Surviving the Wastelands.

I snapped awake, lost as to where I was for some moments, a beeping noise from some strange machinery having disturbed my catatonic sleep. Oh yeah, my futuristic avatar and the travail of staying alive. After much cogitation I think I've figured out what my secret stash of mysterious garbage is trying to communicate. The glittering band of metal I can fit around my wrist with the numbers clicking over is some kind of dating device and it says we're now in the year 2107. The ragged clumps of paper the Chief calls "dirty fucking books" and has forbidden any of us to keep have finally yeilded up to my curious perusal the amazing tale of what has happened to our world in the last 100 years. I'm stunned to realise how we came to be here, scrabbling hard for a living amongst the dusty mounds of trash that stretch to the horizon and beyond and which the Soothsayers name in whispers as The Wastelands.

I've spent countless hours of study, hidden in my underground bunker away from the glaring sun, the choking winds and supicious eyes of my fellow tribals, flipping the strange objects back and forth, and finally the arcane letters, numbers and pictures have fallen into place to inform me of who I am and where I've come from. I have long been adept at deciphering the signs and messages littered about the poisonous wastes and, while the Chief has found this talent suspect, the tribe has benifited greatly for I have led the way to buried, hidden caches of foodstuffs and helpful objects in our daily struggle to survive this dangerous, tumultuous landscape. I was given 'Leaping Wolf' status as scout and scrounger and thus had the freedom to secrete the wondrous things that took my fancy and, sneaking off when others were busy with their rituals of rooting and rutting, I long contemplated the meanings I was sure were bound within those weird fabrications.

It's been such a long struggle to stay alive, thru cunning and strength I've made it to my fourteenth year, the hallowed hair has grown in my groin and I have gut-wrenching feelings of longing and displacement I can't explain except that it must have something to do with my rite of passage into adulthood that is to happen on the next full moon and for which all the elders seem to be overly excited about. Every year on my birth moon I've been inspected all over, prodded and squeezed, and the Soothsayers have exclaimed their satisfaction at my growth and progress, applauding my musculature and plumpness, spoiling me with treats of foodscraps where others have been made to go hungry, making me feel special and excited about my big day forthcoming for which they have prepared me all my life.

It's a tough ritual they warn, from which I may not come forth the complete being, able to continue and increase the strength of my tribe, but I feel that now I have figured out the history of our existence this knowledge can only improve my chances, I can see the future more clearly and thus prepare my journey where others have been dazed, ignorant and handicapped. For it seems calamitous events have beset my race of humankind, the much revered and oft told legend of the "lost civilisation" was the very thing that had brought about all the world's downfall and reduced us people to the life of apes, living off rotting detritus, carrion and superstition.

Human industry had enduced wild climate change that wrecked the cities with hurricanes, floods, tornados and droughts, then earthquakes and decay brought the mainifold concrete and glass towers crashing down; there were wars fought over religion, water, food, resources and territory, even intelligent machines battling mere flesh and blood till unimaginable weapons of mass destruction were detonated and whole societies were destroyed; plagues of vicious beasts and deadly viruses were set loose to ravage the left-over populations; and to finish us off poisonous materials had polluted the environments and distorted the human genome, artificial compounds and leftover wastes of a greedy science ran amok so that only a mutated race of beings once known as humans now lurked and hunted amidst the mountains of rubbish folklore has reverently called "the once was consumer's paradise."

I have been singled out for special treatment all my life, fussed over and fattened up, as I am radically different from my fellows because I have five digits on four limbs, two eyes and well-formed genitalia and fit the desired ideal according to the Soothsayers blue-print of archaic human physical perfection they keep as backdrop to their altar in the tumble-down church of their crazed religion. My father is the Chief, of course, for only he, the Strong One, near physical perfection himself, has been allowed to mate with the women of our tribe. And he has bred many malformed children, most of whom have not survived to dance under their Moon of Sperm-Giving, many mysteriously disappearing before they even made it to their big day. They were the weak, the soft, the caring, who preferred to play and fuck instead of fight and kill, such were some of my beloved brothers and playmates, swallowed by the Void, and not one of the Sweet Smilers ever returned from the Hades of Manhood. I pretended nastiness to stay alive, coldy observing the ways and wherefores of sub-human behaviour, outsmarting their constant surveillance.

For those who survived to keep the Tribe intact were the strong, the brutal, the viciously ruthless, misshapen and freakish but seemingly able to defeat the ogres of the Ordeal to become adult warriors for the Cause and thus protect The Family from it's enemies, other tribes and beasties that live to hunt us. The Chief himself has eleven toes and fingers which he tries to hide with ragged gloves and mouldy boots never taken off, but the Soothsayers hiss to each other their disatisfactions about his divine unfitness, and since my birth he has caste a jaundiced eye upon me, jealous of the Soothsayers awed predictions that one day I will lead the tribe and consort with the women to produce the perfect human once again able to rule the world and bring us back to civilised bliss and freedom from want.

My sisters are mostly kept alive to slave, rut and give birth to monsters, who die or thrive according to their fitness, while my ugly brothers are trained to hunt, scavenge and fight off the Others who would live off us. Few survive to adulthood and the Great Feast of Death and Resurrection held every mid-winter moon is joyless and cantankerous, The Family is small in number and composed of the cruel and cadaverous, always bickering over precedence, in food, honour and sex. But for all their misshapen disgruntlements I miss many of my childhood companions sorely, there were some who made this harsh life more bearable with their smiles, hugs and fondlings. Down into the dungeon church they go to attend the secret rite of passage in their honour and they don't return, not strong enough to withstand the Ordeal, gone on to a better world I'm told.

