76) Amiria and the Green Tara.

It's hard for me to fathom that today, the 27th of December, 2020, marks 10 years exactly for the passing into infinity of one of my dearest friends, Amiria. She was a reliable support, a companion at shlock movies that no one else liked, a shoulder to cry on when I was sad, and a great joy, knowledgeable and compassionate. She could give you a reality check without putting you down, a true taskmaster who spurred me on to be a good soul and not a fuckwit. And when I was framed for armed robbery by crooked cops in 1993 she was my alibi, a witness as to where I was at the time of the crime, standing up to the pigs and laughing in their faces, and they were nonplussed, as she was very intelligent and attractive.

She stuck by me for the three years it took to go to trial out at Campeltown Courts, disappearing every ten minutes to go into the courtroom next door where they were trying Ivan Milat, the horrid serial killer, then reporting back to me, whispering into my ear about the chilling demeanor of the murderer, while my own judge was intoning a long summation as to why I was innocent and what a waste of public money the bullshit charges were. After my acquittal my Queens Counsel, Phillip Boulten, took us both for a meal on Oxford Street Darlinghurst, and oh how we laughed at the cops, the goings on in Canberra and my final reprieve as a cake-shop robbing criminal.

In 2010, on December 31, I was sitting in a chai shack on Vagatore Beach in Goa, India, getting ready for the big trance party at the Hilltop Hotel later that evening, when I got a phone call from another friend of Amiria with the sad news that she had died a few days previously, having fallen off a chair and gotten a blood clot that travelled to her brain and sent her into a coma. I was devastated, I could only stare out at the Arabian Sea in shock, into infinite space, thinking of her, and crying, because I would never see her again.

She was a Mahayana Buddhist, giving much of her energy and hard-earned wealth, from working as a nurse in Emergency at the Prince of Wales Hospital, to that much beleaguered nation, Tibet, even sneaking into forbidden Lhasa with her lama friend to give what succor she could. She referred to the Dalai Lama as his Holiness and prattled on about reincarnation, Bodhisattvas and Nirvana and she had me half believing the mumbo jumbo, so impressed was I by her sincerity. She balanced this cosmic spirituality with an intense critique and dislike for what China was doing to Tibet, basically destroying its culture, its identity.

So there I was, in a blue funk, in my friend Prem's chai shack, "Green Eyes", reminiscing about Amiria. I'd known Prem and his family for 14 years, loyally eating with them and, knowing I love seafood, they spoiled me with the most exotic catch of the day. OK, it's un-PC of me but I do as the Hindu Goans do, they live from and on sea food, and no other meat. Suddenly, into the beach shack, stomped five Indian muscle Marys, bloated on steroids and drunk as punks. They carried their own bottles of noxious booze with them and, collapsing around a table, demanded Prem bring them glasses to drink from.

He refused, saying they had to buy their drinks from him if they wanted all the facilities of the shop. The leader of this gang of thugs bellowed in fury, jumped up cursing and, picking up an iron bar lying in the sand, whacked Prem over the back with it. I yelled for him to stop at which he smashed the glass counter-top next to me then swept my laptop off the table, telling me to, "Shut up!"

Prem has three brothers in the business but two of them were away at other beaches while his older brother, sitting at a table nearby, got up and ran away in terror. Other patrons also ran away, inside and outside the shack, foreigners and Indians, everybody wailing with fear. But I stayed with my friend, I didn't even think about it. (To reiterate: I'm no hero desiring a militant masculinity as compensation for my homosexuality. As a boy growing up in social housing, used to the rough and tumble, I don't think out these affrays, otherwise I'd probably also run, I simply jump in to help friends, it's a knee-jerk reaction. a peace-keeping tactic, not glorifying violence but to not live in fear either.)

While the monster with the iron bar kept swinging it at me, and I kept ducking it, another of the thugs rushed over to Prem and, grabbing him by the hair, slapped his face, hard and continuously. The creep attacking me got bored with me ducking his swipes and went back to Prem, brave lumps that they were, to beat him with his fellow devil. He hit Prem a few more times over the back with the iron bar then cracked him on the head, heavy handed. I freaked out, if that didn't kill my friend the next blow would. The brute lifted the iron bar and was about to whack him on the head yet again. At this I felt to do something, no matter my own safety, I couldn't let my friend die in front of me, I thought I could throw sand in the father-fucker's eyes then run at him with one of the cane chairs and bowl him over, even though the other four might stomp me to smithereens.

