There are times when I look at something we have wrought, and ask: “What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with us?”
One of the places I ask this the loudest is in Nambucca Heads – a small coastal town in northern NSW, Australia. There isn’t a lot going on in Nambucca Heads, which is why I like going there for a bit of a break.
I wait until the school holidays are over, so I’m not bedevilled with screaming sunburnt brats. Never been a fan of other peoples’ badly-behaved offspring. The insensate screeching grates on me, and I spend my time at the beach wishing sharks would feast on them.
Also, the usual Christmas-holiday gronk-fest is tailing off, so I’m not forced to share space with pissed gibbons angered up after being in the sun too long.
The caravan-hauling shitlords are all mostly on their way back to their suburban hellscapes, and Nambucca Heads goes back to sleeping by the sea.
It is a beautiful place. The Nambucca River runs into the Pacific Ocean there, forming a tidal estuarine inlet that is postcard beautiful, and a sheer joy to swim in.
To facilitate this swimming, the powers that be have caused the so-called V-wall to be built. It’s essentially a whole lot of massive boulders that have been dropped into place where the river joins the sea – a breakwall, if you will – and it forms a lopsided V. You can walk or cycle along it because the top of it is concreted. You can fish off the rocks or just sit and stare out to sea.
And apparently, if you’ve a mind to, you can vandalise the fuck out of it by painting all types of idiotic shit onto those rocks.
In most public places, if people start painting their names, footy clubs, or life-advice on walls or buildings, the police come, beat the shit out of them, and make them clean it up. It’s called “vandalism” because that is pretty much what it is.
But somehow, in Nambucca Heads, this is celebrated.
The NSW Government even has a page on its website about this shameful garbage.
“Over the years many visitors have painted their holiday messages, inspirational words, and memories on the rocks at the V-Wall Nambucca Heads. Stroll or wheel along the break wall at the end of Wellington Drive and see what it’s all about. This creative space provides a great read with comments from locals as well as visitors from around Australia and across the globe.”
Holiday messages? Inspirational words? Memories? Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Here.
There are maybe three or four genuinely artistic efforts among those many hundreds of rocks. Someone with actual talent has painted a fish. Or a turtle. Or a bird.
The rest? Well, there’s lots of names and dates of shitheads who’ve got on the piss and decided to commemorate their drunken family-holiday idiocy in Taubmans All Weather Gloss. Or there’s the shitty RIP messages for dead relatives, because smearing granny’s name on a rock somehow dignifies her memory. There are many declarations of love, ie. KAZ hearts MUNGO, doubtlessly daubed there the morning after Mungo fingerbanged Kaz probably on that very rock.
But the majority of the graffiti is just peoples’ names.
It’s fucking awful and wretched. Truly. It’s cringe-worthy. When I first saw it, I thought the local council needed to lift its graffiti-cleaning game. How could it permit such an idyllic location to be ruined in such a way?
But, no. These imbeciles are all for it, apparently.
And it’s made all the worse as being promoted as some kind of “creative space” that provides a “great read”. A great read is Moby Dick.
These are vandalised fucking rocks. This is graffiti defacement – and it’s not even great graffiti because some of that can be truly and artistically brilliant.
I even know how this vandalism happened and how it morphed into a “creative space”. Because it could only happen this one way.
The council lords built the V Wall with money glommed from the state government. That kinda shit ain’t cheap and council rates won’t cover such a project. We’re talking a few million at least, but the actual figure is mysteriously not available.
So they built it and everyone agreed it was bloody beaut. The rocks looked and were mighty, the onset of the sea was tamed a touch, erosion was reduced, and once again mankind had tamed nature a little bit.
Then one night, someone had a few too many beers and scrawled his name on a rock. They did this because that is what shitcunts do and have done since spray can paint was invented. Such a thing was a boon to shitcunts because it made it easy for them to tag public property and thus establish dominance or ownership or whatever the fuck it is they imagine spray-painting their “handles” does.
But back to the V Wall. So, over the next few days, other shitcunts had seen the work of the initial painty shitcunt and figured: “Yeah, I’m gonna get me some of that.” More names appeared.
Council found out and maybe tried to clean the rocks. Or mayube, and this is more likely, it just fucken surrendered, and…well, away the shitcunts went. Council, realising the battle against paint-vandalism was over, did what any worthless government body would do. It offered a new perspective on the defaced rocks. Council declared the multi-hued damage “art”.
And here we are today.
The vandalised rocks on the V-Wall are shit. They cannot be considered anything other than shit. I am embarrassed my country thinks this is some kind of cool cultural arty thing overseas visitors will obviously admire.
All overseas visitors will do is wonder why the council hasn’t sandblasted this crap off the rocks and fined the vandals who did it.
This is not art. Not by any measure. This is bogan gronks and shitlords marking their attendance at Nambucca Heads.
We are a species that has created jaw-dropping buildings, incredible sculptures, and paintings that have moved people to tears. Such is the all-encompassing power of great art. That is what we are capable of. That is what we must strive to create. Or if we cannot create such things ourselves, then we must celebrate the creation of these things.
Smearing our name on a rock and pretending we have created “art” or even something worth seeing…well, what do you think that says about us?
Yes, it does say: “What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with us?”
What else could it possibly say?
