Thursday, November 30, 2006

Wake Me Up, When Movember Ends

Last night was the gala party for all of the Movember participants here in Sydney. It was held at Luna Park, the amusement complex underneath the harbour bridge on the picturesque waterfront. In our office, we had six or seven 'mo-bros' who participated in fund-raising, to be accompanied by 'mo-sisters' and general hangers on. The whole campaign was centered around fighting men's depression and prostate cancer.

I had rendez-vous with a friend from school, with whom I was going to go over to the Gala party with. I didn't know, however, that he had a pledge offer him $200 if he dyed his mo blue. This whole laborious process of bleaching, re-bleaching and dying took about 3 hours. So, instead of arriving the Mo Gala at its' peak, we caught the decline.

Nonetheless, never underestimate Australians' ability to drink mid-week. By the time we arrived at 11pm, there were still 6,000 people there. All this on a Wednesday night.

The crowd was the 24-35 most likely to get belligerent demographic. Although Halloween was passed over by this society, Movember is a strong second. I saw mo-bros dressed as Ron Jeremey, Borat, The Mario Bros. and Anchorman Ron Burgundy. The remainder were dressed as porn stars or construction workers. The party under the big top was absolutely raging, even up until midnight when they closed down. Danicng, DJs and mo-bros with mo-sistas in tow. As a collective group, they were certainly doing their best to fight (or at least temporarily repress through alcohol) men's depression. Bugger all about prostate cancer.

In reflection with my friend Rob (pictured), I noted that this country is akin to a teenager their freshman year in college. Young, brash, supremely confident, more than a bit naive and supericial, but with a profound love of life. This is fantastic, unless your life focus is somewhere else. But maybe that 'somewhere else' has not yet become clear, giving one no comparison point in which to make judgements against. Nonetheless, wherever the focus, it is going to be extremely hard to leave. I can't imagine anywhere in the states where, on a Wednesday night you could find such spontanity, save Vegas. Oh, the humanity of it all.

posted by ncawthon at 7:46 PM