on Going Down and the cost of sliving: a long-form poem

on this and that, #1 April 2026

Sliving (noun): a catchphrase coined by Paris Hilton that blends "slaying" and "living your best life".

Last Friday night, we went drinking in the bar (skinny dipping in the dark then had a ménage a trois). ‘We’ being my best friend and I, and ‘the bar’ being the iconic Fitzroy institution: The Ev. A few hours into our yapfest, fuelled by whiskey cokes and pinot gris (respectively, we’re grown women), two random men struck up a conversation with us. NOW, being high on the joyous occasion that is my best friend Prue and I finding ourselves in Melbourne at our OG local on a Friday night, it’s safe to say we were filled with an optimism and whimsy that rarely enters the minds of 2 politically engaged girls in their early 20s. So, when approached (after giving each other the ok fine let’s be polite and heeheehaha for a little bit glance), we engaged in some light-hearted banter primarily revolving around Sydney vs Melbourne, the cost of petrol, and what is the superior chip flavour (truly riveting stuff). They had a gig to go to, so we said our goodbyes and off they went. We returned to our chat smiling, with Prue pointing out how lovely innocent social interactions with the male species can be. 

5 mins later, one of the (uglier of the two in mind, body and spirit) guys came out and grabbed Prue’s vape off the table. We said politely he can have a hit, but he can’t take it with him into the gig, he apologised and said he thought it was his, hitting us with the “are you sure it’s yours???” so many times I wanted to rip his stupid moustache off his stupid face. But alas, he gave it back and left. 5 minutes later, his sorry, fugly ass was BACK this time, with a vengeance. He was convinced that the vape was his, despite it BEING A DIFFERENT FLAVOUR TO THE ONE HE CLAIMS HE BOUGHT THAT DAY. He forced Prue to show her bank statement and thoroughly checked both of our bags. Pissed off, he gave up and disappeared into the night for a second time. Round 3, and my x-ray vision could see this man’s tiny penis through his pants as he stormed back into the bar from the gig, GRABBED THE VAPE OFF THE TABLE AND RAN AWAY into the night. I thought it was a prank at first because I could not fathom behaving this way at any age, but especially not when I’m pushing 50. We immediately explained to the seccy what had happened, and to our dismay, he did not share our rage. He tells us to calm down, that it’s going to be ok, and that we can go and buy another one up the road. 

ITS NOT ABOUT THE VAPE ITS ABOUT THE PRINCIPLE 

We yell at him in perfect unison.

And thus, vapegate was born. 

Usually the pushover, this fateful Friday, I was full of rage and angst, but most importantly, I felt empowered to do something about it. NO fuckass man with a fuckass moustache was going to steal something from MY best friend. Sounds like a reach, but coming off the back of seeing Going Down at the Sydney Cinematheque a couple of nights before, something had changed; I felt ready to grab life by the metaphorical labia flaps (Google it Barry). Throughout the film, those girls bounce around Sydney, getting screwed over by men, by systems, by the general griminess of the city, but instead of quietly taking it, they refuse. to. quit. They keep moving, keep scheming, keep pushing back in whatever way they can. It’s not graceful, it’s barely productive, it’s far from smart, but it’s something. And standing there in The Ev, being told to calm down and just buy another vape, I knew exactly what had stuck with me from the film — not the crime, not the chaos, but the refusal to accept that the cost of sliving was putting up with bullshit like this. The seed of blind determination had been further implanted, winding its roots into the tendrils of my brain, fertilised by Jamesons & Coca-Cola, female friendship and 1980s Australian cinema. 

The film came to be in maybe the best way possible. Moira McLaine-Cross, who plays Ellen in the film, brought director/producer Haydn Keenan (in his words, for bomb magazine, 2025) “a wad of crinkled, wine-stained pages to read, which she and a couple of friends wanted to make into a film. Their writing had little structure and no dominant narrative, but it was a visceral, sparkling, life-filled piece. I couldn’t stop reading it. It was honest, energetic, lacked moral pejoratives, and was filled with the complex detail of changing relationships within a volatile quartet.” 

40+ years on, and this glorious portrait of Shitney is a testament to how we are all, in fact, going down, against almost identical systems. I’ll be the first to say the overall state of the world feels pretty fucking grim right now, and the irony of the fact that I’m saying this, being amongst the richest 10% of people in the goddamn world (having been born in Australia), isn’t lost on me. A survey done in 2024 revealed that 68% of Australians aged 18-24 listed ‘cost of living and inflation’ as the no.1 issue in their local area, with those who rated their financial situation poorly (0-3/10) also reporting lower mental health scores (thank you so much poll people, for such an astute discovery). 

At times, I, for one, feel incredibly powerless, and God knows there are people in Australia who have it much rougher than I do. It’s hard to care about the opportunity it is to learn at university, when I’m considering selling an organ on the black market to pay for petrol, and listening to the news is, for lack of a better descriptor, disproportionately diabolical. However, as of late, I have had a real surge to preserve the memories and moments in my life that capture the sizzling electricity of feeling like you’re taking your power back, even just for a moment, as a woman, as a pleb in the system. Walking out of the cinema last Wednesday was one of them. I felt inspired to do everything in my being to reject the very systems that made me seriously consider (we’re about to get vulnerable) saving up for a BBL and pursuing WAG-dom full-time a few weeks back. The energy was palpable, my housemate in the foyer punching her hands in the air, expressing “LET’S GO HAVE THE NIGHT OF OUR LIVES” with guttural enthusiasm.

I should work on a better vocabulary to express these sorts of things, but honestly, they are incredibly rare and you kind of just have to be there. To put it plainly, go see this film and feel it for your goddamn self (if you’re anything like me, God knows you need it). Bring your friends and embark on celebrating a moment in time where we are all Going Down.

References:

Norton, J. (2024, November 28). The community’s views on cost of living: Who is concerned and implications for health and wellbeing. .id (Informed Decisions). https://www.id.com.au/insights/articles/the-communitys-views-on-cost-of-living-who-is-concerned-and-implications-for-health-and-wellbeing/

Wark, M. (2025, July 4). Haydn Keenan. BOMB Magazine. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2025/07/04/haydn-keenan-by-mckenzie-wark/