MELLIPOP AND THE TATTOO

OK, so I've been seriously thinking about getting a tattoo for a few years now (I can right this moment hear my mother wailing from 4000kms away).

Something small. Something discrete. Something that means something.

It's something I keep putting off doing, not because I am unsure about the unquestionable permanency of branding my skin with a symbol that will last forever. But for the denial of what that symbol stands for. The ineradicable truth of what that symbol means to me - which is something I have lost forever. Something which goes much further than skin deep.

I lost one of my best friends almost four years ago. Someone I still think about at least once every day. More than just a friend, she was the little sister I never biologically had, and she was only 17 when she was killed in a car accident. Of the many things we excitedly talked about, were all the things we would do together when she finally turned 18. Clubbing, pubbing, credit-card shopping, prowling for boys.

Me with my few extra years of valuable experience accompanying her on those many rites of passage that make themselves available to us when we legally come-of-age. Me dragging her out onto the cheesy dance floor. Me warning her about the dangers of mixing drinks. Me watching over her maternally while she vomited in the dingy toilet cubicle at some dingy suburban nightclub, making all the appropriate, all-knowing, non-verbal gestures of comfort and sympathy while holding her hair back from the mess. Me kicking the worthless asses of the hordes of young men who dared to mess with her on my shift.

The other thing we talked about was that we were both going together to get tattoos when she turned 18, so neither of us could pussy out when it came to the pain factor. By “neither of us” I meant her. We both agreed that I was the brave one and she was the pussy when it came to the pain factor. I was going to have to hold her hand through it. I never knew exactly what my eternal epidermal totem was going to be, but thought that I still had plenty of time up my sleeve to work it out before the clock ticked around to the big 1-8 for my little sister. Turns out I had more time than I ever could have envisaged, and almost four years down the track I’m still tatt-free.

Amy always knew what tattoo she was going to get. In between bumming my fags, talking about boys, dying my hair some unspeakable colour from the latest Loreal home hair-care range, complaining about her teachers and updating me on the latest bitchy in-fighting going on at school, Amy would talk about her horse. And all things horse-related. And she’d play me the theme song from “The Man From Snowy River” on her piano just about every afternoon while I’d sit and drink endless cups of coffee. She hated playing the piano but she loved playing that song.

Amy wanted a galloping horse as her tattoo.

I quite dislike horses, myself. Truth be told, they terrify me. That didn’t stop Amy from trying to get me on that damn horse of hers. And as persistent as she was, she never did get me anywhere near the stirrups. The closest I ever got was feeding the darn thing carrots through the paddock fence, with my arm at a full superhero stretch. She always thought that was hilarious. But it didn’t stop her from continuing to try.

As it turns out, I never got on her horse and she never got her tattoo. So for the last three years I have been thinking about getting that horse tattoo for her. But I keep pussying out because of the pain factor. Not the physical pain of going through the process, but the emotional pain of what that process now represents, and how fundamentally it differs from what was supposed to be a celebration of our love, our friendship and our misguided sense of youthful immortality. Now - in addition to those other things - it represents mortality, mourning and separation.

So that’s why I haven’t yet gotten that tattoo. The pain factor. I guess maybe I did need her to hold my hand after all.

MELLIPOP MEGA-RANT: REAL ESTATE AGENTS ARE CRITTERS

NOTE FROM MELLIPOP: This is a very venomous piece I posted in anger, removed in cowardice, and then re-posted with a furry euphemism to replace a furry obscenity so it's now "cunt-free" and once more "pensioner-friendly". (See previous post). It still makes me cringe, though. And there are still too many "fucks" in it for my liking. But here is, back by request.


OK, so I’m REALLY shitted off today. Strictly MA+ rating on this one, folks.

Landlords and Real Estate Agents are the biggest pack of critters roaming the earth.

Yes. You heard me correctly. Mellipop – no stranger to holding back when it comes to obscenity - just used the word “critters”. Without irony. And I suspect that more than a few “fucks” are going to be thrown about today as well. You might want to put the kids to bed because I’m feeling mighty fucking prickly right now.

Every rental tenancy I’ve ever experienced has resulted in some critter-licking real-estate agent and/or landlord trying to rip me off and quite frankly, I’ve had enough.

So I get home today and there is a letter from the real estate agent in the mailbox. The letter from the real estate agent contains correspondence from the landlord, who is based in the UK. And straight away I know it’s not going to be a Merit Award for Always Paying My Rent On Time and Being an All-Round Good Sport type of scenario.

The type of all-round good sport who hasn’t kicked up a stinking diva fuss about the malfunctioning hot water system that doesn’t actually work if you turn the cold water tap on at the same time as the hot water tap - as I attempt to daily in my ongoing series of outlandish experiments to determine if I can feasibly have a warm shower in the morning. As opposed to either a completely scorching hot one or a completely freezing cold one.

