Johan sits in front of his MacBook at a cafe in Leederville. His serious and brooding look compliments his bald head, thick-rimmed glasses and horizontal striped Ben Sherman fitted jumper. He looks like a failed Moby impersonator who has lived with the regret of blowing a nightclub manager for a chance to perform on a quiet Thursday evening.
He sips a Macchiato while he types away on his MacBook. To an outside observer, Johan might be writing a novel or some-shit. In reality, he is writing unsolicited articles for cultural magazines about how the Perth cultural scene must learn the lessons from East Copenhagen or risk becoming a further entrenched bohemian backwater.
To date, no one has picked up any of these 3000-word think pieces but it doesn’t change the immense pleasure he gets from telling the baristas about them. Baristas that are doing their best to remain nice to Johan given his 1 coffee to 2 hours of sponging the WiFi ratio. Just enough to not have to ask him to leave.
Jeffrey walks past and spots Johan in the cafe. Jeffrey is a 42-year-old saxophone player that loves to get tipsy at the Garden and talk to pretty young girls about “gigging” and “the blues”.
Jeffrey is wearing one of those Fedora type hats and a pair of clear lens RayBan glasses. The couple gives each other the double-kiss hello and starts jawing about how tasteless front yards have become in Leederville.
Johan hides his blank screen as the barista checks if he’s ready for another coffee. He’s not but James would enjoy a trap water while the pair talk loudly about their plans to set up a vinyl record/vintage furniture/homegrown fruit & vege co-op at Britania Reserve this summer, “once people SEE what culture is, they might be ready to adopt it, Jeffrey”.
Of course, the odds of the pair putting together such an event is as likely as Cardinal Pell launching a successful chain of day care centres – but oh gosh, it feels good to post about in various Reddit forums to garner interest.
It’s now 5pm, and Johan has been sitting at the Cafe for 5 hours. As a thankyou for the cafe’s hospitality he drops a few silver coins into the tip jar and makes everyone promise they will come down to his co-op when it never happens.
Next on his agenda, he’ll be heading to the Oxford hotel to set up his MacBook and drink a bottle of the cheapest white wine. He figures that with the introduction of alcohol into the mix, at least one person will come over and ask him what he is writing.
No one does. So he ends up getting blind drunk and bothering tables of younger punters with stories of about art galleries he went to in Europe and how he was the REAL inspiration behind the Conti roll.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?