At the risk of this blog turning into a “Beard Blog”, here’s my one month update on my attempt to grow a beard.
After roughly one month of letting it “grow wild” I went to the barber today to get a trim both “on top” and “down below”. On top, I’m a 1.5 clipper man myself. Down below, I asked the barber if he could just “tidy it up and even it up a bit”.
I’d read a fair bit about how you should let your beard “grow wild” for the first three or four weeks until it starts to fill in, and then go to a barber to get it shaped properly. If you have a patchy beard to start with (like most men do, apparently), your own attempts to trim and shape are more than likely going to make it look even more patchy.
So I’ve held off on purchasing a pair of clippers, and have decided for the first couple of months, I’d leave it to someone who knows what he or she is doing.
The thing which prompted me to go today was the really uncomfortable feeling of whiskers on the lips. I always thought the problem of itchiness would be greater, but it’s been nothing compared to the scratchiness of stray whiskers touching your lips. That, combined with little bits of left-over food attaching itself to the whiskers which touched my lips.
So, having had a trim today, and having snapped a photograph, I don’t think it looks too bad after all. It’s still fairly light on the sides. My ginger heritage is coming back to the fore, and oh, oh, those greys.
The general consensus of people who’ve commented on my beard has been positive. “It really suits you” is the most common phrase I’ve heard.
The one thing I have noticed is I’ve become slightly obsessed with male facial hair now. I swear I’m not about to become a “big old bear”, you won’t be seeing me with a big tummy dressed in leather chaps with my bum hanging out on the way to Mardi Gras, but I have been checking out beards a fair lot. It’s like when I first got a pair of glasses, it was like everyone in the world was wearing glasses. Now it seems the same with beards.
I promise my next blog post will not be about growing a beard.
It’s almost lunchtime Friday. After my first day at work, I paid a visit to Woolies to buy an alarm clock and some wine to take to Penny’s.
Penny is living with two other people in an older-style Darwin home (about 20 years old). Unlike some of the newer Darwin homes, this one has lots of windows and louvres (sp?), to allow the breeze to flow. The garden, with a backyard pool, is filled with palm trees, making it lush, but requiring a lot of water during the dry season.
We sat around, ate cheese and drank wine for a few hours before it was time to go home since both of us had to start work early the next morning.
By the time I finished work at 4.15 I was a little buggared, so I went home, had a shower to freshen myself up a little before heading off to Mindill Markets. The markets were just as I remember from a couple of years ago. A huge variety of food stalls, hippy-style craftwork, and a sensational sunset.
Mindill Sunset
After the markets, Peter and Sue, took me for a drive around some of the new areas of Darwin. Unlike the older houses, which have a very Darwin-esque style of architecture, the newer houses are in the style of the Gold Coast homes… lots of concrete, lots of steel… could be anywhere really. Peter tells me his son is building a house in the older style of Darwin homes and it’s considered a “quite unusual” thing to do.
This weekend I’m off to the Katherine Country Music Muster, so I’ll have lots to say about that, I’m sure. I might have time for another post before then.
Though we’ve known about the closure and the renovation for some time, the stark reality has finally hit. The Surry Hills Shopping Mall (formerly known as The Refern Mall), and variously known as “The Methadone Mall” or “The Fruit & Nut Mall” is closing on January 10. Over the next couple of years, they’ll be building a new facility that will include both shopping and apartments.
A few friends and I have been discussing this via email today.
One friend wrote: “My mother-in-law lives very close by, she’s genuinely upset…. I said I’d take to an alternative, but proximity seems to pull on the heartstrings”.
Another wrote : “It makes me a bit cranky on a few levels. After the year we’ve all had, another annoyance. “Community” precinct indeed. Have you checked out the flashy posters on the side of the building? No room for non-Anglos or non-beautiful people it seems. This changes so much for us. We won’t be walking to shops will have to drive, etc…I think completion will take two or so years I was told.”
Still another: “A bright new shiny shopping precinct… that I bet won’t be as accepting of the diversity of people that frequent this current building. I wonder what the other business inside this complex (e.g. newspaper shop, fruit shop, cafe etc) will do? Will their lease run out? Will they get an option to come back to the new and improved centre? I can’t see that happening… It will certainly be disruptive in the interim period for locals, in terms of proximity to a supermarket. Yes, the Green Square Coles or Bourke St Woollies, likely to be the next best option.”
