Plug

Queue and A

It started like this...


And if finished up like this...


And now Q+A is gone for good.

It was fun while it lasted. Actually, it was more than fun. To say the place has been important is a bit of an understatement. I think probably 80% of the people I know in Melbourne I met there or through people I met there. I could blather on but I won't because I am hung over.

Thanks Richard, Pete and Helen. Words cunt express... The 400 strong queue at the door before opening can though.

Oh, and if anyone finds my phone (and isn't it a coincidence that I lost it on the same day that the iPhone is released.)

Thanks Phil

UPDATED... To prove that D is the most eloquent letter in the alphabet, check out this response.

Who Loves Gays?

We love gays, and so does everyone in Britain apparently.

A new survey out in England says the love is spreading.

From Pink News:

The Stonewall survey published today is one of the most wide-ranging examinations of attitudes in the Britain towards the gay community.

The results are heartening - even 49% of Daily Telegraph readers think that prejudice against gay and lesbian people should be tackled.

There is a bit of analysis over at the site along with some pretty graphs, which look like this:



As they say, it is quite a heartening read. Enjoy.

MQFF

The Melbourne Queer Film Festival always seeks to balance the crowd, pleasing “bums on seats” popcorners with some more challenging fare. But if you’re not feeling too adventurous, there are a few films to test the waters of the not-quite-so-shallow end.

I've started with Tan Lines / Far From Sunset Boulevard / Boy Culture over at The Program but there are more to come...

Tix are on sale now!

I HEART George Takei

You may or may not have been following the furore that has blown up around U.S. basketballer Tim Hardaway's homophobic comments last week. The responses from all corners of the community have been immensely encouraging in their exposure of the new shift in what is acceptable behaviour, well, acceptable behaviour in front of the public eye, at the very least.

This response is certainly one of the most comical.

I love the way Dr Sulu manages to flavour his PSA with every homophobic straight boy's worst nightmare (or, more likely than not, biggest fantasy).



via iChatGay

Registered Online AND In Print...

Hey y'all. Just a quick one to let you know that I am back in print. I went in to help take some of the pressure off Richard as he settles into his new digs as Editor of MCV.

I knocked up a few news stories, which appear in this week's issue.

One of them has also popped up online.

The City of Melbourne's Relationships Declaration Register, which will enable both mixed-sex and same-sex couples to formally declare their relationships, will be officially established by April 2, it was announced last week...

You can read the rest here

Car Maintenance, eXplosives and Love @ Gasworks Theatre

Okay, I'm being published again. I'm chucking some reviews the way of The Program, an Australian arts portal focused on repackageing the arts media for the youth market.

My first review went up today. You can check it out by clicking on the text below...

"From the opening, angle-grinding moments of Car Maintenance, eXplosives and Love it is clear that there are going to be more than just sparks flying in this very one-woman show."

Hey, it's a start.

Diary: Kill Kilkenny

More diary. The first half of this entry I must have written when I was insanely drunk.

Such a fucked up event. This guy not only fucked me up for a good few months but turned me off Kilkenny and Irishmen for quite a while.

4 October
Ok on to some new and more interesting topic, my love life or lack of it. His nace is Ciaren (spelt something like that) and he is the firest guy that I have met that I actually wanted to see again. Because of this I chose not to sleep with him of teh firest night, how puritian of me, Instead we just comandeered a couch in the back of connections and just went for it for about an hour an da half i think though I am not entiresly sure of the time. You must ecvuse all of the spelling mistakes nut I am writing this as I am falling asleep so I am not actually looking at the keys or what is coming out on the screen. Yeah so here we are in the seedy part of the nightclun laying down on the rid vinal couch and and oh, he had the most beautiful eyes and he wsa soooo cutem so Irish and he said I reminded him of Richard Gere, I don’t know how I should take that one but anyway. I was so enhoying al of this when I decided to go to the toilet adn he followed me in there and tryid to DRINK ME as he put it. It really freaked me out, not because of the act itself, to each his own I wuppose, but because I was looking fo r a normal guy who I could spend some time with, Anyway I moce off and ha and took time out nect to the dannce floor nut I just couldn’t leave him so i asked him to come our for a coffee and we did at some dodgy little cafe in lake street where we had a long conversation about life and love, I found him very confromting but i really liked that because usually I am on the dealing end and it ws interesting to be on the recieving end for a change. He tried again to get a ddrink out of me on Lake street but I avoided that again and he went back to his hostel, I gave him my number and left much to his dismay. I ended up dropping him a note expecting him to have lost the number and we met up again at the Brass monkey and ended up snogging in the court then he came back to don’s place and we shagged each other rotten well sort of...

