AUSTRALIA - STOOPING TO NEW HIGHS AT SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS

I like to think of myself as a slightly young, semi-professional type of lady. I like music, I think art is good, books are fun and parties are awesome. But I also like to hit the floor on occasion and if my skirt happens to fly up, or someone snaps me in a situation where my face looks like a spat out sausage, then pffft, adios Captain Dignity. I considered trying to be sophisticated a while back, but decided that the level of upkeep was much too burdensome. I’d rather cut it loose.

I went to Splendour in the Grass a week ago and realised that most people try really hard to look sophisticated and hip. In fact, they would rather leave money lying about on the ground than look like a cheapskate who scrambles to pick it up. Now I'm not shackled by materialistic ways, but c’mon who doesn’t like free shit?

The truth is, it wasn’t actually money scattered around the festival site but rather aluminium cans, crushed into the earth, which started this whole messy, complex conundrum. Every time you purchased a drink from the bar, you paid a $1 deposit on the can. Then the idea was that you took back your empties and traded them for tokens with which to buy more cans. As a result, all over the place there were young sprites scuttling about on the ground snatching up your empties and getting retardly wasted in return.

The VIP area, however, was a different story. In there, tinnies were flowing, like the arms of the kids dancing with dolphins to MGMT as they squeezed out a jam, with hundreds of the shiny darlings lying beguilingly on the ground. In the VIP area, no one saw the glimmer of their value. Nobody could be bothered getting their fingernails grubby to pick up trash off the ground, even if it meant a free drink and a little step towards saving our planet by recycling. I wondered if they would stoop so low as to pick up a coin off the ground. I wanted to see, but I had no money, so instead I asked people why they weren’t trading in their cans.    

The first person I asked told me they wouldn't touch "that stinking shit" and the next person moaned that it was "only a fucking dollar". That’s right, it’s only a fucking dollar. And if you put all of the fucking dollars together, you get a lot of fucking dollars. So, tired of being too cool to clean up after myself, too sophisticated to pick up a can leaking some beer, and too worried someone might mistake me for a bum, I picked up a plastic bag and started collecting. Because no one else in the VIP section had picked up a can all day, it was a freaking gold mine, and in no time at all I'd made nearly $190, all to spend on getting wasted. So what? Maybe I resembled a hobo for 45 minutes and I smelt a little like a boozehound with my arms drenched in stale beer, but I was rich and soon to be stinking drunk. Eventually people began to realise the error of their lazy ways and, like a marvelous hobo revolution led by me, soon everyone was bobbing down picking up trash and doing their bit to save the planet. Cheers to that.

HELEN GROSE

Comments

[Sergian]

Ain't much of a VIP if there's no free booze.

[Sergian]

Fucking Mary Poppins shit.

[buttheadfacearsefacehead]

fuckin 'A' "cheers to that".

this is a good story and has a morally sound base.

[Andy]

Real Australians would do anything for beer. Congratulations, you are a true patriot.

[Mrs M]

That's fucking brilliant! Thanks SO much for sharing this story. Beautifully written.. I felt like I was standing right next to you. Classic.

[Blade]

I did this at Rhythm and Vines but instead it was either $5 or $10 for a wine bottle. Bring in 5 empty bottles and exchange them for a bottle of champagne. Was bad ass.

[kiran]

that's rubbish cos I'm in the photo with the two guys and our cans and that was actually taken in the VIP area where we'd been picking up cans since the start of the festival... poetic license hmmmm