Local art.

Star-Spangled SpecTAPular in St Kilda

Aradhna takes a break from her sampling paddle and does her best to ignore my Bear Republic stout at yesterday's Star-Spangled SpecTAPular at the Local Taphouse in St Kilda. Winter officially started Friday and yesterday's weather felt like Melbourne in July but the atmosphere inside the Local was as cozy as it was red, white and blue. Twenty American craft brews were on tap. I took a shine to a Marin IPA, Green Flash West Coast APA, Tipperary APA and aforementioned Bear Republic Big Bear Black Imperial Stout. Paddles allowed us to taste five at a time. Aradhna, who's no fan of 'heavy' beer, nonetheless enjoyed a variety of blondes, pils, IPAs. But not the saisson.

A special 'American' menu featured skinny fries, mac & cheese, key lime pie, Philly cheese steaks and more. We only tried the fries and mac & cheese but I can report they were tasty. Very tasty. The Local's Darlinghurst outpost in Sydney is holding its own Star-Spangled SpecTAPular next Saturday. Aradhna and I might be in Sydney next weekend. In which case ...... see ya there.

Your Super Bowl 46 Champions

Wow. Gotta love Big Blue.

We Take Care of Our Own

Springsteen released a single from his forthcoming 'Wrecking Ball' album (due 6 March) this week that's already got critics pondering its meaning. Randall Roberts in the LA Times labels it 'patriotic'. Jim Farber of the NY Daily News -- who's been hard on Springsteen's work in the past -- calls it a 'tale of American self-reliance'. Backstreets does its homework and unearths a 2009 Nation article called 'Katrina's Hidden Race War', "... about a white 'militia' shooting at least 11 African-American men' in the days after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its government collapsed":

Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, [militia member Wayne Janak] smiles and tells the camera, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."

That Bruce Springsteen has initiated such debate over the meaning of a 4-minute rock-and-roll song in our garbage culture of vapid celebrities and corporate-approved infotainment is testament to the man's stature as an artist and his courage to challenge listeners. I've listened to the new song several times and am eager to hear if it's a meaningful outrider on 'Wrecking Ball' or signals a return to Springsteen's past method of delivering a theme across a body of work. I hope it's the latter.

2011 iPhone holiday snaps.

The 'silly season' has come and gone in this sunbaked part of the world. Aradhna and I were originally supposed to be in Hobart, Tasmania for 6 days after Christmas but her mom had her gall bladder removed on Christmas Eve eve so we made a surprise visit to Sydney instead. I have yet to replace the camera that was stolen in Fiji so y'all have to settle for iPhone shots. (Damn that's pretentious.) The photo above was taken outside Gattica a week before Christmas. It will never feel right to write Christmas cards beneath warm sunlight at an outdoor cafe ... but I'll always enjoy the outstanding Melbourne coffee.

Our neighborhood is a central gathering place for what is by far Australia's largest Jewish population. Balaclava, and the surroudning suburbs of St Kilda and Caulfield, were havens for Holocaust survivors after WWII and have seen a continuous influx of orthodox Jews. One of the shops on Carlisle Street around the corner from our place had these 2 giant inflatable dradles in the window before Hannukah.

Aradhna and I christened a new Christmas cuisine: Turkey curry! Aradhna said she liked it and compared it favorably with my chicken curry. Before Aradhna's parents became vegans she was raised on her mom's variety of meat curries, so I never take her praise for granted.

Waiting for Aradhna's sister Upa to pick us up at Sydney airport on Christmas Day. It was especially satisfying to watch my wife cause at least a dozen cases of whiplash as she walked through Melbourne and Sydney airports.

Aradhna and I met friends Peter and Allison in Parramatta for lunch and made the mistake of choosing Parramatta Westfield to park in. Call me a curmudgeon but I couldn't imagine being in a place where more holiday spirit gets sucked down a drain than a massive mall 2 days after Christmas.

Parramatta holds many memories as it was the first place I ever got to know during my initial visit to Oz in February, 2005, so it was good to see the old Town Hall looking freshly painted and festively adorned.

Aradhna and I enjoyed refreshments as we awaited Peter and Allison to join us. Any hesitations on my part to deviate from healthy eating and drinking during the holidays were met with this plea: "But it's Chriiiisssssstmas!" Little wonder my wife's found success as a salesperson. Or I'm just a sap.