4 October
It was sort of a bit more like him taking what he wanted, which included just about every fetish in the whole book from feet to arse, and any sort of bodily fluid he could get his hands on. He wanted to play out this domination fantasy, so every few minutes he had to remind me to step on his hands or hold him down and it was just a little bit too much for me, it is just not inside of me to enjoy that sort of stuff even though I said I did and in some instances it was interesting but in the morning I found myself in such a state, I went from anger to depression to frustration. By the time I got home I was nearly bursting into tears every five minutes. I was a total mess and had pretty much decided never to get in touch with Ciaren again.

I told Byron all about him and he was understandably saying, forget him. He was nice, like- he said I am so eligible and blah blah blah, which I just don’t ever really see until someone says it to me. I have really enjoyed my time down here this holiday, probably because I needed it more than usual and I am living more in a style that will probably be a part of my life in years to come. Does that sound silly? I mean I don’t know if I will ever live in a city, well no I am sure that I will, maybe after next year. But it has been good to just be a normal gay guy in the city for the first time (if normal is the word- I suppose it is as normal as it is ever going to get for me).

That was the only entry about it all but it did stay with me for a long time. I think it gave me a few insecurities that I carried with me for a good many years.

I'm over them now, I think.

I even visited Kilkenny.

And I like their beer.

And I am seeing an Irishman.

I guess that means I'm over it now.


Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness
Goodbye 1996!!!
Back To The Bush
How Time Flies
End Of An Era
Kissy Kissy
Diary Tonic
Diary: Losing My Religion Virginity
Diary: May Burst
Travel Fallout
Return Of The Killer Diary
Diary Musings From The Top End
Separation Anxiety

Marching Proud

Look how proud he is! That is because he's spent his afternoon watching the gayest of Melbourne's community groups marching through one of Melbourne's gayest precincts.

I jest. But it is true that the Pride March was a heart swelling event. I prefer Melbourne's march to Sydney's parade. It is less flashy, more grounded. There is a real sense of the GBLTI community thanking and praising the movers and shakers that make out community what it is. Of course there is not as much eye candy (even less this year because of the miserable weather) or music but the general warm glow more than makes up for that.



We headed down after saying farewell to Steff. The tram down Nicholson Street was already crammed full of homosexualists of both persuasions and we got to nattering about Friday night. And the rain fell. Heavily.



Luckily, by the time the parade opened with the traditional Dykes on Bykes the clouds were holding their payloads. It didn't rain on the police, or the lesbians parading their bubs for political propaganda. It didn't rain on the gay Greeks or the gay Italians. Hell, it didn't even rain on those butt-fucking koalas that were censored from the Myer Christmas windows this year.

Even though we arrived minutes before the start, there was plenty of room. Attendance was a little disappointing but it didn't hamper the good spirits. It was great to see a few friends marching and, when the parade had finished parading the crowd that followed along revealed itself to be quite sizeable.



Drinks at the POW afterwards, a supper with Shamil and a brief jaunt to see what was happening in the park and then it was all over. Pity about the weather, it would have been a lot more festive without the wind and rain but you get that.

Bring on Carnivale!

Krampack (or, Nico and Dani)

This was the film we watched instead of sitting through the end of Breakfast On Pluto.

I'd seen it plenty of times before but Andrew hadn't and he's trying to improve his Spanish at the moment, which is why I bought it for myself in the first place.

I first saw Nico and Dani in Cordoba. I'd been enticed in by the poster and when the Spanish title, Krampack wasn't in my phrasebook, I looked it up on imdb.com. The details were scant but it confirmed that it was gay so I went along. No subtitles on the print. No Spanish in my brain (I'd only been there a few weeks). No understanding of what was going on at all.

In retrospect it shouldn't have been all that difficult. The story is pretty basic. Two young guys spend a week together while their parents are away. Young guys, alone, you know the drill. The complication is that there are girls on the scene as well and one of the boys is, well, confused.

Like I said, pretty basic. But that is part of the film's charm.

To keep it real, the kids in the film really are kids (though their ages were upped from the original play). They make impulsive decisions, stupid comments and have all the anxieties that we had in those days of yore.

