Alex Zine Issue # 1

Alex Issue 1 January 2015 Editorial Team Paul Dalla Rosa Bianca Raffin Amy-Jo Jory Marianna Codognotto Tamara Coles Graphic Design Northside Creative This magazine was produced on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations

About Alex Alex is a hardcopy and online zine made for young people, by young people.

Featuring work by 18 emerging artists and writers aged 15-25 years, the Alex zine project includes photography, drawings and illustrations, painting and writing in many styles. Alex is about providing a cultural zine that speaks to young LGBTQI and SSASGD people about issues that matter to them, and showcasing the creative work happening in our vibrant community.

We ran a series of workshops at Artful Dodgers Studios, creating content for the zine, eating snacks, and hanging out and talking about what it means to be a young LGBTQI person in the world at the moment. People also submitted work via an online open call for entries.

A massive shout out to all the wonderful contributors to Alex, big thanks to the performers on the night of the launch, and to everyone who has supported this project.

Alex is available free to download as a PDF online. Print it out, copy it, share it.

For more information and referrals, or to check out the expanded online version of the zine go to: www.alexzineproject.com Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/alex.zine.melbourne This project is an initiative of Jesuit Social Services and is funded by the Victorian Government through the Healthy Equal Youth Program.

Š 2015 Alex and contributors.

Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

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Contributors Bianca Raffin ...............................p. 3, 7, 24, 25, 31, 33 Clare Billings ........................................................p. 33 Elizabeth Wright ................................................... p. 15 Isaac Trinh ............................................................. p. 9 Kieran Russell ....................................................... p. 8 Jade Elliot ............................................p. 21, 22, 23, 30 Jake Mulligan ........................................................p. 34 James Urlini ......................................................... p. 20 Jay Carmichael ............................................... p. 20, 27 Jonno RĂŠvanche .......................p. 4, 18, 19, 24, 25, 32 Rawrson ...............................................................p. 14 Melissa Taylor ......................................................p. 10 Nyssa Levings ........................p. 11, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29 Oliver Robertson ................................................. p. 30 Paul Dalla Rosa ..............................p. 6, 12, 13, 28, 29 Ramelle Lewis ............................... p. 10, 15, 18, 23, 35 River Jordan ............................................................p. 5 Yagan Satour .................................................. p. 16, 17

Artist bios and statements along with expanded texts and additional links can be found on the online version of the zine at: www.alexzineproject.com

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B&B Paul Dalla Rosa

Apollo Bay We went to Apollo Bay in the winter and stayed on a cliff that let us see water from two directions. At sunset we walked along the pier and the everything was the colour of honey. We saw a baby seal, just playing around doing seal shit, that we tried to Instagram but by the time our phones were out it was too late and it had dived under.

The cottage we stayed in was made of two old railcars welded together. There were tissue boxes in every room and the claw-footed tub in the bathroom looked deceptively big enough for two.

At night we ate in a restaurant nestled in the mountains where wankers in suits tried expensive wines and the brine of oysters glistened off painted fingernails.

Benalla We go up to the farm which is my partner’s family home and sometimes it feels like a bed and breakfast or a gay getaway.

There’s a gourmet bakery that serves lamb rosemary pies and apple turnovers. I have a vivid memory of being ten and on holiday at Port Fairy and every day I’d eat an apple turnover, and I guess maybe it was the town’s name or that whipped cream often has a drop of vanilla essence mixed in, but I conflate them, pastries filled with diced apple and cream, with being unashamedly gay. And if they’re sold out by the time we arrive at the bakery I sometimes turn, unintentionally, passive aggressive.

We always sleep on the farm in my boyfriend’s old room, underneath the posters of his teen years and I often lie awake in bed trying not to meet the black and white gaze of James Blunt.

