We, The City
Ep 5 : Queer, Deadbeat, Outsider - Toby Zotes
Host Blue Lucine (00:01):
We The City is recorded on Gadigal land. I pay my respects to the traditional custodians, the elders past, present,, and emerging,
Tegan Nicholls (00:11):
Just a heads up this episode contains some adult language,
Host Blue Lucine (00:25):
Art. Activism. Identity. Diving deep with one artist a week, we meet the individuals who use their art to trigger change in the City of Sydney. Who are they? And what's their story? Stick around to find out on We, The City. Today on We, The City, I catch up with Toby Zotes, who is a queer punk artist, works in the mediums of painting, animation, film, writing, and cartooning. Here's Toby.
Host Blue Lucine (01:02):
Thank you so much for joining me, Toby. Um, I wanted to ask if you could describe your art aesthetic for people listening.
Tony Zotes (01:12):
I'm one of those children who started reading from an early age. That's number one. So things like Noddy and Big Ears. And, um, I quickly moved on to comic books. And so when I get to thinking about my aesthetic, I think up things like Robert Crumb and his comics really influence me a lot. I'm a movie freak. So I saw a lot of movies. I really like when they put animation with live action, like in Mary Poppins or those famous analytical Ralph BK who did live action into animation. So one of my other aesthetics as a boy, also teenager, I would get my hands on art books from libraries and I'd just stare into them from Vangoh to, um, Albrecht Dürer um, Picasso, Hieronymus Bosch really appealed to me a lot. Um, Bruegel the Elder Broel, old Bruegel work like, you know, scenes of life, basically Bruegel and Bosch did all those little tiny figures. Right? And you get a whole Panorama, which I really like that. But I also like de Toulouse-Lautrec where you get bigger figures and he's depicting life in the cabaret halls of Paris. I'm really into the human condition. What are people up to? What do they suffer? What do they think? Particularly, I suppose, poorer people, cuz that's where I come from. But um, looking at the rich too, you know, what, how do they live? What's the problem? What's their existential angst. Mm-hmm
Host Blue Lucine (02:57):
Some of those, uh, scenes you were describing, um, and that kind of aesthetic as a young boy, those, those things you were looking at, what was your environment that you were kind of getting lost in these places? As an escape?
Tony Zotes (03:11):
I grew up in social housing, um, in a very somewhat infamous estate in Melbourne called the Olympic village. And it was a place where soon as the Olympic athletes left in 1956, they handed it over to working class people up until that point, my parents who'd both come back from the world war second world war. They came back without finding jobs cuz there weren't many jobs available at that point. So we moved from house to house to house. Finally, we get our own flat in this social housing estate, which to us was paradise. You might say we finally got our own place, but it was very tough. Most kids I hung out with didn't read and they're not just comic books. I didn't read books either, but I did movies and books and music, you know, those three things. So, um, I sadly experienced a lot of domestic violence where I, my mom and dad fought all the time. And so I escaped into books and I'm lucky my parents noticed it. So even though they spent their money on gambling and alcohol, they still made sure I got the books I wanted. That's what I got for Christmas and birthdays, lots of books. You know, my dream was to one day write books and publish. And it took me, I'm a late developer in some ways. I mean, I got distracted with other things, painting poster, making film, making short story writing, but now I've finally got around to novels and I'm, I'm very happy
Host Blue Lucine (04:54):
And well, we'll get to that soon. I, uh, I wanted to talk about, so you grew up in Melbourne, you arrived in Sydney in 1977. I wondered if you could tell us how old you were and what were your first impressions of Sydney?
Tony Zotes (05:08):
I was 27 in 1977. I actually was on my way to London. I'd worked somewhere and saved the money. I came to Sydney for a ACDC concert that were playing at the Haymarket. ACDC were only charging, well, five bucks to get in and with a small fence around the area like waist high. So we didn't even pay the $5. Right. We climbed over it. There's only about 300 people there and I got to dance with Bon Scott and I was really, really happy. I looked around Sydney and by 27 I was painting a lot and I saw the light of Sydney. It was a, it's a beautiful light here to paint by. And um, I got told about Darlinghurst Squats if I needed somewhere to crash the next day. So I went there and I got to see this squatting movement. Um, you know, free rent can really help if you want to do something like art, art or whatever.
