When the missus has had a few drinks she often makes command decisions worthy of General Custer and, as so often happens when she has had a skinful, she hit upon the idea of finding a place she could dance. She knows that I can’t dance to save my life, having all of the natural grace and rhythm of a gout-addled epileptic walrus so I am fairly she does this on a subconscious level to make me more uncomfortable.
Fortunately, with the closure of the living hell that was Boogie Wonderland, the number of clubs in Auckland that play cheesy pop music (rather than the puzzlingly popular RnB) you can now count on the fingers of one head. So, after leaving two of the party behind simply because they were Australian, we headed to Karangahape Road (or K Road as the local vernacular has it).
This road is probably the crime capital of Auckland and virtually every time Police Ten 7 shows somewhere unruly in the city, it is K Road. It is also the location of the miniscule Gay, Lesbian and Transvestite scene in this fair town.
It’s a very odd place. One end of the road features the Langham, one of Auckland’s most upmarket hotels, and the other features a pile of rotting garbage known as the 24Seven Bar. Somewhere in the middle there is a sliding scale of crime, debauchery and really bad kebabs. If you want something, you can find it on K Road, especially if that something is to be brutally assaulted by a mentalist in a dress.
In the daytime it is full of music shops, tattoo parlours, eclectic cafes and lots of retro and hippy stores. At night it appears to be dodgy takeaways (where the Korean meatballs probably are the dog’s bollocks), rough bars and pools of rapidly congealing blood. It’s like one of those comedy speakeasys where the roulette table and drinks cabinets flip over to reveal a dinner table with lit candelabras and a radio playing the Waldo Chester Juggling Hour just as the Feds smash through the door and proceed to scratch their heads in puzzlement. Every day at 6am the entire street flips back over to reveal a respectable row of shops, while an army of slaves work on the seedy side mopping up blood and vomit before the night shift begins again.
As we travelled up Queen Street towards our target, as sure as eggs is eggs and any film where Jason Statham is the lead being a steaming pile of shit, the area became steadily rougher and rougher. Gangs littered the pavements, drunken revellers staggered their way between the window down-stereo on hoodmobiles and the “Back off, Bro” quotient went off the charts. By the time we got to K Road, there were already two police cars in evidence as officers attempted to get some sense out of drunken teenagers on the steps of a bar playing some god-awful Kanye West track. I think the cops should have shot them and anyone else in the bar merely for listening to Kanye, but I’m probably alone in my views.
After several minutes we stood in a loose circle outside The Family Bar, perhaps K Road’s most famous gay haunt while attempting to listen to the music that was playing inside and trying not to stare at the transvestite sitting on the bench behind us. Well, I say “transvestite” but that was stretching it somewhat. Effort wise he was getting a sympathetic F, mainly as he seemed to be undecided whether to dress as Danny LaRue or Gabby Johnson from Blazing Saddles.
I once saw a documentary about sea birds where, during mating season, the males would gather on a clifftop and basically show off in order to attract a mate. The elderly ones, past their prime and unable to preen themselves and squawk their little hearts out, would turn up anyway out of instinct but look on miserably from the edges as everyone else got paired up. Was this guy one of the old guard who had assembled here to look on as the youngsters conducted their colourful courtship rituals? After a while I came to the conclusion that;
A) I can’t apply the lifecycles of puffins to transvestites, and
B) I didn’t care.
Then someone pointed out that he was just some homeless guy who had stumbled upon a rainbow coloured feather boa. F*ck you very much, David Attenborough!
Somewhat predictably the music pumping out from the bar was Lady Gaga, though the video showing on the screens was Van Halen’s not so gay classic Jump. For a moment I thought this was some weird flashback dream sequence I was having after eating that space cake in Amsterdam, but it turned out that the video screens were just showing random stuff on mute while the DJ played the gay anthems of the moment. After several moments of deliberation we ventured inside, passing several burly men with shaved heads and very tight t-shirts. I’d left my tight t-shirt at home so didn’t really blend in.
I’ll have an aside here and explain why the wife often sees me as mildly homophobic. I grew up in a family with absolutely no known gay people in it and basically my early experiences with gay friends involved sidestepping several uncomfortable attempts to seduce me. In the gay bars I have visited in my crash course of gay culture my shaved head and gorilla like appearance was apparently a big draw, presumably among the blind and/or drunk members of the pink fraternity. Then there is the fact that it has taken me some 20 years to get used to seeing two men kissing to the point where it is no longer an issue for me. However, I will point out in my defence that to see a couple of any gender or persuasion going at it hammer and tongs in public is not exactly my cup of tea. Unless it’s Charlize Theron and Megan Fox, but that’s pretty much a given.
I acknowledge that due to my upbringing I am a dinosaur and hopefully one of the last of a dying breed. The next generation won’t have my restrictions to overcome and I think the world will be a much happier place as a result.
Meanwhile, back in The Family Bar…no sooner had we settled down when two transvestites made a grand and noisy entrance. The second of these was wearing something I can only describe as Widow Twankey meets Rainbow Brite. Had a colour blind version of Aladdin been playing in town I would have assumed that she had come to the wrong stage door, but regardless, it was an A for effort in my book, if only for the astonishing hat.
However, she was way behind the lovely, awe inspiring sight of Miss Ribena.
Miss Ribena is what I can only describe as the bastard offspring of Jonah Lomu and Carmen Miranda. Standing well over six feet tall in her heels and with biceps like cannonballs, she strode through the bar in her purple ensemble drawing gasps and adoration from all who viewed her.
About 12 months ago I was becoming infuriated with Call Of Duty: World At War when trying to storm the Reichstag for the umpteenth time on Veteran setting. It was insanely hard as the hated Nazis were all crack shots and had a billion grenades each that they would throw with surgical precision next to my cowering form.
Had Miss Ribena been beside me striking terror into the hearts of the krauts with her purple eyeliner and arms that could snap a panzershreck in two, I feel sure I would have completed that game in 93 seconds, my Red Army soldiers hoisting a rainbow flag above the ruined squarehead stronghold.
Anyway, after a round of drinks and a trip to the loo it was time to move on as the wife’s attempts to embarrass me had failed and I seemed to be losing my homo-erotic appeal as I didn’t get chatted up once. I did have to manhandle a bloke into the toilets as he was drunkenly trying to negotiate the complex method of door opening while punters stared at him incredulously. One shove in the back later and the door magically opened as his head struck it. It was brutality and education all in one, provided free of charge by your friendly neighbourhood maniac.
Call Of Nature:Toilet Assault is out now on PS3 and Xbox 360.
Striking terror into the hearts of Nazis by being fabulous...
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