Brendan / Monkey

St Jerome’s was my place.  

And a lot of other people’s place too. It held this mythical ‘see what happens’ attitude in many people’s hearts, in the way that by the end of it, regardless of which night or weekend it happened to be, people would just rock up to go along for the ride. I spent whole days when it opened drawing pictures on Table 2 because my mum thought I was going to uni and I had to keep up appearances.  

It all started because I met some of his sister’s friends on a tram heading home one night, ended up at the bar the next day and met Jerome, who was quick to try and figure out how much I would charge to paint some stencils on the door, but when I replied ‘I’m not sure. How’s a few beers?’ I think he knew straight away that we’d end up being mates. 

So much dumb shit happened at one point Jerome and I joked that we could make a sitcom about it; in hindsight, we probably should’ve. Right at the start Jerome organized us to join the Bar League at Strike Bowling, and because Jerome and Jonesy were such good buddies, the tequila competitions were always rigged in our favour (then again, it wasn’t that hard...). But you can’t rig a bowling tournament, and our team ended up winning. It was like a little impromptu staff party because we had most of the staff pludering all the free booze.

It got to the point for me and all my drunken idiot mates that on Friday nights we wouldn’t have to call each other anymore to see what was going on. Me, Flip, Ryan and Steve first started DJ’ing there right at the start and spent the better part of six years avoiding the wafting stench from the Myer building and having to wade through the crowds just to get beer. It was pretty much given after a while that if it rained everyone would get wet and we’d spend the night huddled under some surprisingly waterproof makeshift roof section (given, it was the only part that was waterproof) and then it almost always all ended up in Blue Dragons at Rue Bebelons. But this one particular night, Flip was overseas, Steve had stopped DJ’ing there by then. Shan had come into replace him, but Shan and Ryan scarpered off to go to a 21st super early, so I was left to DJ for the better part of four hours, which normally isn’t so bad, but this one night the heavens were just opening up when they left.  Luckily for me, the Avalanches had played the week before and I had begged Jerome to leave in their ridiculous sound system for an extra week so I could DJ on it. This thing was crazy; given the size of the outside part, there were about 10 speakers on top of an air-conditioning unit so you can imagine how loud it could get.  

I thought, ‘fuck it, let’s dance!’  Where I would normally reserve some of the more party records for later on and build up to it, I had to resort to smashing it out from the get go, and really went for it. Before long, the rain had gotten worse and it became a downpour, which always seemed to magnify in the back section, because of the tarps.  What resulted was about four or five spots where the water collected and then every 30 seconds it would all pour out at once.  But what I didn’t count on was everyone being in such a good mood because of the sound system, people were starting to strip off left, right and centre in some sort of awesome party rain dance.

I also still remember the first staff party we ever had.  It was incredible: Jerome had hired the top part of PBS on Easey St in Collingwood and took us all up for dinner, not even an hour later, the station manager came up and told us to shut up or fuck off because we had turned all the plates and glasses into drums and were stomping the floor. But the best part of that night was when we all ended up back at St Jerome’s literally two seconds after Spiro (who was ringing in and wanted to make a good impression) had finished mopping the place. We literally all burst through the door and ripped the place a new one with so much force that Spiro in his disgust grabbed a bottle of coke and sprayed everyone with it about five minutes later. So that explains the coke stains on the roof that stayed there until closing night.

There also should be mention of Felix and Leon; St Jerome’s neighbours on Caledonian Lane. Felix was the tailor and Leon ran the bedding store, both awkward and hilarious old fellas who managed to put up with all of our shit for six years, gave us discounts on mending shirts and pillows and were more or less like Waldorf and Statler from the muppets.

But in the end it was the staff that was the best part about it.  We had this long battle just to keep the bar going on a day to day basis, but we all trudged through it because it was fun, and we all did it together.  From the Wednesday Fitzroy Steak nights, to Tuesday night power ballads, espresso martinis, crumbling store rooms, the Thursday four-pallet beer delivery or having to deal with the toilets on any given weekend, it was just worth it. 

I loved that little shithole...