Passionista by Luke James

I lack passion.

What I mean by that is I have been TOLD that I lack passion.

The first time I heard this was about a month ago. A co-worker was prattling about his love for fifteenth century Flemish art and made a comment about how the triptych was used as an avenue to express social and political comment. I sat behind him making hand signals to indicate my disdain for his masturbatory opinion- seriously, who name checks Hieronymus Bosch when their idea of a perfect Sunday "arvo" is nine $2 pots of VB? When I articulated my distaste for his ex-hippie, ex-uni-student, quasi-bourgeois-Northern-Renaissance-for-the-masses love for said art, another co-worker, a close personal friend, dropped an accusation- "Luke, you don’t have any passion".

My jaw gaped. Me? A man who wept openly during the final scenes of 'The Bridges of Madison County'? A man who can't speak when he hears 'Into Temptation' by Crowded House because the love and confusion and sadness and overwhelming Catholic guilt stab him in the guts like a double-serve of unrequited love? A man who celebrated Steven Gerrard's 35 yard piledriver in the 93rd minute of the 2006 FA Cup final so hard he fell off his bar stool and injured a French woman?

That's right. Me. Passionless little old me.

Two weeks ago on a lazy Sunday morning I was talking to someone else. A friend. A girl. OK, a girl I like. Well, a woman really… anyway, the topic came up again.

I think I mentioned that I didn’t love my job. And that I didn't love food as much as she did. And that I hadn't touched my guitar in a few months (this is typically a sign that all is not well in Lukey-land).

She actually gasped. It was audible. Kind of wheezy, but the vocal chords were definitely engaged. You know at 0:44 of 'Jesus Walks' where Kanye says '…top floor, the view alone would leave you breathless, mmhhh, trying to catch it, mmhhh…'? It sounded like that.

"You lack passion!", she yelled. The tone was accusatory. She repeated it, but this time triumphantly- "You lack passion!".

"No, I don't", came my ever-so-witty retort.

"You do, you do, you do". It had a certain singsong quality to it, like an Irish accent. Unfortunately, like an Irish accent, it was also very annoying.

I had to disagree again. Then she came at me with logic.

"In the last 15 minutes you have said 'I don't care' at least six times. You don't care about anything".

I did my best to rebut her argument, and what followed went more or less like this:

Me: I'm passionate about music.

Her: Your passionate about pretension.

Me: I'm passionate about clothes.

Her: You just want to look like the fifth Beatle. You're NOT the fifth Beatle.

Me: I'm passionate about football.

Her: Pffft.

And that, pretty much, was where my defensive rally ended. I was out of ammo and I was out of steam. It was my Waterloo, just with less blood and silly hats.


******************************************

Since then I quit my job, bailed on my life here in Melbourne and joined Greenpeace. They do a lot of great stuff, fight for a lot of good causes. I have a lot of respect for what they do. I don't LOVE it, but it's ok. I also play in a band with a few of the guys on the ship, mostly U2 covers though. Still, it's nice to be passionate about what I’m doing. Well, sort of.

The Latent Accountant by Amanda Kramer

It was well and truly dusk as he lay in bed thinking of ways to do his presentation to the Artistic Directors of Melbourne without using PowerPoint. The evil, blasphemous brief was specific, and recommended exploring other ways to get the budding artist’s creative idea across. The thought filled him with resentment so bitter his stomach turned and he felt a lump in his throat. His eyes hurt. He turned in his single bed, hearing it creak and felt a cold draft lick his toe as the blanket was cruelly wrenched from his foot with the movement of it all.

After six months in the arts industry, where the girls (women) had shiny lips and were far too loud, and the men’s presence made him stammer and loosen his tie in an effort to appear more at ease, the concern began to consume his entire being. If he was a Mr. Men character, he thought, he would probably be Mr. Grumpy. But he was not fond of the colour purple or cartoons so he banished that thought.

