Oh, the Dilemmas of a Fringe Artist.

I've practiced and practiced writing it but this will be the specific note I'll leave online to tell anyone to who may be curious as to why I offed myself. 

This entire Blog is possibly the longest suicide note ever written, at 21000 pages long it attempts to explain every facet of my existential travails and downfall. Like it or lump it, when I get to the end of the note IT'S OVER!

It's my Outsider's confessional, for my peace of mind, to pull that painful knife from my chest, from the heart.

Every city has a million stories and some, when written down in exasperation, have the feel of a suicide note. For often the story is about humanity tearing at each other's throats. With relief I can also admit there is the miracle of an occasional hand reaching out to help from that rare compassionate soul. Eight billion people on the planet, every one of them hoping to survive, fighting to thrive, screaming into the silent void, "I'm alive!" Each wants to matter, to have meaning, to leave a mark in the face of ever-present death. Posterity, immortality, eternity, celebrity insanity, "Don't let me be nothing!" 

Wars, torture, rape, traffic of children, drug addiction, money-god, religious fervour, millions getting trodden on, humans will turn to cannibalism if they have to. A nuclear bomb can fall at any moment and vaporise that city of a million souls, and in that holocaust the individual means nothing.

Lost in this existential nightmare the confused, frightened individual will try whatever they can dream up to get "somewhere". I am nobody, possessing nothing, simply working hard at getting a life, beyond owning shit and being "somebody", and I got a life, of adventure, knowledge and ecstasy, in the face of eating the dust. Yes, I've had ugly thoughts, done a few dumb deeds, nothing vicious, mostly naive childishness of stepping on toes, yet always with the hope that everyone I met would be a friend. I was open, giving, never ripping any one off, lending succour when I could. "Oh yes," you laugh, "that queer boor, sucking dicks when he could!" 

Sadly, all along the way a thousand doors got slammed in my face, not because I was a bastard, I remained fearless, brash, I wouldn't take shit, Im from the gutter, an anarcho socialist, so the doors slammed harder. As an innocent child I had to be crushed, as if by monsters from fairy tales. Some people feel terror at the sight of vulnerable beauty, such as an innocent child presents. Uptight, mean-spirited souls I met found intelligence and bravura offensive no matter the long, hard road travailed to get wise. In the cruel 1950s that small child had his thumb crushed by a rudely slammed gate when he reached out asking for friendship.

When I crash-landed in Sydney in 1977 the shut-out was damning, the elite whip-masters had engineered a permanent chain-gang to keep the peasants in their lowly station and I was the lowest. My fellow slaves were willing to play the screw if it meant extra rations and a soft bed. In that year I made my first posters at the Tin Sheds with imaginative drawing using fluro acrylics and heavy black; from then on, astonished at my temerity, my art overseers excluded me from every group show they organised, but they couldn't ban me totally, against their exclusion there was always that kind soul who helped anyone who was downtrodden as that was their nature. In this instance the empathic person was Chips McInolty who supported my practice regardless of the naysayers. Now my posters are in many private and National collections, and will soon be featured in a television drama series. 

1979

The poster that caused a big splash for me, Garibaldis Benefit, enlisted the aid of a group called "Cabaret Conspiracy." A certain 'impresario' I'll name J.A. resented someone stepping onto his turf to organise a benefit using his gang of performers, and also create a fabulous poster which he could never accomplish. I only recently flashed that he has held a grudge for forty years and occasionally slammed my chance of work just to show me who had 7 cents worth of power in the Sydney show-biz pecking order.

This snooty treatment has repeated non-stop through my arduous journey, it seems a common trope, the wannabe artist getting fucked over, for they are without a wealthy family, good school connections or relatives/friends on the grants board. And I won't suck up to the power mongerd. 

Oh well, I was never in it for the money or upwardly mobile career. I was in it for the joy of creation, the fun of putting on my own shows in halls, shops, cafes, schools and squats; painting the city in fluro rainbows, it was something to do when you don't want to only be a wage slave 9 to 5. Oh, and I thrilled at giving my finger to The Beast, fuck you for fucking me!

I don't care if you think this is the usual grizzling of a defeated old dick, I must tell the facts of my undoing before the dark night takes over. I will recount my downfall in all its sordid details, naming those creeps who cruelly put the boot in no matter that they professed themselves saviours of the hard done by and heroes of the minorities.

