The Careers Trip.

16 and out in the world winning life!

The above picture is from the Surrealist film ERASERHEAD which features in this tale.

When 16, the kids from my school were taken from our country town in rural New Zealand to the big city of Auckland, where we would be bussed about to various businesses and factories.

The purpose of this trip was to give us an idea of what was waiting upon leaving school.

A nice introduction to the grim, meat-hook realities of working a job you hate to earn money so you can eat and live and buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like.

By this time, attrition had taken its toll on the class numbers.

50% of the kids from the last year’s 15-year-old class had left school and were working on parents’ farms or in a trade school of some kind.

Or some even optioned to live with an older hippie friend and grow weed for a living.

That left about 20 of us.

By the time our 16-year-old class was done, there were about 10 left to enter the 17-year-old class. “University Entrance,” it was called.

I know some kids went on to get a lot out of this trip and went on to learn trades or become nurses and go directly into the “meat grinder of the MAN” as I had been led to believe it was called, by the counterculture books I favored.

Working and trying to get money and be part of society was not for me.

For someone like myself, homelessness, drugs, shivering desperation, and oft-times violent adventure was way more interesting than driving a forklift in the Coca-Cola plant, or trying to do construction, tradespeople, or nurse school or whatever the kids who wanted to be humans were going to do.

One of my friends went to panel beater school, one went to nurse college, another into the air force.

I went to the streets to… be free and to learn how to survive on the streets… because I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do... super smart move.

Kind of knowing that rough times were going to happen to me, I did not pay too much attention to where we went. But I do remember the Coca-Cola factory, Saatchi & Saatchi advertising offices… and an art school.

I just want to detail some crazy shit that went down on this six-day trip.

First thing, we were all put up in the Auckland YHA hostel.

The hostel stands at the top of Queen Street, Auckland NZ. Still there!

My room far left bottom.

Note the grey skies. It is NOT sunny in New Zealand. Most of the year it’s cold, rainy, and shitty. Don’t be fooled by our tourist propaganda. ( Below )

See the above? It’s actually about to piss down in about ten minutes, and the rain will have bits of ice in it. Enjoy.

I was in a room on the bottom floor. I chose that room because I had a plan.

The first crazy thing that happened was that we went to an art college, and while the other kids were being shown about, I took off and found the most twisted-looking students to talk to. I regaled them with my funny stories… asking questions about parties, counterculture books, and so on.

In my mind, I had it built up that this art college was going to be like something out of ’60s Berkeley, San Francisco… but the guys I talked to didn’t really know what I was talking about… It was 1993, and we were in New Zealand after all…

Then one guy said, “I know something you would like, you’re crazy so you might get it,” and took me to a small, totally dark AV room, where he put a VHS on for me.

It was ERASERHEAD.

YES. This is what I needed. The mental equivalent of an apple corer to the psyche.

A touchstone with which to resonate with the other freaks I would meet one day.

If you don’t know what ERASERHEAD is, you can search it up…

Here’s a small blurb:
David Lynch’s masterful direction, impeccable cinematography, and experimental music and sound design all work together to create a surreal and unforgettable cinematic experience. While not for the faint of heart, Eraserhead is a film that rewards those willing to take the plunge into its dark and dreamlike world.

I took the plunge into its dark and dreamlike world… I came out forever changed.

I finished the movie just as the rest of the group finished the tour, and I quietly entered the bus last.

Mentally shifted.

There was a new world. Something I hadn’t even seen before.

Surrealism!

This was HOW I FELT. Now it had a name.

As you can see from my other stories, I had had so many whackdoodle experiences in my life, that I was now just a thing. I resembled a ’90s teenager in physical form only.

My personality was so fragmented, that I didn’t exist to myself. I sought out two things: intense crazy experiences and sense gratification.

Like a reverse Buddhist. A hedonist sybarite hobo-freak?

Well, this movie did it. A portrayal of a world to match my mind.

I stared out the window.

Nothing was real. And little mattered. It was an illusion now.

A canvas for me to paint on.

What is truth?

That night I went to bed early, making a big deal about having a headache.

I needn’t have bothered, no one cared. The bad kids were planning to meet up at midnight and sneak up to the hang-out spot on the roof with the foreign backpackers and drink the devastating gallon of cheap port one of them had stolen from their parents. That seemed dazzlingly lame to me.

My regular friends were distant from me, as I had been acting weirder than usual.

One of my other friends (He of the glowing condom) was also acting weird and hanging out with the new tall horsey-faced girl who wore floral print dresses.

I had a mastermind plan for this trip.

So I got to my room. I put on a set of what I thought were cool city-man clothes.

Stonewash grey jeans, a white shirt, my old boarding school tie. By rubbing a dark soft art pencil on paper till it made a large pool of black and, applying it to my face, I made a passable five o’clock shadow.