As the iron bar descended towards my friend's head and I was about to jump into the fray, I screamed, with that voice of authority I had long learned on the streets of Melbourne, as a charge nurse in the toughest of hospital wards, and in the back alleys of Indian cities, where robbers and serial killers had targeted me as a likely victim. "Don't do it!" The idiot's arm froze in mid swing, the iron bar poised; the dope, as if awakening from a trance, looked about him in glum stupidity and then threw the iron bar to the floor of the shack. He marched like a zombie out into the sun of Vagatore beach and the other dickheads followed him, their chests puffed out, as if they'd won some grand victory.

Green Eyes Beach Shack, Vagatore Beach

The local Goans showed up quickly, Prem was sent off to the hospital to get stitches put into his split skull, his face was swollen like a pumpkin from the weightlifters' slaps; he was furious with his older brother for running away, and he told all the Goans that I, the Aussie, was the only one who stayed with him and had made sure the bastards didn't kill him. Wherever I went for the next few years the Goans treated me with great respect, it was a wonderful respite from the usual stranger danger one gets as a queer renegade. At the Hilltop New Years Eve party that night I couldn't enjoy my usual abandoned trance dance as I kept thinking of Amiria and my great loss, and Tibet's and the world's, for she is a great soul.

But immediately after the event, as I dwelt upon it, it drifted into my awareness that I had felt a presence standing next to me throughout the entire ordeal, and as I focused Amiria's smiling features came to me, as if she'd been there in the form of a guardian angel. And not just Amiria, when concentrating upon the vision, she morphed into the Green Tara Goddess of Tibet, who I was not particularly familiar with, but there She was, in all Her effulgent glory, hovering over me, green light enveloping me.

I know I'm a bit of an hysteric, with a run away imagination, and I have "tripped" a lot in my life, especially on Vagatore Beach, since 1972 to 2010 in fact. Yet I have always had strong intuition, and lived by it, my life saved countless times by obeying it. So I was intensely impressed with Tara's fantasised aid. Years later I discovered the "meaning" of Tara, the Green Goddess, which I swear I never knew. She is the Protector from harm, She keeps one safe and Heals one's wounds. I was blown away.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a rationalist, a scientist, an atheist, but there is a thing called magic realism and, let's face it, this Universe is a mighty mysterious phenomena. The Mind is capable of creating all kinds of hallucinations, for all I know my unconscious dreamed up Tara and projected Her next to me, I could be Tara myself. While Amiria would smile enigmatically at this, I don't want to present like a crackpot, a follower of Pentacostalism, communing with a personal God, talking gobbledy gook, receiving a reward, I'm adamantly opposed to such religio-fascism.

So here I am, exactly ten years in the future, on the anniversary of Amiria's passing, blessed by her friendship, for she is still with me, in my heart, in spirit. The world has radically changed, in the middle of the COVID pandemic I'm stuck in Sydney for New Years Eve, I can't even visit my family in Melbourne, and I'm not able to make my yearly pilgrimage to India, to the Himalayas, to Goa beside the Arabian Sea, and all my "Thief of Bombay" adventures. But to kill this virus I don't mind staying put, weathering lockdowns, wearing a mask, keeping a social distance. It's okay isolating in my room, with my videos, books and reminiscing on my rambunctious life.

I cry for all those who are ill, who died and for their grieving loved ones. I send out vibes to the Green Tara, please heal the planet, the human race, for all its flaws and squabbles, bring wisdom, peace and protection. Amiria emanates that beauty.

The Artist as the Beggar at the Door.

 

Surveys have been done that revealed most of those who succeeded in 'arts careers', i.e. made a good living at it, came from families with money. They went to the best art schools where they formed mutually helpful cliques; were supported with a generous allowance while they practiced art; were introduced to Society's elites, the arts bureaucrats and gallerists who could connect them with rich collectors; and were provided with sharp lawyers who could protect their copyright, make sure they were paid properly for their work and not ripped off in any way.

