Tribalism

Even though this blog sees me preoccupied by the clash between the city and the country I do know that this isn’t the only site of cultural opposition. ‘Home’ of course is in the eye of the beholder. I was recently reminded that Sydney itself is no homogenous place and that this vast city is just a collection of diverse tribes firmly located in their own neighbourhoods. Recently I left my familiar stomping ground in the city’s East and took a work-related day trip into the badlands of the Western suburbs.

Ah Bankstown…working class Anglo meets Asia-Africa-Lebanon all swirling around in one great big melting pot. I was fascinated on my walk from the station to the Library that morning by almost everyone I saw, everything I overheard and every shop I passed. However my favourite Banky resident was the woman I followed for many blocks that Wednesday morning and whose journey seemed to parallel mine. We crossed the same roads, cut through the same park, turned the same corners and went down the same arcades and because I walked behind her for so long I was able to watch her closely.

I tried to look away, I really did, but became a fixated by the tightness of her jeans, so snug they must have been painted on. Come to think of it now they may have been jean style leggings, but whatever they were they clung to every inch of her arse and thighs re-writing the meaning of ‘tight’. They were also gossamer sheer giving me a clear outline of her g-string and even its colour (orange).

Despite her shaky stilettos she maintained a brisk pace and when she looked around at one stage I got a startling view of her enviable makeup - false eye lashes and blood red lipstick. I do think false eye lashes before lunchtime is something to be in awe of, it’s decadence par excellence. That this amazing outfit was completed by a hijab, the wearing of which is a public sign of her commitment to modesty, was probably the most extraordinary part of it all.

(Of the hijab www.onislam.net explains ‘it is a choice to cover and dignify the body Allah gave you, rather than give in to a culture that teaches women they are to be sex objects who sell their bodies to market beer…hijab is a symbol of our worship and servitude to God. It is a symbol of modesty that is not just about our attire; it extends to our whole demeanor’.)

One of the cleverest short cuts into Sydney’s tribes and tribal mindsets I have ever seen appeared in Tharunka the student publication of my old alma mater, the University of NSW. In 2011 it said it like it is with a map of Sydney’s suburbs according to each of its tribal cultures. You can see it here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/nsw/2011/06/is-this-your-tribal-view-of-sydney.html

To complete this view of Sydney make sure you click through to the next page for a Westies eye view of everyone else. I defy you not to laugh out loud!

And now for something completely different. I’ve recently re-discovered an old favourite, the Catho Hotel, at Catherine Hill Bay and fallen in love with it all over again. Despite some initial scepticism I think the Country Mouse is coming around to its fabulousness too. I first found this classic Australian pub in the mid-1990s when dear friends were living nearby and I had forgotten about it, having no reason to visit Catho again after they moved on.

This former miner’s pub has by some miracle been saved from gentrification despite the miners’ cottages around it now selling for the same price as a two storey absolute waterfront properties. The cottages may be match box sized, but they are authentic – and authentic costs. Proximity to such heritage chic would normally mean the local pub was vulnerable to a makeover of the

glass/polished metal/blonde wood variety, complete with a ModOz bistro serving Asian fusion food, but somehow the Catho has survived unBotoxed with all its wrinkles in place.

The Catho crowd are the same. No weekend warriors here, these denizens are hard-core 24/7. The women have more ink than the Saturday broadsheets, there are lots of patched bikers and the remainder could be, or should be – tattooed and patched that is. A pub brawl would be something to behold, this tough crowd could put on a punch-up of Olympic level strength and endurance. But the Catho’s owners must see them as a dream come true, no-one sits on glasses of iced water all night, this is a hard drinking lot.

As a music venue its pitch perfect for loud and dirty rock and roll. Talking of dirt, it’s that substance and sand which makes up the dance floor, while the stage is primitive and adjacent to it is the band’s green room (or scarily maybe their accommodation) a seen-better-days Viscount caravan whose badge ‘Grand Tourer’ seems wishful at best.

The hard-hitting nature of the place flows through to the bistro, staffed by the Australian first cousins of Seinfeld’s notorious restaurateur the ‘soup Nazi’. The surly kitchen hands are clearly irritated by people who turn up at their counter constantly annoying them with food orders. And like their New York counterpart they insist on a strict manner of behaviour. In case you didn’t pick up the face-to-face icy vibe a sign without a trace of irony spells it out:

If you are grouchy, irritable or just plain mean there will be a $20.00 surcharge just to serve you.

You’ve been warned. So bring your own packed lunch, order a Jack Daniels and coke and kick back in the beer garden. All together now...“ROCK AND ROLL!!”