Cheapa Skips is an excessive amount of Rock ‘n’ Roll Grit
Australia’s association with the highs and lows of Pop Culture is a tenuous task. When outdated critics (both professional and otherwise) look at Australia with snide and passive aggressive tactics like referring to us as the cute country from the bottom of the planet whose boomer citizens like to put “shrimps on the barbie” you’ve got to feel for creative writers, content creators, artists and musicians who are doing it tough in trying to elevate Australia to a level of world-renowned legitimacy.
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When looking at Australia from the outside in, you’ll rarely see comparisons that come remotely close to life and living in the great southern land. To that point, if I see one more comparison of Australian manliness to the likes of any Hemsworth brother I’m going to stick my testicles in a deep fryer.
And yet still, that is only the tip of the overly frustrating iceberg.
Life and living on the world’s largest continent and country goes so much deeper than the overly offensive anecdote of our only accomplishment’s being just how hot Thor looks in the latest fuckboi franchise which Disney have coined “Marvel” or how Crocodile Hunter cemented our footprint on the world stage.
There’s an excessive amount of grit, rock n roll and bogan infused sarcastic banter which is the core makeup of the Aussie spirit which is rarely explored. Yes, you could say there’s nothing more punk rock than being an Aussie battler and proudly being part of the 99%. A grit that is broken down into 12+ excitable chapters, each of which feels like popping some speed the morning after a raw alcoholic binge. A binge worthy of a Nikki Sixx coke scribbled anecdote.
Sleazy and Dirty Thoughts lie within Cheapa Skips
So you won’t be surprised when author Garth Jones’ independent publishing label, Pass the Amyl, has spat out a rough and grimey opus of thoughts and feelings layered in the often forgotten about arid landscape of Broken Hill and called it Cheapa Skips. Leaving the reader not only with the initial thoughts of a Cheapa Skips skip bin but also the sleazy and dirty thoughts that lie in the shallow end of Australia’s cultural epicentre.
Jones is scraping at the bottom of the skip bin to reveal thoughts not only regurgitated from the deep recesses of his own mind but thoughts, which also, deeply explore and reveal a level of underclass that is so deeply ingrained in the Australian spirit. With Cheapa Skips you can’t help but keep scraping at the bottom of that skip bin to reveal the beauty in the absolutely ugly.
Cheapa Skips explores a narrative the Mainstream are too shit-scared to venture into
As you work your way through Cheapa Skips you find a multitude of layers which are broken as much as they are inviting. There are places this book goes to which reveals a veritable smorgasbord on Australian culture. A laundry list, if you will, on the parts of the urban arid landscape that makes up the many parts of life here. It’s in this laundry list which Jones adds humour to the satire dynamic he creates which each and every character representing A-typical stereotypes of everyday citizens.
Jones doesn’t shy away from what and who those characters are. He doesn’t raise the class of the typical bogan or blemish the lifestyle of a pub-crawler. He simply provides a narrative which many authors are often too shit-scared to venture into. For that, he should be applauded.
Cheapa Skips raises the veil of a broken, rusted and unattractive lifestyle of Aussie culture. One which the mainstream media tries to bury like many of Ivan Milat’s victims. A rock n roll culture which exists despite the bullshit effort to raise it to an acceptable status of aristocratic class. Where Nat’s What I Reckon ventures down a humorous tunnel of what the fuck should we do with our food, Cheapa Skips ventures into the parts of our culture that are dirty, beaten, exploitative and somehow a comfort food all at the same time.
Speaking of comfort food:
“Excuse me, waiter? I asked for more.”
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