student who got off a bus, threw up, and then got back on the bus. Considering this happened around morning tea time, an old woman on the bus complained to the driver. The driver apparently just shrugged and said 'It's Autonomy Day' before telling the woman to take her seat.

I only went to Autonomy Day once, during my second year of uni. I had been working the previous year and from all the stories I'd heard, I was quite excited about it. I started planning my day. How I could spend as little money as possible, how I was going to get home afterwards and just how drunk I wanted to get. Then the topic was raised while we were eating lunch one day.

"Hey Sarah, I hear you're playing Autonomy Day this year?" one of my friends mentioned, casually.

"Ha, what?" I asked, not really thinking anything of the comment. But then someone handed me one of those 'What's On At UoN?' leaflets and sure enough, the band I was in had been listed as entertainment at Autonomy Day.

"Huh," I said, making a mental note to call one of my bandmates and make sure that at least one of them knew about the gig. 

It turned out we were playing quite late in the day, and this posed a dilemma. Could I still get drunk?  In the end I decided that Autonomy Day comes but once a year and that I had an obligation. It turned out that being in the band was quite advantageous for the whole drinking thing. I didn't have to wait in line to get in, didn't have to pay entry (especially nifty as this was the first year they had charged an entry fee) and I had a whole instrument case to work with for sneaking my own cheap vodka in. I was set.

I have to say, it was pretty cool. There was an area surrounding the bar that was fenced off in an attempt to contain the event. I remember the inside being like no event I'd ever attended before. All I remember about what I was drinking was that it was blue and no-one else would go near it. They would go to taste it but recoil in horror when the smell hit them. I guess it was pretty strong.

This was around the time of those Nicorette commercials with the motivational anti-smoking squad. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a whole group of people dressed up like the cheer squad in that ad. When I first saw them they were running around in single file singing 'No, Gary, No!'. I later saw them approach any person they saw lighting a cigarette and recite the whole ad in perfect unison. 

I also made out with Jesus. It wasn't technically a costume event but it was the one day of the year where you could get anyway with anything that wouldn't normally be tolerated. There was a guy that year dressed as Jesus. I saw him drinking and mingling, then later found myself running into him.

"Hey Jesus! Wanna make out?"

I'm not sure if those were my exact words, but that was pretty much how I approached the situation. Luckily, Jesus was up for it so we had a quick pash before shaking hands and going our separate ways.

There was a part of me that had hoped I would have sobered up before the gig, but there was a larger part of me that I could still feel laughing while I typed that. Let's just say, it was not my finest musical hour. Nothing dramatically bad happened, apart from the fact that I don't think I played many correct notes. The good thing about Autonomy Day is that not only does the crowd expect you to be drunk, they are so drunk themselves that they don't care what sounds you are making. They just hear the noise and know they are being entertained. I'm just glad no-one filmed it.

-Smackie Onassis

Newcastle: It Really Was That Ridiculous

I try not to talk about my home town too much but I obviously don't have much success. The problem is, my hometown is the most ridiculous place in the entire world. I am frequently reminded of just how ridiculous it was. Just now, Vegatrain was wheeling me around the courtyard in the wheelchair. Being wheeled around in a strangely misleading vessel from boring sight to boring sight reminded me of one of the stupidest things about Newcastle. I am, of course, talking about the Newcastle Tram.

The first thing one might notice upon discovering the Newcastle Tram is that it is very clearly not a tram. It's a bus, ok. It has wheels, it follows the roads and there aren't even any tram tracks in Newcastle. Stop trying to pretend you are Melbourne, Newcastle, you are not fooling anybody.

It was a tourist thing, and supposedly took the bewildered traveller from historic sight to historic sight. Now, I actually rode the Newcastle Tram once and the only "historic sight" I can remember seeing was a wall. They drove us past it, claiming that it was the oldest wall in Newcastle, built by the convicts. It was no Sistine Chapel.

But still, Newcastle particularly fancied it's chances as the next big Australian tourist attraction. We had Bootmen, after all. Most Novocastrians could point out their house in at least one scene of that one. Then, there was Silverchair. A good friend of mine was personally pointed and laughed at by both Daniel Johns and Natalie Imbruglia when her dog had decided it needed to be carried home on a particularly hot walk. There was a Superman film done there as well and as a result of their location choice there are cars exploding in the background of many of my year 12 formal photos. For real, you guys.

