The Book of Bloke (5 page)

Drainpipes do of course enjoy a wide variety of other activities, but they’re fairly obscure – you probably haven’t heard of them.

One thing you may have heard of, though, is the
Monoteen
, a youthful Fauxke closely related to the Reticulated Drainpipe and with the potential to become one later in life, though many Monoteens also become Tunesters, and quite a few become psychopaths.

The Monoteen is a sullen, ill-tempered Fauxke, and it is recommended that members of the public do not attempt to approach one, if only to avoid being bored. At the time of writing, there are no recorded instances of Monoteens attacking people, but there are quite a few of Monoteens grunting at people and walking away in a rude fashion. Monoteens can be identified by their protruding lower lip, hair-covered eyes, and strong smell of angst. They will also frequently be wearing a My Chemical Romance T-shirt, or, in the case of the common subspecies Retromonoteen, Nirvana.

Central to the Monoteen’s life cycle is his mating ritual, which is unique in nature and consists of the individual Monoteen sitting by himself looking sad and intense and occasionally sighing loudly, waiting for young women to hurl themselves at him. It is not a particularly efficient mating ritual, and Monoteens generally only have sex by accident.

Monoteens do not start off this way, of course. In the larval stage, the Monoteen will attempt to get a girlfriend in myriad normal ways: by making jokes, buying drinks, punching people, etc. However, when it becomes obvious that the Monoteen has exhausted all reasonable avenues, he enters the mature stage of Monoteenism, in which he will pretend to brood and refuse to talk to his parents until he either gets laid or joins Greenpeace.

It is thought that the Monoteen originated several hundred years ago, when a community of Blokes migrated to new feeding grounds where girls were really hard to impress. Another theory has it that the Monoteen’s origins date back to around 1920, when parents first started to not understand.

Monoteens are not social Blokes, and will usually lead a solitary life, or at best associate with small groups of three or four other Monoteens, who will speak to each other as little as possible, and to anyone else even less. Monoteen culture dictates an absolute minimum of verbal communication, as Monoteens believe that avoiding speech allows the mind to be more clear for fruitful meditation; also, if you don’t talk much, chicks think you’re deep.

Monoteens occasionally write poetry. If you ever see this happening, call the police.

A very different kind of Fauxke is the
Rock-Edge
, an impressive Bloke easily recognisable by his bulging muscles and strange bow-legged gait. Rock-Edges can be found in many different regions and climates, making their nests in gyms, juice bars, fitness equipment stores, and in front of mirrors. The Rock-Edge arose in Australia sometime in the 70s as part of the so-called ‘Global Wanker Diaspora’.

The Rock-Edge considers his body a temple, which can mislead many observers who initially don’t realise just how literally that should be taken. Rock-Edges love their bodies in a very real and intimate sense, and many Rock-Edges have joined lobby groups to push for federal laws allowing a Bloke to marry himself. The reason for this love, of course, lies in the work that has gone into creating and maintaining that body – Rock-Edges live lives of hard work, painful training and enormous self-sacrifice to reach the point where they have achieved an authentic condom-full-of-walnuts look, at which point they can be formally accepted into Rock-Edge society.

Little is known about the Rock-Edge’s personal habits, because no researcher has yet been able to persuade one to engage in conversation about anything except working out. Currently, experiments are being performed to see if more information can be gleaned by the use of metaphor – for example, using ‘upping your cardio’ to mean dancing and ‘free weights’ to refer to women – but results so far are inconclusive. All we can really be certain of is that the Rock-Edge masturbates at a phenomenal rate, often in public on a cross-trainer.

The appearance of the Rock-Edge is down to his close symbiotic relationship with mirrors. It is in mirrors that the Rock-Edge assesses the level of bulge in his body, checks the amount of product in his hair, and practises his walk to make sure it possesses an appropriate degree of weird cartoonish flamboyance coupled with insufferable arrogance. The Rock-Edge depends on everyone
knowing
he is a Rock-Edge, given that it is his status as such that makes him better than everyone else.

Rock-Edges do not abuse their bodies with mind-altering drugs, cigarettes, or junk food, and are consequently pretty awful company. It is best to avoid them, although if you find yourself in an environment where a close encounter with a Rock-Edge may occur, there’s a good chance you are well on the way to becoming one yourself.

