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.