It amazes me that I got my arse kicked more painfully even after I told my unwarranted adversaries of my terrible background of intense domestic violence in a pauper household; that I was beaten constantly and rejected because I'm queer; raped and excluded by my fellow gays because I'm vulnerable and low class; chased, brutalised and framed by corrupt cops; condemned to dark parks and toilets looking for love and comfort from mostly callous, exploitative men and a bigoted society; rejected by family because of my deviant difference; never to find love and peace because I have been twisted by a violent, ruthless world. I related all this to those I thought were friends, who had comfortable childhoods, lived in mansions, rarely given a slap, about to inherit millions... and they turned on me, for no good reason except their weakness of character, meanness, resentment that I fought for and still got a life while they remain dopes, losers, no hopers.

They stabbed me in the back, spread lies, gaslighted me, insulted and tortured me, same as all the fascist brutes I've met in my life who didn't feel to pretend "niceness." I don't get it, why? I've done nothing bad to them, I've worked hard and gotten very little recompense; for all that I'm talented I won't get fame and riches, I'll die a pauper and ignominious. Why do some of those I trusted join in the fuck-over? Does that little bit of power to oppress, to negate, to reject, give them a thrilling kick, a one-up sense of betterment, someone lower than them they can crush and laugh at? 

Humans can be so pathetic, stupid and nasty. No wonder our species is heading towards extinction. Wars, pandemics, climate chaos, environment pollution, drug epidemics will do us in and we deserve it I guess, though it is a pity for we were capable of so much more: beauty, knowledge and love. But we had to shit on it, poison it, perversely, as in Freud's Death Wish, Thanos. So many scumbags surround us, it's a miracle when you meet a truly good person, they almost make up for the bad, giving one a break from the relentless indifference and cruelty. I guess I'm a misanthrope. I'm also infantile, I never got past the age of 7 emotionally, I even draw like a kid. What the fuck!?   

I am an outsider, pure and simple. Since Camus gave the term cachet it's become synonymous for hip, cool, dangerous, outrageous, freak, outlaw, abnormal, alienated, unwanted, excluded, pissed-off. Now it's been appropriated by fashionistas, wankers and wannabes for that extra edge of anarchic cachet. To be a smart-arse, naughty and rebellious, how cute. It's bandied about by artists hoping to add to the lustre of their fame: painters, writers, performers, filmmakers, poncey poseurs and ruthless careerists, they ignore that a famous outsider is an oxymoron, a paper-tiger fake. 

An outsider is exactly that, OUTSIDE, never allowed IN, on edge. Every entrance is shut in his/her face by the Cerberus dog on the door, the officious twirp on the committee with snippy axe to grind. Is it the outsider's cutting genius that gets the oaf's shitty knickers in a knot?  Or his/her scabrous critique of society that rocks the boat and insults the conservative? Does their rainbow colours outrage the grey, stick in the mud, untalented drabs? I'm sure intelligence confuses the dumb, rude style annoys the conformist, and dare-devil stunts overwhelms the old biddies and limp dicks.

The true outsider dies outside, in the cold, on the road, as I will! Australia is particularly callous at keeping its outsiders in the wilds, many fuckwits on the chain-gang snitching for an extra lick of the boss's boots. My work has shown all around the world yet got little encouragement at home from those who had the wherewithal to help push it, the old "tall poppy" syndrome. Jealousy is such a pathetic disease and a pathetic Australian flaw. I did it alone, with no money, no connections, just guts, brains and heart, and help from my friends and the few well-wishers I met up with, the punks, thieves, hookers, junkies, paupers, fellow outlaws and outsiders. Thus I made my films "The Thief of Sydney" and "Virgin Beasts." 

I came up with the title of my book "Punk Outsider" 7 years ago and broadcast its immanent arrival on social media, in Blogs, FaceBook and Instagram, little realising it was an "IN" tag. After reading 3000 books and seeing 14000 movies I created a story where the villain, "Toby the Punk Poofy Cat", the jail-bait punk, takes it up his badarse for favours such as spliffs, protection and a helping hand, or for the sheer pleasure of it. What fashionista would admit to that?

         

These days the "outsider" is the darling of the Establishment, adored  and welcomed into every citadel of shit and given a million dollars, (I recently sold 7 prints to the State Library of NSW but only got $400 for a year's hard labour. The sale was encouraged by a gay friend who worked in the library, the one out of 7 people who will reach out to help, the other six being cut-throats or indifferent.) To me those "IN" outsiders really are "bum boozers and poncey poseurs" for they are not able to withstand the pain, fear and ignominy of truly being shut out in the cold, ever hungry, degraded as the detritus of slums, a nobody peasant from social housing. Yet I made films that won world prizes! Plead sincerely as I did many snooty Aussies sniffed "NO!" when I asked them for a show or assistance, they told me to exit thru the toilets, the Thief ripped off by shit-heap climbing douche-bags!

