Article: My take on Sydney
Sydney, especially around the inner city, has it’s own unique tone of human static. It’s the norm to see people who aren’t the norm as you walk down Oxford St. There are the drag queens, the bleached-haired gay boys, the fucked-up homeless people (most of whom are mentally ill), the violent drunks, the fag hags and party girls and curious tourists.
All cities tend to have a concentrate of people living on life’s edge crowded toward the centre of the metropolis, but Sydney does it with it’s own gritty, dirty panache. Somehow the prostitutes are more prevalent and pushy, the drag queens are taller and funnier and the crazies are really crazy. It’s hardly unusual to be sitting in a cafe and see some drunk guy beating up his missus at 9am as everyone is driving past on the way to work (in fact I’m in a cafe right now and seeing this very thing).
Of course the vibe isn’t all about negativity; there is a strong sense of an ongoing party, a bacchanalian celebration of life and sex and drinking and food. Oh, and then there are the prevalent drugs as well, cheap, accessible and prohibitively illegal.
When you live in inner Sydney this can all add up to a sense that it is possible to simply be swallowed up by the entire city. With it’s ragged red-brick teeth and gleaming high-rise claws, it could eviscerate you in any number of ways. You could join the ranks of the homeless, get hooked on a variety of types of methamphetamine or simply get murdered as you’re walking through Hyde Park. You are a tiny ant in the metropolis, a metropolis that eats whole generations of ants alive and you must stay alert and wilfully resistant to it’s dark whiles. Ultimately you will succumb if you stay here; you must give up your soul somewhere, after all.
Each city is a different type of beast and each city eventually devours it’s inhabitants, but the Sydney beast is especially carnivorous for historical reasons. It’s a common form of ribbing to describe Australians as being essentially descended from convicts, however there is some truth to this past still being relevant, especially so in Sydney. There is a general sense of being resistant to authority: The police are pigs and all on the take, the politicians are feeding from a trough with their own snouts and taxes are to be avoided wherever possible.
The authorities regard themselves as being locked locked in a mortal battle with the general riff-raff and criminals that infest the inner city. Like Underbelly says, “It’s a jungle out there.” The legal system has a regime of harsh criminal penalties that are comparatively extreme to other states and western nations. Lady justice churns many, many people through her machine and the po faced judges mete out savage sentences, reminiscent of the Old Bailey. (Having said that, stealing a loaf of bread would only be serious on your “third strike.”)
Sydney is still colonial. A class system still operates, although it is more centred around what you do with your life and what station you reach. It’s about becoming rich and powerful and getting away with it. It’s about getting ahead of the pack of other losers. Ultimately, the refrain of “Bound for Botany Bay” is still playing as the cinematic soundtrack to life in this city. It’s playing on a decaying loop, with the sound waves rippling and distorting through generations and still oscillating through the lives of modern Sydney.
So, singing too-ral-li-ooral-li-addity, live life to it’s fullest and try not to get eaten up by Sydney. For the term of your natural life, or the length of your tourist stay, make sure that you feast on it.
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Hope that’s not too harsh. Kris.
