Annabel, my Annabel!

I found her!

Short confessions of a Summit Cynic

It's been challenging trying to keep my dinner down while I've been surfing the internet lately. I've read more 'motherhood statements' and 'aspirational' messages over the past couple of days than I have ever seen in my life. My saving grace was Annabel Crabb—whose hilarious blog about the proceedings mysteriously disappeared. Overnight. Every search for it on theage.com.au resulted in a confounding "lack of search results". But at least there is now a new voice in the Australian media who makes me laugh and with whom, on many points, I strongly agree.

What I strongly disagree with is these people, the self-proclaimed "chosen ones", who have motherhooded themselves into some tardis of sociopolitical relevance that seems to have eluded every one whose opinions I value. "The Chosen Ones" have taken refuge behind the most convenient of barricades: that anyone who has an opinion about the summit and its outcome(s) that is not wrapped up in divine love is a "cynic". A Naysayer. "You're either with us ... or agin us." That we're all suffering from some hideous plague of Summit Envy Syndrome (SES) ... or Acquired Idealism Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

The critical point to surface for me out of the proceedings over recent days is that—even with all the protestations about "robust democracy" and "fresh air"—that people who have not found worthy and meaningful ways of contributing to society and justifying the amount of oxygen they steal from everyone else have suddenly been recognised as having some immense societal worth. In their own minds, at least.

I 'worked' for the ALP last year. I 'worked' for A Candidate in an unwinnable seat. I learned many, many, many things. And chief among those is that Politics is a grubby, nasty, toxic business. It's the absolute manifestation of self-interest. Absolute. That this Summit was anything more than a fancy 'Thank You' card to the personal attention of some hard-working campaigners ... or a PR event of national significance is really, I'm sorry to say, idle conceit. You'll see what I mean when your well-intentioned emails start bouncing back. And people stop remembering and/or using your name. And the extent to which you supported them becomes irrelevant in their continued pursuit of their own selfish agendas.

I have worked with women who rocked their new-born babies to sleep in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet because they couldn't afford child care. That Cate Blanchett seems to be celebrated beyond the boundaries of good taste for turning up offends the sense and sensibility of working mothers everywhere. The Unchosen Ones it would seem. And that Kevin (07) Rudd missed the great John Button's funeral to drop off what I imagine were Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls to the newest Upton/Blanchett, is an astonishing lack of judgement and political sympatico.

I feel like I've just spent the last couple of days at somebody else's cast party. I wish Annabel Crabb had been there.

Wise counsel

I had dinner with an old friend the other night. Charming. Lovely. Nostalgic. She cross-examined me about why I hadn't continued writing plays. Or writing anything. I proudly discussed my blog, this blog, with her ... and encouraged her to log on when she felt like reading some of my musings. Our evening ended with a sudden and somewhat hostile disagreement about the value of looking back into the past ... of not "moving on", as she put it. And as she dropped me home, I wondered what she would make of theartofdistraction.

It didn't take long for me to find out.

The next day, she called me on my mobile and told me she thought my blog was probably the primary reason why I hadn't "moved on", as she put it. She was greatly concerned that I was about to embark on another toxic regurgitation of people, places and experiences that were, collectively, hardly worth the time.

"What did you learn from these revolting experiences?" she challenged.

"To never consider anything like them again", I replied.

"You said it yourself last night," she snapped ... "Gay is so fucking OVER that it's hardly even worth mentioning! And as I've said time and time again Geoffrey, you're too fucking NICE all the time and yet you're obsessed with making some kind of meaningful contribution to some fucking imaginary Gay Community that simply don't deserve it darling!"

I was speechless.

"Did you do the Sydney Film Festival last year? I thought it was 2006!?" she wondered.

"It ... yes, it was 2006," I confirmed.

"SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WASTING YOUR TIME WRITING ABOUT SOME FUCKING NIGHTMARE FROM ALMOST THREE YEARS AGO!?" she bawled into the phone. "Get over it darling! MOVE ON!"

***

Great advice ... possibly one of the most sensible things anyone has said to me in the past twelve months.

Liberating. Forgiving. Wiser. Determined. Looking toward tomorrow.

In the Pink: Part 1

It all started harmlessly enough, as life-changing experiences often do. Ambushed, wooed, flattered and ultimately seduced with promises of great wealth and opportunity, creative autonomy, a supportive team and life-long friendship, associations and success. Who could resist? And who would ever have guessed that a little over eighteen months later, I would be standing, homeless and stranded on the wrong side of Sydney Harbour with my life in tatters?

Bear with me. Withhold your judgment. Resist the temptation to know where this was all going to end ... if only because we do.

***

Making things happen

My single greatest blessing and my single greatest curse is simple: I make things happen. From the days of my childhood when I used to mount entire puppet productions of the great musicals in the loungeroom of our family home, I have always made things. Happen. People who, in my presence, have dared wonder how an idea or a vision might be brought to life have usually either ended up running from it as it materialises right before their eyes, or (on the rarest of occasions) embracing it.

Burnt almost beyond recognition by the penury associated with being an independent theatre maker, and desperately needing a handsome and reliable income to pay off the accrued debts of my creative fancies, I established a small communications company ... a desktop publishing company, actually. It was actually always just clever me with an Apple Macintosh and a couple of clients who needed my skills. Nothing grand ... business cards, letterheads ... the occasional brochure here ... flyers, posters ... you know. Junk mail. Clever, neat, pretty and fancy, maybe, but junk mail nonetheless.

Over the years—ten of them in fact—I actually became quite good at junk mail. My designer's eye developed and my instinct for balance and a visual imperative translated almost effortlessly into graphic and typographic design. Slowly, my little business grew and a steady (if not always reliable) income ensued. Sure, it had its ups and downs ... but mostly, I could pay my bills and live the kind of life where I could do pretty much what I pleased. When I pleased. And it pleased me, often.

My move to Sydney in 1999 was an impulsive, spontaneous and entirely irresponsible leap of faith. I had grown tired and bored in Melbourne and the pre-2000 Sydney Olympic Games was abuzz with all sorts of mysterious possibilities (none of which, I should add at this point, ever materialised ... for anybody). Perched in Utopia on the rooftop of a daggy old apartment block in Potts Point, I fell in love with Sydney and her dazzling physical environment. The sky. The lights. The water. The constant activity. The new sights, sounds and smells. The impulsive recklessness and the determination. And the greed. My little business bubbled along ... and courtesy of Marcus O'Donnell, who I had known from the tiny and insular world of gay publishing in Melbourne, I started a regular job as Production Coordinator at Sydney's leading weekly gay and lesbian newspaper – The Sydney Star Observer.

This contract was the beginning of many, many wonderful Sydney stories. Guy, who was the designer and person who put The Sydney Star Observer together, would become a great, inspirational friend ... and a significant aspect of my salvation from the rigors of penury and homelessness would, months later, be in no small way directly attributed to his care and generosity.

It was also at The Star that I would befriend a young advertising salesman who would, in the months that followed, become my dear friend. And I would become his mentor. We would sail the harbour on his boat and I would bask in the glow of his companionship, friendship and irascible nature. Months later, he would become one of many who have mistaken my generosity and capacity for friendship for a seemingly never-ending supply of energy to be relentlessly drained. Exhausted. Our friendship capsized on an immutable point of contention: that I was in love with him and he was not in love with me. Whatever it was, I had actually became fatigued by his constant need, hunger and demand for every ounce of energy I had. On one memorable occasion, even his sister saw fit to warn me that I was being used up.

One night, as I was on my way to the boat with takeway dinner for the two of us, he called my mobile and suggested that it might not be a good time for me to come over—even though I was responding to his call for my company (and takeaway food delivery services). He had someone coming over who he would, er, prefer to spend time with. And at that moment, I burnt him off ... like a leech. I never saw or spoke to him again ... and even now, his attempts to re-establish contact with me are met with a perfunctory and entirely necessary resentful silence.

homo

One of the greatest achievements of my life was the little magazine I published in Sydney called homo. The concept and the look of homo had come to me while I was wandering dazed, confused and dehydrated around the base of Uluru for the second time that day. He had leapt into my mind with such fierce and determined visual clarity that he was impossible to ignore.

Upon my return to Sydney, I immediately made him happen ... and after eleven issues (one every month), homo and my business collapsed under massive debts and my complete inability to continue to service the vision in real and meaningful ways. homo was to have been my future. In his short life, he had made an enormous impact. I had been celebrated as 'Homo Man' at ritzy Elizabeth Bay rooftop parties ... and he had gathered a tiny but loyal band of subscribers. But yet again, the grand theme of my life so far, continued to play out: that with two exceptions, no-one knew how to help me. They knew what they needed from me, and rarely hesitated to ask. But when I was capable of struggling to find the words and to ask for help ... or power with suggestion ... or even on one occasion, plead for support, nothing was forthcoming. And everything that might have been done by others to help me was conditional. Or absent. And homo vanished ... and with him, went my pride, my sense of achievement ... and my perception of a future.

It was a spectacular failure that even those closest to me have no concept whatsoever of the extent to which I was (and remain) incredibly damaged by it.

I've never understood conditions ... but I am beginning to like the idea of further exploring the concept. At least.