The outsider is always made to run the gauntlet for her/his notoriety. From the very beginning of the rat race when I washed up in Sydney  I met the artsholes who would plagiarise, backstab, exclude, rebuff me till I wonder how I managed to survive and progress down that boulevard of broken arses.  I swear the shit acts I now relate are true, this is the cruel treatment the true outsider receives in a world where money and fame rules, and empty shells will sell their grandmothers to the glue factory for a shot at it.

2011

When I made Super 8 films and showed them in halls, schools and cafes I was applauded for my social realist nerve and community regard, but then a gang of abstract dicks took over the Super 8 Film Group, and I was rejected from the screenings and festivals they infiltrated. Their leader, Warner Brother-Fucker, wormed his way into the Film Commission to be the demi-god who handed out money to his Super 8 suck-arse cabal, promptly refusing funding for my musical doco "Darling It Hurtz!" Thankfully there was one person who helped to defy the machinations of the rats, Chris Tillum, who found me the money to finish it, and this film is now an underground classic though still shat on by the Powers That Be.

In 1981, in the middle of my animated film project, "The Thief of Sydney", a gang of art students wormed their way into my studio and were impressed with what they saw. With the bullshit name of 'The Animation Co-op' which they'd conned me into forming they eventually walked off with most of the equipment and my techniques and designs from my project. They lied about the antecedents of their films, forgetting the builder of the studio,Eddie vander Madden, bragging they invented it all. They got lifetime jobs teaching animation while I got thrown in the gutter and Eddie died a pauper.

In 1983 I submitted a short story I called "Welcome to the Mens" to a queer anthology titled "Edge City" edited by Gary Dunne. It was about the various influences on growing up gay in Melbourne of the 1950s and '60s. While he used a line from my pitch to get my story published, "blood on the lino," as the title for his next book of short stories he never asked me to contribute again in any way. My story was controversial in its description of domestic violence and the seduction of myself as a schoolboy in the toilets of a movie theatre by a much older man.

In 1984 that story was noticed by a historian at Sydney University, Gory Witherspoon, who told me it enthused him to put together a volume of such "growing up queer" stories, set in different Australian cities and eras, and asked if I would reprise my history, only take it further, from puberty up to young adulthood. I improved my tale and ended it with a plea for "marriage equality" which I hoped would give queers more social acceptance, the happy gay couple welcomed at the family dinner table. He put together 6 tales with him as editor calling the tome "Being Different." When the book was published in 1985 it received much praise and went into reprint. I got singled out as having written an entertaining and poignant story by the literary review in the Sydney Morning Herald, the other stories considered tedious and mundane.

On publication I discovered dear Gory had decided to put his own story in as well as being an editor and he placed it just before my story. He ended his boring growing up story in a safe North Shore family with a plea for 'marriage equality', very similar to my own, thus attempting to pre-empt me. He never asked me to contribute writing to anything again nor has he ever offered to suggest or connect me with a publisher for my further writings. Nor was I ever asked to participate in the tidal wave of growing up queer volumes and seminars that followed in the next 40 years. That ever present cone of silence descended upon me and did so up to 2022. Is it just that I'm not connected or is it that Sydney feels it's had me and I need no further coverage? I think it's the cut-throat competitors wanting the kudos of being the originators of gay genrescand being the best at them. 

Perhaps my work is just too outrageous or was my old mentor Compassion correct when he told me ,"People won't like your work if they don't like you?" What the fuck did I do to get continuously shat on?

1978

 I slaved for 10 years to make a short feature film, 'Virgin Beasts', 1986 to 1995. When it finally surfaced it won Best Trash Film 1996 at Freakzone, Lille France (with Japan.) A part-animated sci-fi burlesque rock opera, "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." It was a trip into the male Unconscious to critique patriarchy, its central icon of the penis and its promulgation of war-financed capitalism, with the power to destroy equated to the ability of women to give birth. 

Halfway through production the Lesbian Mafia running the Australian Film Commission refused me any further funding and dumped me. I was suicidal.

