I'm pretty goddamn rock'n'roll.
Ask anyone who knows me. They'll tell you I'm a bad-arsed, hardcore party animal who likes to drop it like it's hot and who doesn't bother asking for receipts.
When Ballard is a-rockin', not only should you not come a-knockin', you should lock up your daughters, put away the good china and strap yourself in for a night of sexy drugs.
This kid is both off tap and off the map.
Yet even I was surprised when, earlier this year, I was involved in an altercation on the streets of my home town during one of my many nightly jaunts. The bright neon glow of Warrnambool's nightlife drew me in like a moth to a flame, only to singe my outstretched wings and then fail to reimburse me for the taxi ride home.
In the 2008th year of our Lord Jesus Christ, in what has to be one of the most shameful episodes of my life, I, Tom Ballard, was kicked out of a Warrnambool nightclub.
Sure, it means I'm now eligible for several Centrelink benefits, but I'm still pretty mentally scarred.
Firstly, for those of you not familiar with the Warrnamboolian nightlife, allow me to elaborate. There are two nightclubs in Warrnambool...well...I say "nightclubs". I might be stretching the term a little; I mean, yes, they are both open at a time which is not day and yes, they are both harmful to baby seals. But those two elements alone a good night out do not necessarily make.
Furthermore, there is a tremendous amount of hype around the dangers of the Warrnambool “scene”. In an effort to incur a Cronulla-esque angle to their reporting, local media have nicknamed the stretch of road between the two nightclubs the “Gaza Strip”.
Indeed, the likeness is chillingly uncanny.
On the Gaza Strip in the Middle East, you could be abducted and murdered - on the Gaza Strip in Warrnambool, you could be sold a dodgy dim sim. We don't have Arafat's compound, but we do have a 1:30am lockout.
Truly, with such haunting parallels, the whole nature of what constitutes a “tragedy” is called into question.
So on this particular night of frivolity, a couple of my friends and I were shaking our thangs on the dance floor of one of these late-night watering holes, celebrating our recent reunion, having not seen each other for quite a while. Drinks had been merrily consumed, hugs had been shared and, as at one point the DJ had dropped Chumbawamba's 1997 epic Tubthumping, I had danced up a storm, was feeling quite tired and was in need of a good ol' sit down.
Because I'm pretty goddamn rock'n'roll.
I melodramatically flopped myself down onto the deserted padded seats that ran along one of the walls of the club to give myself some breathing time. I soon noticed the presence of two burly security guards (are security guards ever not burly?) over near the entrance to the toilets. They were looking over at me and nodding to one another in a slow, ominous fashion. They clearly thought their job of monitoring the drunken stumblings of barely legal (and not-so-legal) teenagers had just got serious.
I was asked to leave. Me. I was told that I'd "had enough", that I should "call it a night". I was genuinely surprised; this kind of thing was supposed to happen to professional footballers, not pale, lanky, aspiring actors who are too afraid to admit they secretly prefer the taste of alcopops to beer.
I tried to politely explain that I wasn't causing any trouble, that I was simply there to have fun and that the $10 door charge was actually a fair bit of money in the world of the unemployed artist with dreams of moving to Melbourne. The bouncer - let's call him Davo - wasn't having a bar of it. He insisted that I move it along, obviously satisfied that he now had something to do and was in the familiar situation of ejecting a rowdy drunkard.
I begin to grow indignant.
"You can't kick me out!" I yelled over Rhianna's Umbrella. "It's me!"
Yeah, that's right: I was getting all Belinda Neal on their ass.
"Hey! What's going on?"
My friends had come to the rescue. My red-faced, swaying-a-little-too-much, attracting-more-attention-to-the- situation-than-it-deserved friends.
"Hey! You can't kick him out! He was the dux of our year level!"
Even I could see the folly in this argument. Security guards don't tend to be impressed by booksmarts; Clive James very rarely gets away with starting knife fights at the Seanchai, while Stephen Hawking is barred from most London pubs for lewd behaviour.
Finally, out I went. Out into the cold and windy Warrnambool night, surrounded by smokers, disappointed Johnny Come-Latelies and my school friend Billy. Billy was honestly so drunk that he deserved to have been escorted out and his loud proclamations of love for me, coupled with his need to lean on me in order to remain upright, weren't helping my chances for re-entry.
It was a disappointing way to end the night, to be honest. I wasn't offered a refund, I wasn't offered free entry the following week, a cab wasn't called and my request for I Want You Back by The Jackson 5 wasn't honoured. At one point I thought I might have a chance to return to the parté when a friend of mine who worked behind the bar came out to see me, heard what had happened and stormed back inside to have a good chat to Davo and sort the whole ordeal out.
I never saw her again.
Eventually I made my way back to a friend's house, vomited in a toilet and slept on a surprisingly small couch. I would have preferred to have vomited in the club's toilets like everyone else, but it seems like I'm too much of a rebel who's been targeted by The Man.
I think Davo and the Mafia bosses of the Warrnambool nightclub underworld could afford to relax a little more. I wasn't even vaguely in the same condition as Billy and certainly wasn't a danger to others or myself. I appreciate the fact that bouncers have a pretty tough job and have to put up with a fair bit of crap, but punters have rights, too.
But hey: what do I care? I'm snorting cocaine, swigging booze and using plastic bags as we speak. The party never ends when this cat's in town, honey.
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