Monday, April 11, 2022

The Making of a Punk Outsider.

 

(This is a story I've written for a prison newsletter, Paper Chains.)

Growing up queer in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s was tough, I was criminalised because of my very existence, looked at as less than zero by “straight” society. As a “deviant” I was chased relentlessly by the cops from the few pubs and clubs that gave space for those who were different, and from the toilet-beats where we were relegated like unwanted shit, as if condemned to a concentration camp but not even allowed to suffer there. The only place we felt free were those outlaw lands, dark parks where we hunted for our illicit liaisons and were in turn hunted, by cops, perverts and poofter bashers, hunted like beasts of the night. We were crippled and misshapen by the hatred, fit only for imprisonment, the lunatic asylum or early suicide. Thus I had more than a chip on my shoulder, it was a raging bushfire.

I grew disaffected, resentful, rebellious against this oppression, detested how the world had been organised for an elite to rule in luxury, a middle class to be whip masters for the crumbs that were thrown them, and the lower working class to be the whipped slaves living in poverty and hopelessness. Being working class I was relegated to the lowest of the low, at times in menial jobs, living by my wits, my guts, my nerve, grabbing survival where I could, on the streets and teenagers’ crash-pads, all very Dickensian and Oliver Twisted.

My back-story is that I grew up in social housing in West Heidelberg Melbourne, went to a rough and tumble govt high school, both my parents were returned World War 2 veterans and worked in factories. I left home at the age of 17 and moved from boarding house to couch surfing to an old queen’s chi chi flat, as the kept boy who refused to put out till I was kicked out. At 18 I became a student nurse and eventually specialised in palliative care. At 19 I was conned into having psylocibin therapy to cure me of my queerness, they shot me up with pure Sandoz LSD which tripped me out furiously and changed my life irrevocably, and made me more queer and rebellious.

Unbeknownst to me the therapeutic Acid clinic was in reality run by a cult whose leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, had convinced a coven of fools that she was Jesus Christ come again. They had recruited me hoping to pair me off with one of their “aunties”, witch-like cult members. Because of my bright blue eyes, Hamilton Byrne wanted me to have blue-eyed babies with the nurse-aunty hag of her choice, a child which she could then kidnap and brainwash into her crazed apocalyptic cult, for she was of Nazi Aryan persuasion. I intuited they were cosmic crackpots and ran away, graduated as a nurse and fled to India where I smoked hash and took acid with the international freak set till I got on top of having nightmare bummers, dancing in the Garden of Pan instead. After 5 years on the road, and relinquishing the LSD lifestyle, I returned to Australia to take on the snooty art scene as an iconoclast outsider.


“Punk” is originally American slang for a guy who in jail takes it up the arse for favours: cigarettes, drugs, extra rations and, most of all, protection. When you hear someone called a ‘punk’ in an American movie it means more than just a dirty fag. It can also denote loser, no-hoper, wastrel, bum, delinquent, fuckwit, bastard, criminal. As the sub-cult of "Punk" evolved, with lifestyle, fashion, music and art, it took on a more positive interpretation as far as freaks in the "underground" were concerned: different, rebel, daring, gutsy, wild, avant-garde, cool. I wanted those tags as well.

I was promised the low-life of the "punk" and more, the boy at school who was voted the least likely to succeed. Every time my father drove us past Pentridge Gaol in Melbourne he would warn, “Watch out Toby, if you’re not careful you’ll end up there!” So I was very, very careful and never got caught at any of my illegitimate shenanigans.

By the mid 1970s I was educated in the way of the world and became intensely politicised. I participated in civil disobedience acts and Situationist stunts, protesting all the nasty elements of neo-liberal capitalism: cuts to public services, anti-military/industrial complex, anti-nuclear industry, against environmental exploitation and the fossil fuel industry; like Marlon Brando in “The Wild One”, when asked what was I rebelling against I replied, “What have you got?” If I wanted to get gay lib I had to fight against patriarchy and for women’s lib as it was all tied in. As a queer I had to fight for housing, employment and prison reform for I was constantly threatened with homelessness, unemployment and gaol just because of what I was. And I totally identified with the ongoing battle for Koori rights, one of my great, great grandmothers was an  Indigenous Australian and my blood boiled over at the theft, murder and cultural devastation perpetrated upon my fellow Australians. I participated in the 1978 LGBTQIA riots, got kicked in the head by a cop and never felt right since. Altogether I was arrested 7 times during this long struggle and the State did not approve.

