I Am The Boyfriend - Riff & Rhyme, a Guest Post

Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention please/Let me introduce myself before I bring you to your knees/Today I am the Master of these Ceremonies/Thrilling and delighting like the flying trapeze...

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging to bring you this special bulletin and extra- special-guest-hosted-edition of Hum Drum Plum. That’s right bloggeroos...wait, is that too familiar? I feel like that’s Lizzy’s word; we haven’t even been formally introduced. Well, not directly. This is more of a blogger-ruse - allow me to explain. Lizzy has been called away to familial duties, so I have stepped in to keep the streak alive. You, dear reader, know me simply as Boyfriend. Yes, that Boyfriend. The one who dragged our host out to the country so I could help transform teenagers into the leaders of tomorrow. But I digress. I am here, as I said, to blog - so blog I will.

Need to find some willpower, apply it to the task/Realise that clarity’s not bottled or comes in a glass/I need to take a shot; of one kind not another/Face my demons head on instead of trying to run for cover/I need to pay attention to these lines I wrote/You can try to drown your sorrows - but the little bastards float...

I’ve only officially been teaching for five terms. Fifteen months, not counting holidays; a drop in the ocean in terms of how long some have been doing it, and only 1.25 of my own 29 years on the planet. But in that time, I have already evolved to be twice or three times the educator I was when I started (Ding! Level 2 Educator Class: +5 to discipline, +10 to effective planning, +10 to emotional fragility and substance abuse) and would happily admit that I have learnt as much from my charges as they hopefully have from me.

In terms of employment, I’ve been a lot of things in my time - actor/writer/director/producer/ rapper, customer service assistant (or Customer Service Ass. as my paycheck pointed out), rug salesman, kitchenhand and noodle dispenser, learning support teacher aide and confectionary retailer, among others. But even at this early stage of the game, an argument could be made for teacher being one of the roles that has had the most impact on me; definitely top two or three.

Lights on-off, eyes can’t adjust/Day-light, dark-bright, pain arcs and thrusts/ Wallowing or dealing if you feel you must/But always at the back of your mind - dust to dust/Ash to ash, back to back where it began/Washed up victim of a complex scam/Twist and turned, taut and tied, stoked and fired/Last page of legal documents reveal they lied...

By impact, I mean emotionally and mentally. It’s like nothing else I’ve done. I could easily while away the hours regaling you with tales of how hard I’ve worked over those five terms, the hours I’ve put in, the unpaid overtime that makes up the vast majority of those hours (and which more than justify the extra handful of weeks holiday we get per year - I’m not even going to start on that with you dear reader, as this is our first time together and I don’t want it to get ugly. Suffice to say, until you do it, you can’t really fathom what goes on) and the extra miles I have gone to and am expected to go to in the course of my job.

I could tell you about all the wonderful things - the connections I have made with staff, students and the community, the contributions I’ve been able to make through extra- curricular events like musicals and fundraisers, and the simply indescribable feeling of knowing that you’ve helped a child “get” something, or helped shaped their life or future in some way, however infinitesimal. I could tell you about all the less-than-wonderful things - the kids who have gone out of their way to make trouble or bully people, the classes that I hated, the times I felt tiny and alone, the disrespect and the moments of stomach- clenching, all-encompassing doubt.

I want to tell these kids when they step through that doorway/That if I could I’d take them and look over them always/And everything about them is amazing in all ways/ And even if they're changing all their parts that the core stays/But this time is a raw stage/And words can be misunderstood and easily cause rage/More maze - that's whats up ahead to navigate/They don't need a preacher, just a teacher who can captivate/Maybe one who helps them see that they don't always have to hate/They could learn they've got a choice and got a voice and master fate...

As I’m sure you’ve guessed already though, I’m not going to describe these things to you. I’ve decided for today to focus on one thing that has become a real struggling point for me recently, as this written medium provides me with an outlet through which to best phrase some things that may otherwise come out awkwardly or be misconstrued. I teach Drama, and in these classes, I try to build an environment that values safety and respect, where people can try and fail and experiment and improve. And in these Drama classes, more often than not, there are more females than males.