The
Multiculturalist
is a much more amiable kind of Fauxke, always up for a friendly chat and a discussion of how much he learned on his last trip to India. The Multiculturalist is quite a unique breed in that, unlike most Blokes, he is defined essentially by his inability to define himself. The Multiculturalist life cycle is basically a long and, at times, frustrating attempt to figure out which culture is the best. Multiculturalists rarely resolve this question: the closest they come is the rock-solid conviction that it’s not their own.

In a way, the Multiculturalist suffers from a sort of cultural dysmorphia – he finds himself completely unable to accept the culture into which he is born, but at the same time is cursed by his failure to decide which culture he would prefer. This failure is caused by the Multiculturalist’s peculiar sensitivity to custom and ritual: Multiculturalists possess the ability to detect – possibly through super-sensitive hairs in the nose, or a rare brain anomaly – real value in any cultural practice, even in the tiniest concentrations. For example, it is estimated that a Multiculturalist can identify the benefits of a small hut made from yak manure at up to five hundred times the intensity of an average Bloke. This is an impressive talent, but one which is not always entirely beneficial for the Multiculturalist himself, in that it can cause him to engage in activities which a normal Bloke would shy away from – for example, living in a small hut made from yak manure.

Multiculturalists are varied in their size, shape and colouration, but can usually be identified by the canny observer by means of markers like knitted ponchos, fertility symbol jewellery, and Asian-language tattoos. They are quite placid and safe to approach, even eating from people’s hands, but it is best to do so only if you’re in the mood to learn something.

The Multiculturalist values cultural practices mainly on the basis of how different they are to his own. A Multiculturalist will typically prefer Asian and African cultures to European, although he will on occasion celebrate peasant and gypsy cultures, as long as they don’t remind him too much of Christmas at his parents’ place. But his greatest enthusiasm will be reserved for Diwali, Chinese New Year, official visits by the Dalai Lama, and anything where people dress in animal skins and act out folk stories. Multiculturalists will frequently quote Chinese proverbs and Native American sayings, and when in heat will even stretch to Sufi mysticism (note: try to avoid Multiculturalists in heat. It will get messy).

Multiculturology, or the study of Multiculturalists, is a rich and rewarding field, and many researchers will, with a smile on their lips, tell of their experiences with these gentle, confused creatures, and the beautiful sound of a Multiculturalist flock at sunset, with their gentle cries of ‘Well, the Hmong people have a saying …’ and ‘There’s a verse by Khalil Gibran which illustrates this perfectly’ echoing over the landscape.

Multiculturalists mainly inhabit urban areas, as in rural regions people think they’re stupid, and in the suburbs they meet a lot of immigrants, which causes them disappointment. They will, however, travel to remote areas for ethnic music festivals. When in their natural habitat, they enjoy eating authentic cuisine and watching films with subtitles, as well as taking hallucinogenic drugs because they’re pretty sure they heard that’s what the Navajo do. The Multiculturalist is, after all, an adventurous Bloke whose philosophy is that he will try anything once, as long as it is spiritual and comes from somewhere else. A good part of their time is also taken up expressing solidarity with Aborigines. Some really dedicated Multiculturalists even spend a bit of time actually helping Aborigines, but this is rare – solidarity is usually enough.

As referred to above, there is nothing to fear if you meet a Multiculturalist in the street – they are gentle and friendly. However, you may find it difficult to extricate yourself from the conversation. If you’re in a hurry, you can escape a Multiculturalist by asking them whether Western society would be better if our economy was based on cows, like the Watusi. You can then quietly slip down a side street while they’re busy thinking.

As you can see, Fauxkes are a diverse and fascinating group of Blokes, worthy of study, and, to a certain extent, respect. There are those who treat Fauxkes with contempt, but they actually fulfil a crucial role in Bloke society, both as a measuring stick for other Blokes to gauge their own Blokehood, and as the main means of support for the untalented musician industry. Contrary to the name, Fauxkes are, in fact, true Blokes, and, if you meet one, it’s best to smile and extend your hand in friendship. He won’t take it – in fact, he won’t want to talk to you at all because you got your clothes from Target – but it’s a nice gesture nonetheless. Above all, every Bloke should remember: there is a little bit of Fauxke in all of us.