The Chief, the Elders and Soothsayers all, in united croaking voice, refuse to answer my questions as to what goes on in the dark dungeons below, and are much aggrieved as to my critique of their foul beliefs. For the central icon in their Religion of the One True God is a dead corpse tied to a stick, a bleached-white skeleton with arms outstretched as if in benediction of the Wastes. He is the Ruler of the Universe, the One God Death, from which all come and to which all go, no matter what or whom.

And I have wailed into their crabby faces, but what of beauty, fun and adventure in a world so awesome it contains stars and moonlit nights, and bright-hued flowers that grow from desert trash, and melifluous songs that can't help but flow from hearts relaxing in a rare cool breeze and lush morning sunlight, with sweet water that parches a thirst and smiles from fellows when a new-found treat is shared, that life in fact is wondrous and moments of happiness can be snatched from all the filth and gloom. And this has also set me apart and caused the tribe to cast suspicious glances upon me, as maybe I am not quite right in the head nor the perfect speciman of manhood that they hoped for. My birth moon waxes lurid in the sky and my life's great test approaches, I gird my loins and sharpen my wits, for I am determined to rise from the dungeon's depths and win a marvellous life in this wild world of the Wastelands, for all that the odds are aginst me.

Yet right up to the week before my special moon waxed full the Elders told me of their love and honoured me with extra food, caressed me with affection and felt my plump limbs, all the while cackling and drooling in appreciation of my prowess. To be worthy of the honour of adulthood I must place upon the Altar of Death the carcasses of our most vicious enemy, the giant man-eating Rats that hunt us in the night, the tribe will feast upon this meat in celebration of my Grand Arrival and I am sent off into the Wastes with much bally-hooed expectation. Armed with bow and arrow and a spear of jagged metal, I set off with my trusty hunting dog, Butch, leading the way. I'd rescued him as a pup, for tho declared an abomination with his two malformed heads and jaws full of razor teeth, he was perfect for taking on the grotesque, intelligent Rats and, being the stronger, I had trained him to take on several at a time and tear them to bits in merciless, unyeilding battle.

Using both his snarling heads to sniff out the trails and rank recesses where the gruesome beasts thrived it was not long before we came upon one of their noxious nests hidden amidst a yard of car wrecks. For all their abilities to plan attack and defence strategies, we surprised a family of Rats huddled over a screaming victim, ripping apart and devouring the hapless human they had caught in one of their clever traps. We quickly dispatched seven of them, my arrows killing three straight off, Butch ripping apart another two in a fury of flying fur and snapping teeth.

Their leader confronted me with a brave malevolence shining from his beady, Rat eyes, his alpha male status denoted by the ragged white lab coat and the weird head-dress of twittering machinery he wore, colourful wires flaring out and plugged straight into his brain. Respecting his alpha rank, I took him on in one on one combat, ducking the swipes of the scalpel he thrust at me and stabbing him thru the heart with my spear. I strung the corpses on either end of a pole which I heaved over one shoulder and, with Butch lapping up the blood dripping in my wake, I set off back to Home and the loving embrace of my family.

It was expected that I'd be gone for several days to garner the prize of seven meaty Rats, and only return when my appointed day was dawning, but having achieved my goal so quickly I was eager to arrive early for the feast of one of my step-brothers, who was also ripe for passage into manhood and for whom I felt a dear affection towards. He was a darling, always sharing with me what he had and keeping me warm at night, snuggled tight against me, and I hoped so badly that he would be strong enough to win thru. The Family considered him particularly abhorrent and treated him badly as he was covered in fine hair and had a tail extruding from his butt like a monkey, but for me he was a delightful companion, I found him cute and funny and I always helped him when he was trodden down.

He was given the first day of the full moon for his ritual while I was honoured with the second and it was strictly ordained that they were to be seperate, secret ceremonies, only to be witnessed by the Elders and Soothsayers. But I was curious as to the details of the Ordeal and thought that if I got a sneak preview of the process it might forewarn me of what I might have to overcome. And perhaps I could help him also to stay alive.

And so laying aside the carcasses of my bloody booty I crept towards the dungeon of the Church from which issued ponderous, dolorous drumbeats and hair-raising chants. I had recently discovered a secret entrance to the sacred tombs and plucking up my courage in the face of the One God Death I clambered down the crumbling shaft to hide behind a pile of rotten bones and witness the doings of the entranced creatures cavorting below in front of the altar. I arrived at the very moment when my brother, seemingly stupified and delerious, was laid out upon a slab of stone under the outstretched arms of the grinning skeletal godhead. As the Soothsayers leapt into a frenzy of wails and screeching mumbo-jumbo the Chief, my father, stepped forward and stabbed my beloved brother with a large splinter of black glass, slicing open his chest and tearing out his heart which he quickly sunk his teeth into and gobbled up greedily.

The Soothsayers and Elders all rushed forth and tore at the corpse with taloned hands, ripping lumps of flesh from the shuddering body and stuffing the bleeding mess into their gaping maws. In a few endless minutes my brother was torn to pieces and devoured by those of the tribe I'd long been taught to respect and follow, their faces covered in blood, the gore hanging from their mouths and dripping down their bedraggled chests.

