Larvatus Prodeo

Andrew Bartlett has written an excellent post on the cultural climate of the Joh era in Brisbane and its continuing legacy. It’s very interesting to observe that a climate of harsh repression and boredom stimulated so much culture and creativity burbling up below the surface. There’s a Foucauldian point here - power and resistance are intimately entwined. Paradoxically when Goss came to power, and the arts became the recipients of state patronage, a lot of the edginess and excitement of the Brisvegas scene disappeared, though there’s still a lot of very interesting cultural work being done. A friend of mine who’s a few years younger than me bemoaned the fact that she heard about all sorts of stuff when she was a teenager, but when she reached legal drinking age most of it had been shut down or sanitised. As I noted at m c gregg’s place, Andrew Stafford’s excellent book Pig City, which Andrew also mentions, is a fabulous politico-cultural history of the Joh years. Interestingly, in light of the point I’m making, Andrew’s book also kind of peters out after the early 90s. Another way to recapture the unique feel of the Joh years, which I’ve written about before, is through literature - Andrew McGahan’s Last Drinks has the added benefit of giving rise to some fascinating reflections on memory, nostalgia, forgetting and mourning. Andrew’s time as a Queensland Uni Arts student just overlapped with mine - I didn’t know him but we had people such as John Birmingham in common. The mid-80s in Brisbane (it wasn’t suffixated as Brisvegas until a bit later) was the time I first engaged with politics, and culture, and sex, and what passed for adult life in those years. So, because of the heady feelings thinking back to those years inspire in me, heightened by Joh’s death, I’m still not quite ready to revisit the memories of that time. Every death has its own meaning, and its own effects on others, and I’m quite surprised by what Joh’s death has made me feel. The ghosts of that past are still with me, it seems.

In the meantime, here are some memories that sprang to mind when Joh turned 94:

Time to revisit the Dispatches from Johburg and share some random memories of my teenage years under the reign of Bjelke:

- as a young public service clerk, going up to the third floor of the Treasury Building with some friends and sitting in Russ Hinze’s enormous leather chair and drinking his scotch

- coming home every night during the Seqeb strike and reading by candlelight

- smoking dope on the dance floor of the unlicensed club downstairs on Elizabeth Street in the middle of town that was open twenty four hours

- being taken by my boss to the gambling joint over the road from the Gabba Dogs and discovering that the scotch and sandwiches and cab fare were free and that uniformed cops would come in to throw out people who complained the games were rigged

- the Joh for PM sticker that came free with the Saturday Courier-Mail one week

- watching Big Russ on tv declare “there are no illegal casinos or brothels in Brisbane - Terry Lewis drove me round the Valley last night and showed me where they weren’t”

- watching the cops arrest a priest in vestments and a one-legged woman on crutches and them being bundled into the back of a paddywaggon at a protest at Victoria Park

- the pile of stat decs for underage patrons at the ZZZ club in Roma Street where me and my mod suited friends used to go and listen to ska bands

- hearing on the radio in a Yellow Cab (typical cabbie opening line - “what do you think about that Joh, mate? lots of cranes on the skyline”) that Joh had resigned and the incredibly violent storm felt absolutely right

- the feeling of freedom that you’d get driving over the NSW border

- how nothing ever happened on Sundays and the buses stopped at 5pm

It’s funny how many memories of the Joh Era seem to be night time ones. But it was that sort of time. Pleasures were secret and hidden, and protesting was too hard sometimes in a sweaty Brisbane summer. Much easier to drink beer on the back deck. You can get a sense of the feel of the Joh years in Andrew McGahan’s excellent novel Last Drinks and Venero Armanno’s Firehead…

On a different note: There’s a guest post by another Queenslander on the politics of Johdom at Barista. Rob Corr puts Joh in his place very succinctly.

In other Joh-related news: The mooted picket of his funeral has been called off.

Worth a visit: The Queensland College of Art has an exhibition of 70s/80s political posters at its Southbank gallery.

Elsewhere: Michael talks about his memories of Joh over at Poustinia.