Articles
A paradise unmindful of catastrophe Story & image S Sorrensen
When I was a kid, tough men were wiry blokes with bodies shaped by hard physical work. Under blue singlets were stomachs as hard as a droughted paddock, flat as a factory floor. They weren’t big men, but they were tough, with weathered skin and dirty nails. A pair of young men walks past where I loiter on a footpath in downtown Surfers Paradise. I like Surfers Paradise. (There, I’ve said it.) It’s decadent. Lying next to an increasingly agitated ocean, but unintimidated by this vulnerable proximity, Surfers Paradise is where the last wave of the Western dream is crashing onto expensive real estate in a dump of money, drugs and designer torn jeans. With gobal catastrophe confined to screens, small and large, on which Syrian deserts, French churches, and Australian juvenile detention centres vie with Pokemon, The Block and Instagram for our attention, portfolioed people from
around the world, sharing a taste for tinsel and tequila, come here to flirt with the jaded joys of consumerism, the waxed fantasies of voyeurism, and the real dangers of melanoma. I’m having a break from a ‘professional development day’ in the building behind me. This exercise in enfeebling language by injecting it with jargon which saps all meaning has put me, with the others, on a ‘synergised pathway to desired outcomes’.
I need air. A woman balancing precariously on pink high heels (Surfers beachwear) stands at the crossroads. She stares at her phone, a furrowed brow creasing her makeup. A block away, the ocean is itching to get into the party, but the dune is a bouncer shaking its head. Pop tunes bubble out of the Hard Rock Cafe, and Japanese language babbles from a gaggle of tourists, shopping bags in one hand, phones in
the other, heading towards the Ugg Boot and Opal Store. The two young men walk past. Well, it’s hardly a walk; it’s more of a waddle. Bulging thighs preclude a normal gait, and enlarged biceps make it impossible for elbows to touch torso, keeping their arms splayed. The old wiry blokes would laugh at them. (I don’t.) These bodies have been sculpted in a gym, not in a factory or paddock. If some women are pressured to look like the airbrushed anorexic model staring down from the nearby billboard, then some men feel the need to have a body that looks like it’s been overinflated at a service station, a steroidal Michelin Man. They look tough, sure, but that could be the haircuts. If there was an intergenerational punch-up, I’d put my money on the wiry blokes of yore. A snippet as they pass: ‘... I’m like, no way, she’s too hot for you, and he’s like, no, she really digs me. ‘Meanwhile she’s like giving me the eye...’ Okay, it isn’t Shakespeare
(and let us reflect on the sad passing of ‘said’) but compared to the corporate mutilations I’ve been listening to all morning, it’s at least human. The speaker wears like designer tracksuit pants and a muscle shirt. Tattoos cover his arm like a haemorrhage, bleeding up onto his neck, where his trapezius muscles are flying buttresses to a shaved temple. He is all gym muscle, as is his mate. They both text while they swagger. Or maybe they’re looking for Pokemon. I don’t know. They stagger up to the woman. Her lips, a glossy pink (matching her shoes), part into a smile, and, teetering in her high heels, she hooks her arm around the speaker’s obese bicep. So, off they go, a cool crippled trio, stumbling towards the beach, where the sea bides its time. Yep, I like Surfers Paradise. It’s a diamante patch on the world’s fraying fabric, sparkling in the last rays. Q Read more of S’s work at
echo.net.au/here-and-now
Debt doubling Superfund survey group ME’s tenth biannual Household Financial Comfort Report shows marked deterioration in Australian households’ confidence in their ‘ability to manage debt over the next six to 12 months’, doubling from about five per cent over the past few years to ten per cent in the past six months to June 2016. Single parents reported the highest levels of concern in their ‘ability to meet minimum debt repayments over the next six to 12 months’ (19 per cent), followed by ‘couples with young children’ (15 per cent) and ‘young singles/ couples’ (12 per cent). Consistent with an expected rise in debt stress, more households ‘paying off or owning a home’ reported to be drawing on their home equity to ‘pay off debt’ (up 4 points to 11 per cent) and ‘to make ends meet’ (also up 4 points to 10 per cent) during the first half of 2016. Jeff Oughton, ME’s consulting economist and report co-author, said that there is a marked increase in households feeling vulnerable to income shocks associated with wage cuts and fewer hours worked.
Plastic Free July in Mullumbimby was an amazing success with traders taking on the challenge to reduce the supply of disposable plastics. Big thanks to our participants, supporters and sponsors: Allure, Amber Martin Design, Anglican Op Shop, Art Piece gallery, Australian Sustainability Institute, Bamboo Piece, Birds Nest Hair, Bolsa Bags, Book Barn, Branches, Bridgland’s Betta Electrical & Betta Home Living, Brown Paper Packages, Buon Appetito, Byron Community College, Byron Shire Council, Byron Shire Echo, Cactus Hill Project, Cheeki Water Bottles and Cups, Chemsave Pharmacy, Chincogan Real Estate, Chincogan Store, Commonwealth Bank, Court House Hotel, Craig Watson Soul Pattinson Pharmacy, Digital Electronics, 'ROSKLQ 2I¿ FH &KRLFH Earth Bottles, Eden’s Landing, Education Care Op Shop, Empire Cafe & Deluxe Burger Bar, Flash Computers, Green House Grocer, Honey Bee Wraps, Izakaya Yu, James Hardware Mitre 10, John Robinson Accounting & Tax, Liberty Service Station, Lulu’s CafÊ, Made in Mullum, Michael’s Guitar Studio, Main Arm Primary School, Main Arm Store & Bottlo, Middle Pub, Motion Circus, Mullum Baa Baa, Mullum Cares, Mullum Chocolate Shop, Mullum Disposals, Mullumbimby Emporium, Mullum Heads Organic Hair, Mullum Herbals, Mullum Instyle Living, Mullum Mac, Mullum Printworks, Mullum S.E.E.D. Inc, Mullumbimby Chamber of Commerce, Mullumbimby Chiropractic, Mullumbimby Farmers Market, Mullumbimby IGA, Mullumbimby Jewellers, Mullumbimby Newsagency, National Australia Bank, Octec Employment Service, Phoenix Mens Wear, Plastic Free Byron Shire, Poinciana Cafe, Portabello, Print Rescue (Bruns), Professionals Real Estate, Punch & Daisy, Puremelt Chocolate, Responsible Cafes, Santos Organics, Scarecrows Kitchen, Scratch Patisserie, SeventhDay Adventist Op Shop, Shanti Town, Sheer Taste Canteen, Son of Drum, Source Bulkfoods, Southern Cross Credit Union, Spinifex, STEER Project, The Silver Lining, Stewart’s Menswear, Sue M’s Boutique, Sunshine Alley, Tamara Smith MP, Tatu-Lu’s, Tinker Taylor Dancer Trader, Tursa Employment and Training, Video Ezy, Vinnies Op Shop, :H 5H¿ OO, Yemen, Your Straw, Yoga Pad, Zero Emissions Byron, and to all people who have reduced their use of disposable plastics for the sake of our planet. Check mullumcares.com.au for more details.
16 August 10, 2016 The Byron Shire Echo
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo