Suit and Tie Guy

Suit and Tie Guy

I have never been known for dressing neatly. Jeans without holes in them and a t-shirt without a band name spread across it was my version of neat and tidy. Mind you it was pretty hard to find a pair of Jeans and a t-shirt to match that description in my collection of rags. Then there came a time when I had to buy my first suit. I was at the age where friends where getting married, job interviews where a suit would be recommended attire and also the sickenly sad fact that I was attending a lot of funerals of friends.
“So how hard is it to buy a suit?” I thought. To start with I had no idea of what is a good suit, what’s the better material, how much should I pay etc etc. I got some advice of my brother as he had been in suit and tie jobs for a few years. The more I learnt the less I thought suits where a good thing, if I ever though that they were good at all. When I found out that you have to buy a tie and shirt separately this was fast becoming a task I really couldn’t be arsed with. But then the hire of suits was adding up and with all the times when I was requiring one, not to purchase would have been financial suicide.
The day arrives. I head to the bank and withdraw a fist full of dollars and stuff them into my wallet. Once in the car and cashed up I was tempted with the idea of driving straight past the huge shopping centre and going into the city to buy a truck load of recordsinstead. But for one of the few times in my life, reason conquered. The bastard.
So I drive to the massive Westfield Shopping Centre not far from home. This place is huge. Stores, Stores and more bloody stores. All flashy and brightly lit up. The stink of the fast food chain outlets. How do they get to call those outlets restaurant? The signs screamed at you to buy this and buy that and get two free pointless items with your purchase that you didn’t want in the first place. This was basically a massive warehouse where middle class people came to spend half their pay checks on clothing made for two fifths of bugger all by child slave labour in the third world. All this cleverly and deceitfully promoted as Shopping Convenience.
I wander like a lost sheep looking in all the windows for a store that sells suits. The first store I looked in stopped me in my tracks. There wasn’t a suit under $1,000.00!!!
With a sigh of “fuck that for a game of chess” I kept shuffling. A few other stores had suits in my price range but didn’t shiny suits go out when Disco died? The sales assistant further insulted my intelligence by telling me I would look good in it. “Not even a corpse could look good in those suits” I mumbled when leaving.
Becoming less and less motivated I continued my search. I finally found a store that was advertising a package deal affair. A Suit jacket, 2 pairs of pants, 2 shirts and a tie all for one very competitive price. My mission was over.
The looks I got from the brain dead wannabee fashion catalogue models working behind the counter told me I wasn’t going to get much help. I figured this was because of what I was wearing. I decided that morning that if I was going to be changing clothes all day while fitting suits I may as well make it easy. All I had on was track
pants, complete with holes, sneakers and a band shirt. They had prejudged that being dressed the way I was I couldn’t possibly afford anything in their store. Yeah that’s right Pretty Woman Syndrome happens to guys too!!! I was determined, this was a good deal. I was pulling suits off the rack, checking the cut of them, colours etc, pretending I knew what I was looking at. This went on for fifteen minutes. I was the only one in the store and not one of the three talking mannequins made the effort of shift their lazy arses from behind the counter. Now I was getting pissed off. Fed up and frustrated I started to leave. Just as I got to the door one of the “fashion consultants” pulled himself away from a mirror long enough to say “oh are you ok there?”
“Well fucking no actually. I came in here to buy a suit” I pulled open my wallet showing them the wad of cash. “I was prepared to spend all of this in here but none of the pretentious pricks wanted to serve me”.
“Oh what were you after?” was the lame reply.
“Just some service and a fucking suit would have been nice but you can stick that up your arse pretty boy I am taking my money elsewhere”
I stormed out of the shop pretty happy with my “stick it to the man(nequin)” outburst. My body warmed with the exhilarating flush of adrenalin. This was short lived as the reality of still not having a suit sunk in. I checked a few more stores with shop assistants who if they where anymore up themselves they would be inside out.
I left the Mass Consumer Compound and in mighty shitty mood. I cruised around the local strip shopping centres. Then a spotted a small family owned business that I seem to remember being there for as long as I could recall. I parked the car and wandered in expecting another Consumer versus Shop Assistant Battle Royale. As I entered the store a nice elderly lady asked “Can I help you with anything dear?”
“Well umm yes please” I replied. I didn’t expect this after the day I was having and wasn’t sure what to say
“Yes I need to buy a suit, I have never owned one in my life, I have no idea what to ask for, I wouldn’t have a clue what size I am and all the poncy wankers in the big stores won’t even give me the time of day”.
“That’s no good, Lets get you measured and see what we can do. What colour are you interested in? Would you like a cup of tea?’
Before I knew it, her husband and son were stretching tape measures all over me, jotting down numbers and discussing different cuts and styles. I had played it safe and asked for a black suit. Well I don’t know if my public school education has anything to do with it but I never knew there were so many ‘kinds’ of black! They also had some nice shirts and a few decent ties without the cheesy designs or dog vomit inspired art deco colours.
By the time I had drank my cup of tea I felt like I had made three new friends. I took the shirts and tie right there and then The Charcoal Black suit would be ready in 3 days for me to pick up and any alterations would be free of charge. I couldn’t thank these people enough and they sympathised with my tales of woe. These people knew the score. The nice old lady even comment on my forward thinking of wearing easily removable clothing to make suit fittings more efficient.
So there you have it form the Grand Old Lady of Men’s Fashion. Track pants with holes in them and a Ramones t-shirt aren’t just comfortable, they are practial!

Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver’s Travels

Every long weekend, Christmas, Easter and any other Hallmark Holiday that got us a paid day off work a group of us would go on a surf trip to Wye River. The group would vary in size from six to twenty over the duration of the stay. Wye River is 15 kilometers past Lorne on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria Australia. It consists of a river (duh), a General Store, a Country Fire Authority Depot, A Surf Life Saving Club, two camping grounds, a surf beach and last but definitely not least, a Pub.
Many long amber fluid intake exercises were performed in that Pub when the surf was flat. After one of these sessions in particular we left The Rubbery Chook. That’s not the actual name of the Pub. It is called the Rookery Nook but alcohol consumption and boredom lead to calling things different names for our own shits and giggles. Anyway we left and headed back to the camp site. We sat around drinking and talking about how expensive sitting in the pub is compared to surfing. A few were hoping for the surf to pick up the next day so they could avoid the inevitable over consumption of the loud mouth soup.
Now balance is always an issue when is this state. Some people handle it more than others. I preferred not to move too much and play the law of averages. I figured the more I tried to stand the more chance of falling. JH had already proven this by falling into the river three times in the last four nights. It was fairly sedate around the camp fire and then we heard the noise and crashing of what can only be described as the man mountain known as Moose. Now Moose is a big guy and when unsteady on his feet can cause more damage than a swinging demolition ball.
With a bottle of rum almost empty in hand and doing the last lager waltz I have no idea how me managed to avoid the fire. He bounced of cars, fell off chairs and was fast becoming a potential threat to destroying some of the tents. As amusing as it was to watch, this was Victoria, bloody cold and no one was gong to want to sleep under the stars if it could be helped.
He wasn’t heeding any call just to sit down and relax for a while. It was only a matter of time before someone got very pissed off with Moose. But what can you do with someone that big and intoxicated.
I put any solution into the too hard basket secretly hoping he would fall in the river and give us all a laugh. I then saw Homy rustling around in the boot of his car. He had one of those grins on his face that only meant something was going to happen and it wasn’t going to happen to him. Then before I knew it Homy, who is built like a bear crash tackles Moose and pinning him to the ground. He called for assistance in holding down Moose. We jumped and grabbed a limb each. Homy then produced the instruments to aid us in our efforts. A large mallet and a bag of large tent pegs. We started with his legs. Pulling out the legs of his jeans we hammered pegs through them deep into the ground. Moose was calling us every name under the sun and stating how much his jeans had cost him. We held his arms out placing large pegs over his wrists. I was sure Homy was going to cause a serious injury. He was lifting that mallet way to high and smashing down with considerable force. How he was so accurate I don’t know. Then through Moose’s T-shirt more pegs went. We even had tent ropes across his body and connected to pegs for added security. After exerting a bucket load of energy we had him pinned. Just like Gulliver.
He was a little annoyed you could say but the village (well campsite) was safe once more. Every time he started to incoherently complain some one would pour whatever available booze was into his mouth.
He became quite the attraction that night as more and more people filtered out of the Rubbery Chook and headed back to their camp sites. In hindsight we could have made a killing charging five bucks a look.
There are some photographs of this momentous occasion so maybe I could do a picture book for children some day?