What a foolish dreamer I was to think I might make a decent living from art. I'm a queer anarcho-activist from social housing with no connections or money. I was rejected from the NAS, the snootiest art school in Sydney, when I applied in 1982. I won't draw/paint crap just because I think it will be fashionable or sell like a piece of decorative furniture. And I won't enter the Establishment's art competitions as I think they prostitute "art" as apologists for The System i.e. high capitalism, fascism and elitism, with wankers judging them based on their personal taste and politics, or whatever is flavour of the month.

I got a small level of notoriety from sheer perseverance and hard work, wall papering the city with my posters, exhibiting in numerous shows, handing out flyers to every urbanite I could get near, showing my films in all mediums possible and expressing my creativity on every digital platform I could think of. Maybe this is enough, I might even be able to claim the grand title of "artist", after all being renowned on "The Underground" has some cachet.

But No God help me if I ask to be paid for my work or attempt to have my work taken seriously. The poster I've included with this story is a good example of the continuous fuck-over I've experienced in my turbulent life. I was a member of The Prisoners Action Group and was seriously concerned with prisoners' rights, for as a queer man and anarcho-activist my very existence was considered criminal. I've been continuously threatened with gaol and I felt terribly for the harsh conditions prisoners had to endure within The System. Myself and fellow travelers, lesbians, gays, feminists and allies, decided to do something about it. We pursued campaigns to stop screws from bashing the inmates; we got Violet Roberts released after many years of incarceration due to her murdering an husband who bashed her throughout her marriage; and we tried to help Ray Denning, the bank robber who'd had a shocking life of neglect and brutality, till The System indeed turned him into the human animal they'd long branded him as.

Some of us, Wendy Bacon and friends, got arrested a few times, either at "Right to Life" rallies fighting for women's issues, or for barricading ourselves into the screws' union office to highlight their cruel practices inside the gaols. Many years later these stunts were held against me by the pigs, the activism was indicative of my own criminality and I was thus easy to frame for an armed robbery and have any small chance at a successful life ruined.

I considered my political activism as part of my art practice, the "situationist" stunts, the posters, performances and gigs, all of it holistically connected. I organised the Garibaldis benefit with the help of Women Behind Bars and allies, I silk-screened the poster at the Tin Sheds and I used my film "My Survival as a... Deviant?!" as one of the acts, as that's what I had to offer and I felt it had some merit. We raised money for the campaigns and managed to communicate facts about prison issues to a wider public.

On the night three drunk witches threw wine in my face and accused me of trying to get fame off these political issues. My eyes stung, it was vicious, I was crestfallen as it had been hard work, no one else had volunteered to do it. Fame hadn't entered my head, I had come from the gutter and I knew I was going back to the gutter, and that's where I went, for the next forty years, middle class cunts be damned. I knew anyone connected with Ray Denning would get the opposite of fame, disgrace.

In 2019 I submitted the "Garibaldis Violet Roberts Campaign" work to the Paper Tigers Poster Exhibition put on at The NAS Gallery by the SEDITION Festival. Two of my works were accepted, nicely framed, not submitted by me, (I don't know who), and I was very happy about it. But my poster below didn't make the grade, not "seditious" enough, or maybe it didn't even get reviewed as it somehow disappeared, perhaps stolen while it waited in a stack for the curators to peruse.

Someone must've realised its value, as a hand-crafted artefact and an historical document, and stolen it. It never made it back to me and when I've mentioned it to the organizers or my rep, Mr. Minton who carried it out of my apartment, I'm told, "I don't remember it." It might not mean much to others but it meant a lot to me and I'm absolutely seething when I think of it. It's par for the course when one is a powerless, nobody artist. Mr. Joseph Lebovic, Paddington poster-seller extraordinaire, if someone approaches you with it, remember, it was stolen from me, as were many of the posters of mine you've been selling, which I made while on the dole and starving.

Recently I was sent an email by the State Library of NSW that an old 1979 work of mine, "Garibaldis Benifit - Cabaret Conspiracy" is to be shown at an exhibition titled "Coming Out in the '70s". This of course pleased me. But there would also be merchandise depicting this artwork of mine, on tea-towels, lens cleaner cloths and tote bags. Not a word asking for my permission, it was a fait accompli, and no mention of any financial compensation or a contract to be signed. I quickly wrote the curator a peremptory letter asking, "What's in it for me? If there's nothing then I'll have to talk to Arts Law and my LGBTQ community about it." I got an urgent message back, "Please consider 10% royalties of net and come in and sign the contract ASAP", which I gratifyingly did.