Did you know
… the first Bloke to fly solo around the world was Murray ‘Muzza’ Cuthbertson, in 1934. The first Bloke to do it in a plane was Macca Jensen, three years later.

One of the most widespread varieties of Bloke, the Tunester can be found almost anywhere in Australia, having an ability to thrive despite variations in habitat, climatic conditions, and local noise pollution ordinances. This versatility and resilience has led some to suggest the Tunester should be technically classified as a virus, but this is taxonomically unorthodox, and ignores the rich contribution Tunesters have made to Blokedom and society in general.

The Tunester is defined more by behaviour than appearance; strains of Tunester vary greatly in plumage and markings, but all Tunesters can be identified by the extent to which their life revolves around music. This does make identification a sometimes tricky business, as many other Bloke species
enjoy
music, and it is generally necessary to spend a significant amount of time studying the habits and activities of a suspected Tunester before absolute confirmation is possible. The process is complicated further by the fact that a Fauxke will often pretend to be a Tunester, and a skilled Fauxke can be quite convincing. In the end, though, a canny observer should be able to spot a Tunester by his obsessive devotion to a musical life, which may include the actual following of bands on tour, the accumulation of massive collections of recorded music, an almost complete inability to engage in conversation on any other topic, and a pathological need to tell you that vinyl sounds better. If you ever hear a Bloke say that he wishes more mainstream pop was in 7/8 time, you probably have a Tunester. Watch carefully.

Another good way of identifying a Tunester derives from the fact that they are the only people known to actually read street press magazines, though it is unknown whether this is cultural or a genetic defect.

The Tunester seems to have originated in the inner city, and this is still considered the spiritual home of Tunesters. Many Tunesters still speak of the city as the ‘promised land’, and express their belief that someday they will pass out of their current bondage and return there, as soon as they quit Kmart and get a job at an independent record shop. Having originated in urban areas, the Tunesters rapidly multiplied and were forced to seek new homes due to capacity limits in local pubs. Today, Tunesters can be found in the suburbs of every major city, and in almost every country town, where they spend most of their time complaining about the lack of a live music scene.

Tunesters tend to be monogamous – most of them will mate with one particular genre of music for life. This is another way of telling a Tunester from an ordinary music-loving Bloke; in extreme cases, the Tunester’s monogamy will extend to his wearing gloves in JB Hi-Fi, in case he accidentally touches an Elton John CD while looking for Rammstein. Although this single-mindedness can be tiresome, it can also be helpful for Blokeologists as it makes it easier to separate Tunesters into recognisable categories. There is a certain strain of Tunester who are more omnivorous in their tastes, but they are inevitably shunned by larger Tunester society and forced to take jobs as music critics for major daily newspapers.

When making contact with a Tunester, it is important to keep in mind that he will at all times defend his preferred genre of music to the death, much as a mother bear defends her cubs. The ferocity of a fully-fledged Tunester defence is something to behold, and few people have managed to escape from one without, at the very least, a thorough drenching in spittle. For this reason, it is wise to try to avoid such discussions, since anything that could be construed as a criticism, an unfavourable comparison, an unflattering pun, or a mild general observation will be met with utter Tunester savagery. It’s best to discuss mutually hated genres, as a Tunester will instantly bond with anyone claiming to hate the same music that he does. Should you wish to play it even safer, avoid music altogether and choose a non-musical topic of conversation. This is ideal as the Tunester, knowing nothing about the topic, will quickly get bored and leave you alone.

Despite the tendency for fierce defensive behaviour, as a rule the Tunester is not an aggressive Bloke, just an annoying one.

It is often assumed that musicians occupy the uppermost place in the Tunester hierarchy, but the truth is somewhat more complicated. Tunester societies are organised into three broad but distinct strata, which can be best described as: Musician, Non-Musician, and I’m Starting A Band With Some Friends.

Whereas Musicians are akin to nobility in Tunester communities, Non-Musicians represent more of a priestly class, not least because, like priests, Non-Musician Tunesters are forbidden to breed – although unlike priests, the forbidding in this case is typically done by women. Musicians and Non-Musicians often have an uneasy yet symbiotic relationship: they each need the other, but Musicians tend to regard Non-Musicians’ failure to actually engage in a musical career with some scorn, while Non-Musicians think Musicians don’t take music seriously enough and have too much sex.

