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Invasion of the Latte Snatchers Looking back on my strained and fashionably misspent youth, I realise now what a hard life it was. You didn’t speak – your art was supposed to say it all for you. You tended to cycle through the alternate expressions of pouting, sneering and broadcasting meaningful looks. With the latter, the effect was almost certainly ruined if you opened your mouth, so you didn’t, mostly. It wasn’t cool to eat, so you didn’t do that either, although focacias were permitted on certain occasions, along with lattés. We were the only people eating focacias back then, except for Italians of course. It wasn’t cool to eat because you were supposed to spend all your money on drugs, alcohol and art supplies, in that order. Most of all, you were supposed to be wacky and make lots of visual statements. You were supposed to be a walking visual statement. Art was important. We were important. We had things to express. The rest of the world was full of boring people. We were exciting. I was too cool for supermarkets, cinema complexes, fun parks. I was too cool for the bus as well – did a lot of walking back in those days. Too cool for the beach. Too cool for nature. It was 1983 and I was an art student. Too cool to be anywhere that wasn’t a studio, gallery, pub, café or seedy lounge room drug den. But the cool, pouting, wacky visual exterior that I presented to the world was nothing but a cheap façade. In my heart I carried a terrible burden. A secret so shameful that were it to leak out and be discovered I would find myself banished from café, lounge and gallery society for evermore. I lived each funky, wacky, self-expressive pouting moment in terror of being unmasked. No matter how outlandishly I dressed, no matter how much pot I smoked, no matter how many times I played Joy Division’s "Love will Tear us Apart" on the pool room’s juke box, it was all a ruse. It wasn’t the real me at all. The real me spent its daylight hours wagging performance art classes, holed up in its $25 a week walk-in-wardrobe sized bedroom watching Dr Who. And Star Trek. And anything else with either a space ship or a monster in it. The real me put on disguises and went to see Arnold Schwarzenegger movies at the Hoyts Entertainment Centre. The real me didn’t actually own any Joy Division records. The real me was so sub-culturally naïve that she actually used to turn up to painting class and expect that there would be a teacher there. Stupid bitch. The teachers at that place were far too fashionable to attend their own classes. Instruction hampered the student’s creativity. Everyone spent the day in the pub. Everyone who was anyone was always in the pub. The pub was where art happened. So I stayed shitfaced and staggered about my business picking up little style pointers here and there. Besides, I never wanted to be a painter anyway. I wanted to make films. Or to be more precise, I wanted to be George Lucas. I wanted to make films like Star Wars. I’d seen it five million times. How hard could it be? Harder than it needed to be I guessed, when my film teacher informed me that the narrative form was dead. "Nobody, darling, NOBODY makes narrative films any more. As we sat down to another Sergei Eisenstein video marathon, I could see that the writing was on the wall. My 50-minute post-apocalyptic Super-8 costume drama was doomed right from the start. I slunk off to the pool room to pout, but it was no use. I played "Love will Tear Us Apart" a few times, drank horrible coffee and smoked the last of my pastel Sobranes, but it was hopeless. I just wasn’t wacky enough for that place. Walking home through the park that afternoon, I first saw them. Two guys and a girl strolling, laughing. They had that holiday air about them. A certain sparkle in their eyes. I stopped and watched them for a moment. There was something about them. Something… The guys were wearing powder blue rubber space suits. The girl in the middle was dressed as Catwoman. Not that this was odd particularly for a slab of park adjoining Oxford Street. It was the fact that the three of them were so blatantly uncool. The guys were overweight. The girl was fairly average-looking, but she clearly didn’t think so. She was struttin’ her sexy catsuit stuff just like she was Eartha Kitt. The spacemen and Catwoman were headed for a hotel overlooking the park. I decided to tail them. I felt compelled to follow, despite the fact that we were obviously of different social castes. I glanced back over my shoulder. Was anybody watching? The coast was clear so I snuck on in after them, and found myself in the middle of a freak show. Fat balding guys in ankle-length capes. Fat chicks in Star Trek mumus. Loads of fat people, some of them actually eating food! I stood agog. Had these people never heard of amphetamine abuse? Not a Joy Division t-shirt in sight. Some of them even sprouted antennae. But worst of all, no one seemed to have noticed me at all. The important visual statements I was making with the delicate, layered juxtapositional textures of my trousers just wasn’t registering with these folk. From the corner of my eye I spied a registration desk