NEW WAVE DAZE....(part 2)
Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease the candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed
The splendid things I planned
I always built alas on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away
Returning home again for a few months I was to find a new group of friends. Still working at the menswear store I became a beacon for peers who, like me were into the new wave image. There weren't many of us, but between other sales people in the mall and old school friends we formed a collective group. I wasn't the only 'gay in the village' after all. But with my outrageous dyed hair and effeminate ways I was the most obvious.
We partied at each others houses on the weeknights and on Saturdays went to Stranded. We were a mixed group of both gay and straight, boys and girls. Their friendship and our shared tastes made the next few months living at home bearable.
I changed jobs and was now working for a company making diet meals for rich, society women in the Eastern Suburbs. The job was less well paid and hard work. I was a kitchen hand , cleaner and took orders over the phone. Our clients were too embarrassed to pick up from the shop so everything was packed and delivered daily. There was no dress restriction so I was free to wear what I wanted and finally style my hair into the latest design.
I vividly remember one day when I was shopping at the local fruit and vegetable market for work supplies. It was an enormous barn like building with 10 checkouts and a public address system used by the workers. I walked in wearing something I had made for a party the previous evening, out of green and white hessian. White hessian harem pants and a green hessian blouse which had a long shawl which draped over one side of my face and down to the ground. Over the P.A system one of the store-room boys announced 'Bloody hell, it's the Queen of Sheba'!
I met my next boyfriend at Stranded in early August and a few weeks later he asked me to move in with him. Again he was older than me, but lived in the suburb where my job was which was a good enough reason to say yes. He was a hairdresser and for the first two months we lived above the salon where he worked. It wasn't a flash place but had a wonderful balcony with panoramic views across Sydney Harbour and was only a 5 minute walk to my work.
He wasn't my ideal boyfriend, but again he was generous and easy to live with. The bonus was that I was now getting free haircuts and colouring! Every week when the salon ran their training night I was the guinea pig for the latest cut or colour and started modelling for them at various award nights and hairdressing competitions.
We had to move after about 2 months. Both of us contracted a really bad case of body lice which of course were infesting the building which was nearly 100 years old and had been a hair salon for at least 20 years.
The apartment we found was amazing. Situated in the small and exclusive suburb of Rushcutter's Bay which is right on the harbour and the suburb neighbouring Kings Cross. The apartment was huge with a 5 sided lounge room, small kitchen, bathroom and an equally large bedroom with a small balcony. We were directly opposite the park and had great views of the bay and neighbouring exclusive suburb of Darling Point.
My boyfriend was really into Art Deco. At the time you could buy the most amazing second hand furniture at really cheap prices in many of the inner city suburbs. We had the apartment totally decked out like a scene from a 1930's movie. Everything was 10 - 15 minutes walk away, clubs, bars, restaurants, but the location was an oasis of serenity, with the park across the street and the adjoining house, one of the few houses in the suburb, boasting an enormous tree filled garden.
We played our roles well. He was the bread winner and I was the home-maker. As a qualified hairdresser he was payed a lot better than I was and his clients were all wealthy and often gave him generous tips. So he paid the rent and bought the furniture, while I bought the shopping and cleaned the apartment. While he worked on Saturdays I would start my day getting high on marijuana and spend the next 3 hours happily cleaning away. Our friends always commented on how clean our apartment was!
We lasted together for 14 months. He didn't smoke dope but was a drinker. In the evenings when I would smoke a joint or two he would down a bottle of wine...this wasn't a problem until we went out. Then he would get really drunk and obnoxious with people, often getting close to a punch up - which he physically wouldn't have been at an advantage in.
After clubbing, it was always a taxi ride home as the risk of him abusing a total stranger waling home was too great and as we had to walk through Kings Cross the risk of him getting into a fight with another drunk yob was inevitable.
One night his salon held a hair show in a very straight pub. I and some of my friends were modelling on the night and the place was packed with very drunk, very homophobic young guys and their girlfriends. I had made all the costumes for the event and they were as daring and outrageous as I could get. It was a fantastic night and not only did the show go down really well, but the music we had chosen for our modelling was a big hit with the clientele.
After the show the DJ played our different songs over and over at the request of the patrons. We had a great night mixing and dancing with people whom we would never have mingled with normally. Everyone was having fun until my boyfriend had one drink too many. He started abusing anyone and everyone around him. My friends and I tried to control him but he was too far gone to take the warning.
My biggest worry was that, while nothing would happen inside the bar, there were at least a dozen young guys ready to take him outside and belt the daylights out of him, and probably us as well. I remember threatening him to stop, after managing to stop two guys from dragging him outside, and then when he went in for a second go at them I just punched him in the face.