We met up with Radhika (shown here with Aradhna) and her husband Vipin and their lovely daughter Neha (shown below) at Ettamogah Pub in Kellyville Ridge. My in-laws built a house in the northwest Sydney suburb in 2005 and moved in early the following year. Radhika and Vipin moved there in 2010. Ettamogah, within walking distance to both homes, is an Aussie drinking barn with a children's playing area that's the size of a school's playground. Aradhna and Radhika have been friends since growing up in Nausori, Fiji together.

Neha spent the better part of 2 hours racing around the play area with Upa's son Jay, whom I neglected to photograph. Jay flirted like mad. Why wouldn't he? Neha's a stunner!

I flew home to Melbourne 2 days before Aradhna. While catsitters from Lonely Pets Club did their usual fine job looking after Theo and Oscar they're still cats and therefore dislike change. Theo, as shown here, nestled himself into my armpit whenever possible. Oscar shot looks that said, "Don't ever do that again. You bastard."

Clingy cats, defined: They'd be waiting for me in the bedroom as soon as I shut out the living room lights.

Fiji 2011: The Bad (part 1)

It's been over two months since I discovered my rented Mazda 4WD truck in this condition. In my hand was a takeaway coffee from Tappoos a few shops down along the main drag in Sigatoka. I'd stopped while driving from my accommodation near Cuvu to the Sharma family's farm in Korokoro, where a two-day puja marking the end of Nana's 12-month mourning period was about to begin. It was 3:50 pm on a Saturday afternoon. I'd been away from the truck for 20 minutes -- I knew precisely because I'd dropped 20 cents in a parking meter at 3:30. I'm averse to tourist traps but the closing of my friend Roshni's 'Le Cafe' made Tappoos' hideously named 'Bulaccino' the only coffee shop in town. I normally plug my laptop into an outlet and write among temporarily tattooed tourists who throw contemptuous looks at people who dare engage in non-vacation behavior. On this afternoon, however, I was running late, and chose to leave the laptop-carrying backpack on the passenger side floor of the truck.

Guess you know what's coming.

Funny how the mind can mute blaring despair. Or maybe I'm dimmer than most. "Why would someone mindlessly vandalise a parked vehicle?" was my immediate reaction to seeing the shattered passenger-side window. I must have assumed the backpack was slung over my shoulder because it wasn't until assessing the extent of the damage inside the truck did reality crash through my mind's double-paned glass: The bag. My bag's gone. It's been stolen. What was in the bag? Laptop. Camera. Ipod. USB sticks. Two notebooks filled with anecdotes, dialogue and minutae from previous trips to Fiji. And, ladies and gentlemen, every word of a book I've been writing for two-and-a-half years.

Did I have backups? Of course. The USB sticks. Only they were in the bag, as I'd intentionally booked myself at an isolated, little-known resort that promised limited distractions (e.g., just four hours of electricity a day) beside a secluded lagoon. To write. Aradhna couldn't accompany me on this trip as she'd recently returned from a holiday in Vietnam so I was in Fiji to represent the two of us at Nana's puja and finish my untitled 'Fiji novel', a book that drew on time spent with Nana, my travels throughout Fiji and many months at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne researching Fiji's fascinating, if tragic, late-19th- and 20th-century history. I'd amassed 600-700 pages, depending on the draft, but sought to replace bulk with precision.

Alas a thief, or gang or thieves, solved my 'bulk' problem.

After staring at glass nuggets scattered throughout the truck's interior I climbed out and took stock. Witnesses? None. Sigatoka clears out after 3 pm on Saturdays and doesn't re-awaken until Monday morning. Police? I walked to a small barracks. No cops inside. A single taxi sat in a normally busy rank. I asked its Indian driver for a lift to the police station across from Lawaqa Park on the other side of town. He became the first of many to hear my sorry tale and at the station refused to accept payment. Inside a seemingly deserted 2-story structure a burly Fijian officer sat behind an unlit reception desk. He watched me walk in, but said nothing.

"I just had my truck broken into out front of Tappoos," I said.

His eyes drooped into darkened, flabby crevices. Five seconds passed. A myna bird squawked beside a busted water pipe in front of the station. Ten seconds passed. Had I addressed him disrespectfully? Another ten seconds. He looked down, sighed, and raised his head like a matador addressing a bull.

"Come back Monday morning."

If you've played baseball you're familiar with the sudden silence, twitching brainpan and scrambled perspective of being drilled in the head. I can't remember when I last donned mitt, spikes and cap but inside the Sigatoka Police Station on a Saturday afternoon in September I had become a Little Leaguer splayed face down, knot erupting from my noggin, taste of infield dirt on my tongue. Fortunately, like ballplayers through the ages I scrambled back up, dusted myself off, and hid the concussive effects from my opponent.