Selfishness: The context

Definitions of selfishness:
1. stinginess resulting from a concern for your own welfare and a disregard of others;
2. Selfishness is, at base, the concept and/or practice of concern with one's own interests in some sort of priority to the interests of others; it is often used to refer to a self-interest that comes in a particular form, or above a certain level; and
3. … is devotion to or concern with one’s own advantage or welfare to the exclusion of regard for others. Science and religion both teach selfishness: That the first rule of life is self preservation, which results in "me first" and the creed of materialism.

Quotes about selfishness:
1. He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies. — Tertullian
2. Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race. — William E. Gladstone
3. That man who lives for self alone, lives for the meanest mortal known. — Joaquin Miller

It's difficult to remember when the concept of selfishness first entered my orbit ... but it is not difficult to remember the many occasions when it had an incredibly destructive impact on my life. I am also not entirely sure what and when has triggered another's selfishness ... and how, in whatever way, I have been responsible for their action—their flagrant disregard for my feelings.

I have written about the selfishness of a past partner/lover/boyfriend. His constant, reckless and selfish pursuit of sexual intimacy with, well, anyone else—in much the same way as most fags I have known ... the sad, lonely, cock-obsessed tragics who think that finding themselves perched on the end of a stranger's cock in some way makes them far more worthwhile to society than they truly are. Or to themselves. Or to those who really care about them. The great misappropriation of esteem and value, suddenly and brutally equated to the length and breadth of a stranger's dick. Is this what the value of sexuality is? Does the sexual act—or perhaps sexual greed and need—trigger innate selfishness?

Or to be less (or perhaps more) specific: does the lack of emotional honesty in our lives gradually (or suddenly) instill in us faith in a belief that all else of real value and worth suddenly becomes expendable?

Does the crippling betrayal of one's unconditional trust and belief in the wholesome good and potential of a shared experience destroy our ability to be selfish? Are we so damaged by the experience that we move on and away ... silent, forever, about our needs in case someone destroys us again because we dare to allow ourselves to be open, accepting and vulnerable to them? Pathologically both naked and selfless for fear of being hurt to that extent ever again?

Is that the trigger? Is this the point at where one might feel incredibly alive and worthwhile ... even at the expense of another's needs, value and meaning in their life? And then, like some grotesque masquerade, buoyed with the ballast of this vain and fleeting conceit, they sail on—blissfully unaware that their worth is actually afloat on the decimation of another's.

Is this what 'learning selfishness' is?

In what circumstance and at what point do we decide that our needs have more priority to the needs of others? In my case, the quandaries and conflicts in my life have arisen because of the very opposite of selfishness ... selflessness: "having, exhibiting, or motivated by no concern for oneself; unselfish." (www.thefreedictionary.com). I don't want this to read as though I have a Jesus Complex, but somewhere along the line, my priorities have become incredibly skewed … I've bundled myself off in a corner somewhere ... to watch the paint dry.

Are we taught to be selfish? Do we learn to be selfless? Is there a point in our journey through life where we finally realise that, apart from only the good dying young, that those who pursue their goals and aspirations with dogged, selfish self-determination are the ones that get 'there'? I will be able to discount this possibility entirely in a future post ... but it doesn't change the overall challenge to the context of these qualities in the way we present to the world. Or ourselves, in the quiet, fearful hours of lonely contemplation.

Selfishness and selflessness are equally powerful and destructive forces. Selfishness, by its very definition, can't exist in isolation ... one needs the other. So is the act of one's selfishness made more potent by the extent to which it is matched by another's selflessness? Have I, in some way, added fuel to the fire by matching people's incredible selfishness with my own peculiar selflessness? Is it, perhaps, that one's selfishness is dramatically inflamed, and possibly even dragged into existence, by another's selflessness?

So what then happens when two equally selfish people meet? An explosion of need? And what happens when two equally selfless people meet? An implosion of equal velocity? A great spontaneous nothingness?

Or is selflessness simply Fear underwritten by Weakness? If I look at any number of the unhappy circumstances present in my life at the moment, I could take a completely different approach to each of them. I could say what I really think about how I really feel ... or I could do as I do—which is respect the other person's situation … a complicit and unholy alliance between a person who might have known better and a person who does, but is too afraid of confrontation that they silence the solution. Well, one of the solutions anyway.

Creating Theatre trained me to be selfless. My scripts would arrive in the rehearsal room, and from that point onwards, you value the contribution made by everyone who comes in contact with it, before handing the (un)true realisation of it over to the ensemble and releasing it to the many relationships it is to go on and experience: the actors, the technicians, the audience ...

Creating Theatre, in a way, drills the capacity for honest reaction out of you. It creates the circumstances and the environment in which your once perfect vision exists in hybrid form … possessed by others ... spoken, felt, watched, and listened to by people often not of your choosing. And yet as the creator you are silent. Immune.

It is a precious and rare exchange, and one that does not necessarily belong in the domain of business ... or even life generally. That, I think, demands the very personification of the Law of the Jungle:

Can I fuck it? Will it fuck me?
Can I kill it? Will it kill me?
Can I eat it? Will it eat me?

And when the Australian actress Leah Purcell warned me that I "had bad magic happening on that stage" only hours before my Opening Night of the Sydney Film Festival, I should have handled my response differently. Very differently. But that is another story ... and one it is time we shared.

The Candidates: Part 1

Sometimes, in fact many times, I have been known to seek revenge. The desperate need for vindication and the unmistakable feeling that, yet again, someone has misinterpreted my genuine gifts of skill, support, caring and goodwill as weakness ... things to be fingered—sharply and abruptly. Abused.

There's a theme peddling furiously along the bicycle path that is my journey through life at the moment ... and it's called Self Interest. Selfishness. "Me! Me! Me! Me at all costs! ... including yours." The "Fuck your needs! What about ME!" Broadway-esque showtune in G Major, performed with almost monotonous regularity by people I always imagined might have known better.

At the many and various times my feet have slipped off the pedals, I have always slowly regained my balance ... accompanied by that familiar voice in my head, howling me down for being "so fucking nice and understanding and helpful and generous ALL THE TIME": reminding me cursorily that people really only ever really care about themselves ... that when push comes to shove, black to white, Labor to Liberal, gay to straight, and broke to flush ... people will put their needs first. Always.

So why haven't (and can't) I?

It's a complex equation. It's symptomatic of being a nice, well-meaning, genuine, caring kind of a guy. I was brought up to be. There was always plenty of everything in our home ... and apart from the occasional religion-inspired fracas, the ebb and flow of daily life throughout my childhood was practically effortless. Simple. And fair. Incredibly fair.

The further you depart from valuing and holding to fairness and equality in your life, the greater the perils you face. As systematically, people placed their own needs somewhere much higher on the hierarchy of needs than mine (or the needs of those I represented) I began to realise that there was a fatal flaw in my persona. I became, almost by default, persona non-grata. I blindingly assumed that it would all work out in the end ... that they would see the error of their ways and embrace my contribution and meaning with respect and appreciation. That they would stop using my seemingly never-ending supply of capability. My skills. My Goodwill. My Support. My Cash. And My Creativity.

The mind fuck has always been in the wash-up. On a number of occasions over recent years, the actuality of an experience has been devastated as a direct result of the actions of almost impossibly selfish and self-interested people. Their power over me has always been what they offer(ed): knowledge, experience, adventure, achievement, excitement, a contribution to our society and our culture, validation ... and the payment of a modest invoice at the end of it all. Or not.

Over the past two years I have walked away from a number of experiences completely fucked over. Ruthlessly and rigorously bruised. Insulted. Offended. And almost broke. There has been the kindness of near-perfect strangers who have helped me up and set me right. They, too, will get theirs.

Am I bitter? Quite possibly ... I will let you be the judge. But in the meantime ... there's a couple of stories I would like to share with you.

The power of ...

One. After. Another.

They are the minute breathes of personified or objectified real creative thought ... the pulses and impulses littering the soundscape. They are pollution, clarity, obscurity and mystery – as much as they are confounding, confronting, instructionist and obligatory. They are history, present and future. They are gifts and they are returns. They are the wrong size and the wrong colour. They are inappropriate, hateful, racist, sexist and politically opportunistic.

They are doors or windows slamming shut and shattering glass. And silence. Or both.

They are wind, rain, fire and dancing. They are laughter and tears, resolve and dispute, common and uncommon ... they are the sun, the moon, the planets and they are the way we know how to get there – and what it looks like and feels like when we do.

They are coming home. And leaving again.

They are a look. A sound. A scent.

They are fear, apprehension, joy and derision.

They are life and they are death.

They are what it looks like and feels like.

They are what it tastes like. What it's made of. What colour it is ... how long it takes ... where it happens, why it happens, how it happens, who knows it's happening, happened, about to happen.

They are where they are and with whom. They are why. When. How.

They are what if, what was, what might be, what could be, should be and they are what can never be.

Maybe. Maybe not.

They are characterful and characterless. They are charming and abusive, seductive and repulsive. They find themselves aligned in long-winded paragraphs of exposition and they also find themselves ejaculated into being within short sharp rounds of gun fire or argument. They argue and forgive. They expect and they resist creating expectations. They are barren and furtile. They hate and they love, cloud and clear, close and near, rain, sleet, snow and desert.

