Brett MaverixThe Redneck Bar.
OK, so across the road from work there's this pub called The Queenslander. It's not just any pub, it's a fucking experience. It's the kind of place where people threaten and berate you for looking different before you've even set foot in the door. Ever seen The Blues Brothers? There's a bar in that film, you know the one I'm talking aboot - "We've got both kinds of music, Country AND Western!". The one where there's a chicken-wire fence in front of the stage to catch the broken bottles being thrown at the band. The Queenslander doesn't have the chicken-wire fence, but you get the general idea.
Now, heading down to the Queenslander is something that I'd advise against. But sometimes when you've exhausted all the alcohol in the house, and you're just at the point where you think locking yourself in the car and singing along to the radio, burning yourself with the car keys, or roaming shoeless in a construction site is a good idea, you just get that certain urge. The urge to be a complete idiot and flirt with danger, if you will.
Don't get me wrong, I've had some damn good times there. But sometimes it's only in the morning that you realize how close to death you came, and that listening to your friends once in a while can prove beneficial. My memories are foggy, but here are a couple of Queenslander anecdotes:
** I think the first time Poo and I went there, we were out looking for something vaguely female to ruin. Only problem was, even in our massively intoxicated state, there was literally NOTHING there that wouldn't make me vomit if I had the misfortune of seeing it naked. We'd spent almost all of our remaining cash and were aboot to call it a night, when she appeared. A goddess of sorts. Probrably a 6.5 under regular circumstances, but we were at The Queenslander, so she was in the lead with 9.5.
We watched her for a good few minutes to make sure she wasn't there with a boyfriend/brother combo or anything. All clear. Game on. Downed the last of my Schooner (they don't serve pints there for some reason), and went in for the approach. Can't remember exactly what line I used on her, I think it was something witty like "I hate blacks, don't you?". Something guaranteed to illicit a response. Nothing. She stood there looking at me for a good few seconds processing whatever I'd just said.
And then the gates of hell opened. The gates of hell being her GODDAMN JAWS. She started to laugh, and I swear I was witnessing hell itself. You know in the opening scene of 'Saving Private Ryan', where they land on the beach and there's blood and dead soldiers and all sorts of spent ammunition and big fucken pointy spike traps and things strewn all over the beach?? Yeah, that's what the inside of her mouth looked like. Seriously, I grew up next to Musgave Park, I've seen some nasty crack whores with better smiles than that. It sounds horrible of me, but I couldn't deal with it. I stammered something whilst backing away, grabbed Poo, and we caned it out of there.
** The first time we took Tina there was scary. I don't like taking girls there because there's a possibility they might get raped, and that shit's just not cool. So we were sitting around at a table with beers, and Tina went to make a phone call. There's shitty reception inside and it's hell-of loud, so she stepped outside for a bit. Poo and I agreed to keep an eye on her through the window, but after a few minutes we got distracted by a couple of rednecks who recognized me from the tattoo studio, who'd decided to come over and be all chummy in the hopes of getting cheap ink.
So after a while we got rid of them and realized Tina wasn't standing where she was a couple of minutes ago. I tried buzzing her phone, but it was still engaged. That's cool, she's still talking, we'll finish our beers and go see her outside. A couple of minutes later she still wasn't back, and the bar was closing up. Caned the rest of our beers and went looking outside. No Tina. Adrenaline mode kicked in, and we split up to go looking around the bake of the pub. Met up with Poo again around the front, both of us had found no sign of her. We went back inside, and were aboot to inform the security guard that our friend had gone missing, when she showed up randomly behind us, happy as ever. In hindsight it doesn't seem that worrying, but given the nature of the rest of the patrons of the pub, it was fucking terrifying for a few minutes.
** You know how there's an arsehole in every crowd that yells at the house band if they don't play requests? I was at the pub with Poo and Kaz one night, and I was in a shitty mood for whatever reason and decided it would be a good idea to be that arsehole. We yelled random crap at the band in between many many schooners until they asked the fateful "Think you can do a better job?!"
Obviously they'd never encountered me before, because of course I can do a better job. I think they were a little taken aback when I climbed onstage and asked for a guitar. I have to give credit to the band though, they were damn good sports and let me play guitar for a few covers before asking me to leave the stage. Afterwards, we all shook hands and the bass player gave me one of his drink coupons, which totally ruled. Stupidity pays off once again.
** The night after that, everybody had piked out and gone to bed except for myself and Kaz, so we went on yet another Queenslander mission. This night was karaoke night. Believe me when I say karaoke nights get goddamn rowdy, and these motherfuckers (in every sense of the word) get serious aboot their karaoke. So naturally, Kaz and I decide to completely take the piss out of all of them and just generally make fools of ourselves. There were people yelling and getting very very agitated at the both of us. I think what saved me from being beaten and Kaz from being raped was the fact that a few of our regular tattoo clients were there, and they are people that are generally not to be fucked with.
