"Sin City"

There was an utterly redundant article in this morning’s Silly Boring Herald on the way Melbourne has it all over Sydney for the yartz, vigour, zest, transport, etc. Apparently Sydney’s getting too costly, congested and mean spirited. Sydney’s an ageing Liz Taylor, compared to which Melbourne is a vivacious, energised Helen Mirren. What does that make Nowra? Amy Winehouse? No cliché left unturned. You know the drill: Sydney’s a mindless, hedonistic sun and surf worshipping bogan, Melbourne a philosopher in a beret writing poetry in a coffee shop, Kulcha coming out its bum. (Oh, the writer forgot to mention it’s also the gangland murder capital of Oz. Maybe they’re kulchured gangsters who take in Romanian arthouse films before doing hits). Why bother endlessly regurgitating this kind of crap? Then again, why not? If the Herald can do it so can I. So here to perpetuate that farrago of clichés is a monologue I wrote a few years back (with a slightly freshened ending):

Sin City

After being voted the city with the World’s best
Restaurants, location and lifestyle
Sydney had a quiet drink and
gave itself a modest pat on the back.

Then after a few more beers
Sydney loosened up and made a
rude little joke about Brisbane.
Adelaide and Perth smiled nervously
while Canberra said it was tired and going home.

But Sydney kicked on with some Martinis and Margaritas,
before heading off to snort coke in the dunny.
Sydney swaggered out and started doing tequila shots
and wolf-whistling at waitresses.

Then Sydney saw Melbourne quietly reading in a corner
And yelled across the bar:
hey Mel, ya big poof, ya readin’ ‘bout
how to pick up a root, or what?
Melbourne just gave a disdainful look
and went back to its book.

But Sydney continued: Hey Mel,
did you know the sun shines out my harbour?
Here, cop a look at Godzone!
At which Sydney leapt on a table
dropped its daks and flashed Melbourne a
blazing bright yellow eye.
Then Sydney started dancing on the table,
lewdly gyrating with its pants around its ankles
taunting Melbourne, saying
na na na na na! Sucked in Melbourne
you old drizzle-bound Goth
you Camus-cuddling wanker
you fossilised pile of snob dung.
You’re just jealous of my beautiful sun
and my beautiful harbour
and my beautiful bridge
and my big silicon hills
and botoxed beaches
and pectoral-pumped horizons
and the Sydney Swans beating you at your own stupid game …

All you got’s your poxy trams and flat-chested streets
and pigeon-shitty monuments to crumbling colonial boredom …
What’s that? Oh!, You had the Commonwealth Games?
Oooh, how Maaarvellous, darling!! …
Yeah, good on ya,
must have been fun watching that piss-poor flea-circus
huddled in your anorak-clad igloo
trying to warm yourself with your own pathetic
moussaka flavoured farts …
Oh, by the way, did you know that I, Sydney,
had the OLYMPIC GAMES –
GREATEST GAMES EVER! OI! OI! OI!…

Well, Melbourne just shook its head
finished its macchiato
and quietly got up and left.
And by now all the other towns had gone home as well,
even hardcore party towns like San Fransisco and Acapulco.
So the manager came over
and politely asked Sydney to please leave.
But Sydney just snarled ah, get fucked!
and had the manager re-developed.

Sydney used the manager’s blood to paint itself red -
drank more, smoked more, snorted more
dropped more pills
Went clubbing till six
then had an orgy with itself
before crashing round ten.
Sydney woke up pregnant
reproduced and became the World’s first
truly hermaphroditic city.
But then Sydney got too big and old and tired and fat
with constipation, bad circulation and blocked arteries.
Sydney de-hydrated, got asthmatic, obese
and finally collapsed in a blubbering, wheezing heap.

Sydney got carted off to re-hab
where they said: what seems to be the problem sir?
And Sydney screamed:
look, stop personifying me!
I’m not a person, okay!
I’m just a city with faults like anyone, okay!
So stop stretching this stupid bloody metaphor anymore, okay!
… but there is one little favour ya could do for me ...
reckon ya could hire Melbourne to do a hit on Keneally and O'Farrell
and feed their guts to the Greens?