What did we learn from these Olympics?

With the closing ceremonies last weekend, the Beijing Olympics have officially come to a close. These Games featured their share of exhilarating victories, devastating defeats, and questionable antics, just like the Olympiads of yore. So, barring any unforeseen Russian invasions of Georgian locker rooms, let’s see what we’ve learned:
— The producers of Entourage had it backward: Michael Phelps, not Adrian Grenier, should have auditioned for the role of Aquaman. And just imagine how many more medals he would have won if he’d grown a Mark Spitz mustache?
— After sweeping the medal stand, the U.S. women’s saber team should be sent to sort out the mess in Afghanistan.
— The U.S. softball team needs to start preparing now if they want to reclaim that gold that Japan stole. Oh, wait….
— Pixar should partner with whoever put on the 55-second clip of the Opening Ceremony fireworks barrage, as long as the Chinese government lets them out of the basement.
— Handball needs to catch on in America as badly as John McCain needs to come clean on his Viagra use. Actually, on second thought, that analogy is gross. My bad. Anyway, handball is awesome.
— Usain Bolt, who showed that a steady diet of Chicken McNuggets doesn’t always leave you looking like an orca, should challenge Soulja Boy to a dance-off.
— The underwater camera angles during the women’s water polo matches make me feel dirty. And not in a good way.
— Ronaldinho is as unattractive as ever, but my oh my can he play fútbol.
— The only thing that could rival U.S. gymnast Shawn Johnson for sheer compactness is a black hole (bet you didn’t think you’d see an astronomical reference in this column, huh?)
— I hope it’s not too late for Coach K to recruit Kobe — who still has four years of eligibility, right? — to Duke.
— I miss the Hamm brothers’ Rugrats impressions real voices.
— The Chinese character for “13-year-old gymnast” is actually the same as “If you Google ‘Darfur’ one more time, you probably shouldn’t fall asleep tonight.”
— It’s really hard to not make a joke about Tyson Gay dropping his partners stick in the 4x100 relay.
— Anyone who devotes enough time to ping pong table tennis to be able to make the ball spin both ways on one shot, well, they should really get out more.
— Speed-walking is as much a sport as speed-crawling, speed-crab-walking, or speed-knitting. C’mon, Jacques Rogge, this is in the Olympics, but dodgeball isn’t?
— If I hear one more ripoff of the Olympic slogan, I’ll go Citius, Altius, Fortius Chuck Norrius on your ass.
— While in Australia, you really shouldn’t make fun of the fact that they call their soccer team the “Olyroos,” or they’ll sic Russell Crowe on you.
— Whoever designed the Bird’s Nest must have been going for the “what-if-a-building-was-attacked-by-Spiderman” aesthetic.
— Those competing in the archery contests should challenge Legolas to a fight. I’d have money on the elf, but I’m sure it’d be interesting.
— The irony that China’s 1.3 billion couldn’t even fill most of the Olympic venues nearly made my head explode.
— Funmi Jimoh proved that not all Rice students go on to become bookish engineers, struggling English majors, or, um, Lance Berkman.
— The highlight of the equestrian competition is making a horse switch its lead foot. Pardon me while I go watch paint dry.
— Big Papi and Brian Urlacher should strongly consider badminton in the 2012 London Games. If those Vitamin Water commercials are any indication, they’ll do better than our zero male representatives during these Games.
— The rifle-shooting competitors would be really good Halo hustlers.
— Armenian women have taken up the mantle that the East German female weightlifters abandoned 20 years ago. Seriously, BALCO must also stand for “Ballsy Armenian Ladies Coming Over!”
— And last but not least, if any of you aspire to sing the Chinese National Anthem as a buck-toothed seven-year-old girl, it’s time to look for a different vocation.

Milking spiders, wine-drinking, and gorillas getting it on

Don’t try this at home

Do you guys remember the show Fear Factor? You know, where they would base jump while eating kittens? The one where the host's neck was thicker than a tree trunk and whose mom probably drank when she was pregnant?

Yeah, that show can’t hold a candle to what they do at the Australian Reptile Park.

Maybe the lab technicians there wouldn't scarf down raw goat brain or bathe themselves in cockroaches, but I'm pretty sure none of the contestants on the show would submit themselves to stealing the venom from arguably the most poisonous spider in the world. Which is exactly what goes down at this park — milking funnel-web spiders.



Before you imagine that these spiders resembled engorged cows, which is the same picture I had, know that the term 'milking' is used lightly here. In fact, a more proper term would be, 'situate yourself on the other side of tourist-protecting glass, open top of funnel-web home, nudge cold-blooded (literally!) killer a couple times, and then vacuum drops of venom that has eliminated 13 people, including seven children, in the last 100 years. Oh, and make sure to wear a headset so you can tell all the ogling, uneducated tourists what exactly you're doing.' (If people think driving while talking on a cell phone is dangerous, please don't tell them this story.)

Yes, it was thrilling. No, the spider didn't leap at the guy's jugular and then loose his friends on us. But just knowing that this spider could was more than enough to get my blood pumping.

Thus peaked the level of danger during my weekend of wildlife, although the peak of peril didn’t mean the rest was a waste.

Zoological disappointments/wonders

As the funnel-web adventure happened on Sunday, let’s go back a day. I should have known I was in for an ominous day when, upon walking to the Circular Quay, I spotted my first Captain Cook impersonator, decked from tri-cornered hat to cobbled shoes. Needless to say, this was the diehard mascot of Captain Cook Cruises, which Wisconsin Steve and California Elisabeth soon boarded for Taronga Zoo.

Situated 20 minutes away, on the north side of the harbor, the Zoo is one of the most touristy things you can do in Sydney, as opposed to simply see — Opera House, Harbor Bridge, etc. In fact, it’s so highly-regarded that the people behind the Lonely Planet series claim it’s one of the places you should visit if your stay in Sydney is shorter than Usain Bolt’s 100m run. Tiered on a massive, water-side hill, the zoo was supposed to be a gem of the city.

But after our trip, I now think ‘gem’ is Aussie slang for ‘crap.’

The visit began forebodingly as, upon landing, we were informed by our stout hostess that the sky-rail was under repair. I don’t think it had dropped anyone into the lion pits or anything — although the less tourists, the better, I’m sure — but the inconvenience meant that instead of cruising over the bears and sea lions we would instead have to walk up the steep face.

So walk we did. Past the semi-vacated aviary, past the absent chimpanzees, past the dried up seal pools, and past the gut-wrenching sight of the spider monkey huddled in the back of the cage, clinging to one another for warmth. (I swear, the primates in Sydney don’t know how to handle a little cold!)

With our confusion soon turning toward exasperation, we soon turned an uphill corner and nearly ran into a fence littered with pictures of animals saying ‘Our new home is under construction!’ Great. Not only are the animals speaking Australian, but they’re not even here to tell us the news themselves.

