“You and me, we’ll go motorbike ridin’ in the sun and the wind and the rain
I’ve got money in my pocket, I’ve got a tiger in my tank, and I’m king of the road again.”
- David Dundas, Jeans On (1976)
Week 7 ½.
This THC is a week late. I won’t plead “being busy” for fear of derisive snorts, but will instead take a little moral high ground by saying if there isn’t anything much to write, I won’t pollute your inbox.
The past couple of days have drawn the station’s and my attention away from the TasNarnia elections for a few moments (they’re creeping toward their climax next Saturday) and several of us hit the road. Sunday afternoon I was wedged into a car with my boss and two Marketing creatures for the drive to Launceston for the northern station’s switch to FM; time seemed to warp and stretch far beyond the 2 ½ hours drive the trip is reckoned to take. The less said, the better.
Then on Tuesday arvo, another 3 hours back north and west to the seaside town of Ulverstone, referred to by the Mornings team Tim’n’John as The Stone of Ulver, for an outdoor broadcast. Considering we were there to broadcast from the Ulysses Club’s national AGM, I think the town should have been renamed just ’Stone.
Ulysses is a social group whose members have the common interest of motorcycling. Anyone over 40 with a current motorcycle license can join as a junior member; full membership once you turn 50. Looking at some of them, one is tempted to mentally rename them the Methuselah Club, but ‘Ulysses’ actually refers to a poem by Lord Tennyson.
According to the Ulysses literature, “It tells how the great Greek hero Ulysses, now middle-aged and securely in charge of his kingdom of Ithaca, is getting bored with things around him and longs to go adventuring again with his shipmates of old. It describes very well indeed the sort of person who still has enough spark to go on riding into middle and later years.” Sound like anyone we know?
About two thirds of the registered attendees were already there at ’Stone on Wednesday. That’s about 2,000 of an expected 3,000 crusty old bikers wearing a lot of leather and denim, worse for wear with days of camping in tents, and with either long beards, violently coloured hair… or both. And riding an estimated total of $30m worth of machinery.
Actually, that appearance stuff is a bit of a stereotype. There’s all sorts in the club; it’s just that the freakier sort are more eye-catching. Here are some of said characters I met while wrangling talent for the OB:
· a bloke astride a huge purple trike, with the perfect but pasty complexion and neat top hat of a mature aged goth, his woman riding on the back. The woman explained to me that her husband here was a junior club member at just 48 yo, but she was a full member at 62. Go, sister.
· a fellow who was evidently auditioning for the Club’s honorary court jester, wearing disturbing reflective picture glasses and riding a bike festooned with legends such as “Hoonda”, and “Mobile Breast Tester”. He also wore a Cat In The Hat-sized leather top hat, from which he conjured a can of breakfast beer for Tim the broadcaster.
· a very neat and tidy and quietly spoken fellow in tasteful dark grey and gold riding gear, on a scooter! (admittedly a very large one). Possibly a Friend of Dorothy. Said he was received by other members with scorn and welcome in equal measure.
· a bloke running a business called Last Rides, in which one can have one’s remains popped in a coffin and strapped to a Harley in a sidecar to be escorted to one’s final resting place. Tim referred to him as “the dead guy” on air. The Dead Guy had the temerity to check out my bum when I was adjusting his microphone (he pronounced it to be “awwwwrite”).
If striding around the ’Stone showgrounds was like being transported back to Stone’s Sydney circa 1974, the little town proper was well set up for modern tourists, with plenty of decent food and coffee options. No doubt many of ’Stone’s businesses were doing a brisk trade with the influx of visitors.
Despite looking like extras from Mad Max, a number of them seemed quite genteel and interested in the wider world. Some actually professed to be Auntie listeners. What then did they make of the menu at the ’Stone pub at which Auntie’s OB gang of four dined on Tuesday night? The steak option offered “you choice of sauce”. We thought it was a mistake, until we noticed that some other meat option also came with “you choice of sauce”. In fact, the more we looked, the more missing final consonants were apparant. I noticed even the specials board included an item called “marinate chicken”. 'Stone is quite monocultural, so no funny foreign types making spelling mistakes. Perhaps it's a new variety of the old misplaced apostrophe...
Surreal? Perhaps we were ’Stoned.
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