I hear that on the East Coast, warm water is a proven theory, not just a frustrating hypothesis. But it’s been almost seven months now, and I’ve forgotten what a warm shower feels like. Or if in fact, they really do exist, or whether they are just a wildly delusional fabrication of my rose-coloured Sydney nostalgia.

This is the risk I take every morning as I dance around the shower head in a vain attempt to bathe without incurring third degree burns. Our real estate agent claims that “she used to have one just like that” and that it is actually a common quirk of design and manufacture over here. Apparently the previous tenants experienced the same problem, but it seems that the technology over here isn’t quite advanced enough to rectify the issue (though humankind in general has absolutely no trouble at all with interplanetary travel). Nor is the problem serious enough for us to legally be able to suspend our rent payments until it gets fixed. Case closed. CRITTERS!

Burn you little Sydney fuckers! But keep paying your rent on time – you’re both top sports!

So anyway, we pay our rent on time, put up with archaic hot water technology and refrain from having wild parties where holes are kicked in doors, windows are smashed and excrement is smeared all over the walls (puppy poo aside, of course). I mean, we aren’t exactly the calibre of A Current Affair-style “Tenants From Hell” but by god I’m tempted to give those destructive bogans a run for their money now. Those landlord fuckers have no idea what two toothsome Staffies can do to a place – given free reign and the wholehearted encouragement of their bitter owners.

But that’s all a moot point anyway. Our landlord’s outlandish scheme – as outlined in the correspondence that has prompted so much cussing right here - is to get us to pay for damage to the property that existed before we even moved in.

Now I’m a responsible lass (though somewhat prone to obsencity on occasions where it is justified). I have the utmost respect for other people and their property. Anton and I reassured the real estate agent, on her recent inspection, that the mess the dogs have caused to some of the plants in the garden outside would be rectified at our expense, and that we have no qualms in reimbursing the landlord for any damage that may occur as the result of our dogs during the period of our tenancy.

But the UK-based landlord fuckers have stated their intention to hold us responsible for damage that pre-existed our moving in to the house. In this case, they want us to have all the floorboards “”professionally sanded and sealed (at their expense)”. Now again, I would be OK with that if the fucking floorboards were sanded and sealed to polished pristine before we got here. However, the fucking floorboards were scratched to almighty buggery before we even got here, and don’t look as though they have ever been sealed, sanded, polished, sucked, fucked or blown. CRITTERS!

So the gloves are on. They also have the hide to try and browbeat us into submission on signing another six-month lease. Depending on how this all progresses, we may well be homeless, yet again.

This is the third time I have been royally fucked by real estate agents and bloodsucking landlords. The first time I took it to the Tribunal and kicked their coward, lying-asses. I lived in a ghetto block of flats in Parramatta, and they kept refusing to return my bond on account that all the other tenants who were exiting kept leaving rubbish on the property, like old TVs and piss-stained mattresses.

They claimed that the other tenants had accused me of dumping all that crap. I mean sure, that was convenient for them. IT WAS THEIR CRAP THEY WERE DUMPING! But what 22 year old girl keeps three filthy mattresses, a couple of ancient non-functioning TVs, some smashed up IKEA furniture and a box full of yellowing erotic fiction novels stashed away in her apartment for safe-keeping? I’m 22 right - I’m having PLENTY of REAL sex! AND all my furniture came from fucking OP shops anyway!

Round 1: Mellipop kicks Bottom-feeding Real Estate ASS!

The second time was a right corker. It was the last time I ever had a full-on screaming match with someone who wasn’t actually related to me (or was an ex-boyfriend).

An emphatic word of advice for the property-market rental-refugee. Never, EVER rent directly from the landlord. As critter-licking as real estate agents are, at least their interests are somewhat less detached to the property in question.

So a few years back I rented a studio apartment in Sydney from a couple of old wogs. One room the size of a cardboard box, with a dinky kitchenette and a bathroom. $185 criminal dollars a week. Rent paid on time – ALL the time. So the old wog man was OK (long-term Mellipop regulars will remember the post on my flirtatious success with old wog men). The old wog woman was – and sadly I can think of no more poetic or original way to say this – a TOTAL FUCKING BITCH.

To cut a long and painful story short, I went back on several occasions to do the final clean up, according to her excessively compulsive demands. I even enlisted poor old long-suffering Anton to help me do the once over on the apartment with me – though by this stage I was probably up to at least the thrice over. Thinking that my servitude to the Wog Bitch From Hell was finally over, I went back to hand over the keys with a great sense of relief, and walked into find her on all fours in the corner peering at a single speck of dust that mysteriously happened to evade both the broom and the mop on their many trips around the room.