And it turned out that those pictures were the closest we would come to the gorillas, too. Upon walking to their cage, a sign rudely greeted us with ‘Gorilla husbandry in process, exhibit closed.’ Do I even need to make a joke here?

Anyway, the zoo wasn’t a complete loss. A free bird show managed to take flight through the bluster, with Dixie the Whistling Kite, a Barking Owl, a Barn Owl, and a Wedge-Tailed Eagle somehow navigating toward the airborne anchovies with impeccable accuracy. The nocturnal animal exhibit, featuring the long-eared Bilby and gecko-mice, whose ability to walk on glass gave me a monster for the next great horror movie. The Green Iguanas had a conversation via head-shaking — apparently they were in disagreement — and the active dingoes made me long for the days when my dogs were in shape.


And it turned out the sky-rail repairs were a blessing in disguise. Not only did the breathtaking views of the city remain the same (and will be shared once I find some suitable internet), but I found myself walking off…well, I would say lunch, but the zoo took my lunch money.

The day was not yet over, however. With the arrival of the Captain Cook Cruise, we were whisked off around the harbor, heading east toward the mouth and alongside Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s former penthouse. But we soon took a detour into Elizabeth Bay, not to admire the industrial area but to catch a glimpse of an animal not housed in the zoo — dolphins! Since the closest I’ve come to a dolphin is Joey Harrington (can’t believe I just made that joke), I was pretty excited when the blowholes surfaced and bodies flew through the air. We followed the flock for about five minutes, allowing everyone a glimpse of the rare visitors, and allowing me to tell my kids I saw fins in Sydney Harbor.


After hitting the mouth of the Harbor — and avoiding the old-man nude beaches when possible — we encountered the dolphins once again, this time getting close enough to see them actually swimming underwater.

And after the hiding Tasmanian Devils and lethargic zebras, it was nice to know that my money was well-spent.

What an oat-fiend

Whew, so now, back to Sunday (hopefully the pictures I’ll put up will be more entertaining than this mass of words). As soon as the fangs of the funnel-web were dried up, I knew that money was well-spent. Afterward, Wisconsin Steve and I debated riding the Galapagos Turtles, cooed at the sleeping Tassie Devils, and laughed at the waddling Common Wombat. Continuing on, we fed kangaroos for the second time, although this time around we saw just how desperate the marsupials were for a fix (in addition to a joey emerging from it’s mother’s pouch, but that was just too gross to detail here). After throwing some oats at the lounging alpha male, a smaller ’roo came hopping over.

But it didn’t stop when it reached the fence. Nor did it remain still when it reached my feet.

Instead, it stood up on its hind legs, stared me straight in the face, and said, ‘You’re next.’

Ok, no, it didn’t say that, but I gave it some oats before it could say anything. And in a hilarious moment of drug-like imagery, the kangaroos eyes drooped, its body sagged, and its mouth began to munch sloooowly on its addiction.

Who knew oats were the LSD of marsupials?

Fruit of the gods

From there, Wisconsin Steve and I boarded the bus for our final destination: Hunter Valley, home of some of Australia’s most well-known wineries.

Yes, Steve and I were on a wine-tasting tour. And I’d be lying if I said that I had enough breakfast in my stomach to handle it.

Of the fours wineries we visited (Savannah Estate, Tulloch’s, Lindemann’s, and Drayton’s), here’s what I learned: I’m neither a red wine nor a chardonnay guy, the bubbles of sparkling wine are meant to cut through the tannin, and port wine, which is infused with bourbon spirits halfway through the distillation process, is quite delicious.

Oh, and the alcohol sold at wineries is far cheaper than anything around campus. Economics 101 in a bottle, I suppose.



Needless to say, I’m still recovering — sleeping for 11 hours never felt so good. (But then again, neither did waking up at 6 a.m. on a Sunday.)

By the way, more photos here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2003163&l=96c3e&id=1454130108

Which Scoop Would You Rather Have?

As I traipsed along Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens the other day, flanked by encamped Gray-Headed Flying Foxes and the serene Circular Quay, I decided to treat myself with a dollop of hazelnut gelato.

And after I had returned to the confines of the Mac Village, crashing into my weary bed and flipping open the awaiting ESPN.com, I perused the most recent musings of columnist Scoop Jackson.

Two scoops. Two things I enjoy, gelato and sports writing.

But only one left a good taste in my mouth.

Leaving the fact that I love hazelnut to the side, it really wasn’t that hard to decide which scoop I could digest easier. Take a look at that column. It begins innocuously enough, posing a simple question. ‘What should Fernando Gonzalez have done?’ (Apparently, Scoop is practicing to be a third-grade teacher.)

Seeing as my eyes had been previously epoxied to the Phelps extravaganza, I had barely registered that Gonzalez was the Chilean tennis pro who knocked off James Blake in the Olympic semifinals, one round after the American had trounced then-No. 1 Roger Federer.

Intrigued, I delved into the column, soon learning that Gonzalez had stolen victory with the help of a shot whose contentiousness made the Russia-Georgia conflict look like a pillow-fight. On a ‘pendulum point,’ the chair umpire botched what replays seem to have clearly shown: that the rocketed ball, which would have landed Blake one point from his first Olympic final, actually skimmed off Gonzalez’s racket before landing out of bounds.

To his credit, Blake contained his inner John McEnroe and merely pleaded with the Chilean to come clean to the umpire; to tell the chair that he felt the vibrations, heard the thudding as the ball ricocheted off his racket and into the green yonder; to put Blake a breath from the height of his career.

‘What should Fernando Gonzalez have done?’

Now, I’m not sure what’s Spanish for ‘the right thing,’ but I sure as hell know how to say it en anglais. Because there’s no getting around it. Gonzalez, with a brush-of-a-bullet shot of adrenaline and a crumbling Blake across the net, saw his opportunity. And, ever the Machiavellian, he went for it.

Which is good enough for Scoop.

As the rest of his column goes on to detail, cheating your way to the top is acceptable — nay, admirable — as long as it takes place in the realm of sports. As long as the ref doesn’t see it, or if the zebras blow the call, all is fair in 40-love.

Apparently, Scoop missed the third-grade lesson about integrity.

For both the competitors and the game, cheating — or even turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to a transgression — cheapens the morals and the standards of both the competitors and the game. The fans don't get their money's worth, and the athletes, who fail to stand up to the challenge, blatantly diminish their skill-sets. Who wins?

Here’s Scoop’s logic, simple and concise: Since everyone else is doing it, why should you be different? (I would say he has a dash of Big Brother syndrome, but since he’s African-American, I’m worried Clement would chew me out [jk Clemdog, but you’re one of the few black friends I have, thus the reference.]) Scoop writes, ‘What athlete in his right (or left) hemisphere would give away a point that critical?’ Let’s equate that to, say, politics for a moment. What presidential hopeful would, in the dog days of the election, clamp down on the 527s, the 21st-century swift-boaters? Honestly, none, but that doesn’t mean we don’t wish they would. And if there was tangible, all-encompassing evidence that Obama or McCain had eradicated any semblance of these low-blowers, don’t you think the honesty could maybe, just maybe, give him a precious bump in the polls?

