Dear Carolynn

Author: Mark Bolton. Co-written: DeepSeek. Images: Chat GPT

Dear Carolynn. Let me tell you a little story about a funny moment in time that came about by pure accident. The protagonist may or may not be me. Just sayin’.

Picture this… it was 1985 in Brisbane. You know, when pub rock was on its last legs, CD’s replaced albums, almost every house had a clunking great video recorder connected to analogue TV sets, cash ruled, Madonna had become huge, hair was big, jeans were tight, and bars had odd themes. Like Tracks, for example. Tracks had a public bar, a family bar where food was served, and a large nightclub that doubled as an ordinary bar during the days and most weeknights, but its theme made no sense.

Tracks was named as such due to the decor having a railroad theme, with booths designed like railway carriage booths. Ironically, there was no railway line in sight of Tracks, which was built behind Brisbane’s City Hall.

My mates and I from the radio station we worked at considered the nightclub bar our other workplace. (Or, maybe the radio station was the other workplace). Anyway, not important. At one end was our bar. At the other, a stage and a disco desk, perched over a wood-tiled dance floor that was surrounded by red carpeting.

One Wednesday, at the beautiful, beer-o’clock hour of anywhere between 10am and 6pm, a mountain in black attire—our friendly neighbourhood security guy—loomed over us. “Gents, you’ve gotta shove off. Huge private function. Women only.” He leaned in, conspiratorially. “It’s a male strip revue. The ‘Manly Magic’ tour or something.”

Our hearts sank because it meant we had to walk about fifteen metres to the next bar. But the manager, Charlie, was talking to us at that very moment and he chimed. “Nah, they can stay.” He gave us a wink and said, “You’re about to see the zoo from inside the cage”. That was a tad cryptic but we eventually discovered for ourselves what he was getting at.

John, Greg, and I exchanged glances. A room packed with hundreds of women, legally required to be excited? We were cultural anthropologists. We stayed. Research purposes only, of course. After all, there might have been a terrific radio doco in the making.

By 7:30 pm, the nightclub room was full to the brim. The smell of two hundred different perfumes filled the air—a ‘pheromonic’ symphony preparing to flood the room in full bloom. About 500 women, from secretaries to Sunday School teachers, all vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass. We were tucked safely at the bar, our fortress. We couldn’t see the makeshift stage—a mercy—there was a wall between us and where the strip show was being performed. Luckily for me and John, we had a panoramic view of the audience. (The jury is still out if Greg was more keen to see the strip show instead of enjoying watching the women watch the strip show). It was like sitting in the prime spot to watch a very loud, very enthusiastic sporting event where the rules were unclear and the cheering was deafening.

“I know her!” I’d nudge Greg, pointing at a screaming woman from my local video store. “And her!” She’s the youngest and under aged daughter of my father’s colleague. I became useful to her because she enlisted me to purchase her Canadian Club drinks from the bar.

It was a surreal roll call of every woman I’d ever known well, known casually or never met. I repeat what I wrote above… research only. You know, again, there might be a radio doco in it. One never knows.

Intermission arrived. A local DJ from another radio station cranked up I’m So Excited, and the energy didn’t dip; it plateaued at a scream. This, of course, triggered the universal law of group events: The Great Female Toilet Migration.

Every woman will know only too well the drill, and very few men understand what I, John and Greg found out for ourselves. We are not like most men because we are educated men due to our on the scene research data.

Blissfully unaware, I made my usual beeline for the Gents. What I found was a line that snaked out the door, composed entirely of women, tapping their heels and doing the universal “I gotta go” dance. The venue wasn’t supposed to include male guests, so both male and female toilets were opened to the women for obvious reasons.

With a shrug of acceptance, I joined the line. As the girls and I shuffled forward into the male sanctum, we found ourselves standing alongside the pride of Tracks: a long, gleaming, industrial-grade stainless steel urinal. A monument to human ingenuity and efficient relief. Ten men could have stood there comfortably, sharing a no-waiting time moment of silent camaraderie.

Tonight, though, it was just a shiny, unused sculpture, standing silently behind very impatient, excited women.