So it was on. There was lots of yelling and screaming, her accusing me of being some filthy gutter-dweller, me accusing her of being an overly anal bitch just for the sake of it etc. All the while her sheepish husband stood by and witnessed her in full-flight in a way that made me suspect that this was not the first time during the long tenure of their marriage that he had to stand by quietly as she did her “overzealous bitch” routine. Her ridiculous claim was that she was going to take the whole $740 of my bond money to hire a cleaner to clean the dust from the corners of the ONE ROOM of the apartment.

Essentially it ended with me telling her that I would take her to the Tribunal – replete with all the usual “see you in court, critter” cliches – as we went toe to toe over my bond money. I think I even said something as overly dramatic as “I’ve come across worse than you woman, and still come out on top”. You get the drift.

In the end, the wog husband saw reason and reassured me that they wouldn’t try to take my bond money, and apologised for his harpie bitch wife. And I got my money back.

Round 2: Mellipop kicks Wog-critter Landlord ASS!

Man, I’m exhausted. Apologies to all for the overzealous obscenity, but I'm really revved up tonight. Congrats to all who made it to the bitter end of this post.

And sorry especially to Mum. But you’ve owned your own house for 30 years. You couldn’t possibly understand. You will though, when you have to get in our goddamn shower! I reckon I’ll hear a few “critters” and “fucks” from you then….

MELLIPOP GETS CENSORED

Ok, so some of you have noticed that I have removed the venomous "Real Estate Agents Are (ahem..) Critters" post, in a cowardly act of self-censorship I hoped would have gone unnoticed and un-commented on.

Why?

Well, after the heady buzz of extreme irritation and four VBs had worn off, re-reading the post made me cringe. A few years ago I would have framed and hung the darn thing as a piece of pure genius. But I was much angrier then. I liked being angry and scary. I'm kind of over it now.

Maybe I'm becoming tame and mellow in my old years, but sustaining that level of anger over anything is just far too tiresome. I might post the bugger again, at the request of nightrider (P.S. I STILL can't get the comments on your blog to work) but I think I'll take the scalpel to it a bit first.

Or at least substitute the word "critters" for "cunts". I hate that fucking word.

MEATLOAF: THE REVIEW

Ok, so I mentioned briefly in an earlier lacklustre post that in response to my “Mistaken For a Meatloaf Fan” incident with the ironic t-shirt, my darling mother saw fit to post me Meatloaf’s Greatest Hits CD from the East Coast. A review is in order.

So I load the darn thing onto Mrs Mac and my first instance of mortification comes from the fact that Track 1 – Bat Out of Hell (Live) - runs a mere 10 minutes 49 seconds in length. Talk about leaving you wanting more. Ten tracks more, as is the case. Each running an average of 7 or 8 minutes in length. Apparently this is a selling point. According to the sleevenotes “This also makes them good value in pub juke-boxes”.

There’s a tip for all aspiring pub DJs. Pound for pound and pence for pence, you’re always better off betting on Meatloaf, than say, that fourth successive spin of Khe Sahn by Cold Chisel (P.S. Now label me a Genuine Certified Bogan, but I fucking LOVE that song).

Now, as tiresomely lengthy and overblown as the actual songs are, they are similarly christened with tiresomely lengthy and overblown titles - so long, in fact, that they even include their own fucking footnotes in brackets. The track names are so tantalisingly easy to parody that I am tempted to avoid even making the joke. But not quite that tempted. I am still in the midst of a deadening creative slump, you see.

So...

“Midnight at the Lost and Found” becomes “Meatloaf CD at the Lost and Found”.

and...

“Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back” becomes “This Meatloaf CD is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back”.

Boom boom.

It’s just far too painfully obvious to be even remotely funny, even in a Daryl Somers-Hey Hey kind of a way. I do realise that.

My favourite track on the whole CD is called “Runnin’ For the Red Light (I Gotta Life)”. It is my favourite song on the album, for two simple reasons:

1) At 3:58 it is the SHORTEST track on the CD
2) At Track 11, it is the LAST track on the CD

I am also quite fond of the obseqious sleevenotes, which make oft-hilarious statements like “For some reason, Meatloaf’s albums went into a bit of a decline” and “Tours and TV work kept our hero busy for a few years”. In addition to his ground-breaking role as “Dennis the Bus Driver” in the Spice Girls movie, according to Mr Hack Hagiographic Sleevenote Writer.

I mean essentially, it’s a pretty crappy selection of tracks. It doesn’t even have that song I ALMOST like in a non-ironic way. The one that goes “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Must Have Been Why You Were Kissing Me)”.

Fuck! While typing out that last overlong song title, I just came to a scary realisation. Meatloaf and Mellipop both share a love for the smarmy bracketed-comment, in our vain attempts to be witty. And we also share an irritating penchant for over-worded tautology (Fuck! That was a tautology! Double fuck!! Where did that fucking bracket come from!?!)

Could it be that I am the blogging equivalent of Meatloaf?