They went on to give themselves one and a half million dollars to make their own part-animated feature, "Pissing Under Water" about a trip into the female Unconscious to critique patriarchy and praise the feminine mystique. After a year of begging on the 7 floors of the AFC building I finally cracked the new boss, a cool British guy named Peter Sainsebury who gave me the funding to finish my film, a budget altogether of $210,000. To this day the dykes bad mouth me around town, accusing me of misogyny and male aggression but I was the one who got dumped and they were the ones who got a million and a half dollars from insider graft.

1985

Yeah yeah, "BORING!" you say. I don't give a fuck what you think, I'm already disreputable. I am so fucking fatigued, depressed, destroyed here in 2022 that I'm considering suicide and aiming this to be my suicide note. There seems no hope, I've worked so hard, people tell me my work is excellent, edgy, explosive, yet I can't get a break from any of the power brokers out there. It's as if I represent some existential threat, or maybe they're simply jealous I got this far without much establishment help: no old boy network, no elite hand-up, no clique club. Good thing I got myself an exciting life, of travel, creativity, music highs, friends' love, and I've danced my way nirvanic through the despondent muck-heaps of shithead fashionistas and pea-brained queens. For what it's worth, in the long run I'll get success, I'm sure of it.

Another way to describe the Outsider is to remind you that he/she is situated on the edge of the herd, not belonging to 'normal' society because of some difference, abnormality, disability, divine madness, eccentricity. Because of this freakishness they are able to see things alternatively, provide creative solutions, see new pathways, devise new methods, heal wounds, inspire artistically, soul search, enlighten spiritually. I myself had a traumatic childhood, a disabled youth, and after an attempt at brainwashing with heavy psycho tropic drugs, (LSD), I've been on a continuous vision quest, wandering the world, studying many disciplines and arcane texts to inspire, to warn, encourage, consolidate, expand, educate, heal, dare. Whoever needs something "other" I encourage to go for it and eschew this consumerist, neo-liberal capitalist society and try a "different" way of being. 

I could be kidding myself, I'm no wise seer or perfect prophet, but I certainly got the pagan, universal uplift that has been imparted over the millennia to the willing initiate, from charismatic babas, wise mentors and clever wizards. For good or bad, celebrity or ignominy, it's made me the quintessential OUTSIDER. It's like in the Grimm folktale, "The King's New Clothes", my outsider intuition can see a phony coming from 700 yards off, the wanker, the poseur, the kreep, the thief, the thug, the tin god. Yeah, yeah, some slip under the radar, I can be fooled by the cypher, the flatterer, the bribe. After some time I twig to who I'm dealing with, it's as if I've got mental telepathy, I can read their hidden agenda.

1985

An honest Outsider doesn't have to worry about being recognised by the entire world, collected by the rich, hung in the State or elite galleries, approved of by the respected critics, adored as a celebrity by an army of fans. He/she can get joy from a smaller audience of hip cognoscenti, people with brains, sharp taste and cool style, progressives, dreamers, dancers and fellow Brights. This is what I've aimed for over a lifetime of hard work, creative inspiration and vision questing, living on the edge. I've painted public wall murals, drawn comix, shown films in every venue imaginable including public television, handed out flyers from countless street corners, stuck thousands of posters on innumerable walls, written books and pamphlets, performed on funky stages, hung my paintings in many galleries and hundreds of households whose visitors discuss their meaning avidly.

A typical example of an adventurous artist getting ripped off by a talentless moron would be the tale of Richard the Dickhead at a hole in the wall venue called the 'Record Crate' in Glebe. I did a couple of shows for him for no pay or even cab fare. I told ribald stories with a couple of musicians and a slide show on the same subject projected above our heads. After I returned from holidays in India he contacted me to do another show for him as nobody else had come forward. I begged off saying I was too tired. A week later he rang me again and pleaded with me to please perform my hot act as still no artists had applied. I again said I was too tired but he whined and cajoled until I gave in and said I would do it. I lined up my musicians, wrote out my story and put a slide show together ready for the big night.

The night before the gig he rang me and said he no longer needed my act as the bill was full and there was no room for me. In reality he wanted his act to be the star attraction and what was it? Him playing scatty music and telling a dumb story while he projected slides upon himself. Oh, and they were my slides he'd kept on his computer from my previous act. I was furious and told him what a limp dick, bastard arsehole he was for fucking me over so egregiously. He paid me back by trolling me online in his promotion for his show and calling me a tizzy-throwing prima donna because I couldn't get my way. Thanks Dickhead Richard.

