Mount Lawley is the bohemian flame to which the scarfed Perthian is drawn. It is a bustling hub of irritating fashion, latte-sipping fixie connoisseurs and crusty locals that have inhabited the leafy ‘burb since time began. Come for the variety of food and drink, and get stuck because some shit-stain on a Vespa is trying to turn right onto Walcott.
Matt steps out of his small cottage home with his French Bulldog, “lap it up Pierre, this is the best suburb in the fucking world”. His clothes are purchased exclusively from Elroy, and his fashion sense can best be described as “bogan kryptonite”: a beige beret, a striped scarf and tight Chinos rolled up to expose his ankles. He insufferably covers his body in arbitrary pop culture tattoos and in an act of despicable unoriginality he flaunts them with nonchalance. Oh, he also rocks a greased cunt-antenna, and his dog is dressed like a prick too.
On his Sunday morning walk to Bossman Coffee, Matt pauses at the site of the old Planet Video and pours a splash of his coconut water out on the pavement in respect for the sacred grounds. He spots a couple of nose-ringed girls that he knows and pauses to select a suitably pretentious tune on his iPod: Coltrane? Perfect. He sleaze-strolls up to the dark-haired fringe-bishes, “coming to the Scotto for a pizza & pint ladies?”. Of course, they are, the high price of rentals in Mount Lawley forces the young hipsters to feed off the fat of the discount.
Before the Scotto, Matt must meet his mother at the Beaufort Street Merchant for their weekly coffee, and Matt’s weekly money grab. Living the Mount Lawley lifestyle isn’t cheap, and he will never live his dream of mixing trap-jazz fusion at the Velvet Lounge on a Friday night if he looks like an Inglewood peasant. $50 richer, he heads to the Scotto to get drunk and tell anyone who will listen about his upcoming audio-visual art project: “Like, Start the Boats, Fuck Abbott”. Sounds like an edgy ripper, mate.
His group sit out the front and spend the majority of their drinking session talking about how brilliant Mount Lawley is, “there really isn’t anything like it, it’s the most Melbourne-like ‘burb Perth has”. After numerous pints Matt is sloppier than a 1am Mount Lawley Whopper and becomes very Melbmotional: “so sick of Perth bogans mahn, I am totally moving to Melbourne next year”.
An ambitious plan for a man that lives off canned food and has only travelled as far as Highgate in the last 3 months.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?