When Scoop allows conformity at this integrity-laden cost, do you know who he sounds like? Jose Canseco. Bill Romanowski. Any third-grader who makes faces at the teacher behind his/her back.

Sorry, Scoop, but I ain’t a lemming. If you want to be like everyone else and degrade both your morals and your stature, go right ahead. Me, I’ll wait to raise up an athlete who, as cliché as this may sound, plays the game as it’s meant to be played. The athlete should not govern the rules — the rules should govern him.

That being said, I suppose now would be a good time to come clean — that 3-2 curveball I saw with runners at the corners a couple years ago? Yeah, I didn’t check my swing. Not even close. But that’s not how the ump saw it. And according to Scoop, as long as the burden of failure lies on the umps’ shoulders, I have free run of the place. So why do I still feel like a jackass over that metaphotical totally truthful example?

Gonzalez choked, but not in the traditional sense. His unknown status has since been replaced by a dishonorable image, a slithering, slash-and-burn purveyor of the dark side of athletics. (Ah, hyperbole is the spice of life, isn't it?) Fortunately, as Scoop’s column signs off, the idea of ‘karma’ comes into play — and it is this ethereal influence (and raw, unabated talent) that landed Gonzalez under the sole of Rafael Nadal’s tennis footprint.

Third grade, like Gonzalez’s gold-medal hopes, may have come and gone, but integrity, that can last forever.

If only my hazelnut gelato could, too.

Never have I ever, part deux*

-Boarded a three-tiered cruise ship with the sole intent (after forking over $20) of enjoying Sydney Harbor in all its resplendent, nighttime glory. Granted, the free food and drink also caught my eye (if Peter Pan had brought pizza and beer, it would have been college kids, not young children, who would have followed him).

-Thought that a building whose sole purpose is to host ppera would steal my breath. I’ve harped on the Sydney Opera House’s lack of grandeur in the past, but the times, they are a-changin’; whoever coined the phrase ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ had it backward. This structure, under the full, luminous Australian moon, sparkled like the Hope Diamond…like the eyes of a newborn child…like the rims of 50 Cent’s Cadillac Escalade. Couple that with the sheer terrifying mass of the Sydney Harbor Bridge — nothing quite hammered home its breadth like being directly underneath it — and you can see how the cruise went pretty well. And the unanticipated terror quickly erased my dream of joining the homeless youth under the Burnside Bridge, which I'm sure my family thinks is a good thing.

-Witnessed a pair of karate/taekwan do/Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon talents go to town on one another, all the while trying to keep the beat of a techno-vamped didgeridoo master playing in the background. With China becoming Australia’s biggest trading partner in 2007, this showmanship on the Circular Quay was truly a sign that the Aussies had embraced the Asian culture. And were willing to sell didgeridoo CD’s for $10.

-Felt like my New Zealand roommate, who I knew only as ‘Kiwi’ for the first two weeks, purposely mixed Russian with Gaellic/Armenian, throwing in a dash of Zambian for good measure. Then, I realized that he was just speaking interminably fast. From then on out, I’ve made sure my headphones were on every time he walked by, so he wouldn’t be tempted to make my brain hurt trying to decipher what he was saying.

Actually, this anecdote reminds me of an episode from Flight of the Conchords, an HBO show in which Jemaine and Bret, ‘New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-parody duo,’ travel to the States. Murray is their agent and Dave is their American friend.

Murray: He may be dead.
Dave: He maybe did what?
Murray: He may be dead.
Dave: I know, but what did he maybe do?
Murray: He may be dead.
Dave: Yeah, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. What did he maybe do?
Bret: No, he may be dead.
Dave: Are you guys fucking with me?

-Yelled at a bat that I’m Batman, and thus he should do as I command. Ok, actually that makes me sound like a lunatic, but in my defense, I was with my friends Steve and Will, and it was midday, and the sheer numbers of these Grey Headed Flying Foxes made me think that I could afford to tick off one. These bats were amazing, by the way. With thousands hanging from trees in the Royal Botanical Gardens, they resembled furry burritos, with a black, leathery tortilla. (If you’re waiting for pictures, I hate to disappoint, but my next bullet — or dash, or hyphen, or whatever it’s called — explains the wordiness of this post.)

-Missed nothing more than my good ol’ American internet. If Australia is five years behind the US in terms of culture, then it is twenty years behind in terms of internet speed. I would never have imagined that my high school internet would trump my college’s.

Then again, the high school I went to required you to buy a laptop, so maybe I’m just not as prescient as most.

-Had a professor haggle for five minutes with the lone Australian student in the class for a ride to the nearby train station. And once she acquiesced, he decided to end class 15 minutes early so her parking didn’t run out. My, what a difference changing school makes.

-Tried pilates. Do I really need to say more? Really? Fine - I sucked at it. Not only did my hip flexors feel like they were being smothered by a hot iron, but my I stayed on my ‘sitting bones’ as well as Mississippi Braves coach Phillip Wellman keeps his composure:



That’s not to say I didn’t get anything out of it — my abs, or ‘TA’ as the crew-cut female director termed it, will be feeling it tomorrow morning. And unlike ‘BodyBalance,’ which I tried a couple weeks ago, I wasn’t forced to metaphorically fingerpaint, turn into a gliding kite, or plant my roots deep into the ground, all the while listening to ‘The World’s Greatest’ by R. Kelly. Now there’s a memory I’ll try to repress.

-Gone so broke I’ve needed to ration my own food. With only pocket change to last me until the end of the month, and a prideful sense of self that won’t allow me to plead with my parents to let me eat, I now need a job like Halle needed Billy Bob in Monster’s Ball (which, upon last night’s viewing, convinced me to never live in rural Georgia). Of course, it didn’t help that I shelled out $100-plus for a Wine-Wildlife Tour of Hunter Valley this Sunday. But as my Dad told me, via paraphrase, ‘You should drink as much as you can, so you can expand your palette.’ (Or something like that.)

-Seen US basketball make the Australian team look like drugged-up dingos. If you’d seen the first half, when the US was only up by one, you’d have thought the game would end close, right? Nope, not when Kobe Bryant is making threes far enough away to be considered the Outback, nor when Chris Bosh is throwing down dunks so hard he could make toilets flush the right way. Now if only they had a spot open for Phelps on the team, the basketball tournament would be ratings gold.

*Until this week…or past couple weeks, I guess

An American thought

There’s something to be said about labels, pride, and Americanism. There are also certain stigmas attached to each, stigmas which have both truths and fallacies as baggage. But during these last ten days, and especially in the wake of Michael Phelps’ (and his teammates’) miraculous underwater efforts, the effects of labels, pride, and Americanism have had nothing but a profound effect on the US expatriates that call the Macquarie University Village home.