1987

Dickhead's low act has been repeated throughout my non-career in show-biz, arseholes see my act, admire it, then copy it after getting rid of me. I used to tell the tale of the travail of making my art in galleries with a wimp named Peter playing the violin. An obese, gay rich-kid I call Charles the Vampire, who has the grand pretence of being a poet in the mould of Oscar Wilde, watched my act with wide eyes, thinking "I want that." He bribed Peter the pot addict with bags of bud and $50 to play for him while he sonorously intoned his arsewipe poetry while I got side-lined. This kind of betrayal is a common trope for the original but broke artist.

 1992

In 2019 a downwardly mobile woman I'll call Furfagin approached me to submit some art to her "radical" festival 'Sedition.' She waxed ecstatic about how revolutionary her show will be and "You Toby, as the edgy rebel, is a "must inclusion" in my radical line-up." She kept it up, as if on a soapbox, badgering me, "For the end of the world is nigh and us artists will rescue it!" She promised me a shop window at World Square on George Street in the centre of the city with hundreds of thousands in foot traffic passing by.

On opening day she hid my seditious work, (about the armaments industry and how the majority seem to be sleep-walking into a nuclear war), in a theatre foyer down the back of Darlinghurst that was only open for one night. In the shop window on the main thoroughfare she put 'name' artists, as it was all about cachet and cash, not passion and trash.

When I asked a friend why she bothered to enlist me with such fervour, putting my name on her illustrious list of grandees, he said, "Because you have street cred Toby, the others don't!" This surprised me as I've never thought about such tags though I've been a street artist for 50 years.

2014 - Psychopath Inc. - My Submission for Sedition.

Here in 2022 I had the misfortune of running into a drip I call Mor-Gue who thinks he's a great writer but is in fact a boring hack. He dresses like a rock'n'roll dag, skinny black jeans and a black t-shirt with some gronk-fan rock band on his chest. He's about 50 with long greying hair hanging in his face hoping it looks smart and groovy but actually it makes him look like the walking dead. Thank no god it hides his pinched face as it reminds me of a crocodile's arsehole.

Because I've got some kind of bullshit reputation as a "rebel artist" up and coming fuckwits like Mor-Gue see me as hot property to be somehow controlled or played with like a cat with a mangy mouse. Two years ago he contacted me and asked me if I'd like a show in the gallery that's in the community centre where he works. I said ,"Yes, why not, I'm up for spaces cool as that. When shall we do it?" He replied, "I'll work on it." "OK, fine." A few weeks went past and as I like to prepare well in advance I rang him to see what was happening. To make a show a success I prepare old and new works, get flyers printed, study the layout of the gallery room, advertise the show, to have my arse covered. He replied again, "I'm busy but I'll work on it. I'll ask the gallery people." "Ok, Do your best, I'm preparing to make it a good show."

Another few weeks went past, two months after he first approached me, and I was restless. I had other projects on the boil, writing, painting, performing, distributing, meeting collaborators, I couldn't wait forever for Mor-Gue to pull his finger out. I rang him again, "What's happening? Have you arranged a show for me or not?" "Oh, I'm still working on it, maybe later in the year, I'm not sure." "Oh, Ok, I won't sweat on it, See ya later." I only ever give people three chances, after that I'm pushing shit up hill. I let it go. I didn't think much about it, it was a shaky affair and I had other things to do. But it was a bit weird, I wondered why he bothered, then I forgot about him.

A couple of years went by and November bore down upon us. After forty years of thinking, research, writing and rewriting I self-published my book "Punk Outsider." I advertised the fact online and Mor-Gue, the incisive reviewer of all things hip and holy, got wind of it. He contacted me and said, "I like to do an interview with you about your book. Perhaps up at the Cross, sitting at the Fitzroy Gardens?" "OK, sure, I'd like the story out well before Christmas as it would make a good Chrissy present for all the deviants. Let's do it! When, tomorrow?" "Oh, I'm busy these days but I'll work on it." "Sure, what the hell!"

Believe it or not, I'm an easy-going guy and often agree to things others suggest, as long as it's not wearing a white hood and lynching Asians. I was puzzled by his choice of location, an infamous beat for queer pick-ups and male hustlers. Does he believe the urban myth that I'm a retired gay prostitute and town bike and he salivated at doing a salacious expose of me with my legs spread invitingly? A few weeks went by and I got anxious, I needed publicity and soon, the book was now hot off the press, so I texted him. "When do you want to do that interview, I need coverage ASAP?" "Oh, I'm working on it, I'm busy, I'll get back to you soon." Again I waited by the phone, depending on his heart of brass. I needed coverage, my book launch was around the corner, Christmas fast approaching.