I could restrain my disgust and protest no longer, I shouted out for them to desist from their hideous feast, calling them beasts no better than the smart Rats they denigrated and hunted with murderous glee. The riotious mob froze mid-action, gasping in horror at my desecration of their holy sanctuary and all looked up aghast to where I stood waving my spear in threat. Then with a collective roar they screeched for me to come down and take my rightful place also on the altar of sacrifice. The Chief, my father, ran towards me and yelled that this is what I had long been prepared for, not to usurp his God-given leadership but to be sacrificed for the good of the tribe, that was what my physical perfection and difference had declared would be my fate. For the Lord God Death had decreed in the one good holy book, the Sacred Text of Abraham, that the sons were to be food for the father and it was the Elders who caused the Family to live on, not the young and foolish, and I must do as tradition demanded and come down and give myself over to Death and be devoured, for then the Family would be assured of long life. The old villain crawled on all fours towards me, clambering over the heaps of garbage and ancient bones, his eleven clawed fingers reaching out for me. In blind-fury I gave my reply, I put arrow to bow and shot him thru his warped braincase so that he stumbled backwards and fell rolling to the feet of the stunned congregation all bloodied below.

They shrieked and wailed sing-song laments but as I turned to flee they called out my name, and shouted hallelulyahs, the leader was born to be the Father of the Tribe and life could continue as of old. I was to come down and take my place as Chief in front of the Great God Death, I had performed His will as I was meant to and, like Winter had shorn the world of the decrepit and barren, now could Spring arise and bring on new life to regenerate the Family. I spat in their faces that I was mighty tired of their gruesome ways and besides, it was not possible that I would be their grand Procreator as there was one more way that I was different from them and it was that I loved fellows of my own sex and only wanted such love and company, to breed monsters with monsters was abhorrent to me and I dammed their continuance to the cruel fate they dammed others, to devour each other in the Hell of their own making.

They cried and roared with hatred and disgust, I was the devil incarnate warned of and condemned in the One Holy Book and again they yelled for me to descend to the sacred altar so that they might tear me to bits and rub me into the dust. I pushed at a huge pile of junk and bones that teetered in front of me and it came tumbling down upon them, crushing and obstructing them, bony arms upflung and wrinkled skin flayed open, as I repeated my defiance, swearing I would rather face the perils of the Wastelands alone than belong to them or give them the pleasure of my flesh. I then sprinted back along my hidden passage and up into the scorching sunlight. Butch, my faithful dog, waited there with tongue lolling, and I sicked him onto one determined old crone who'd made it up the tunnel after me, Butch ripping off her crabby face as she raised a shin-bone to curse me.

He then followed me as I ran to my private lair secreted under a mound of steel-girders and office-furniture debris, and there I quickly stuffed into a pack the artifacts I thought might come in handy on my arduous sojourn, some canned and dried foodstuffs, a canteen of water, a ground sheet and jacket for the freezing nights, and then we rushed off, me and my faithful dog, while other tribes-people crawled from their hovels to watch me leave, their eyes popping in surprise at my earnest, scowling haste. I trotted off down the dusty trail that led out of our garbage-heap enclosure, Butch at my heels, and I caste not one glance back at my supposed Home, determined to forget my so-called Family, that people of mutant inbreeds who had renounced their claim of Humanity to satisfy a lust for meat and power.

I shaded my eyes from the dust and glare and searched out a path that led thru the mountains of refuse and filth, mounds that stretched all the way to the horizon, and I wondered what lay beyond, and felt an illicit thrill, that whatever it may be, it could be no worse than the horrors I had grown up with. The Unknown held a certain frisson of promise, a life of adventure and knowledge hard won, and I ran the faster so as to be over that horizon before the dark night crashed down upon me, and on into my life, whatever that would be.

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The Party for Mardi Gras Grouches.

Febuary/March has rolled upon us again, a time of year I feel lonesome and alienated for it's the weekend of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade and I'm reminded what a nobody, ugly old failure I've grown into when confronted by the tidal wave of manicured and waxed youth in their expensive designer gear, all gung-ho for a system that had perennially disowned them. I was one of the original '78ers who started the whole shebang by marching down the golden mile of Oxford street and getting the shit kicked out of me by the reactionary cops at Taylor Square but now I feel there's no space for me, even at the head of the parade with the other ancient '78ers, for there's a ruling 'gay' headspace that I don't fully identify with and, being terribly twisted from a lifetime of predjudice, I can't find much to celebrate.

(I'm impressed by Gore Vidal's line, "there's no such thing as a homosexual, only homosexual acts". I resent being reduced to a "thing" based on my sexual preferences, I'm much more than that, I'm an artist, adventurer, atheist, travellor, a contemplator of science, history, politics and philosophy, a nurse, a pagan and a free-thinker to name a few! Yet I understand the oppression same-sex acts have endured thru-out history and I've always fought against it. I guess I'm resigned to the inescapable fact of being labelled "gay".)

Not that I would want the parade cancelled, it's fun for those who like an outrageous party and it does keep 'queerness' shining gaily in the public eye, but for the jaundiced, the jaded and the just plain fucked over it's somewhat of a trial to make it thru the whole month of activities as we're reminded of how it's all passed us irrevocably by, and we envy those fuckers who are making lots of money out of it. If I'd known what a money-spinner, cudos grabber and grandstand for careerist-queens it would become I honestly would never have marched all those decades ago. For the first few years it was an open cultural festival wherein any gay artist could get a showing, now you have to be a famous whore to get a look in. Even watching from the crowd is a terror, like when I spent hours trying to save my space by the curb only to have a scraggy bitch push me out of the way and when I complained she set her brutish boyfriend upon me who hissed, "fuck off fag!" into my hairy ears.

