[the following is an interpretation of how Clive might have addressed the modern bar culture]
Bars in Australia today are a far cry from how I remember
them…
Before I was banned from entering bars in Australia.
In my day, a bar was a place you went to unwind and relax
and recount the horrors of the week with friends and strangers.
Today, a bar is a place to go to wind up not down. A place
where the pretence of the week was just a warm up for the real thing.
A bar is a place to dress as pretentiously as the
conversation. A place to sell the best you to anyone looking. A place to get noticed,
photographed and maybe just maybe to score.
The Australian bar today is not a place you go to relax, but
a place you go to confirm your power, your wealth and status. It’s not a place
for the light-hearted.
Ironically, an Australian bar requires no demands acute
sobriety. Sitting on half a bar stool, with your gut sucked in and your muscles
glowing throw a tight shirt, the bar has become a stage… where pensive
reflection is pressed down and heroic persona forces its way over the sadness
just beneath the surface.
Perhaps this titanic change in bar culture is a reflection
of modern society’s obsession with the self. Where the weakness of realism is
too real for punters to accept. Today’s bar hopper is under social contract to
perform, to entertain, to keep the positive spin of the day’s latest fad.
Perhaps that’s why, I feel I don’t belong in this modern
version of the village billabong. I’m too sad, too lonely and too outspoken on
issues that really matter.
Perhaps that’s why I’m proud and relieved to be banned from
the Australian bar of today.