staffed by two large, mean-looking women in track suits. One of them was eyeing me suspiciously, and it wasn’t because she coveted my Fuck Art Let’s Dance t-shirt. I turned my back on her and dived to the centre of the crowd, attempting to hide myself amongst a gaggle of Klingons. But I’d been spotted. Registration woman was coming after me. In a sudden panic I dropped down on all fours and scuttled like a cockroach towards the nearest clump of potted palms, where I crouched till the coast was clear. I realised immediately that the palms provided an excellent vantage point for unashamed gawping. They weren’t all Klingons – some of them were Princess Leia, Buck Rogers and Servilan. Several of them were aliens with pliant latex heads. An elderly Queen of Outer Space swept past trailing a diaphanous veil from her elaborate hair-do. God, do they really wear so much blue eye shadow in outer space? Suddenly a hand tapped me on the shoulder. I leapt to my feet and started blurting out excuses why I wasn’t wearing a registration tag around my neck. But it wasn’t Registration Woman standing before me. It was Spiderman. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me with his spidery eyes. "Um… Hello," I said. Spiderman cocked his head to one side and folded his arms. Just as I was wondering if perhaps he was one of the no costume-no entry hall monitors, we were joined by some Stormtroopers and a couple of Dr Whos. I opened my mouth to introduce myself. "What are you into?" asked a short guy dressed in a sort of space rogue outfit. "Huh?" I really had to think about that one. You didn’t ask those sort of questions at Art School. "Um…German Expressionism; performance art; Joy Division– why do you ask?" The space rogue rolled his eyes. "Which shows?" I had to think about that one too. "Science Fiction ones," I answered brightly. Space Rogue stared back at me. Was I stupid? I wasn’t dressed like a TV character, so I already looked stupid. "Er… Star Trek?" Apparently the wrong answer because Space Rogue split. I found out later that the right answer was Blake’s Seven. Space Rogue was dressed as Avon. Had I got the answer right he would have pinned me in the corner for two hours to explore minutiae from favourite episodes. "Wanna come to a room party?" I wasn’t sure who had just invited me. Probably one of the Klingons. Before I had time to think about it, I spied Registration Woman hot on my trail once more. This time she was brandishing a clip-board. "Sure – let’s go," I said, shoving the Klingons in the direction of the lift lobby. We all squeezed into a waiting lift, and before I knew what was happening, the doors pinged open and I found myself corralled into a large conference room. Chairs had been pulled to the centre space, laden with bowls of chips and a beat up old ghetto-blaster. Someone shoved a tape in – Bill Halley’s "Rock Around the Clock." My lip curled in involuntary distaste. A collection of extremely large women in silken billowing tent dresses sat around the edges in clumps, talking. When the music started they leapt to their feet and bounced around, their dresses wafting through the air like parachutes. It was all too much. Slowly I edged my way to the safety of the nearest wall. I felt a presence beside me, and when I looked, I discovered it was Spiderman, this time sans mask. He looked like a surfie, his hair a mass of springy blond curls. He was very cute. He asked me my name, and then I asked him his. It was Spider, naturally. "Great party," he said, draining his plastic punch cup before diving back into the crowd. "Yuh," I said dryly, eyeing off the nearest exit sign. But before I could move I felt a bony hand clasp my shoulder. "I know what you’re looking for," whispered a sultry voice. The owner of the hand was a female Klingon dressed to the nines in studded leather battle gear. She smiled and handed me her card. It said The Ponn Farr Club. "Well, actually I was just leaving…" "Slash," she said. "Huh?" "Slash. You want it – I’ve got it. Come to the Hucksters room tomorrow." I fidgeted nervously. "Ahm… I don’t think…" She smiled, pressing a booklet into my hands and winking, and then she was gone. The booklet was entitled "Antillies", or something like that. I shoved it into my bag and split, not opening it again till I was safely on the train home. Slash. Now, to my mind, the term pornography just doesn’t quite cover this stuff. There were two acceptable responses to pornography when I was an art student; it was either an example of the worst excesses of the dominant male paradigm, or it was boring. But this Slash stuff… I mean, all those poems about Spirk and Cock feasting on each others’ genitalia… It was just too much. I wanted to throw it out the window, but I couldn’t stop reading it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or puke. Anyway, the next day when I got out of bed, I could sense something was amiss. The house was silent. Empty. There was less than the usual bodycount of snoring drunks crashed out on the sofas. In the kitchen I encountered my flatmate Larissa grappling with the dregs of a Corn Flakes packet. "Morning," I mumbled, heading for the door. Larissa’s eyes widened. She dropped