It took a long time, I'm 71, but I'm getting stronger about these matters every day. What annoys me about things like this is I have to chase them and, after being upset for a few days, I had to ask like a beggar at the door. When I went in to the gift shop to sign the contract for my measly 10% I gazed lovingly at the lens cleaner cloth, so gorgeous with my "fluoro queer gang" upon it, but was I offered a discount if I wanted one? Not on your fucking life!

I'm not talking about art as only worthy if it's making money, bullion art, big money. I've made art, not as a commercial proposition, but for the sheer joy of it, or the community need for it. Nearly everything I've ever done was given away, stuck up on walls or shown on social media. But it pisses me off when I discover some entrepreneur making big bucks from what I starved to create. Or they turn up repeatedly expecting artists should do it for free, then go die in their garret, the romantic bohemian ending.

All through my life-long non-career I've had to plead to receive any sort of payment. It's hard enough getting considered for inclusion, one is meant to be ever so thankful and honoured to be in a show, a book or whatever, one is willing to bend over and get fucked up the arse for the sheer joy of it. I promise you, I'm over it. Glory doesn't put butter on my butt.

(Many years ago one creep asked me if I'd submit one of my prize-winning drawings as an illustration in the book of poetry he'd got a grant to publish. I said, "OK, you're offering no money but I'll give it to you for free anyway." And he replied, "Oh no, you have to pay me $300 for the privilege of being seen in my book." I told him, "Stick your arse-wipe poetry where the sun don't shine!")

Betrayal vs, Love as the Human Condition.

Now I’m at the end of my life, in my seventies, I look back at my long travail and I feel weary, beat, depleted of my reserves of optimism, hoping to end it all. Yet at the same time I can say, for all the beat-ups and betrayals, I still had a great life, I went for it like a whirling dervish and squeezed it of maximum euphoria, adventure and achievement. I didn’t need to push my way to the front to receive some gilt statue, it was enough to read an inspiring book, hear some soulful music, dance abandoned by a fabled sea, and watch a sunset from a temple atop the highest mountain in the world.

So before I go let me tell you about one man’s tough journey, a tale both harrowing and informative. In the veritable dark ages of 1955, a five year old child was left to run wild on the streets of an inner-city Melbourne slum. He didn’t seem to have any guardians, no mother or father, only an old grandmother who was always in the front room of the house attending to his dying grandfather. He was as cute as a kewpie doll, with huge blue eyes, a Tony Curtis cow-lick hanging down upon his forehead and an angelic, shy smile. He was new to the neighborhood and lonely, desperate for friends.

When he tried to befriend the bigger kids across the road one of them, for no good reason except heartless cruelty, kicked him viciously in the balls. The pain was explosive, the attack incomprehensible, as if innocent beauty had to be destroyed. He ran home holding his crotch and writhed upon his bed in an agony that lasted several days. Yet he didn’t relinquish his desire for friendship and he tried again to approach the nasty lords of the flies as they played upon their veranda.

He was fascinated by a pile of glass baubles they were fingering, the scintillating lights of which were psychedelic in his impressive mind. He put his hand upon the gate and asked if he could join them to which they yelled, “No! Go away!” And then they slammed the metal gate upon his thumb, crushing it, a fountain of blood spurting out upon their precious gems. He shrieked in dismay as they shuddered in horror. He ran home to his grandmother who quickly bandaged the wound and soothed his broken spirit.

To compensate for the trauma she took him to his first movie at a cinema nearby, a convict melodrama starring Alan Ladd and Patricia Medina called “Botany Bay”, the protagonists in chains and getting whipped, a fitting allegory for what life held in store for him in class bound Australia, of slaves, whip-masters and callous captains. Yet at the same time the silver-screen magic of sailing ships and exotic destinations thrilled the boy and fired his imagination with the possibilities of life entwined with art, if one could only find the wherewithal to realize one’s dreams.

