Tuesday, May 01, 2007

i don't know which is worse - 2007 or 1981.

all of the following happened today. some i found more disturbing than others.

join me and shudder:

me, my mum and princess went to have lunch at the cuckoo, a "quaint" theme restaurant in the dandenongs, which has been operating for 49 years, and in that time the decor, table-cloths, stage show and stage show gags have not been changed. at all. since i was a kid.











i ate roast pork and some crackling. this is only mildly disturbing, and i'm not quite sure why. i do love a bit of pork crackling.

at one stage, the man doing the yodelling and cow bells routine took the snare drum off the stand (is that the big round brass one?) and put it on his head when he learned there were "visitors from korea" in the audience. he then placed his hands in prayer position and sang them a stupid chinese song. my mother and i looked at each other in utter shock and embarrassment, and then talked through the rest of the act. fucking tool.
princess was dragged into the live show, being the only child there who could wield a cow bell responsibly (and being the only child there whose mother caught the eye of the mc and smiled and nodded to her daughter when he was casting his eye around for participants). the other guy who got the little bell was a wisecracking and very annoying person who wavered across the line between audience participation and heckling a number of times.
my mum was getting ogled by various elderly gentleman. she is looking good, i must say, and even had a bit of tasteful cleavage happening. however, it's always disturbing to a child to have their mother checked out, especially by old coots who are sitting there with their wives. sniff.
the man who made the pancakes also played the piano for the musical act.
there was a sign in the ladies that said "for the comfort of other guests, please use the toilet spray provided". think about it. all-you-can-eat establishment; 50 different types of desserts; yodelling. it would go right through anybody.
my mother thinks i am the athena archetype, and that she herself has always been the demeter but is trying to be more athena. i, however, think i am a blend of artemis and hestia, although they are contradictory.
-------

anyway, princess wasn't at school today because her year level is away on camp, and this was the consolation of not being allowed to go. the school wouldn't take her, which i understand, but i would have been less compliant were she permanently disabled, rather than temporarily.

cast comes off tomorrow, woo hoo. she will have big bubble bath, then festivities continue with a meal out tomorrow night, complete with mocktails for the under-aged and over-sized schnitzels for all.

back to the '80s soon.

9 comments:

I'm not Craig said...

Many years ago now, I went to a 21st at the Cuckoo for my friend Helen. We asked the band if they knew "Happy Birthday Helen", which had been released a few months earlier and seemed to be played about once per hour on certain commercial radio stations.

They looked at us blankly and said "Is that a techno song?"

Congratulations to princess on the cast removal.

Chai said...

There was a hold up there where the assailant shot his co-holdup person. About 2-3 weeks ago?

BEVIS said...

Ha ha, I went to the Cuckoo once, and can't see myself ever going again. It's a funny little place, innit?

In other news, do you know any Turkish? I'm looking for the Turkish word for 'Welcome', and after looking everywhere (that's free) on the Internet, I came across the following, which I can't actually be sure is 'Welcome' or something else (because it was helpfully unclear on the site):

hos geldiniz

Is that right? If so, what would I capitalise so it's the same as Welcome with a captial W? If that's not it, could you tell me what it should say? (And please don't be mean and trick me; this is for work purposes!)

Thanks!

Cinema Minima said...

It seems everyone has been to the perennially daggy Cuckoo. No wonder it keeps on going.

And Chai is right. An armed robber ran in, stole a bag of bread (thinking it was dough) then accidentally shot his getaway driver. Some people are just too stupid to be good criminals.

Melba said...

bevis, hoş geldiniz is perfect. it's the respectful honorific form, (hoş geldin is more casual and less formal, ie to a friend) hoş geldiniz is also what you say to a group of people (plural address) and it means exactly "welcome". if you need more, the person who is told "hoş geldiniz" then says, correctly, "hoş bulduk", which doesn't really translate to anything other than (loosely) happily welcomed, i guess.

but you need the turkish sh sound -the s with the cedilla, ş

this makes the sh sound, so it reads hosh geldiniz.

and i am thoroughly offended that you think i might trick you. i'm not that sort of gel.

you would capitalise as you would english, ie if it at the beginning of a sentence, yes. otherwise i don't think so. but i'm not sure about it. google it and see how it's used in the turkish context. sorry i can't be more use but we have about 3 hours of big brother to catch up on before it gets on top of us.

and this is why i can't respond to anyone else save to say, yo fellow cuckoo patrons, and the holdup, the place has a history. the owner disappeared mysteriously back in the 70s or early 80s and i reckon the last time princess and i were there we saw the widow. she was so elegant and old-world hollywood, though she's some sort of scandinavian. so graceful. so charming. so beautiful, with the retrousse nose and all.

BEVIS said...

Thank you, my lovely!

x

Kay Adams said...

I once lived opposite that restaurant.

Well almost opposite.

*shudders*

sublime-ation said...

God, I didn't know so many people have experienced the Cuckoo. I only liked it because it was a break in a day of the torturous 'fun' car trip to the Dandenongs, when I was forced to endure car sickness, placed in between my fighting brothers and to endure my dreadful ex-step monster whose sole mission in life seemed to be to turn me into an anorexic like her.
Of course, any restaurant would have seemed like a god-send amongst all that, but the Cuckoo was great as there was little in the way of low-fat food on the menu.

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