My only footwear was my black NZ army boots. But I had shined them up real good with KIWI polish and, by putting the jeans OVER them, they kind of just looked like big black shoes. Topped with a trilby.

A trilby is a narrow-brimmed type of hat. The trilby was once viewed as the rich man's favored hat; in Britain and was frequently seen at the horse races.

I was now a dapper man about town!

I had saved up $200 ($430 in today’s money) from mowing lawns over the last year, and now I was going to wax the fucking lot! Striding about this city like a latter-day dandy!

I squeezed out the room’s window and, hanging onto the sill, dropped the last foot to the pavement and took off.

First off, I just wandered, sucking in the sights and sounds of vibrant but quiet Queen Street, Auckland. The tiny civilized core of New Zealand.

THE QUEEN OF STREETS!

After exploring, I stopped at TONY’S STEAKHOUSE for dinner. It was located down a thin street that ran parallel to Queen Street (Lorne Street).

I wanted a nice steak at a small table in the corner.

The real “man essence” of eating a big steak.

“How would I like it cooked?”

“Blackened—No blood.”

Cue a frown from the waiter.

He goes to the kitchen.

Cue chef coming out and looking at me in the corner.

Cue other kitchen staff coming out and having a laugh at me.

I heard… “….some weird kid…”

The chef sent over a massive glass of wine on the house.

I raised it in thanks to the laughing staff.

This night was getting good.

Leaving satisfied, wine-buzzed, and happy and not having to tip because it’s New Zealand, and thus I didn’t even KNOW what tipping was… I popped into a shop and bought a pack of Camels.

Having never smoked before, it made total sense to start with something strong and cool.

This I could do legally. 16 was the smoking age. But it didn’t matter, no shopkeeper gave a shit anyway.

Blazing up a harsh Camel, I cruised about watching the nightlife.

Now with my wine brain, steak guts, and Camel baccy high, I thought how nice it would be to find a bohemian café and have some dessert and a coffee and blaze more smokes… maybe have a whiskey, like a real-man sophisticate.

I found such a place on the High Street. The fashion store, and high-end café street.

The swankiest street in NZ. All 100 yards of it.

I sat at one of the tables outside and had four espressos. One after another, while blazing Camels and watching the world go by.

When I started to feel like I was having mini heart attacks, I tried ordering a whiskey…

The waiter was cool… probably about 25, but not fooled by my get-up… he looked back into the café, paused, and said in a low conspiratorial tone… “I can get you a Fernet… it will look like a Coke.”

“YES!”

I didn’t know what a Fernet was, but I was to find that it was a type of bitter, aromatic spirit, made from a number of herbs and spices including myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom, aloe, and saffron, with a base of distilled grape spirits. Italian.

Wow.

And so my love of bitter herbal booze was born.

I sat there sipping on this massive glass of iced Fernet.

Watching the high-class Aucklanders go by.

1993. A simpler time.

Smokes in hand instead of phones.

Steak, wine, Camel smokes, espressos, and now a big glass of Fernet.

Mashed but sophisticated. The lobes were HUMMING.

I was chilling at a boho café while the other kids were hiding from the teachers in the hostel drinking stolen wino port like a bunch of muddled babies.

Only one thing could make this better.

Something I had been planning all year: SEX.

Now, prostitution is legal and regulated in New Zealand. It was the first country to fully decriminalize sex work. I knew this. It was part of health class. We were very well educated on these things.

The history of sex work in NZ was taught to us right along with terrifying videos of abortions and condom use demonstrations.

I also knew where the bordellos were located. Jack Kerouac taught me that word: bordellos.

They were upscale places down off the bottom of Queen Street on a street called Fort Street. A long side street with upmarket strip clubs and high-end cat houses.

An older friend had told me all about how good it was.

Maybe seeking to justify his frequenting?

“The ladies are taken care of, they make about 20 times more money than they would if they were working in a supermarket, they are having a great time and doctors check them. It’s all safe sex and it’s very high-brow.”

Is this true? Sometimes yes… and sometimes it’s 10 Chinese students that were sent to NZ by their parents to study at our university, that no longer study, aren’t going back to China, and now all live in a flat like rats, doing meth in between $20 Johns.

I headed down to Fort Street, which had a section that served as a high-end red light district back then. Down at the bottom to the right of Queen Street.

I went up the stairs of the nicest-looking one… let’s call it the “Lords Club” and buzzed the brass buzzer. Someone looked through the peephole and then the door was opened by a good-looking blond older woman in a tiger print bodysuit and high-heeled boots.

Classy.

“Hello, darling. Aren’t you a sweetheart. Come on in.”

I was taken into the entry room of the bordello. I was now panicking. The room took on a fishbowl-like appearance.

“I have a really sweet girl, who will take great care of you and you’re going to want an hour. That will be $100, dear.”

