I’ve been lost for words about this abysmal stadium business, struggling to find a way to describe the
monstrosity
aberration
hideousness
bane of the southern seas
eyesore
grotesquerie
absurd AFL awfulness
malconformity
chunderglump
mutilated immensity of barren capitalism
that they desire to loom like a lecherous child abuser that escaped the Commission of Inquiry, drooling gambling and junk food ads from its neon-lit craw, over our historic town and harbour
But yeah, it’s a thing, admittedly a thing without a plan nor design nor proper costing, more a vague idea (with a roof!), a newly-fledged moth waved through by the jazz-hands of a drunk air traffic controller, a quid-pro-kowtow, an inkling, a
half-baked croissant crumb of shit
waft of corporate grift
tittle (itty bitty microlittle)
quark of brainfart
stench
redolence of blokeyness
nubbin
trinket of ambition
(Mac) Point(less) pong
toxic chokedamp
that scares the bejupiter out of me, as if urban renovation should hide under the skirts of a likely-underutilised coliseum collecting windblown rubbish and seagull crap 330 days a year
It’s not just about the money, it’s about the loss of opportunity, the AFL’s bully headlock while they steal our lunch money for the next twenty years, the overwhelming sense that’s it’s a
bogan boondoggle
dockside fustercluck
financial quagmire
hairy butt-end of misplaced ambition
Certified Imbroglio by the River, served with pan-seared Hype with hooley-dooley coulis
force-fed footy fiasco
bastard child of pulp mill
cesspit of guffawing yes-men
huckster-stump (STT coupe 1984)
carpetbaggers’ bagatelle
and not something that has arisen, organically, from the collective desires of the people … your people, my people, we the people
Possibly we might be on board if the Premier had thought it wise to consult before putting the Poor Wee State a billion dollars in hock: perhaps a talk with Cabinet, a tête-à-tête avec Treasurie, for Macquarie’s sake even a howzyerfather with Hobart residents, or anybody really even, but all we got was
secrecy
lies
obfuscation writ large in disappearing ink
you-can’t-ask-that!
misdirection
accused of not wanting the dream, because we similarly don’t want the (stadium) nightmare
spindoctorisms, spindoctored either in-house or outsorcered for fifty grand a handshake
opaqueness, as if looking through a veil of money
denial (neither a river in Africa, nor lutruwita)
‘shut up you don’t know what’s good for you’
as if public engagement by jingoistic bumper sticker passes the pub test, even in footyland, where feasts come rarely, where hard-won means hard bloody won you glazed ham in a suit, where even a rock island in a river bend halted a nation
And so I might be upset, but no, for I have seen the fagus turning, and loved this heart-shaped island, and struggled with her capriciousness dammit, and it’s pretty obvious already to us blockers not barfbuilders that this project is
circling the drain
moribung it up your arse, Gil McLachlan
clog-popped
a Monthy Python ex-parrot
ready to be fitted for a body bag
sleeping with fishes, probably invasive Pacific starfish but yanno it’s the thought that counts
belly/paws/floodlights up
fallen off the twig of Liberal wankdom
ticketed one-way for Marble Park, possibly via the underground bus mall
supercooled to lost-our-majority temperature
and that’s that; call me when it’s proper buried, like the Ralph’s Bay marina, like the brochured bulldust of the cable car, like the old admin building now sprouting hotels and inner city life, and when the one-eyed footy fans with about as many teeth are are booing and baying for the head of the coach, or the CEO, hey Rocky, hey …
Alan Whykes is a published poet, a fan of many sports, and has attended several AFL matches, Test and Sheffield Shield cricket, and community events and festivals at Hobart’s actual AFL stadium, Bellerive Oval.
