We’re here, we’re queer, we’re still in high school

Young Daniel Swain is rather impressive in today’s Sydney Morning Herald. Things must have improved in Wollongong, even if there is a way yet for our society (and the world) to go…

The F-bomb was dropped on me only once. I was at a bus shelter with my then boyfriend when we heard the “call of the wild”: “Go back to Mardi Gras you f—ing faggots!”. I responded as calmly as I could: “I may be a faggot, sir, but you are a fool. My people get parades, what do your people get?”

The gay teenager is a modern invention. No longer must we wait for the liberal oasis of university to express our sexuality identity. After several years enduring those polite euphemisms of “flamboyance” and “sensitivity” I tiptoed out of the closet. Fifteen, out and proud.

My story is not unique. For the more liberal members of our generation the closet has become an antique…

Thankfully, my own high school is, largely, the tolerant, accepting society in microcosm. It is Wollongong’s only academically selective school which means that the student body is intelligent enough to know that sex only matters when you’re involved. To the Sydney readers, I hope that shatters some of your stereotypes of Wollongong: we aren’t all steel-brained Neanderthals.

Pleasant surprise visit

During Mardi Gras I went to the Homotones concert at the Metro Theatre George St Sydney.

…The event proved well worth going to, and did my heart good. The Homotones (Gay and Lesbian Band) were celebrating their ten years — more, actually, as band member Les pointed out. G was there too, and it was great to see him again. G in another life was an inspector of schools when I was a keen young English teacher, and we became good friends over the years…

Yawning Bread on the UNSW Singapore debacle

Recently the University of NSW announced it would be closing its Singapore campus. Au Waipang (Yawning Bread) is a Singaporean; his UNSW follows Warwick University out is worth reading.

…it is not what Singaporeans think of Singapore that counts, which is often the result of brainwashing by our own government, but what non-Singaporeans think of Singapore. It goes without saying that we’d be compared with the top, most liberal countries in the world, if the target market is already so mobile.

Watched Memento

While not at the Mardi Gras Parade I was having my head rearranged by the 2000 neo-noir movie Memento directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Guy Pearce. OK, it is obviously brilliantly filmed and Pearce is excellent. But what to make of it? Brilliant? A wank? A con?

Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in Macbeth and segue into Mardi Gras

I’ve mentioned this DVD before and have at last watched it, and it really is a brilliant production. If you click on the picture above you can see an extract in flash video. The director was Trevor Nunn. McKellen and Nunn “met as undergraduates, both reading English at Cambridge, where they acted together in the Marlowe Society’s 1960 production of Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus in the open-air theatre in Bankside Gardens, Stratford-upon-Avon.”

Ian McKellen as Macbeth in the stage version, taken from the second visit to the Weird Sisters.

McKellen is one of England’s gay treasures.

As well as his scores of awards for acting, Sir Ian has honours from Nottingham, Leeds, Oxford and Aberdeen Universities, plus gay organisations in UK, USA and South Africa. He was named “Commander of the British Empire” in 1979, followed by his Knighthood of the British Empire for services to the performing arts in the Queen’s New Year Honours of 1990. He is one of the very few openly gay knights.

Mardi Gras event: Homotones concert at the Metro Theatre George St Sydney

See this Mardi Gras search for the latest entries here on this topic.

You may recall my shameless plug a few days ago. The event proved well worth going to, and did my heart good. The Homotones (Gay and Lesbian Band) were celebrating their ten years — more, actually, as band member Les pointed out. G was there too, and it was great to see him again. G in another life was an inspector of schools when I was a keen young English teacher, and we became good friends over the years. What G doesn’t know about the history of English teaching isn’t worth knowing. Current developments in education depress him.

One of the performers was one Justin J Bear, and talented too, as you can check below. Amazing vocal range.