my friend's gay gloves

A man attacked my friend Josh last night. It was not in some dark alley in Lilydale or the backstreets of Sunshine but on the corner of Elizabeth Street and LaTrobe. He was on the way to meeting me at the Arthouse to see a local hardcore act called Identity Theft. The man dressed in a suit came up without provocation and threw my friend into the wall screaming something about the faggy green gloves he was wearing. The man who was with his one hand still holding his mobile phone remarkably talking to fuck knows who, telling them that he was going to kill Josh, was with the other trying to bash my friend's head in. In combination with this distraction and Josh's artful dodging allowed him to break free and leg it, running full pelt but it was several city blocks before his pursuant gave up on chasing him, still screaming into is mobile phone about how my faggot friend was dead.

Josh arrived at the Arthouse unsurprisingly shook up and spent the next half and hour, upstairs in the cool of the night, venting as I talked and comforted him with my arm around his shoulder. It was a gesture that drew its own undesired attention in a venue full of men pashing women, touching furtively then with flagrance as the pots emptied of draught; a man with his arm around another man was something to be stared at and commented upon. "You're in man! He'll be putting out tonight for ya!" Some dick yelled at me, wearing a black bandana under black cap tilted askew, hatebreed emblazoned on his black t-shirt. It wasn't a friendly jibe, it wasn't meant to encourage my pursuit. But then what did we expect? I hear you say. Why were we even there? you ask as my hand detectably moved an inch away from my friend's back.

The bands were good, really tight and energised, and the local hip hop crew from out of Box Hill, Ascertain and DJ Bogues were a welcome relief from screaming vocals and heavy guitar. Yet I couldn't help but feel unnerved, my friend undoubtedly ten-fold at the general verbal abuse directed (and indirected) towards faggots and poofters in the masculated atmosphere. That hat is gay, this song is gay and I heard at one point one of the rappers from Ascertain style "clear the faggots off the dance floor." Thankfully not a reference to Josh and I, who had removed ourselves to the back of the room but to Melbourne's nightlife generally I think. I found the overt and hyper-exaggerated machismo increasingly nauseating as the night drew on: the fists in the air and on the ground, the shouts of abuse, the air guitars and the hugging and groping between men that could have been easily mistook as homoerotic but we'd only an hour before been singled out for less. Half way through a song called "A Poofy Start", Josh and I chose to leave. Now apparently a member form Identity Theft is gay so maybe the song was ironic but it was an irony lost not only on me but the I think the large majority of the crowd.

I am being too sensitive I hear you say. Perhaps. This is what my straight friends tell me when I complain about their use of language. "It's only a word dude, we don't mean anything by it. Everyone uses it. We're fine with your sexuality." Oh I am sorry for not taking your feelings into consideration. Yes it really my fault for going to an overtly heterosexual club and putting my arm around a friend after some guy had tried to bash him. Get fucking real! If it's just a word then stop using it.