The third category, I’m Starting A Band With Some Friends, is made up of those Tunesters who have made the effort to learn three chords and buy an electronic tuner, but find their development arrested by what modern Tunester scholars believe is most likely a defective gene. ISABWSFs can be easily recognised by their chronic fatigue, habit of sitting under trees singing to girls, and plaintive mating call of: ‘We just need a drummer and then we’ll be set’.

For those who wish to see Tunesters in the wild, they are not difficult to find – Tunesters can frequently be seen at outdoor festivals, in indie record stores, at inner-city pubs, and hosting community radio programmes. Tunesters tend to speak in any one of a range of idiosyncratic Tunish dialects, which can help to identify them in the wild; a good sign that a Tunester is nearby is the sound of one or more of the following
terms d’art
:

• Dubstep
  
• Breakcore
  
• Electroclash
  
• Screamo
  
• Screamocore
  
• Electrostep
  
• Dubcore
  
• Electroscream
  
• Breakstep
  
• Electrobreakstepcoredub
  
• Dubbreak
  
• Stepscream
  
• Augmented ninth 
  
• Regina Spektor
  

Many Tunesters have attained prominent positions within Australian society. Notable Australian Tunesters of the past include Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, who was the first to establish the principle that a committed Tunester should try not to be too aware of what is going on in his immediate vicinity; Johnny Young, who attracted some criticism for what was seen as his determination to ‘recruit’ children to be artificially converted into Tunesters; and Peter Sculthorpe, who is technically known as an Advanced Level Eight Tunester, or ‘Show-off’. Many people consider Richard Wilkins to be a Tunester, but this is incorrect, as his bone structure and genome reveal him to be, in fact, a Fauxke – albeit one with a remarkable ability to mimic Tunester behaviour. John Farnham might also be a Tunester, but no human has ever been able to get close enough to check.

As mentioned earlier, the Tunester comes in a wide variety of strains, or ‘genres’, each one possessing its own appearance and customs laid down upon the Tunester template. Some of the most prominent of these strains include:

The
Greater Doofer
, or Common Beepum. This is a breed of Tunester that has only recently been identified, but which has spread with remarkable speed. Frequently characterised by his short, spiky, colourful plumage, the Greater Doofer has aroused much controversy between different schools of Tunester study, with conventional scholarship holding him to be a radically modern, but genuine and worthy addition to Tunester taxonomy, while more traditional hold-outs maintain that Doofers cannot be allowed to be included in Tunester studies, as what they listen to is not, technically, music. This book accepts the majority position on this matter, while allowing for future developments which may see the Greater Doofer excluded.

The music preferred by the Doofer is indeed of an unusual kind, consisting mainly of thumps and squelches overlaid with sirens, honks and squealing beepy noises. In some cases, these sounds are punctuated by shouting robots, but this is by no means necessary. Although some have dismissed Doofer music as soulless electronic noise, a more sophisticated examination demonstrates that Doofers, in fact, are the progenitors of a modern kind of gospel music, as evidenced by the centrepiece of Doofer culture: the ‘rave’. A rave is a ritual where Doofers will gather in a dark room, play their music, and jerk and vibrate their bodies uncontrollably until dawn, often while wearing ceremonial dress such as dinosaur spines or angel wings to venerate the First Doofers, who, according to legend, came out of the sun in the morning of the world, dressed as dinosaurs and angels, and created the first drum machine out of clay. At these raves, Doofers will also carry out their own version of Holy Communion, partaking of the ‘body’ of the First Doofers in the form of a small pill, and their ‘blood’ in the form of a $5.50 bottle of water. It is speculated that these pills may enhance the experience of a rave somewhat by making the music sound like music, but this is unconfirmed by experiments.

The Greater Doofer is among the friendliest and most gregarious of Blokes, and will often hug complete strangers, even when they don’t want him to.

The closest relative of the Greater Doofer is the
Lesser Doofer
. The Lesser Doofer is exactly the same as the Greater Doofer except he’s not brave enough to actually go to raves. Sometimes the Lesser Doofer will compensate for this by adding more spikes to his head.