So it was with great relief that I was invited to a dinner-party by fellow disgruntled fags and I didn't have to wander the edge of the crowd lost and lonely, peering into strange heterosexual faces and getting my crotch sniffed by nazi police dogs. Charles Gropin decided to have an appocolyptic soiree of queer deadbeats at his Bohemian pad in Kings Cross, for it felt like the end of the world and his apartment looked suitably like a fall-out shelter after the Bomb had dropped. The other dispossessed guests were Peter Pumpkin, the talented young composer and violinist, Ayesha the bedraggled two-headed drag(on) lady, Nadine Sardine, a trannie as thin as a fish straight out of the can and just as depressed, and Allison, the one real woman, terminally ill, who seemed sadly bemused thru.out the night by the hysterical antics of us 'boys'. The set-up was the making of a riotious 'gay' farce, to be staged at a future Mardis Gras festival, only I wouldn't be able to kiss enough 'gay' arse to get it put on.

I love playing the bitter/twisted po-faced queen, it's a good cover for my inner Mother Theresa saintly self, (thus I dont have the onerous duty of the laying on of healing hands), so get ready for some vinegar-tits vignettes. And yes, I realise I'm only reinforcing the stereotypes and antipathies thrown like mud at my 'kind' by writing this tripe, I divest "poof" and "fag" of it's power to hurt if I sling it first, and I'd much rather be a "fairy" than a brute. I like to see it as therapy, getting hairs out of my arse and bravely laughing in the jaws of the BEAST as it cruelly devours me.

(Oh, yeah, I believe in political agitation, same as the Gay and Lesbian Marchers do, and I want equal rights with Hets such as marriage, tho it doesn't seem to give Them much happiness. Compared to other societies, Christian and Muslim fundamentalist for instance, we're in a paradise of freedoms so we should relish it and struggle for gays all around the world. I believe in a World Homosexual Revolution, so my fellow poofs and lezzos = fight on!)

My friend Charles always reminds me of a dissolute, 21st century Oscar Wilde, he writes effete plays and acts in anything he can fit his bum into, including TV ads for erectile dysfunction and enlarged prostate problems. He looks like a dugong with legs and is just as sweet and harmless. He'd slaved all day stewing a veal curry and the kitchen looked like a football stadium toilet after a big match, I had to close my eyes and hope for the best to swallow the brown lumps of meat, such is my esteem for him as I'm usually vegetarian and quite squeamish about sanitary cooking conditions. I arrived hours early, as I always do for every occassion, for I love to witness the preperations, know what I'm in for and catch the hosts with their pants down.

Charles was determined to dress in drag and I had to comment on one frumpy rag after another, all atrocious, no style, as if stolen from the wardrobe of a demented granny pensioner. He finally settled on a sheer white slip that revealed his pudgy tits, black tights stretched over his dumpy arse, a macrame shawl and a tie around his head so that he looked like Thoroughly Stodgy Milly, a tramp vamp from the Roaring 'Naughties. Then Peter Pumpkin showed up and he too decided bad drag was required for our Mardis Gras leftovers salon, quickly stretching over his great lumpen frame what he thought was a Dutch national costume, skirt, blouse and milk-maid cap. Then Ayesha the Drag(on) appeared in her black ratty Madonna cowgirl outfit and I realised the night was shaping up to be a psychedelic Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Sardine arrived breathless and late in a Labour Party apparatchick power-pants-suit and as I was the only one there in actual male drag I felt quite butch, the only real man in the room, and I got quite fussed over because of it.

Allison brought the ganjha for us Rasta freaks and we got very drunk and stoned as the non-celebration ground on, laughing uproariously at inane witticisms and vicious bonmots, the usual gay claptrap. There was a 7th guest who didn't show, but his ghost was ever present, a gorgeous young fellow named Chris who has lately favoured the Piccolo Freak's Club with his presence, finding us derelict fags fascinating, until he grows out of it and moves on to more saner pastures, as many engenues have done before him. He rides a motorbike, looks and dresses like something out of Tom of Finland but without the shlong stretching halfway down his thigh, leaving that up to our fervid imaginations, it's all in the packaging these days, and this boy is packaged like a blonde Adonis. He was all we talked about for the first hour or so, and thank nogod he didn't turn up for it would've been mighty uncomfortable to have a pack of desperate queens posturing and drooling over him with very litle partying accomplished. I imagined a surreal daisy-chain effect, for Charles is unnervingly obsessed with Peter who in turn is gaga over spunky Chris who I fantasise is secretly turned on by me, and like beauty attracted to the beast, chases me about the La Boheme dump while the 2 poofs and 3 "girls" glumly look on.

In reality Peter had no guy to focus on so he kept trying to feel me up all night, kissing and hugging me, because he trusted me and knew I wouldn't respond, (I love another, in a galaxy far, far away), all to get on Charle's goat, who never let up with the moonie eyes and declarations of undying love beamed in Pete's direction, quite boring. Like classic camp queens they played opera records all night, Maria Callas warbling loudly to shatter glass and nerves, till a neighbour had to bang bang bang on the door, furiously disturbed, to which Sardine yelled like a wharfie, "fuck off!" as she slammed the door in the irate, straight guy's face, confirming his opinion that "fags are the worst!" Charles left his vinyl records scattered across the floor and we all had to walk on them as we moved about, and when he put on Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" the record was so badly scratched it kept jumping tracks, shreiking, shredding, ripping and roaring till the paint peeled from the walls and Ayesha's tiny lapdog went nuts, spinning in circles, yapping and tearing at Charle's stockinged heels, the party descending into a hellish, crashing crescendo, the outre street parade outside reaching a climax thankfully unnoticed by us stoned freaks who laughed so hard we pissed our pants.

Charles had also left his weight-lifting dumbells out for us all to trip over, a signifier to Peter that he was really a macho muscle man under all that poofy blubber and we couldnt help calling him Charles Shwartzneggar all night and satirising his vain attempt at manhood. In the midst of all the fun Sardine ponderously announced that she was eternally depressed and considering suicide to which we giggled and said, "good, hurry up, you're such a dog, we'll help put you out of your misery!" Not very compasionate but in actuality we were all in the same sinking boat, leftover fops who few cognoscenti, ourselves included, found attractive or worthy of grand attention, and thus we filled the void with barbed jokes, pretend 'gayness' and histrionic poses, while the world burned and humanity fucked itself into orgiastic forgetfulness. We were 'human' after all.

I can't blame us for our hysteria at being rejected by a culture that worships youth, beauty and success, and abhors 'fairies', men who are less than zero if they're not brutish, breeding warriors with muscles for brains. We were all struggling to realise our potential as artists and probably none of us would, the competition was cut-throat and anti-pathetical. And, like Marilyn, we can't be loved enough, but none of us had ever had a real boyfriend, the life-partner of our dreams to share our ups and downs and protect our backs receded like a mirage in the desert the more we reached for it, at least we had each other.

Ayesha was once a famous drag artist and bemoaned the fact that she was no longer invited to perform at the Mardi Gras Party extravaganzas, she was sinking relentlessly into AIDs dementia, her costumes begrimed, daily looking more like Morticia badly in need of a shave, but she'd had thunderous applause and a thousand glorious fucks in her hey-day, she now let the young-guns hog the limelight, they'll learn the hard way that all that gliiters is not gold, and she had her lapdog, Yahoo, to keep her loyal company, fuck the adoring crowds.

And for all Peter's great talent, youth and beauty, he could never find a steady boyfriend, the pick-ups from gay venues like the Oxford Pub only toyed with him for a few days or weeks then dropped him for the next fling, superficiality still ruled, and he was let down by his own lust for rough-trade butch masculinity so that an adoring fan like Charles was not quite up to the mark. Poor Charles, for all his weight-lifting and swimming regimes, he remained a pudgy poof with a face like a camp Droopy the dog, and he always had half his dinner smeared down his daggy front, not very attractive.

And Sardine the trannie, forever bitching about morons in politics and the lack of style in the 'gay community', to me she comes across as damaged goods from too many drugs and a moribund career as a sex-worker, her femininity so razor-sharp and cutting she probably scared off prospective boyfriends, always teetering on the edge of destruction, getting more and more inebriated and addled as time wore on, she's notorious for flipping out and causing trouble, a put-off for everyone and not very attractive to real men in that L'Oreal "because you're worth it" sense. Too often told we're worthless, we have fought on, survived and achieved regardless. Lots of artists in history have been fatally flawed, suffering produces interesting art and much of CULTURE consists of our tortured, 'queer' contributions; anyway, at least we tried, delusions of grandeur are more glamorous than paranoid nihilism.

I don't have to say much about my own bent and fractured soul, it's all there to be read in my interminable Blog raves and, while FAME can go screw it's own vacuous black-hole, (it didn't do Elvis or Britney much good), I wouldn't mind a committed lover for I've never had a viable relationship either, too much of a crackpot narcissist and loner scumbag, I bullshit myself that I'm a godless new-age sadhu/sufi/taoist wanderer and have no need of a long-term companion in the flesh. But we fairies can still find other misfits to laugh and commiserate with, like at this party of the dispossessed, and that's better than Absolute Nothing, let the Parade pass us by and good riddance. To appreciate the moment and get sky high on it, that's something.

For me, this story shows the blues like bruises from a lifetime of battle, against predjudice, hate and brutality, screaming an intense pain that has no outlet except for bitchy jocularity. None of us at that party for grouches were bad people, we wouldn't hurt a soul, we worshipped love, fun and art, out of kilter and rejected by a society that makes money from war, degradation and disease, calling it economic growth. Over the last hundred years, politicians and lobbying industrialists have brought us all to the edge of destruction with bad policies and poisonous products, now they ask us to pay to clean up the mess while they continue to hog the best food, the classy whores, the stretch limmos and palatial mansions.

Worldwide, conservatives both left and right ignore the basic problem of a runaway population explosion, for they need that vast reservoir of slaves, consumers and cannon-fodder to fuel their elitist lifestyles, so easy to distract the masses with circuses, celebrities and religious nonsense, blaming 'gays' for decadence and civilisation's breakdown, when a major solution would be to encourage half the population to go 'gay', forget 'god' and live simple. Greed and stupidity rules, the world is being napalmed, pain shrieks from every byway, and humanity parties on regardless, let's consume it all now, fuck the future. It's a wonder we gay grouches are so hysterical, we dont even have grandchildren to worry about, but we are the world, we hurt.

And thus the midnight hour approached, we'd consumed all the intoxicants and wrecked Charle's flat, so we decided to venture out onto the streets to witness the aftermath of the Mardis Gras imbroglio. We wandered up to Taylor Square where the left-over celebrants staggered about, the peasants in their torn costumes who couldn't afford the party at the Horden pavillion, drunk girls sashaying about in loose bikini-tops, suburban rednecks in surf-shorts and thongs oggling the derelict fags, angry cops pushing befuddled revellors off the road, tramps kicking bottles and cans aside in search of lost drugs, and dread-locked hippies banging away on drums and blaring through trumpets while yowling punters frolicked and boogied to the beat, and I was reminded how Sydneysiders loved a wild party and will shake their booty at the merest tweet tweet of a whistle and thump thump of a bongo.