I now realize this was a ploy to drive me off, as she knew I shouldn’t have been there, and thought I was probably wasting her time.

But I counted out a handful of battered lawnmower-earned fives and tens and said, “Awesome.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she took me through the door to a very nice lounge with a bar and a TV playing music videos.

There were two girls in the room. One freaky black-haired Eastern European-looking one, blazing a long thin smoke and sitting with her arms crossed and her crossed leg swinging like a metronome… wearing a small black dress…

And a plump smiling girl with short red hair, in jeans and a NIRVANA SHIRT!

The lady of the house took me to the red-haired gal and introduced us.

She led me off down the hall to an amazing room, wooden-paneled with mirrors and an ensuite shower/bathroom, and a fake fireplace heater.

It had a double bed covered in red velvet and heart-shaped pillows.

I’m a chatty one… and was pretty nervous.

She had me have a shower as I yammered away.

She was smiling and I think she genuinely liked me. I washed the pencil beard off and we sat on the bed and talked. I found out all about her, though at first she said, “I don’t talk about my life with clients.”

I said, “I’m not a client. I’m just a cool guy sitting on this bed with you.”

This made her laugh. Also now thinking about it… cry a tiny bit.

She wasn’t from a broken home. There was no history of abuse or drugs. Just this story.

Her dad had died naturally when she was 16, as he was a much older guy than her mum. Her mum knew what she did and was fine with it.

She had been going to beauty school from 17 but it was hard, and she said, “I’m not smart. I was always real shit at school.” Then she saw some of her older friends graduate and only be able to get jobs for about ten dollars an hour working for mean-as-fuck stick-skinny bitches, doing the worst jobs like waxing old ladies’ minges.

I think to us, old ladies meant 35…Her friends hated their lives in the beauty industry.

She was smart enough to know that that was a shit dead end. One of her friends, who was a “working girl” on the side of being at beauty school, introduced her to this.

So after flunking a class, she dropped out of beauty school… and that was a year ago.
She was now 19.

She now makes about 1000 dollars a week. That was BONKERS money back in NZ in ’93. ($2500 today) She was saving up for a house and already had 35K.

She said that they only let good guys into the Lords. The Lords Club was high-class and priced to keep out the riff-raff. No drunks, no bogans (rednecks), and no dodgy old men.

Mostly young wealthy guys and older businessmen. And of course one sixteen year old adventurer!

We talked for ages, laughing and trading stories. Till there was one solitary knock on the door.

“That means only 5 minutes left.” she said with a pouting frown. We had been talking the whole time!

I said, “Don’t worry! That’s all the time in need! ;) … … … …”

Before leaving I gave her the rest of my money, which was about another $40, and she gave me a big hug. I strode out of there like a demented rooster. The madame smiled at me and kind of laughed as I strutted out. I was smiling so wide my face almost broke.

I strutted up Queen Street feeling like a king. I was alive. I had lived more life in the last 4 hours than in many years prior. I got back to the hostel and leaped up, grabbed the sill, and pulled myself into the window.

I got changed into my regular grunge teen outfit and headed out into the hall to the bathrooms to take a piss.

Catching my friend (the guy hanging out with the new tall horsey-faced girl who wore floral print dresses) coming out of one of the gal’s rooms.

He doesn’t see me… he stops in the hallway and smells his hand.
I knew what that meant! I had been smelling MY hand for the last 30 minutes!

“Bro! You’ve been hiding in her room, banging Betsy Mae!” (Not her real name).

“Yip.”

“What happened with the party?”

“Those spazes got so drunk; Dylan spewed in the hallway, and Jess fell down the stairs and they got busted and now they are all in deep shit.”

“Idiots. Wow… I’ve been out on the town…”

“Nice. I’m crashing. Night.”

“Night.”

I realized I couldn’t bring myself to tell him or anyone what I had done.

But now… now I have.

I ground out the last week of school and rolled out of my town. Thank you to that gal, that night meant a lot to me. You are out there somewhere… now 52 years old or older... Once it was just you and me together in that wooden-paneled room.

No phones in sight. Just kids having a good time.

This song, “Beauty School Dropout,” from the musical Grease, messed me up when I heard it later in life. And Ill share it here now….

Beauty school dropout
No graduation day for you
Beauty school dropout
Missed your mid-terms and flunked shampoo
Well, at least you could have taken time
To wash and clean your clothes up
After spending all that dough
To have the doctor fix your nose up

Baby, get movin’ (better get movin’)
Why keep your feeble hopes alive?
What are you provin’? (What are you provin’)
You’ve got the dream but not the drive

Beauty school dropout (beauty school dropout)
Hanging around the corner store
Beauty school dropout (beauty school dropout)
It’s about time you knew the score
Well, they couldn’t teach you anything
You think you’re such a looker
But no customer would go to you
Unless you were a hooker…

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