From Issue #13 · July 2025

After a near-death experience (no metaphor here), Brett and Susie Pritchard fled Sydney’s collapsing cool to resurface in Brunswick East, bringing with them toasties, trauma, and a curated sense of homey detachment.

Opening The Coffee Bar—accessible via roller door for maximum industrial romance—and Bar Elsie, a Euro-bistro promising both nostalgia and unasked-for intimacy, the duo will offer pear-and-walnut scrolls to those emotionally fragile enough to eat one.

“We want people to feel like they’ve walked into a warm, welcoming home,” Brett said, pausing as the ghost of Brunswick’s working-class past tried to wrestle a bonsoy bottle out of his hand.

Stay tuned for our next exposé: Who Keeps Green-Lighting Concrete Floors as Cosy?

From Issue #13 · July 2025

They come in droves—early 20s, eyes dead, outfits louder than their personalities. Clad in oversized rave-wear that screams “I saw one photo of my mum at Earthcore and based my identity on it,” the new wave of Neo-Rave Zombies is upon us. But make no mistake: there’s no ecstasy here, only irony and filtered cynicism. This isn't a fashion revival—it’s a séance gone wrong.

The Look: What once was euphoric has returned as a walking spreadsheet of cool. Muddy yellow tops like shame. Low-rise cargos that whisper “I intern at VICE.” Beaded necklaces now sold at boutique pop-ups for $65 and paired with a frown.

Accessories include: sneering critiques of joy, sustainable water bottles as identity, permanent rolling eyes, and superiority from watching three Harmony Korine films.

Gone are the neons. In are washed-out primaries: red as rust, blue as dread, yellow like bin juice. The palette screams “postmodern baby food.” No risk. No sweat. Just cosplay joy.

“They don’t want a party. They want to reference one.”

From Issue #13 · July 2025

There was a time when Instagram meant something. A fleeting sunrise. A dog in a hat. A single dumpling on a ceramic plate that cost three rent payments. But now? Now it’s a never-ending feed of reclaimed wood, lukewarm takes, and people who treat “content creation” like a spiritual vocation and a valid job title.

The Offenders: Morning.Ritual.MugShot – beige mugs in beige rooms; BoysWhoBakeButNeverApologise – crusty sourdough, crustier politics; Brunswick_Loft_Living – rental interiors with trauma; Urban__Nomad__Kinfolk – minimalism as weapon; CafeReviewz_Melbs – conquest of $28 breakfasts.

“Instagram is a mausoleum of mildness.”

From Issue #13 · July 2025

Wayne “Slatts” Slattery is quicker than a nose picker on a full tram, and funny as your gran gassed up after a trip to the dentist. His achievements sit somewhere between local legend, public nuisance and a council newsletter nobody can quite verify.

He loves dog parks, despite not owning a dog. He holds the Ouyen record for the longest vanilla slice entered in the bake-off. He once reversed a golf cart 47 kilometres to raise money for children who are just average—not especially gifted, not particularly disadvantaged, simply doing their best. His commitment to the middle of the bell curve remains unmatched.

Slatts enjoys a licorice allsort and recently acquired a 50 per cent share in a vending machine at the Thomastown Car Wash. Industry analysts have described the purchase as “vertical integration,” although nobody can confirm what is in the machine or who owns the other half.

When interviewed, Slatts declined to discuss his solo record until he had completed a detailed breakdown of Season 3 of The Golden Girls. The season dealt with friendship, illness, homelessness, dodgy politics, sudden wealth, family strain and a child holding Rose’s teddy bear hostage—essentially the complete Australian economic syllabus.

“Rose’s teddy bear is the housing market,” Slatts explained. “She loves it, she’s had it forever, and then one little speculator gets hold of it and demands a bicycle. That’s negative gearing.”

He considers Grab That Dough a particularly accurate portrayal of the modern labour market: four women travel across the country, lose their luggage, turn on one another and compete for prizes that barely cover the cost of getting there. “That’s productivity,” he said. “Everyone’s exhausted and one bloke goes home with an electric skillet.”

Then there is Brother, Can You Spare That Jacket?, in which a donated coat containing a winning lottery ticket leads the women into a homeless shelter. To Slatts, this is Australia’s entire fiscal position in 24 minutes. “We’ve got wealth, but it’s sewn into a jacket nobody can locate. Meanwhile, the people who need the jacket are sleeping in a shelter.”