So for the third time I asked him for an appointment, "Please, I need help with this." "Oh, I'm busy. I was thinking of the Sydney Morning Herald, but I haven't got onto them, and the other newspapers are taking a break for Christmas, maybe in late January we'll get onto it." I grumbled, "Umm, it's cool, I don't want the SMH, it's a mouthpiece for the Liberal Party, Channel 9 own it and Peter Costello, the ex-LNP treasurer, is chairman of the board. Forget it, I'd prefer to put it out on the underground, it's a radical text and only freaks and rebels will go for it. See you later, alligator." I heard him gulp, "But the Fitzroy Gardens would have been so hip!" "Sorry, I'm not a hustler any more, I'll chill." He's not a virtue-signaller, he's a hip-signaller, "Look at me, Im so groovy."

For several months he had been planning a writers festival at the community centre he worked at and he failed to mention this little titbit to me. What he had been doing was fucking with the punk who two years previously had dared to unfriend him on Facebook; some jerks find this the ultimate degradation, I think it's laughable. I guess he was hoping to make me crawl to him. There have been many such arts-grifters in my long non-career as this diatribe attests. Maybe he was unconsciously toying with the infamous Toby Zoates, similar to taking a tiger by the tail and thinking he will get away unscathed. Sorry, I'm not such a dope. I'd rather starve in the gutter than crawl to the likes of him, though I did give him one last call two days before his grand "writers festival" and politely asked if I could set up a trestle table in his foyer and sell my books. I got the usual middle-class brat treatment, "SILENCE", as his type is too scared to say "No!" No reply will simply make me disappear.

I texted him and abused the shit out of him, "You're a fucker, a dickhead poseur, a dag in skinny torn jeans! You've got one cent worth of power and you're running with it! You're a loser and worst of all, you're a hack writer who couldn't even write a sincere 'fuck off" note! Go fuck yourself!" He did another of those reactionary acts, he gaslighted me to my friends, "That horrible Toby Zoates has thrown a temper tantrum because I didn't prioritise him and make him Number One!" 

What an arsehole! His language gives him away and he's too dumb to realise it. He considers HIMSELF as Number One and doesn't want any competition. And he enjoys prioritising desperados, it makes him feel powerful and important, he can say who gets in the door and who gets kicked out. How fabulous it is to get flakes licking his boots to get themselves "prioritised." No Mor-Gue, I was prioritising you, giving you my time andcenergy instead of getting on with my projects.

Par for the course of being an Outsider is to be betrayed, by just about everyone, because one is different, vulnerable, an obvious scapegoat and easy-pickings. Mor-gue complained about me to someone I hoped was a good friend, the kind of guy who is a friend to everyone. I'll call him K. When he once told me in a conversation three times, "I'm not just blowing smoke up your arse Toby" I was worried, once would've been enough. I was sad when he confessed he'd been a heavy heroin addict for 10 years for that told me he was a character that made bad choices, was morally compromised and physically ravaged as smack is akin to powdered glass and shreds the organs and systems. Maybe even brain-damaged, ten years of daily shooting up and nodding off can kill off millions of neurones. I don't give a shit what you think about hard drugs, I don't fucking like them!! K had bought my paintings, fussed over me, promoted Punk Outsider and sold my books for me. He was a great help and I love him very much for it. He's also human and flawed but he's cool enough to not be prejudiced, not play games, not be jealous.

K has been told he's a great writer, he has 5000 FaceBook friends and they all wait for his wise words from on high. I suspect Mor-Gue offered him a space to read his purple prose at the grand writers' festival at Mor-Gue's fiefdom, a Community Centre. He possibly promised a connection to a publisher, things he wouldn't dream of offering me. Maybe K did a "cost benefit analysis", what was in it for him if he went with Mor-Gue or with me. I had nothing to offer, no power, no connections, no money, no foot in the door with the Sydney Morning Herald or other newspapers, no crowd on FaceBook lapping up bullshit, (Mor-Gue also had 5000 "friends"; another tenet of mine = never trust a dick with 5000 FB friends, he needs a crowd to sell something to, usually himself.) Mor-Gue tules, he"s a good het, lovely girlfriend, angel of the Community Centre, not like me, a deviant, a cocksucker, arrested 7 times for causing trouble, a pauper from social housing, a smart-mouthed father-fucker, kickef in the srse by most wannabes.

