The truth about waking up at 4.30am on a Saturday morning rarely has any perks. I do however manage to think of one and I wearily wash my face and put some clothes on…
Since starting HSM, I have built an unfortunate habit of drinking way too much caffeine late at night. I often end up restlessly waking up at 4:30am with these ‘genius’ business ideas that wont stop swirling around in my head until I get up to write them down.
At that point, pen in hand, I realise that making tour busses that float around the city via hot air balloons is a pretty damn silly idea. But, I’m up…
Today, I decide to make the most of getting up at daybreak and drive into work and run to the gym from there. Walking into work, I detour up through Brunswick St to check out the aftermath of an average Friday night. Who knows what I will find…
I find a group of 30 year old men sprawled out all over each other like eels, out the front of the beat. One looks up at me and his ghostlike face physically makes me sick. Tally-ho. I push on.
Googly eyed boys and girls scurry across the streets like vampires, their avant-garde fashion looking a little out of place in sunlight. Their movements are in fast forward.
At the bottom of Brunswick St I see a boy, about 20, passed out on the pavement under a public bench. There is something about still flesh on concrete surfaces that always makes me feel uneasy. I shake him a little bit and he wakes up and stumbles away to an unknown world of pain.
I find pidgeons pecking up the blood spattered kebab pieces next to the empty cab rank. I dodge a sea of half-eaten, trampled kebabs strewn across the pavement. They were once loved so dearly upon their purchase yet dropped so carelessly when the owner’s cab arrived. I think that it is a pretty good metaphor for how people often use each other.
I walk past the strippers from Love & Rockets huddled behind the protective, locked glass of the venue and they one-by-one get picked up out the front of the venue (I guess by their mothers, maybe????).
The streets are littered with beer bottles and cheap food.
I feel ashamed to be a human. Not about how people treat themselves, that is their business, but how people can completely disregard the environment they live in and do so much damage in just one night.
If drinking shows who a person is at their core and this is what happens to an area when a group of people reveal that core, what hope do we have?
4 Comments
Add a commentHey Chris, great blog! I totally agree with your findings after a saturday night in the valley… it’s pretty terrible to think (and see) the state humans leave the environment in after their night of binge drinking. – Sharnah p.s. don’t ever stop your creative thinking, i think that tour buses that float around the city are a great idea 🙂 u just never know where these ideas may take you…
Hey Dude,
Pretty deep way to start the day… Hope the gym made you feel better!
Check out the park bench outside New York Slice… The concrete around it is stained a few shades darker from all of the drunken spews after some cheesey goodness… really not nice. A (semi?) permanent mark of the boozing culture, and one that shows the same thing happens there over and over and over again.
That was a fabulous shocking and honest blog. i loved it. i am so proud of you and your decision to embarkon on this enlightening and colourful journey. A self-confessed binge drinker in the past.. i have now decided to drink, however not get drunk. I have come to this conclusion after nights out with hours of non recollection and also feeling unappreciative to myself and others, this life i have been given and the opportunities that are available.
sensible drinking is my new path which involves definitely no shots, no double shot mixed drinks, water in between drinks, and recognising a tipsy feeling and pulling the reigns on the thirsty terror inside. my choice is awareness and reality.
Making healthy choices i believe is part of maturing and seeing the big picture. there is so much destruction, pain and hurt in the world already.. everyday. It is upto us as individuals to be kind, loving and grateful for eachother, the earth and ourselves.
Your so inspiring!! 🙂
“I feel ashamed to be a human” – strong words but its these same words that come to mind, when watching friends and strangers degrade themselves and those around them while intoxicated. There is no dignity in having self-inflicted vomit clotted on your hair, face or clothes. And that is if you’re lucky enough to suffer those effects and not worse. Its these same words which whispers in my mind as I decide whether to have my 3rd of 4th drink. There’s a massive difference between having a good time and being a liability to yourself and those around you.