My art practice thus screamed act-up, the acting out of my being pissed off with the cruelty of the world, even if I was pissing in the wind. My posters, paintings, murals, commix, writings, memes and films all obsessively shit-stirred and grouched about the injustices, cruelties and crimes of this neo-liberal, imperialist, war-profiteering, earth destroying, class-bound world. I’ve pasted 49000 posters upon the walls of Australia; handed out 70,000 flyers from many street corners, libraries, halls and shops; showed my films in theatres, cafes, community centres, schools, TV stations and art galleries; flogged my books shamelessly from every possible niche the world has to offer... yes, all of it hair-brained, lunatic fringe, “wild child” bitch-slapping “fuck you happy clapper” straight-laced money-grubbers, “I’m mad as Hell and I want everybody to know it!” And the beady-eyed pigs knew it for sure! (This is not to say I think I’m a hero, I’m a fucked-up sour-puss and I see the world through jaundiced eyes.)

My movie “Virgin Beasts” smacked of this rebellious anger in every frame, a part-animated, sci-fi, burlesque, agit-prop rock opera: an arms dealer on his death bed thinks his money will allow him to live forever = Beauty Meets the Beast at the Masque of the Red Death on a Quest for the Holy Grail to Beat Brand Rights for Grey Males. I wrote the script in 1986 then had all hell struggling to make it for the next 7 years, greedy State sanctioned plagiarists trying to stop it halfway through production. But I persevered, never taking “NO!” for an answer. I premiered it in 1992 at Jelly Headz Punk Garage in Chippendale. I put on two grunge bands with it and sci-fi/horror movies upstairs, it was a riot of a night, the Underground Sydney crew screamed their tits off in enjoyment. And the pigs infiltrated, sure there’d be the dreaded drugs on offer and they could make an easy bust. While there was an assortment of deviants caterwauling there were no obvious drug-deals going down, there was just poor little me standing out like cat’s balls in the crowd, the centre of attention and the pigs zeroed in on me.


They must’ve looked me up in their records, at my history of civil disobedience and fundraising gigs to pay activists’ fines and bail, and spreading anti-establishment diatribes by the truckload, and they decided to get me. Biding their time till the right moment, when they hoped nobody was looking, they did get me.

A year later, in 1993, on Black Thursday, they framed me for an armed hold-up. It was Easter and I went to my local cake-shop to buy some hot cross buns. The backpacker bimbos behind the counter made bugaboo eyes at my appearance but I took little notice, I’ve had a lifetime of moronic eyes bulging in my direction.

Being a chronic cake fiend I went back for a lemon tart and this time one of the shop-girls became somewhat hysterical but the other one perused me closely and said, “No, it’s not him.” I said, “What’s happened here, have you been robbed or something?” To which Miss Hysteria started frothing at the mouth. “If there’s any suspicion of my involvement here’s my address, I can prove I’ve got nothing to do with whatever the problem is.” What a naive fool I was, I could’ve walked away and my life would not have taken a dive over a cliff. The pigs jumped on it; it was what they were waiting for, some contretemps involving me.

I was at home with the lead actress from my film “Virgin Beasts”, about to go to my lawyer for the signing of a contract. Two plain clothes pigs showed up and pushed their way through my door. They started screaming, “Where’s the money  shithead!” as they tore my flat apart. Michelle, an American, a graduate of Yale drama school, spoke up in my defence, “He was with me all day yesterday.”  They growled in her face, “Shut your mouth cunt or we’ll bust you as well!” Her jaw dropped, she’d never seen this side of Australia and she quietly slunk away. The pigs kept throwing my stuff every which way till my flat looked like a garbage dump. They found items they said were used in the robbery and led me away in handcuffs.