Myself, Charles and Peter ended up at the Flinders Pub, because it was free entry and looked to be happening. It was once a venue for all types of queers but in the last few years had been taken over by a "Bears Club", grossly fat, hairy men, virtually naked, strussed up in leather harnesses with a pseudo military edge, and we had to squeeze past their vast wobbly bellies and have their hairy, gorilla tits pressed into us as we pushed thru the crowd. But once we'd made it to the disco floor we let go of our inhibitions to the fabulous techno music and entered the paradise of Dance Abandoned, forgetting our differances, troubles, fears and desires, no need to cruise the morass of sweaty flesh, I let the Universe fuck me thru the music.

And I thought of all the poor souls in history who never got a chance to live and love, killed by wars, bigotry, disease and self-destruction, snuffed out before they realised they existed with open potential in a wondrous world, dead before they got to realise some of that potential. I felt rich, wise, celebrated and ecstatic in comparison, for all the shit, it was great to be alive and moving to the beat.

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The Astralnaut Who Crash Landed.

I dreamt last night that I was with an old rockstar friend who got famous and left me far behind,
we were trying to get a blue fiber-glass glider off the ground by throwing it into the sky
but we could'nt get it air-born, no strength and not a puff of wind to lift it, such is my life
now that I've crash-landed in Auz after my adventures in the wilds of India, being a pauper
I can only run away from mundane reality for so long, the cyberpunk tiger chained and tamed.

Back to Northcott Housing Ghetto where Eric the beserk viking howls all night providing
the perfect soundtrack to the Bedlam milieu; and Cursula the saccharine sloth sits by my door
moo-mooing like a brainless cow 24/7 eaves-dropping on my life because she does'nt have one
and I grimace when her sloth-mate Bawl shouts about the ice-cubes she put in his hot coffee;
and I hear dear ancient Dolly cry as the anal gay guys down the other end scrawl graffiti
on Eric's dirty door :"welcome to the piggery", it makes our whole facade look bad, and it's bad
enough with the nearby burnt-out flat and Cursula's pile of rescued junk littered about
and the gangs of cadaverous junkies loitering and moaning about the end of the world
like zombies who can't find any more human flesh to eat, except for the army of fags
with shorn heads invading Sydney for the Mardis Gras dildo parade = welcome home, poofter!

And I forgive my mother for having me and abandoning me to a harsh history, glad I'm gay
and don't have kids to pass the horror onto; we all have our limitations, we all want a life:
my mother did'nt have her dreams come true, I understand her stupidity, she's only human,
she wanted love and fun, life flashes by, one has to grab a handful of whatever, poor bitch,
the 1950's, '60s not so groovy for working-class women, she should've dropped out like me,
and as a responsible son I make sure she's taken care of in her dotage while I'm cut loose
to float free, to dream, to roam, to fuck, to bliss out on irresponsiblity, the transient flake
who never really belonged to a cruel/sweet humanity.

(When I complained my family said to me, "You chose your deviant lifestyle, now stew in it!"
ignoring the cigarette smoke blown in my baby face, the money wasted on gambling and booze,
the violence of jealousy and domestic slaves till my child's soul got disordered and I went mad
so long ago and all I've done, this writing too, a product of my deranged personality.)

Back to the Piccolo Bar where Vitto levitates the unweildy masses like Yoda yodelling the Force,
and you can meet your favourite Star Whores as if caged in a freak-show alley glass tank:
schitzo Richard yelling belligerantly about vitamins that can double the length of your dick
and Ratty the one-legged human potato crisp gabbing on about her bullshit ballerina gig,
her voice like claws scratching down a slate, useless, she applies lipstick to her broom-stick maw, smacked off her face she'd passed out upon an electric-bar heater many years ago
and has lately hocked her scorched box in Thailand where amputees are popular
with the jaded, hungry punters, now she's back to torture us with tales of artless conquests.
Ayesha the two-headed drag(on) lady nods and flashes her new tit job, scarred up like Ratty,
she's mollified in her madness, the catty hissing, spitting subdued, resigned to the freak's club,
she commiserates with me as a long-suffering member, we're too old to give a shit or a fuck.

Like a supplicant I wait for hours at St. Vincent's Hospital to beg the tin-god surgeon
to operate upon my purulent leg, I cry and tell the sister that I'm dying and lost in the system.
I'm asked to return in a few months for my pauper's free medical treatment, after I'm dead.
I'd run away to India to die only to find a new lease on life and now must pay for my dereliction
as if Hop Along Ratty has cursed my antipathy, I join her amputee soiree and get my leg cut off!

But I'm glad to return to my country, a 7th generation Auzzie, in time to sincerely say "sorry"
to native Australians so badly wronged, like Margaret Haze, the only black kid in my class
at primary school in the '50s, who everybody treated like shit, as if she'd spread leprosy,
no one sat next to her or played with her at recess, except me, for we were rebels up in arms,
the sissy poof and the Abbo bitch forever being tossed out into the corridor for giving cheek, alienated by the goody-two-shoes white trash, I even turned black in summer sun
as if some great great great grandmother was Aboriginal and had crept into my genes I pray
for I would love to have a 60,000 year dreamtime ancestry and be a true dinkum Auzzie blue,
maybe that's why I empathised with Margaret Haze, the world against us two.
Being proto poof was handicap enough, I'm happy to say "sorry" to my black brothers, yet who
will say "sorry" to me for all the bashing, the prejudices, the exclusions, the twists and turns
of the screw upon my potential, I could've been a contender instead of the broken-arsed bum
I've become, crash-landed from my dreams to face the desert of my Australian reality.

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If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

Runaway Cyberpunk India Freak.