They eat and regurgitate, skate, ski and turn keys – opening locked doors, chests, firing engines of cars, motorbikes and triggering deadlocks. And guns.

They are safe and unsafe. They arouse and ignore, they save and they fail. They shoot to kill and they run for their lives. They explore and explode. They walk, ride and ramble.

They fly ... and they hurtle toward the ground. Crashing and burning. They start fires and cheat death by seconds. Or not.

They burn buildings, capsize ocean liners and pluck rotten fruit from the desiccated earth. They exercise and exorcise. They have faith, a little or none. They believe in everything, something or nothing.

They are more than the sounds that come out of Actors' mouths. They are everything we see, hear, feel, experience, understand, misunderstand, loathe, love, admire and detest about the world of sound and vision on screen. Any screen. Any poster. Any trailer. Anywhere.

I, for one, won't miss The Golden Globe Awards this year. The worth of one is the value of many.

DVD Review: United 93

My introduction to United Airlines Flight 93 was in the early hours of September 12, 2001. Not owning a television, I was following the unfurling, hypnotic spectacle on the internet. ('September 11' would later be acknowledged as being the first major international event to have been communicated to the world in real time via the 'net.) I was plugged in to a large number of websites - one of which belonged to United Airlines. At some point during the fiasco, having refreshed their site in my browser, there was a stark, simple message on the company's homepage: "United Airlines regret to announce that we appear to have lost another aircraft." (United Airlines Flight 175, the second plane hijacked, had already been flown into the World Trade Center's South Tower.)

My introduction to the Paul Greengrass film - United 93 - was as a result of the, then, Sydney Film Festival Artistic Director Lynden Barber's decision to include it in his program for the 2006 festival. I was the Events Manager for Barber's final festival (an hypnotic and terrifying ordeal in its own right) and I had taken the opportunity to sneak in and watch this film. About 15 minutes into it, my mobile phone, silently, announced that I was needed somewhere. We had a huge number of Festival Sponsor post-screening functions immediately following the film - and there was the entirely necessary corporate sponsorship banner positioning to be attended to. Almost gratefully, I slid from the theatre. I had missed the beginning and I was going to miss the end ... and until the other night when I saw the film for the first time, I didn't realise just how grateful I should have been.

The post-United 93 screening functions were, as you might imagine, dire affairs. Ghostly white and subdued, corporate Sydney wandered dazed and undone into their little roped-off exclusion zones - truly stunned by what they had witnessed. I had imagined they would be, and had arranged for the lights to be dimmed in the holding pens I had any control over and encouraged the event staff who bothered to listen to be mindful of what our cheque-signers had just witnessed. I adored Lynden Barber's festival ... and especially his inclusion of this film. The State Theatre, where it screened, had just had a new 'rock concert' sound rig installed ... and United 93's momentous and almost impossibly layered soundtrack (Martin Cantwell's Sound Editing and John Powell's Original Score) gave it a paint-and-wall-paper stripping run for its money.

****

One of Greengrass's masterstrokes is the casting. John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) once said that "casting is 65 percent of directing", and in the case of United 93 I would, possibly rather magnaminously suggest, that the casting is almost 90 percent of the work's cinematic torque. The flight crew (pilots and cabin attendants) are all played by real crew - some of whom work for United Airlines. On the ground, the Civilian and US Military Air Traffic Controllers are played by real air traffic controllers – and in some cases, the people who were actually working on the morning of September 11. The passengers are played by relative unknowns, and it is this choice that ensures the film demands an immediate and instinctive respect. There is, not at any time, any "Acting" going on. Yes, there is knowledge and technique … there is commitment and passion … but ultimately, it is the anonymity of these actors that powers their presence in this work in precious and commanding ways. Many Directors and Casting Directors choose this casting path to walk – but very few have succeeded in matching the power of the unreservedly adventurous and uncluttered energy with the material that Greengrass manages to inspire in this work and from his brilliant cast.

The editing by Clare Douglas, Richard Pearson and Christopher Rouse is astonishing and entirely worthy of their Oscar™ nomination … even though they lost - inexplicably - to Thelma Schoonmaker's work on Martin Scorsese's chronically over-rated, sentimental favourite The Departed. Greengrass, too, was nominated for the Oscar™ for Best Achievement in Directing, capitulating too, to Mr Scorsese.

I have always been greedy for detail - and Barry Ackroyd's Cinematography re-defines the possibilities of the hand-held camera and strikes the perfect aviation-clinical look throughout the 'inflight' interiors. His colours and tones are bone-bearingly real, and his and Greengrass's camera becomes almost lascivious as it prowls the darkest and most unlikely corners of the entire, unravelling horror. From the chaos on the ground to the habitual inflight prattle, Greengrass is everywhere. He pins each and every minute detail of his formidable narrative to your every breath ... choking you with his drive, intention and pace. His virtuoso camera angles are a lesson in themselves and the camera's battle for stability and equilibrium in the post-hijack cabin of United Airlines Flight 93 is unrelentingly painful. That there is even the slightest semblance of hope for a different denoument is the mark of a truly great storyteller ... and a water-tight and skillful ensemble and crew.

From its simple, eerily familiar and almost routine beginning to the blistering mid-point where the tension can no longer be contained, United 93 is a masterful cinematic ante-mortem examination … and even though forensic investigators have contradicted the popular myth that the passengers managed to make it into the cockpit, the final few minutes of United 93 will connect so brutally with your heart that it may be almost impossible for you to stand it.

It was only through the wide-eyed wonder at what real and raw courage and determination looks like, that I could.

****

Donate to, and view, the Honour Flight 93 National Memorial and buy the DVD.

Image courtesy United 93.

Careful, it might not be about you

I had a telephone call from a very concerned friend tonight ... someone who thought I was being more than a little indiscreet writing about their relationship. The funny thing, from my point of view in any case, was that they had not even entered my mind when I was writing about the kinds of dysfunctional relationships others have in their lives.

It reminded me of a friend who asked me out to lunch when the relationship I was referring to with, let's call him W, was in its death-throes. I said I would see what W was doing (as one of a couple almost annoyingly does when you invite them to do something), and she said that the invitation to lunch was not actually being extended to him ... but to me and only me. My friend was not interested in having lunch with my boyfriend and I. He, I assumed, was to be the topic of conversation.

And I was right. My friend, let's call her B, had decided to cross the invisible line in the sand we all negotiate in our relationships with our friends. What right do we have to express an opinion about how healthy or otherwise we believe our loved ones' relationships to be? How can we be sure we know what we're talking about? After all, the only two people who 'live' a relationship are the ones who spend the majority of time together in it. Aren't they?

So what are we do with the uneasy feelings and observations we have about the lives of others who are dear to us? B decided it was time to tell me how uneasy she felt about my relationship. She felt that it was changing me in a negative way and that I had become unhealthily obsessed with keeping the relationship going, even though it was apparently obvious to everyone but me that it was doomed. The lunch was awkward and I remember defending my relationship, not only to her but to myself as well. The lunch achieved several things - one of which was for me to return to our home and reinvest ... in some kind of wonderfully noble attempt to prove her wrong. She wasn't 'wrong', of course. She was actually articulating something that I feared myself ... and for that reason, it changed our friendship forever.

****

Some years later I took the same risk with a very, very dear friend. I had information about her partner that made me feel incredibly uneasy. Our 'dinner' turned into her terrible, tearful flight from me. Years later, the honesty of my perception of the flaw in her relationship and the increased toll the dilemma was to take on her life were both acknowledged. It certainly didn't make me feel any better about having been the harbinger of doom ... but it did make me realise that we occasionally rely on our friends to tell us when we're dancing with the potential for great sadness and disillusionment. We also risk a significantly more sinister betrayal: that moment when a friend asks "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" or "Why didn't anyone warn me?" ... or "say something".

One of my friends who had actually fucked my boyfriend (with his partner ... yes, two of them at the same time) took it upon himself to confess their indiscretion to me. I was, strangely, extremely grateful for his honesty. I remember the wall building itself around my heart as he spoke.

Trust is loaded. Perhaps I don't trust easily. Perhaps I don't trust at all. Not even myself.

But that is another story.

Evolutionarily speaking

How do we evolve? Not as a species ... but as individuals? ... and how do we measure the extent to which we have evolved? If, in fact, we have. Or ever do. The habits of our lives are fascinating paradigms - within and without which, we know and sometimes observe ourselves. Living. Or not living. Existing. Or subsisting.

I am preparing myself for a major change in the habit of my life. My collision with the concept of mortality was extremely interesting. Punishing, in fact. I bought myself a little spiral notepad to write down all the aspects of my life that I want to examine in more detail ... and possibly change. Or not. The important thing is that I am going to rigorously interrogate every aspect of my life and its value (or lack of value) to me.

The first topic, interestingly enough, is the lack of a relationship in my life. Love. Skin-tingling intimacy ... and a perpetual state of arousal. Days in bed fucking. Kissing. Touching. Wanting for nothing ... except maybe the possibility to disappear further into each other than is biologically possible.