They have sheep on the farm and once a lamb was sick, so it stayed inside, swaddled in towels, being nursed by my boyfriend’s sister and her boyfriend who are both med students. It had breathed in milk and the poor thing was slowly drowning, and you could hear it happening, this wet, little wheeze. We watched TV with the volume up high and then all of a sudden my boyfriend’s dad grabbed the lamb by the legs so that it hung upside down, and everyone’s voices became raised, but he didn’t give anyone attention and he shook it and shook it until it vomited on the floor.

That night the lamb slept in the kitchen, snug in cardboard box, and in the morning it was bleating happily and loudly and we all hugged it and then I took a video of it trying to walk, falling over onto its side just like a puppy.

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The Run to Freedom!

Isaac Trinh “Beep beep beep!” The sound of your alarm wakes you up. It’s 5am. You remind yourself that you’ll only have one hour to get everything ready before other people in your family wake up.

You start off checking your bags and try again to run through the check list you’ve made in your mind. Everything is almost done, you sigh silently and quickly place the last pile of books you know you’ll need with you into two tote bags. Then you quietly bring your school bag into the change room you share with your auntie and sibling. Considerately, you pick up the last pieces of clothes that you like to wear, already folded neatly the night before, and squeeze them into your overloaded school bag. Then you place the key to your home neatly on top of the wardrobe. Done, a flash of heaviness comes into your mind but you know that this is the only option you have to rescue yourself. Your heart starts to beat faster. Your stomach starts to churn. Quickly, you try to calm yourself; it’s going to be ok! Things will be fine! You feel shaky, but try your best to ignore it, try to feel as plain as possible.

Unpredictably, today your cousin wakes up very early. You start to panic. You are worried. You ask yourself, What am I going to do? He offers to take you and your sister to the bus stop.

You say that it’s ok and that you can get there by yourself. Your sister agrees and it makes you feel even more nervous. There are thousands of thoughts happening in your mind and you partially feel like you want to give up. “I need to grab something from the change room.

Just leave without me! I’ll get there by myself,” you tell your cousin. Your sister sprints to the change room. You quickly close the door. It will be at least five minutes until everything is quiet outside. “Hey, we’re already late, you know that? Are you crazy?” whinges your sister. “Don’t worry about me”, you declare. Suddenly, you hear the door to your big sister’s room open. Oh my god! What am I gonna do? You almost whisper. You try to take in some deep breathes to calm yourself, I’m almost there! I’m almost there.

When you hear the clicking of the front door and everything becomes quiet, you expect that they would have already gone without you. Hurriedly, you open the change room door and look around to see if there’s anyone else around. You see your sister walk past your door and your stomach churns. You wait until you see her walk into the bathroom then sprint outside the room and grab your heavy loaded bags. You head towards the front door, slowly open it, step outside and quietly close it. You let out a deep breath and say to yourself, very soon, I will be free. At the same time, you cannot believe that you are doing what you are doing. You have never ever thought of yourself doing anything like this, even in your wildest dreams, until a few months ago when things got really bad, and you knew that you had to leave.

Carefully you place the hand-written letter, the one you prepared a few nights before, into the mailbox. Quick! Run! You tell yourself but suddenly you don’t feel like you want to leave, at least not right away. You look at the beautiful house again for the last time. You know that you will miss it. You feel disappointed that you couldn’t say goodbye to your little sisters. They are the most important people in your life. Not only are they the ones who accepted you for who you are, but they also supported you and cheered you up during those toughest times at home. Suddenly, a wave of guilt comes over you. You quickly reject it, reminding yourself that you have to go and try to sprint as fast as you can to the bus stop. You have it all planned out in your head. Instead of running to the bus stop you normally go to, you head toward the bus stop far in the opposite direction so that even if your cousin drives back home, he won’t be able to see you.

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The Closet Melissa Taylor I don’t know whether I’m different in the sense of sexuality and/ or gender identity, but I’ve always been different in interests.