For as much as I find labels stifling, or think pride selfish, or claim Americanism to be a mythic, ever-changing image — particularly now that experts predict that the white population will be in the minority by 2046 — these Beijing Olympics have somehow lit a sense of pride in my label of American.

I’m not talking 1980-Lake-Placid-Mircale pride, especially after my semi-joking chants of ‘USA’ were drowned by cries of mock hatred from my Aussie counterparts. These Olympics haven’t created a Cold War solidarity among my fellow ‘seppos’ — so far, bar-hopping seems to be the only activity to cultivate such a congregation.

These Games haven’t even aroused some quasi-sacrifice, an idea that if I make time to watch ‘The Redeem Team,’ then Carmelo, Lebron, and Kobe will somehow receive a palpable boost (it certainly didn’t work for the US’ soccer team’s 2 a.m. contest against Germany in the 2002 World Cup).

But what this prideful spark lacks in weight, it makes up for in its sheer existence.

My college years have jaded me, swayed my thoughts on certain ideas that childhood experiences hammered into me. ‘Patriotism,’ or at least the notion that American was ‘the greatest country in the world,’ was one such mantra, fed down my throat with daily Pledges of Allegiance and history books that somehow managed to skim over both the Chinese Exclusion Act and the American-Philippine War (thank goodness for Wikipedia). And as an avid fan of the Postmodern Era — save for Blade Runner, worse than a double root canal — I began to question certain truths, the concept of Patriotism being one.

The question remains, sans answer, but there is a growing, almost alien sense of pride which I now have for my country of origin. Who knew that, some 10,000 miles and hundreds of Taco Bells away, I would find myself with an ear-to-ear grin as Phelps shot to a body-length lead to close one of his races? Who would have imagined that, on the following race, I would scowl at our staticky, antennae-lacking TV as Natalie Coughlin choked her way to bronze? Who could have told me, straight-faced, that I would find myself on an elliptical machine with a boost of added adrenaline as the US women’s water polo found the back of the aquatic net against the Chinese squad?

Perhaps it’s the Olympics, which grips the world community oh-so-rarely in its (hopefully) un-politicized arms. Perhaps it’s ‘Stage 2’ of my trip, where the details (like the way we say ‘aluminum,’ or the lack of a school paper) make me pine for the comforts I’ve grown accustomed to. Or perhaps it’s just a natural progression, aided by Dmitri Medvedev’s aggression and the Chinese charades of the Opening Ceremony.

Whatever it is, seeing Phelps adorned in eight gold medals, seeing Team USA stomp Spain by 30 points, seeing the US fencers — two of whom are from Portland — sweep the medal stand in women’s sabre, elicits a pride of state I didn’t know was there.

What Phelps has accomplished is amazing, unheard of, and without compare. And no, I’m not just talking about portraying Baltimore in a light different than that seen on HBO’s The Wire. (And if Mark Spitz had shorn his speed-slowing mustache, I’m sure he’d still have the record.) And I’m not just talking about the medals, which have landed him as GOAT (Greatest Of All Time).

For the first time in my adult life - wow, that's a strange phrase - I feel proud to be labeled as an American.

Of course, this pride was completely squashed when Tyson Gay didn’t even make it to the men’s 100m final. How un-American of him.

Maybe if he’d only have grown a mustache....

An extreme monotreme, a lounging croc, and a turtle the size of your bed

There are things that are rare — a successful University of Houston alum, a commercial where the Trix rabbit actually gets some of the cereal — and then there are things that are unthinkable (which, before meeting Tracy, entailed ‘attractive Yankees fans’). For me, the existence of monotremes fell, until two days ago, squarely in the latter category.

Sure, I’d seen pictures of these awkwardly graceful creatures, but then again, I just saw a picture a picture of Bigfoot on CNN.com (although that could just be an unshaven Wolff Blitzer). With the existence of these genetic anomalies up in the air, I decided a trek to the Sydney Aquarium was in order.

Bypassing the plethora of Finding Nemo memorabilia — it seems like Pixar had a bigger impact on the city than the 2000 Olympics could have ever wished for — I meandered into the depths of the Aquarium, shaded on one side by the mammoth Murray Cod, the size of an obese child, and on the other by Eastern Water Dragons, stealthy catfish, and a puttering, sputtering Cinnamon Teal. Following the yellow ground-arrows, I blitzed past these bland, common-place animals and straight toward the main focus of the entire waterfront complex: the monotreme.

Ok, I guess since we’re not all biology majors — with far too little room to BS on tests, I discarded biology for English a long time ago — I’ll explain what a monotreme is. It’s a mammal….with, uh, the ability to lay eggs…that are unique to Australia…yeah, that’s about as much as I got from the not-so-explanatory signs. Needless to say, I’m sure that’s all you need to know to figure out that the monotreme du jour was none other than he duck-billed, deep-diving, ankle-barbed platypus.


They say you never forget your first (thanks Stephanie Rice). Clearly, ‘they’ were talking about platypus encounters.

In a five-meter long tank of frond- and root-filled water, with a graveled bottom and rocky outcroppings above the pond, a foot-long creature — and that’s the only way you can really describe it — darted up, down, and all around the semi-translucent pool. In one of the more farfetched comparisons I’ve ever found, the platypus in question reminded me of an electron (wow, I’m being really science-y today, huh): smaller than I imagined, but with a non-stop motor and a penchant for releasing more energy than the lackadaisical spearfish that surrounded him.

Everyone knows that platypus’ modus operandi. Alonside the kangaroo and the koala, the platypus — which Aboriginal populations viewed as sacred and thus inedible (think Hindus and cows) — rounds out the triumvirate of Australian animals. And rightly so. With a bird’s beak, a beaver’s pelt, a seal’s flippers, and a Lhasa Apso’s rotund torso, the platypus is truly on of evolution’s jokes. If there is a God, the platypus came directly from his/her closet of spare parts. It’s no wonder that English taxonomists thought the original specimen was a hoax.

Still, the animal’s uniqueness and homeliness — alongside the fact that ‘on land, they cannot see directly ahead and often run into obstacles — endear it to the fawning public. The platypus received far and away the most attention of all the marine life, although it couldn’t have cared less: for the entire 15 minutes I watched it, the animal’s sole purpose seemed to be digging a hole to China (or, since we’re in Australia, I guess it would be Mexico) in the vain search for food.

Of course, the platypus was not the only major player of the aquarium. From the ghostly ‘banana-peel’ eel to the waddling Little Penguins to the Southern Calamari Squid, whose manta ray head helped it fly from one end of the tank to the other, and back, and forth, and back, and forth…for hours on end, the aquarium was anything but a one-trick lobster (there were no ponies here, so I went with the next best thing).
The Mourning cuttlefish, a small, beanie-baby-esque squid tugged at my heartstrings as, upon my approach, it started bumping into the glass (although on second thought, maybe it just thought I was food). There were the typical staples of marine life: a basking crocodile, hungry for tourists; a pooped-out seal, sun-bathing on the center rock (and thus unable to be seen from the tunnels below); the leafy sea-dragons playing neighbor to the highly-poisonous, highly-ornate lionfish; and, as always, the inspirations for the characters of Finding Nemo.


