Motivational Poster

Motivational Poster

WELCOME TO THE COLLECTIVE THOUGHTS OF THOSE WHO CURSE THE STUPID AND DAMN THE MALEVOLENT


Friday, November 29, 2019

Clive James - A Homage - Australian Bars




[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.



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