It is a fun summer movie without the campy shallowness of many gay flicks. Check it out.

Midsumma Opens

Midsumma is here, though they should have changed the name this year. Not much was summery on Friday night. It was warmish but also very muggy. Not that that detracted from the night. Easily one of the most impressive openings I've been to.

Somewhere along the line they decided to jettison all of the crap acts and replace them with artistically credible performers. It was quite unsettling. There was not a rapping Bette Midler impersonator in sight. I was quite disoriented.

Not that we spent all that much time watching the acts. We were too busy watching the bottom of our plastic Becks cups.


Sam came along and she was in fine form. Somehow she managed to plant herself firmly in the centre of every one of my photos. Not that I am complaining because she is dangerously photogenic.

Before the crowds came we managed to catch the skill tester tent set up by Penny Machinations, who brought us last year's Berina of Mystery. Andrew (not that Andrew, the other Andrew) was proclaimed a level 2 psychic even though he couldn't telepathically collect the image of Margaret Pomeranz or any of the numerous penises.



By the time we were ready to move on, we were well-sauced and ready for a tram ride to the Xchange hotel, home of drag shows, go-go boys and a dancefloor of unmixed Nineties classics.

See:



It was a blast of a night and a fitting opening to what promises to be a Midsumma of fabulousness. (Did I just say that?)

Another B&S Quote

Brothers and Sisters has become my guilty pleasure since Alias went by the wayside - well, Brothers and Sisters and Heroes. I think there is just enough schlock and schmaltz in the two shows to more than make up for the preposterous outings of Ms. Bristow. The good bits are made up for by Battlestar Galactica (now with added Alias alumnus).

Of course, this means I am now having to watch three shows a week instead of one but, thanks to the vagaries of American programming, they are never all on in one week.

Aaaanyway, I just wanted to share another insubstantial quip from the show. You may remember, this was edging towards being a regular feature for a while, and it probably would have been but for the aforementioned vagaries of American television programming.

Sarah: He's bi...
Kevin: No one's bi. Have you ever heard of a seventy year-old bisexual. At some point you make a choice, thus the expression: bi now, gay later.

Dated Diary: Separation Trauma

Back into the diary. We arrive at the bombastic ending to my life in the desert.

I suppose I should set the scene a little more clearly for those of you who haven't been following along. This was my fourth and final year in Jigalong, a small Aboriginal community in remote Western Australia. I was the longest serving teacher there and by that fact alone was afforded a reasonable amount of respect by the local community, to the extent that they would often refer issues to me (through Larry, the school chairman) rather than the school principal. It was just the community way.

Well, a few months before my contract was up, there was one hell of an issue...



8 September
Shit, shit, shit... Just when I thought I may get a nice smooth end of to the year this kind of shit happens. Where can I start? We had a carnival in Marble Bar (yes again) and it was fantastic. The kids had a ball, the whole thing went off without a hitch, Brianol even won the runner up to champion senior boy. Then on the way back Ainsley lost control of the car and rolled it onto its roof. Unfortunately there were five kids in the car with her, fortunately nobody was injured. The community were, rightly, upset with the situation but were pretty much of the opinion that the teachers were not at fault and they were all cool with the teachers, excepting of course a talk with the Martu workers.

Anyway, life is going on as per usual when we get a message from the co ordinator that some of the teachers have been threatened with spearings and the like...

10 September
Sorry, I fell asleep (not for two days mind you).

...all of the teachers end up in Kevin’s house talking through the situation. This information all, apparently, came from Larry and in consultation with Jo was checked out with Lizzy and Katigan (the first signs that all was not well in the Larry relations camp). So it fell to us to pack up and lock up our houses within twenty minutes to effect an miniture exodus to the promised land, Newman.

Throughout this little episode I had been none too happy and had even been thinking of staying in Jigalong but I end up going along for the ride and getting really morbid on the drive in, thinking about the whole situation that had been thrown up right at the end of my time here. Newman was cool in a way, I didn’t have to work, or when I did work it was pretty cruisy, just hanging out with Kane and Kim and their kids from Kalannie who were up in Newman on school camp, the food was delicious and the weather was great. On the down side I had to listen to all of the other teachers from Jigalong falling apart around me, realising hour by hour, or rather dinner by dinner, that they were all far too caught up in their “white” lives to feel anything but affronted by the unwaranted barbarism of the reaction of the Martu. So my reaction was to call things as I thought they stood, you can imagine how well that went down. Needless to say I was chastised by Jo after my comments had left Marita in tears.