the Corn Flakes and pointed at me, hissing. "You’re one of them," she spat. "You look like one of us, but you’re one of them…" "Yah," I said, edging round the spilled flakes. It was just like that scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Things got weirder as I walked through the college grounds. People were staring at me oddly. Something was definitely wrong. I headed for the pool room, where there was a notable absence of Joy Division in the air. I stepped towards the juke box, my way blocked suddenly by three paint-splattered students. I turned around to find everybody staring. "Your ears, said a skinny, bald girl dressed in a pink tutu topped with a dirty orange t-shirt that said I hate men. "What about my ears?" Quickly I brought my fingers up to touch them. The lobes were fine, but the tips… Oh my God, they were pointy! And rubber! I was wearing pointy rubber Spock ears. I snatched them off, but it was too late. "So you’re a Trekkie, are you, Cat?" said a cold voice from the back of the room somewhere. "No, no – of course not," I protested, but it was too late. Darkness descended on the pool room. "I swear I don’t know where they came from," I screamed, but my voice was drowned out by the sound of shuffling Doc Martens on naked floorboards. "Look guys," I whimpered, edging my way towards the door, "I only stuck my head in the Convention for a moment…" And that’s when I ran. It was probably my imagination, but I thought I heard a small voice at the back of the room shout out "kill the pig," as I scrambled off down the hallway. I wandered down Oxford Street dazed and confused. How on Earth had those rubber ears wound up affixed to mine? One thing was sure – I was never going to live this down. Never! I would be a marked woman for the rest of the semester. Things were going to be tough. I arrived home to find the house deserted, except for the skin-head who’d been living in our lounge room for the past six weeks. I had just flopped down on the battered couch when the phone rang. "Hi – is that Cat? Yeah, its Juliet Snog here – Zac Blinker’s girlfriend." Zac Blinker – the coolest guy in the whole college. He was in a band. Well, sure, everyone was in a band, pretty much. But his band actually produced albums and played at some of the classier venues round town. "So anyway," continued Juliet, "I’m a journalist, and I’m doing this piece on sad freaks and losers. Zac tells me that you’re a Trekkie, and that you hang out at Sci Fi conventions, so I was wondering if I could, like, interview you…" I sighed heavily. There was to be no turning back. From here on I was to bear the title of sad loser consultant. There was no point in fighting it. I persisted with production of my post-apocalyptic Super 8 costume drama, regardless of the fact that the only way to get an A in that place was to ram the camera up my back passage and film that for 3 minutes. I didn’t attend my graduation. It wasn’t the done thing to actually finish one’s degree. And Juliet Snog’s article ran on the back page of the Metro. She misquoted me, just like a professional journalist, the Convention section being wedged between the Wooloomooloo Elvis Spotters Society and the Gentlemen Flat Earthers. *** A couple of years later I found myself wandering up Cleveland Street Surry Hills. I think it might have been Sunday morning and I was stoned, in search of coffee. Cleveland Street was close to deserted as I staggered into a cafe. I thought I was imagining things when I spied two Star Trek Next Generation beings sitting in a booth sipping latté. One of them was black, about thirty-five years old, the other white and younger – about eighteen or nineteen I guessed. They were in full costume, right down to the pips on their collars. "Scuse me," I said helpfully, "but you guys are wearing Star Trek uniforms." "Yeah," said the black guy, beaming proudly. I blinked a few times. "But like," I said, "you’re in public…" The black guy smiled. "Me and David here are on the way to our Star Trek club meeting." "Yeah," said David. "It’s in Gladesville. We’re catching the bus." "But you’re wearing Star Trek uniforms," I gagged. They didn’t get it. They had no idea what I was freaking out about. They invited me along, waving a cheery goodbye when I declined, and then they were gone, leaving me even more dazed and confused that I had been before. Did I really see what I thought I’d just seen? I really had no way of knowing for sure. The morning was kind of foggy, and I’d had three cones for breakfast. And then, in a sudden epiphany, I finally understood. Cool was on the inside. Those two dudes – they were the stylish ones. They knew which end was up. They were living their own lives the way that they wanted to live them. I wasn’t. I was a shadow puppet. A pale imitation of an individual, always concerned about who was watching me. "Live long and prosper," I shouted out the window, making the Vulcan salute with my right hand. The Trekkies were gone, but a road train driver sounded his horn as his rig thundered past along Cleveland Street.
Invasion of the Latte Snatchers appears in Mitch?2: Tarts of the New Millennium, 2001
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