Tony Zotes (06:06):
That's one cost taken care of. What else? The music scene here. When I got here in Sydney, I found a lot of venues, a lot of really good bands playing and basically that increased or what's the word it grew bigger and the bands better. I mean, finally you get to 1981 and De Vinyls. I saw them at the trade union club and they blew me away really? And I danced with Chrissy Amphlett I followed her and the band around New South Wales all through the eighties and there are other great bands as well. Of course the grunge movement with bands like Boxer Jesuit, Lubricated Goat, Monroe's Fur, then Dyed Pretty, Nun Bait. The Scientists. I can go on and on. There was a lot of bands. It was a great, so, you know, I, I end up giving up my idea of going to London.
Tony Zotes (07:04):
I thought, no, you know, Sydney's a good place. It's my own country. I grew up here. I know Australia. If I'm gonna write and paint, I can, you know, I'll paint what I know. I'll paint here where I grew up. And um, I had that silly idea that I could contribute to Australia, but it, you know, it's semi nonsense cuz um, you only end up contributing if you are from a good background here and then they take notice and show you around. But um, when you're on the streets, you don't crack a big time, but you still, um, get to be with the people themselves. And I went to UTS from 83 to 92 91. And then, you know, back in that day, there was only that tall brutalist building. I loved my communications course. You know, I really, I try. I actually, I tried to, um, get into the national art school mm-hmm
Tony Zotes (08:12):
I suspect that my reputation had preceded me anyway. I got knocked back cold from entering that art school. They did me an incredible favor though. Cuz as far as I can see, they've ruin a lot of artists who go in there. Maybe some good ones come out. But um, I went down the street to UTS. I had a mentor once a long time ago and he told me aim for the small stages, not the big ones and I followed his advice. So I've done really small stages all my life. And that's why I like Sydney.
Host Blue Lucine (08:47):
You mentioned, um, the Darlinghurst squats. I was wondering if you could tell us some of the places you lived when you first got to Sydney?
Tony Zotes (08:54):
Well, I stayed in Darlinghurst squats for one year, but it kind of, um, it was very rough there and being just down the hill from Kings Cross, a lot of what do we call these types? I mean, I love Outlaws and all the rest dead beats. I mean this all describes me, but it just, I, I, I've never got into heroin even once in my life. So when a whole lot of substance abusers get around you and they're stealing everything and blah, blah, blah. So after, you know, there were good people there though, but after a year I couldn't ha handle it. And um, up on Victoria street, there was a terrace that they were terrace house that they were were trying to save, um, the Green Bans. What was that? Oh God, it's gone outta my head. The famous man behind green bands, Jack Mundy, Jack Mundy was in on this and people like Wendy Bacon another.
Tony Zotes (09:46):
So I slept there for a week or so, but I couldn't handle that either. It was all falling down and there were no working toilets and one has to have a working toilet seriously. So I heard of a bunch of squats in Pyrmont, well houses that were up for grabs. So I went over there and had a look. There were 30 houses, I would say, um, 21 down below on Scott street and about another 10 or so seven or so up on the Ridge. Anyway. So I grabbed this little house in Scott street. That was the only one left. The reason no one took it was the roof was leaking, but I tried over all the years tried to patch it, but I never did work. Doesn't matter. I was there for 12 years. Can believe it or not in one front tumble down cottage. I, I I'm when I'm on a good thing, I stick to it.
Tony Zotes (10:43):
I mean, what do you call? I'm a barnacle on a rock. It's very hard to move me off once I figure I've got somewhere. So I was able to paint. I made, uh, my first few films there, like The Thief of Sydney and um, a strange circumstance is that the history of the very street that I lived in and even the house I lived in, there's a famous painter called Sally Herman. Who'd painted that street, Scott street. And he painted my house, particularly that I lived in or let's call a cottage and the very cottage next door to me, I lived in number six in number eight, a very famous painter called John Santry grew up. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but he's truly great. Mm-hmm
Host Blue Lucine (12:14):
1978, just one year after you arrived in Sydney, it was momentous year for gay rights in Sydney. Can you tell us where you were and what happened?