So we wait, and on Monday the cavalry arrives from Karratha in the form of Bernie Rider, Albert Pianta and an Elder from Roeburn who grew up with Larry who it now appeared was the main trouble maker in the whole situation, it was assumed that Larry had made the threats of punishment independent of the community feelings on the matter. So these guys were travelling out to Jigalong to assess the damage and whether it was safe for us to return home. Another day wandering around Newman doing fuck all but by this time Karen and Ainsley couldn’t even look at me and were hard pressed to answer a good morning, Jo was walking around with an expression which could not be described as anything but brick wallish, Marita was either avoiding me or being brusque, Reg was frequently breaking into outburst covering topics as diverse as how the teachers could never be expected to return to teach the Martu to how he would take a shotgun to anyone who tried to stick a spear in him and Tuesdee was pretty much furious for the same reasons that I was disallusioned.

And then the rescue team returned with a solution which they felt was incredibly satisfactory to all involved. Basically, after talking with a group of community members whose kids were involved in the accident and some of the elders, the guys found that the community was not upset, rather they were bewildered that the teachers had left and they assured them that there was no way that Martu law would ever be effected on a white person. On top of this the community made a point of saying they were going to hunt out who had made these accusations and deal with the problem themselves.

Keeping in mind that all of these guys were law men themselves and must deal with the Jigalong mob every year when law business is being carried out. They had to be extremely sensitive in how they dealt with the situation because if they overstepped the invisible boundries in representing the teachers and dealing with Larry they could be seriously threatened physically when they took up their law roles later this year. That said consider Karen’s reaction to their tidings...

Classic comments include (with added vehemence and liberal tears):

On initial reactions to the solution...
“How can we go back to the school and work with that bastard?”

On Larry in general...
“I don’t understand how one man can be such a bastard and cause us so
much pain and just get away with it”

On why the community doesn’t know who made the accusations...
“Do you mean to say that that prick is such a gutless wonder that he
wouldn’t even own up?”

Over reaction? I say so, but then I don’t really know the other shit that has gone on between the three of them (Karen, Jo and Larry). But I thought she really outdid herself when she asked what we could do to have him removed from the community so that she could feel safe. For fuck’s sake, removed from the community, it is his fucking country, his birthplace and she thinks that her feelings are more important than his, I mean really. That is like someone going down to Perth and asking her father to move to the Central Desert because they didn’t like the way he didn’t like working with them.

The guys from Karratha were a little bewildered to say the least, and then Reg started up again. I basically had a splitting headache and didn’t say anything because I was realising more than ever that I was almost totally alone in having a differing opinion (the only other teacher that shared my view was Tuesdee and she knows all of this because she has lived this life since she was born). Thank god I was able to speak to Bernie Rider after all of this shit went down. FUCK he gives the most amazing massages. I have never had one before, well not the shirt off lay down on the bed kind from someone who has studied the art, phwooor!!! He ended up cracking the stress our of my spine (wierd sensation) and letting me know that I have still got a long way to grow, physically in my upper body (thank god).

Anyway after the massage Tuesdee and myself had a chat to Bernie and he basically told me everything that I already knew. That most of the women were being childish and not caring about the community. That many of them were threatened by the fact that I have been around the community longer and that many of them were thinking of not returning. Of course it was a huge ego boost as well because he basically said that there are very few white people like myself, accepting and understanding enough to be an ally to the Aboriginal community (I really needed to hear that at the time when I was realising that many of the people I believed to be like me were far from it).

So Brian Samson comes out to Newman and invites us back to the community and all of the teachers sit and say, thankyou sir and everything is back to normal...NOT!!! (pardon the gross Americanism, it just slipped out). Remember that everyone is still pissed off (either with Larry or with Me or with everyone else) not least Ainsley and Karen who still cannot bear to look at me, and that pissed me off. I was ready to say something to them both, something petty and narky and sarcastic but I decided not to be my usual self and to try the kind caring thing instead. Actually I thought before I totally fuck up relations I should set Ainsley straight because I felt that she was pissed off with me for what she had heard me say through other since I hadn’t spoken to her at all, not a word apart from, “Are you alright?” when it first happened. Well just setting up the talk was a chore apparently, Beth went in on my behalf and let Ainsley know I wanted to talk to which Ainsley responded by putting her hands over her ears and made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. But eventually she got over the shock and actually agreed, which I must admit was pretty brave.

