welcome to the lounge

Yeah, I know that redneck ain’t a particularly Aussie slang word and it conjures up American type images and stereotypes but bogan lounge didn’t quite have the same ring to it nor did feral manifesto and hell, I am a fucking redneck, no denying it, just not the racist, dumbass, backwoods, backward stereotype mountain cracker that they portray us as on TV and in the movies. I’m an old school, shaved head, touch o’ grey in the beard, if you don’t dick me around I won’t dick you around, misanthropic, I’ll hate you purely on your lack of intelligence not yr skin colour, creed, religion, sexual preferences or aspirations type o’ redneck. And my neck is always red even when I wear a collar. And until recently I only owned two collars anyway, both polo shirts, both free, a coopers pale ale shirt and a port power shirt. I don’t particularly like the beer or the team but I’ll take ‘em when there’s nothin’ else left. Then I picked up a coupla more collar jobs – my Mt Burr Football Club Polo shirt that I paid money for and the Millicent Country Music Association shirt I picked up form Lifeline for $4. Them babies I wear with pride.

And now, I gotta admit, since the goodwife has continued her climb up the corporate ladder, the one I jumped off of some twenty years ago, well, I’ve had to buy a coupla more shirts, good ones for social occasions when I play the stepford husband and keep my mouth shut while nodding and trying to get some of that free beer in before she notices and warns me not to get too tanked. But only for those occasions you understand.

I’ve spent the second half of my life in the city after the first 21 years were spent in a town of maybe 500 people where every one knew everyone else and the grocery store was the post office, the newsagent, the toyshop and there was a bakery over the road where they baked on the premises and we went to footy every weekend and everyone else called us ‘zooeys’ cos we were animals and the parties continued on at our house until the wee small hours and you could leave the front door unlocked (at least for the first twelve years or so then some jd’s started making their tiny presence known) but when I got to the city I sorta forgot my roots. Hell, I was still proud of being a ‘country boy’ and all that. I mean I was a ‘zooey’ for fucksake but I was living in the big smoke now so I toned down my redneck roots, got rid of the flannelette shirts and the cowboy boots, didn’t listen to Slim Whitman or Johnny Cash (although JC was still cool apparently). I had to find some clean city type jeans and t-shirts that didn’t have crude sayings on em, even polish my damn shoes every now and then. But I still leaked redneck every now and then. I was blunt, up front and loud and I could hold my booze pretty well if not my mind or my mouth. In fact The Publisher, another country boy from the Tuna side of the state, and I have a theory that we did better with the girls than our city brethren and fellow drinkers cos country boys are plain blunt. We say what we think while our nancified city friends are too busy trying to weasel their way into the girl’s affections with lies and deceit or at least just being plain suck up nice to em. We just wanted to get back to the drinkin and partyin’ so we were up front about our dicks and our ambitions and more often than not it worked. We both regularly got women well above our stations, we still do and all we can put it down to is country charm cos it sure as shit ain’t our looks or our wallets, I can tell you that.

Now I’m at an age where I don’t seriously care what other people think though I still gotta be careful at the good wife’s work functions cos she needs to keep climbing that ladder so I don’t have to even think about puttin’ a foot back on it.

And hell why am I making excuse for owning a coupla Ed Harry shirts? I already know I’m better than you, have been for a long time now and the sooner you realise it the better things will be.