I’d been chatting with one of them, a cheerfully drunk woman named Linda, as we inched toward relief. It dawned on me that we were sharing an historical moment of gender equality… an uncomfortable solidarity of desperation. Then suddenly, a lightbulb went on over Linda’s head.

“I’ll give you twenty bucks to piss in the trough,” she said, waving a crisp note.

Twenty dollars in 1985, that was a decent night’s drinking. My bladder screamed, “YES! Take the money!” But my mind presented an unwanted image. The Manly Magic performers. The stars of the show. Men who, by professional necessity, were likely… generously proportioned in the region associated with such job-description requirements. My imagined side-by-side comparison was not favourable.

“Noble offer,” I croaked, clutching myself. “But I’ll pass.”

Thinking that was the end of that, “Twenty-five dollars,” another woman chirped, joining the fray.

“No, really, I’m fine…”

And so it began. A bidding war. Right there in the crowded Gents, with the trough as the centrepiece. “Thirty!” “Thirty-five!” My potential earnings soared, but so did the mental images of the strippers ‘tools-of-the-trade’. They were becoming mythical creatures inside my head. Titans. My confidence shrank in direct, inverse proportion, if you follow my drift.

“Ladies, please!” I finally begged, as a stall door swung open like the gates of heaven. “My turn!”

I was allowed into the cubicle without interference, but only after agreeing to a compromise. As I was achieving a state of profound relief, a cluster of curious eyes stood behind me studying my technique. Like a shy Jim Morrison in his early days with The Doors, I had my back turned to my audience. For this, I received no fee. I finished, flushed, and made my escape to the basin to wash my hands, feeling oddly like a zoo exhibit that had just performed a trick. And, as Maxwell Smart, Secret Agent, 86 would always say, “And… loving it!“

I was almost back to the safe harbour of the bar when a hand shot out from the dancing throng, encircled my wrist, and yanked me into the maelstrom. Suddenly, I was in the middle of the packed dance floor, surrounded by maybe fifty gyrating women. One of them, a complete stranger with big hair and a bigger smile, had claimed me.

I had just started to awkwardly shuffle to “Love is a Battlefield” when another woman bulldozed through the crowd. She pointed directly at me and yelled to my captor over the music: “Where’d you get THAT from?” My owner didn’t miss a beat. She yelled back, beaming with pride: “I FOUND IT AND IT’S MINE!”

In that moment, any last illusion was shattered. I wasn’t a person. I wasn’t even a man. I was meat. A stray, moderately interesting item that had been found. “And… loving it!“

Alas, every fairy tale has its end. When the lights came up, revealing the confetti-strewn, carpet-sticky reality of Tracks, the magic dissolved. Five hundred drunk, worked-up women poured into the Brisbane night, and not a single one poured into a taxi with me.

We three men walked out alone, our anthropological mission complete, our wallets unchanged. John, engaged by then, just patted our shoulders. Sympathy for my so many missed opportunities, and to Greg for missing the official show.

The following morning, we discovered that one of the male strippers went a little too far and did the full monty. As it turned out. the Queensland Police were waiting nearby to arrest any male stripper who dared expose all. Meanwhile, some senior police, and some state legislators were attending the illegal brothels that ‘didn’t exist’ getting their ‘favours‘ as well as their ‘cut‘ from the workers earnings to avoid arrests. It was then we guessed that the police raided because Charlie was not paying protection money.

For the record, while I may have added a little bit of mayo for entertainment value, this is all true. And along with my punk rock story, I'd like to add that the vast majority of Queensland Police and Queensland politicians were not corrupt. Though, they were the ones who were overlooked for promotions, pushed out... or worse.

For one night, in a train carriage going nowhere, I’d learned a priceless, humbling lesson: what it feels like to be the prize, the prey, and the party favour. What it feels like to be meat. “And… loving it!“

On the flip side, and to be serious for a moment, I experienced the craziness of poor toilet facilities for women. It’s wrong in any day and age, but insane in a modern world for women to be dismissed when it comes to basic sanitary conditions.