So I walk in and she says, “I just can’t stand you at the moment!” and she totally meant it. It took about twenty minutes to break through that by explaining why I was upset that she was taking this attitude without having heard me herself. Her main upsets were that she didn’t understand how I could deliberately set out to hurt people with my words, that I use words as weapons to which others have no defence and that I thought that all of the teachers should have just shut up and taken the punishment. All I could say was that I never set out to deliberately hurt people though I did feel upset at their views and so what I said was mainly tumbled out of my mouth through utter amazement and shock not through malice, that I do use words as weapons but I wasn’t acting on that particular facility over those few days in town and I didn’t say that the teachers should have accepted the punishment but that they should accept the threat of punishment as a normal Martu reaction to the situation, a situation in which their children were nearly killed.

It was then that the unexpected happened... Ainsley asked if she could come and sit next to me (no this situation does NOT end with Ainsley asking if it is wrong for her to lust after my body, you can rest assured of that) and she put her head to my chest and said sorry and we talked about the accident and how she worried about me (I shall have to delve into that with her later), how she was shocked at how much she craved male comfort on the morning after we were evacuated (to which I replied that I did too!- Ziggy’s did not count). Then we went on to talk about past traumas and how we have been affected by them. At one stage she said to me of my relationship with my father, “God, it sounds like Cat On a Hot Tin Roof!” (I borrowed the movie from her) and I just said, “Yes very much like it”. I actually felt like telling her that I was gay, it was just that saying it so bluntly seemed to lack panache. It was a bizarre gambit of emotion in little over two hours.

So we are almost up to date, excepting of course mentioning that Jo and Karen have both fled the community on stress leave possibly never to return, both with the same VERY hostile attitude towards me. I would really love to talk about how my world has been shaken by all of this but after talking with Ainsley yesterday and talking to my mother just then I will have to leave it for a little while.

Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness
Goodbye 1996!!!
Back To The Bush
How Time Flies
End Of An Era
Kissy Kissy
Diary Tonic
Diary: Losing My Religion Virginity
Diary: May Burst
Travel Fallout
Return Of The Killer Diary
Diary Musings From The Top End

Saturday Night Was A Drag

I admit it. Sitting around Andrews' place eating from Sue's deliciously cooked no-frills barbecue, I was less than impressed when someone mentioned that the plan was to go to the Greyhound afterwards. Less than less than impressed.

But I went. Actually, by the time the time had come I was tippsily up for it.

I am so glad. It was such an enjoyable night.

We dance-staggered to classic pop songs by the likes of Vanessa Amorosi, S Club 7 and the Minogues stagger-danced to the bar to drink some more. As always, Andrew's hat did the rounds.



The drag was hilarious. And sequinny. My personal highlight was the dance rendition of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" performed by singing portraits of the Madonna and Child. Priceless.

The Celluloid Closet (or, Cry Me Up, Cry Me Down)

I sat down, or rather lay down, and watched The Celluloid Closet last week whilst I was waiting for that work to be emailed to me. (Still waiting, by the way.) The doco, based on the book by Vitto Russo, has always been a staple of mine, which gets pulled out when I want something to watch when I am doing something that is going to divide my attention. Film is often the mirror of a society's soul and the grab-bag of film clips in that are hung out in The Celluloid Closet follow a line that traces the representations and prevailing attitudes towards homogays and lesbianas over the past hundred years. It is somewhat like an incidental history. I've seen it probably 20 times, maybe more, and it still ignites a fire in my blood each time I see it.

Why?

This time I think I have figured it out. Apart from the fact that it is all about film and gays (two of my favourite things), I think that the true artistry in The Celluloid Closet is that it taps into the coming out experience. The progression of the representations of our community from the butt of jokes to rounded human beings, via loathing and derision, is often the very same path we take in our own journey towards self-acceptance. The film manages to evoke the fear, the eventual freedom and exhalation of the coming out process, helped immensely by Carter Burwell's evocative score. By the end there is a pervading feeling of optimism and potential, not unlike that moment when you have finally done the deed and you realise that it was not the big deal that you thought it was.

It is an intoxicating reminiscence at a primarily emotional level. Yes, I am in tears by the end of it. And usually during it. It is a catharsis that reminds me that there is always a way out of that gloom and that out society has an immense capacity for change.

