Pat The Dog

Coming Out to your loved ones can be a very difficult process. The idea of telling your friends and family that you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning can be so frightening that some people live in silent fear for years on end before they start living their authentic lives.
“Don’t Tell Your Father – Conversations About Coming Out” is a must-read for anyone who is in the process of coming out, anyone who already has, or anyone who wishes to better understand what a loved one is going through as they come to terms with their sexuality. Beyond that, this is a book for anyone who just enjoys a well-told story. “Don’t Tell Your Father – Conversations About Coming Out” isn’t only about being queer; it’s about being human.
There is no scientific formula for coming out, and for this reason “Don’t Tell Your Father – Conversations About Coming Out” is not a “how-to” guide, but rather a collection of exceptionally candid interviews with seven gay men, one lesbian, two post-op transsexuals and a drag queen. All of them openly share some of the most intimate details of their lives, from the tears to the triumphs, in an entertaining, fearless and often very amusing fashion.
“Don’t Tell Your Father – Conversations About Coming Out” by Gavin Miller is now available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk as a Kindle ebook. If you don’t own a Kindle you can download the free Kindle app for your PC, Mac, iPad, iPod touch or smartphone and read it however and wherever you choose.

Here are some quotes from the book.

Corey:
I’d go home and I’d be nervous for the days leading up to it, I’d hate the drive and then I’d get there and try and tell them all weekend, and if I didn’t tell them I’d be cranky the whole drive home. I always said to my sister that I knew I could tell mum, but how could we hide it from dad? I didn’t know if we could hide it from him, or if mum would tell him. Yet dad took it better than anyone.

Ben:
The easiest way to prove to everyone else that you’re not gay is to be a homophobe. I was absolutely vigilant about it. I wouldn’t go out and physically bash anyone because I am not that sort of person, but I would definitely bag them out and have all this attitude about them, so nobody would ever think I was gay. Which now means whenever I meet someone who just has that sort of attitude I think they have issues with their own sexuality.

Nic:
I was hating myself. I thought there was something very wrong with me. Why wasn’t I able to have great sex with these guys like all my other friends were having? I knew I wasn’t enjoying it, and I should have been enjoying it, but it was something I kept pushing to the back of my mind. I was in denial in a way, I always knew I wanted to sleep with a woman, but I never did anything about it. I had nobody in my social circle to talk about it to, or who were gay. I didn’t know anyone.

Simon:
My mum went through my phone book and called every family member and everyone I knew and told them I was gay. I got calls from friends I hadn’t heard from in three years saying, ‘oh, you’re gay are you?’ That scared the hell out of me. Telling my mum was a big enough step. Then I had my brother. My brother was really good about it. His first words to me when he found out were, ‘Why don’t you just live your life and stop hiding?’ He had a point.

Peta:
I don’t remember sitting down with someone some day and saying, ‘look, I’m a transsexual’, although it may have happened. I didn’t need to verbalise that one. I just felt such incredible joy and such incredible relief I didn’t need to share it. I just knew. And it was amazing. There was a need to be a complete woman, and eventually, having a penis was not going to be a part of that.

Ross:
It’s a process. I haven’t come out yet, but I’ve been coming out. I’ve been coming out for nine years and the last time I came out to someone would have been yesterday.

Late last night after watching a particularly horrendous boy band called Wanted performing on the Graham Norton show, Danae, Zoe and myself decided that we should invent a band, right there and then, using random ideas and words found in various books from the bookshelf; self-help books, travel books, fiction, health and of course the ever reliable Woman’s World, a particularly hilarious book released in about the 1950’s that instructs women on how to live their lives in a proper manner in order to capture a husband and look after him properly.

We just opened the books up to random pages and used whatever word our eyes fell upon first, and made up the rest using randomly googled news articles and whatever else came into our heads. That’s how our band came to be known as… IMMODEST.

So, here is the entire mythology surrounding IMMODEST.

Danae is MICHAEL, the REGULAR one.

Zoe is VINCENT, the DIFFICULT one.

Gavin is DeDe, the EMPOWERED one.

The debut album from IMMODEST is called DISCOVER.

The first single from DISCOVER is WORTHLESSNESS.

Michael wears a TOOL BELT, and nothing else.

Vincent wears PERFUME, and nothing else.

DeDe wears HALF WORN GARMENTS THAT YOU DESPISE.

Michael is SECULAR, A DENIER OF MIRACLES.

Vincent is an EVANGELIST, PICKS UP ON THE ISSSUES OF DESIRE.

Dede practices JUDAISM, THE MUTE TONGUE SHOUTS FOR JOY.

