Grow Up, Man!

Congratulations for making it through another decade buddy. I wish I could be there to celebrate your big day but never mind; you know I'm there in spirit. I brought a cupcake home from the bakery and tonight I'm going to lick the icing sugar off real slow, light a candle and make a wish to see you before the next decade passes. I'm going to drink myself silly, request a song for you on the radio and tomorrow morning I'll hire a plane and ask the pilot to write your name across the sky; that's how much I love you, man! I hope to heck it's a clear day in Melbourne and I hope you can see that big ol' love heart from Deutschland, Lars.
You only turn thirty once, buddy, so make the most of it, you hear; there aint much worth celebrating after that; it's all downhill for boys like us, unless you've managed to avoid the wear and tear of amphetamines, STDs and sleep deprivation. Some people tell me I still look 28 which is a darn miracle considering the onslaught my vital organs have endured since I was converted to the queer lifestyle by a social worker on the Sydney to Broken Hill train. He introduced me to the joys of vodka and oral sex and the rest was history, man.
I aint no cross country stud these days. I'm too old for them shenanigans. Thank God for Oil of Ulan, buddy; there's miracle properties in that shit. Everything sags after thirty, unless you hit on a damn fine moisturiser. Boys like us fade into obscurity beneath heavy coats and scarves, We hang out at cafes with rainbow stickers on the door, sipping skinny lattes and wheat free muffins. We read our star signs in the queer press and sneer at passers by through dark glasses. After thirty, we find ourselves a comfy seat out the front of the most tasteless cafes in South Yarra. The waiters know our favourite table, what we like to order and how much froth we like on our coffee; they give us a dirty wink and bring us an overcooked, uninspired meal and an outrageous bill to boot, man.
We stride away with our nose out of joint, pushing past women with prams and old ladies with shopping carts, thinking they're the scourge of society. We yank our poodle through the gardens on a lead, working on our tan and walking off the calories at the same time. Now and then we share a fake smile with another queen before remarking how poorly dressed or out of shape they are. We prance back and forward with a curly wrist, staking out our prey, trying to make eye contact with potential mates who look like they earn over eighty grand a year. Pretty soon, it's getting chilly so we lower our standards and take what we can get. If we're lucky we might score a blow job from a council worker on lunch, a married guy with a lousy sex life or a teen runaway; trying to steal our wallet at the piss trough.
Thank God we're no longer one of those wayward teens being dragged home and plied with alcohol and manhandled like a pound of flesh from the butcher. No more do we have to squirm under coffee tables while intoxicated men growl into our armpits and breathe alcohol fumes down our neck. Do you remember running to and from the bathroom, puking your guts up in between cigarettes while some fat bastard snored like a walrus in his jockey shorts? Do you remember French kissing bleary eyed geriatrics in gloomy bars; the gravel rash, the sandpaper tongues, the beer yeast breath, the tobacco stained fingers? Thank God we're thirty, man; there are some things about my youth I'd rather forget!
Come to think of it, there was a guy on the Elizabeth Street tram today who reminded me of a previous fling. He climbed aboard looking rather bohemian with an Irish cap, a scar beneath his left eye, a duffel coat and two garbage bags. I thought he was a brilliant artist of some description till he fell on the floor at my feet and pulled a silver ashtray from his pocket. He emptied cigarette butts all over the floor and meticulously began scrubbing the grimy ashtray with a handkerchief till he could see his toothless reflection in the silver chrome. He crawled about on his hands and knees at my feet, playing with that ashtray like a beloved treasure. Perhaps he was just eccentric or a performance artist, perhaps he was about to offer me the chance of a life time but I couldn't bear the smell of those garbage bags so I leaped over his back and fled the scene.
Call me fussy but I'm glad my taste in men is somewhat more discerning these days. The twenties were full of bad choices, don't you think? We fried our brains and shared body fluids and woke up face down on tiled floors with our pants around our ankles. Geez, man, I remember hyperventilating on dance floors, snorting drugs in toilet cubicles and waking up in dreary suburban lounge rooms with seriously depressed men with tasteless CD collections. I remember sneaking out through back doors, trekking for miles in cold frosts, searching for a bus stop or a train station, trying to figure out where the hell I was. I got tired of the sexual health clinics, nervous blood tests and pep talks by the safe sex police. As if that did any good anyway.