The Celluloid Closet is delightful tonic in these increasingly puritanical times. If you haven't seen it, you must, you must.

Diary: Musings From the Top End

More blasts from the past. Seven years ago. We’re catching up quickly.

This entry is a little more of a review so I am sure you’ll find it rather dull. At the very least it has the story of how I managed to catch up with Byron again.

1 August 1999

True to form hey! What 5 months and I write again now. I don’t really have much to write about, well nothing recent anyway, I was just reading through the rest of the diary and thought that I really should write something before it comes to the end of the year and I am talking about leaving and all that. I am going to find it so hard to leave this place and yet so easy as well. I think the hardest thing will be the first week away because it will be the first time since university that I will have nothing to go back to after the holidays. Jigalong has always been the place I could be sure I was going back to, I could always leave the kids and my house safe in the knowledge that I would see them again and that is not going to happen this time. The thing is that if I can get over that in the first few weeks (being in the city and all that) I think that I will be able to cope... I am sure we will go into this more in the months to come.

I have neglected to rabbit on about anything that has happened in the last few months haven’t I and surprise, surprise, it revolves almost entirely around men. Well, what did you expect? No nothing serious, my sister has given me too many hang-ups for that (and I do mean to get tested soon) and I have decided that the next guy I sleep with I will know somewhat better than a quick dance in a nightclub, well I say that anyway. Well, I did get in touch with Byron, I sent a letter to the Builder’s Arms addressed to the DJ with a letter inside addressed to Byron. Anyway, it got to him and he wrote back, unfortunately the bastard is moving to Canada so I probably won’t see him next time I am in Melbourne. Still I don’t know what I am getting so upset about, I hardly know the guy, fuck it is so crazy, of course I would hate you to think that I am going barney, stalkly mind-twisty fucky in the head and thinking about him all the time or anything, but it is still crazy to want to meet him again?

On to more immediate events, we have just returned from our conference/holidays in Broome and Darwin and I have some fantastical stories from both places. Quick rundown... Marcus’s mate, pissing on a window at Buzz Café, the queen at Brave, the speed offer and the long sleeved shirt debarcle, the trip to Katherine (or the trip back), the rock art, the fireworks and Tuesdee’s discussion with Marcus (but he’s a fish man and he will just slip through your fingers), yes we had blow-up number three. Darwin was nice but a little too rednecky and it had an uneasy balance between bush and city (the worst of both worlds).

Broome on the other hand was fucking fantastically awesomely ace! Yes and BIZARRE, well more bizarre than I had expected. I suppose I shall start with a brief description of the days... dinner-movies-pub-nightclub-recuperate by the pool... and once more with feeling, yes it was fun. It has made me realise that the Kimberly will be my next posting if I come back to teaching. The Nippon, castle of bikers, surfers and hippies, was the last place I expected to pull but it was all there one Wendnesday night/Thursday morning. No sooner had I started dancing than this big fat black guy asked in a most camp way if I minded him dancing with me... and then another blackfella but a gorgeous one and one who could MOVE!!! and then two other guys... there were five of us drawing stares and comments from the crowd by the middle of the night, it was a riot.

Of course I passed up a fuck, the guy was cool but it was just a fuck (I think the come on line was “Wanna fuck?” always a classic) but I beat myself up over it for the next three days. Now of course I am totally at ease with my decision but I really could have done with the contact before coming back to Jigalong. And then there was the blackfella, the one who could dance, who fell over in the toilet! It got me to thinking, could I do it? I mean I would love to and all that but there would be so many problems dating (like I have actually dated anyone!!!) a community man. It just got me to thinking, having the offer so palpable, well the offer wasn’t really there in any real form but it could have been if you understand- and of course you do. And then I turn up the next night and the blackfella is back and we exchange a few words which could have been “Are you the guy in the black shirt from last night?” but I fear that was misheard and that it was actually “Are you a teacher from Jigalong, in the red shirt?” I answered yes in any event so I suppose both are right. The greatest irony is that I fear the guy, who was dancing up my arse the night before, is the uncle of Zyrack who I saw in Broome the day before- but then I can get very paranoid...

Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness
Goodbye 1996!!!
Back To The Bush
How Time Flies
End Of An Era
Kissy Kissy
Diary Tonic
Diary: Losing My Religion Virginity
Diary: May Burst
Travel Fallout
Return Of The Killer Diary

The Return of the Killer Diary!

