I have a confession to make. Last night I went to the Dicky Beach Surf Club by myself. I also gambled responsibly, losing $15 on the pokies, before winning it back with an each way bet on a horse called "Nights of Thunder", then got cocky and bombed out on a trifecta and a greyhound that came dead last. Overall I came through negative $13, which is good/bad luck depending how you look at it.
After losing on the pokies I penned this poem on a Keno ticket (text below).
How readily I fed $15 into that cold, uncaring poker machine.
Watched my sum total teeter totter in a choreographed display,
designed to make me think that I had a hope (while oh so quietly tying the rope).
Now I take this Keno pencil and try to write - to find meaning in the spaces between the numbered boxes.
While in the lounge adjacent carnival music fanfare heralds the smallest of victories.
Tokyo is a city with a reputation for the weird and wonderful: Harajuku girls, capsule hotels and the fabled school girl underwear vending machines to name a few. Allow me to add another to the list for the uninitiated - the fukurō (owl) cafe, the latest trend in the category of animal cafes.
To be clear, these aren't establishments where you actually eat the namesake animal, rather eat alongside them. It sounds unhygienic and it probably is, but it's arguably also a lot of fun, which is why Japanese and gaijin alike flock to the city's plethora of pet cafes, offering co-dining with a respectable ecosystem of animal buddies; neko (cat), inu (dog), yagi (goat) and even hachūrui (reptile) variants of the business model grace the capital city and environs.
In my own experience, my introduction to the pet cafe was a completely organic experience. While exploring the inner-city neighbourhood of Koenji where I was staying with my Japanese-literate girlfriend, we chanced upon Cafe Baron, which advertised itself as a fukurou cafe. "What's fukurō?" I asked my translator (it sounded quite similar to the word for bag, but without the long O sound, which I learned so I could tell convenience store clerks that I didn't need another plastic bag to hold my pack of gum - "fukuro idimasen…") and she replied - "Owl."
And then we noticed through the glass what may have been a taxidermied grey owl sitting on a perch. But then it blinked. So of course, like any good pair of tourists we immediately went in and secured one of only a couple of vacant tables in the small establishment.
The next few hours flew by (excuse the pun), as we enjoyed a reasonably priced meal alongside a large great grey owl named 'John' and a smaller, slightly more skittish, barn owl - the eponymous 'Baron'.
'Baron' and some admirers.
'Baron' stretching while big 'John' gives his trademark quizzical look.
The owner, a kind middle aged Japanese man with quite good English (he'd lived in California for a period, we learned) was evidently thrilled at all the attention he and his birds were getting, happily inviting us to take copious photos, get up close for portraits alongside 'John', and nuzzling his beloved pets dotingly, who'd nibble at his goatee with equal affection.
A couple of wise birds.
The only rule of this avian love-in was that customers couldn't touch the owls, something you could do at other owl cafes, but against the owner's personal philosophy on the grounds that it could cause the birds to start to dislike humans. Over the course of our meal the cafe filled to capacity, which is in total about five tables. The guy even had to turn away one would-be customer, but you don't really get the feeling that he's raking it in, rather that this is a labour of love; that he really does give a hoot about owls (sorry). By eavesdropping on an interview he was giving to a Japanese blogger/journalist, we gleaned he'd been raising fukurō friends since he was a boy.
His fondness for all things owl-like is evidenced by copious owl ornaments, art and other paraphernalia all about the cafe. There are even albums of 'baby photos' of his pets placed on the tables for customers to browse through. Adorable.
"They grow up so fast..." Captive Great Grey Owls have been recorded to live for nearly 30 years.
Oh, and I should mention the food is pretty good too and not at all overpriced. Owl be back the next time I visit The Land of the Rising Pun.
You can follow Cafe Baron's blog here plus find links to more info.