These foreign, floundering species all had beauty and intrigue on their own merit, and yet they were either too sloth-like or too cramped to be of any real significance in my eyes. So it was with great, anticipatory zeal — and a steady diet of Discovery Channel’s ‘Shark Week’ — that I descended into the bowels of the shark tunnels.

And disappointed, I was not.

With Harry Potter knockoff music filling the background, I (subconsciously) held my breath, took a step, and found myself immediately surrounded by the largest, densest, and most breathtaking display of mariner life I had ever seen.

I immediately realized that ‘shark tunnel’ was a misnomer — a freckled, sheep-sized Ornate Wobbegong was napping on the top of the tunnel entrance, a three-meter Loggerhead Turtle soon glided by, and a manta ray that could have easily doubled for Aladdin’s flying carpet quickly made itself evident — but I was nowhere near bummed. With only three feet separating my head from the top of the tunnel, the proximity to these colossal beasts caught my heart and turned my eyes into saucers.



But it wasn’t only the upper half of my body that was affected. As soon as a Gray Nurse Shark landed over my head, I’m sure the knocking of my knees could have been mistaken for Morse Code. (It wasn’t till later that I realized that the Gray Nurse Sharks, whose populations have diminished almost to the point of no return, are nothing more than big puppies, preying solely on pencil-sized fish.)

Sure, there was pressurized glass separating our worlds. And yeah, I may have been sharing the experience with dozens of Japanese tourists, none of whom understood the concept of ‘excuse me.’ But the few moments I spent in those tunnels made the entry fee worth every Australian penny.

Some more, (thankfully) final references to Nemo greeted me on the way out, but I didn’t mind. Somehow, a giant turtle had accomplished what a tear-jerkingly boring lecture on Victorian novels could not: bringing a smile to my face.

With a couple hours left to burn, I decided to mosey through downtown Sydney. If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again — this city is absolutely gorgeous. From tall, sprinkling skyscrapers to imposing 19-century façades, this city has encompassed its past and present in a way most cities can only dream of. And the way it’s been gift-wrapped and delivered to the cosmopolitan public only cements the fact that the city is unique. The Queen Victoria building may encompass this time-traveling sentiment best of all. Looking like a revamped, refurbished Parliament building, this block-long, multi-domed marvel is actually a high-class shopping mall, with clothing boutiques, chocolate factories, and an Adidas store calling it home. Located outside the mall are a twenty-foot high statue of the building’s namesake, shipped directly from the mother country, and a wishing well dedicated to her loving pooch (which comes directly with an English voiceover directly well-wishers how they should deposit their coins, arf, arf!)















Following the shopping extravaganza — don’t worry, since I’m already broke, I didn’t buy anything from Tiffany’s — I walked past the towering Town Hall and headed to Hyde Park, a three-block long tree-fest, home to the Anzac Memorial (which comes complete with Jesus strapped to a sword, which was just kind of awkward) and a statue of a dude beheading a minotaur, which must have symbolized the Greeks third-century B.C. conquest of New South Wales, right?


A stroll through the Royal Botanical Gardens finally yielded a picture of the elusive-but-only-because-I’m-lazy Sulpher-Crested Cockatoo, whose nest-building skills entailed finding a hole in a tree branch and lying down. Still, the Cockatoo wasn’t even the highlight of the Gardens. With however many hundreds of imported species calling the greens home, the RBG was a stupendous feat of botanical architecture, with herb gardens (make sure to pronounce the ‘h’ down here) flanking Jurassic mangrove trees, all while prancing statues looked on from the distance.
If I ever have an appreciation for foliage, this is the place to go.

The final trek I made landed me at the feet of the Sydney Opera House, whose disappointments have dissipated somewhat — must be afflicted by some cousin of Stockholm Syndrome. I still needed to take my first snapshots of the oft-snapshotted (yeah, I just made that word up), and, well, here’s one.


Oh, one other thing I noticed on the walk through the city: It turns out the the Sydney Imax is the biggest in the world, which I did not know until a few days ago. Therefore, not only did I attend the New York City world premiere of The Dark Knight, not only did I attend the midnight showing, but I’ve also seen the movie on the biggest screen in the world.


One more nugget to tell my students when I’m teaching the one-hour ‘Batman: The Modern Myth, the Cultural Icon, and the American Staple’ course my senior year. (It turns out that those painful Victorian novel lectures are the perfect time to finalize my syllabus for the course.)

Sydney Swans, the size of the world, and the Mexican Revolution

Is it any wonder that Australian Rules Football shares nearly all its distinct traits with a kangaroo?

I’m not talking about having a tree-trunk tail or a penchant for being impaled by Aboriginal spears, although that would certainly up the ante. I’m talking about the basics: the kicking, the punching, the bouncing. All the actions people on the east side of the Pacific love kangaroos for — as opposed to the Australia, where they just love to eat them.

My internship in the States last summer allowed me a momentary glimpse into the underground world of the Portland Power, a local Aussie Rules Football club. But the vague, over-the-phone hints of bounding pigskins and marsupial mannerisms left me perplexed and, quite honestly, intrigued. So when I learned that I could attend an ARF game in Sydney, I chomped at the bit, eagerly looking past cuddling with koalas and toward the sport that had gripped the reigns of my imagination.

While probably unfamiliar to most ‘seppos’ — five bucks to whomever can figure out why Americans earned that name — Aussie Rules Football carries the same weight in Australia as the NBA, NHL, or, sadly, NASCAR carry back home. Granted, ARF can’t hold a candle to rock-’em, sock-’em rugby matches on the mainland, but from the southern swath to the Tasmanian hinterlands, this is the game to be watched.

And what a game it is.

I had the fortune of attending my first Aussie Football League match on Saturday, with a cheap bus ride followed by an equally cheap ticket landing me at the Sydney Swans contest against the Freemantle Dockers. As the Sydney Cricket Grounds stadium opened up, the emerald field sprawled as an oversized circle of grass. The field was pinched on two sides by eight multi-story posts, looking like hair-picks penetrating a giant green afro, and only a few chalk-lines to speak of.

But it wasn’t the massive expanse of the field that caught my eye. Nor was it the scarf-wearing, beanie-sated crowd. Nor, even, was it the pair of homemade, VW Beetle-sized pom-poms our neighbors had brought.

What caught my eye was exactly what I had set out for: the game.

Wielding the oblong, overly-inflated football, the ref began the match with the least traditional jump-ball I’d ever seen: Instead of tossing the ball high and straight, he ricocheted the balloon off the ground and into the air for the “ruckman,” or Aussie Yao Mings, to snag.