When I was little, I played with Bratz and Hot Wheels, read Total Girl and K-Zone magazine (gender orientated magazines – Total Girl is generally for girls, K-Zone is generally for boys), I would hang out with boys and girls. During primary school I acted like a tomboy, so I wore shorts instead of dresses and in prep, I only had one friend who was a girl and the rest were all boys. We’d hang out on this hill and I ended up developing a crush on a new kid who’s name is was George.

I’ve known I’m not the normal girl that I’m supposed to be, that I should be by society’s standards.

My childhood is confusing, that’s what my whole life is – confusing. I’ve lived in over ten houses in three states, I’m used to constantly moving from one house to another. At ten I knew what to do; pack clothes, pack books, pack any valuable objects and wrap them in newspaper. It became repetitive, something I’d know how to do if Mum or Dad even made any mention of moving house.

Whenever the topic of sexuality comes up I don’t think anything negative. I’ve known about sex since I was in grade one, Mum didn’t want to lie to me about how babies are born.

But I can’t actually remember how I know about the different sexual orientations.

I was twelve when my cousin ‘came out’ to me. We were in her room, sitting on her bed watching YouTube videos when she told me she’s bisexual and I nodded and smiled and we went back to watching YouTube videos. My mum raised me to respect people no matter what race, gender, sexuality or religion. I never really questioned my sexuality when I was younger but many others I know did it. In my opinion, I didn’t need to because I was still young, why should I be thinking sexually? When my cousin came out to me, it made me feel special. I was the first one to know about her sexuality, and especially since we’re related it made me happy to know she trusted me enough to share something like this.

This is an excerpt, read more online at alexzineproject.com

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Best Left Unsaid Elizabeth Wright I am insecurities social anxiety worrying how I’m going to pay rent failed classes faded dreams I am trying to be everything you want, least of all me • My heart thumps a little harder just to remind me of its function sometimes I’m woken in the night before dawn at least and my pulse is trying to burst through my neck I remember, I am alive • I have so many unfinished sentences they stick out on the page because they’re empty and I don’t know how to finish them because the moment’s gone and I’m not the same person I was a year ago

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Yagan Satour is a 23 year, 4 month and 2 week old selfie-loving, Arrente, Gurindji and Worimi man who is GLBT and has an intellectual disability.

He is a Scorpio born in the year of the Metal Horse (this is the year of the Wooden Horse). His rising sign is Aquarius and his moon is in Capricorn.

He loves science fiction. Star Aqua Galactica is his drag persona and she is a Sagittarius, she is 24.

Script from performance at Wominjeka Festival 2015: We have nearly left the year of the Wood Horse We are coming into the year of the wood sheep Hi my name is Yagan Satour I’m a metal horse My moon is Capricorn My rising is Aquarius I’m a Scorpio I’m from the Worimi, Arrente in Alice Springs and Gurindji nations I am 24 years old I grew up in the 90s I’m gay and I’m single I’m a virgin I have a disability I have a lot of abilities My favourite thing in the world is science fiction I’m from ACT, Canberra I live in Northcote I came down to Footscray to perform for all of you in the community I am a Drag Queen My stage name is Star Aqua Galactica She is an Earth Snake – born in 1989 Enjoy my show

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BORN THIS WAY It’s about who you are Where you’re from What you are Love who you are Accept who you are DISTURBIA Racism Discrimination Colonization Anti-immigration Genocide Stolen Generations Bullying Killing Massacres Not accepting people – where they came from, their culture People have no respect for other people who have culture It’s all hatred It’s wrong We are not different, we are the same species with different cultures We need to respect other peoples beliefs They need to respect other peoples beliefs and culture Or else hatred will continue And the future is unknown We really need cultural safety in the twenty first century We need to act now Or we have regrets We can’t change our present We can’t change our past But we can make our future We need a better future for us and our future generations yet to come CAMEO LOVER Openness of love Peace Kindness World peace The world with love We all need love I want love We all deserve love