As a boy I was crazy for all things science fiction
and dreamt I'd one day travel the Universe in my own personal spaceship
with all knowledge, past and future, at my fingertips,
and as I grew and neared the speed of white light I realised
I was my own spaceship and could go wherever I willed, directing the flight
consciously with wisdom and desire, for my Mind encompassed All.
So I spread my wings and ran away, from woes and bills and responsibilities,
leaving my demented mother for Community services to deal with,
postponing the next operation upon my broken knee, purulent tho it is,
electricity and phone unpaid, employment abandoned, Art forsaken,
India called and I responded, to get lost, and not be found, in Her dark embrace.

Like a cyberpunk astralnaut cruising the Himalayas in red-metallic machine,
a smiling djinn by my side bopping to techno music blasting quadrophonic,
we stop by medieval villages, our MP3s and mobile phones twittering,
ATM card providing the money for the magic-carpet ride,
the peasants ogle us as if we were demi-gods from a space-craft finding cyberpunk bliss
by a shrine at every bend of the road, a temple in every village and hotspot,
proof of democratic awe of the sacred, the Universe singing love songs to Itself,
Aware of Itself thru Mind tho the people know nothing else.
We rest at every clunky chai shop, our mirror-sunglasses flashing
and I remember all the glorious moments in an epiphany of tears :

McLeod Ganj town like Shangrila dreamscape hanging high on mountain-side,
Tibetan monks smiling, the Dalai Lama's temple and the waterfall behind it,
the death-defying drive around collapsing mountain roads Chaos ever-oncoming,
with temples shining white and psychedelic light in the distant mist,
the Sutlej River winding far below with Himachal fields and roof-tiled houses
and a road-side chai-shop that offered fried eggs, coffee and fresh orange juice.

From day ONE on my arrival I was swept away in the maelstrom of Humanity,
as always I thought I was on my last leg and gave myslef up to the turbulent currents,
whatever the adventure: let it come, I am willing to dissolve into the thorny sunshine.
And swimming fast I was taken a long way from my safety zone, thrown high and low
and whispered sweetly into my soul, "don't worry, you'll be taken care of."
India is not only a "functioning anarchy", it is Heaven and Hell enmeshed,
I pass thru level after level of pain and confusion, sorrow and ecstacy,
dirt and clean white cotton, loving friendship and crafty venality.
I am assuredly lost in Paradise, the Garden of Delights and Terrors open before me.
Yes I sipped the Divine Nectar from my skull and from the Indian people, and I saw:

huge leapords leaping in the wild jungle, the wildcat of my spirit called to me,
and snow-peaked mountains like gods vigilant and aware of my passing;
a bride in red weeping murder as she was carried in a palanquin from her ancestral home
deep in a valley in the back-roads of the Himalayas, and behind her I rode a horse.
I smoked a chillum in the jungle with a charismatic sadhu baba and his stone-age chelas
outside a cave where a famous silent Muni baba experienced his death Samadhi,
and his left-over vibes got me high, my spine straightened and AUM took over.
At first I was depressed but a white-water river rafting trip threw me into the rapids
and a whirlpool spun me high, exileration exploded and I felt it was good to be alive.

I danced like a dervish with queens in a gay Bombay nightclub called "Karma",
flipped out without a care I threw myself into the music and levitated in Dance
and watching impressed from the crowd of excited Indian revellors was an angel
who swore to meet me in the future if he could, joining me upon my cloud 7.
In Mumbai I had my own horror movie fest, "1408", 'I Am Legend", 'Thirty Days of Night",
"I Know Who Killed Me", "The Golden Compass" and "The Heartbreak Kid".
I lay on a mat on Chaupatti beach with good friends and looked at the stars
then ate at a chunky Hindu restaurant the best and purest veg food Mumbai's got.
I read only one book along the way, Marquez' "Memories of My Melancholy Whores."

I danced unfazed with the tribals in the Goan Hilltop parties, frenzied and ecstatic,
the techno music entranced the crowd and we moved as one to the Beat so high
like being fucked by the Universe to a funky rythm hardstyle and relentless,
the rave thumped on for 24 hours, night and day and night, atavistic dancing.
I wore my white on black "Great Escape" T-shirt, Steve McQueen on a motorbike,
and mirror-glasses ice-blue flashing, techno cyber-punk cool, hot Auzzie design on show.

And on the beach of Vagatore I thought of all my beautiful friends,
Auzzie and Indian, and I wept at their beauty, their frailty, the transience of Life
and good times rushing by so fast like Light one can't catch or possess,
only AUM to stabilise the giddiness, the sadness, the Ecstacy.
And I entered the Garden of Paradise denied me so long ago in Goa in 1972
wherein I saw the gates open and the child-like souls run to play and dance in liberty and love
but I was left behind, the emotional cripple afraid of brainwashed memes like "God and Devil".
Now I'm brave, wise and kind and an angel flew down to keep me company and Goa was a joy.

I know this comes across as so much ebullient bullshit and rainbow prose, India spins me out,
the smell of shit and sandalwood, the glitter of designer saris and the scabrous rags of beggars,
the angry flip-outs and the smiling shared humanity, I was brought down quite a few times.
One night sitting by India Gate in Bombay, MP3 lilting, wailing heavenly Islamic techno music
and a cool breeze from the Arabian Sea blowing thru me, the people came to sit beside me.
Mums and dads with kids, gangs of youths, old men nodding in their dotage, an old woman
in a gorgeous gray silk sari sat serenely by my side, I spied her from the corner of my eye,
she was regal, proud, a great beauty of her time and I felt trust and peace next to her.
She was helped up limping by her family, again the ancient matriarch near the END of the road
and I was surprised at her transformation to old crone, this place is indeed magic,
how I love it ALL, I felt such a part of the heady cultural mix, smug and complacent.

