Vic’s Cabaret and first Date.

Milo in deep thought.

With the Phyllis Bates ‘academy’ dance lessons firmly tucked under my arms I  was ready and willing to go and practise for the first time my  dancing without the pre-painted dance-steps on a floor.   An Austrian Waltz was the last one I was taught. At one stage I came close to losing the book held between us.  I had to place my leg (just one) between both the lovely teacher’s  legs and do a majestic sweep of one hundred eighty degree turn while holding my chin proudly  upwards and sideways. I had at the same time hold both my right arm  and her left arm stretching out towards Central Railway. I did not want to  press, or move anything inappropriately while in that delicate but intimate position. I feared that some excitement might finally show but with my Reuben Scarf suit and generously billowing trousers I was somewhat reassured that nothing would betray even this possibility. In any case my concentration was focussed on the firm pushing Of Human Bondage book held between us.

I was informed about a dance club on Parramatta Rd near Sydney’s Strathfield. Readers might remember the salesman that sold me the Ford V8 also came from that area. He might well turn up at the same place. The place was called Vic’s Cabaret but like the word ‘academy’ it was another case of the  misuse of words  imbued with more than what was actually there. I remember being fascinated by ‘Palm Beach’ when still back in Holland before the migration episode. The map of Sydney had ‘Palm Beach’ on it.  I used to lay in bed conjuring up waving palm trees and could not wait to see those. It was  a B/W news-reel back in the winter cold of The Hague with natives on tropical islands sipping cool drinks from coconuts underneath beckoning palm trees. After migration I went to Palm Beach on my scooter. Not a single palm tree in sight! Now, I always thought that cabaret was a bit more than a place to dance in even if it included a small band.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-10-22/32400

Still, Vic’s Cabaret in Strathfield even without it being a true cabaret in a more European sense, was still a good place to start finding a date. Lots of nice girls would be there and it just needed a positive attitude and some extra brylcreme. Having straight hair did not have at that time the same allure as having a bit of a wave. The TV series Seventy Seven Sunset Strip was responsible for millions of young men imitating the forever hair combing hair-wave owning wisecracking rock and roll Kookie character. I tried to get this  wave and with enough Brilliantine hope I would also share in the glory of this popular character. Not unlike today with so many young men wanting to be a Bieber clone (or Russell Crowe for the more mature).

The Vic’s cabaret was a short drive from home and after a good wash and polish of the V8 I was ready and took off. I managed to park within a reasonable distance and took good note of where I parked. Most streets looked alike but it helped if one took notice of an unusual feature of where one parked. I took a mental note that the garden next to my car had old white painted rubber tyres around some azaleas. The old tyres were a feature of those times and also kept the weeds out. It was considered a very handy place to put old tyres and often this hint was given in the Garden magazine.  It was one of dad’s pet hatreds together with the habits of many elderly ladies painting the hair blue or a bright pink. “I saw a lady in the bus today who had pink hair.  ” A famous sentence of my dad still doing the rounds at Christmas time amongst the Oostermans. Dad had great difficulty with adjusting to some  odd or strange habits differing from some equally strange habits in his own country. I mean, riding bicycles while wearing a suit, or dipping a raw herring in onions and eating it in full view of pedestrians? All the windows open in full sight of a family eating their dinner?

How strange is that?

One of those Week-Ends

One of those week-ends

Even though half of the week-end had passed, I dreaded the next half. All day it was all over the media about the two brothers allegedly responsible for the planting of explosives that killed three people including a young boy. Hundreds of millions world- wide were glued to their Apps and Iphones getting the latest. The two brothers are supposed to be ethnic Chechen who arrived in America aged about 7 and 12.They grew up in America. Some years later they plant bombs! What happened in between? One could ask the same about the man responsible for the massacre at Sandy Hook; what happened? They used to be lovely little boys not long ago. I suppose Klara thought the same of her little boy, Adolf.

I decided to (resolutely) to try and shake my gloom by taking a walk with my wife and our incorrigible Jack Russell ‘Milo’ to our little river at the back of our complex of eight town-houses. I call them ‘units’ but some also refer to them with the rather more grandiose name of ‘villas’! Coming from Europe, I hesitate to call them villas seeing they don’t resemble anything one would find facing the sea at Monaco or the waterfront French Riviera with 50 metres of swimming pools and helipads with Portuguese maids dressed in white uniforms serving Dom Perignon in tall stemmed glasses.

Years ago soon after arrival in Sydney and aged 15 I was desperate to investigate a Sydney suburb named ‘Palm Beach’. Having grown up in Holland and seen the occasional movie with waving palms and people lounging in hammocks while sipping from a coconut with skimpily dressed Hawaiian girls swanning about I was desperate to soak up and make real my vision of waving palms. I thought the hoola girls can come later as a concession to a possible disappointment. (Even then there were already creeping in shadows of doubt or negativity about my possible unrealistically enlarged projections of fantasized distant futures, dreams or visions.)

I was right to be skeptical; not one fucking palm. I walked along and noticed a garden facing the sea. It had a profusion of white peace lilies (Spathiphyllum) which I knew in Holland to be tropical indoor plants. I can still see my dad bending over them with a small watering can. I thought, well, at least something tropical at last. But…here my skepticism and previous negativity came to the rescue once more; on touching them, leaning over the white picket fence, ( just like dad bending over his indoor plants) they turned out to be plastic. Can you believe people spending time to plant plastic greenery? What sort of country had my dad migrated to with locals having the hide to call their suburb Palm Beach with no Palms and gilding the Lily as well? I have found out that the English speaking world is somewhat over-generous with naming things that are only just skirting along the edges of ‘truth’. They sell fresh-cream apple pies with the cream oozing out being a grainy mock cream and the apple probably plastic grown at someone’s Palm Beach garden. They advertise ‘free gifts’. Electrical shops are named “Good Guys”!

The walk along our little river or bubbling brook is always a restorative event. Milo goes berserk sniffing out the ducks while nervously cocking his hind legs alternatively every few metres. He is clearly eternally optimistic in breaking loose and murdering a nice duck, no matter how strong the leash is, he jumps around and is  enjoying jumping and bucking about. I don’t allow him his duck but as a concession to murder, I will let him loose at the church yard where he  chases the occasional wild rabbit and even killed one. Rabbits are in plague proportions, so…

Good boy Milo.., Good boy.