"Maybe I could lodge a police report?" I asked, haltingly.

The matador buckled. With glacial velocity he wheeled to the opposite side of the reception desk, snatched a form and wheeled back. I listened to his pen scribble across a poorly Xerox'd copy of a police report. He requested specifics. I described the backpack's contents -- including the bag itself, a cherished companion bought at a pricy Aussie travel chain -- before the wallop of another hardball brought down the curtain again: My passport. My passport was in the bag. My passport's been stolen. I was in Fiji without my goddamned US passport.

A sinking man seeks sunlight so I walked outside and squeezed my head and looked at the sky and engaged in a brutal reckoning of every decision, action and plan that made this clusterfuck possible. I walked back into the station and stood before the cop.

"Your passport, you say?" he said with a smile. The daggers were in. The bull lay dying. The matador had won.

To be continued ...

CBD culture clash.

A recent trip into the CBD to see Shah Rukh Khan's 'Ra.One' allowed Aradhna and I to glimpse a rarely displayed fissure in Melbournian society. The start of Victoria's annual spring racing carnival coincided with a march down Swanston Street (above) by protesters inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement in the US. Six days earlier police on horseback had used extreme measures to clear them from the small public square along Swanston Street where they'd peacefully camped for a week. This well-organised march of perhaps a thousand people marked their return to the CBD and media spotlight.

Intentionally or not, their demonstration coincided with a parade of antennaed women in stilletos and haughtily dressed men using public transport to carry them to Flemington Racecourse just northwest of the CBD. Aradhna and I were flagrantly under-dressed among the clothes horses at Balaclava train station, though our attire was surely more appropriate for the sterile environs of the train (above). A week of grey skies dissolved from memory beneath trees bursting with fresh foliage along Swanston Street. A phalanx of police on horseback near the Flinders Street intersection hinted at what was coming, but the only commotion in sight was tourists snapping photos.

Aradhna and I walked up Swanston and came upon the march at Town Hall (right). Nowhere near the 'feral' or 'unwashed' mob that Murdoch-owned tabloids had labeled them to the delight of their suburban readership, they banged drums and yelled in unison and carried signs and tore the veil of preciousness from self-absorbed racegoers like a tornado through a clothes line. Men and women wearing 'Official Observor' placards and carrying clipboards monitored the police, who to their credit gave the marchers space and halted traffic at intersections. The protesters stopped briefly beside the square where they'd camped for a week -- their proximity eliciting a chant of 'We'll be back!' -- and that's where I broke off and walked back to where my wife was waiting across from Town Hall. Two men behind me loudly discussed the merits of the march; "These people should do their protesting online!" the most memorable line.

The marchers eventually turned left at Flinders Street, spent a few hours in Treasury Gardens -- where police made it clear they were not free to camp -- and retreated to an alleyway near RMIT a few blocks away. The march made the evening news but proved no match for spring racing carnival hype, which continued unabated through the week. I was having coffee at Gattica in Balaclava when this trio of racegoers (above) passed by, theirs the parade of choice for Melburnians accustomed to still waters and faux prosperity and obeyance. But what do I know ... even after 4 years in Melbourne I fail to appreciate a weeklong 'celebration' of dress-up and gambling and inebriation. Bloody Philistine.

Happy Diwali

Aradhna's mom in Sydney outdid herself this Diwali with an express delivery package full of sweets and savories -- plastic containers included.

Fiji 2011: The Good

Fiji will break your heart a thousand ways and purr in your ear, "Don't be angry. You know you love me. You know you can't resist me." Common knowledge for those who've experienced its tropical splendour, its laid-back pace, its intractable woes -- or merely wandered from the fairy tale compounds of his/her resort. Unfortunately, sadly, predictably, I recently returned from my wife's birthplace with a fresh appreciation for western-style law enforcement and an English-speaking citizenry.

[Foreboding aside: All photos in this post -- including the one above of the beach at Namuka Bay Lagoon Resort -- were taken with an iPhone on those infrequent occasions when it could be charged.]