He climbed out of bed and stood in front of his square window in his flannelette pyjamas. It wasn’t quite summer and he was a practical man. From there, he watched the neighbours across the block finishing dinner and talking.

He did this when he needed distraction, watched the neighbours that is. Pondering what possible topics could form their conversations served as a welcome, almost challenging mind game for him. (He’d met the family before, of course. This was anything but voyeuristic and sinister). As he watched Jo pack the dishwasher while Geoff chatted with the baby on his knee, he wondered what on earth they could possibly be talking about. Surely they had already covered the important and necessary topics such as whether each other’s day was sufficiently enjoyable and what they wanted to consume at dinner. The rest perturbed him. It was September and Tax Time had come and gone so it couldn’t be that. Perhaps there was an unusual charge on the grocery bill and they were listing what items were purchased that week in a crude process of elimination... This was probably it, he thought.

With his mind at ease, another conflict balanced, he retired to bed, his cot, his haven for dreams of square homes and round numbers.

Love in the Club? Nah by Kalolaine Vea

So it’s Sunday morning again. I wake to find the Sahara desert has relocated to my mouth and DJ Kool Herc is rocking one of his block parties in my head. As I struggle to open my eyes, the memories from the previous night come rushing through my brain like a motorcycle fuelled by amphetamines. Some Sundays the memories are not too bad. An example of an average night; me asking a young women why she was clubbing when she was pregnant, first of all its just rude to ask and none of my business, second (and worst) she wasn’t pregnant! Seems pretty bad but I’ve done worse.

I stumble out of bed and attempt to walk to the kitchen (which looks more like a pathetic re-enactment of a Tap Dog’s routine.) I can still feel the alcohol in me, signalling I hadn’t had enough sleep or, consumed way to much the night before, which ever sounds better. As I walk past my brother’s room, I peer in and can see he’s had just as big a night as me. How I can tell? He still had his shoes on. I get to the kitchen grab a drink, take a seat and start reminiscing about the night before.

I vaguely remember getting to the club, hugging and kissing a few people like I haven’t seen them in years (yet I saw them last week at the same place at the same time - force of habit I guess). As I approached the entrance I was becoming anxious that I’d get bounced for no I.D, even though I’m 20 years old and have been going to the club since I was 16.

The security guard is like a menopausal sixty-something year old women. Sometimes he’s the loveliest man, and other times (well most of the time) he’s mean as hell. Luckily, tonight he wasn’t at the door. Instead a small white man had taken his place. He looked as if he’d been hit by a motorcycle fuelled by ampheta… oh my bad I’ve already used that simile, hmm let’s try again. A small white man stood at the entrance, he looked as though he’d been hit by a gigantic hippopotamus (that’s more like it), so he wasn’t really taking notice of who walked in or out of the club. Phew, I’m in.

So the next big challenge is getting down two treacherous flights of stairs, (yes they are treacherous when you’re wasted) whilst fumbling around in my pockets for the fifteen dollar cover charge (what a joke I know), then being confronted by the crazy, power tripping door bitch. Try and dodge your way past her - you’ll have a big butch Samoan she-man to deal with, no thank you.

As I enter the club I quickly scan the place without being too obvious, looking for anyone I know, or actually want to see, haven’t spotted anyone too special yet, but I reassure myself he’s somewhere there. Making my way to the bar, I kiss and hug a few more people I don’t really know or care to see and order my best friend and I tequila shots and vodka sunrises. After downing two tequila shots each, we walk towards the toilet to have a smoke. By then the ethanol’s playing with my head, and I’ve forgotten about what’s-his-face, temporarily of course, because just as I reach the front of the toilet, he is standing there, we make eye contact, my buzz sky rockets through the roof and the game begins.

"The Couple of the Tram" Script by Sebastien de Robillard

I don’t hate mornings, not at all. Sure, I would rather sleep in til 8:00am then have to get up 6:45am each morning, but that’s the way it goes. That’s the way it goes.

