Jecca Zane
Sandra 1Frown Casino
September 12th 2007 13:14
There are few other places in Melbourne that stand out like such a beacon of greed and hollow glamour as Crown Casino. Few other monumental temples to the all powerful god of cash. And his cousin credit. Few other places on earth with as much fire, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Crown Casino is a vacuum. A black hole that allows nothing to escape it’s sucking; not light, not time and especially not next week’s rent.
It is our city’s shrine to the American dream with all the sheen and just as much shit to go with it. A perfect model for consumerism; spend, lose. Spend, win. Spend, spend, spend.
For me the casino reserves a special place at the base of my lower intestine, for I was unfortunate enough to be in its employ for the best part of a year. Eight months elapsed between my unpaid training and my dishonourary discharge from that great reliever of funds. A place that came to be known to me as: Frown Casino.
My time at the Casino did teach me a few things and for these lessons I am grateful. Before I became a blue-vested card-dealing thief, I naively thought that people were generally nice to their fellow man. Before I ever stood before a table of waiting gamblers warming their remaining chips in nervous hands; I thought people would always address others with the polite demeanour they deserved. Before I ever drew a card and placed in front of a stack of chips; I never imagined grown men and women would hiss and fling insults at a person trying their best not to take their money. Before I ever became a Blackjack Dealer; I never had a man inquire at my homeward route so he could find me and stab me to death. Before I ever saw I grown man weep as I took away his money for child support; I saw the casino as most people do; A place of glamour, amusement and $2 Fish and Chips.
After 8 months and approximately one and a half thousand hours behind a table, I realised that the advertisements picturing people swept up in the pure joy of gambling might be in fact untruths. In my whole time there I hadn't seen a single couple raise their hands and exotic cocktails in the sheer ecstasy brought on by a big win; I had seen a lonely woman sitting at the same poker machine for the entire eight hours of my shift. I hadn't seen a table full of people cheering and hugging their fellow gamblers in celebration of the dealer's bust; I had seen a man pull $5000 from his drawers and proceed to lose the lot except $50 dollars in 3 hands. I hadn't seen elderly men and women enjoying their twilight years in the company of emphatic carers, but I had seen the poor old codgers conned out of their pensions with cheap food, bottomless cups of tea and a shiny ‘Crown Bus Program’ that came to pick the old diggers up from their RSL clubs as far away as Adelaide, Sydney and Broadmeadows to bring them to Crown. Since the creation of the evil ‘Crown Bus Program’ in ’94 about 18,000 cronies a month have been dragged from their knitting and general rambling about the good old days to sit on stools in front of poker machine and piss their pants and money away like they were a bunch of blue haired cardigan wearing sailors in port for a day.
Some people like the casino, some people have fun and some lucky people even win money. But most don’t win, most don’t have fun and are only there because they lost a thousand dollars ten years ago playing Roulette and are trying to win it back. That makes about as much sense at someone trapped in a well trying to dig their way out via China.
Most of the people that attend the Casino regularly are sullen, bitter, evil, ugly creatures who were blessed at birth with as much personality as a stepped on snail who ventured out after a rain and got crushed by someone’s shoe only to become a wet impression of for a few steps after its death, and have about as much charisma as one of those seagulls at Flinders Street Station that hops around with one good leg and one knobbly stump, like some farmer in Vietnam that stood on a landmine while he was harvesting his crop.
Each to their own I say. My personal opinion of the casino is this: remember that episode of the Simpsons? The 3D one? Where homer travels through the lounge room wall into another dimension, manages to initiate its implosion and eventually gets sucked into the great abyss with the rest of the contents of the universe. I think that episode of the Simpsons is actually a clever metaphor for the Casino. It looks nice when you walk in. Impressive with its cute third dimension, then you release it’s actually a giant crater expanding and swallowing the souls and livelihoods of all who remain inside its walls. Then it spits all the captured souls out every night in the form of giant fire balls that also kill any birds that may be flying above.
In finishing I say this. If you can’t think of anything better to do in Melbourne besides going to the Mercury Lounge and rocking out with the rest of the city fringe dwellers, watching a little white ball land on Red and take your taxi fare away or making yourself feel reckless and daring by playing the ‘dollar a spin' pokies; then move to Adelaide. Where the lack of actual culture won’t give you the strain of trying to seek it out. Or do what the rest of the Casino winners do; walk back to your car, leave the car park with your complementary parking and drive it to the middle of the West Gate Bridge. Stop your car there and get out. Take one last look at the flames mocking you as they light up the Yarra and leap to your death. On your way down scream “Everyone’s a winner at Crown”.
