36 Comments

top bit of writing. Even the change from my arrival to know is pretty stark. I think for the better, though there are some things I'd really like to see encouraged but no where is perfect

Expand full comment

I remember being pulled over by the cops on coronation drive, as a newly minted green P-plater. I was following a flatmate to her mechanic and had to explain to the cops that I was a nervous driver, unused to city driving and if I turned the engine off the car was unlikely to start again. They insisted that I turn off the engine, and then they had to spend the next 40 minutes trying to get the car to roll start. It took a while for me to figure out the push start wasn't working because I still had the hand brake on. My flatmate was stoned off her chops and hid around the corner, rolling around laughing watching the entire scene.

Expand full comment

the cops would have bludgeoned you to death on coro drive for leaving the handbrake on, so I call bollocks to the accuracy of that tale.

Expand full comment

Ha. If it was you, yes. But not even Brisbane cops in the 80s would bludgeon a white girl wearing Country Road no matter how stupid her motor skills were. They know private school stock on the road to uni when they see it, no matter how many greenpeace decals you've got on the bumper. One of my flatmates got sick of this shit so she would drag me into the police club on a Friday night to make friends with the FKRS. They were vile but we got free drinks all year and when we moved share house into a place on Petrie Terrace, our male flatmates made me & Alison open the door to any untoward knocking at odd hours because the cops would just say 'Oh it's you two. See you Friday.' And they'd piss off and leave us be.

Expand full comment

Very similar to the writing in a pearler of a book about Sydney called Leviathan. Now who wrote that?

Expand full comment

Time for a sequel? Might not sell as well as the splodey novels, but would definitely draw more arte-farte street-cred fwiw.

Expand full comment

I was there in 1988 driving my work ute round the city and past the Expo site. Last job of the day was to go down the highway and get 2 cases of stubbies "fucking cold ones, but" to drink in the plant hire yard, listening to the occasional rat scream its last cry as the carpet python crushed it. The best day was delivering fuel to an excavator working at Sanctuary Cove - advertised as the place to buy in if you wanted to get away from the "cockroaches". That was the day the cockroaches left a lot of tyre marks in newly laid turf.

Expand full comment

Lulz

Expand full comment

A pleasure to read.

Expand full comment

Cheers guv

Expand full comment

Took me right back to the bad old days….. Brisvegas of the pre- Fitzgerald times. It was a strange time to be an “other”.

Expand full comment

Zeitgeist indeed...much to ponder within, betwixt and between the words. The modern Beat poets Take That”captured the essence in their lyric “Everything Changes But You”...alas time again shows that not to be the case, we too change but it is less perceptible to ourselves. But, an excellent and thought provoking piece as always Jb and the Vegas is certainly different these days. Not necessarily better, but most certainly different. Thanks for the prose, most enjoyable to get the grey matter working again...

Expand full comment

Thanks Simon

Expand full comment

The music really was fantastic in those days. The age of ZZZ in the basement of the Uni, and the string of great bands at the refec. or South's or wherever in the valley. Just had to watch out for the walking-three -abreast police on the way home.

Expand full comment

Well thanks for sending a cold chill down my spine remembering the Brisbane of the time. I glad to hear it's changed. Yes what it will be like in 50 years - that is going to see even more dramatic changes

Expand full comment

"the anti-McGahan". Nice. I recall reading an article where he described his writing as "untidy realism", as opposed to the dirty realism that was Brisbane/Australian writing for that year or two in the early '90s.

Expand full comment

Haha. That is the most Nick comment ever.

Expand full comment

Nick’s writing has always captured a version of Brisbane that I find very recognisable

Expand full comment

I used to live in/around the same areas Nick lived and wrote about back in the day; I'd occasionally see him around Toowong Shopping Centre and stop and say "hi", or bust him checking out his own books in Angus & Robertson.

Expand full comment

The bar at the airport? Bollocks! There was the Grand View at Cleveland or the Samford Pub. It was best to own an American motorcycle though if you chose to frequent those places.. It was lovely to sleep in on a Sunday after catching a gig at Cloudland or the QLD Uni Refec.

The current dysfunctional transport infrastructure makes the whole place infinitely less desirable in 2022 than it was in 1982.

Expand full comment

Great writing John - I remember it all - never did get deck shoes

Expand full comment

I grew up in inner city Brisbane and used to wag school at the Expo site before it was the Expo site. Ah the memories. Thanks for bringing them back :-)

Expand full comment

You are a great writer my friend. What a concise and succinct wrap up of Brisbane in that era. I’ve way too many stories to share on this platform. Suffice to say your musings wrestled these distant memories from the depths of my mind. Lovely work and thank you very much.

Expand full comment

Thanks Lee. That’s very kind of you.

Expand full comment

Been to the Bay Islands lately? Head to Russell or Lamb or MacLeay for some of the most uncanny vibe I’ve ever witnessed. Weird stew of boomer retirees, hippies, no-hopers, methheads, bogans and a trillion mosquitoes. Last time I was there a cigarette-smoking kid on a bike told me the best fishing spots. He couldn’t have been more than 12.

Expand full comment

I was out on the bay about a year ago. It’s a different world out there.

Expand full comment

Came to Qld in 1991 as a grad nurse.

Had a job at the old PAH, no aircon but loads of vets, ww1 and the young blokes from ww2.

Lived in the old nurses quarters as the only bloke on the 6th floor, but only cos they thought I was Nicole, not Nicholas. Later, they segregated the m/f staff....

Moved from there to a huge share house qlder (now the site of a unit block).

Brisbane still had that vibe, especially noticeable having been to uni in Victoria. You had to dress up *very particularly* to get into the clubs. Lace up shoes (no boots), no jeans, long sleeve collared shirt tucked in....and a belt.

Sweet jeebus, went out recently and the kids were in T SHIRTS.

Yep, so much change.....

Expand full comment