A very different, yet actually closely related Tunester is the
Crested Kerrang
, one of the most easily identifiable Tunesters thanks to his enormous shaggy mane, which may or may not be accessorised with a wild beard. Clad in black, and frequently adorned with tribal markings and various pieces of metal, the Kerrang can be a fearsome sight as he stalks the streets in search of Flying V guitars and Jack Daniel’s, but like a charging gorilla, this intimidating appearance is mainly for show – the Crested Kerrang is actually a gentle, slow-moving giant of the Bloke world, whose bestial grunts and snarls while in the throes of speed metal are offset by the common appearance of gushing tears when exposed to power ballads.

Unlike the Doofers, Kerrangs are deeply suspicious of any music made with computers, and of any T-shirt that isn’t black. They have much in common with the common Bogan, but are more artistic, less concerned with cars, and happier to declare an affiliation with Satan. The Kerrang’s musical tastes run mainly to those musicians who give the appearance of attempting to murder their instruments, and whose vocals either resemble a teenage girl being chased by a ghost, or Cookie Monster. Kerrangs often project an outward appearance of extreme and antisocial anger, and the source of this anger was a fertile field of academic study until the Hetfield van der Schlegelstein experiments of the mid-80s established that, mainly, they were angry at not being considered angry enough. When a Kerrang reaches a state of high emotion, he will attempt to release the build-up of pressure in his system by violently flinging his head back and forth. This is known as ‘headbanging’ and can go on for hours, until all the feelings are gone.

The origins of Kerrangism remain a mystery, although there is some evidence that, at a crucial point in foetal development, the non-activation of a particular gene can turn a potential Kerrang into a
Goth
. What causes this gene to fail to activate is unknown, though many people blame the fluoridation of the water supply.

The Crested Kerrang naturally has an intense disdain for all other types of music, but paradoxically often indulges in music that, at first glance, seems to be entirely outside the conventional Kerrang parameters. Thirty years ago, it was discovered that Kerrangs were willing to sit quietly and listen with rapt attention to songs incorporating pianos and strings, about love and barely featuring the word ‘blood’ at all. This baffled researchers until they uncovered two crucial facts:

• Musical divergence in Kerrang society is acceptable as long as the music is being played by a man with sufficiently long hair; and,
  
• The exhausting nature of Kerrang lifestyles necessitates the occasional breather, or ‘ballad’, so as to not overheat the Kerrang system, which is already sorely taxed what with all the hair and the black clothing. These slower, softer moments allow Kerrangs to ‘recharge the batteries’, like a sort of heavy-metal catnap.
  

Kerrangs are among the easiest of Blokes to mistake for a different species. The best way to positively identify one is to walk up to him and say ‘hello’ in a soft voice. If he can’t hear you, he is a Kerrang – the mature Kerrang’s ears will usually be far too damaged to hear anything softer than a scream.

Bearing some superficial similarities to the Crested Kerrang, but with vast differences in behaviour and culture, is the
Unkempt Strummer
. The crest of the typical Strummer will often resemble that of the Kerrang in length and degree of tangle – although the Kerrang tends to wash his from time to time – but there is a greater variation in the rest of the plumage and markings. The Strummer will rarely wear black jeans, for instance, preferring faded blue ones that look like they’ve spent twenty years in a haystack, or something indescribable from an op-shop. In fact, the op-shop may be considered the conventional nesting place of the Unkempt Strummer, and most experts believe it was from op-shops that Strummers first emerged, crawling from the primordial ooze behind the rack of brown skivvies. Today, when not nesting, Strummers like to roam open spaces, ‘chilling’ in the more quiet, contemplative areas of rock festivals, or wandering along country roads, usually with a guitar slung over their shoulder and a grimy, ancient backpack to keep their iPad in.

The Strummer is perhaps the most mellow of Tunesters, lacking the chemical energy of the Doofer or the growling menace of the Kerrang, and instead pursuing a sort of peaceful blissed-out benevolence that really gets on everyone’s nerves after a while. Probably more than any other Tunester, the Strummer believes that music really can change the world, as long as it is twiddly acoustic guitar music with hoarse vocals. The reason this music will change the world more than any other kind of music is that it is authentic; authenticity is extremely important to all Tunesters, and Strummers in particular pursue authenticity with a passion that is as relentless as it is smelly.