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The a***hole of Australia
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Jack Marx
Friday, September 05, 2008 at 03:38pm
Sometimes, just for fun, Ill read one of the other news websites, and it was while I was doing this late last night that I found a piece about Stadium Australia (known today by its current sponsors name, but, being that they arent paying me a cent to ramp their wares, I call it Stadium Australia"). The author of the piece lamented the fact that Stadium Australia would probably not draw much of a crowd to this weekends AFL elimination final between Sydney and North Melbourne, the obvious reasons being the Swans poor form, the NRL, the recent Olympics, the start of the A-League season, the Swans own reluctance to compel players to perform meaningful media commitments, and, almost as an afterthought, the stadium itself, which resides in the unimpressive wilds of Homebush. The author expressed some fear at the flak he expected to cop from stadium PR folk, which is one of the perils of sports journalism. Being that Im spared the wrath of such sandwich boards, allow me to tell the truth about Stadium Australia that every sports writer would surely like to express, and which all of Australia should know and admit.
Stadium Australia is a monument to this nations desperation to be seen as anything but the insecure little child it is on the international stage. Completed in 1999 as part of Sydney Olympic Park, a multi-billion-dollar 640-hectare construction which has been practically deserted since the last firecracker went oooh! at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympics, it is proof to the world that Australia can hold its own in the craven, political big dick competition that is the International Olympic Committee. The lack of bums on seats is never blamed on the fact that the stadium sucks - its always us, the punters who dont support the venue (as if it exists not in our service, but the converse), or the sports that are played there (likewise), or the weather that rains there, or the lamington stall that took all our spare cash just the week before
Like most state-funded works since 1955, Stadium Australia has the charm of a cold war interrogation room in which some endless renovation is taking place - concrete, plastic and scaffold-like metal are its visible constituents, with the odd friendless eucalypt and finger of art sprinkled round the arena as if by some cheap god of a hobby train diorama. It has absolutely none of the warmth of the Sydney Cricket Ground or the MCG, in which the very hills and stands seem so full of personality as to be spectators themselves in the games they cradle. This is not really the fault of the architects or engineers, as anything else would have looked out of place in this particular part of the world.
I havent gazed into every ditch in this country, but what I have seen urges me to confidently crown Homebush the most depressing suburb in Australia. It literally stinks, being home to one of the most contaminated waterways in the world, the former swamp being landfill soaked in toxic diarrhea from the bowel of Union Carbide. It features no topography worth talking about, and whoever designed the streets and houses did so with no sympathy at all for the minds and moods of future inhabitants. Homebush is just such a solitary zero of white space and functional humanity that its actually hard to find words for it - one can only grasp at similar visions one might have experienced in the world of the arts: the deserted theme parks in Westworld; the wasteland scream of Einsturzende Neubauten; the type of sh*thole romanticised by the lonesome pull of so much urban realism, but which turns out to be less then hell once youre trapped by the frightful reality of it.
Naturally, the people of Homebush are unhappy products of this most miserably humdrum booger of latitude and longitude: they hate their lives, it seems, and snarl at those fortunate enough to be zipping past on the overhead, on their way to some luscious existence somewhere over the Great Western Motorway. The hills have eyes as the residents drag their sorry feet along near-deserted pedestrian thoroughfares, their fleshy heels bulging over the edges of thongs worn wafer thin since 79 (I must take this opportunity to praise the courage of my wife, who, as designated family driver, foregos the luxury of closing her eyes for the Newington-Strathfield malodorous mile).
And this is the point on the compass to which the authorities would have Sydney turn for its entertainment: to the chemical bog from which came no complaints when a one-trick village was built on its top. Since the worlds attention to Homebush was replaced by tumbleweeds in late 2000, the powers that be have determined to sell us this quagmire of poo as the centre of town. If you want circuses, you must go to Homebush, where the troubles contained in a sewer dolled up. Not the SCG, or the many humble and handsome grounds that welcome all over our city, but a glorified quagmire in the middle of nowhere. Like demented old geezers shuffled into aged care, we are told it is better out here, all new, by bullsh*tting jackasses after our money because theyve already wasted somebody elses. Ours, for example.