I was taken to a convict-era pig station in an alley of Surry Hills, interrogated, tortured, told to drop my pants while they sniggered at my shrivelled cock and kept demanding I confess to the crime which I steadfastly refused to do. They then put me in a line-up, with office-workers in white shirt and tie, me in torn, black punk gear. They brought the cake shop bitches in, me thinking they would surely exonerate me as they’d seemed to agree it wasn’t me back in the shop. Both of the European backpacking moles didn’t even glance at the squeaky-clean fuckwits in the line-up, they straight off pointed their bony fingers at me and said, “Him!” I screamed in horror, “How could you do this to me?” And the clean-cut robot office workers laughed.

The bitches probably colluded with the pigs, perhaps promised extensions on their visas, they couldn’t give a shit if my life was ruined, damn them. And I recognised one of the pigs, the blond one wearing an Armani suit and Rayban sunglasses, he was one of the plain-clothed Nazis who’d infiltrated my movie launch-party at Jelly Headz a year previously and must’ve decided then that they would get this uppity fag who the punk cognoscenti had fussed over. “Fuck him, we’ll bring him down a peg or two, he’s guilty as Hell, all that civil disobedience proves he’s a no good criminal.”

I was then trucked to the cells at Surry Hills Pig Citadel and locked in a cage with a giant, obese Greek youth who was withdrawing from a cocaine habit and who shrieked all night, not just at the pain of drying-out but in fear that I, the punk fag, was going to rape him. On the wall of the cell was a giant swastika in red crayon, quite fitting as a symbol for the milieu. In the morning I was taken to the ancient sandstone courthouse in Liverpool Street, to a musty courtroom and stood before a prim, prune-faced magistrate who’d been dragged in from his holiday and was mighty uptight, for it was Good Friday and he sorely wanted to crucify someone, anyone. While I watched he sent several sorry souls off to Long Bay Gaol for Easter, accused of shoplifting and possession of marihuana, heinous crimes in his piggy eyes. Then it was my turn to be dragged across the hot coals of his displeasure.

“Armed robbery is a terrible crime, shocking in its deviousness, so serious as to want hanging. I will send you off to Longbay to await your trial which will be in about three years and you’ll get seven years hard labour for this!” I shat my pants. Michelle’s husband had shown up holding his baby in his arms and he spoke up for my good character. The prick of a magistrate harrumphed and grumbled how “serious” the matter was and Steve continued pleading, promising to go bail for me. The high and mighty Lord of Law hissed and pissed, and finally relented, but I was condemned to report twice a week to the pig shop and forbidden to leave the city until the trial.

For 3 years I dragged myself to the pigs’ dungeons and signed their register while the oinkers glared at me with baleful eyes. I went into deep depression and had to have psychiatric intervention for I was suicidal. This because I’d always avoided hard crime, it would never enter my head to rob anybody, I could always go work as a nurse if I wanted money. Maybe you will throw scorn upon me but I was basically a guy who used his art to shit stir and that was the sum of my criminality, apart from trespass, causing affray and obstructing the law. I went to many of my “leftie compatriots” and told them of my dilemma, they all tut-tutted and said they were “Sorry” then hurried away, the mention of the police gave them the willies and they wanted no part in it.


I’d been a member of “The Prisoners’ Action Group” and “Women Behind Bars.” We’d had campaigns to free Violet Roberts, in prison for 20 years for murdering her bash-happy mug of a husband and she was freed because of the female activists’ efforts. And we felt sympathy for Ray Denning who’d sworn he was being constantly bashed by the screws but in reality was lying as he wanted revenge upon the System that had badly fucked him over. Still we wanted to help him somehow, though he eventually turned dog. I visited him with the PAC many times and felt deep sorrow for him as he’d never been given a chance, his soul twisted since childhood. 