This trip to Fiji -- my 6th in 4 years, bless Aradhna's benevolent heart -- was planned long ago. Atma Ram Sharma, Aradhna's Nana and a man I greatly revere and admire, passed away in September 2010. A puja was held 16-17 Sept to mark the end of his 12-month mourning period at the Korokoro farm where he and his wife of over 60 years – our beloved Nani -- raised 16 children. With family members from overseas filling spare bedrooms in Korokoro, I elected to begin the trip at an affordable resort about a half-hour's drive west of Sigatoka. This necessitated the hiring of a 4WD, both to access the isolated resort and help deliver people/groceries/Fiji Bitter to Korokoro. The events of Saturday 16 September would make me regret nearly every decision made up to that afternoon and would lead to a cascading series of tragicomedies ... but this post is about the good stuff:

My reasons for staying at Namuka Bay Lagoon Resort just west of Cuvu: 1) I'd never heard of it before, and 2) Their website is comically inept, one of the worst I've ever seen for a 'resort', and therefore making it ripe for overhaul. (Shameless plug: My freelance business is called Interactive Intuition. My previous work for Tourism Fiji may be found here.) Reaching Namuka Bay required turning off Queens Road onto a dirt clearing that serves farmers still growing sugar cane on Viti Levu’s western hillsides. Rough and dusty, but passable. At the top of a hill about 3 kms from Queens Rd a sign for Namuka Bay pointed left. A puddle of shimmering Pacific blue appeared in the distance before the road dropped like a log flume. The truck and I bounced for another 5 kms over a single dirt and grass lane cut by cane farmers generations before tourism replaced sugar as the mainstay of Fiji's economy. As this photo (above) demonstrates, bullocks, cows, goats, and other 4-legged beasts still demand right-of-way.

The payoff (right). After a final drop through jungle canopy, Namuka Bay's humble compound appeared at the water's edge. Old cane tram lines cut through the property, thin steel reminders of the backbreaking work that drove the English to import indentured labour from India. Six villas are perched between the lagoon and tracks. This view is what I woke to every morning from my beachside villa.

Viti Levu’s spectacular inland (left) as seen along the drive back to Queens Rd from Namuka Bay.



Namuka Bay's isolation prevents it from being overrun by the masses -- I was its only guest during my 5-day stay – so its beaches are practically untouched and the lagoon (right) is pristine. Its owner, a fast-talking gentleman named Mashuk Ali, described to me his dreams of mass development once the Fijian gov't builds a proper road to his self-described ‘natural phenomena’ of a resort. One can only hope Mr Ali, who lives with his family in one of the villas, doesn't bulldoze his natural phenomena someday.

Namuka Bay can claim natural features rarely found in the Fiji Islands. One is hulking, ancient coral (left) that extends from the western spit of beach and becomes jungle-covered as it curves around the resort's grounds like ramparts of a fortress. Another is a cave which holds, I’m told, bones of mysterious origin. A regal woman named Ole, whose soaring cheekbones and tall, thin frame signal a Lau Group bloodline, offers tours of these features, but the circumstances of this trip prevented such 'touristy' pleasures.

Bouncing over the unlit cane road (right) to Namuka Bay at night was like driving along the bottom of an overgrown ocean; silent spirits lurked in every turn.

I don't normally upload photos from a stranger's Facebook page but it’s important to recognise one of this trip’s true highlights: A traditional Fijian wedding (left). My misadventures in Sigatoka necessitated a trip to Suva, home of the (spoiler alert!) US Embassy and Raintree Lodge just north of Suva City in Colo-i-Suva. I’d phoned Tom Davis, Raintree’s owner, beforehand and he extended a welcome invitation to stay at his eco-tourism oasis. This past December and January I worked for a company called Webmedia in Toorak, Suva’s oldest and dreariest neighbourhood. A colleague and I traveled throughout Fiji at the time but Suva nonetheless grew on me like the mould that prematurely ages every building in Fiji's capital. Walking along Victoria Parade on a late afternoon I was accosted by 'Aggie' (real name Ikenesi Banuve), one of the two ‘housegirls’ who looked after me and two colleagues from Webmedia. (The other was Sheila. Sheila Ki Jawani.) I hadn't seen her since returninghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif to Melbourne in late January. She looked different. "I'm getting married tomorrow!" she said. "Come to my wedding!" It wasn't just a pre-bridal glow that had altered Aggie's appearance: She was 4 1/2 months pregnant. I'd met her boyfriend -- a quiet, solid bloke named Waqa (real name Laijia Waqanisau) -- in January but knew little about him. Nevertheless, I happily accepted Aggie’s invitation. As if bumping into her on a busy Suva sidewalk wasn’t coincidental enough it turned out Waqa worked at Raintree Lodge and had invited Tom to the wedding, too. The next day we drove to a 2-story house in Tatua Heights and witnessed the festivities. As shown in the photo, the 4-member bridal party wore traditional tapas and had coconut oil rubbed onto their skin. A minister performed the hour-long Christian ceremony upstairs while men drank kava downstairs.