Tony Zotes (12:26):
I was working in the, um, Tin Sheds making posters with the, what you would call radical artists of the day who were into things like feminism and um, Koori rights. And um, my I, there were, there was one gay woman there and I was meeting a few gays around town, everything that happened in the city, the Tin Sheds people knew about and they told me there was gonna be a rally up on Oxford street. And in 78 there were three rallies protest marches. The first one coming down towards Hyde park got stopped by the cops. They tried to, there was a truck blaring disco music. Um, the guy driving the truck called Lance Lance Gowling. The cops dragged him out of the truck, trying to arrest him lesbians and gay men fought to try and get him out of their hands. After a big tussle, they still managed to drag the guy away.
Tony Zotes (13:28):
Everyone was quite furious and um, they got it in. I was there for the protest, but other people wanted a party mm-hmm
Tony Zotes (14:25):
And I'm now in the middle of it all. And we had a huge tussle you might say, um, the police punching and kicking, they love, they go, you know, police are misogynist back in the day. I don't know about now. But um, they went for the women, always dragging 'em around by their hair, punching the women, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, us guys. Yeah, we got punched. I got kicked in the head. I, um, I had a video camera and it got knocked outta my hand. And when I, it was being kicked around on the ground, like a football. And when I went down to try and retrieve it, I got kicked in the head. A lot of people I haven't got arrested that day 30 or so. And um, again, as the police were grabbing and punching, I, I mean, I, I would've liked to have been arrested, but it just didn't happen.
Tony Zotes (15:10):
I was, I've learned as a street person to not particularly hand yourself to the cop, but certainly as they're grabbing to duck their mitts. So I was ducking and weaving and all the rest and I didn't get grabbed and I didn't get arrested. And um, but other people did and we stood outside again that police station yamering and screaming all night till they got released on bail the next morning. And that's the story of the whole thing from then on, in we, every year we celebrated and of course we all know how it evolved.
Host Blue Lucine (15:40):
How did it evolve for those who don't know?
Tony Zotes (15:42):
It turned into a huge party, like exactly what my fellow L G B to QR S T V D w X, Y, Z. Um, what they were aiming for happened. We have a giant Mardi Gras now, um, some people find it too much gone in the way of partying and losing the politics of it.
Tony Zotes (16:07):
Although the parade, often half of the floats still are protests like parents for gay people and health services and whatever. Then the other half are banks and I mean insurance company and shit like that. So they decided to move it into the Sydney cricket ground, which quite honestly, I enjoyed as an old man, I got led to my seat and made sure I was comfy and they got me a drink and blah, blah, blah. And it was nice to watch, but there's another group called, um, Pride in Protest. And there are younger people who don't like the commercialism and the police marching and everything. And I don't like it either. So they continue the protest March up Oxford street at the daytime. And this other thing happens at night. And, um, I'll get back to the point and that early 78 affair, I went to protest the treatment of we, we receive us let's will just call us queers, right.
Tony Zotes (17:10):
That, um, when you grow up, when you're criminalized, you find it hard to get a job. You find it hard to even rent a room you're spat on. As you walk down the street, you're beaten up. I had my front teeth kicked out when I was 17. Um, it got to a point just we couldn't stand it any longer. And once the police attack us and are beating the shit out of us, we fight back. We couldn not put up with this one day more. And of course it took another, um, five years before we got decrimed, 83, 84. And, um, still that's a long struggle. Right. And you know, you don't get what it would be like to grow up. And you're a criminal, you're a beast of the night. You're twisted. You get told either you're gonna end up suiciding cuz it's so bad or you'll go to jail cuz you're a criminal or you might even go to a mental hospital and get shock treatment and you'll get converted. Isn't it lovely. And um, I mean really imagine, and some of us are gutsy, so we couldn't stand it one. And you know, there's a point where we're still struggling for different things. We got marriage, which is pretty cool. But um, we've gotta think of all those people around the world who are criminals in their own countries and now try to do shit for them. You know, it's an ongoing struggle.