Many things have fallen by the wayside here at NNM over the past month. The end of the year wasn’t the best of times for many reasons, which I have hinted at here, obtusely or otherwise, while 2006 was whipping its tail.

Now that 2006 is dead and buried, it is time to lace up our Speedos and dive, bollocks and all, into 2007.

First up on the repatriation line of wayward features is the dusty diary. What better way to start the new year than with the gestation of my Melbournian friendship group.

18 April 1999

Well, I am writing again on the changes in my life, and not as anticipated in the previous entry on the other teachers in Jigalong (as you can imagine that slipped from my mind or I decided to put it off for just a little while too long). And so, I will start with an excerpt from a message I wrote to Becky in Bristol...

Anyway, back to my life. I can't remember what I wrote to you about last but I think that you hadn't been able to read it anyway. So I will try to keep to the things that happened in the last few days since I left Melbourne, a sordid description of my drinking habits over the last three nights (alright it isn't sordid, or even interesting but you are going to hear it anyway). Well it all started on Thursday when we (my sister and I) went to the Cirque du Soleil for my sister's birthday. Have you heard of them before? Well basically a circus with no animals and plenty of absolutely mindblowing acts. Unfortunately the only tickets we could get were VIP tickets and to our dismay they included in the cost all the wine you could ever want so we ended up spending the hour before we got inside drinking like fish and had to keep leaving the tent to go to the toilet. Of course we left the show absolutely plied and my sister had a minor break down so after calming her down we popped into a taxi and went home.

Not content at finishing up so early I kept the taxi around and went right back into Melbourne and to go to a pub to continue my alcohol poisoning. Switching effortlessly from red wine to bourbon I sat listening to the music in this pub come dance bar. As you can imagine I was an absolute barrel of laughs after all the shit that my sister had just planted. I must have been looking like a fucking undertaker because from out of nowhere this guy buys me a beer and disappears... BEER urghhh!!! But never fear your good natured hero was so absolutely far gone that he happily downed the middy (about two thirds of a pint I think) in two gulps. Luckily then a song that I like started up (Tender by Blur) so I hit the dance floor and proceeded to treat it more like a stumble floor. Then the bastards turned the music off and the lights on because it was closing time.

... and it was only 1 a.m.

Luckily, as I stand looking lost under the fluro lights, some complete and utter stranger comes up to me and says, "Hey, my mate bought you a drink earlier... Blah blah Blah (or at least that is how I understood it) so they ended up taking me out to some other clubs where I did such excellent acts as kicking over peoples glasses and not even bothering to say sorry and singing loudly to songs I knew well but with the wrong lyrics. But the most thrilling example of my sobriety was when I tried to run up the stairs in one club and ended up tripping up and running into a gate, now I am sporting a huge gash in my shoulder (and that why did I do it feeling in my gut!) but it was all worth it, unfortunately I was too far gone to get his number before he dropped me off (the friend of the guy who bought me the beer that is), its a small world though so I may see him again (recognising him may be a problem though - I should buy some beer goggles before I go back to Melbourne).

So that was Thursday night, and I flew out of Melbourne the next day, feeling fantastic as you might imagine. But not to be deterred I rang up a good friend and we went out for dinner that night. Starting of course with the wine we polished off a bottle at the cafe and then proceeded to a bar to start on the vodka and listen to this band which was pretty cool. Taking it to the next level we stepped into a nightclub to dance our little souls away, feeling fine in a new (and fucking awsome) shirt bought just that morning in Melbourne, and feeling invincible after taking about four shots of Sambucca, we went at it for about three hours.

Well, that is a sort of half version of what happened, the version which omits all of the things I was feeling and have been feeling since. The fact is I would really like to meet up with Byron again and I don’t have any way of getting in contact with him excepting writing into one of Melbourne’s gay newspapers and hoping that one of the guys sees it and writes back (or of course hanging at the Builder’s Arms in the vain hope that I would recognise him). It is not so much that I was smashed just that I cannot remember the whole night and I have not been that wiped out on just booze before. I think that I remember all those bad things because they seem to stick in your mind more.

I don’t know why I would go to such lengths to find Byron anyway, I don’t want to sleep with him (he was gorgeous but I didn’t go out to pull that night so it didn’t enter my mind- well not that much anyway) but he was so real and down to Earth that I have not stopped thinking about him since. Perhaps it is because meeting him has let me know that there are guys out there who are not just raving queens or purely focussed on Diva songs (I know what I mean). And he loved films, foreign films, I was such an idiot not to get his address.