I returned to Korokoro from Suva on a Saturday afternoon, watched the Flying Fijians get walloped in the Rugby World Cup on Sunday, and was tossed headfirst back into the rabbit hole of Fijian justice on Monday morning at Sigatoka Police Station. I once again placed a call to a friendly voice, this one Andrew Walkden-Brown's at the Beachouse in Korolevu, and he kindly invited me to his piece of Coral Coast paradise. I arrived via bus that afternoon with an ever-lengthening tale of woe and severely sprained ankle. A spot on the beach beside Lucy (above) was a physical, emotional and spiritual lifesaver.

Nick is a larrikin from country New South Wales who’s experienced a midlife rebirth at the Beachouse and is now a slimmed-down embodiment of the benefits of stand-up paddle boarding. This photo (above) shows him helping one of his sons become accustomed to a paddle board in the Beachouse’s lagoon.

My first appreciation of the therapeutic qualities of a woven hammock. Look closely at the left ankle (right), swollen and about to turn a garish purple.












Another of this trip’s unexpected highlights was traveling to Wainadoi and Suva with Justin, a surf instructor at the Beachouse. My sorrowful tale drove Justin to call his mom, Laisa Vulakoro, whom I later learned has released 16 albums and is referred to as the Queen of Vude (Fijian-style music). Justin believed his mom's connections could spur action on my case so we hailed one of Fiji's shiny new buses on Queens Rd and made the hour-long trek to Wainadoi, a small village 20 kms west of Suva. We were invited by a cop to take shelter from afternoon heat on the porch of the Wainadoi Police Post before Laisa arrived and delivered us all to her home a few kms inland from Queens Rd, a place she shares with her husband and son, a ball of energry named Lote (shown above with Justin as we walked Laisa's property, a former rubber plantation). Their spacious, chalet-style, mohagany wood house is situated so Fiji's easterlies pass through like a mountain stream through a rainforest.


Laisa's property in Wainadoi.










Sunset in Korotogo. My last night on this ill-fated trip was spent across the road at Bedarra Beach Inn, a reliable refuge that Aradhna and I have visited before and where two people I'd met at Raintree Lodge were staying (as per my suggestion). Charlene Edwards and Michael Pergola ... I could write 'til my fingers bled and barely scratch their collective surface. We met at breakfast on Raintree's spectacular lakeside deck. Charlene had a camera the size of a bazooka and was pointing it at the rare Fijian birds that roost at Raintree while her husband Michael and a pudgy missionary and I shared travel stories. Charlene's from Queens and Michael's a Brooklyn boy so their accents carried me to Sunday afternoons in my grandmother's kitchen. They were on a 5-month, multi-country tour with a week in Fiji followed by a month in New Zealand. I shared some Fijian travel tips and hoped to see them again along the Coral Coast. Five days later, broken and bruised and wanting only to be on the plane that would take me back to Aradhna the next night, I checked into the Bedarra and nearly shed a tear when they waved hello from their balcony. I was useless that evening but had the good fortune to enjoy coffee and Michael's company the next morning. We got on the subject of his return to Brooklyn after fighting in Vietnam and subsequent trips back, which are documented in Charlene's award-winning book called 'Voices from Vietnam' (a book I've got on order from Amazon at the time of this writing). Charlene joined us and we took a ride to the remains of a Tongan hill fort across the Sigatoka River from Nana's farm. We said our goodbyes in Sigatoka, where I caught a taxi to Korokoro. Later that afternoon I was on a bus to Nadi and then a plane to Melbourne.

Many of the Indo-Fijian-penned books I've read while researching Fiji's girmitya period incorporate the word 'paradise' ironically and by the end of this trip, I could relate. The particulars will be covered in a future blog post.

Before.

Construction of the World Trade Center began in 1966 and the towers were officially opened in 1973 when I was 7 years old. I can't claim to have many memories of seeing the buildings going up, but me and my 4th grade classmates got a spectacular view during a visit to the Statue of Liberty in 1976 (I have photos, but they're back in the States). I also remember the hubbub surrounding the North Tower becoming the tallest building in the world, passing the Empire State Building in the process and garnering snickers to the effect of 'They're tall, but they ain't no Empire State'. When I worked in lower Manhattan WTC was where I took the PATH train and walked through the Financial District to my office in and art deco building on Exchange Place. It was part of my commute. Until it wasn't.

The NY Times has a typically authoritative 9/11 section -- I came across these photos in a remarkable online photo album called The Towers' Rise and Fall.

9 October 1970
12 July 1971
3 April 1973
29 November 1973
4 July 1986
The towers from the NJ meadowlands.
The observation deck in December 2000.
10 September 2011

Remember the fallen.

