PUNK = queer
street-delinquent, jail bait.
OUTSIDER = on the edge
of the herd, vision questing.
Follow the misadventures of anti-hero Arthur as he’s propelled
by outlawed desire down the roiling gutters of Sydney in 1977 and on to the
1990s; from Darlo and Pyrmont Squats to The Gunnery; from the anti-nuclear
riots in '77 to the LGBTQ riots in '78; from the rock dives of Frenchs to the
Trade Union Club and Selinas Coogee Bay; from The Prisoners' Action Group
storming the prison system to nuns storming a "Right to Life" rally;
from outrageous Situationist stunts to a filmmaker’s soul-destroying quest;
from Callous Park Asylum to Northcott Suicide Towers; from the Piccolo Cafe on
the Cross to Mad Max in a Homebush quarry. Attempting to heal his flawed human
condition, he overcame the obstacles thrown his way and achieved an
exhilarating life. Hoping to be a cutting-edge artist and movie star he ended
up
an ignominious Punk Outsider.
No god, what an obstacle course I’ve run to produce this, the 2nd book, “Punk Outsider”, in a planned trilogy, “The 7 Lives of the Punk Poofy Cat.” (The 1st being “Vagabond Freak.”) It’s been 42 years of making notes, writing short stories, researching, interviewing, sketching, rewriting it 49 times, editing it with an eagle’s eye, to and fro with the printer to get it as near perfect as possible. And still it has 70 typos, I must have passed out, cross-eyed and exhausted at the end and managed to fuck it up. So I've hand-corrected the first 200 copies making it a "REAL PUNK" artefact with squiggles throughout to reinforce the fact that the stories are about a struggling artist, and it has 44 graphics to prove the artistry and illustrate the story. Here it is if you feel to dive into it! I should have also suggested the book is "interactive", the reader to have a red ink biro ready to correct any typos that I missed, (and there were plenty.) But in my confusion I didn't think of this creative idea and thus lost the chance at a true DIY participation.
It’s an illustrated roman a clef, picaresque NOVEL… an historical document but with names changed and events conflated as to time and space. In parts it’s exaggerated, confabulated, modified, obfuscated, dreamed up to make a point. But at the same time IT IS MY personal story, about being an anti-hero, queer, flawed, inexpert, foolish; a tale of surviving as an impoverished, unconnected, outsider artist... others have better stories of hanging with VIPs, mine are about the streets, the downfallen, the mad and the dysfunctional: violent humanity with all its wounds on show.
"Punk Outsider" is selling well and getting rave reviews from the cool cognoscenti. The book launch was particularly successful, Yuta played suitable Punk guitar wildly. I'm sure you will all be happy for me, it's been a very difficult achievement which I'd planned many years ago, looking far ahead. (Everybody who bought the book has been a great help, it's kind of like crowd-funding to enable a project only you get a book, which is the project!) It's a mash-up of various genres: alternative history, political diatribe, social realism, queer confessional, artist's manifesto, Pulp crime, horror movie, dark comedy, rock journalism, desperado's diary and pauper's suicide note.
Every story regales the reader with a variation on violence, from the State/[police, street gangs, homo-bashers, messianic cult-leaders with their conversion-therapies, would-be muggers, ratshit nurses, my anti-hero himself who greets violence with violence. But in a rigid class-structure of neo-liberal high capitalism it's the overarching System that perpetrates, enables, institutionalises violence upon those at the bottom, the streeties, and those climbing the shit-heap: in our world violence has become the norm, I call it "the violence of poverty."
The protagonist of Punk Outsider is unapologetically queer, his life-long sense of alienation was what led him on his many misadventures, fun stunts and egregious behaviours. His queer sensibility flavours the entire book, his queerness is what truly propelled him into a life of being a Punk Outsider.
Thanks to those true friends who stood by me, helped to promote the book, shared my achievement on FB and are sincerely good souls. They are kind, generous, with not a mean or jealous bone in their bodies. Such angels are: Branston Lee Pickle, Eulalie Moore, Damien Minton, Caroline Turner, Johnny Sigurd, Bronwyn Reid, Vittorio Bianchi, Susie Evans, Brian Allen, Kay Glass, Stuart Coupe, Devina Bedford, Brad Rees, Kathleen Matterson, Yuta Matsumoto, Wendy Joy, Stephen Jones, Sandra Gobbo, Joshua M Griffiths, Anne Morphett, Jim Anderson, Dianne Minnis, Nick Henderson, Ken Davis, William Brougham, Michael Organ.
It's not been easy being a Punk Outsider, arrested 7 times for civil disobedience, trespass and obstructing the Law, and rejected by self-important legends in their own toilet breaks. I've made 7 films which won 2 world prizes, and my films have shown all around the world; I've had 7 one person art shows and contributed to 21 group art shows; my designs on t-shirts and skate-boards have sold in many major world cities; I've created 700 paintings and drawings and sold 300 of them, cheap so anyone can afford them; I've given 49 live performances and published 3 books, (all the while working as a registered palliative care nurse.)
And yet I get trashed and live in ignominy. I was pushed to the edge but also I went there voluntarily, for that's where the most fun, love and knowledge is to be found. Oh yeah, I won Best Trash Film in the World award at Freakzone, France in 1996, alongside Japan, whose film was Zen atomic satire genius. I guess there's something cool to being trashed. It's red-hot PUNK.
If the armchair intellectuals and acclaimed art/political heros ignore it then it didn't happen, but it did fucking happen, BIG TIME. I guess that's Australia for you, most on the chain gang, or with the job of whip master, are resentful if someone seems to be getting an extra crust of bread or above their station. So thank you my friends for easing my way, the best benefit of being a Punk Outsider is my work remains punchy.
I'm a boy from social housing, from no elite school or with social connections, yet I've been around the world 21 times, and danced abandoned in 700 nightclubs across the planet, while a circle of dancers formed around me whistling and clapping. To think I was rejected from entering the Nat Art School in 1982. Thank NO GOD, they would've fucked me! I was accepted into the Uni of Technology Sydney, a much better school, where I majored in Writing and Text Studies.
My life has been so exhilarating that my eyes often roll back in my head in ecstasy, in this infinitely beautiful universe I am exultant. And I'm not finished yet, I've already written the third book in my trilogy, "Public Enemy Number 7" but will wait a year before I release it, if I ever do as it was too damned hard to realise this last book. I have to get "Punk Outsider" well and truly across first if I can. So dear phantom reader, keep safe, stay cool, be kind, unwind...
Order my book at tobyzoates@hotmail.com
or at The Bookshop Oxford Street Darlinghurst,