It's been some time since I've blogged. On occasion, I'm struck by inspiration to write something for what some might call "the digital space" (before mounting their Vespa scooter and scooting off to the latest hole in the wall for a single origin piccolo and a pow wow about social media strategy) but then the idea grows to unwieldy proportions, and I realise it's probably a lot easier to faff about in the Facebook feed and follow the unfolding of people whose lives are as uneventful as my own. Perhaps even more uneventful (I average 3.14 likes per post, which as you know is Pi to two decimal places).
That is terribly cynical I know. I saw this inspirational image on the internet (or as it's now known - 'Facebook') recently:
Thanks for your insights George S. Patton, and your efforts against the Kaiser. But correct me if Wikipedia has got it wrong, but in your youth you had "difficulty learning to read and write" and you also fenced, which means you weren't just a nerd, you were a stupid one at that.
The famous General experimented with blunt swords before he realised guns were much better instruments with which to KILL.
I display my cynicism as proudly as my hairdresser Adrian does his midriff at a well-known parade through Sydney's Oxford St. I once held a job for the grand total of one day in which said trait was key to my self-dismissal. They advertised themselves as a 'marketing firm' but essentially it was one of those charity mugger schemes.
After a solid two hours training we were sent out to some God-awful shopping mall on the arsehole of the earth where we sat behind a card table and tried to guilt people into signing up to a monthly direct debit payment that got them multiple entries in a raffle. The proceeds went to charity, and to making sure that the guy who owned said 'marketing firm' had enough money to support his appetite for performance vehicles and blackmarket infant livers. I didn't ask what he liked to do with them, that's between him and Satan.
Given my noob status I was put under the supervision of some bubbly young lady (Kristy, Kirsty?). Her main tactic was to whisper with fierce amiability at passersby, who would cock their ears confused and wander in. "Dont! It's a trap!" I would whisper at them as best I could, but alas, it was too late...
I think the worst part of the job was the morning 'pump up', in which the owner and his 2IC - a man more neck than head, with one of those stupid haircuts (short all over with one little tuft sticking up, he looked like a sucked mango pip) - would harp on about what a "yooooj" day it was going to be for the business. They even ceremoniously presented a little trophy to the most successful scammer from the previous day. Oh, and to make things just that much more cringeworthy, they scored this sinister scene with a stereo playing the "ince ince" backing track you get on the Kyle & Jackie OHour of Power. Appropriately motivated, the boss, that modern day Fagan, sent out his legitimised pickpocket minions to rob the masses.
In closing a quote from Oscar Wilde: "I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather
frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else."
I'll tell you what he looks like Oscar. Your friendly local real estate agent. Or this guy on the left...
As the government, opposition and armchair pundits alike decry the current instability in Labor leadership for its obscuring effect on the smooth running of the country, malcontents like myself see the turmoil as a welcome change to the usual banality of public life.
The media know it and so do I : people love conflict. Sometimes it's even incumbent on the free press to get in their 'participatory democracy' style and stir up a little argy bargy to get things going; after all, objectivity is not only theoretically impossible but also really dull...
So after months of speculation, rumours and political posturing KRudd has finally made his move and resigned as Foreign Minister (don't worry Rudd family, Dad's frequent flyer account is still looking healthy).
Given the way the process has unfolded over the past few months, I think KRudd's 'soap opera' description is pretty close to the mark. Maybe 'sit-com' would be more appropriate. The tension between the leading lady and man has gradually built, spurred on by the catcalls and jibes from anonymous bit players, until finally the (sexual/electoral) frustration hit a boiling point and we witnessed the equivalent of their on-screen kiss (Rudd's resignation and Gillard's counter call for a leadership ballot). This is a metaphor. For those who would like to see them actually kiss, please refer to the photo below..
"Can you take this whole sex/romance analogy further?" I hear you ask. Hey, it's the blogosphere, let's go crazy! OFAMV brings you The Saga of Kevin & Julia, perhaps the most turbulent romance since Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh famously exchanged smouldering looks in Gone With the Wind.