And one more: ” I also saw the sign yesterday and it was very distressing. Inconvenient for us but even more so for the elderly and people with disabilities etc. It’s good they’re running a shuttle bus but for some, even that won’t help. I asked the newsagent what he will do and he said he has no idea. I doubt most businesses will be chosen to come back as they’ll no doubt settle into their new location. For example, I know Blooms will stay in Crown Street. It’s like one more nail in the coffin of diversity.”
On Twitter, a friend joked: “I won’t believe until I see the Harris Farm signage” which was a reference to the “gentrification” of the area.
I went for a walk down the street today and spoke to a few of the shop owners.
I spoke to the bloke at the fruit and veg shop. He said he was planning to go into wholesale. As a point of interest, I spoke to him immediately after he sold some discount flowers to Amy. Amy is a local woman who is well into her nineties, and who obviously relied on him for her “discount flowers”
I also spoke to the news agency, and he told me he would like to re-open locally, but it would take a couple of months.
A few of the other shops are relocating to Crown Street.
The computer shop is moving to a venue on Crown Street.
“Noodle Star is locating to opposite Westpac on Crown”, one of my friends told me. “The key cutter place is going to Randwick”, she added.
“I think something like Maloneys (but cheaper) would do really week at this end of Crown St when Coles goes”, one friend wrote. Another I spoke to down the street and I both agreed, there’s definitely room for a combined convenience and fruit and vegetable stop for the daily things like milk and bread etc.
On the positive side, this means some of the empty shops on Crown Street may once again find themselves inhabited, in contrast to how it’s been over the last couple of years, this year in particular.
Do you think it’s wrong to tip a waiter just because they’re cute? I struggled briefly with this moral dilemma today as I had a late lunch. On the one hand, it disadvantages the less attractive waiters, but on the other hand, a cute waiter often adds to the enjoyment of the experience. In the end, I decided I would give him a tip for cuteness, but that wasn’t the only reason I left a tip.
I also felt kinda sorry for him, as he had to deliver the ultimate bad news to a customer who has already waited silently and patiently for an hour (yes, really) for his meal to arrive. “There’s been a mistake. They’ve cooked the wrong meal”, he told me with this really sad, apologetic look on his face. I just knew he was the bunny for some major fuck-up in the kitchen. As it was, it was only the difference between steamed and fried dumplings, so I just smiled and told him it wasn’t a problem. And besides, he was cute.
The view from my lunchtime restaurant in Riga.
“I’ve never been so hungry in my life since arriving in Latvia”, a bloke told me in a bar last night. I knew exactly what he meant, as I’ve felt the same way. I’m guessing by the popularity of the central markets, most people eat at home and there isn’t a significant restaurant or cafe culture here. The food I’ve had has been pretty good, by and large, but there are nowhere near as many places to eat as you would find in a similar-sized town in Western Europe.
And there aren’t that many restaurants, cafes or anything really in the area where I’m staying. There are just lots of shops with absolute crap in them. Like really useless crap. OK, that’s maybe an exaggeration as I’m about 5 doors down from the Benetton store, but I hope you get the meaning.
The bloke I met in the bar was Irish. He’d been here for a few days for a wedding and because his boyfriend (who was Latvian) needed to renew his passport. I went up to him and said hello, “Do you mind if I join you” because he was the only other person in the bar, literally.
I’d searched around on the internet for the names and locations of gay venues in Riga, and could really only find one that was suitable, as the only other venue sounded more like a sex club than somewhere you might go for a drink and conversation. Luckily it wasn’t too far from where I’m staying.
But to get in, you need to press a buzzer. A bloke greeted me at the door and told me it was 2 lats entry (about $5) which I happily gave him. “Turn on the music” he shouted to the bloke behind the bar. And that’s when I realised that, for the second time in the same week, I’ve been the only person in a gay bar.
The barman who was very nice gave me a wry apologetic smile as I sat alone in the corner waiting and hoping that someone else might come in. I smiled back, reminding myself it wasn’t Sydney or San Francisco, it was Latvia on a Tuesday night.