I wish I could tell some of female students that they’re beautiful and I have love for them.

Now before you freak out, just listen - not that I’m in love with them, or any silly rubbish like that. I just want these girls to be told by someone who’s not their family that they’re pretty and loved and can be whatever they want to be. I have caught wind lately of how many students, particularly female, are self-harming and suffer from depression and self- esteem issues. Now, I’m not suggesting that one gesture of encouragement from some teacher is going to solve any of that, or that every girl’s confidence and problems are linked to how they look or are dependent on being thought of as attractive. Not even a little. And I’m not suggesting that one male teacher knows all there is to know about the minds of these girls, or that he knows best, or anything at all. But for the last little while, I have just wanted to express my helplessness and swell of emotion that comes from hearing their stories or seeing their faces.

I hear how they are treated by boys. I hear how they are treated by other girls. I hear how their parents or siblings treat them. And it fucking tears me up inside to know I can do so little to protect or help them, and I just want to be able to tell them: “You are beautiful. You are young, and so full of life and promise and potential. If you can hang in there, if you can realise how many people around you love and appreciate you, even when they may not always be good at showing it, then you’ll see it gets better, and that these school days do not need to dreaded or feared. If that boy treats you like that, you don’t really want to be with him anyway. Its ok to wait to have sex, and its ok to want to have sex. Don’t ever, ever let anyone make you feel ashamed about wanting (or not wanting) to explore your body or your sexuality; wanting to do those things does not and will not ever make you a ‘slut,’ nor does the opposite make you ‘frigid’ or a prude. I promise if you are brave, and take chances with making new friends instead of being stuck in negative cliques, that good things will happen. I promise that you are pretty, and have worth, and that you are capable of loving and worthy of being loved. The world will always have dickheaded people and shit days in it - but those days never last, and those people will fade away. You can do anything and be anyone.”

“I cannot fight right now. I cannot rage, or roar, or do the things my soul yearns to do. But I stand - know this. And tomorrow is, they say, another day. Well, good. Tomorrow then. Or the day after. Or the morning after that. I will rage. And I will roar. I will.”

This is of course, the iceberg tip of an issue. One could talk for days on the way we are conditioned to treat males and females, and the way they are conditioned to see each other, and how that means that arguably boys too often are not educated enough in their teenage years to see girls as people, or how it means that women are told how to avoid rape instead of men being told not to rape. Lizzy has some great and interesting ideas and opinions on this topic, so I’ll leave future musings up to her. I’m no expert. I’m not even an experienced teacher yet. What I am, is someone who feels deeply, and who wants to help turn these kids, regardless of gender, race or ability, into capable, thoughtful citizens of the world who dream large and live larger. I want them to be better than I am.

Thankyou for letting me riff and rhyme for you today, dear reader. I remain your humble servant.

Love, Boyfriend. 

Your guide to being that wanker who has their life sorted or some shit

Everybody stop looking so happy, I'm trying to eat this watermelon in peace

Namaste precious ones and welcome to another vegan-friendly, chakra-aligned, 100% recyclable blog post.

Sorry… I’m so sorry, but I’ve been visiting a lot of websites where that sort of language is abundant lately. WHY have I been frequenting such disturbing places, you ask? Well because I’ve kind of accidentally become one of those people. OK NO NOT EXACTLY. I’m deeply not spiritual, so you’re not about to find me converted, chanting to the sun god under a tree, but I have been trying a few things lately that have made me “that guy.”

I’ve been eating free-range meat and making gluten free bread, I’ve been going to bed early (sometimes) and flossing my teeth daily. I did yoga 12 days out of the last 14 and just today managed to touch my toes like it was no big deal. I’ve been participating in Meat Free Week and am feeling all those benefits vegetarians are always telling you about (like not being bloated and losing fat and generally feeling amazing).