Then the djinn of India Gate came to take the vacated space by my side, another old lady
but this time looking like the witch out of "Snow White", hooked nose, gravestone teeth,
even a black-hooded cloak, a black Muslim burqua thrown back off the ugly face.
She cackled greetings and asked for a cigarette and leant close to hiss "keep it secret"
and fumbled at the cigs and lighter in my pocket where my costly digital camera lay.
I felt her hands go in my pocket and naively thought, "such a nice old lady, so harmless!"
She leant close and offered small vials of perfume, swiping samples on my wrist
and just to shut her up, her irritating hardsell, I bought a bottle and rushed off to a taxi
and only back in my hotel realised the old hag had pick-pocketed my lovely camera.

The next night I saw her by the Gate again and grabbed her, asking for my camera back,
she screeched like a harpie and flapped her bat-wings and I called for the police.
Two fat Marathi cops showed up on a motorbike as a huge crowd of rubber-neckers formed.
The old bat cursed as I told the cops in Hindi she had stolen my camera the night before
and they wrestled about with the billowing black burqua to shrieks of outraged modesty,
I felt a pain in my chest, Oh no! Not a heart attack here on grungy Mary Weather Drive!
I quickly pushed thru the crowd and frog-marched up the street, the cops yelling "Stop!"
I dont need 7 hours in the Colaba cop-shop with a wailing witch, the camera irretrievable.
As I rushed to lie down and recover in my hotel the cops dragged her away in a car
only to have her bounce back on ensuing nights, prowling for more unwary victims
and when I see her I call in Hindi, "Ap chore, ap purana chute!" (You thieving old cunt!")
For a few days I felt sad and violated, and imagined her being waterboarded by cruel cops
thru the black cloth of her burqua but I got over it, all things come and go in Flux.

But djinns grant wishes once they've taken their price, and my secret wish by the sea came true
tho djinns come with tricks and the most desired can become a curse if attachment grows:
within a week an angel became my constant companion and now it hurts to be seperated
and I fear for his well-being so that I'm restless and I watch the clock, for all flesh is transient.
Now I must swim fast in the torrential river for I have something to live for.
Like the last night in Goa, a live music concert with Prem Joshua at the Hiltop Hotel
with sitar, flute, sax and tablas, drums and keyboards, his band liberated our souls momentarily.

I live for adventure, vision quests, and was enthralled by a fast bus ride into the night
from Goa to Mumbai, I hung out of the window in the lightless dark stoned on ganjha
and I was swept into the Milky Way splashed upon me from the heavens to cosmic techno,
a great soul, handsome as a Rajput Prince, laid out beside me, my childhood dreams come true.
And then the teeming metropolis of Mumbai where I had my last wild abandoned dance
at the Voodoo Club in Colaba with gays, pimps, hookers and mugs, arms and legs entwined.

I left on the fast train to Delhi, the Rajhdani Express, and tried to lie-back in my upper-berth
with MP3 trancing techno so as to ignore the boorish behaviour of 4 Sikhs gabbing on below.
A short fat Sikh like a bandaged do-nut played the buffoon for a blonde Norwegian girl
pretending he was a movie director framing her for the big shot, it was embarrassing.
I passed out from fatigue but was awakened by a hot white light burning a hole in my brain,
it was midnight and the Sikhs were having a booze party while the rest of the train slept.
I asked them to turn the light out and they refused, I demanded and they again refused.
I roared and leapt like a leapord from my upper sleeper, "Turn the fucking light OFF!"
and switched it OFF myself. I was furious to take them all on, the warrior gone beserk.
The do-nut Sikh bellowed and flipped the light ON again as I climbed back up to bed,
I reached down and turned it OFF again, and fatso shouted "we ALL want it ON, mata chud!" "No not all, I want it OFF! Picture this in your director's frame, front page news headlines,
"Scandal! 4 drunken Sikhs thrown from train" with photo, you on your arse in the dust!
After the lecture you gave us earlier about what good Sikhs you are, shame on you!
Some Sikhs you turned out to be, drinking alcohol all night, why dont you light up cigarettes!
And ap mata chud! (You're the motherfucker!)" to which I heard a lot of laughing from the train.

To all this they shut their gobs and the light stayed OFF, then one snored like a hippopotamus
and I envisaged throwing pepper down his wide-open gullet and amidst the tearful splutterings
I saw Sikh daggers drawn, but fatso rolled over and we all blessedly slept in peace.
In the morning they looked glum, contrite, while the Norwegians hid their noses in books
and the other firangis, (foreigners), looked at me like I was demon-possessed, ha ha ha ha ha!
And when I left I said "Good riddance!" I was reminded of John Huston's movie
of Kipling's "The Would Be King" where Sean Connery and Michael Caine in imperious temper
throw a hapless Indian babu from a moving train when he tries to spit on the floor.

Such have been my adventures in this land of my repeated dream-scapes wherein I fly free
and go where I will and where I am taken, and back I come to Shangri-la, my second home,
for one last cruise with friends amid the snow-capped aeries along a temple-landmark route
to once again look into the omniscient jeweled third eye of a strange alien godhead
and figure out my way ahead in the Chaos, the endless Labyrinth, the hurly-burly of Auz
and I pray to the Universe that contains me, and that I contain, that I may find success
and my Art will lead the way for me to come back again.

www.amazon.com/author/tobyzoates

If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.