Don't Save Honkytonks sign now

To: Developers of Honkytonks' site

Just another nightclub, and a venue of no cultural or historical significance. A home to the similarly dressed and the egotistical. A place where a whole bunch of small-minded fools circle-jerked to the derivative beat on a slightly fashionable CD-R produced by some no-talent hack from Norway who's now selling his record collection on Ebay.

No longer will our fair city of Melbourne have to deal with this pathetic excuse for self-expression on an overpriced clothing budget. No more use of the word "ghetto" like it's something to strive for, no more bad taste masquerading as irony (Michael, that Princess Diana t-shirt from Wantirna Market was the tipping point), no more stairs to fall down after too much meth, hair product and mediocre cocktails.

Farwell Honkytonks, you'll be missed by a vacant clique of middle-class urban wannabes high on their own insularity, striving for two things they'll never have: self-esteem and a low credit-card debt.

You want this city to care about you? You want this city to take you seriously? Try getting out of your Fat 52 outfit sometime and reading something other than (melbourne) magazine. The people you actually need help from now are the same people you wouldn't take seriously because their pants weren't made by some obscure burlesque artist from Vancouver, but you gave plenty of time to the city's entire population of assymetrically-fringed, Matthew Herbert-listening, web-designing faux-Williamsburg, cynical-blog writing web designers.

Think you're culturally important? Put it in perspective. Sinatra played at Chevron. The Beatles stayed at the Southern Cross. And somehow life went on after they closed. Who played at Honkytonks? Charles Webster? Daniel Bell? Rasoul? All household names, we're sure, who changed the political fabric of this city through their art.

Nightclubs close. People move on. Get a life. Do your drugs somewhere else.