I started with this topic because it is the one by which most people judge me most harshly. Apparently, because I am a single man, I am "lonely" ... "sad and lonely" ... "bitter" ... "fat, sad, lonely and bitter" ... "lacking in self-esteem" ... chronically. But other people's judgment of me is almost entirely lame conceit in the face of the extent to which I am capable of judging myself. And have been, mercilessly, for a number of years.

Now it is time to change a few things.

*****

I had a boyfriend once. He lived in Elsternwick and I lived in Balaclava. We met at a gay men's sauna. We fucked all night. And exchanged telephone numbers. I remember the beginning of this relationship as though it were yesterday. He, or I, would call ... and then we would both leave our homes at the same time and meet on Hotham Street. We would practically race the final few hundred metres of this hallowed turf towards each other. When I could be sure it was him walking toward me, my heart would skip a beat. A smile so wide and so wondrous would form of its own free will on my lips. In the distance, his body would change shape. As would mine. He would start running ... so would I. My visions of our embrace, our intimacy and our sex would force tempo changes in my pace and direction like nothing else ever could. Or ever has. I would find myself opening my arms to him ... collecting him, embracing him ... sweeping him and all his wonderful huggable, kissable, edible and almost impossibly desirable energy into my arms. We would overflow with joy ... and at the time, I was strong enough to experience it. Trust it ... and believe in the honesty and fairness of it. We exchanged the energy of love and we were both much stronger for it. This feeling, more than anything, is the one I miss more than any other.

Of course we moved in together. Of course it was lovely ... as you would expect having as much of everything good about someone and something is lovely. Right? Complete. Yes?

Over the years we share a beautiful apartment on Brighton Road, go on holidays together and bury his older brother. We would also acknowledge the anniversary of the death of his younger brother who had died before I had come onto the scene. He would mourn and I would hold him. He would lash out at the empty space around him and I would manage to fill some of it ... when appropriate, and nurse him into a sobbing almost-stillness. And eventually peace and silence ... where the mutual lack of understanding about the depth and extent of his pain and my share of it succumbed to something of another world - altogether.

*****

I have always believed that relationships end the way they begin ... in fact, I guarantee it. The one thing I have observed about the end of relationships is that where they begin (in my case, a gay men's sauna) is where they will end. And one thing is certain ... they will end. I lost my boyfriend in the mist ... somewhere near, I have always imagined, where I had found him. One night, some weeks after our hideously acrimonious separation, he fronted up to a local pub where my friends and I were drinking and dancing. He professed undying love and remorse for his actions (fucking any of our mutual friends had been the final rule I had dared to make ... which he had, of course, broken). He was forcefully escorted out of the bar and on to the street (by a couple of my friends and the security staff) and warned to stay away from me. He did. And always has - ever since.

*****

Coming back to Melbourne has, in the way similar to that of a sudden breeze flipping the pages of your newspaper over as you read it, ensured that certain chapters of my development ... my evolution ... have been held up for cheery reminiscence. I have scooted past our old apartment building on a couple of occasions in taxis, cars and on trams. I, like I am sure most of us do, select the happy memories to consider first. Our balcony garden and our huge, real Christmas Tree. Our holidays to Broken Hill, Rutherglen and Millawa. The Alpaca Farm.

But ultimately it is the pain of betrayal and loss which slowly rises to the surface ... and it is my conscious and worthwhile choice to never offer so much of my self, my time, my energy, support and love to any one ever again. Except possibly myself. I know people who are bound in loveless knots masquerading as relationships. I see compromised potential and sense discomfort that makes my heart sad and my head spin with boredom generated by the relentless saga of their sadness and frustration. I see rules being made and broken ... and I see expectations fallen short of - well short of. I hear tension and sadness in their voices and their life rhythms are corrupted by futile attempts to accept what others of us refuse to even acknowledge - the consolation prize. I watch dark clouds, not of their making or intention, hover over too much laughter and delight. I watch them defending themselves from their fears of lonliness by barricading themselves behind a wall of toilet-paper feebleness - built of false hopes and unrealistic expectations. Lies, fantasies and delusions.

Aloneness ... and the incomparable joy of individual freedom is the thing I value more than anything in the world. I always have. And I always will. I have known love ... and it was life-changing. So is compromise, but for entirely different reasons. I, for one, would prefer to live without one than to have to suffer the other.

There is, after all, a world of difference between being lonely and being alone.

Image The evolution of man

Madness

David Walliams plays a character in the television series Little Britain who walks through scenes making 'boock boock' noises ... clucking noises ... like a chicken. 'She' is one of the least sentimental characters in what is most certainly one of the bleakest of scenarios in the show ... and I have always been curious about the likely motivations for her inclusion - but no more so than this afternoon, when, on my way to the office with my takeaway coffee, a woman was walking along behind me making identical sounds. I glanced over my shoulder to see whether someone was taking the piss, as it were ... but no. Here, on Chapel Street (the very epicentre of Melbourne's Fashionista set and an almost impossibly ironic choice of location), was a woman as mad as the day is long, clucking away while strolling along the footpath.

Our little gaggle of pedestrians arrived at a set a traffic lights and a Little Red Walking Man. Others, perhaps as bemused and bewildered as I, moved out of her way. Some struck a pose of airhead aloofness ... others giggled. I looked on with a sanctimonious, self-rightedness pity. As the Little Red Walking Man was replaced by a Little Green Walking Man, we all stood completely still. Mad Woman glanced briefly from the middle-distance surrounding her to the ground and said "I hate going first". As I stepped from the footpath onto the road, Mad Woman followed and began to cluck away again.

My thought, as I wandered down a side-street toward my office was: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

****

Madness has always fascinated me. A large number of characters in plays I have written could quite easily, if not a little too lazily, be described as 'Mad'. I wrote a play many years ago called Memories, Melodies and Madness which enjoyed a world premiere in London (and great reviews!) and a season in Melbourne.

In the play, four dead women relive the final night of their lives and, guided and encouraged by a Virgil character, are given the opportunity to take responsibility for each of their roles in their shared tragedy and cross over to the Afterlife. One of the characters succeeds. The others do not ... and for them, their fate is to continue to re-live the final night until they are at peace with their responsibility for what occurred. As the character who was finally at peace began to cross-over into her new life, the play began again - playing identically to the way the performance had started. It was my interpretation of the Catholic 'Purgatory' ... the Christians' 'Hell'.

In London, it received rave reviews and played to packed houses. In Melbourne, at the height of an unseasonal Melbourne heatwave (such is my fucking luck!) we had to cancel several performances due to the fact that the old theatre we were performing in had no air-conditioning which resulted in a temperature in the back few rows of raked seating of close to 40°C.

At the conclusion of one performance, as the play 'began again', a woman in the audience suddenly realised what was happening. She let loose with an audible gasp of recognition and an almost painful whimper of realisation ... as the lights snapped to black. She sat in her seat in the theatre for almost half an hour after the performance had ended ... staring at the stage. The rest of the audience had long since left and she remained - at one with the work and her experience of it.

I have been incredibly fortunate to experience a number of moments like this throughout the many years I spent making theatre. There was the young man who, upon seeing my play The World ... According to Timothy Cross promptly returned to another performance with his Mum, having gone home and 'come out' to her. He brought his Mum to see my play because he believed that the experience of it would be something that would inform her understanding of who her son was ... and what he was going through.

****

At some point in the not too distant past, something else came to mean something more to me than the collection of these experiences I was proudly gathering to keep my heart and soul fed and at peace.

I wish I knew what it was.

R.I.P 10BA and 10B

The 2007-08 Federal Budget has delivered many things for many people. Tax cuts, additional superannuation contributions, an increase in child care assistance packages, one-off payments of this and that to the elderly ... and on it went. About half way through Peter Costello's speech, I had the distinct impression that I was being force-fed Prosperity. I was having it shoved down my throat ... and I found myself gagging on the veritable length and breadth of the package. Of bribes. Of course, whether my fellow Australians are as gullible as all that remains to be seen. I didn't, however, feel entirely compelled to swallow Mr Costello's load. What was missing for me was a reference to 'Culture' (other than the culture of war and defence) or 'The Arts' (other than the art of shovelling dollars down our throats). But the devil, as they say, is in the detail ... and it was a disastrous night for Australian Arts and Culture (unless you happen to think that the Australian Ballet School's Southbank HQ deserves renovation).

Hardly! I used to work for The Australian Ballet, and every time I have been to see them in action since, especially at the Sydney Opera House during the last seven years, I've had to leave. Had too ... as in, no other choice but to. As a company, they are at the lowest ebb of their creative ebb and flow. In Mr Costello's budget, however: "The Government will provide $4.6 million in 2007-08 to the Australian Ballet School, including $2.9 million to address occupational health and safety issues in its current facility, and $1.7 million to undertake a detailed business plan and functional design for possible construction of expanded facilities." Yes, you read that correctly: " ... $1.7 million ... for [a] possible construction of expanded facilities." "Possible"? I'm going to send him an email. I'm going to suggest that for "$1.7 million, I'll write them a "detailed business plan" and get some fucking nancy twit to sketch up a "functional design" AND construct the fucking thing! Jesus! They're fucking baby ballet dancers for fuck's sake! It's a barre, a mirror and a sprung floor!