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Eluding the Reasonable Ramelle Lewis Having made the purported decision that she wanted, more than anything to have a child, one day my mother came across a notice squeezed into the corner of a local radical newsletter advertising a grassroots organisation called ‘Lesbian Litters.’ My mum and her partner Cheryl attended a number of meetings and were met with considerable concern and some discouragement by other members of the group, most of whom were in their late thirties or early forties. Mum and Cheryl were young, in their early twenties, and stood out from the older, more conservative generation of aspiring same-sex parents. Despite the heeding of the latter, though, my mum had made up her mind and proceeded to search for a donor. ‘Lesbian Litters’ provided a list of potential contributors; it was small, only about fifteen names, but the information provided was proliferous. Star signs, medical, genealogical and educational information, interests, employment, etc. My biological father was chosen for a number of reasons: he was well educated, having read History at Oxford, he was older and unable to maintain a family due to his frequent travelling (leading my mum to assume he would be less likely to renege on the agreement in seeking parental rights) and finally, his justification for donating was that his sister was homosexual and he wanted to assist people like her to have families. No money exchanged hands; it was before established organisations emerged to provide official facilities for such events. When I was older, friends of ours travelled to New South Wales in order to undertake insemination that was legal and on the books. Not so in the very early 1990’s; back then, it was very much a self-help network.

At the time that Mum contacted Peter my biological father, he was working as secretary for the senator for Nuclear Disarmament in Canberra. Mum and Cheryl flew up from their home in Rye, and met Peter for lunch at Parliament House.

The insemination process was laughably simple. Peter provided the sperm sample in a jar, while Mum and Cheryl purchased syringes from the chemist which they used to insert the sperm when Mum was ovulating.

Afterwards, she would lie down and hope that it had taken.

In the end, it only took three attempts for Mum to get pregnant. She was fastidious in her goal; for an entire year she took her temperature so that she would be able to calculate exactly when she was ovulating. She also had a preference for a girl; after the inseminations she would lie on her stomach supposed to encourage this, and eating more alkaline foods, having read that this would create the optimum uterine atmosphere.

This is an excerpt, read more online at alexzineproject.com

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Reverie Jay Carmichael I find a huntsman spider on the lounge room floor. I keep it near me by tapping the ground in front of it whenever it turns to scamper away. It’s facing me, raising its front legs in the air. It’s raining outside and, in between the near-silent pattering, I feel I can still almost touch Jared.

The grace and the body had stirred me the most, the face, Jared’s face, set in endless clarity like glass raised up on a sandy beach. Jared and I had broken into the outdoor pool once: on the pool’s steps the morning before—Jared standing like he’d caught sight of something he’d never seen before, expectant with general unconditional and unfearful curiosity. He stood upright with his hands on his hips and an arch in his back, head down, his amber eyes trained on the water. A younger boy had brushed past into the cool water and splashed below, and Jared had shifted his hands from his hips, slid them up and crossed them over his chest. His biceps bulged, perfect footy pose. He stepped down, released himself and stepped down once more. Mouth open, an involuntary, Ha, escaped before he’d duck-dived into the shallows. His form wavered beneath the water like a school of a million shimmering fish, then reassembled when he’d come up for air. Water had purled off his face and he’d wiped the sodden shaggy hair across his forehead.

This is an excerpt, read more from this novel-in-progress online at alexzineproject.com

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Beyond the Limits of Reason Ramelle Lewis There is an implicit assumption, though, that one must choose the world. One must resign oneself to living in a world of prescribed rules and norms, where one’s ideals are constricted by the exigencies of pragmatism and the demands of everyday living seem stifling, monotonous and produce a homogenising effect. Thus the typical teenage rebellion against conventionality; there is a horror associated with the mundanity of the middle-class lifestyle. However socially endorsed it may be to have a house with a backyard, a partner, children, a dog, these are often still possibilities rejected as depressing forecasts for adolescents. Regardless, this rebellion against the world is generally limited to the pubescent ages, and there seems to be a reluctant donning of the mantle of adulthood as inevitable; a mute acceptance of the need to find a job to pay the bills, etc. and a progressive march towards invisibility.