The next step in being that wanker who has their life sorted or some shit is to start converting others to the cause. I haven’t begun my campaign in full yet (I’m thinking leaflets, going door-to-door and a full page ad in the Dalby Herald) but I’ve made a small start. While recently trying to convince my Internet friends of the joy of my gluten free bread, I managed to drop the entire thing on the floor. Turns out dirt improves the taste a little, actually. Would recommend.

As a blogger with literally tens of readers, I feel the only right thing to do is to use my platform and influence to convert as many of you as possible to my new, wanky way of being. So here are my tips:

Find a yoga video online. There are exactly one bajillion on youtube and some of them are actually really good. What’s the number one excuse for not doing healthy/fitness/stretchy things? Time and money. OK that’s two reasons. But they tie for first place or something. You can cut out travel time by doing it on your lounge room floor, and given that I *know* you’re already paying for an internet connection, it’s not going to cost you anything. I would recommend Sean Vigue… his videos are kind of hilarious and also good.

Follow the #smoothieclub hashtag on instagram. It’s a club my friends and I accidentally started. To be in the club make a smoothie and then take a wanky photo of it. Tag it appropriately. YOU’RE DOING GREAT.

Floss your goddamn teeth; it’s not even that hard. I have no idea why I haven’t done it before now.

Do Meat Free Monday, or choose a day of the week not to eat meat on. I made a vegetable lasagne the other day and blew my own mind with deliciousness.

Go for walks, learn a new skill, get a hobby. I’m knitting a scarf for no reason at the moment, what are YOU doing with your life?

Grow vegetables in increasingly bizarre places, like under the sink and in the gap between your washing machine and the tub.

This bread. Holy shit you guys, eat this bread.

Go to bed. What are you doing up? Sheesh, seriously.

Finally, and most importantly, be sure to document every single one of these activities in brilliant sepia tones on instagram, twitter, and google plus (I’m assuming you deleted facebook because it was too commercial for you). Better yet, write a blog about it, you wanker.

Country/Girl: Anniversary

Country/Girl - loving life at the Chinchilla Melon Festival

Well, well, well what do we have here? ANOTHER anniversary to blog about? Well what do you know?

One year ago (tomorrow… details, details), I moved to Dalby, Queensland, Australia. In the scheme of things, it wasn’t so large a move. My friend Amy, for example, moved to the UK last October. I mean, way to show me up, there, friend, sheesh. But still, it certainly was a pretty giant change of lifestyle. I left a city of more than 2 million people, full of my friends, family, job and familiar *everything* to come to a town I knew almost nothing about, and which has less people in it than the suburb of New Farm, where I used to live.

Before I left people either wanted to tell me I was crazy and that I shouldn’t do it, or that everything would be magical in the country because “gosh darn the people are so friendly”. So how do I feel, after a year of actually living here? You’re damn right I’m gonna write a list!

·      Well gosh darn, yes, the people are pretty friendly. But not because of an antiquated, simple attitude, or because of some idealised city-person imagining where all the farmers lean on posts and tell you to have a nice day, missy. People are friendly here because they identify as belonging to Dalby. They are filled with pride, a sense of belonging and camaraderie that you simply won’t find in a city. They want to better their town, they want people to like it, they want you to feel welcome so that you become a part of it too. 

Also. It pays to be nice when there’s not that many people around. You don’t want to piss off too many people in a place where everyone knows everyone.

·      And yeah, that’s not a myth. A lot of people know a lot of people here. People define themselves by their connections with others. Everywhere, I mean, all people do that. But the boundary of where those people are is smaller, and the likelihood of an overlap is significantly increased when you live in a small town.

·      Perspective changes. Dalby is not actually that small. When I lived in Brisbane I could not conceive of somewhere tinier than Dalby. The first time I went to Newcastle, the 7^th largest city in Australia, I thought it was amusingly small. And now, well, I recently drove through somewhere called Macalister. That’s what happened, I drove through it, in about 45 seconds. Whoosh.

·      Similarly, Dalby is not even a little bit remote, like I used to think it was. In reality, three hours from Brisbane and one from Toowoomba is not remote at all. And we live in town, too. Drive 10, 15 minutes out of town and you start to see real country. There’s a 24-hour Maccas here, this is a metropolis. 