They built the countrys biggest toilet, and they can sit on it. Id rather have a sad time in a happy place.
http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/homebush/
15 Comments | 0 Trackbacks | Permalink 
Jack Marx
Friday, September 05, 2008 at 03:38pm
Sometimes, just for fun, Ill read one of the other news websites, and it was while I was doing this late last night that I found a piece about Stadium Australia (known today by its current sponsors name, but, being that they arent paying me a cent to ramp their wares, I call it Stadium Australia"). The author of the piece lamented the fact that Stadium Australia would probably not draw much of a crowd to this weekends AFL elimination final between Sydney and North Melbourne, the obvious reasons being the Swans poor form, the NRL, the recent Olympics, the start of the A-League season, the Swans own reluctance to compel players to perform meaningful media commitments, and, almost as an afterthought, the stadium itself, which resides in the unimpressive wilds of Homebush. The author expressed some fear at the flak he expected to cop from stadium PR folk, which is one of the perils of sports journalism. Being that Im spared the wrath of such sandwich boards, allow me to tell the truth about Stadium Australia that every sports writer would surely like to express, and which all of Australia should know and admit.
Stadium Australia is a monument to this nations desperation to be seen as anything but the insecure little child it is on the international stage. Completed in 1999 as part of Sydney Olympic Park, a multi-billion-dollar 640-hectare construction which has been practically deserted since the last firecracker went oooh! at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympics, it is proof to the world that Australia can hold its own in the craven, political big dick competition that is the International Olympic Committee. The lack of bums on seats is never blamed on the fact that the stadium sucks - its always us, the punters who dont support the venue (as if it exists not in our service, but the converse), or the sports that are played there (likewise), or the weather that rains there, or the lamington stall that took all our spare cash just the week before
Like most state-funded works since 1955, Stadium Australia has the charm of a cold war interrogation room in which some endless renovation is taking place - concrete, plastic and scaffold-like metal are its visible constituents, with the odd friendless eucalypt and finger of art sprinkled round the arena as if by some cheap god of a hobby train diorama. It has absolutely none of the warmth of the Sydney Cricket Ground or the MCG, in which the very hills and stands seem so full of personality as to be spectators themselves in the games they cradle. This is not really the fault of the architects or engineers, as anything else would have looked out of place in this particular part of the world.
I havent gazed into every ditch in this country, but what I have seen urges me to confidently crown Homebush the most depressing suburb in Australia. It literally stinks, being home to one of the most contaminated waterways in the world, the former swamp being landfill soaked in toxic diarrhea from the bowel of Union Carbide. It features no topography worth talking about, and whoever designed the streets and houses did so with no sympathy at all for the minds and moods of future inhabitants. Homebush is just such a solitary zero of white space and functional humanity that its actually hard to find words for it - one can only grasp at similar visions one might have experienced in the world of the arts: the deserted theme parks in Westworld; the wasteland scream of Einsturzende Neubauten; the type of sh*thole romanticised by the lonesome pull of so much urban realism, but which turns out to be less then hell once youre trapped by the frightful reality of it.
Naturally, the people of Homebush are unhappy products of this most miserably humdrum booger of latitude and longitude: they hate their lives, it seems, and snarl at those fortunate enough to be zipping past on the overhead, on their way to some luscious existence somewhere over the Great Western Motorway. The hills have eyes as the residents drag their sorry feet along near-deserted pedestrian thoroughfares, their fleshy heels bulging over the edges of thongs worn wafer thin since 79 (I must take this opportunity to praise the courage of my wife, who, as designated family driver, foregos the luxury of closing her eyes for the Newington-Strathfield malodorous mile).
And this is the point on the compass to which the authorities would have Sydney turn for its entertainment: to the chemical bog from which came no complaints when a one-trick village was built on its top. Since the worlds attention to Homebush was replaced by tumbleweeds in late 2000, the powers that be have determined to sell us this quagmire of poo as the centre of town. If you want circuses, you must go to Homebush, where the troubles contained in a sewer dolled up. Not the SCG, or the many humble and handsome grounds that welcome all over our city, but a glorified quagmire in the middle of nowhere. Like demented old geezers shuffled into aged care, we are told it is better out here, all new, by bullsh*tting jackasses after our money because theyve already wasted somebody elses. Ours, for example.
They built the countrys biggest toilet, and they can sit on it. Id rather have a sad time in a happy place.
http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/homebush/