And when you’re sitting there all by yourself, you start to notice things you’ve never noticed before. For example, the decore. The place was fairly well decorated in strong red colours, including red leather lounges and with “Tom Of Finland” images all over the walls. I don’t think I’ve spent as long observing the decore of a bar in my life.
Finally, after about 30 minutes, the doorbell rang again. It was a bloke unwilling to pay the cover charge, so he left. Later, there was a group of about 5 blokes who also wanted to come in, but baulked at the cover charge. If the owners of the bar are reading this, can I suggest dropping the cover charge on a Tuesday night, as I reckon you’ll make more money over the bar if you just let a few people in?
I think it was about 1 or 2 in the morning before the place had a modest crowd of people. And when I say modest, I’d say the bar peaked at about 20 people. I’m sure it’s busier at the weekend.
All of these restaurant and bar experiences remind you it’s not so long since Latvia was part of the Soviet Union, with all that implies. And this leads me into telling you about the amazing experience I had today at the Latvian Occupation Museum.
Communism Museum
The museum covers the period 1940 to 1991 when Latvia was under the control of Russia, then Germany, and then Russia again. A strong theme of the exhibition relates to the agreement between Hitler and Stalin just weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War. Although a student and great lover of history, it’s an agreement I wasn’t that aware of. And although the US and UK said they did not support the Soviet occupation after the war, another theme of the exhibition is the west did nothing about it either.
The museum is very moving. On a couple of occasions, I found myself a little teary and a little overwhelmed by the many terrible things that were done during this period. The exhibition, for example, describes the terrible position of the Prime Minister at the time when Russia moved in. On the one hand, it’s argued by asking Latvians not to resist, he may have saved the lives of many people, but he may also have condemned them to something also quite terrible. It’s explained he went missing within a couple of weeks, died soon after and his grave was never found. Chernenko apparently presented the Independent Latvian Government in 1991 with the last known photograph of that man.
The exhibition also takes you inside the kind of huts people lived in at the Gulags and describes how people were just left to starve to death. Unlike the Nazis who killed people systematically, the Soviet system was to put people in such terrible situations they just died.
Fall of communism.
There’s a ray of optimism though, as the struggle of the resistance movement is well documented. Something I wasn’t aware of was the two-million people who in 1989 protested the Soviet occupation by joining hands, linking Tallin, Riga and Vilnius. And there’s a great photograph in the museum of the celebrations when independence finally came back to Latvia.
It’s one of the best museums I’ve been to, to be honest, and an absolute highlight of my three days in Riga.
After that I went for a bit of a wander and then went on the hunt for some food. Tonight I settled on a very Latvian looking self-serve restaurant chain. Although I don’t recall the name, their signage features a rather jolly looking older woman inviting you in. In some ways, I felt like I was at the Lismore Workers Club bistro. Looking around at what was on offer I tried to find something “very Latvian”. I have no idea if I succeeded or not. It was pretty tasteless actually.
Latvian Food – do I really need to comment?
So tonight is just a night of packing, updating my blog and backing up my photographs. And I have to be up early because tomorrow, it’s Prague (via Brussels). Yes, I’ve got a cheapie flight that involves a two-hour stop-over in the capital of Belgium, which I’m sure will be loads of fun. Apparently, these stop-over hub flights are quite common in Europe. When you consider the geography involved, it sounds totally bizarre, but it’s cheap and better than spending a day on a train in my humble opinion.
When you read a book you always think you know the “voice” of the narrator. You think you know their cadence, their intonation. By projecting aspects of your own life, and the voices in your head, you think you KNOW them. But it wasn’t until I saw the documentary, “Remembering The Man” on Thursday night, as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Film Festival, that I actually got to hear Tim Conigrave’s voice for the first time.
It’s over twenty years since I first read the book, “Holding The Man”, his memoir about his relationship with John Caleo (who he met at school), and their subsequent deaths in the mid-1990s from HIV/AIDS. Along the way, there’s also been a play, a feature length movie, and now a documentary about their lives and their relationship.
What’s different about the documentary is you actually get to hear Tim’s voice. At the centre of the film is an oral history made in the month’s before his death. Thus, Tim is not only the focus for the documentary, but also the narrator, similar to the way in which the voice of Peggy Guggeheim, the art collector is used in Peggy Guggenheim, Art Addict, which I saw a few months ago.