·      I thought I knew how to drive. But now I *know*, you know? Driving in the city poses its own kinds of challenges, but you have to be ruthless here. If I hadn’t learned to be ruthless, I’d still be waiting to cross the highway at the intersection. Right of way has a different meaning when you’re dealing with roadtrains. 

·      Some of the things I thought would be hard, like getting a job, were easy. 

·      Most of the things that have been actually hard have been things I never even thought about. Like what do you eat on a Sunday when all the shops are closed and you haven’t got anything in the house? And how do you deal with cravings for Japanese or Thai food when the nearest restaurant is more than an hour away? Actually most of the hardest things have been food related.

·      Worse than food cravings, have been people cravings. I’m not so sure that this has anything to do with living in Dalby, and a lot to do with not living in Brisbane, but I do get kind of lonely here. I miss a lot of specific people, but mostly I miss being amongst people who’ve known me a long time. I miss being comfortable with friends. The strangest thing about this is that a lot of my friends have left Brisbane in the last year, anyway, and I really feel like moving back would not solve this problem. When we see one another, it’s brilliant, but we have all moved on, in some ways, and most importantly, we must continue to move forward.

·      Shaking up my life has been the best thing I’ve ever done. I was stagnating in Brisbane, on a career path I wasn’t happy with, doing the same thing all the time without any goals. I have experienced more new things in the last year than I have in my entire adult life. I’ve learnt so much about myself, and what I’m really like, when given the space and time to sort that out. Moving to Dalby was a change that turned me upside-down and shook me. I’ve been going through the stuff that fell out of my metaphorical pockets and working out what I want to keep ever since. 

·      I’ve learnt so much about Boyfriend, my partner in crime this year too. I’ve seen how strong he is under pressure, how clever and brave he is. I think we’ve seen each other at our best and worst this year, and it’s set our future together in stone, and onto a really exciting path. 

·      Moving somewhere, anywhere, I think, gives you a real sense of empowerment. But moving somewhere so different and scary, somewhere with a different culture, in many regards, and a different way of life, has made Boyfriend and I both feel like we could do anything, we could move anywhere, and be ok. 

Aubergine Paint Proof

Black walls, a black ceiling and a chipping black floor. The layers of black paint could tell countless forgotten stories, but here is mine. 

Happy.

They called it the “Cement Box”, which is a fairly accurate description. The walls were made of those awful, crumbly besser bricks and the floor was hard and cold. Objectively, you couldn’t think of a worse place to perform in. Dancers and actors are meant to perform on sprung floorboards, not cement, and there was some rumour about someone getting haemorrhoids from sitting on the concrete too long. Though I don’t even know if that’s medically plausible.

The lighting rig was a nonsensical mess of wires, and we always ran out of light bulbs. One day I took an old light into a technical theatre supplier and asked the guy behind the counter what kind of bulb I would need. A look of fear flickered across his face as he told me that the light was about 50 years old and full of asbestos. We kept using them, of course, but we stopped opening them after that.

The audience sat in blue and red chairs, which always seemed to go missing between shows. You’d have to crawl through the storage spaces and into the orchestra pit in the upstairs theatre to find them, and I was always determined to get enough of each so we could alternate. Aesthetics, you know? Important stuff.

We staged old classics and student-written work, some of it was god-awful, some amazing. But the most impressive part of all was that we did it all ourselves. Every play was acted, directed, costumed, designed, marketed and managed by amateurs, students... kids really. The company was called “Underground”, which was meant to be a joke, I think, because the theatre was semi-subterranean.

Backstage was my favourite place. You could go hunting in the depths and find all sorts of magic: working lamps, foam walls, dodgy doors and an office chair papier-mâchéd to look like a villain’s high-backed seat. You’d find actors sitting on broken audience chairs or on moth-eaten couches, an Assistant Stage Manager doling out props and the director smoking with some of the actors, trying to be relaxed. And then, watching over them, my favourite part of all: the graffiti. The name of every show that had ever been performed in that cement box was immortalised on every square inch of space on the walls and ceiling. Everything was covered, crammed with the names of people I don’t even know, shows that happened 5, 10, 15 years ago. I spent enough time there to know that the oldest date was on the door. 1984. Before I was born.