Host Blue Lucine (18:31):
Now, one of the things I, I really admire and love in your artworks in particular cartoons is that they hold no punches. They really cut straight through to what you're thinking about the politics, uh, and kind of the society that you are, uh, addressing. Can you tell me a little bit about your artistic process?
Tony Zotes (18:55):
Often I've gotta bee in my bonnet now that we're in the 2000 and twenties and the world is on fire and the, you know, the climate change and Neo fascism is rising. Um, poor refugees are put in concentration camps. There's a lot of things to really be up tight about and to protest and talk about. And I'm not interested in a lovely, blurred painting of someone, you know, sitting in a chair and it doesn't really tell me a thing. I mean, they might have pretty colours, but, um, it's important to me that the work has meaning and it's called narrative art. So what are you, what's the narrative? What are you talking about? And um, I'm, I'll get a bee in my bonnet in the night like, oh, I'm really upset the way Kooris are being treated. So I'll do a cartoon involving that.
Host Blue Lucine (19:48):
What do you hope your art can do for people who experience it?
Tony Zotes (19:52):
It's my bee in my bonnet I'm talking about and I can't speak for someone else. What happens to them in their head? I, I guess, um, I majored in writing at UTS and it, when I did it in the eighties, it was a fairly left wing, um, campus. And so you taught in communication how to influence or what to influence people with. And as I spoke just then I would like to talk about climate change or, um, the treatment of kooris particularly, or the treatment of prisoners in our jails. And I would like it if I could at least get a discussion going mm-hmm
Host Blue Lucine (20:45):
Yeah. Cuz often you will have the very strong imagery. Um, and then you'll couple that with really strong messaging as well. So for example, the, um, the cop on top of the black person and them saying, I can't breathe, um, the Koori person, the black lives matter.
Tony Zotes (21:06):
Yeah. Well, you know, that was worldwide and here in Australia we have this terrible, I mean, I don't wanna say just even problem fact that Kooris, original first Australians are being murdered in jail at a higher their deaths in custody at a much higher rate proportion to the population. And they're jailed in greater proportion and for all the bullshit patronizing lip service, or we've done a lot for Kooris and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, that treatment generally is shocking and I've been told, oh, can't you do more positive? You know, what about the Kooris that have made it in society? Why don't you do more about that positive stuff? And I think, yeah. Okay. You know, and I'd love to do one on Adam Goodes. I'm planning it in the future cuz he's one of my heroes, but to always look the other way, you know, to try and whitewash, you know, what's going on here and the treatment of Kooris around the, just even this city, but certainly out in the sticks they're having their land still taken from 'em they're still having their kids taken from 'em, it's all this bullshit with the apology is a snow job.
Tony Zotes (22:19):
And um, I talk to enough Kooris and read enough to know that it's still not cool. What's happening. We've gotta really lift our game.
Host Blue Lucine (22:32):
I wanted to ask you, um, if there has been a piece that has been particularly, um, memorable or significant that you've created, that's been perhaps really cathartic in its creation that you could tell us about?
Tony Zotes (22:49):
It's really hard to choose. I mean, I've done hundreds and hundreds depending on, I like all of 'em. Yeah. They're like my children, but um, I suppose if I really had to focus on something and it seemed to have impressed a fair amount of people and that's that animated short film, the Thief of Sydney mm-hmm
Host Blue Lucine (24:03):
Yeah.
Tony Zotes (24:25):
And what was your film?
Host Blue Lucine (24:26):
So I made The Eviction, which is a feature documentary about the, um, public housing being sold in the Rocks and Millers Point. So that happened in 2014 mm-hmm
Tony Zotes (24:39):
Okay. That's very similar to the activist projects we took on in the seventies and eighties. And the story you want me to read from happened in about 1981 or 80, it mean early, really early on. So
Host Blue Lucine (24:54):
Was history repeating itself. Really?