Each was taller than the towers they died in.

Spring wants in.

Colours don't lie. Winter's getting the heave-ho. 'Bout goddamn time.

R.I.P. Joe Casey

Leonard Cohen (above) would have found a kindred spirit in Joe Casey. Writer, poet, painter, searcher, recluse, Joe was an echo from the '60s, a polarising figure within the Paterson diocese of the Catholic church who inspired and outraged in equal measure, and who was a dear friend of mine. Joe Casey passed away this week at the age of 70. He wrote in a recent email that he was ill and no longer ambulatory. As Cohen sings, that's not an ideal condition for a man accustomed to testing limits:

Like a bird
on the wire
Like a drunk in some old midnight choir
I have tried
in my way
To be free.

These words, and that deep, smoke-stained voice, embody the spirit of a man born just before WWII on the poor Irish side of Morristown, NJ who would strive to expand his mission within the most cloistered of organisations -- the Catholic church -- and soar and suffer in equal measure.

Joe was a regular visitor to my grandmother's house in Lake Parsippany during his time as a parish priest at St Christopher's church in the late '60s and early '70s. My grandmother -- a larger-than-life woman who left Hell's Kitchen for the 'utopia' of North Jersey in the late '50s for the sake of my grandfather's health -- was the sun for a solar system of nine children, umpteen grandkids, swarms of cousins and fellow escapees from the old NYC neighborhood. Her house was an epicentre for birthday parties, Baptism/Communion/Confirmations, graduations, holiday gatherings and afternoon beer soirees. Back in the States I've got a photo of a young Joe Casey baptising my brother Kevin at St Christopher's in 1968, an occasion that was surely followed by a noisy gathering around grandma's kitchen table. Joe often spoke about his early days at St Christopher's and the tremendous generosity shown by 'Mrs Wall' and the many occupants of 10 Jacksonville Drive. It's no surprise he performed the service at grandma's funeral in 2001 and remains a beloved figure in the Wall family.

After knowing him peripherally it was suggested by my stepmom that I visit Joe at his office at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ in 1989. Turned out no one on Earth was better suited to hear my sniveling, over-educated, suburban drivel than Joe, and not only because he performed such disagreeable duties as an FDU counselor. He saw something in me worth drilling down to, worth getting me to recognise and, most importantly, value. Frankness is easily shared with strangers but Joe applied it with equal force among those closest to him. Besides a handful of teachers and university professors, Joe was the first person to detonate the putrid mountain of excuses I'd constructed to justify the side-stepping of a writing career. He was blunt, sometimes brutally so, and never accepted a first answer as the truest answer -- a trait that generated loyalty among friends and colleagues but led to years of conflict within the intractable boundaries of his diocese.

Joe's kick up the backside helped land me a writing gig in NYC at the old Paramount Building on Columbus Circle in early 1990. My professional writing career had begun in earnest, as had my connection to Joe. Over the next 16 years our friendship grew from occasional visits to his place at the OMEGA compound in Mt Freedom, NJ to co-inhabitor of a bungalow in Sweet Valley, PA. (There's many photos I'd love to share of this magnificent hideaway, but they're all back in the States.)

It's impossible to overstate the importance of Sweet Valley to my oftentimes chaotic life. Joe gutted the bungalow and rebuilt it in his image. Its walls were covered with his art collection -- many of the artists were FDU colleagues -- and his own paintings. His books filled a half dozen floor-to-ceiling bookshelves; his library was my introduction to Vonnegut, Armistead Maupin, Bukowski, J.P. Donleavy, Robinson Davies, Cormac McCarthy, John Irving, Bulgakov, Paul Auster, Mailer, DeLillo, Annie Proulx and others. The tiny kitchen was a maze of shelves and pockets filled with spices, oils, legumes and always, always, coffee beans from Porto Rico Import Co. on Bleecker St in the Village (my contribution).

I could write a book about Sweet Valley. Maybe, someday, I will. For Joe it was a place to retreat and build and be alone with his thoughts in a forgotten corner of Northeast Pennsylvania. He was a familiar face at the hardware store and locals' diner and exchanged pleasantries, and sometimes favors, with neighbors. One, a quiet man named Gary who I was told 'worked at a toilet factory', would plow the tiny road that snaked along a hilltop and provided access to the row of post-WWII bungalows that were once summer cottages for mining executives from Wilkes-Barre, 30 miles to the southeast.