As someone who has spent most of his life consciously aware of “the voice”, I found it fascinating to hear Tim speak. To my ears, he had a lovely voice. An “actor’s voice”, in some ways. In the pieces of audio selected, he spoke clearly, in “proper sentences”, and with some confidence. He also spoke with honesty and with humour. “That’s enough, isn’t it?”, he said at one point (or words to that effect) to the person recording his story.
Over the top of Tim’s voice, there’s a wonderful collection of photographs. Though Tim and John were several years older than me, and spent their lives in Melbourne and Sydney, whereas I spent most of my earlier life in the country, there were so many photographs which I felt I could relate to. The parties, the gatherings, the lives of young people growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, and then, sadly, having to confront their own mortality in the 1990s.
There are also some really wonderful interviews with their friends, many of them amusing, and many of them moving. And there are some re-enactments of moments from their lives. In my view, the re-enactments were sometimes very powerful, but at other times a little superfluous. Nothing’s perfect.
“What did you think?”, my friend Graeme whispered in my ear as the credits rolled. “Really good, a really honest, heart-warming film, and about the right length. Though they’ll undoubtedly cut half an hour from the film by the time it makes it to television, this was close to perfect for the audience tonight”, I told him.
There was further catching up today as Damo and I went to the Aroma Festival, briefly pausing for one of those great photographic moments you can experience in The Rocks. I mean, there’s nothing quite like having the Sydney Harbour Bridge or the Opera House in the background for a photograph is there? And there were plenty of opportunities for that, as we wandered around drinking coffee and enjoying delicious foods.
It was an odd start to the morning, though, as I’d spent about 15 minutes waiting for the bus to arrive at Surry Hills. Meanwhile, there were two older men (who looked like they could have been related) who had clearly spent the night drinking heavily. They were still drinking at the bus stop this morning as they carried on a very loud, angry, argument with each other about something or other. I’m not exactly sure about what they were discussing, as I’d donned my earphones and was leaning on the railing of the nearby ANZ Bank. Please don’t notice me, I thought to myself, I don’t want to get involved in your argument just by inadvertently looking over.
After about ten minutes or so, the 355 to Bondi Junction arrived, much to the relief of about half a dozen people similar to myself who were hoping to catch a bus, but not wanting to actually be anywhere near the bus stop. When the two men got up to catch the bus, I noticed a collective sigh of relief, although no one actually moved closer to the bus stop until we were sure they had the money for the bus, had bought their tickets, and the bus had moved away.
As I was close to arriving at Circular Quay, I gave Damo a call. “I’m in the queue, meet you here in five”, he told me. “I’m in the queue for Genovese Coffee, what would you like?”, he asked. Just a simple flat white, I replied.
Aroma Festival
And what a flat white it was… probably the best flat white I’ve had in quite some time. Far better than the coffees available at work, far better than those at the cafe around the corner, and far better than the one made for me most days by the surly-looking blonde guy.
We also tasted some chai (which I’d never had before), and feasted on some of those wonderful strawberries dipped in chocolate.
As the crowd thickened, we wandered back to Damo’s place for a very yummy-tasting lunch which consisted of homemade bread, homemade dolmades (made with spinach), homemade sweet potato gnocchi, and homemade lamb ragu. It was a terrific meal topped off with a bottle of Helm 2000 cabernet-merlot, as I recall, which was very tasty about half an hour after the bottle was opened. If I were to give Damo a restaurant review, I’d give him 7 thumbs and at least 1 hat.
After lunch, we thought of heading back to the festival for some chocolate and more coffee, but it was all a bit too crowded.
Feeling quite full and very rested, I came home, watched “Jesus Christ Superstar” and then had a brief afternoon nap.
And so now it’s Sunday night and the only immediate excitement ahead of me is tonight’s double eviction on “Big Brother” and some clothes washing for work this week.
So it’s five o’clock in the afternoon. It’s dark. It’s wet. It’s gloomy. No, I’m not in Stockholm… I’m in Sydney. I can’t wait for my “year without winter”.
Next time say ‘cheese’.
:)
Hehehehe.