At least we can stop worrying about turning thirty now we're finally here, man. Heck, most people don't believe I'm thirty so I'm still reliving my youth. You get away with so much bad behaviour before you reach that big Three Zero; no one lets you get away with shit after that, let me tell you. I sure don't feel like an adult, Lars; not in the usual sense of the word. I mean, I don't even have a job or a license or a credit card; I don't even have photo ID, man! What constitutes an adult anyway? I thought I'd understand the world when I turned thirty but I'm still gobsmacked. I still don't know the meaning of life or why we're doing this gig; maybe I'll never know. A whole lot seems clearer but there's still so many questions and it goes faster each day; it's hard to keep up, man!
I found out I had syphilis the year I turned thirty. I broke out in a hundred tiny red blotches and the doctor gave me 14 consecutive injections of penicillin in the butt; that was the closest thing to anal sex I ever had in Melbourne. You know what, buddy; I think I actually turned thirty the year you left town because I moved into that room on Smith Street and Ms Obedie stopped in for my sweet chili tofu with vegetables. I still remember her tight busty top with The Goodies printed on the front. She was some kind o' wild child back then huh? My kitchen was located inside a garage and the grease was so thick on that stove, it was as sturdy as rust. I can't recall my birthday particularly; I probably spent the night tossing and turning while those dumbass wogs played Cher and Bette Midler on a karaoke tape downstairs. The Club Grill was the foulest cafe on Smith Street, man. Not even the lunatics would eat there. Maybe that silly idiot next door with 'Criminal' tattooed on his forearm was blasting his Green Day record for the fifth time that day. I could o' detonated a bomb in that place, man; it'd still be infested with roaches.
Those were the days. You were a spring chicken with well pronounced cheek bones, olive skin and a washboard stomach, honey bun. Is everything still holding up on the other side of the world? Would I still recognise your sweet cheeks cycling down Gertrude Street; pushing up and down on those pedals? Do you still have a twinkle in your eye, a sharp tongue and a radical hair do, man? It's good to be with you, buddy. Can you imagine how old we'll be when we finally meet again; what'll we do for kicks, man?
There's no need to think that far ahead, surely. Turning thirty has taught me to live in the present, that's for sure. You never know what's around the corner; a deadly virus, a tsunami, a serial killer, an obsessive lover. It's ironic, don't you think; we were in such a hurry to grow up and lose our innocence and now we just want it to slow the fuck down. It's not that I seem a lot older, I guess; I just find myself doing older things, you know; like staying home on a Friday night and reading a book or watching a movie with long woolen socks on my feet, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a plate of raisin toast. Sometimes I nibble a block of chocolate or sip chai tea with honey. I make sure I have three well rounded meals each day and go to bed before midnight; I always wake up in my own apartment, that's for sure. Once upon a time, waking up in a strange place was a sign of a great night on the town!
I can't think of anything worse than greeting the day on a grotty mattress with some feral guy's feet in my face and an empty bottle of beer between my legs. Now I get up in the morning and go for a stroll in the park; I take time to feel the breeze on my skin and inhale the scent of flowers. I keep an eye out for wildlife and marvel at the granduer of the trees and the birds and the luscious green landscape. I stare at the reflections in the river and the shapes drifting through the sky like a senile old fool and I have to pinch myself now and then when a jogger passes; especially if it's a hot guy with bulging calf muscles!
I try to converse with people in shops and smile at strangers and be courteous when I climb on the bus. I don't make a spectacle of myself but I still wear knee high socks with skulls printed on them and check shorts with Badboy splashed across the backside; just because you're older, doesn't mean you have to fade into obscurity. Maybe it's easier to get away with being an eccentric nut when you're over thirty; before that, they pin you down to one of the subcultures who roam the city like spoiled brats with a chip on their shoulder.
Ah, that takes me back to the tumultuous twenties in Sydney, Lars. I returned from another sojourn to NSW just the other day. I kept my dear mother company while her boyfriend awaited a court hearing for social security fraud. We talked about what she'd do if he went to jail; she'd move to Melbourne and we'd grow old together, if we didn't kill each other first. She'd join a senior citizens club and we'd meet for coffee once a week in Fitzroy gardens; any more than that could cramp my style and be hazardous to my health.
The case was adjourned in the end, so we frolicked on the harbour, pretending to be members of the affluent set who can afford to spend their days sailing from beach to beach in a private yacht. We even took a 200 dollar fine dining cruise when mum's old age pension was approved by social security. We had our very own cabaret singer, sprawled on a piano with slender legs up to her ears, afro hair and a cocktail gown splashed with sequins. I felt like newlyweds on The Love Boat till I remembered I was with my mother and stopped playing with her foot under the table; the harbour lights were more dazzling than ever.