This is an excerpt, read more online at alexzineproject.com

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When Jay met Georgette Jay Carmichael I find drag kings as interesting as queens because, I mean, it’s a double-whammy: a woman dressing up as a man and, more often than not, kings are lesbian. I find a short clip on SBS OnDemand about Melbourne based king, Jesse Dean1.

We meet. I have beer and she, wearing her civvies, sips white wine. We talk about our frustration with how society expects us, as queers, to act. Dean, when performing, is a gay woman playing a gay man. She says her purpose on stage is to disfigure ideas of how gender should be performed. Dean makes me think more about why I’m interested in drag, its confident kings and intimidating queens, and why I’m still unpersuaded, ever since I pretended this is what I want to do at the Greyhound, to perform drag myself. I do want to dress as a woman, but am I courageous enough to don the eccentric make-up and corset dresses? Or am I seeking something else?

I used to play with my sister’s Barbies more than she. I once, because I was very young and wanted to be like my aunt, took a whole tray of contraceptive pills. As a younger boy, I liked watching my mum blow-dry her fringe to a wispy curve over her forehead before she went nursing, even though she’d said I should be outside. She never chased me away.

In primary school I wore a dress and black wig with pigtails for the end-of-year show. And in high school I featured in musical productions where the hardest thing was not getting up in front of people and singing, but applying eyeliner and orange foundation.

1 Drag performance name

This is an excerpt, read more online at alexzineproject.com

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B&B Paul Dalla Rosa

Torquay There was a gnome. I distinctly remember a gnome that sat on the bookshelf but the gnome wore a captain’s hat and had little blue eyes and a cob pipe. It could be argued that these things make it not a gnome but it was still a squat, old, clay, bearded man and I am thankful it did not overlook the bed.

The B&B was actually the top floor of an elderly couple’s house.

They said the floor was sound-proofed but my boyfriend works at Bunnings, deals with tradies, not DIY, and said he had his doubts.

Sometimes I could hear things or at least I imagined myself hearing things, a voice coming out a TV, footsteps on creaking stairs, but it wasn’t creepy, more of just a little awkward.

The weather wasn’t beach weather but to be fair we’d gone in March.

The water was cold and we lay on matching beach towels reading.

A couple kept skirting onto the wet sand and then the dry. Every now and then the guy would lift his girlfriend up and make to throw her into the surf, though it would’ve only reached her ankles, and her laughing shrieks echoed across the bay.

We ate dinner in an empty Thai restaurant that had three waitresses who all leaned against the bar, and one of them, I shit you not, was drumming her fingertips onto the bar top. We were seated right under this sort of wall-mounted, gold, elephant’s head that was probably just made of plaster but would still break skin or potentially crack bone. So, as we waited for appetisers, we slowly slid our table away from the wall but the carpet was pretty resistant, our beers trembled, and one of the waitresses stared at us for a little and then looked out the window.

Back in our room we watched Foxtel, flipping between a Norwegian man wrestling giant catfish somewhere South America and a grainy documentary on aliens narrated by Morgan Freeman. We’d planned ahead and bought a loaf of sourdough and a three-type olive-dip from IGA and at one am we ate everything and put on Battlestar Galactica.

In the morning, when we guessed the couple were out, we had sex and it is true that morning sex is often fantastic sex.

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I followed you in the water knowing I would never return Jonno Révanche The depth of the darkness was thick and surrounded us mercilessly. In this silent hour I began to understand the meaning of silence. The boy, the only boy it could have been, was standing in front of me. I took his own silence for granted. We had been standing here for some time, contemplating our beginnings, contemplating what had kept us open.