A small lake was nestled in a ridge behind tall pines. The property's Depression-era outhouse held a lawn mower, gardening tools and hornets' nests. Joe turned a small, collapsing garage into a storage bin for the pea coal we'd feed into a battered coal-burning stove that was more sensitive than a teething infant. He constructed a small deck for summertime grilling and used spare windows from a neighbor's renovation to enclose the porch, creating a perfect spot to witness the sun's morning rays cascade above distant mountains. Wilkes-Barre's local public radio station, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Enya, Lou Reed, Mahler and many more eclectic sounds played through speakers wired in every room. The bathroom was rustic, and dry seasons would result in orange water dripping from pipes Joe and I had jerry-rigged over one particularly productive weekend.

It was not pretentious. It was a humble temple to spirituality, thought, seclusion and creativity. It was Joe Casey.

After leaving FDU Joe was chaplain at Morristown Memorial Hospital and then the infamous Greystone Park hospital where his patient-first mentality made him a favourite with the afflicted and intellectual thorn to bureaucracy. A two-and-a-half hour drive through western NJ, the Poconos and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton valley was the price for a calm, nourishing space. A price both of us were eager to pay, and a price with rewards I reap to this day.

When Joe wasn't in Sweet Valley he lived at the Assumption Church rectory in Morristown, not far from his childhood home. He had a flourishing social life. Many bigshots and barflies desired an audience with 'Father Joe'. I'd sometimes meet him for a couple of pints at The Office or Dublin Pub or, if the night was going to be serious, the Calaloo Cafe. (Such nights generally resulted in me staying in a spare room at the rectory.) I traveled to Rochester, MN in 1997 to visit Joe during one of his stays there, a trip that resulted in an experience in a small Illinois town that may play in your local cinema someday AND my one and only Native American sweat lodge ceremony on a snow-covered Minnesota hillside. I visited him again in Rochester under different circumstances in the spring of 2006, but that's a story for another day.

Joe was close to his sister Trish, whom I first met when she worked at the Black Forest Inn in Stanhope, NJ many years ago. Saw her again when Joe's mom passed away. A difficult time for all, especially Joe, who had a loving but sometimes fractious relationship with his mother. I was familiar with the effect Joe's prickly independence had on his family.

Joe had friends throughout the US and the world. All knew him as a caring, cantankerous soul who stood on equal ground with his 'flock' whether they be parishioners in North Jersey, villagers in Guatemala, churchgoers in small Pennsylvania towns or patients in mental hospitals. I was lucky to know him as a multi-layered individual: a brave writer, prolific reader, expressionist artist, scholar, builder, lover of French food and afternoon espresso. He was far and away the most complicated person I've ever known. One who more than anyone made me who I am today.

Joe sold the Sweet Valley bungalow in 2006, around the same time I moved to Australia. He eventually acquired a property in Belize, north of Guatemala, and split his time between there and Morristown. I'll regret for the rest of my days not remaining in touch with him regularly over the past 5 years.

I visited a local tavern yesterday afternoon to toast my departed friend and be alone in a crowd. After settling in with a pint of porter and my notepad a man sitting nearby asked a question. An hour and two rounds of porter later I'd befriended a Scotsman named Duncan, a Brisbane lad new to Melbourne after spending 8 years living and working in London and Southeast Asia. We met as strangers and parted as kindred spirits. Walking home through winter rain I was reminded of Joe's intolerance for the inane, his hunger for connection countered by a need for occasional solitude, his commitment to the real. I felt his restless, curious spirit walking beside me and maybe, hopefully, within me. Joe would scoff at such sentimental claptrap, but since the first piece of advice he ever gave me was 'You can't tell yourself how to feel', I think he'd approve of the honesty.

FYI, from Joe's obituary:
"In lieu of flowers, Father Joe specifically requested: 'Anyone wishing to memorialize my departure should plant a perennial flowering plant, tree or evergreen in some place which wants a little more beauty, or make a donation to: The Christian Foundation for Children and the Aging, One Elmwood Avenue, Kansas, 66103.'"

Kelly Slater visits Cloudbreak

Major swells hit the western islands of Fiji recently, drawing big-game surfers like lions to a lazy herd of antelope. Surf legend Kelly Slater is among those to be seen in this video taken at Cloudbreak, where I was fortunate to visit in January via Malolo Island's Funky Fish Resort.

4th of July, Prahran VIC (Misty's)

Five Independence Days into my Aussie occupation and I finally marked its importance with an act that recognises the heroism, wisdom and sacrifice of America's forefathers: Lunch at an 'American-themed' diner in Prahran with a young man from Arizona named Andrew.