Tony Zotes (24:57):
Yeah. Well gentrification and there's elite grabbing everything for themselves and the lower wage earners and the poor unemployed or whatever, get left for what we, you know, we can't even get, um, social housing now. They've really, they don't only wanna fund that, which is pathetic really. I mean the labor government in Victoria are building more, but here the liberals, they just couldn't give a shit if we are all on the street. So it's a really important subject.
Host Blue Lucine (25:27):
They're doing it in Glebe as well. They're selling all that public housing in Glebe.
Tony Zotes (25:31):
Yeah.
Host Blue Lucine (25:31):
Which is a real shame.
Tony Zotes (25:33):
Yes we're they're also trying to get everyone outta Waterloo and sell it where, where I live in Northcott, which is just behind central and we're waiting when, when are they coming for us? Half of the, um, residents actually are those workers who are in the service industry, some waiters, et cetera, et cetera. And um, without them, the city couldn't function. So, you know, there's gotta be some kind of public housing and we're in billionaires row there at Surry Hills. But if those billionaires want, you know, a waiter or a Butler or a chauffeur or whatever, they gotta have somewhere to live. Yeah. Then in Northcotte is one of the places
Host Blue Lucine (26:18):
Without a diverse, uh, community mix. The city just falls a part.
Host Blue Lucine (26:26):
?Has living in Northcotte uh, influenced your art ?
Tony Zotes (26:31):
One. That's given me a secure place to do it from mm-hmm
Host Blue Lucine (27:31):
You're still connected. You're not cut off.
Tony Zotes (27:33):
Yeah. And it's what, what do they call it? Grist for the mill.
Host Blue Lucine (27:38):
So you said you were on your own at 17, is that because you came out?
Tony Zotes (27:45):
I came out at 17 to all my friends. I found it hard to come out with my mum and dad, but they knew they saw from when I was a little boy, what I was, my dad used to try to beat it outta me and um, which is impossible. So yeah, I, I remember I started hanging around rock and roll clubs at 16. I met a rock and roll drummer who I fell in love with, but he was straight, but we both ran away from home at 17 and got a rented a little flat together. He didn't last very long there, but again, I'm a tenacious dude. So I lasted on my own out there in the world.
Host Blue Lucine (28:20):
You've spent a lot of time in Sydney now, uh, which spaces have played a role in your art practice and what made them special?
Tony Zotes (28:27):
First of all, Pyrmont squats where I had a community who, um, half of them were trouble, but the other half were really supportive. And if we had any trouble with the police or anyone, they were always there to back me up. Half of them worked with me on my films. They built models for me. I premiered actually the Thief of Sydney there on a dirty sheet in the backyard of the squats. And, um, they were really great people, some of them, my friends to this day. So, um, there was another squat from 85 to 91 in Woolamaloo called the Gunnery. And I hung out there nearly every day. Cuz a lot of people there were artists also and we put on rock shows and they had an art gallery there. We had a, um, small theater in the dome where they used to practice shooting.
Tony Zotes (29:15):
We, um, put on cabaret there. So that was a great space. It had its problems. There's a story about it in my book, shoot, 'em up at the gallery. And I guess just from the title, you can figure out what's going on. But um, it was really great space. Then there's the cafe on Kings cross. The Piccolo that I hung around nearly every night till Dawn and old Victoria was like, um, shaman running this seance for dead beats and freaks. A lot of really cool people came there, rock and rolls actors, dead beats, bums freaks. It was really cool. So that's another space. Okay. There's lots of around Tin Sheds poster workshop. That was cool. I made a lot of great posters there and my friends made 'em and we're a pretty well known crew from there. I could go on and on and on.
Host Blue Lucine (30:07):
I read that you've also worked as a palliative care nurse. Did this have any emotional impact on your artwork and has it impacted how you view the end of life?
Tony Zotes (30:20):
Definitely. Um, when you sit with hundreds of dying people until they've they've died
Host Blue Lucine (30:28):
Until they've gone.
