5. Subiaco – funtastico?

We begin our search for excitement in the heart of the city. I adopted my Shane from Redfern personna and took with me the irreverend Giovanni Marinetti (right), an expelled monk, Perth neutral and Lazio supporter imported from Subiaco, near Tivoli in the hills surrounding the eternal city, Roma. For it is Subiaco, or ‘Subi’ as the locals call it, in the Western suburbs that is our first destination. We have chosen this place to begin due to its prominence in the WAPC policy documents, as well as it being rated second best café strip and home to some of the most desirable restaurants in Perth (ozsurvey).

Giovanni adopted the name John to blend in with the locals. He was there to provide contrast and context as we work the Roma-Arkansas scale to quantify the excitement in Subi.

The famous Roma-Arkansas scale, created by Erwin Bennets in 1962, is a scale to measure urban excitement based upon the intensity of the other two known Subiaco's in the world: Giovanni’s home in Roma province, the top end of the scale, and Subiaco in Arkansas, USA at the other. The latter was home to 439 people in 2000, nearly 20% of which were below the poverty line. None were available for this study.

We began by perusing the café strips and learning about the history of our Italian sister city and our local place of inquest. It was a day of staggering quality: mid winter and twenty degrees without a cloud in the sky. We took a quick walk to get our bearings and it was not long before we reached the end of the strip, though we had imagined it might have been much larger. The streets were a little quiet and unnerving in the post-rush hour morning. We had a bewildering array of cafes to choose from, each with a rather blatant name: Café Café, ClubSubi, Cino to Go and our favourite, Funtastico’s. We decided this was the place to begin since we were here to find fun and excitement.

It was an agreeable place: echoing concrete, modern wash down walls and neon blue anti-junky lights in the toilets. The coffee was good: a sobbering and bitter blend served in the southern style. John began to smoke, but was told to put it out.

Funtastico’s turned out to be the local haunt of celebrity gangster John 'Giovanni' Kizon. He and his biker henchmen are often seen in and around the premises, no doubt having a funtastic time, but they were not present at the time of our investigation. Perhaps we were too obvious, taking notes and arguing loudly. We might have attracted too much attention. When we left, we noticed a man flitting from doorway to doorway behind us. In panic, we hid in a New Age crystal and aromatherapy store to let him pass, but he was, in the end, only a postal worker. Earlier, John Marinetti and I had discussed Mr Kizon in detail. He seems a very central figure to the excitement in these parts, a nexus of local demigods and myths. Not only is he associated with one of the most exciting café strips in Perth, but he has personal links to both famous footballers, including Ben Cousins (below and first day cover)*, Perth’s best personality, and a recent string of night club gang slayings, which Cousins was also implicated in (see Ozbiker; Courier Mail)

* It is intersting to note here that Ben Cousins only narrowly beat his current coach, John ‘Woosha’ Worsfold who took second place in the same poll. Perhaps they achieved this through fear and intimidation of the local people? Perhaps Robert Mugabe advised them? But there’s more. Worsfold also goes under the auspicious pseudonym ‘the smiling assassin’, whereas the local football ground, Subiaco Oval, voted second best entertainment venue in the State of Excitement, is also known as ‘the Cauldron of Fear’. One wonders what gangsters, bikers football players and assassins all do on any given Saturday in the Cauldron of Fear? At least we know where they eat afterwards. The chill of this thought made my coffee tepid.


We decided to take lunch at the much renowned restaurant the Sicilian, thinking that Kizon would never think to look for us there. We continued our discussion of local histories and began to apply the Roma-Arkansas scale.