a profile of the mirrored
You never know what an anachronism is until you spot it.Johnny Depp was standing beside a Pulse pharmacy along Degraves Street in Melbourne, whistling light, dreamy notes on a flute, with his signature smirk twinkling in his eyes.
A giant sticker advertising Xantrax diet tablets on the pharmacy’s glass pane was the backdrop to Depp’s stage, making him seem more displaced. Passersby scuttled past him taking little notice. Had the time machine been invented in secret?
For someone who is a splitting image of Johnny Depp the Hollywood actor, Fingal Oakenleaf - the street busker - has incongruously hit the jackpot in both the looks and personality departments. Except for the bank balance.
Oakenleaf, 33, had no bank account until last year. He has been busking for 15 years in UK and Australia with his celtic harp, low whistle, guitar, accordion and mandolin. On rare good days, he takes home a weight of coins worth $100.
Last year, Depp earned more money in a single year than almost any other actor in history. Never before has a Caribbean Pirate’s career proved this lucrative. Depp swashbuckled his way up Forbes’ Celebrity 100 Power List to be ranked sixth - cashing in on his Captain Jack Sparrow box-office appeal to rake in US$92 million.
Arching his dark brown eyebrows to the rhythm of his tune, Oakenleaf’s gentle eyes said ‘hi’ while his lips were engaged with producing sounds on the flute. Apart from the narrower width of his shoulders, the bone structure of his facial features unmistakably yelled ‘Johnny Depp’.
Oakenleaf had the same sunken cheekbones, singular mouth, stout nose, trimmed moustache and goatee, and even the slight dent on his forehead. The only giveaway was his eyes – a lot less intense than Depp’s.
Tara, a fan on his Myspace Music webpage, gushed, “I dig your sexy spirals!”.
“It’ll be funny if someone went up to Johnny in France and told him ‘Hey, you look like Fingal!’” Oakenleaf laughed, while sitting cross-legged at a Degraves Street café. He admires Depp deeply for his “brilliant method acting and guts to choose oddball roles”.
A long row of undulating umbrellas hiding patrons from streaks of afternoon sunlight had the feel of Paris café culture. Teaspoons were clinking cups as they stir sugar into coffee. The smell of grilled chicken foccacias wafted sneakily into nostrils. Conversation from the next table can be heard if you lean towards it discreetly.
“This is my favourite busking spot. It’s crowded with barely any walking space but I feel like I have always belonged to that niche,” Oakenleaf pointed to the busy lane he usually performed at.
With enough charm to sell ice to an Eskimo, his uncanny resemblance to Depp extended to his non-conformist attitude.
“I never believed in the ‘system’ and I don’t want to be in the ‘system’, I prefer to stand outside and around it.” Portraying a free spirit, Oakenleaf obviously wants to teeter on the edge of society’s system. “The system’s edge is a very relaxed place. I can just float and explore.”
“You can call me rebellious if you want, but I am not hardcore. I don’t go to protests or support death threats. I am only ‘soft rock’,” he quipped.
Oakenleaf busked for the past 13 years in Australia and some parts of Tasmania without a licence though it was free to apply in some areas. For the most part of his busking life, he survived on “cash and caravans”.
Hailing from Plymouth in the United Kingdom, he decamped to Australia when he reached 20, but quickly found himself engulfed in drugs. “Marijuana is my biggest vice,” he confessed. “Now, coffee is my vice too.”
When he was broke, he was left with no resort but to sell his alternative music ‘albums’, which were really his recordings burnt onto CD-Rs, packaged in self-taped plastic covers and monotone paper inserts, in order to support himself.
Oakenleaf’s music sounds like a fusion mix of cabaret, folk, gyspy, and blues - influenced by The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Ani Difranco. “Everything magikal, everything sweet, with tha funk, tha grunt and tha groove is my kinda thang,” he mused, switching between British and Aussie accents.
An owl-faced pendant made of whale bone hangs precariously around his neck on a frazzled string. It looks as weather-beaten as Oakenleaf’s slightly red, scrubbed-too-hard chest.
A tattoo of a maze on the back of his right hand had faded into a faint blue-grey colour. His harp shrouded by a purple velvet cloth, wrinkled leather satchel and rusty bronze pot sat at his feet as we spoke.
When asked to tell the world who he is in one word, Oakenleaf gave two: “Space Voyager” and launches into a monologue with a look of zen.
“Space is the best thing God gave us. We are in God and God is in us. The face of God is inside the small and big things – the flowers, the mountains, the buildings, the pavement, everything that we see everyday. We rarely think that we came from a mystery – birth. Do you know, all the hurt and pain and disappointment we feel in our lives, like breakups, are actually preparing us for the ultimate release into another space – death? If we realize that the divine presence is in every molecule that surrounds us, we will all have more freedom.”
Dispassionate about people’s general tics and foibles, he gets angry only with Melbourne’s public transport system because “the trains never come on time and tram doors are always in the way of my instruments and my dog”. Oakenleaf keeps an eye on Bazza, his tame 8-year-old Rottweiler.
Being a self-proclaimed gypsy, he intends to vote for the Greens in the coming federal election after becoming an Australian citizen last December, also the month he locked eyes with theatre student Saralia Yael.
Yael added love to his life, and sensual vocals to his Rapskallions band comprising a drummer, a clarinet player, and a bass guitarist. The two have been together ever since, living in a Brunswick St house and then producing a new album, Spanish Galleon.
Currently, Oakenleaf has contractual work in high schools doing music coaching, and a soundtrack project in a local French short film.
A Myspace compliment praises his music. “Thank you so much for playing today. The library was transformed into lush green hills and dappled fairy playgrounds...so wonderfully evocative.”
Some critics have a different interpretation: “There is no melody in the music. It drifts endlessly, as if hypnotizing the depths of a disillusioned solar system”.
It is getting dark and Bazza is restless from hunger. As Oakenleaf picked up his stovepipe hat and scruffy jacket, dust escaped from the jacket lapels and disappeared into the air. Without doubt, he will be content to be the captain of his own spaceship, and steer his music the way he wants to.