Tony Zotes (30:29):
Yeah. Um, you know, you really know what life's about, cuz it has an ending and you can't pretend it doesn't and you see it in front of you. For me, it, I thought, well, you know, in the face of this, I'm gonna go out and live and I'm gonna grab life by the throat cuz we're only here for a short time and why waste it? I mean, we've all gotta work, but I, I, I, I live by the philosophy of giving 50% of my time to straight jobs and the other 50% are going out and have a life traveling the world, putting on shows, going on other people's shows. I mean 50% of your life's fair enough to give a hundred percent. So you can Mount up possessions of shit. That's not living to me. So yeah. And the other thing with nursing is, um, you have to take on a lot of responsibility and um, I was a charge nurse often, so the buck stopped with me and that was interesting cuz I had to be on my toes nearly every night.
Tony Zotes (31:28):
There'd be an emergency, someone bleeding to death or dying or whatever and I'd have to solve it. Um, I learned mul multitasking. Is that what it's called? Where I had to do sure is yeah, 21 things at one time and I I've always could do it, but I had to do it as a nurse. And I like that too. I wouldn't have put out the book or even made it to this podcast if I didn't, if I wasn't able to multitask. And um, so there was a lot, you know, it was an honorable job really. And you know, um, I, I started at 18 and um, I ended up in third year. Um, what would you call it? Specialising in palliative care. I just saw that I like being with old people or brain damaged people or whatever and being with them as they died.
Tony Zotes (32:21):
And um, I learned a big lesson in my early twenties when I was living in India. I meant my mentor of the time who was an art teacher and a Yogi. He was, were dying of cancer and I had to nurse him till he died in, um, Himalayas. And when you nurse your best friend, you learn how to do it with true compassion and true love. And from then on, in, when I worked in all the nursing homes and hospitals and shit, I tried to treat the people as I treated him. You know, like you tried to treat him like your mother and father, what would you do if it was your mother, you don't pull 'em around by their hair. You know, you try to do it gentle, soft, caring. I mean, I don't come on in a saccharin way " Oh love. How are you today?" I don't do that either. I mean, you gotta be very matter of fact and be able to concentrate when an emergency happened. You can't run around screaming. Like some of my assistants did, you had to go cold. Yeah. And one pointed and think what is the solution to this? And um, sure helped me all through life.
Host Blue Lucine (33:33):
In 1982, you're a part of a panel mural in King's cross. Can you talk about the imagery in Choke and what the cross was like then?
Tony Zotes (33:44):
Well, we're back to housing. The imagery and Choke was, um, the three different kinds of housing that are available in our society. We've got, well actually four, but down the bottom are squatting and the people on the streets then the next level is social housing. Where if you're lucky enough, you'll get a little house, not palatial or anything, but at least it's something and it's secure to degree. Then you've got middle class housing, um, which is a fairly again you've gotta right nowadays, sadly you've gotta have a million dollars to get it. And then on top of it, all of these super elite and um, all the rest of us can choke, you know, cuz they, they got the, um, terrace houses in Victoria street and the Rocks and all on there, 5 million each and upwards. So yeah, I just, that mural talks about that subject matter.
Tony Zotes (34:37):
And um, what was Kings Cross like, you know, for, for me I'm a dead beat myself and um, I'm an outlaw mostly cuz I was criminalized as a queer, um, here. Um, I had to do very hard things to stay alive, hang out with, you know, I mean it's historical really, if you read Jon Janet and other writers like him because being queer is criminalized. You tend to hang with criminals. You're at, you're the demimon you're at the bottom of society. And um, so Kings Cross was like that prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves, corrupt police. I mean it was a real, I mean I wouldn't say that's how I always wanted to be. It had such tough parts to it. Now it's changed and it's gentrified to a great degree and we could all say, oh it's not the same. And we miss it. And I I'm happy that people are safer now. And um, the shooting gallery is a great move because before that people just died on the streets and I know many, many, many who died now with things like that, needles handed out before in the eighties, you couldn't get needles. So they would beg at a chemist or they'd go steal 'em or they'd shoot up with dirty needles. Right. It was fucking shocking. And um, so there's, you know, I like those improvements.
Host Blue Lucine (36:11):
Now let's talk about this recent book, Punk Outsider. Where did the urge come from and what, what was it that meant you wanted the words and the images together to tell this story?