Not long after a little girl up the street was having a birthday party and her parents built her a stage in their backyard upon which she was going to perform a song and dance, like a spoilt Shirley Temple. An audience of local kids and their parents gathered to watch the little genius, only she had a hissy fit and wouldn’t go on. They waited an eternity and our little blue-eyed, scene stealing Tony Curtis look-a-like lost patience and jumped upon the stage and performed Doris Day’s latest hit, “Que Sera Sera”, tap-dancing to the beat and singing perfectly note for note.

The audience clapped along, enjoying his act enormously but party-girl was furious, she'd been upstaged. She enlisted a few cohorts and they rushed upon the podium and pushed him off the edge to land hard upon his arse, and everybody laughed at his humiliation, as if it were a clown act.

All this drama was a reality check for the little boy who henceforth sang the blues. The world in general was not fair, people could be insufferably cruel, and even the smallest ray of limelight was precious to ego-maniacs and fought over with no compunction.

For the rest of his life his path was blocked by the (not so) hidden agendas of class, tribalism, nepotism, fame-whores, backstabbers, plagiarists, brain-washers and power-players, desperate wannabes willing to sell their souls for money and fame. And in the face of this ugly rat-race many applaud the brats, winners are grinners no matter how they won, and losers are boozers no matter what great work they’ve done. For a gay boy from skid-row it was a hundred times more difficult, more tortuous, more unjust.

This flawed human condition left him bewildered as he believed in caring, sharing, co-operating, informing, entertaining for the joy of it, remaining that naive five year old at heart for much of his life. Beware, for those who snigger at this story are probably one of the cold fish who screwed him over and cold fish they remained, all their lives with just a hook in their mouth to show for it.

Possibly the greatest betrayal of his life happened at the very beginning when, as a one year old baby, his father hit him because he was crying and knocked him off the bed to crack his head against a dressing table. It was a rude awakening. Next, after beating his mother to a bloody pulp and having her taken away in an ambulance, at three years old he was told his mother was dead, never to return. This was devastating and untrue, a betrayal he could not get over, perhaps leading him to grow up queer and recalcitrant, with an oppositional defiance disorder.

While minor betrayals dogged him, such as being beaten up at school by the bullies because he was a dysfunctional sissy, the next truly major betrayal happened when he was nineteen and studying to be a nurse in a large hospital. An older nurse befriended him and, as a trusted big brother, got him to confess his homosexuality, convincing him he had a mental illness because of it. He was encouraged to attend a clinic in Kew called Newhaven where a shrink offered him psylocybin therapy, ten trips would straighten him out and turn him into a model, placid citizen.

What he wasn't told was that the clinic was in actuality a secret cult, The Family, with a mad woman named Anne Hamilton-Byrne at its head, pretending to be a new messiah and hoping to pair his reformed masculinity off with one of her nurses, "aunties", and produce blue eyed babies she could then sequester on a bushland farm and get ready to take over the world after the apocalypse. His friend, the older male nurse, had been sent out into the world to recruit acolytes, never telling them the truth. We shall call the protagonist of our story Billy, everybody's favorite son, he had four mind-bending trips that changed his life, but ran away without finishing the course as he intuited something mighty amiss with Newhaven, the shrink and the aunties. he only learned the truth some years later, reading about the scandal in a newspaper, and was shocked that friendship had been betrayed so egregiously in the hope of claiming his soul for nefarious, insane purposes.

Newhaven Clinic

Anne Hamilton-Byrne

In 1971 Billy ran away to India to find himself and take plenty more LSD to get on top of the heebie jeebies, to find his strength and confidence, and get over his fears of Satan and the Heavenly Father fighting for his soul. His next great betrayal happened after he returned to Australia in 1976, when he discovered part of his life-calling was to be an artist but little realising the gladiator pit of cut-throat back stabbing arseholes he was entering into.

He has blabbed about the ruthless rat race of the Australian art scene ad nauseum in other stories, no need to bore everyone again. At the end of his life he could say he'd achieved his dreams, had the swashbuckling pirate's adventures, danced abandoned in synch with huge crowds of revelers, created hundreds of paintings, made 7 films, published 3 books, had 21 lovers, read 3000 books, seen 7000 movies, hugged life to his heart and smiled free in the rain. In the end, love can overcome betrayal, and he loved life. He was content.