His hands were breaking. I took hold of them. I knew it was what I had to do.

He said something was coming out of the darkness, something that had been waiting there for three years. The boy’s hands felt like ice. They were ice-blocks that seemed like they were cracking. There was echoing in the void. I pretended I knew what the echoing meant and why it was coming for me.

The edge of the void seemed shadowed by some kind of water. I felt vulnerable to the lapping of the waves, the voices beckoning me in. They were saying things like: “It’s time to go. Visiting time is over. Do you want to come over with us, swim beneath the waves? Do you want to escape the darkness that surrounds you at all times? Have you read the book of longing?”

I listened to the voices like I would listen to the voices of my mother. Except unlike my mother, these voices did not have a tone to them that I could trust.

Taking this for granted, I knew that to escape into some unknown waters would be foolish. It was a hidden circumstance that I would be leaping into, eyes blindfolded and with no real intention. To go where no man has gone before. To drive deeply into the unknown. To stare into death — it’s unblinking face staring back at me — to do these things with the will of a thousand humans. I did not think too much about whether I wanted that.

It seemed that the boy’s hands were melting. Was he grimacing? It was hard to tell in this negative space, ice-block hands and filled neck being the only things I could concentrate on. In these memories, I try to remember the things that are most important.

“We could go into the water, you and I. It would be no big deal. I see no pain.

Swimming together, like they said in the songs.”

I let go of his hands, dripping. My hands too, dripping and numb. And when I looked at them I saw hands scorched with the burns of frostbite, pale blue and veiny like an alien or translucent porpoise.

I strode toward the sound of the water. I thought of the bay, of the lighthouse that guarded the old spectrum together, that was the image of New South Wales my father had grown up around and told me about. Were these those same waters? Could they lead me again into the blue?

He followed me. I followed him. I took his hands, carefully and purposefully. I took him wading into the water, listening to the CRASH CRASH of the waves hitting the other side, another precipice deep here in the void. He manoeuvred himself so that he was now moving before me, more confidently than he was before. And with our necks submerged in this half-life and our bodies colder than anything else, we fell into one another and sunk down to the depths.

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Awake, in fright

by Jake Mulligan

Charlie staggered up ahead, letting off his camera flash into the night to try and attract the attention of passing cars.

“That’s not gunna do shit!” Dale yelled out.

“Shut up. It’s entertaining me at least.”

The flash was the only light visible from the highway, except for the headlights of the odd car zipping by. The speckled lights of the city were long before them, the moon covered by dark cloud. There were no sounds of life all the way out here, not even whisperings of creatures in the roadside brush. The two of them kept being flung forward in their step by gusts of wind that continued up the surrounding hills.

“How long have we been walking anyway?”

“Hours. It’s so damn cold…” Dale moaned.

“Hey, I think I see a light up ahead.”

Old utes were scattered out front of the sombre-looking roadside building up ahead. As they approached, they could make out the clanging sign lit by a single dim light.

Melton Motel.

Charlie looked at Dale, his bottom lip blue and trembling, his boyish pink face wrapped in beanie and scarf.

“Maybe they have a phone,” Charlie said.

A bell on the door announced their arrival. The room was dimly lit, it had that familiar pub smell of mixed peanuts, beer and testosterone. A dozen or so rugged men in chequered shirts stopped what they were doing and stared like possums in headlights. Pool cues resting, darts in hand, beers on bartop, beady eyes.

Awake, in fright.

Charlie and Dale walked across the room and sat at a table in the corner, the only sound emitting from the sign out front being rattled by the wind. One of the men jumped up from the bar as if bitten by something.

“Well what the fuck ya gunna do about it Mac?” The barman shrugged.

The bell of the front door clanged.

An engine groaned.

A roar and skid of a ute.

A gulp.

Several other men decided to follow suit as if disciples, their territory encroached.

This is an excerpt, read more online at alexzineproject.com

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