After the unorthodox beginning, it didn’t take to formulate the idea for this column, vis-á-vis comparing ARF to the ’roo. Unlike rugby or gridiron, ARF ball movement between teammates employs throwing as often as John McCain listens to Jay-Z. Therefore, the players resort to actions usually reserved for the star of the smash film Kangaroo Jack. The most common methods of sharing are punching or kicking — two styles of martial arts that feral kangaroos are best known for.

Furthermore, if the ball-carrier is forced to take more than an allotted amount of steps, he must resort to the kangaroos’ mode of transport: bouncing (the ball, not himself).

But just like the Mariners' front office, the game has some kinks to work out. Not only could no one tell me exactly how much time was in a quarter — ranging from 28-32 minutes, it’s apparently at the timekeeper’s discretion — and the trainers/waterboys/calf-massagers felt the need to show they could run more than those they were helping. The entire game, these staff members scurried around the field, distributing water bottles and medical tape in the middle of the contest and, since they were all about seven feet shorter than the athletes, resembling pesky, distracting gnats.

Aside from those annoying little people, the amalgamation of soccer, basketball, football, and marsupial all blended to create a free-flowing, highly-physical spectacle that brought me up to speed on what the Power guys were actually talking about. From the booming, no-look kicks splitting the uprights, to Sydney’s main enforcer — who must have been Ed Norton’s body-double in American History X — throwing his weight (and elbows) around, the entire, three-hour length contest was remarkable.

That night Sydney overcame a late deficit to down the Dockers, cementing their spot in the Top Four of the Aussie Football League and searing the similarities between ARF and kangaroos in my mind.

Because when you come to think of it, gnats annoy kangaroos too, don’t they?

On a completely unrelated note, here’s your ‘The World Is Smaller Than A Yankees Fan’s IQ’ Moment of the Day: After being seated at the AFL match, I noticed I was in the same row as Noah from Phoenix, whom I had met a couple nights earlier while scarfing down some potato bake. With him sat two girls who we included in the conversation. And as a microcosm of the topsy-turvy world in which we live in — a world in which Brett Favre is a Jet and people actually went to see The Mummy 3— Elizabeth from Atlanta revealed that not only had she nearly moved to Portland in fifth grade, but she was accepted to and ready to attend Catlin Gabel (which I attended for high school). Unfortunately, her asthmatic brother, the initial cause of their move from smog-laden Atlanta, couldn’t squeeze into the meager class sizes, so Elizabeth and I never got the chance to meet.

Until we sat next to each other, some six years later.

In a different hemisphere.

In the same row, at the same AFL game, with only one mutual friend between us and neither of us willing to shell out five bucks for a hot dog.

What a crazy world.

On another side note, we found this statue on the way to the game:



Looks like Mexican Revolution war hero Benito Juarez knows how to party.

Saber-toothed Bouncers

Before I delve into my weekend, I just want to convey how happy I am that I wasn't born at the beginning of the Neogene period.

The most Australian thing you can do

 

Seattle, snow, and sports (or, my feeble stabs at alliteration)

And now for the first edition of Casey’s Magical Bout of ADD. Please keep all limbs inside the cart at all times, and remember to silence your cell phones (or, if you still think it’s 1995, your pagers an AOL dial-up).

- The Sydney Opera House sucked. There, I said it. See below for further details.

- Ok, no, the Opera House didn’t really suck. In fact, the first glimpse of the spectacle (whose financer, due to a glut of porn, was deported before its construction) is what will finally attune you to your arrival Down Under. Everything leading up to that point is either too similar to America or, if you’re somehow caught in the bush, likely to kill you and thus ruin the memories. It’s the Opera House, whose celestial shapes and harbor-side prominence draw the eye within moments, that truly caps the prominence of Sydney.

o That being said, the proprietors of Opera House photos must be whizzes at Photoshop, because the gleaming white spectacle I was expecting seems to be found only in magazines. When we crossed the Sydney Harbor Bridge - the arching steel behemoth known to the locals as the ‘Coat-Hanger’ - I originally thought the Opera House was for some reason covered in moldy netting. (‘Perhaps it was to symbolize the fishing culture of the water-based economy,’ I slyly thought.) Unfortunately, on closer inspection, I found that the lines of netting were in fact runs of gout spanning the entire outside of the conical high-rises. The more we circled the building, the more it dawned on me - the Opera House was just a glorified bathroom floor. And not even one privy to Oxy-Clean. Still, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind grabbing a smaller tile and affixing it to my Mom’s new kitchen floor (which should be in the works now that my Dad finally has his hog).

- Other than the Opera House letdown - and since the opera tends to grate my ears worse than my brother’s selection of rap, I won’t be heading inside anytime soon - the remainder of downtown Sydney remains a beauty. With sparkling skyscrapers, a free-standing needle pointing skyward, and a breathtaking 4bay of water, the city has ‘Seattle’ written all over it. Sydney may be a bit bigger and, due to the Olympics, more well-known, but the resemblances between the two towns is striking. And throw in the fact that both are cosmopolitan cities filled with genuine, caring people - I’ve yet to be snubbed when asking an irrelevant question (or which beer is best) - and I don’t feel so embarrassed walking around in a Mariners sweatshirt. (Hey, at least it’s not a Brett Favre jersey. ZING.)

- Speaking of bars, I believe I went to, quite literally, the coolest drinking establishment this side of the Arctic Circle. As part of the ‘Sydney Party Bus’ last Saturday (should have been nicknamed the ‘Sydney Eat-My-Money-In-The-Name-Of-A-Good-Time Shuttle’), a group of us decided to head to the Circular Quay to check what had become a frequent inside joke: 5-Below. No, this is not a term for the depth of the sharks patrolling the harbor; instead, it’s just what you think it is: a frozen bar. Cool, right? (Ok, that’s the last one, I swear.) The only thing hampering my dreams of shivering hands clutching a frozen cocktail (or, if my Mom is reading this, a Coke) was the price. Thirty smackers. Yeesh. Enough to buy ten pizzas from Dominos, or about four gallons of gas (seriously, we have it so easy in the States). Fortunately (Un-?) my friend Sean used my argument against me - you’re only in Sydney while you’re 20 once - so my conscience was soothed and my wallet was lightened. Anyway, the novelty of the experience - wearing knee-length parkas paper-thin gloves while trying not to get your tongue stuck on the ice-glass - soon wore off, and as soon as the manager told me I could slide on the floor, my vote was cast. Yes, it was a story I will tell for years to come (and probably embellish, as the bartender of future stories will have said, “Ice to meet you”), but, as with anything this side of Spiderman 3, it failed to live up to the hype. (There’s nothing memorable - [laughs to self] - about the rest of the night, other than drinking with middle-aged Aussies at the Fortune of War, the oldest pub in Sydney. And yes, I pulled out all the stops on the older women, just so that I could tell Tracy.)