Michael is from WEST GERMANY and is a CANCER born on JULY 2ND

Vincent is from EQUATORIAL GUINEA and is a CANCER born on JUNE 29TH

Dede is from VENDA IN NORTHERN SOUTH AFRICA and is a CAPRICORN born December 24th

IMMODEST write songs about PEOPLE’S BAD ATTITUDES TOWARDS PEOPLE WHITH DISABILITIES.

The video clip for WORTHLESSNESS features a KITCHEN SINK and a HANKY. A woman removes the hanky to reveal that she has BELL’S PALSY, and at the end of the clip THE GIRL WALKS INTO THE HOUSE ALONE.

And now here are the lyrics to the debut single from IMMODEST, WORTHLESSNESS.

IT MAKES ME FUCKIN’ SICK LACHLAN
WHAT’S THIS SHIT WE’RE LISTENING TO ANYWAY?
BLACK CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON
THE STORM IS A RISIN’
IT ISN’T SURPRISIN’
THAT THE WORLD IS ALL LIES ‘N

(chorus)
I FEEL WORTHLESSNESS
I FEEL WORTH
I FEEL WORTH
LESS LESS LESS YOUR NESS
WORTHLESSNESS

I’M PROUD OF EGYPT
THEY TOOK IT TO THE MAN
THE MAN GAVE IT TO THE MAN
IMAGINE THAT IF YOU CAN
H H Y Y H D O U
SPELLS NOTHING
(Backing vocalists: “H H Y Y H D O U”)
(Repeat Chorus)

SHADOW WALKER
WHERE YOU COME FROM
WHERE YOU GOING
AIN’T NOBODY OWN YOUR ARSE
YOUR CLASS
YOUR ROSE GLASS
WOO OH NO
SHOWER DOME POEM
I GOT NO HOME
IT’S A SHAM
NO NO NO EDUARDO

(Repeat chorus X 2)

QWERTY DON’T BE SO FLIRTY
I’M OLD SCHOOL QWERTY
YOU ARE DIRTY
MEET YOU AT 8.30
BY THE LLYOC
SPELLS NOTHING
(Backing vocalists: “NOTHING”)
I’VE GOT MINCE ON MY PHONE
(Backing vocalists: “MINCE MINCE MINCE”)

(Repeat chorus)

IT MAKES ME FUCKIN’ SICK LACHLAN
WHAT’S THIS SHIT WE’RE LISTENING TO ANYWAY?

So, after we played this song for the first time using instrument apps on our iphones (MICHAEL THE REGULAR ONE on piano, VINCENT THE DIFFICULT ONE on drums and DEDE THE EMPOWERED ONE on guitar) MICHAEL and DEDE went for a walk to contemplate their success while VINCENT THE DIFFICULT ONE got to work on IMMODEST’S difficult 2nd album, which he called I’M A TALKER WHO’SE A PORKER without consulting Michael or Dede.
There are concerns that VINCENT THE DIFFICULT ONE is planning to go solo.

Hi Boys,
I’m going to be as gentle as I can be here, but being gentle has never really been my strong suit, so we’ll see.
I have been an INXS fan since I was a kid. You guys have made a lot of cutting edge music that still makes me dance, and I’m no dancer. I loved the punk sensibility of Underneath The Colours, the mind-blowingly progressive pop of Shabooh Shoobah, and I still think The Swing is one of the greatest Aussie albums ever made. And those three albums happened before you guys took on the world, and won.
Michael Hutchence was Australia’s Jim Morrison. In this age of Australian Idol, when everyone is talking about phrasing, Michael remains the greatest example of what those Idol judges are talking about. His phrasing was extraordinary, and as Bono once said, “He could whisper… boy could he whisper”. But Michael was only one piece of the INXS puzzle. To praise Michael is not to forget just what an amazing band you guys have been.
I saw INXS live at Metropolis Nightclub in Fremantle in 1993, and it will forever be in my top ten concerts of all time. By then, you guys were producing music that was so ahead of its time that you were starting to falter commercially. If Welcome To Wherever You Are had been released ten years later, it would have been massive. The Gift, for example, has the same sonic resonance as the best work by The Killers.
We were all shattered when Michael died but the cold hard truth is that your decline was already well and truly underway by then. Elegantly Wasted, apart from the title track, was a steaming piece of shit. By then you were getting lazy, bloated, and worst of all you were stuck in that rock star rut of trying to recreate and relive the success you had in the 80’s. I’m not sure how it was working for you guys by then, but as a fan, you had already all but lost me.
I recently watched a DVD of a concert you guys did in 1997, a few months before Michael’s death. As a moment in time it fascinated me, but the evidence of your decline was right there for the world to see in that performance. Michael forgot the words to New Sensation, for fucks sake.
When you experimented with Terrence Trent D’arby and Jon Stevens as lead singers, I got it. You wanted to do what AC/DC had done after Bon Scott died, so you were looking for your new front-man who could carry the band forward into a whole new generation. It didn’t work, but at the time I admired the tenacity it took to give it a shot.
I even hung in there when you used the vehicle of reality TV to source JD Fortune, and Pretty Vegas was good, so for a while there I rejoined your bandwagon and cheered you on from the sidelines. But the time has come for someone to tell you guys the brutal truth, so allow me…
Boys, for the sake of the INXS brand, it’s time to stop. I’m all for you guys making music together, and I’ll listen with interest to whatever you do, but for the love of what you guys achieved can you please consider retiring the INXS brand, sending JD back to his house or his car or wherever he is living these days, and doing something that is new, as opposed to what you’re doing now, which is butchering the legacy of a band that has always meant so much to me.
You’ve done the album of covers with other lead singers, and you’re touring in the 1st half of this year. That’s the perfect time to draw a line under it. Please boys, stop raping the memory of one of Australia’s greatest ever bands. It’s hurting me.
Why don’t you retire INXS after this tour, go away for a while and write some great songs – ‘cos I know you still can – and either emerge when you’re ready with a new brand or go back to calling yourselves the Farris Brothers.