Crown Casino is a vacuum. A black hole that allows nothing to escape it’s sucking; not light, not time and especially not next week’s rent.
It is our city’s shrine to the American dream with all the sheen and just as much shit to go with it. A perfect model for consumerism; spend, lose. Spend, win. Spend, spend, spend.
For me the casino reserves a special place at the base of my lower intestine, for I was unfortunate enough to be in its employ for the best part of a year. Eight months elapsed between my unpaid training and my dishonourary discharge from that great reliever of funds. A place that came to be known to me as: Frown Casino.
My time at the Casino did teach me a few things and for these lessons I am grateful. Before I became a blue-vested card-dealing thief, I naively thought that people were generally nice to their fellow man. Before I ever stood before a table of waiting gamblers warming their remaining chips in nervous hands; I thought people would always address others with the polite demeanour they deserved. Before I ever drew a card and placed in front of a stack of chips; I never imagined grown men and women would hiss and fling insults at a person trying their best not to take their money. Before I ever became a Blackjack Dealer; I never had a man inquire at my homeward route so he could find me and stab me to death. Before I ever saw I grown man weep as I took away his money for child support; I saw the casino as most people do; A place of glamour, amusement and $2 Fish and Chips.
After 8 months and approximately one and a half thousand hours behind a table, I realised that the advertisements picturing people swept up in the pure joy of gambling might be in fact untruths. In my whole time there I hadn't seen a single couple raise their hands and exotic cocktails in the sheer ecstasy brought on by a big win; I had seen a lonely woman sitting at the same poker machine for the entire eight hours of my shift. I hadn't seen a table full of people cheering and hugging their fellow gamblers in celebration of the dealer's bust; I had seen a man pull $5000 from his drawers and proceed to lose the lot except $50 dollars in 3 hands. I hadn't seen elderly men and women enjoying their twilight years in the company of emphatic carers, but I had seen the poor old codgers conned out of their pensions with cheap food, bottomless cups of tea and a shiny ‘Crown Bus Program’ that came to pick the old diggers up from their RSL clubs as far away as Adelaide, Sydney and Broadmeadows to bring them to Crown. Since the creation of the evil ‘Crown Bus Program’ in ’94 about 18,000 cronies a month have been dragged from their knitting and general rambling about the good old days to sit on stools in front of poker machine and piss their pants and money away like they were a bunch of blue haired cardigan wearing sailors in port for a day.
Some people like the casino, some people have fun and some lucky people even win money. But most don’t win, most don’t have fun and are only there because they lost a thousand dollars ten years ago playing Roulette and are trying to win it back. That makes about as much sense at someone trapped in a well trying to dig their way out via China.
Most of the people that attend the Casino regularly are sullen, bitter, evil, ugly creatures who were blessed at birth with as much personality as a stepped on snail who ventured out after a rain and got crushed by someone’s shoe only to become a wet impression of for a few steps after its death, and have about as much charisma as one of those seagulls at Flinders Street Station that hops around with one good leg and one knobbly stump, like some farmer in Vietnam that stood on a landmine while he was harvesting his crop.
Each to their own I say. My personal opinion of the casino is this: remember that episode of the Simpsons? The 3D one? Where homer travels through the lounge room wall into another dimension, manages to initiate its implosion and eventually gets sucked into the great abyss with the rest of the contents of the universe. I think that episode of the Simpsons is actually a clever metaphor for the Casino. It looks nice when you walk in. Impressive with its cute third dimension, then you release it’s actually a giant crater expanding and swallowing the souls and livelihoods of all who remain inside its walls. Then it spits all the captured souls out every night in the form of giant fire balls that also kill any birds that may be flying above.
In finishing I say this. If you can’t think of anything better to do in Melbourne besides going to the Mercury Lounge and rocking out with the rest of the city fringe dwellers, watching a little white ball land on Red and take your taxi fare away or making yourself feel reckless and daring by playing the ‘dollar a spin' pokies; then move to Adelaide. Where the lack of actual culture won’t give you the strain of trying to seek it out. Or do what the rest of the Casino winners do; walk back to your car, leave the car park with your complementary parking and drive it to the middle of the West Gate Bridge. Stop your car there and get out. Take one last look at the flames mocking you as they light up the Yarra and leap to your death. On your way down scream “Everyone’s a winner at Crown”.
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