Bang! I who had maybe hit someone once or twice in my life had knocked my boyfriend unconscious! Funnily enough, while his work mates took him home in a taxi, the boys he had been abusing asked me to stay and bought me drinks for the rest of the evening.
The next morning my boyfriend told me he was moving out and that I could have the apartment. It was all very simple and civil. Two days later he found a new apartment and moved out taking all the furniture with him. I wasn't earning enough to cover the rent so that night after work I went up to Fitzroy Gardens and prostituted myself. This was how I managed to cover my rent and bills and slowly start buying furniture over the few months Then boyfriend number 3 would come along. Looking back, he was probably the only boy I truly loved and was loved by in return........
NEW WAVE DAZE.....
In a west end town in a dead end world
where east end boys meet west end girls..
So I was back where I started. At home, living with my parents, far, far away from the lights and glamour of the city. It really was a dead end world.
My parents accepted me back happily and after a few days life returned to it's normal, tedious outer suburban routine. I celebrated my 18th birthday at home alone with not a drink or drug in sight. My older sister was planning her upcoming engagement and all the focus was on her.
My mother managed to get me a job working in the same shopping mall where she was now working in our neighbouring town. Unfortunately she was working in a trendy boutique and I got a job in a very conservative menswear store. It was totally the opposite of what I wanted but it was a job.
I had to dress in conservative clothes, gel my outrageous hair down flat each day and sell clothes that I wouldn't be seen dead wearing myself. It was so old fashioned that when mothers would come in with their teenage sons and ask me 'did we sell anything trendy?' I would quietly direct them to the department store next door!
But I was good at my job and my work mates were accepting and friendly. I worked all week, including Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. I was stuck in a backward, bigoted world where my only safety was inside the shop. Outside I was commonly abused by the local hoods, that was just about every boy except me! One morning while I was having my daily coffee someone shoved their finger sharply in my back. I turned around and a middle aged woman spat out loudly at me, 'your fucking sort ought to be locked up!'
One Thursday night I was even physically attacked inside the shop by a group of local boys, all drunk and determined to bash the shit out of the 'poofter'. My manager and the mall security had to intervene. Afterwards my boss told me it might be a good idea to change my dyed bright orange hair to a more conservative colour.
After 2 months of trying to stay away from my former life of drugs and the gay scene I realized I was kidding myself. Funnily enough it was while watching TV one Friday night with my mother. The movie was the Dianna Ross version of 'Lady Sings the Blues' - the life story of Billy Holliday. The club scenes and drug taking took me back to where I wanted to be.
That week I bumped into an old school mate who was selling drugs and bought a block of hashish. That was to be the start of my very long addiction to drugs that would last for the next 30 odd years.
The early 1980's were a defining time for both music and fashion. Not since the 1960's and not again until the recent emergence of K Pop has music and fashion been so revolutionary. I was right in the thick of it. I was listening to bands like the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie Sue and the Banshees, OMD, Toyah Wilcox, New Order, The Cure......anything that was New Wave, Punk and British.
Saturday afternoons after work I would head into the city to hit Paddington Markets. This was Sydney's first alternative market for arts and fashion and the place to be seen. Every week I would buy either a new outfit or new shoes. Each one as individual and outrageous as possible.
Back home again to get ready for Saturday night out. I would spend up to two hours putting my outfit together and getting my hair gelled, spiked and hair-sprayed to the max. Then it was a walk to the station with a big daggy coat covering my clothes and a large newspaper which I would hold open to cover people seeing my hair and make up. The 9.30pm train to the city was full of drunken yobs going home or off to another suburban party and the risk of getting bashed was high.
My venue of choice was Sydney's trendiest night club, Stranded. This was the in place to be and was located in the basement of one of Sydney's most historic, beautiful and expensive shopping arcades. It was a mixture of people and styles, most of us on the edge of the latest fashion trends. The others were rich society boys and girls who came because it was the 'in place'. But even their money didn't give them the advantage.
A select group of us were given automatic and free entry. Often walking straight past a line up of 50 or more people waiting to get in. Our first drinks were free and with both our fashion styles and dance styles we were the centre of attention. It wasn't a gay bar, but it was the hottest spot in town and the clientele was mixed. Some nights I picked up and went home with a boy. Other nights I didn't. Then it was either a 3am 1 hour train ride home, or crashing with friends in their grotty inner city flats. Most weekends I crashed with friends and spent Sundays recovering and then eating out in the cool restaurants of the time. By Monday I had enough money left to get me through to pay day for lunch and train fare but very little else.
The week nights I spent in my room, headphones on, listening to cassettes of my favourite music and smoking hash. I taught my self to sew on a sewing machine and began raiding the second hand stores buying 50's and 60's clothes or materials which I would turn into bizarre outfits.