The best graffiti by far though, was in the tech box. I spent countless hours sitting in there, so I would know. Every show, the stage managers and techies would leave their marks too. Though undated, they undoubtedly went back as far as some of the ones out the back did. But there were no names here, just an endless continuation of the same joke. “No actors in the tech box” one read, “no fuck ups in the tech box”, said another. “No farting in the tech box”, “No sleeping in the tech box”, “No scrub turkeys in the tech box” … “No holds barred in the tech box”. I wish I could remember more, because they were one of the first things to go.

The place was full of secrets, of doors you only discovered after a year of walking past them, of little-used rooms and unknown passages. It was full of fire hazards and broken things, full of dirt and possum shit. One night the resident possum made its theatrical debut, scaring the pants off actors and audience alike.

I became the keeper of the keys at the start of 2009. From the second I had stepped foot in there 3 years’ previously, I had wanted to know all those secrets. It was like knowing where the entrance to Narnia was, or how to get into the Lost Boys’ hideout. The guy with the keys in 2007 used to park his car out the back under the graffiti to save on university parking fees, and I had heard about people sleeping in the office, or having sex in the office, which was frankly disgusting. I knew where the good napping places were (NOT the office) and I often studied or ate my lunch in the foyer with friends.

Always start a relationship in a dirty, cement pit, would be my advice.

All my friends acted or teched in that place, I met my partner there, I had some of the best times of my life there. It was a safe space, a fun place, a filthy, grimy, ugly space. I wrote a third year paper about theatre spaces and how they impact on the theatre that is made in them. I researched theatre troupes in far off, exotic places like Melbourne. They all had whimsical, abandoned, amazing spaces, and it was only in writing about them that I realised I had one of my own all along.

And that’s when it got taken away.

Yes of course, the evil “man” came and ruined our bohemian dreams. That’s how this story always had to go. The union contacted us, and told us they were giving the Cement Box back to the uni, and then came a series of meetings with people in suits. I wanted protests, placards, fire, shouting, but what really happened is that we cut a fairly boring deal and got out of the way. They promised not to paint over the graffiti, and for the most part they kept their word, but they covered some of it with the same awful purple paint they covered the rest of the black with. Aubergine, a lecturer told me later, is the new colour for theatres. They renamed it after Geoffrey Rush and a couple of my friends stole the old Cement Box sign and hung it in their house.  Not to be outdone, I broke in one night with a tin of paint and in large blue letters proclaimed “No more Underground Productions in the tech box”. I thought I was very clever, but it was gone a month later.

In my essay that semester, I wrote thousands of academic words about art and space, about the impact of both on each other. I waffled on about creative safe-spaces, about the value of found spaces and designed spaces alike. I desperately tried to fit our little space into the essay, and I slipped it in there towards the end. But it’s only now that I realise that the Cement Box didn’t just influence the art we made, it was a crucial element of the people we became. The filthy, badly built Cement Box made us the loud, crude, funny, dirty, clever, self-made people that we were, that we are still. It lives on in the friendships around me today, in the life I share with my partner, in the terrible jokes we still tell. They painted over 30 years of stories, but this is mine, and it is aubergine paint proof. 

Thanks to Emily Rowe and Amy Randall for photos.

Q and Eh?

What 5 cities would you like to travel to?

Do I have to travel to them all in one day? If so, probably a bunch of the cities in the middle of Europe, I feel like you could get around to 5 cities in one day pretty easily.

Look I'm not saying I'd be able to stay for lunch or anything...

If I have a bit more time, and we’re talking cities I haven’t yet visited, in no particular order: Toronto, Edinburgh, Naples, New York and Dunedin.

If you wrote a book which was being turned into a film, who would you like to direct it?

I don’t know a lot about directors, but the guy who did The Hunger Games did a really good job of adapting that, so him. His name, according to IMDB, is Gary Ross.