And yet, Newcastle always missed the bar with their tourism ideas. I remember one television ad featuring picturesque locations at sunset. The song they had chosen to accompany these images was "Love This City" by the Whitlams. Naturally, the only clip of the song they used was the bits with the lyrics "You gotta love this city, love this city, love it". I would love to know if anyone involved in the production of this advertisement ever actually listened to the rest of it.

But my favourite attempt at tourism is by far, the infamous Penis Tower. This was an observation tower on the foreshore which adorned many a postcard. Apparently the architects had been really proud of it. They failed to realise at any point in the building/publicity process that it was a giant dong:

I do love the fact that I moved from a town where the most recognisable structure is a giant phallus to a town where the most recognisable structure is a pair of giant silver balls. There's a kind of poetry in that.

-Smackie Onassis

EDIT: I found a picture of "Newcastle's Famous Tram". Note: not a tram.

Why Is Everyone So Down On Public Transport?

In the course of all my recent (unsolicited) debates, I have found myself arguing quite frequently in favour of the local public transport system. Coming from regional NSW, where the trains are running slower than they were thirty years ago (I am not even making that up) I was surprised that a larger city with a totally decent public transport system would have so many people whining about it.

Meattrain in particular hates buses. He hates them. When he feels like catching public transport to work, he will drive to the tram station and leave his car then, despite the fact that there is a bus that comes to a stop a few blocks away from our house, goes directly to the city, and because it's so close you can get a ticket for half price. We have told him this a few times, I even offered to lend him my multi-trip, but he flat out refuses. Because he hates buses. And, you know it's not impossible that he had some kind of childhood bus trauma. When I was a lass, I lived right next to an ambulance station, and lived in constant fear that I was going to get hit by an ambulance. I think it was mainly the irony I was afraid of.

But, as someone who has at some point in their life been reliant of almost every form of transport (car, motorised scooter, non-motorised scooter*, bicycle, public transport), I have to say, I am a fan of public transport. I mean, it can be a pain in the arse, but so can pretty much everything. Public transport, however, has one particularly fantastic advantage. In a car, you pretty much have to concentrate on the road if you want to avoid Drastic Consequences. But on a bus, your attention is free to wander. I have seen some of the most fantastic things on buses.

On one particular trip, I was gazing out the window and saw just, the best thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Two teenage identical twins with their mother. One was a hipster (indie glasses, messenger bag and all that jazz), the other was a jock (the phrase "popped collar" sums it up for me). I am desperate to make this into a sitcom, or at least a series of sketches. Can you imagine? It would come to a dramatic conclusion when the jock is encouraged to beat up his twin brother for being "a fag", but then he can't do it because of brotherly love. Sensational.

I'm also a particular fan of the ads on public transport. I saw one recently, clearly from at least a decade or so ago, that I thought was great. It featured a line-up of people from various walks of life ("diversity") all putting their handbags, shopping etc on their head. The slogan was "Use your head when taking care of your belongings!" or something along those lines. The problem was, putting your valuables on your head is probably the WORST thing you could do with them. It's going to be uncomfortable, things are going to fall and spill everywhere, people can steal them much more easily, it's generally not a good idea. It made for a very confusing advertisement, but at least I got a chuckle out of it.

There was actually a kid in my high school, let's just call him 'The Busboy', who freakin loved buses. In a very weird way. He spent his free time drawing up proposed changes to current bus routes. He collected time-tables. I seem to remember him celebrating one of his birthdays at the local depot. I haven't seen this guy in a long time, but I can only imagine he is currently enjoying a lucrative career in the public transport industry. All power to you, Busboy.

-Smackie Onassis

*I used to scoot along to the bus stop, go to uni, then scoot from class to class. It was great, and also fulfilled my long-time hobby of being a walking sight gag. Or, scooting sight gag in this case. When I was bored at work, I used to scoot around the shop, casually dismounting when a customer came in and got confused. My boss didn't care because he thought I was great. Also he wasn't there at the time.