A tribute to Steevo

I get up and we grunt some pleasantries at each other.

I decide today that I will head into Perth and experience the day and night life of the place while Im here. So I dump the car at the train station and get the train to Perth.

The ipod is on and Im rocking out on the train, I almost have to restrain myself from air guitar and by the time I get to Perth im feeling the music vibe and feeling pretty funky. I have the ipod on shuffle and its giving me Brick in the wall, All right now and a good helping of Blondie (any man that says Debbie Harry didn?t have it going on should be shot)

I depart the train station and soak up the city and despite having a pretty good sense of direction I become lost in the network of little criss cross streets, seriously everything looks the same, its easy when you get to the outer bits but right in the centre its all so tightly squeezed.

I have discovered a few facts about Perth today, firstly everything is expensive, there is two types of shop in Perth, expensive ones selling expensive stuff and expensive ones selling expensive crap. I fail to see anything that I can either afford to take home as a gift or would want to.

The people are particularly unfriendly too not like what we have experienced in the smaller places up and down the west coast. It reminds me a lot of London, everybody marching around on a mission. On top of that its chucking it with rain and everybody seems hacked off because of this. Try coming to Scotland and see how miserable we are.

I hit a few bars and places that look trendy but the only people that I meet are travellers, back packers and not any real aussies. After a couple of places it just seems same old same old, they all seem very very similar.

However, im in one particular backpacker place and the bar maid is called Porsche. I mean what parent in their right mind calls their child Porsche. In this particular case Vw transporter, Mitsubishi Warrior or Landrover would have been much more appropriate as she isn?t a bonny chook.

Anyways, I digress. This is the place where I get hit on, I get approached by a tall, blonde, immaculately groomed and dressed aussie, close to 6ft tall, slender but toned, very tanned, natural looking except perhaps with a hint of eye liner.

I politely decline as they have a beard and are called Steevo.

He asks me if I was looking for some action and I initially think, what like some arm wrestling, or some sports coverage, or perhaps buying into an illegal gambling game, but eh NO, not quite the action Steevo had in mind apparently.

I leave the bar after finishing my drink satisfied that I am now a gay icon, it must have been the abercromby checked flannel shirt im wearing giving of signals that were more broke back mountain and less lumberjack stud muffin. I will wear a football top tomorrow just to be safe.

The only thing that really impresses me about the centre of Perth is all the art, its everywhere, sculptures, brass statues, even the graffiti is cool and when I seen this piece of graffiti it has to be todays picture. I have aptly entitled it a tribute to Steevo.

I get back to the underground train station and the sign says next train to mandurah in 1 minute in platform 2. So I nip down the stairs and jump on the train on platform 2. Except its not going where Im going, bloody aussies. After discovering my mistake I have to get off my incorrect train and see another sign that says mandurah train 17 minutes, except it arrives in about 2.

The train is packed full of people and Im lucky to get a seat, however there is this one fella that has his ear phones and he mustn?t realise that he is singing along quite so loudly, the whole train is laughing at him which gets me talking to the bloke next to me who is a proper aussie bloke and has all the aussie lingo like the fosters adverts, good-o, good on ya, no worries, etc etc. This makes my day and we chat the whole way hour back home. He is hilarious and is very proud of his own Ute, which is the garage at the time getting fixed. I refrain from asking him whether he hit a kangaroo or failed to turn a corner on a straight road.

I get home at a fairly reasonable hour but Pappa is already in bed it would seem.