Subtextual pointe ... sorry, point 1: Reward hapless mediocrity.

But it is the Business of Film Investment (everyone knows there is no such thing as a Film "Industry" in Australia) that received a nasty jolt last night. Perhaps it's a good thing ... but it's impossible at this early stage of analysis to be even remotely optimistic about how the Federal Government have changed the rules of engagement for film investment in this country.

So what is, sorry, was the '10BA'? The 10BA was a piece of paper ... a form. With '10BA' in the top right hand corner. I've filled a couple out ... I know what they look like. What it represented was a 100% tax concession in investment in film for the financial year after the one in which the investment took place. For example, in the financial year 2005-06, someone invests $100,000 in a film. At the end of the following financial year, in this case 2006-07, they would be able to claim a concession of the $100,000 they had invested in the film. Let's be clear about this ... 100% - whether you got a return on your investment or not. Which would never eventuate in most cases - and not be expected to. Hence, the tax concession.

Of course there were conditions. In order to qualify for the mighty 10BA incentive, every single aspect of the film had to be undertaken in Australia. You couldn't think about your film while farting in LA without compromising your film's eligibility. Baz Luhrmann's Bazmark Films' Moulin Rouge investors were involved with a rather ignominious association with the 10BA when it was revealed that Luhrmann had actually completed some post-production offshore (in either Spain or LA I think). And lo and behold, come the end of the following financial year, the Moulin Rouge investors were denied their 10BA eligibility. The Sydney media went mad, with The Daily Telegraph (ironically, or not, published by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation who also own Twentieth Century Fox - the film's distributor) ran with a big, black, bold headline: "Moulin Scrooge!" What was peculiar about this particular tabloid outrage was that The Daily Telegraph was (and is) not renowned for it's concern for the business of Arts and Culture. This particular fuck-up was, however, impossible to let pass unnoticed. To the best of my knowledge, I believe it even ended up on page 1!

There have been rumours for years that the Howard-led Federal Government have wanted to bury the 10BA. There may, in fact, be wise and beneficial reasons for doing so. But I seriously doubt it. Why? Because of this statement in the Budget Papers, clearly stating that the "phasing out" of the "current investor tax incentives available through Division 10BA and Division 10B of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 ... will increase estimated taxation revenue by $55.0 million over three years from 2008-09."

So there you have it in black and white: investments in Australian films under the 10BA and 10B are estimated to have a nett worth of $55.0 million dollars over three years.

Also to go is The Film Licensed Investment Company (FLIC) scheme, which according to the Budget Papers: "... will not be renewed beyond its current expiry date of 30 June 2007." The FLIC scheme was a radical plan to test new methods for the Federal Government and the "Australian film and television industry" to work collaboratively to raise investment for local film production. A single licence was awarded to Mullis Capital Film Licensed Investment Company who were apparently " ... able to raise up to $10 million in each of the years 2005–06 and 2006–07." Under the FLIC scheme, the 100% tax concession was payable up-front, instead of having to wait until the end of the following financial year (as investors would need to under the 10BA system). At this point, I have not seen any evidence of the success (or failure) of the FLIC scheme ... but it would be reasonably safe to assume that it has not worked.

So what is replacing the 10BA, the 10B and the FLIC scheme?

This, from the Budget Papers: " ... a new producer tax rebate, by which Australian producers will be eligible for a 40 per cent refundable rebate on feature films and a 20 per cent refundable rebate on other media productions, including television series, documentaries, and mini-series. To be eligible for the rebate, productions will be required to meet criteria, including creative control by Australians, and minimum qualifying expenditure thresholds depending on the type of production."

And this: "The producer tax rebate will also include a component for international producers, incorporating the previous refundable film tax offset (RFTO). This will provide a 15.0 per cent rebate for eligible expenditure, compared to the RFTO’s current 12.5 per cent. Eligibility for international producers will be extended beyond the criteria for the RFTO to include post, digital and visual effects production in Australia, where the film itself is not made in Australia and qualifying expenditure exceeds $5.0 million."

And this: "The Australian Film Commission (AFC), Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) and Film Australia Limited (FAL) will be merged into a new, single agency – the Australian Screen Authority (ASA), scheduled to commence operations from 1 July 2008." Jesus! Can you imagine what kind of a hideous, protectionist, mutant bureaucracy the ASA will be(come)?!

So 100% becomes 40%. And the Australian Ballet School might get a new roomful of new barres.

What was in The Budget for you?

Tusculum Street

Fate? Circumstance? Coincidence? Universal Guidance? Chance? Synchronicity? Are they all the same thing? Does it matter? Is it our Earthly responsibility to question? Ponder? Understand? Know? Regardless, the outcome of this particular not so insignificant Universally-guided (and determined) exchange in my Sydney story was to become the standard by which I set all of my expectations for what this magnificent city would teach my about myself.

I had undertaken a quick reconnaissance of rental property availability in the Potts Point area. In detail, it had involved a visit to the Raine & Horne office in Macleay Street, Potts Point. Having introduced myself, I explained that I was considering a move to Sydney from Melbourne and that I was interested in what various amounts of money could 'buy' in the Potts Point rental market. The very helpful Property Manager handed me a set of keys and a hand-written list of four apartment numbers. The building was 'Serena' - 5 Tusculum Street. Perfect location. Quiet street. Altogether ideal. The four different apartments, on three floors, each had a different price. It all depended on just how much of the Harbour you could "glimpse". The price range was $180 (no glimpse - of anything) to $280 (glimpse of, possibly, water through trees from a narrow bathroom window).

By Melbourne standards, this was, well, excessive. My top floor apartment in The Ritz Mansions building on Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, was a veritable palace by comparison. I had so much space in The Ritz that I often exhausted myself walking from my bedroom to the bathroom! Space in Sydney was, by all appearances, worth more than space in Melbourne ... or was it the other way around? Regardless, as I stood outside 'Serena' checking out the building's exterior, my eyes were drawn toward the sky. There, if I was not mistaken, were apartments on the roof! The views from these apartments would have been sensational, I imagined. And I marched back to my new friend at Raine & Horne to return the keys.

"The apartments on the roof," I said.

"There are four, two at the front and two at the back. The tenants in the two front ones have been there for about ten and fifteen years respectively," was my new friend's response.

"As you would imagine", I conceded ... realising that my best bet was to move into one of the other apartments in this building and wait, patiently, for my turn in either of the two west-facing roof-top apartments. I thanked my new friend for showing me what was available, and told her I would come back the moment I landed in Sydney to live. She was distracted with I wasn't to know what ... but she managed one of those classic "Yes, lovely ... piss off now" smiles I am sure they learn in Real Estate School.

****

In September I returned. Melbourne had been departed from with grace and alacrity ... the details of which I will write about another time. My gorgeous friends AK and DH collected me from Kingsford Smith Airport in their silver Saab, and I was to spend a few glorious weeks sleeping on their couch while I settled in to my new domain. The morning I flooded the bathroom, we all knew it was time for me to go. AK said as much.

I walked in to the Raine & Horne office as my friend was finishing a telephone conversation. As she hung up, she looked at me as though she had seen a ghost. 'Yes' I was the guy who had come in late last year and asked about 'Serena's' rooftop apartments ... and more completely astonishingly, 'yes', she had just hung up from the tenant of one of them who, after fifteen years, had just given notice. "So it's mine then!" I confirmed ... at which point she, still staring at me in a wildly perplexed manner, slid a rental application form onto the counter between us. I must have been a Warlock. It was obviously meant to be. Fortunately for me, she was just as convinced of this fact as I was.

Real Estate Agent negotiations have always been a piece of cake for me. It's where the Great White Pointer in me glides effortlessly and silently to the surface. I always know there are going to be any number of rental crises for us both to endure in the months ahead, and it's important that I employ the charm imperative to its full and maximum effect - right from the start. Charm is a greatly under-valued human characteristic. I have used it variously throughout the years to drop prices (and occasionally prized pairs of pants) - but never standards. It's the one thing about Charm, it doesn't require a compromising of standards, in quite the same way as downright deceit, collusion or dishonesty does. Charm is a gift - from one person (in this case me) to another (in this case someone who, in the not too distant future, would need to chose between being patient or evicting me without delay). Needless to say, I would eventually leave 'Serena' in circumstances of (something like) my own choosing.

My ally behind the counter is quite literally gob-smacked. We engage the pointless little Receptionist with details of how I had enquired last year about the possibility of one of the roof-top apartments, and that here I was, walking back in the door on the very day that one of them was being vacated. After fifteen years!

I filled out the application form as my new friend picked up the telephone.

"I'll just call the tenant back and tell her that you'd like to have a look ..."

"No," I said. "That won't be necessary."

I explained that if the tenant had lived in the apartment for fifteen years, then she would be very sad to be leaving it. (Just how sad I was to find out myself, a few years later!) I would prefer to respect her privacy and her timetable and would be happy to view the apartment once she had vacated. I flipped my cheque book onto the counter and wrote a cheque for $500.

"Hold this as a deposit ... and call me when she's moved out."

And I was smiled out the door. Never underestimate the value of a strategically-placed and enacted charm offensive. Ever.