As we were stumbling home after karaoke, Kaz saw it fit to throw a TV at my head. I didn't even realize what had happened until I saw the pile of broken glass lying all around me. The strange part was that it didn't even seem like an odd occurrence until I woke up the next morning. At the time, having a TV lobbed at my skull seemed perfectly normal.
** Around a month ago, Poo and I ran out of booze and decided to go on a pub mission. Unfortunately, we'd forgotten that the bar closes at 2am. We got there at aboot 1:58am and they refused to serve us. We were nowhere near ready to call it a night, so we wandered around out the front of the pub asking all the inbreds if there was a party around that we could gatecrash. There wasn't. So we sat down and started talking drunken shit to one of the less-threatening looking randoms.
Now, since it tends to come in handy a lot, I always carry a tube of Bepanthen in my pocket. I'm not even entirely sure how it came aboot, but all of a sudden I'm squeezing it out onto the table and using my bankcard to cut it into one big sloppy line. For some reason we'd dared the non-threatening redneck to do a line of Bepanthen.
"What is this shit, anyway?"
"Relax, it's an antiseptic cream, that means it can't hurt you"*snicker*
"I don't know, I never snort nothin that I don't know what it is"
"Seriously, I guarantee this stuff is safer than anything you've snorted before"
So eventually he agrees to do it. Meanwhile, I'm chatting up his bushpig of a girlfriend/sister trying to get her to take us to a non-existant party. When I look back, non-threatening redneck is coughing and spluttering with a big yellow line of snotty bepanthen bubbling out of his nose.
Now, I think this is the funniest thing I've ever seen, so I point and laugh accordingly. Unfortunately, non-threatening redneck's brother, who we'd not yet been introduced to does not find it so funny.
"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HIM? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? IS THAT SHIT POISON?!"
Poo and I try to calm him down, but this guy was flipping out, convinced that we'd poisoned his brother. Poo and I looked at each other while this guy just got angrier and angrier. So we did the manly thing and ran the fuck away before someone pulled a knife. Then we hid in the servo for a bit and ate sausage rolls. Yup.
I apologise for the lack in frequency of updates, work has been absolutely nuts the last couple of weeks. I had sex with an asian the other night though, which was notable because I can now cross 'asian' off my list of things to do. I'll write the story to go with that soon. Next update is on Monday unless I get diarrhea or something. Enjoy.
Now, heading down to the Queenslander is something that I'd advise against. But sometimes when you've exhausted all the alcohol in the house, and you're just at the point where you think locking yourself in the car and singing along to the radio, burning yourself with the car keys, or roaming shoeless in a construction site is a good idea, you just get that certain urge. The urge to be a complete idiot and flirt with danger, if you will.
Don't get me wrong, I've had some damn good times there. But sometimes it's only in the morning that you realize how close to death you came, and that listening to your friends once in a while can prove beneficial. My memories are foggy, but here are a couple of Queenslander anecdotes:
** I think the first time Poo and I went there, we were out looking for something vaguely female to ruin. Only problem was, even in our massively intoxicated state, there was literally NOTHING there that wouldn't make me vomit if I had the misfortune of seeing it naked. We'd spent almost all of our remaining cash and were aboot to call it a night, when she appeared. A goddess of sorts. Probrably a 6.5 under regular circumstances, but we were at The Queenslander, so she was in the lead with 9.5.
We watched her for a good few minutes to make sure she wasn't there with a boyfriend/brother combo or anything. All clear. Game on. Downed the last of my Schooner (they don't serve pints there for some reason), and went in for the approach. Can't remember exactly what line I used on her, I think it was something witty like "I hate blacks, don't you?". Something guaranteed to illicit a response. Nothing. She stood there looking at me for a good few seconds processing whatever I'd just said.
And then the gates of hell opened. The gates of hell being her GODDAMN JAWS. She started to laugh, and I swear I was witnessing hell itself. You know in the opening scene of 'Saving Private Ryan', where they land on the beach and there's blood and dead soldiers and all sorts of spent ammunition and big fucken pointy spike traps and things strewn all over the beach?? Yeah, that's what the inside of her mouth looked like. Seriously, I grew up next to Musgave Park, I've seen some nasty crack whores with better smiles than that. It sounds horrible of me, but I couldn't deal with it. I stammered something whilst backing away, grabbed Poo, and we caned it out of there.