Tony Zotes (36:25):
There was something about life in Sydney that I really wanted to express, um, the streets, the human condition, um, poverty rock and roll the nightclubs, the cafes, blah, blah, blah. You know, I really wanted to talk about that era. I really wanted to do Sydney from when I arrived 77 up to the say the nineties and um, the whole story's about the traveé of the artist who is not connected, who didn't come from a top art school who doesn't come from money. Um, what is the obstacle course that artist has to run. And I wrote it all in that book, the filmmaking and everything, the squatting. And um, I've been able to put the art with it, which for me, you know, like it's phenomenal, you don't just read about you, then see what the, this artist did and there's all the history of it, right from the beginning first poster I made up to about the last poster I've done and um, all the rock and roll posters and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Host Blue Lucine (37:30):
That's amazing. What a good companion for the visual element of it. Uh, tell us about the title. What does it mean?
Tony Zotes (37:36):
It's from a along 50, more years ago, I mean in the forties, for sure. They were already using the word punk, the street delinquent, the loser, the waist roll, the scoundrel, the, the no good deadbeat. It means all these things as that, putting them down as a queer when often the person is not, but it's a slur, right. Um, then of course, punk culture erupted in the seventies with the music and the dress code and the attitude. So, um, I've concluded all that in a story called The punk's night out in Oz where I talk about the culture, but all the meanings of it. And I talk about the music, the nightclubs, you get it all there. And um, Outsider, well, you know, especially as an artist, if you read the story, the artist as outsider and you get the fact that because of both the background of a person, if they come from poor family, they didn't go to an elite school.
Tony Zotes (38:40):
This is all held against them. Then, um, the content of the art, if it's radical, if you're saying something about society that conservative people don't like, so you become an outsider. You're not included in shows you're so I've never been invited up to the art gallery of New South Wales. And I don't wanna go there. I mean, that's the other side of the question someone said to me, oh, Toby, you placed yourself on the edge of the herd. It's a double edge sword. I was pushed there, but I also like being there. I like being on the edge of the herd. I don't wanna be in the center where it's safe and it's mediocre and boring. Um, on the edge, it's dangerous. It's wild. You know what happens to creatures on the edge of the herd? They're the ones most likely to be picked off by lions or whatever. So that's what punk outside means.
Host Blue Lucine (39:35):
It sounds like it's a very good title. And I really look forward to reading this book.
Tony Zotes (39:40):
Ah, thanks.
Tony Zotes (39:43):
"Stunts of the Sydney situationists."
Tony Zotes (39:49):
Housing was another issue that burned in Arthur's heart, constantly aware of the need for a roof over his head. He got involved in tenants issues and the preservation of old buildings. He participated in many seizures, his gang once barricading themselves into a terrace house in Campbell street, Surry Hills filling the whole lower floor with trash and old furniture. They spent weeks in camped up on their barbwire balcony with objects to hurl down upon any thugs who dared break in cops and security guards eventually smashed their way up into the fortress. Arty and friends, making their escape out a back window. A block of colonial houses at the rocks in circular quay had been left to rot and ready for demolition. They cried out for rescue a collection of outrage, activists and desperately homeless paupers decided to squat one of the buildings as a challenge to the city council.
Tony Zotes (41:01):
Only a few of them had previous experience at cracking a squat, but in cooperative laziness, they allowed one nice middle class girl named Katie
Host Blue Lucine (42:46):
Toby, thank you so much for joining me today.
Tony Zotes (42:49):
Okay. It was enjoyable as you can see, I can't show my mouth once I open it.
Host Blue Lucine (42:53):
That's the idea of a podcast. So you've done very well. Thank you so much.
Tony Zotes (42:56):
Okay. Nice meeting you and talking to you.
Host Blue Lucine (43:14):
We, the City is a Jerboa Production hosted by me Blue Lucine. The City of Sydney is our principal partner and we thank the creative grants program. This episode was produced by Blue Lucine, and Tegan Nicholls with original music by Matt Cornell. We The City is recorded on Gadigal land. Sovereignty was never ceded.