- Question of the day: Aussies love calling Americans ‘seppos.’ Five bucks to anyone who can describe the origin of this word without Googling it.

- I’m not sure if it’s the water, the sun, or some type of airborne toxin á la The Happening, but Aussies are obsessed with sport. Look at this stat: Of the top four countries with the most medals from the 2004 Athens Olympics, Australia won one medal per 408,000 people, while the next closest, Russia, earned one medal per 1,532,000 commies heads. (Meanwhile, the US was clearly the laziest of the West, with only one medal per 3,000,000 Yanks.) That’s pretty impressive, no? Hammered into them from an early age, young Aussies idolize sport as much as American compatriots idolize Happy Meal (or maybe that was just me). Certainly they are the most sport-oriented, ‘sporiented,’ of the Commonwealth countries, or at least more clear about their passions than Canadians (they gotta keep warm up there somehow, I suppose):



Still, the only real exposure I’ve been allowed is the first Australia-New Zealand rugby union match since last spring’s World Cup. Sitting with a trio of Kiwis, I learned that the current Wallabies coach, Robbie Deans, is actually from NZ, a turncoat of sorts yet also one on his way to bigger and better things (such as coaching the All-Blacks when ‘that bloody wanker John Hart’ leaves). Unfortunately, I sat at the wrong table that evening in Cairns, as the All-Blacks, who ‘only lose on the biggest stage, those bloody wankers,’ caved under the pressures of the Sydney crowd. As the cavalcade of scoring went Australia’s way, I watched the match with the soundtrack of, ‘wanker, bloody wanker, fuckin’ bloody wankers!’ playing in my ear (and in surround-sound!) When the final whistle rang, I looked down to see my NZ mates had disappeared. And I thought we were friends! Bloody wankers…

- For further photos, you can check out this link. And if you have a Facebook account, don't hesitate to friend me, because it'll be super-great for my ego.

O(rnithology)-face

As a Batman fanatic, seeing The Dark Knight gave me a nerd-gasm.

As an English major and compulsive writer, it’s easy to give me a word-gasm.

And as an avid ornithological buff, Macquarie University has given me the ultimate bird-gasm.

Obviously, the fauna of Australia is more than a bit different than the critters encountered back home. From pouched, punching kangaroos to Gabe-like wombats, the Antipodean mammals are in a class all their own. Imagine, for a moment, that you are an early European settler (or, if you’re Brian Lee, a Korean settler), accustomed to rundown donkeys, gallant horses and fatted cows, but upon landing on this strange, massive isle, you encounter giant animals that neither run, gallop, trot, crawl, nor slither, but bounce. While the movie Alien was still light-years away from creation, you can see how these explorers could have imagined the land of Australia as an entirely different land (and considering that biologists on the western coast later found strolomites, the first organism to ever photosynthesize, perhaps time travel wasn’t out of the question either).

While I’ve been exposed to but a few of the many inhabitants of this foreign land - from a dinner-plate spider (the only point of comparison is the size of your face) to a behemoth, 15-foot, seemingly-plasticized saltwater crocodile (to call it terrifying would be like calling Manny Ramirez offbeat) - the creatures that have captured my imagination above all else are the birds. (On a semi-ironic note, referencing both baseball and birds in that sentence officially ties my years of Catlin - where I was “the baseball guy” - to Rice - where I am “the bird guy.”) I’ve alluded to the fact that Macquarie may or may not qualify as a zoo, but the sole propellers for this notion are the soaring, swimming, squawking inhabitants of the grounds.

It did not take me long to realize the utter blandness that the birds of the US now own. From the second I exited the Cairns airport walkway, camera in hand and ‘Birds of Australia’ tome in pocket, I was taken. (In another bit of semi-irony, the first bird I saw in Cairns is not in my birding literature, meaning that some sleuthing is in order). Never before had I been privy to a flock of Rainbow Lorakeets, whose glistening sheen of green, yellow, and red brought images of Johnny Depp raiding the British. Sure, their incessant jabbering caused some pain in my ears, but, as I said before, when the only thing you have to complain about are the parrots - parrots - do you really have anything to complain about?

After the Mynah Birds, Frigatebirds and Brown Boobies (how vulgar, I know) of Cairns passed - with close call, as a Frigatebird-vs.-Boobie fight nearly clipped our boat - settling on the Macquarie campus brought even more diversity. (If Catlin is so set on diversifying their campus, I might suggest bringing on tropical fauna, as opposed to blackberry-munching goats that are hidden in the bowels of the forest. And that was a really bad attempt at a joke. Sorry.) The grounds here resemble an open aviary, netless and expansive, with birds free to come, go, and harass at will.

And yes, I do mean harass. My first day of official Sydney bird-watching also happened to be the first day I found myself on the wrong side of a dive-bombing. As I was clearing the hill beyond the Macquarie University Village, our housing complex, I noticed a pair of Masked Lapwings crouched 50 yards away. Approaching to get a better look - their drooping, yellowed masks make it look like they enjoy mustard facials - I saw them lift off in a circular flight pattern. Thinking they were gone for good, I turned back toward the heart of campus to see what other birds I could discover. As I took my fifth step, a loud ‘POP’ emanated from directly behind my head (the only sound I can compare it to, I am sad to say, is the filling of Batman’s cape). Thinking immediately of Behind Enemy Lines, I realized that as an American citizen in foreign lands, people would obviously have it out for me. But as my knees buckled and I turned my head toward the source of the noise, I saw the underside of a Lapwing, mere feet from my face, veering off in the headwind and - thank God - away from me.

Catching my breath, I stood to revel in my good fortune. Not only did the bird miss me, but I now actually get to say I was attacked by a wild animal. What luck! So I picked myself up, paced my breathing to normal, and went on my way.

Until the second one decided to come at me.

Needless to say, these birds never actually hit me - clearly, they can see I’ve been working out - but the close proximity and the pop-rock noise they released actually kept me on edge the rest of the way. (Eventually, harrowingly, I staggered back up the hill, braving the bombers and finding what they were protecting - four nested eggs, milky brown with chocolate spots. And I haven’t been back since.)

Following the mildly unnerving near-death experience, I kept trekking, soaking in the sights that the campus gave me. There were the Sulpher-Crested Cockatoos, massive, glowing-white birds with lemon-lime Alfalfa tufts, whose beauty is matched in scale by the horrifying sound they release when they call (imagine a flying, ’roided-up velociraptor). There were the Laughing Kookaburras, arguably my favorite thus far, perched as Kingfishers periodically throughout the campus (it is only when two or more gather that their sense of humor is released). There were the Australian White Ibis’, hook-billed Egyptians that circled the giant campus lake. There were the Long-Billed Corellas, similar to Cockatoos except, according to my book (which I’m now starting to question), belong solely in southern Victoria. There were the Australian Magpies and Pied Currawongs, Australia’s answer to the Common Crow, sprucing up the grasslands with streaks of white and calls resembling dying cats. And there were the most insipid of them all, the much-maligned pigeons, getting in on the action - with a black feather-spike shooting from its head, the Crested Pigeon looks like it just strutted out of a Sex Pistols concert.

