CAMP AS SHIT LOVE

So today I got an email from one of my bestest buddies who lives in London. When she and I were teenagers struggling with life in Adelaide (the capital city in the 'State of Unnatural Acts' described by one visiting friend as 'almost like everyone is waiting for something to happen but nothing has yet'). We lived next door to one another in the upper middle class suburb of Somerton Park. Both out families had numerous children, a token dog and an in-ground pool. Cat and I spent numerous hours hanging out and developed a fabulous relationship. At night we would take turns to leave our house and go next door to the others persons bedroom window and knock on it so that we could talk about anything and everything until we were too tired to talk anymore. I'm sure both our parents believed would develop into love, engagement, marriage and kids.

But seriously if my parents didn't have any inkling I was a 'mosexual in the making, they were clearly spending their days hoovering Temazepam and ignoring the OBVIOUS signs. Anyway Cat wrote to me after reading this blog and commenting that some of my musical choices (early INXS) brought back memories which I have cut and pasted for your viewing pleasure

Takes me back to College Rd times when I had an apparently straight boy neighbour my age living next door to me... Oh you spin me right round baby right round... on a mound.. of dirt.. in the front yard...

Yes it is a sorry thing to admit but as a teenager I developed a rather large passion for miming to the campest songs of the day, Dead or Alive being my all time favourite, however I also become so skilled in miming to Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' that my parents would badger me to mime it for friends at parties! Hello!!! Apparently my parents were clueless cos that sort of behaviour is screaming pooftapalooza to me.

In fact her memories reminded me of the numerous gay things I did as a child and as a teenager that I wrote off as just a phase I was going through but in hindsight were clearly the makings of a wooly woofter or a horses hoof, as my Dad loved to describe them (that's rhyming slang for poofter and poof). I also thought it was wonderful stuff to rave on about and expose for all and sundry to view. So without further ado I present the

Top 5 Signs Your Kid is a 'Mosexual In Training

Sign Number 1:

Well duh, I liked to mime to songs sung by women and camp men and was so proud of my skills that I climbed onto a mound of dirt, dumped on our front lawn to help build up our garden beds and performed Dead or Alive's 'You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)' for all the neighbourhood kids. I know now that I enjoyed the laughs I got whilst doing it but seriously there are other ways to make people laugh that are less gay. Thankfully I never donned the makeup or the dresses, something that still doesn't interest me to this day.

Sign Number 2:

I made jewellery out of FIMO, mostly earrings and badges, which my mother used to wear and I also sold to her friends. I even went as far as to create themed badges (oh who am I kidding I called them broaches) for Christmas which included small Xmas trees, reindeers and snowmen. Plus I took up decorating t-shirts with that bloody hideous paint that puffs up when you iron the back of the t-shirt so you get a slightly raised look. Somewhere out there in some suburban op shop is an old t-shirt with a weird arse looking koala on it, they were my speciality.

Sign Number 3:

I gave up being a lifesaver, which I started learning from the age of 9, so I could learn how to ride a horse. Once again with the benefit of hindsight I realise that leaving an environment that means you are surrounded by well built men in tiny speedos at the age of 15 could indicate that I was actually straight but clearly not only did I want a pony but I was also terrified of getting a stiffy in my own speedos while surrounded by all that barely encased meat...gulp.

Sign Number 4:

Even though I currently do voiceovers using my lovely deep voice, I had to work to find it. A few years back when I stumbled across my first aircheck from the late 80's, which I recorded when I was about 17 or 18, I was shocked at how gay I actually sounded. I also finally understood why so many of my parents friends would ask "Don't you need a deep voice for that?" whenever I told them I wanted a career in radio. How rude, I should track them down and finally respond with a "Don't you have to be more sensitive to a teenagers feelings when he is revealing his dreams to you rather than rolling your eyes, suppressing a laugh and then jumping up and down on his still growing testicles?"

Sign Number 5:

Despite attempts to cover up my sexuality, by feeding myself large quantities of food from the back of a dump truck so I wouldn't appear sexy to anyone, women were all over me. On a few occasions I would actually give in and accept their proposal to be their boyfriend, but the minute they tried to wrestle me to the ground and shove their tongues down my throat it was the old "It's not you, it's me" and the dating was over. When my last "girlfriend" complained to our friends that I didn't put out and that she thought I might be gay, I turned to her and said "I'm not gay and how dare you spread such vicious lies about me, we're over, I don't wanna see you again". Boy did I have some explaing to do to her when I finally came out of the closet.

So there you have it, me in a nutshell. Now I'm all bushy 70's mo, shaved head, military and work shirts and deep voice, but back then I was all the glitz, the glamour, the swishy. How times have changed. By the way, don't worry about Cat, as a 'mosexual herself, I love that we found each other and spent all those years bonding. Her friendship is one of the greatest things I found in my childhood and thankfully I still have to this very day.