We barricaded ourselves into the screws union office to protest prison guard brutality and were arrested for criminal trespass. Much of this action was instigated by Wanda Bacon, intrepid leader and Boadiccea of the anarchist scene. Three times over those years I approached her to tell her of my plight and possibly get her esteemed succour. I barely got 7 seconds into my spiel when she turned away, distracted by her fans and self-absorbed by her activist fame. I guess I just wasn’t a cause celebre, a criminal star shining bright enough for the wannabe Emma Goldman’s notice. Not that she’s a fake, she’s an admirable fighter for the peoples’ rights, I just didn’t figure. What was I to do? Nobody would help me, nobody was interested, I was merely a dumb, whining fag who deserved to be swept down the gutter for attempting to be above my station.

I had to go to Central Courts every few weeks to beg for small freedoms where I saw up close the brutality of our glorious system of Law and felt vindicated in my opposition to it. Thankfully, through Legal Aid, I got a Queens Counsel to defend me and eventually my court date came up.

At first I was delegated a “hanging  judge” and my lawyer was dismayed because the bastard was a purple nosed, dyspeptic alcoholic and growled in disgust when I stool before him. But he collapsed with delirium tremens and I was given a benign judge, and my lawyer felt relieved when told of the replacement. Such is the blind, impartial Goddess of Law. The pigs said my trial would go for 7 weeks as they had much evidence against me. On walking towards Campbelltown Courthouse I spied a mob of reporters squirming and squalling, hustling and bustling, crowding my path. Again I shat my pants, I thought they were there for me. But my lawyer said “No!” and pushed his way through them, they were awaiting the arrival of Ivan Milat, the notorious serial killer, he was being tried in the courtroom next to mine. They ignored me, thank no god!

Inside my dreaded courtroom the two scrag shop girls sat vengefully, ready to give false witness. The first one said my face was clearly seen and she was positive I was the perp. The judge inquired, “You reported the hold-up man to be about 25, Mr. Toby is 45, do you really think he looks 25?” And the dog said, “Yes!” The judge said, “I don’t think so.”

The next bitch was ushered in by her pig chaperones. She said, “He wore a mask but I’d recognise those blue eyes anywhere!” The judge said, “You say he was masked. The other woman said he wasn’t masked. Surely you’ve had three years to get your testimony straight?” After lengthy deliberations that made me squirm the judge finally acquitted me on a case of “mistaken identity.” The trial had only taken 4 hours. The pigs came up to us and snarled, “You’ve made my witness cry!” It was the one who said I was 24, willing to sell me down the river for thirty silver pieces. “Oh wow,” I smirked, “she’s only ruined my life with nasty lies. I want her tits cut off!” My lawyer quickly hustled me out of the torture house.

All this reinforced my opinion that I lived in a fucked-up world, there was no objective law and honest justice, it all depended on luck, liars and money. Australia still has convict colony mentality, especially Sydney. I gave up filmmaking, it was too bloody hard to begin with, and offered little reward. Australia didn’t deserve my hard labour, its cruelty typical of a devil’s island and the arsehole of the planet. I got no compensation for the ruin of my life, I was told it was all par for the course in the precious functioning of our dear God, the Law. The bastards did me a favour. My life’s path took another direction, I ended up doing what I’d longed all my life to do but could never find the wherewithal to do it, and that is write and paint to my heart’s content with no one looking over my shoulder telling me what to do.


And I've been able to travel the world, having adventures, riding on a flying carpet amongst the peaks of the Himalayas like the Thief of Baghdad to a mystic temple where a goddess promised me that with charismatic character I would want for nothing. Life has been grand since that time of bad luck, the System with its arduous climb up a shit-heap to the big Nowhere can go “fuck itself!” And damn those cops and moles for trying to destroy me, I hope they get their balls and cunts crushed by out of control pig vans. I’m out of here!


If you are interested in my writing please buy my latest book, Punk Outsider. Order from: tobyzoates@hotmail.com or The Bookshop Oxford Street Darlinghurst.