****

Two weeks later, my girlfriend at Raine & Horne called. The tenant had vacated and if I wanted to pop around this afternoon, I would be taken and shown through the apartment. I dressed up (the concept of which escapes the vast majority of Sydney-siders in an almost compelling fashion) and walked from Surry Hills to Potts Point. My new friend's male colleague would take me to the apartment - and as we walked around the corner to 'Serena', I chatted idly about how excited I was to be living in Sydney. Security gate. Check. Security front door. Check. Tacky lift. Check. Fifth floor. Perfect. Key in the door. Door open.

I walked in to ...



... heaven. Without a word of a lie.

A third of the apartment was a partly covered rooftop terrace from where, on hundreds of nights, I and anyone who was with me, would watch the sun set behind the city skyline. New Year's Eve ... the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games ... more firework displays than I care to remember ... BBQs ... an unforgettable bonfire ... parties ... fuck, we lived this little space well!

There are many more wonderful photos of this apartment - but they are all prints. (MP, who would later take over the lease from me, has a wonderful collection here and here.) My photos don't belong here, because to be perfectly honest, I really don't want too many reminders of just how perfect this little apartment was. Or just how wonderfully well I lived it. It was to be my oasis. My Utopia. My Magic Balcony. My window on the world ... and the city which was my new home. In it, I would experience the most extraordinary times. The boldest, most sweeping, grand and enduring memories of arriving - and living - in Sydney in style. I miss it every day. Still. I was to exchange it for a different kind of magic and wonder on the banks of the Woronora River ... an experience that took me into the darkest corners of all my failings.

Where, one night, with one sentence, my housemate Michael would pierce me to the bone.

Sydney: The Beginning

It was always going to be Potts Point. I never really pretended to understand why. I still don't. I just knew. Maybe I was Mr Potts in another life? Or Mrs Potts? ... but that's all beside the point. I knew where I wanted to live, and even in spite of a brief and entirely unsatisfying half-hour fling with Waterloo, there was nowhere else in Sydney I was prepared to live.

I remember the moment I made the decision to come and live in Sydney vividly ... as though it were yesterday.

I was happily entrenched in a strangely alluring apartment-share with an ex-Sydney girl - MW* - in St Kilda. She decided to go to Sydney for a couple of weeks to catch up with old friends and re-imagine everything this city had meant to her. She left Melbourne and drove up in her red MX-5. As Sydney Girls do ... or rather, did. (Sydney-dwellers should try it sometime - counting them. I bet you won't see one. It's the Peugot 206CC now, in case you're even remotely interested.) One night, she called me. The collision with her past had been slightly more intense than she had been fully prepared for, and my sensible, sturdy, reliable and trustworthy presence was requested. She would fly me up, and we could drive back to Melbourne together. There were places to stay and people to meet. It was an offer I found impossible to refuse. Such is the continuing lead role of Fate in the drama series of my life.

I, and we, had a fucking ball! M was well-connected in this town. We couldn't walk down Oxford Street without bumping in to primed, buffed and gorgeous porn-star quality fags - to whom M was a long lost girlfriend ... sister. The kinship between certain faggots and certain women is a powerful, undeniable force of (un)nature. I will write about it more one day. M's girlfriends were all classic Sydney Girls: size 8 with a powerful (if not life and sanity threatening) determination to be size 6. They all spoke with record-threatening speed and haunted the domains of Kirribilli, Double Bay, Surry Hills and (by fag-default) Darlinghurst. They all had awesome jobs, fabulous cars, brilliant friends ... and a life-expectancy of 40 years. They loved me because M did. I was a well-connected, professional Melbourne fag. I was educated and sociable. I was also tall, dark and (apparently) handsome. That's the thing about Sydney: as long as you fit the grid and don't threaten the status-quo, you're welcomed with open arms - and occasionally legs. Have a contradictory opinion, a (different) world view, a belief in something other than instant gratification, a distinct lack of selfishness, or be able to differentiate (and dissect) Healthy Ego from Fragile Ego, and your days will be numbered. You'll become an Alexander Downer. People will find it difficult (and ultimately refuse) to acknowledge your existence. It's a situation faithful readers of this blog of mine will know I am intimately familiar with. It's like farting loudly in Church ... or a lift. There's really no point trying to redeem yourself.

In the (mid '90s) days since my heady $500 a week Speed addiction, I'd stacked on the weight. Then there was the horse-riding accident which 'crippled' me for six months (8 weeks in hospital) and finally put an end to my three-times-a-week workout routine. Needless to say, I would rapidly descend down the Sydney Fuck Chain once I was living here ... but for the time being, at least, I was Top of the Pops. I snorted cocaine through each nostril (like a true professional) and I could tell entertaining stories (especially while coked off my fuckin' head! I mean, who can't manage that?). I adored M ... and protected and defended her. I told her friends about our wonderful life together in "Melboring" ... convincing them that the city was, indeed, a consolation prize: where damaged souls who had paid the Sydney price of sacrifice, soul-less-ness, suspicion and loneliness came to heal. Or learn to love again. Or step out of the ring for a moment to consider what it is they were fighting for. Or against. Ultimately, it was ourselves ... but I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Whack that dinner plate in the microwave and rack up another line guys! After all, we ain't gonna be eating anything off it!

It was a beautiful summer day. I was having some 'time out'. By The Harbour. I adore Sydney's sensational Harbour. It has dominated so many moments in my time here. Entirely. The best fun. The best feeling. Without fail. And one day this week, I will go back to where it all began to say goodbye. For now.

I was sitting on a rock in front of Mrs Macquarie's Chair with my shoes off and my jean-legs rolled up. The water of Sydney's monstrously hypnotic Harbour lapped at my ankles. I looked to my left and glimpsed the sight of the sun setting behind the sails of The Opera House. The Bridge was glittering. A little ferry was departing and the bigger Manly Ferry was streaming seaward. A plane was coming in to land and the entire vista was shimmering and shivering. I decided, at that moment, to come and live in Sydney. I said as much to myself. Aloud. I breathed it all in ... and felt like I had taken the first breath of my new life. I was overcome with optimism and excitement. Potential. A dream. A direction and a focus. A new beginning.

A couple of days later, after having done a quick reconnaissance of rental property availability (and cost) in Potts Point, M and I said farewell to Sydney and I drove her (and me) home to Melbourne. M slept almost the whole way ... waking only when we were about an hour or two out of Melbourne. The MX-5 held the road like the race car it truly is. I was at the wheel. I could return to Melbourne at speed because I knew that I would be packing up and leaving. Not straight away, but soon.

In the meantime, there was work to be done. Money to be made. Boxes to be packed. Truths to be denied. Friends to farewell. It was all so final. It was all so possible.

Fantasy versus reality would, yet again, be my downfall. There would be more than a couple of scrapes on the knee ... and there would be a sudden, frightening and ignominious collision with my sanity. But in the meantime, there was the open road and the MX-5.

And an exit clause.

*Initials have been used to protect the identity of particular individuals ... the details of whose lives, even though they are essential to the telling of my story, do not really belong in the public domain without their consent. I will, of course, feature this respectful consideration at my discretion.

Going home

Apparently I have "failed to make an impact on this town". I won't tell you who said this about me because they don't deserve our disdain ... or our contempt. It was, actually and metaphorically, a stab in the dark. But the comment certainly kept me up last night - pondering whether there was, in fact, anything more I could do to secure my footing in Sydney. I'm sure I'll contemplate it continuously (as I have a rather monotonous tendency to do) as I pack my bags, boxes and plastic tubs in preparation for a move back to Melbourne next week. Thank The Universe for my blog. Here, over the coming days (and I am sure, weeks) I will contemplate and consider the move and its implications. A real journal of record. A record at least.

I have always been an independent spirit. I value my independence more than anything and everything else that litters my landscape. Past, present and future. I'm not a loner - I love the company of certain people. Very particular people. JD, DD, JG especially - people who the pathway through the garden of my life has provided for me ... and I hope, us. They are people I want to speak to every day, and they represent the metaphorical anchor in the stormy sea which has been the relationship with myself during my seven years in Sydney. I am looking forward, more than anything else, to having the integrity of real friendship around me again ... to share the language of knowledge through meaningful exchanges - the kind that are only possible because of personal History. Understanding. The 'heart and soul connection' we seek and yearn for all our lives. Where silence sometimes sounds louder than noise.

To some extent, I have "failed to make an impact on this town". But not entirely because of what I have chosen to do (and not do as the case may be), but (principally) rather because of the people I have chosen to try and make an impact with ... and for.

I need to understand the implications of this move - more than I think I realise. I have been encouraged not to return to Melbourne and I respect the tutelage. I have been challenged to consider the (im)possibility of staying here in Sydney. It is not an option. It's a change of perspective I seek. I need. That is my only expectation.

Can you go "back"? Yes, of course you can. Sometimes, you must. I have been "back" many times in my life. For safety. Security. Confidence. Clarity. The last two times I have visited a dear friend's parents' farm in the Hunter Valley, I have taken the wrong turn off the freeway. I was never certain ... it was always dark. I love driving at night. I interview myself on the radio ... I win Oscars® ... I have fascinating opinions about all sorts of things and I interview myself the entire trip. It's the way single people learn about what they're really thinking ... they talk to themselves about it. I was so sure of how fabulously interesting I was, I took the wrong turn. Twice. The road I took led nowhere ... just further into the darkness. No matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, I was not going to arrive where I had intended. I had to turn back.