I managed to last just 6 months living back at home. Around Christmas time I met a boy at Stranded who I went home with. He had a small bachelor flat in Kings Cross and we would spend the nights dancing, before heading to his flat for sex and then a whole day on Sunday getting stoned on grass or snorting speed with friends. It was a totally alternative lifestyle in which I reveled.
He was 24, which at the time, seemed ancient to me. However he was convenient and not demanding and would give me anything I asked for. A few weeks into our 'relationship' he asked me to move in with him. I told him that his flat was too small for two of us so he found a house in nearby Surrey Hills. This was the 'haunted' house I mentioned earlier in my story. I moved in and conveniently broke up with him a week later. He had no problems with me staying on. The house had 3 floors and 4 bedrooms. We were friends and it was convenient for both of us.
So besides my boring job in the suburbs, I was now able to live the life I wanted and would continue this way for the next 3 and a half years. The jobs, boyfriends, clothes, hairstyles and apartments changed, but the lifestyle didn't.
These years would possibly be the best time of my life.
CRAZY DAZE.....
Four of us drove the 1700km from Sydney to Adelaide. I was excited about life in a new city but shocked to find that I had come to a large town instead!
The two boys who had promised us accommodation dumped us on arrival as there parents flatly refused to have two unknown boys in the house. Our only compensation was being allowed to sleep in the car outside on the first night.
The following morning I got my shit together and took myself and the other boy, Stephen, into the 'city' and paid for two rooms at the YMCA. We explored the town, which took all of about 1 hour, but managed to find the two gay bars so at least had a plan for Saturday evening.
The Adelaide gay scene was in it's infancy. The bars were small and very incestual. Never a wallflower I dressed in my most outrageous clothes, spiked my hair and did my make up (it was 1981 and boys did make up then). I was an instant hit. Everyone wanted to know me and before the end of one week I had slept with a dozen boys, become friends with the show girls and owner of the bar and was offered a job performing one night a week.
Even better was that the 'Mars Bar' DJ was also from Sydney and at the end of the first week we got talking and he invited me to stay with him and his boyfriend, rent free, for as long as I liked. Where-ever you are Glenn Molloy, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You took me in and asked for nothing in return.
Glenn lived about 5km from the city centre in a 3 apartment complex. His two neighbours were both wonderful girls who were into the gay scene. We lived in each others apartments, ate, drank, laughed and life was amazing. We partied 4 nights a week and the other 3 nights and 7 days lived in a haze of marijuana, magic mushrooms, LSD and what ever pills we could get our hands on.
Coming from Sydney I had seen some of the best drag shows and new the numbers off by heart. I went shopping in second hand stores and bought amazing outfits from the 50's and 60's, an auburn wig, which my hairdressing friend styled into a long bob and the girls did my make up. I looked like a young Barbara Streisand gone punk.
Of course it wasn't long before the bar owners offered me the occasional job with paying clients but these only happened once or twice a week. Adelaide was not the sin city that Sydney had been. Still with these few jobs, a paid spot once a week performing and getting dole money I managed to not only survive but have the best time doing so.
The nights were wild. Clubbing until 3am, a different boy to take home nearly every night and not a care in the world. I made wonderful friends, some of whom I would only know for the short while I lived in Adelaide, others would turn up later in my life back in Sydney.
The fun nights out and crazy days were too many to recount but I remember almost every day I lived there with fondness and nostalgia.
One of my favourite memories is spending the day in the 'city' with another drag queen, Adele. We both dressed up to the nines, looking like Paris catwalk models and caught the bus into town. Adelaide really was a 'hick town' back then and the locals had seen nothing like it. We paraded through the shopping centres, sashayed down Rundle Mall all the while totally freaking out the residents. Mouths were gaping, jaws dropping and those with cameras were clicking madly. We even got to do a photo shoot with a professional photographer outside the steps of Parliament House.
It all ended quickly and unexpectedly. I was already beginning to feel the 'tyranny of distance' living in a city hundreds of kilometres from anywhere. Living a hand to mouth existence and missing the pace of life in Sydney. Then one night I had a bad dream about my father and instinctively rang home the next morning. Dad was in hospital with severe burns and my mother pleaded with me to come home.
Two days later I was on a train, which I nearly missed as my friends and I had partied all day and were late arriving at the station. I had to jump aboard the moving train, totally stoned and just starting to go into an LSD trip. Believe me, 15 hours tripping on a country train is not a thing I ever want to experience again!
I had spent 3 months partying wildly and would return home as the prodigal son and spend the next 3 months trying to redeem myself and being utterly bored with my existence before realizing that I was not cut out for the suburban life. Another chapter was about to begin.
