Sunday, August 12, 2007
The erotics of hard rubbish. Clem Bastow has started a Facebook group about hard rubbish and I think I might have found my spiritual home. But most of all, I am realising just how much I'd love to go on a date with someone that consisted of waiting for the cover of darkness before rummaging through piles of other people's discarded stuff. Jeremy has thought of a sexploitation film called Hard Rubbish. He even has the perfect tagline: "What you gonna do with all that junk?"
Did you know that I actually once went on a hard rubbish date? I've been on Camberwell Market dates too - this was with the same dude. We went a few times, actually - he got lots of analogue electronic equipment to make his experimental music and I got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirts and old hip-house cassette tapes with titles like Rok Da House. He was embarrassed because the stallholder gave me the t-shirt for free because I could sing the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song. I later gave the t-shirt away at my own Camberwell Market stall to someone else who could sing the song.
But the hard rubbish date was awesome. I don't think we even found anything. We just roamed around North Carlton one night. I remember that it was freezing and I kept my hands jammed in my pockets most of the time. I totally want to do it again. Maybe we could make out on someone's discarded brown velour couch.
EDIT: 11:06PM THAT SAME EVENING... I am so excited I can't sleep. Jeremy and I just went cruising North Carlton in his Saab for hard rubbish. (Jeremy is my Claytons date: the date I have when I'm not having a date, even though this is also true of most dates I think I'm on.) And there were heaps of other people doing it too: in cars like us; on foot with torches; casually, while walking dogs.
We spotted a couple of hippie girls cheerfully carting away an armchair, and a bourgie lady with an armful of picture frames, and every time we exchanged knowing glances at each other. A taxi stopped and let its headlights illuminate a pile of rubbish. We stopped at one point to let a ute pass; then we saw the same ute a few streets away with a clothes dryer in the back. These were professional hard rubbish scavengers.
Jeremy said it was like a zombie movie and at any point we could expect to encounter a group of people on hands and knees going through the rubbish with their mouths. But I think it was more like Party Crashing: there was a weird sense of combined competition and camaraderie, and I liked the way me and Jeremy worked together to spot and search through the rubbish.
If I had done this on an actual date, right now I would be so up for sex I can't tell you.
Did you know that I actually once went on a hard rubbish date? I've been on Camberwell Market dates too - this was with the same dude. We went a few times, actually - he got lots of analogue electronic equipment to make his experimental music and I got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirts and old hip-house cassette tapes with titles like Rok Da House. He was embarrassed because the stallholder gave me the t-shirt for free because I could sing the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song. I later gave the t-shirt away at my own Camberwell Market stall to someone else who could sing the song.
But the hard rubbish date was awesome. I don't think we even found anything. We just roamed around North Carlton one night. I remember that it was freezing and I kept my hands jammed in my pockets most of the time. I totally want to do it again. Maybe we could make out on someone's discarded brown velour couch.
EDIT: 11:06PM THAT SAME EVENING... I am so excited I can't sleep. Jeremy and I just went cruising North Carlton in his Saab for hard rubbish. (Jeremy is my Claytons date: the date I have when I'm not having a date, even though this is also true of most dates I think I'm on.) And there were heaps of other people doing it too: in cars like us; on foot with torches; casually, while walking dogs.
We spotted a couple of hippie girls cheerfully carting away an armchair, and a bourgie lady with an armful of picture frames, and every time we exchanged knowing glances at each other. A taxi stopped and let its headlights illuminate a pile of rubbish. We stopped at one point to let a ute pass; then we saw the same ute a few streets away with a clothes dryer in the back. These were professional hard rubbish scavengers.
Jeremy said it was like a zombie movie and at any point we could expect to encounter a group of people on hands and knees going through the rubbish with their mouths. But I think it was more like Party Crashing: there was a weird sense of combined competition and camaraderie, and I liked the way me and Jeremy worked together to spot and search through the rubbish.
If I had done this on an actual date, right now I would be so up for sex I can't tell you.