Next thing I know K is having a book launch in his place of business, for some nice, sweet girl from Melbourne, Mor-Gue will comment upon her novel, he being an astute judge of writing (NOT) and they will play music to top off the night. It sounds mighty similar to my book launch 6 months before, thankfully without the nice girly novel and Mor-Gue's flaky wisdoms. It was a slap in the face from my good friend K, Mor-Gue was smirking, he'd "won!" 

This shit is par for the course of being an artist with an edge, some want to blunt it, others want to rip it. It's just the way it is. I've got to relax, get on with what I do best, forget the rest. K is a good friend, he did me good, I'll settle for that. K is all things to all comers, he will help anyone, not rvrruone's a rat  thank no god. Anyway, the Outsider, me, has split, back into the mist.

My long journey as an artist "on the Sydney scene" hss been one betrayal after another, it hurts, I'm human, but I've had worse, raped, beaten up, framef for armed robbery, my potential stymied. The next betrayal I'd like to recount also felt bad, shit happens and it comes from arseholes.

The tragedy concening this best-up soul is the fact that even my fellow queers don't want me. Though LGBTQ people clsim the spirit of togetherness and epitomise "the different" they do in fact long to belong, to be accepted by "normal" society; I call them straight gays, they're all for consumerism, celebrity, elite status and money power, shit that I despise. A famous queer poet, Sascha Solditow, once read to an irate mob of conformist gays, "What is this gay community bullshit?" Meaning gays are as cut-throat competitive, jealous, greedy and vicious as any toxic Het. Community camaraderie rarely gets a look-in.

There are various gay mafias in a tussle to rule and over-rule the squalling queers of Sydney, the Gay Mardi Gras committee most ascendant, but the disco/pub mob, the govt bureaucrats such as ACON, the ABC television queens, the arts (writing, painting, film and performance) stars, and last but not least the "underground cabaret queens", all pushing and shoving to be the hottest, preeminent poofs of Australia. I'm too gauche  anarchic, not poofy enough, to be ignored. Excluded from all State sanctioned scenes branded "GAY" it's as if I'm not queer at all, regardless of my tortured youth and mid-life queer chutzpah that screams penultimate gay sensibility. It's the underground arts scene I operate in and, phew, are they a bunch of jealous, no-hoper flakes, most of them never getting off their street corner. My work has been appreciated all over the globe, in many major cities, and boy, does this put the dried up, snippy queens' collective nose out of joint!

Recently the great impresario, the astute curator of all things underground and queer cracked the Powerhouse Museum for a show of contemporary Gay Art. He enlisted his mafia of usual suspects, those lionised by the System as "safe", and of course excluded me, the punk anarchist. He's long had it in for me, possibly just plain jealous because he's only good at forming committees and choosing whose in and whose out, never having actually created any kind of artwork himself. He shows every year a piece of American video soap, "Vegas Girls in Space", drag queens bitching on a couch, no costumes, sets, props music or story, basically a rip off of Warhol's "Heat." He thinks it's the aunts' pants, for 30 years ignoring my movie "Virgin Beasts', with its original music, wild story, costumes, props, sets, animations, half gay cast and crew, even though it won the International Trash Film Festival in France in 1996. 

What's his problem, it would be a great companion piece to "Vegas Girls"?? Oh yeah, it would show up the movie that he has the exhibition license for, shitting all over it. He even has the nerve to claim as his best friend one of my leading actors, Simon Reptile, in his only movie speaking role, denying him posthumous glory. In thirty years he's never asked once, "Tell me about your animated film starring Simon Reptile. Tell me about winning the Best Trash Film in the World in France in 1996" Why?' Because he's fucking jealous, that deadly, ugly emotion Nick Cave warned us about as prevalent in Australia.

It's infuriating, this hang-dog faced moron, who puts the loo in lugubrious, whose shows have absolutely no political or philosophical content, are about nothing but vacuous drag queens who at best badly lip-synch worn-out pop songs. That's life in the gutters for you, the shit floating on top races swiftly past to be the first to get lost in the sewers of mediocracy. I guess I should be happy I'm not included in such drab, loser company.

Kicked in the soul as a lifestyle, really comforting, (NOT.) In 1993 I was framed for an armed-robbery by two corrupt pigs, who mostly used my history of civil disobedience as a sure-fire sign of my criminality. As they tortured me in an interview room they hissed, "We hate thieves, liars and poofters, and you're all three!" I was indicted and a trial was set three years hence, all the while me under house-arrest tensely waiting for the day of reckoning. I asked for help from many of my "leftie" comrades, but as soon as I mentioned the cops they blanched and said they couldn't help me.