I sometimes read on the tram, sometimes stare out the window. Sometimes I am so fixated by whatever I happened to be listening to (at the moment, a neo-New Romantic Danish band) that I spend the entire trip with my eyes closed, engrossed by the music. Not everyone enjoyed my taste in music.

“That’s not music, that’s noise,” Marie says. She refers everything I listen to as "Dinosaur Music." Makes us both laugh.

Today, I was caught between the book (a slow, overly descriptive, Upper East Side story by a writer that should have made it far better, far more interesting and quite frankly, should know better than to publish crap like that) and staring out the window, when I saw them jump on. He followed her up the step, and he let her sit down first.

I checked my iPhone for the time -and to show everyone I had one-7:37 a.m. I looked at them for a few seconds; I did recognize these two. I saw them if I happened to catch this particular tram. I turned up the music on my pod and, head titled a little to the right, began to scrutinise. I should say, I decided to scrutinise them.

These two had just recently had a fight, that much was obvious. Couples, bickering or not, were hardly a new thing, but there was something about these two. Maybe the first fight, the first proper fight, the night before.

He pulled out his Ipod, a mini, and she did the same, a mini also. Probably purchased at the same time, probably had VERY similar tunes on each. He went to offer her a headphone, but she had already shoved both of hers into her pinna, deep. He looked at her, and reluctantly withdrew his offer. He looked rather sad, and she looked rather annoyed.

Another routine popped up. She absent-mindedly handed him her ticket and he scanned it in before either of them realised what they were doing. Her face became red, and he tried to appear frustrated by the effort, but he failed. He was so damn in love. She regretted their regime, I must validate my own damn ticket, she thought. Well, probably.

You could tell these two had their routines down pat. After breakfast, he would hold the door open for her, and lock it as she walked to the end of the pathway, waiting for him. They would walk, probably arm in arm, or perhaps hands inter-locked, towards the tram stop. They would sit at the same seat each morning and he would do the ticket thing. She would read a magazine she carried, and he would read some book, nothing fancy or very literary, like me. Probably some airport-bookshop-$29.95 (same price, doesn’t matter what country you are in)-fucking fodder-novel.

I continued observing them, noting down their little this’s and their little that’s. They were so similar, in size and appearance; they were made for each other. They didn’t look like they had much to contribute, to anyone really. They were probably very sweet individuals, not the sharpest tacks or brightest bulbs, but not the dumbest. They were probably polite, and shy. You would invite them out, but only because you were inviting everyone else out as well.

It was hard to imagine them ‘doing it’. A little like your friend’s 70 year old parents, weighing a couple of hundred kilos between them, you are sure they did sleep together, but you were also sure they didn’t. And if they did, was their intimacy?

Yes I am an arrogant, self righteous, egotiscal, grammar-bastardising narrator.

Each glared out a separate window, trying to ignore the other. Except of course when the tram would suddenly stop, or start, and they would bump into each other. Each time they rubbed up against each other, she would react with demonstrative annoyance. He looked so sad each time this happened. He had this puppy dog look that made you want to drown puppy dogs.

Yes I am an arrogant, self righteous, egotiscal, grammar-bastardising narrator.

Very little happened after this, and it was not until we reached Flinders Street station that it became awkward again. Just before the tram stopped, and my fellow passengers flooded out of the doors towards their fruitful, beautiful jobs, she squeezed his hand briefly and they both turned and kissed, pecked each other on the lips. It all happened so quick, and I almost missed it. The looked into each other’s eyes, I would love to have been closer for that. Anger? Frustration?

They routine had worked against them, fooling them into a brief, a very brief reconciliation. Their routine would not stand by ‘pissed off’, it would not stand for the ‘cold shoulder’ or ‘slamming doors’. Their routine politely told them where they could shove their feelings and reminded them why there were together in the first place.

It was beautifully awkward, when they realised this, looking into each other’s (probably) brown eyes. They were both embarrassed now, cheeks glowing red. A slight smile, maybe? I don’t know.

She got up and left. He didn’t look out the window after her.