We caught a graffiti tagged train back to Surry Hills where dirty old men slept in their own piss outside greasy takeaways and hostile voices yelled abuse indiscriminately as we scurried through the vomit stained streets, back to mum's decrepit hovel; where the outside loo is smothered with mould and we squat on a toilet used by ten other strangers who stub cigarettes out on the floor and squash cockroaches into the ground with their bare feet; it's a world away from the Opera House, man!
My mother turned thirty a long time ago but she still shacks up with grunting gorillas and eats the cheapest processed food with no nutritional value. At least this guy's an improvement from the pig who raised us, I guess. While I was in Sydney, we celebrated the old goat's passing, in fact; he had a heart attack and fell off a stool in an Adelaide pub. He was buried at a pauper's funeral and no one was told till a month later. His untimely death made our night on the harbour even more poignant. Cheers, buddy!
Yes, thirty can often be a time of wiping the slate clean, so they say. It just gets too draining to hang onto grudges, man. Thank God you reach a point where you can forgive and forget. Maybe you can see where everyone is coming from and take responsibility for your own part as well; thirty brings a clearer perspective, I think. It's time to move on, they say; no one can live with all that bad blood, man. It depletes the immune system and makes your hair fall out; take it from me!
I tell you what, Sydney sure looks more appealing through undilated pupils, man. It saddens me to think what a narrow, convaluded existence I had. I was a jaded son of a bitch when I moved there and wiped myself out in the glory holes of Oxford Street; my ass was anybody's, man. I can't imagine making the same mistakes now. I treat myself better these days. I know I deserve better because Louise Hay told me so! I wouldn't go back to the twenties for anything, man; not that I remember half of it so it won't come back to haunt me, I guess.
I caught a chest cold from my mother before I left town; I was doing Eucalyptus inhalations for my breathing and Lavender inhalations to clear my head. I still couldn't sleep with a cocktail of valerian, chinese herbs and valium. Mum and her boyfriend snore louder than any walrus conceived on this planet, man. For awhile there, I felt just as out of it as I used to; wandering the alleys of Surry Hills, jumping at my own shadow and bumping into lamp posts. I left Sydney before I lost my mind all over again and caught a plane to the gay commune in North NSW where I shacked up with my pal, Spider Cutie and the other fairy folk; Chameleon, Sparkle, Tea Cosy and Sugar Plum.
I had a fantastic time, strolling through the rainforest on my own, peeling leeches off my neck and scrub ticks out of my ears. I saw echidnas and eagles and bandicoots; they ran away as fast as they could! We drank hot chocolate and gazed at miles of pristine sub tropical forest with mist rolling across the valleys and blazing sunsets splashed across the horizon. There were a million stars shimmering in the universe while I soaked in a tub on the Moon Meadow with a log fire crackling beneath my ass; the scent of almond oil and geranium rising up from the steaming water hugging my skin. I could've stayed in that bath forever, man!
Each night we had a communal dinner; falafel, tabouli, baked vegetables, tahini, brown rice, broccoli and cauliflower soup, chocolate pudding and red wine. We stared into smouldering fires and joined hands in heart circles, hugging for warmth and toasting marshmallows. We ate porridge and stewed fruit on the veranda each morning as wallabies hopped across the property and cranes swooped into the dam and drank from the water's edge. I sure appreciated everything more than I did in my twenties, man. Maybe you become more conscious or your perception clears and you see the magic in it all. I never take it for granted like I used to, that's for sure.
I can't say there was much beauty flying back over the suburbs of Melbourne; endless grids of square brick homes and clogged up roads, ramshackle factories and polluted waterways but the world aint perfect, I guess. It was a mighty shock rolling into Southern Cross station under solemn gray skies and drizzling rain. Everyone looked so cranky and frustrated, jostling for space on the escalators and barging their way onto trains; shrouded in trench coats and scarves, breathing fumes of mist.
It's just the way it is, I guess. The rainforest and the fairies are a galaxy away and I'm back at the computer trying to make sense of it all. Maybe it was just my imagination? All I've got to remind me is a pair of muddy sneakers and a photograph of three men in drag, sitting cross legged on a rug with a pot of tea and a plate of Iced Vo vos. Bon apetit, man...

Happy Birthday, Lars
Love and hugs,
JJ x