Three times over those terrible years I went to the woman with whom I'd been arrested twice doing political stunts on her direction, a famous activist who much of the "left" worshipped. Those stunts were what the pigs used against me, calling them my criminal history. I tried to tell her of my trouble but I hardly got 7 seconds into my harrowing tale before she simply turned her back on me and walked away, self-absorbed in her legendary status, uninterest in me, a nobody, no cause celebre. In 2022 when I told her of her callous treatment she mumbled, "I never heard about it." 

"Well I tried to tell you about it and you turned your back on me!" She looked glum and again turned her back on me instead of simply apologising for her rude behaviour. A woman of her lofty, politically correct stature could do no wrong. How easy it would have been to say, "I'm sorry Toby, I was distracted by all the campaigns I was involved. I'm glad you were acquitted." No god, life can be upsetting at times, betrayal comes in many guises.

The greatest betrayal of them all came from a monster I once considered a best friend, it torments me, it broke my heart, shake my soul till I now distrust everyone. A junkie for thirty years, he's turned toxic and turned on me, overnight, for no good reason, except his own failed life daily staring him in the face. Stupidly I tried to help him, gave him paid work, put him in front of an audience, let him stay in my apartment. But he busted on his mother's oxycontin and he blamef me. Abused me online for a week, gaslights me with all his cronies, probably tells them I continuously put the hard word on him for he's a homophobe as well. He makes me sick, rotten teeth, obede  bad comb-over  picks his nose, plays with the snot, then drops it on my lounge room floor. I guess I should be happy he's betrayed me and fucked off, what a bring-down!

For quite a few years now I've thought to myself that the default existential mode for humanity is "betrayal" as that is what I've experienced for much pf my life, many turning on me for no understandable reason except the pleasure of hurting and the competitive push and shove of getting ahead in a cruel neoliberal capitalist world. But that's not everyone, or all the time. There are many who have helped me, loved me, stood by me, as altruism is part of the human condition also. Poor humans, lost, desperate, belittled, astonished at being conscious in this awesome, infinite universe, overwhelmed at their unknown place in it.

That betrayal by the supposed best friend of thirty years really shook me, took me unawares. I thought I was strong, untouchable, but I am as vulnerable as any person stumbling upon this planet. And in my hysteria at being so undermined, at a vicious attempt to destroy me and my creative force, I thought many others around me were out to get me and also tear me down. Perhaps they were having little digs, playing little mind games, forgetting me, not so interested in me, all no big crimes, yet blown out of all proportions by my agonised soul.

I only have my friends and the remains of my family as my supports. The terrible tortures inflicted upon me since childhood, beatings, rapes, exclusions, insults, denigrations, because I was from a poor background, a sissy, a queer, a rebel, twisted me, made it nigh impossible to find love. I've never had a boyfriend or partner. My place upon the edge of the herd has not allowed a lover in. My friends are all I've got, they are everything. To have one turn on me freaked me out and, like a man blinded, I've lashed out at what I imagined as danger approaching. This is very difficult to explain to those I've insulted, pushed away, given reality checks to. Oh well, I'll just have to live with my mistakes, struggle on

"Making it" in the System is not really for the Outsider but getting visions across to an appreciative audience is. There's very little money in it but money is not my goal unlike the majority of deluded souls scrambling under capitalism. There are certain vampire covens seething with jealousy and resentment that a waif from the gutter can achieve something that their 7 cents worth of State sanctioned committee-power will kill for. They can try all they like to destroy the Outsider who achieves and communicates but they just can't totally make him disappear, "the cat is out of the bag": with 7000 art pieces created over 45 years it's obvious one is going to appear every now and vindicate me. I don't have to worry, it's all a dream, a game, and one day it's over. In the meantime I'll achieve a fabulously wild life.

Keep a lookout for "Dancing in the Garden of Pan", a future show of prints of my 49 most favourite works, along with a screening of a restored hi-res video screening of my movie "Virgin Beasts" with the related ephemera of acetate cells, backgrounds, posters and animation camera, plus original T shirt designs and my book "Punk Outsider" that relates the stories of the making of my films and the life of the artist as outsider'

And before I die I will post this rave upon many online sites as my last testament. I've practised writing my suicide note ad nauseum, this is my final effort, it says it all: good luck humanity and thanks for all the fish.

1987

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