Stay tuned for the next gripping episode…

Previous diary entries:
I Wanna Play
Confessions of an Amateur Melodramatist
Before I Sleep a.k.a. Diary Drowsiness
Goodbye 1996!!!
Back To The Bush
How Time Flies
End Of An Era
Kissy Kissy
Diary Tonic
Diary: Losing My Religion Virginity
Diary: May Burst
Travel Fallout

FYI NYE @ WPPSC

Well, it’s done.

We’ve arrived.

And what as time it was.

I forced myself to see the New Year in with someone other than me. Most of my friends, old and new, were up in Sydney or out in the country so I ended up opting for the only sensible NYE venue in Melbourne, The Witness Protection Program Social Club at The Public Office.

I was so glad I did. And let me tell you why…

Luckily, my friends who had decided to stick around had all settled on attending. The crowd, resplendent in their white fishnets, bikini bottoms and three inch gold heels, where as friendly as they were diverse.

I bumped into a few bloggers (some recognised me, some didn’t) and some new friends, some friends of friends, whom I had never met and some cute guys

Best of all - my three coffees and one Jaegerbomb managed to place me on an even keel with all the other e-ed up punters. And I won’t get that terribly depressing come down tomorrow.

We peeked the fireworks over the rooftops and we were then regaled with some high-kicks and moons as some of the crowd were chased down from the roof.

The whole affair made a nice change from the straight, straight streets of Melbourne, with their un-ironic mullets and blonder-than-blonde whippets.

I couldn’t think of a better way to bring in the New Year.

Hope yours was as delightful!

x

Bedrooms and Hallways (or, Let's run the sexual gamut)

I've been a big fan for Rose Troche's "pansexual" comedy for a long while now and, watching it again the other night, I thoroughly believe it is holding its own against the ravages of time. The acting is still charmingly over-the-top, the direction just off-centre and the script assuredly navigates the terrain between flippant comedy and too-meaningful drama. Bedrooms and Hallways seems as fresh and clear skinned as it ever has, the only thing that seems to have changed is me.

I remember when I first saw it; on top of finding it cheekily witty, I also found it quite unsettling. The idea that a centred and self loving gay man could enter into a relationship with a woman I found disturbing and unrealistic. I suppose, after fighting for so long to be comfortable with myself, the notion that all that hard work could be undone was incredibly challenging.

And I have often thought about it since.

Seeing the film again recently, I have to say that my view on the matter has changed. In the past few months I have had a good many friends, and friends of friends, broach the topic with me. I even know of one or two who have made the jump. Speaking today with a new friend, who has been on both sides of the proverbial fence but refuses to use the label "bisexual" because labels always leave a sticky residue, she used a very similar rational to the characters in the film: the person is more important than the bits.

Byron says, "If it walks like a duck..." but I tend to side with the no-labels camp. I can understand that the preconceptions that stick to the sole of bisexuality would be even more severely misleading than prejudices many in the gay community feel are wrapped up in "gay", especially if it is truly a love of a specific person that is at the core of the relationship. Troche's pansexuality comes to us residue free. Hoorah! Use it with glee for a few years before the community at large gets a hold of it and sullies it with their pernicious pre-conceivities (do you like that one? I just invented it myself).

My point?

I guess, I have just come to the realisation that I don't find the idea challenging anymore. I don't think I'll be making the jump any time soon but I wouldn't feel confronted if one of my friends did. I still think our struggle to be comfortable with ourselves as sexual beings leaves an indelible mark on us as individuals, and to turn away from that battle in some way belittles it but, looking back now, I don't think that that was my issue way back when (when? 1998).

Back then, it was the ramifications the switch would have on all the gay trappings that led me to be disturbed. If someone was no longer gay, would they have to change themselves, their personality? We collect our sexuality around us like with songs and clothes and parties and friends. The "gay" lifestyle, if you will.

Were those trappings so incidental? So disposable?

Yes.

And that was a scary thought because I thought of those things as more important than they are.

I don't need a badge to be me.

And I certainly don't need a label.

Now that I am happily myself; now that I am comfortable that the different aspects of my life are not draped around me as identifying marks of my sex life, I am comfortable that I would still be me even if I fell for a woman. And being comfortable in that makes me comfortably trust that anyone else could do the same.

I got all that from a fluffy little film. Well, I never.