There is a persistent alone-ness about my life in Sydney. A nagging doubt about the quality of my life here. The collection of extreme highs and lows that have punctuated my time here are vast and interesting ... and I will document them here. As I consider each of the culprits, there will only be one rule: no prisoners. If I am going to set myself free from this chronic perception of what the end (and requisite failure to meet certain expectations) of this chapter in my life means, then everyone and everything responsible - including, especially, me - will need to be held to account.

As Bette Davis's Margo Channing famously chimed in All About Eve: "Fasten your seatbelts. It's gonna be a bumpy night!"

Image: Unfinished Business - J D and Flicka, the Fearless Firefly.

Best we forget

There are several times of the year when I am utterly embarrassed and ashamed to be Gay ... and right up there at the top of the list is Anzac Day.

I've actually never identified with "Gay" as a label. When people ask me if I am "Gay", I always tell them that I am not: I am Homosexual. They protest, like most ignorant people, about there not really being a difference. "There certainly is!" I usually sneer, before falling back on the old "There's nothing gay about being a homosexual" quote ... and besides, I prefer Poof to Gay ... and Faggot above all else.

After all, it's my misery ... and I'm entitled to identify with it and call it whatever I fucking well like.

Every year on Anzac Day, some blindly opportunistic promoter or two will seize the, well, opportunity, to promote a "Gay Dance Party" on, yes, you guessed it, a military theme. Like sex in public toilets, it is one event on the otherwise glittering and character-building "Gay" calendar that is bound to lose the "Gay Community" friends. And respect.

I, for one, always hang my head in shame.

As a pacifist and the child of a generation who lost too many throughout the years of conflict, I find the rituals surrounding the remembrance of our war dead a little complex to even pretend to understand. I've never been up in time to attend a Dawn Service. I don't buy the stick-pins, but I have been known to pin the odd poppy on my lapel. One of the many unfinished plays of mine is one about the Second World War. I spent many years researching, but when it came time to write the play, I realised that I needed to find a way to reach a greater understanding about what we lost in the process ... or perhaps what we gained. All that I had in its place was purple prose and borrowed observation.

War was always a 'male thing' when I was growing up. Men, men, men ... so many men. Brothers, Fathers, Sons ... and it wasn't until I met Greta, who had been a Driver for the Australian Defence Forces in Singapore that I was introduced to something other than my, previously, naively considered total sum of the catastrophe. Greta urged me to read about the stories that were told from the female perspective ... so I did. It fried my brain.

This year, there is a dance party somewhere in Sydney. I saw the full page ad in a "gay newspaper". Front, centre in the foreground is a muscled, shirtless stud in his camouflage pants - his jocks strategically peeking out over the top of his waste, sorry, waistband. Around his neck are the standard gay fantasia "Dog Tags". His smug, self-satisfied "Come fuck me/be fucked by me ... no, not you fatty" eyes, peering down at us. Behind him, in the distance, the whirring helicopters. And the sunset. The promise of a new day ... off. The drugs ... the pecs ... the muscles ... the abs ... the booze ... and the sex. Oh, yes! With him. Be my fuck-pig! Grunting, sleazy, stinking, sweaty, cum-soaked sex.

Call me old-fashioned, but I find it impossible to reconcile the great sense of loss and epic tragedy that are these wars and their dead we remember tomorrow, with this base, unacceptable and entirely disrespectful display of narcissistic, soul-less, cock-obsessed and ultimately meaningless pursuit.

I wonder if these people have any idea of what "Dog Tags" were/are used for, once the wearer of them had/has been killed. Now that's a dance party ticket seller of a snapshot if ever there was one! Or just how well a dance party might sell with an image I have firmly imbedded in my mind from a particular memoir I read: the soldiers who found a group of about six Australian nurses on a beach somewhere in Asia-Pacific who had been gunned down on the spot, and whose breasts had been severed and placed strategically on their heads, where their eyes had been.

I wonder.

Scraps of distraction: Part 7

The new end

The thing about about abuse of any kind - emotional, physical, psychological, verbal, sexual - is that it stiffles and retards growth and development. On both sides of the act. The act of critical review is essentially no different. Whether they shove their hand down your pants and express like - or dislike - for what they feel, they've still shoved their hand down your pants. In life, it can be many things: rude, pleasureable, invasive, arousing, invited, uninvited, unexpected and a catalyst for many many things.

In the Theatre, it's the same. Ultimately though, it depends entirely on whose hand it is and how much you enjoy it down there. And where it leads ... and how soon after the initial mystery of the exchange, the mutual respect and consideration is lost to selfishness and greed. Savagery. The primal instinct for conquest. The hunger and appetite of the abuser at the expense of the curious consent of the person who might have continued to let them get off on the privacy of their desire.

In reflection, the saddest aspect of this entire journey for me was that yes, I did care about what the reviewers in London had said. Too much? At 25 years old, with your hand down your own pants and on the edge of the rest of your life, just how are you expected to comprehend, let alone know how to maintain and sustain that magical thing called "perspective"? ... not to mention know how to measure - precisely - what is "too much" of anything? It's futile ... pointless ... not unlike trying to measure what is "too long". Admirable sentiments I am sure, but the power of Perspective (not unlike the power of Denial) is not something that belongs in the domain of the young and adventurous. They come later. Like Regret.

Melodrama is drama without truth. And truth is that rare and fleeting almost instinctive breath of a moment in the theatre that is utterly and entirely impossible to capture. But it does exist. It's just very, very difficult to manufacture. You find it ... sometimes where you least expect it. It will sometimes chose to reveal itself in the perfect measure of time and place. But more often than not, it will elude you ... as was the case with many, if not most, of the performances of Tunnels without end I sat through in London.

You strive for it but it constantly eludes you. And the times in the theatre where truth has revealed itself, even fleetingly, remain my most memorable. I understand that now. And I seek it in everything I do.

Ireland's Brian Friel is my Master. William Shakespeare is too ... some of the time. So is Christopher Marlowe - all of the time. Arthur Miller most certainly delved deeply and often for the truth, but the truth of his writing was ultimately sabotaged by the truth of his significance to the lives of others and the turbulent times in which he lived. You need to look harder to find it in his writing. But it is there, especially in All My Sons - a magnificent, monster of play. And Timebends, his utterly compelling autobiography. Alan Bennett betrays truth with circumstance and his finely pleated structure. His becomes a convenient truth and he makes me uneasy. He is the very Englishness of contemporary English dramatists. Right up there with Alan Aychbourn. Aychbourn's truth is entirely of his own making which, in my mind, is akin to admitting that you'll never expect or allow it to appear in the work ... that it shall remain forever ellusive. It's a dangerous claim to stake ... because Theatre without Truth - or at the very least the eternal hope for its appearance - is Dead Theatre.

Tom Stoppard, a writer to whom I would be compared in a London review, is far too clever to be obviously seen to be truth-spotting.
David

Mamet

knows

(Beat)

it

will

(Beat)

appear

(Beat)

and

it

(Beat)

inevitably

(Beat)

does.

Because we imagine it has. Something this cleverly written and structured has to eventually reveal truth in one form or another.

****

I have tried many ways to deal with the what Alistair McCauley took from me. I have accepted - and resolved - my responsibility for it. I revisited the script, rewrote it, and staged a production of it in Melbourne which was fantastic. I learned. I developed. I changed. And I am grateful for the lessons.

Today I understand and accept that Alistair McCauley is - essentially - a thief. I often read his reviews (I read one today) and marvel at how he consistently uses the creative energy of others to write - essentially - about hate. And I still marvel at just how much hate he is truly - no, truth-fully - capable of. How bitter and miserable must he be, recognising how incapable he is of taking the kind of creative risks he is forced to endure in the dark with the less hate-filled. He mistakes fleeting Truth for wit, observation and cleverness. His. At least the blood of mine he spilled that day on The Green was bright red. Not black, toxic, poisoned, and oxygen-less - like his. I have gone on to make a great deal more theatre. He has, quite obviously, not gone on. I relish that fact.

Every act of critical review is like a kabob. There's onion, red capsicum, lamb, green capsicum, tomato and you. Having written an inestimable number of reviews since, I know a truth about McCauley - and myself - I wish more than anything I'd known on my knees on the grass in the middle of The Green all those years ago. Because everything that occured after it would have been different. I would have ensured that the responses to him were entirely different. I would not have allowed him to castrate me in the way I allowed him to then. I would not have allowed him to punish me for daring in quite the same way as I did then. I would, instead, have responded with the full strength and weight of my passion, and courage, and the sheer unbridled determination that had placed my magnificent attempt at his feet in the first place. All the saved-up-for way from Glen Waverley, Australia. In short, I would have cut off his fondling fingers - and the hand they were attached to.

His was a position of great privilege to that point in my life that we shared and I will hate - and I really mean Hate - him and his like forever for not deciding, instead, to find what there was to admire about my sprawling passionate ode to Fate and despair - as opposed to finding what there was to hate about both himself and me, as he gazed at his ugly and twisted reflection in the cracked mirror I was holding up to his face.