PART I: The Honeymoon Years
Who can forget those halcyon days when KRudd, with the full support of a good woman behind him (two, if you count Therese Rein in addition to his dazzling Deputy), filled with the euphoric confidence that a new romance brings, was livin' large and showing that guys called Kevin who wore spectacles could still be cool. They could even have their own rhyming slogans! It's pretty much the political equivalent of spontaneous public lovemaking and pet-names.
Our
fearless PM showed us he had the balls to boost troop numbers in
Afghanistan and drop S-bombs on national TV. If you don't believe just
check out this clip (note how the ladies swoon at Kev's tough talk):
But KRudd wasn't military might and mouthing off, he also showed his sensitive side by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, apologising the the Aboriginal Stolen Generations and giving us all some money to spend on something pretty. What a nice, caring man!
PART II: Losing the Upper Hand
Ultimately, Kevin's kind nature may have been his undoing. As his stock plummeted among the public and his party over the perceived failings of his Emissions Trading Scheme, Home Insulation Scheme and other assorted schemes, his rusty-headed 2IC began to get itchy feet, like a trophy wife promised a Caribbean cruise having to settle for a punt around he Pumicestone Passage in your mate's dingy. Kevin had lost the all-important 'Upper Hand'. People were even calling him 'Kevin 0 Lemon' - cruelly using his own slogan against him. Jesus wept.
PART III: Hos before Bros a.k.a The Ultimate Cock-blocking
cock block (v.) any action that impedes or stalls another's "game", "mack", or "pimp maneuver" (from urbandictionary.com)
With feminism's Third Wave taking on tsunami-like proportions women around the world are beginning to enter the top positions in governments and corporations on a worldwide scale. While women and enlightened men cry "Hear hears" and "You go girls!", spare a thought for KRudd, for whom the thought of a betrayal spearheaded by his very own 'Little Red' was the last thing he expected. To complete the picture of the traditional gender stereotypes turned on their head, Kev appeared on TV supported by his BFFs and cried like a little... person, before heading back to the lodge for one last time, where he spent the evening eating ice-cream in his tracksuit pants while watching Sister Act.
PART IV: The Stay at Home Husband
With Julia now wearing the Prime Ministerial pant-suits, poor old Kev had to preoccupy himself with entertaining foreign dignitaries with tea and biscuits. He tried going to the strip club again but in his emasculated position it just seemed farcical. While KRudd put on a brave face for the cameras, he was hurting inside. It was only a matter of time before cracks in the facade of his relationship with the Old Lady began to show...
PART V: The Pre-Emptive Breakup
Kevin knew it was wrong to bitch to the other MPs about his relationship; after all many of them were mutual friends and in a place as boring as Canberra, people do tend to gossip. By early '12, five years since his heyday, the fact that their tenuous affair was on the rocks was public knowledge. Knowing it was only a matter of time before he got DUMPED for real, by resigning as Foreign Minister KRudd pulled a desperate move known as the 'Pre-Emptive Breakup'. Watch as another notable bespectacled chap cottons on to this concept:
PART VI: Moving On
OK, that that pretty much brings you all up to the current day with this whole ALP-leadership-battle-as-a-relationship analogy, and if you aren't convinced yet as to it metaphorical air-tightness consider these points:
* During the press conference in which he announced his resignation he said "There's no way I would ever be party to a stealth attack on a sitting prime minister elected by the people", which is kind of the political equivalent of a passive-aggressive post break-up line like "I'm not saying he's a loser, I know you're friends with the guy... I guess some people are happy having no prospects, and that's fine."
* Now that a leadership poll has been announced, Labor's 103 MPs and Senators will have to pledge their support for either Kevin or Julia. There's no compromise, no each way bet (now we'll find out exactly whose these "faceless men" are). This mirrors exactly what any peer group effectively has to do after a nasty break-up between two mutual friends.
CASE CLOSED.
Ironically, the 'Faceless Men of the Labor Party' are clearly distinguished by their conspicuous lack of facial features.