Go ahead and scoff. The Fourth is a monotonous winter's day here in Melbourne, nothing more. It holds zero status. No parades, no cookouts, no fireworks, no superfluous TV news stories detailing how 'proud locals' celebrate their 'nation's birth'. If anything, celebrating the stubbornness and tenacity of America's patriots invites ostracisation from the Queen Cult, the majority of Aussies who in 1999 voted against severing colonial ties with Great Britain. Independence? Who can be bothered? Now be a good lad and fetch me a scone ... and be sure not to scrimp on the fresh cream and jam.

Catty, right? Tens of thousands of freedom fighters, mostly tradesmen and farmers, died for a democratic cause that, while far from perfect, has been a model for generations of humans striving for what Aussies call a 'fair go'. Twelve years ago the citizens of this fair land, meanwhile, shrugged their collective shoulders at the opportunity to become a free-standing nation without a single bullet fired. Raise the subject and you're swamped with tut-tutting about deficiencies in the republic plan, an effective gov't fear campaign, boganism ... it's all garbage. What it comes down to is a preference for stasis. Why change a good thing? Besides, the Queen is such a sweet old gal, we wouldn't want to hurt her feelings .....

Onto a more satisfying subject: American kitsch. Melbourne has a few 'American-themed' restaurants that I've never felt compelled to visit. There's enough culture in this town to fill the calendar of even the most over-caffeinated trend chaser. Several weeks ago Andrew, who's in Melbourne after interning for 6 months at a rainforest hotel in India, asked what I was doing for the Fourth. I had no answer because the question's never been asked. After poking around the interWebs I found Misty's Diner in Prahran, a 25-minute walk from my place or a 10-minute tram ride. Andrew met me at Gattica in Balaclava and we walked north up Melbourne's runway model-heavy Chapel Street for a star-spangled lunch.

Framed photos of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe on every wall. Shiny US license plates. Mirrors framed with miniature Chevy tail fins with glowing tail lights. Vinyl LPs and album sleeves from the '50s. Flourescent-coloured booths with old-diner-style table jukeboxes (topped with 21st-century mini-flat-screen TVs). American candy for sale inside a giant glass display. This was Misty's on the 4th of July. Same as it is every other day, I imagine, which is unfortunate for its wait and kitchen staff. The menu was lengthy and included such 'American' items as cheese sticks, bloomin' onions and at least a dozen versions of America's greatest export, the humble hamburger. A brief intro on the menu's cover by Misty's owner proclaiming his proud Arizona heritage made Andrew puff with Southwest pride and explained the many Mexican beers and foods listed within. I don't eat beef so I got the chicken burger shown here (yeah, they're called chicken burgers here, not chicken sandwiches) that included 3 cheese sticks inside. I ordered curly fries -- another Uncle Sam specialty, so it would seem -- but Andrew mistakenly asked our Scottish waitress what kinds of fries they had and was given a list of at least ten that I swear included something unimaginable called 'wet fries'.

As shown in the top photo hard-to-find American beers were also available. Andrew and I had our hearts set on a staple of informal US get-togethers, Budweiser, but were informed that Misty's was currently without the King of Beers. Samuel Adams on Independence Day was a logical consolation, though after putting away our baskets of fried tastiness another waitress -- she may have been the owner -- came by and said with a broad smile, "I've got cold Buds." We said yes please and drank them with a shared dessert: deep-fried Oreos (shown here on a white plate with ice cream, hot fudge and whipped cream). The Oreos could have been deep-fried anything -- I'd have guessed halved tennis ball -- but cold Budweiser washed away all deep-fried regret.

The mid-day beechwood-aged brew may have also played a role in my jubilation upon spotting a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal on a shelf while we waited to pay. It's true that a few weeks ago it occurred to me that Aradhna had grown up in a world withOUT Cap'n Crunch and that she was sitting beside me at the time, compelling me to share this observation and forcing her to once again question the sanity of her lawfully bound partner. I practically cartwheeled out of the restaurant, so tickled was I about holding a box of heavily processed and excessively sweetened childhood that I could introduce to my Indo-Fijian-Australian wife. Andrew and I zigzagged our way northward through one of Melbourne's trendiest neighborhoods, the Cap'n occasionally catching me eye from within a shopping bag. At South Yarra station Andrew and I went in separate directions, me jumping on a southbound train and he waiting on a northbound one to nearby Flinders Street station in the CBD. The Cap'n sat straight up in his seat (as shown in this photo) as we rolled towards Balaclava, my adopted home in a faraway land. What would Aradhna think when she returned from work and found an exorbitantly expensive box of children's breakfast cereal sitting in a place of pride in our apartment?

What she always thinks. "Crazy American."

For LIFE.