Now, as I gaze outside from the comforts of my couch, I see a pair of Galahs, ground-dwelling relatives of parrots, with pink chests and gray backs, munching on the seeded lawn. Just beyond them waddle a group of Australian Wood Ducks, some of whom own the aforementioned brood by the brook. And only minutes earlier, a Purple Swamphen, with spindly feet and a bright red horn, ambled by my sliding glass door, resembling an Animorphed Barney football as it searched in vain for by discarded apple core.

Now, I’m not saying that the Pileated Woodpeckers or the Bald Eagles of home are any less exhilarating - anyone who’s seen me around them (i.e. my Dad) knows how excitable I can get - but their uncommonness makes home appear, well, empty. Here, on the other hand, is a land that seems to be bursting at the seams with wonderful, vibrant creatures. And if this is what it’s like in the middle of a bustling, crammed city, imagine what it will be like when I get out.

(Note: Yesterday I saw The Dark Knight in Imax. And yes, I had a turd-gasm.)

From sentimentality to Tom Petty

My Dad’s a sentimental guy. There’s really no getting around this fact. If the CIA ever finds reason to pick apart my emailings, they’ll find late-homework excuses, amazon.com orders (mostly for Batman rehashings), and messages from my Dad reminding me that ‘these are the memories you will keep with you forever.’

Generally, these tokens of quasi-vicariousness (I only mean that in the best way, since many of my Dad’s college recollections have gone the way of the Seattle SuperSonics) are accepted as part of my daily routine. Yes, the added few seconds of text will keep me from moving on to rumors about which Mariner will depart next (please Jose Vidro please please please) but no, I don’t take things for granted as I once did.

With his wise, fortune-cookie mantra guiding me, my Dad has allowed me to broaden my horizons throughout my daily routine and appreciate that which may have gone unnoticed. And since ‘the friends [I] meet now are the ones I’ll keep for life,’ I suppose it’s just my luck that I stumbled across Brendon Boney.

For those few of you who are do not avidly salivate over Australian Idol, the name of Boney may mean little more than the Vanuatu College of Medicine’s decision to hire a new professor from Tonga (you can see the islander influence seeping into my semi-obscure references). However, I know that many of you consider Australian Idol the Godiva chocolate of Antipodean reality shows, so many of you remember that Boney strummed, hummed, and, um, bummed his way into the top 13 of the competition a few years back. With a guitar in hand and an acoustic version of Coolio’s “Gangasta’s Paradise” - the distant cousin to Ben Folds piano-addled “Bitches Ain’t Shit” - on his fingertips, Boney broke ground on YouTube, going so far as the top four on the most-viewed list, never quite crossing the Dramatic Squirrel threshold but maintaining a significant lead over the dated, Gen-X Dancing Baby.

Still, this Web-fame could not bump the joyous memories of playing professional soccer in Holland only a few years past. A broken shoulder may have stunted Boney’s career before he could become the preeminent Dutch defenseman, but when Boney’s hands transitioned from goal-mitts to guitars, a huskier, Aboriginal John Mayer came into being.

No, there’s no Wikipedia entry for Boney, nor, would one assume, an entry into Encyclopedia Brittanica. Instead, in my infinite grasp of all things trivial, I attained all information Boney-wise from the one source who would know most: himself. You see, Boney is one of four housemates that I’ve received thus far. Hailing from the nubile town of Waggawagga (‘the place of many crows,’ or, if you’re a fan of Aboriginal slang, ‘the place of the drunken man’), Boney stands as the lone representative of Australia in the abode of 59/122 Culloden Rd. With an Oregonian, a Rhode Islander, a Texan turned Californian, and a delayed Kiwi as house guests, the burden of local information has fallen on Boney. Unfortunately, the intricacies of Macquarie University’s business courses may be lost on the local - majoring in film will do that to you - but what he lacks in Macquarie acumen (Macumen?) he more than makes up for in intangibles.

After witnessing his life’s story in the form of guitar mastery - one prompt of Tom Petty revealed the best live version of ‘Free Falling’ I’d ever heard - I instantly wondered how I could repay someone with such free- falling flowing talent. My answer? Why, exploit his gifts for all they were worth, of course!

Last Tuesday, Boney informed me that he would be performing that night with his girlfriend, Tessa, the second member of the Microwave Jenny duet. The venue would be The Basement, located around Circular Quay, and the tandem would serve as the opening act for Gail Page, Australia’s Blues Singer of the Year. Never one to avoid an opportunity as a groupie, I agreed to view the pair that evening.

At $25, the ticket price turned away my tagalong expats, yet I would not be denied. (In hindsight, I should have worked my connections to the band for what they were worth.) I mean, I told him I’d be there, didn’t I? Apparently, Boney felt the same way. As I exited the bathroom of The Basement - Tessa stumbled upon me. ‘No way!,’ she exclaimed, rapidly revealing a million-watt grin. ‘He just went running up the block looking for you!’ Good choice for me to come, right?

It was pretty clear that this gig was more than just a corner-café shindig for college kids. With the signed posters of blues musicians from yonder lining the dark walls, the dusky, roomy nightclub stood as the hub of blues and jazz in Sydney. Artists who they booked were not dumpster-diving has-beens - they were the real deal.
And so was Microwave Jenny.

(Here’s a link to their music if you don’t believe me http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=161514256)

Mixing Norah Jones-harmony with Jack Johnson-guitaring, Microwave Jenny literally sent shivers down my back. It’s clear that the chemistry between the two singers is at an apex on the stage, with each playing off one another’s patterns and stylings (and for added measure, Boney made sure to point out that they weren’t brother and sister.) Their gift was easy to see, and, if the crowd’s constant post-set badgering was any indication, I was not the only one who noticed the talent.

With a medium height and a semi-stocky build, Boney would stand only in a crowd of Oompa-Loompas, yet his chuckles are as reliable as the lack of Australian ozone. Part Aboriginal, part comic book nerd - our conversations have run the gamut from The Dark Knight plot complexities to the leaked Wolverine trailer - Boney is truly all you could ask for in a housemate.

So Dad, if you’re reading this, I just want to thank you for your advice - ‘remember your lessons; believe in your dreams; and follow your passions!’ - because I can now say that I’ve met someone whose fame I am sure if just beyond the corner.

By the way, did I mention he and Tessa made us a gourmet breakfast the other day?


Edit: When I said he makes up for his dearth of business-class knowledge in intangibles, I was overlooking one very palpable, very valuable asset he brings to the table: a car. Never have I seen such looks of pure, green envy when I tell my fellow Americans that my housemate not only has a car, but drives me to get groceries on a whim. What a life I lead, huh?