Experiments 101

Experiments 101
Science was never a strong point of mine at High School. In fact it hasn’t been a strong point since. Oh yeah and to all the other Pugilists around the world. Boxing is not a science. It is two people punching the living crap out of each other in an attempt for the other to join the ranks of the brain damaged community before themselves.
Anyway back to the academic version of Science. I knew something was dodgy about the subject when my first teacher used to hand out these weird little exams. They had titles such as “Science Is Fun” and “Anyone Can Do Science”. Now if a bunch of 12 – 13 years olds need to be told something is fun in writing you automatically know it will be as much fun and using your own body as a Voodoo Doll with Grandma’s knitting needles. Also stating “Anyone Can Do Science” isn’t encouragement. It is code for “We Know You Are Scientifically Inept So Here Is A Simple Version”
I tried to apply myself. Well in class anyway. If I wasn’t doing homework for the subjects I like then Science homework had about as much chance of getting done as Mike Tyson does of winning Feminist of the Year.
The Table of Elements seemed pointless to me. Why learn it? The only reason seemed to be so you could pass an exam. I have never needed to use it since those classes and the end of year exam.
In Year 9 we had an experiment to set up. Now this kind of thing I could get into. Dangerous chemicals, fire, test tubes and bubbling beakers. Not reading about sexual reproduction in Frogs.
The basic idea was to time how long it took to boil water, create a pressure vacuum and pop a cork. Ok, no dangerous chemicals but lots of fire and glass beakers and pipes.
We were to write down our observations every five minutes. After 20 minutes most other people’s experiments had achieved the objective of popping the cork. After 25 minutes the only set up that hadn’t done what was intended belonged to my partner and I . The teacher was telling us the most likely reason was we hadn’t been paying attention and we hadn’t completed the assembly correctly. We were 100% positive we had followed the procedure correctly. I stated “I remember following all the steps then jamming the rubber cork into the tube” Then it dawned on us what was wrong. Out thoughts and blank looks were interrupted by the sound of shattering glass and boiling water being sprayed over the work bench.
“That was awesome” my lab partner said.
“Do we write ‘Experiment Exploded’ in the Observation Section” I inquired to the teacher.
Ok I admit it was my mistake that the rubber cork was fit to tightly into the end of the glass tube but hey what does “Place Firmly” mean anyway?We scored a safety lecture from the teacher and a few detentions. After that we could join the rest of the class again. Who cares about the academic findings? We had the most talked about experiment in the class and provided a hell of a lot of laughs in the process!
The next year we got to dissect animal organs. First a sheep’s heart, then cow’s eyes. Dissecting a rat was next on the syllabus. We had to slice it open down the middle and record specific data. Data like the weight of the internal organs, their measurements, the rat’s height and tail length. After nearly all the bits were out my lab partner and I were amazed at how long the large intestine was. We stretched it out and measured it. It was longer than I was tall.
Then we got wind that the teacher’s favourite students were getting bonus marks for collecting extra data. Things like eye colour, number of teeth etc.
We opted for a test no one else was doing. How Many Skips In A Row Can A Skinny Kid Do Using A Rat’s Large Intestine As A Rope? I was on my way to 20 when the teacher led me out of the class by the collar of my shirt. He was shaking his head and muttering, I heard the words “Disgraceful and disgusting” come from his mouth. As I was left in the corridor I thought “Shit, if you don’t want disgusting then don’t slice open rats and pull their guts out in the first place”
My other short-lived experiment involved using a large battery similar to one you use in cars. This was connected with long cables that had clips on the end. The concept was to attach to clips to objects to see which conduct electricity. I may have failed the experiment and been sent to the Principal’s Office but my results show my lab partner can conduct electricity after I hooked the battery up to his earrings.
Maybe Science is fun after all?