If you wrote a book and it was being turned into a film, who would you want to star in it?

You guys are pretty keen on me writing a book, huh? It's nice to know you think I actually have it in me but this is hard to answer because 1. How do write books? And 2. I haven’t written one so I don’t have a character in mind to cast. On the other hand, Jennifer Lawrence.

What books/coimcs/tv shows/short stories would you like seen turned into a film/TV series]?

 You’ve thrown me off with that ] there, woah.

But to answer your question, I think that the The Fault in our Stars film can’t come soon enough, and also that in 15 years’ time, someone needs to remake Harry Potter properly, and I would be very keen on working on it somehow, and Tom Felton could play Lucius Malfoy, is all I’m saying.

How amazing am I?

Look, you are pretty amazing, and I’m a big fan.

what is it like to be pretty? Haha

Haha? Hahahahaa. Ha. People used to tell me I was pretty, people still do occasionally, which is nice I suppose. I think it gave me a warped sense of myself as a teenager, but it certainly didn’t make me any less self-conscious than anybody else. I think you are pretty.

Oh no wait are you asking me what it’s like to be ‘pretty haha’? Like… kinda funny? It’s great! I never thought I was funny and I always got upset when people made jokes and riffed off each other because I felt inadequate, and then one day I realised that being funny can be practiced and so I started practicing. Making people laugh is one of my favourite things to do, not least of all because it’s a skill I worked at.

Meanwhile, back on the attractiveness thing, I don’t shave my armpits anymore, so I hope that takes off a few pretty points for you.

Would you rather swim through a lake of vomit or a lake of diarrhea?

WHAT COUNTRY IS THIS? WHERE ARE THESE LAKES? THIS IS AWFUL. WORST. COUNTRY. EVER.

...Vomit.

If you were stuck on the proverbial desert island, what would be your: one album, one book, one film, one tv show, one food, one drink, one friend to hang with and one friend to eat?.....yeah. Cannibalism.

Album: Mozart’s requiem (I’m assuming I have something to play it on, right?)

Book: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (God, that was like choosing between children… or internal organs)

Film: The Emperor’s New Groove

TV: Doctor Who (I’m taking as many seasons as physically possible)

Food: Something really boring and sensible, like a fruit, that I can plant the seeds of so that I always have food.

Drink: cider, for the tough times

Friend to hang with: you dear, of course

Friend to eat: I can’t decide, I’ll do a lottery or something. I can only imagine the conversation:

SURPRISE YOU GET TO COME ON A HOLIDAY WITH ME!

Yay, where are we going?

EXCITING TIMES, IT’S A DESERT ISLAND.

What? That’s the worst, why can’t we go to Melbourne or something?

DON’T ASK QUESTIONS, GET IN THE BAG.

What?

IF YOU SEE SOME SEASONING IN THERE, BE A DEAR AND JUST START RUBBING IT INTO YOUR SKIN.

What is your spirit animal? Or patronus? YEAH!

Some kind of big cat, like a tiger or a lion would be cool, but let’s be real here, it’s probably a koala or something.

What do you want for dinner?

I think we should probably use some of the chicken in the fridge, are you cooking?

Will you do this marking for me?

No. Get back to work, boyfriend, you have dinner to make.

Who would win in a fight between Josh Martin and ex-Pope Benedict?

I don’t know, does Benedict also have multiple martial art skills? Seems unlikely, in which case this is an awful match up, who did this draw? Didn't I tell you to get back to work?

Shoes

So…. This isn’t a question, but I like your style; simple, direct, to the point. Do I like them? I have very few and absolutely hate shopping for them, but I like them as much as anybody who doesn’t like rocks in their feet, I guess.

Which Harry Potter character would you like to act? Which would you like to be?

I am not a very good actor, so I’d like a bit part as like, Ravenclaw number 4 or something, but if I could *be* a character, I would like to be Harry. Or maybe Luna. Or Neville. 

Want to be involved in the next Q and Eh? Like Hum Drum Plum on Facebook, follow me on twitter, or become my boyfriend.