Wednesday, November 11, 2009

"Nice shirt bro..........glassed anyone tonight?"

Whenever i check facebook in the morning i always follow a regimental process known as the 'douche-filter'. It's a pretty basic technique that enables me to scan my live feed at a faster than usual pace, taking in all the important information and simultaneously dispelling the warm garbage juice that takes up 80% of my feed at any given time. All the relevant information is stored in a pile to the back of my brain should i need to discuss it with others at a later time or if need something to talk about, and the rest is completely discarded to the same area where i store all my important engagements and bill reminders and thus, completely forgotten. It's not fancy in any sense of the word but it is the most reliable process of elimination in my life at the moment.

Successful live feed information includes:

- Hilarious youtube videos involving cats, old people scrapping, cats scrapping and Lil Wayne documentary previews.

- People failing at life. "Oh man i just runned over a bird, i suck", "i'm on facebook in a public toilet, i just did shits lol" or the always entertaining "anyone got anywhere to live?".

- Epic chain comments on status updates. Anything above 3o comments on a status update requires my immediate attention as the contributors are clearly up to something comical and/or clever.

Unsuccessful live feed information includes:

- Band/live gig/promotional information. I hate this stuff more than anything else on Facebook. I don't go to gigs very often, and if i ever do they tend to be the type of gigs you hear about on advertising venues besides Facebook before eventually seeing them on Facebook. God knows why i accept requests from these companies, i get 20 emails a day and at least 21 of them are invites to gigs i'd never set foot in. I get it, you have to promote your gig and Facebook is the easiest way to reach the net-savvy youth of today but even your supporters can only tolerate so much spam rape in one day.

- Farmville. I'm juvenile as shit, i play video games, take very little seriously and gain great pleasure from new release confectionery, but i'll be damned if i ever stoop to Farmville's level of immaturity. This is like the World of Warcraft of Facebook but instead of never hearing about it and it's primary user base being violent loner asexual nerds, my live feed is getting pounded by people i thought i knew and how well their computer generated carrot crops are going. Oh no! A black cat wandered onto your farm and i subsequently blocked all Facebook contact with you! Unlucky!

- Fuck i hate Farmville.

- Shitty Youtube videos that i've seen a million times. If you post a Youtube video that 6,958,954,394 people have viewed, chances are i've seen it.

So with my filter in full effect this morning i stumbled across the following news article.

"Metrosexuals banned to curb violence."

I had a read through it and instantly recognised the name of the venue and the people that were running it. The venue is known as Dorcia and is run by one Scott Mellor. I've spoken to Scott on numerous occasions and he is a polite, well-mannered individual with a good business mind and an awareness of what the 'alternative' youth want when they let their collective hairs down. Dorcia originally started as a bi-monthly party at the otherwise uninhabitable Leederville hotel and was aimed at a pretty diverse crowd whom all shared the same distaste for the rest of Perth's excessively lame nightclubs. You had your hardcore crowd, skateboarders, bmx'ers, your streetwear afficiandos and more than enough young lasses to cater to the aforementioned groups. Nowadays, it has become a national weekly event, is celebrated in both Melbourne and Perth and has given exposure to and promoted the careers of local DJ's armed only with a strong word of mouth campaign and a few carefully placed wheat paste posters. Elsewhere, these people would have no choice but to adhere to the old world dress standards and mentalities of bouncers and club owners perth-wide, or be forced to stay at home through fear of being denied entry to a club they're only attending for the sake of going out, not because they actually want to be there. Their slogan?

'No metrosexual attire, no aggression, no problems.

Essentially, this advertises an evident animosity towards the general public and what is deemed acceptable by most night clubs. And why the fuck not. You only need to spend one night out in any of Perth's club districts to bare witness to the extremely stale, almost uniform, dress standards enforced by club owners who appear to cater only to football players, football supporters and a general public scared of individuality or patrons of differing taste, backgrounds, religious beliefs or whatever else they can discriminate against for the sake of achieving a nightclub full of the same person. Watch the news on any given Sunday and you're bound to see footage of a bunch snakeskin boot-wearing, faded jean endorsing, stitch pattern button-up sporting apes beating each-other senseless out the front of the Red Sea because that's what you do at the end of a big night, wrestle with men while females run scared. I mean, what else are you going to brag about to your cronies throughout the week in anticipation of going out and doing it all again next weekend?

Stereotype? Yes. Unfair? Doubt it. The club owners and the audience they appeal to have done this to themselves and now that it's happening they're saying it's unfair to exclude someone from a venue based on their appearance. A hypocrisy this extreme should attract infringements and jail time. You know why people like Scott Mellor and anyone else making an effort to avoid these characters are excluding YOU and YOUR customers now? Because when you're all lurking the streets of Subiaco, Northbridge or the City at 2am in the morning being recorded on cctv acting like a bunch of fucking morons, you are all dressed EXACTLY the same. It then gets played on Today Tonight, A Current Affair and every other local news station and you all lose another point of credibility, only to be let into the exact same venue again and again while nothing is done about it. Who else do they associate this behavior with?

I'm not endorsing exclusion or discrimination at nightclubs. There are of course other factors that contribute to violence and general fuckery at nighclubs, alcohol and drugs obviously spring to mind. These two variables however, are not up for debate as a result of Scott's decision. It's the fact that his rules are being disputed by people who wouldn't set foot in Dorcia anyway, other club owners and even Human Rights Commissioner Dr. Helen Szoke, who states "it is against the law to refuse a person service on the basis of age, sex, physical features, race and a range of other characteristics". Nice one Doc, now go and tell that to every other club that isn't Dorcia.

I was even a little apprehensive of Scott's slogan at first. I've been to Dorcia a few times myself you see. The music was too loud, the girls were too scantily clad and someone spilt beer on me. Regardless, I did have a great time and was extremely comfortable walking around in a pair of sneakers, baggy denim and a crew neck jumper, without having to worry about getting bottled or beaten for staring at some guys chick. Of course it was going to be up for debate when a new venue appears in Northbridge and doesn't accept 99% of the population, but now that i've heard Scott's side of the story and read comments published by the general public on the matter, i couldn't agree more with his stance.

I'll leave you with the kind of gold i was coming across and a prime example of the people that fall under the scrutiny of Scott's slogan.

3 comments:

kp said...

This is golden!! I love it.

Me said...

Thanks Kate, i hope Melbourne is treating you well.

Garth said...

Haha!!! Some of the comments are gold!
Almost as much fun as reading comments on Youtube, until someone sparks a racial debate haha.