My solace, if you like, is to know that at the end of my life, I will at least have imagined what was possible. McCauley, and his like, will only be able to look back at how much they truly were beneath it ... and how, ultimately worthlessly, they instead, take anothers' creativity, passion and ability prisoner - captive in their own unenviable, lonely and creation-less cell of complete theatrical and literary insignificance.

They signify only The Reactionary my insightful and quite brilliant Mother dared to hope I would not become. I understand her fear of that happening for me in its entirety now: 'Where," she was asking "is the courage and originality in that?"

And it makes the act of making uncompromising theatre again in my life almost compulsory.

****

My journey through the memory of this life-altering experience abroad has been immensely painful. That much is probably obvious. What is perhaps not quite so obvious is the way I feel today, right now, about where the rest of my life will take me. And I will close this final chapter of a most remarkable reminiscence with this exchange which somehow, quite magically, The Universe delivered to me late last night.

It is an edited transcript from the ABC Radio's PM program in 2005 - and the interviewee, Michael Billington, is a reviewer for London's The Guardian newspaper.

MICHAEL BILLINGTON: I suppose what makes Pinter interesting as a writer and as a man, is that the plays themselves defy analysis. You can offer an interpretation, but you can never quite fully say what The Homecoming is about, what No Man's Land is about, what Landscape is about. I think that's partly what makes Pinter interesting and what links him with the great dramatists of the past – that there is a quality in his plays that is beyond rational explanation. And one of my colleagues ... I think brilliantly said, part of the pleasure of watching a Pinter play is not fully understanding what it is about.

Really, Mr Billington? Well touché.

And the "colleague" in question? Here, and I hope this will give you as great a thrilling and gut-busting laugh as it did me, is the unedited version:

MICHAEL BILLINGTON: ... And one of my colleagues, Alistair McCauley, I think brilliantly said, part of the pleasure of watching a Pinter play is not fully understanding what it is about.

If "brilliance" is defined by "not fully understanding" then I feel terribly sad and sorry for both you and your colleague. And terribly proud of myself and the literally hundreds of people who came to my play in London and loved and understood it - in spite of him.

Truthfully.

Thank you, Masters of Nothing ... and fuck you!

Scraps of distraction: Part 6

Ordinary miracles

Tunnels without end was a disaster. That much was obvious. A couple of the actors, who had been taken by complete surprise by the savagery of the attack, responded accordingly and began acting it as though it were some embarrassingly hideous C-grade drama. There was constant talk of it closing, but Sonia was maintaining the last semblance of her belief in herself, it, and me by keeping it running.

One night, Robert (Piotr) hit Billy (who was playing Valsa, one the maestro's lovers) and almost fractured his jaw. (Undisciplined actors in this particular play of mine would become synonymous with productions of it. In the Melbourne production, Nicholas, who was playing Piotr, would be hospitalised during a performance after a wayward punch to the side of his head from Josephine, the actress playing Sasha, his sister. Discuss.) Billy was refusing to go back on and had demanded that I be summoned to the theatre by management. I raced to the theatre and Billy and I sat in his dressing room while the interval was extended from twenty to almost 45 minutes. Thank God that The Tube runs 24 hours I can remember thinking. This poor audience aren't going to be out until well after midnight!

One night, when I actually happened to be in the audience, the sound system blew up about five minutes into the performance. "Bring it on!" I think I shouted aloud to the three other people that were there. The performance continued and I watched, in complete wonder and every-increasing astonishment, as a pair of impossibly small speakers were lowered from the bio-box window at the top of the right-hand side wall of the stage. They were slowly lowered only when people would have been looking at the opposite side of the stage. I know this, because I couldn't take my eyes off them! And the music duly returned. At interval, I learned that the Assistant Stage Manager had taken over calling the show while Helen had raced outside and up the road a little to rip the stereo system out of her car! The speakers that were being lowered to just above the heads of the actors were the ones from her fucking car! Bless her precious and inspirational heart!

Sadly, we had to let the ASM go. Not only couldn't the production afford him anymore, but he got the offer of another job in another show. I remember him trying to justify his departure to me. He needn't have bothered. The part of me that truly cared about everything that could possibly still happen had departed this production a long time ago.

One matinee afternoon, there was an audience of one (a disturbing fact that would also become synonymous with future productions of this play of mine. In fact, it is so synonymous with this play that I hope it happens again - and fully expect it to - in Sydney next year. I will actually be very disappointed if it doesn't). This charming man was on his way home to New York and he had read about Tunnels without end in the London Theatre Guide and thought he might like to see it. I walked in to the foyer while the staff were informing him that, given that he was the only audience member, the performance might not be going ahead ... and would he mind waiting to see if anyone else turned up. The Union's ruling was (and still is I understand) that if there were more people in the cast than in the audience, then by default, the performance could be cancelled.

The actors were ready. Our audience was ready. The bar was ready. Where was the problem? I asked the cast if they would agree to perform for two - the charming man and me - if he was prepared to become an audience of one. He confirmed that he was. I jokingly made him promise not to walk out (which is ironic really, because that's precisely what would happen in Melbourne.) We sat next to each other and the performance was fantastic ... and our audience member loved it. He cried at the end and apologised for having to rush off to the airport to catch his flight home.

A few nights later, I was at an open air Luciano Pavarotti concert with my friends from the Royal Opera. (We were seated in the row behind Princess Diana.) The concert was fantastic and when it ended, my friends suggested we head to the New End Theatre and have a drink with the actors. The axe was about to fall, and I should stop by and begin preparing myself to finally farewell the theatre which had become my home for the most amazing number of weeks of my life. How soon would it be, they joked, affectionately, before I could again take my friends to a theatre in London where a play of mine was being staged?

It was a wonderful suggestion and we piled into a cab. I immediately knew something was up the second we turned into New End. There wasn't a carspace to be seen. I joked to my friend Ian (who was the Royal Opera's Marketing Manager), that maybe they'd closed Tunnels ... without telling me and put something else on in its place. Our cab dropped us at the front door, and as I marched up to it, it opened from the inside. The front of house manager beamed at me.

"Where have you been all day and all night!" she screamed.

I saw Sonia appear behind her and I was dragged into the foyer. The doors into the auditorium opened and people - not person - slowly started to leave the theatre. Five ... ten ... surely that's got to be it! ... twenty ... thirty. I looked at Sonia who had her hands to her mouth. I felt Ian's hand on my shoulder. Forty ... fifty ... sixty ... I didn't know where to look.

My audience were shattered and many were wiping away tears. Some looked as though they'd just been bored out of their brain, but most of them looked as though they'd seen something. Sonia took my hand and dragged me up the stairs to the bar.

"I've been leaving messages for you at home all day and all night! Where have you been?"

She didn't wait for an answer before placing a large newspaper clipping in one of my hands and a glass of champagne in the other. With my friends peering over my shoulder, I read something I barely recognised: our first good review. Not a great review, but a positive one all the same. Sure, the "destination of the journey" was "a little vague" ... but the drama was "Magnetic!" Magnetic! ... and the costumes were "stunning!"

The review had come out in one of the local Hampstead newspapers and apparently, the reviewer - a woman - was notorious for determining the success or the failure of productions in the local area: and "the journey" with Tunnels ... was, apparently for her, "certainly worth it!" The bar slowly filled up with people who toasted me and applauded. My friends hugged me and, as the actors got news that I was in the house, they too came up and celebrated. It is Helen's hug I will remember as long as I live. It said "This is actually what you deserve! This is what we all fucking deserve!"

And Tunnels without end played to almost capacity audiences for the rest of his run home. I know, because every night, I would stand outside and watch - in complete wonder and with great pride - the audiences pour out of the theatre. The conversations at the bar were epic, intense and incredibly rewarding for me - as they often are when you are among friends.

One day shortly before the end of the run, Sonia called me and told me to come to the theatre. Something else quite amazing had just happened.

I dashed to the theatre and raced up to her office. She handed me a fax: a request for fifteen tickets. The 'charming' man who had dropped by and watched the play on his own was bringing fourteen of his friends all the way from New York for the closing night performance. Not only had this never occurred at the New End Theatre before, but this booking for fifteen plus the bookings already made on the day - in person and on the telephone - meant that I had broken the New End Theatre's record for the most number of tickets sold in one day!

My dribbling, snotty-nosed little spastic had found his home ... and, more importantly, his audience.

****

The final performance was one I can barely remember. I knew it would be over and a great part of me desperately wanted it to be. Still. And as it came to its conclusion, I felt more overwhelmed than I had ever felt before ... and possibly since. As the actors came out onto the stage for the first time to take their final bows, fifteen people stood up and threw red roses onto the stage. I was actually quite unsentimental about the occasion until I saw Michaela in tears. She bent over and collected a rose and held it up, high in the air and looked at me like I have never been looked at in the theatre since. Everyone but me was on their feet. I couldn't stand up.

I managed one final look at the image that I had created on stage and buried my head in my hands.

It was the first time since I had left my beautiful dog Kimberley with my friends in Australia all those months ago that I had actually been able to cry.