** The first time we took Tina there was scary. I don't like taking girls there because there's a possibility they might get raped, and that shit's just not cool. So we were sitting around at a table with beers, and Tina went to make a phone call. There's shitty reception inside and it's hell-of loud, so she stepped outside for a bit. Poo and I agreed to keep an eye on her through the window, but after a few minutes we got distracted by a couple of rednecks who recognized me from the tattoo studio, who'd decided to come over and be all chummy in the hopes of getting cheap ink.
So after a while we got rid of them and realized Tina wasn't standing where she was a couple of minutes ago. I tried buzzing her phone, but it was still engaged. That's cool, she's still talking, we'll finish our beers and go see her outside. A couple of minutes later she still wasn't back, and the bar was closing up. Caned the rest of our beers and went looking outside. No Tina. Adrenaline mode kicked in, and we split up to go looking around the bake of the pub. Met up with Poo again around the front, both of us had found no sign of her. We went back inside, and were aboot to inform the security guard that our friend had gone missing, when she showed up randomly behind us, happy as ever. In hindsight it doesn't seem that worrying, but given the nature of the rest of the patrons of the pub, it was fucking terrifying for a few minutes.
** You know how there's an arsehole in every crowd that yells at the house band if they don't play requests? I was at the pub with Poo and Kaz one night, and I was in a shitty mood for whatever reason and decided it would be a good idea to be that arsehole. We yelled random crap at the band in between many many schooners until they asked the fateful "Think you can do a better job?!"
Obviously they'd never encountered me before, because of course I can do a better job. I think they were a little taken aback when I climbed onstage and asked for a guitar. I have to give credit to the band though, they were damn good sports and let me play guitar for a few covers before asking me to leave the stage. Afterwards, we all shook hands and the bass player gave me one of his drink coupons, which totally ruled. Stupidity pays off once again.
** The night after that, everybody had piked out and gone to bed except for myself and Kaz, so we went on yet another Queenslander mission. This night was karaoke night. Believe me when I say karaoke nights get goddamn rowdy, and these motherfuckers (in every sense of the word) get serious aboot their karaoke. So naturally, Kaz and I decide to completely take the piss out of all of them and just generally make fools of ourselves. There were people yelling and getting very very agitated at the both of us. I think what saved me from being beaten and Kaz from being raped was the fact that a few of our regular tattoo clients were there, and they are people that are generally not to be fucked with.
As we were stumbling home after karaoke, Kaz saw it fit to throw a TV at my head. I didn't even realize what had happened until I saw the pile of broken glass lying all around me. The strange part was that it didn't even seem like an odd occurrence until I woke up the next morning. At the time, having a TV lobbed at my skull seemed perfectly normal.
** Around a month ago, Poo and I ran out of booze and decided to go on a pub mission. Unfortunately, we'd forgotten that the bar closes at 2am. We got there at aboot 1:58am and they refused to serve us. We were nowhere near ready to call it a night, so we wandered around out the front of the pub asking all the inbreds if there was a party around that we could gatecrash. There wasn't. So we sat down and started talking drunken shit to one of the less-threatening looking randoms.
Now, since it tends to come in handy a lot, I always carry a tube of Bepanthen in my pocket. I'm not even entirely sure how it came aboot, but all of a sudden I'm squeezing it out onto the table and using my bankcard to cut it into one big sloppy line. For some reason we'd dared the non-threatening redneck to do a line of Bepanthen.
"What is this shit, anyway?"
"Relax, it's an antiseptic cream, that means it can't hurt you"*snicker*
"I don't know, I never snort nothin that I don't know what it is"
"Seriously, I guarantee this stuff is safer than anything you've snorted before"
So eventually he agrees to do it. Meanwhile, I'm chatting up his bushpig of a girlfriend/sister trying to get her to take us to a non-existant party. When I look back, non-threatening redneck is coughing and spluttering with a big yellow line of snotty bepanthen bubbling out of his nose.
Now, I think this is the funniest thing I've ever seen, so I point and laugh accordingly. Unfortunately, non-threatening redneck's brother, who we'd not yet been introduced to does not find it so funny.
"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HIM? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? IS THAT SHIT POISON?!"
Poo and I try to calm him down, but this guy was flipping out, convinced that we'd poisoned his brother. Poo and I looked at each other while this guy just got angrier and angrier. So we did the manly thing and ran the fuck away before someone pulled a knife. Then we hid in the servo for a bit and ate sausage rolls. Yup.
I apologise for the lack in frequency of updates, work has been absolutely nuts the last couple of weeks. I had sex with an asian the other night though, which was notable because I can now cross 'asian' off my list of things to do. I'll write the story to go with that soon. Next update is on Monday unless I get diarrhea or something. Enjoy.
I nearly died laughing when I read that...until I realised it's dead true, and I've seen such horrors before.
Nice work on the Asian too, I've still not crossed that off my list.