His assessment is irritatingly difficult to dismiss. Australian inflation is running at 4.3 per cent, unemployment at 4.7 per cent and quarterly GDP growth at just 0.4 per cent. Wages rose 3.2 per cent over the year—less than prices—while the cash rate sits at 4.35 per cent. Slatts calls this “the Sophia problem”: everybody knows she is right, but nobody wants her controlling the household budget.

Why is a bearded 48-year-old man using a late-’80s American sitcom about four older women in Miami to explain Australian economics and world politics? Because Slatts has discovered something our major institutions have not: every crisis becomes understandable once Dorothy is furious, Blanche has misunderstood the assignment, Rose has trusted the wrong person and Sophia has entered the room holding food.

Slatts does not watch The Golden Girls nostalgically. He watches it as a policy instrument. Interest rates, elections, international conflicts, emotional collapse—he can explain all of them with cheesecake and a Season 3 subplot.

“The economy is just four people sharing a house because none of them can afford to live alone.”

Behind these civic and commercial triumphs is a genuine musical genius. With his superb bass playing, acting skills and unteachable instinct for turning any room into a story, Slatts helped take King Parrot to lofty heights. The band could thank “Slatts EveryDAy”—every day—for generating publicity and interest in corners of the musical world that might otherwise have precious little to say about metal, et al.

Now he has set his sights on a solo career. What is in store for Slatts? Nobody knows. We only know it will be funny, smart and furry.

“A serious musician disguised as a bloke who owns half a car-wash vending machine.”

Web article

For years, the top floor of this inner-north car park offered somewhere to leave a Corolla while you made a bad decision downstairs. Now the bad decisions come to you, on a tray, with a discretionary Sunday surcharge.

The new rooftop bar has retained the original concrete, yellow lines and sense that you should probably get back before six. A row of olive trees has been installed in tubs large enough to house the staff. Nobody has mentioned this to the staff.

“We wanted to honour what was here before,” says the owner, standing on DISABLED in a pair of linen trousers. “There’s a real history to this space.”

There is. It was twelve dollars an hour.

The drinks: A twenty-eight-dollar martini arrives with a single olive suspended from a miniature clothes peg. The menu describes it as playful. Across the table, a man whose rent just went up is trying to work out how to eat it without participating.

The atmosphere: Wind. Unrelenting wind. A DJ in a fisherman’s beanie is playing a slowed-down version of something that was already slow. Every few minutes a menu goes over the edge towards Sydney Road. Downstairs, someone assumes it’s a parking fine and keeps walking.

The view is magnificent. You can see three other places you can no longer afford to drink.

“We’ve really opened the space up to the community,” the owner adds. The lift requires a booking reference.

“They kept the two-hour limit. It’s called a sitting now.”

Web article

The electrician was supposed to finish on Thursday. By Friday night, the exposed wiring had a title, a price and a paragraph about displacement.

A half-gutted shopfront off Smith Street has opened as a temporary gallery, giving Melbourne’s art community a rare opportunity to stand in a building that looks exactly like their rental and pretend it’s a choice.

The exhibition explores absence. Absent plaster. Absent heating. The absent bloke who took a deposit to do the floor. His contribution is the strongest thing in the room.

“We’re interested in the conversation between labour and space,” says the curator, moving a tradie’s invoice behind the drinks table.

The work: Three bricks on a chair. A photograph of the chair before the bricks arrived. A small television showing a man carrying the chair back to his ute. It’s unclear whether this is a trilogy or a dispute.

Near the entrance, a bucket catches water from the ceiling. Someone asks whether it’s for sale. The curator says she’ll check with the artist. The plumber says it’s his bucket.

Opening-night wine is served in cups that buckle when held with conviction. A man in architectural glasses says the room feels honest. Behind him, someone is carefully cropping the portable toilet out of a photograph.

By nine, the red dots have started appearing. One goes on a section of wall scheduled for removal. The buyer asks about delivery. For the first time all evening, the demolition bloke looks interested.

The show runs until Sunday, or until the skip arrives. Whichever gets funded first.

“The wall text is load-bearing.”