Yours with respect,
Gavin Miller.

Ps: If anyone from the band ends up reading this and wishes to respond via my email at gav@patthedog.com I will post the response here, no matter what you’ve got to say back to me.

“Don’t Tell Your Father – Conversations About Coming Out” is a collection of coming out stories that has been a long time in the making. I’ve released it as an ebook (there’s an explanation as to why in the foreword, so no need to bang on about it here) and you can get it at Amazon.com for $5.99 or at Amazon.co.uk for under five quid.

If you buy it, you’ll be supporting a poor struggling author. Think of it as your good deed for the day.

What’s that? You don’t have a Kindle? You don’t need one! Download the free Kindle app here for your PC, Mac, iPad or smartphone and read it that way.

End of plug…. for now.

Gav
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Click here to access Episode 2 of Home Made Radio. Just like the first one, it’s full of things you’re not allowed to say on the ordinary wireless.

One of my facebook friends who lives in Perth put what I thought was a brilliant post on his page the other day.
“Unless you’re the Governor-General, would you kindly remove the Australian flag from your car. Thank you.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Now I know the first argument that can often be launched into off the back of a comment like that is, “What’s the matter with you, mate? Don’t you love this country? Where’s your patriotism?” And to those people, I say this: Yes I love this country, and I am proud to be an Australian, and in fact I love it so much that I refuse to descend into bogan behaviour to prove it. I love being an Australian, it’s the way some of my fellow residents behave around our national day that I have issues with.
Those kids with their Aussie flags worn as capes and their Southern Cross tattoos scare me. Is the next generation of Australians really that dumb? Can we not see that the flag-waving and the nationalistic lingo is just plain embarrassing to all Australians who have an IQ that’s over room temperature?
And besides, Australia Day – if you choose to look at what it actually commemorates – really ought to be called Invasion Day.
Back to facebook, where a campaign was started after the Queensland floods to cancel the annual Australia Day fireworks in Perth and instead donate the money to the flood victims. It was never going to work, primarily because the City Of Perth had already spent the money by then anyway, but I liked the idea behind it.
As anyone who lived in Perth during the naughties (as I did) will tell you, what was once a great family day by the foreshore has descended into an absolute mess. The bogans of Perth – and there are plenty of them there as there are in any city – have turned it into an excuse to drink in the sun all day and then fight all night, and of course they’re waving the Aussie flag when they do it. Great.
The City Of Perth has enforced an alcohol ban on the foreshore for Skyshow these days, but all that does is drive the bogans elsewhere in town to wave their flags and show off their awful tatts and generally make complete arseholes of themselves. I know we’re a young country, but do we have to be a dumb country?
So instead of Australia Day being a celebration of reverse evolution, why don’t we treat it with a bit more solemnity and a lot more class. Then I could not only be a proud Australian, but I could also feel that way on Australia Day.
Now having said all that, I should point out that here in Melbourne, as of 12.27am on Australia day, I am yet to see one single car (Commodore or otherwise) with an Aussie flag hanging off it. I think that says something about this town. Fuck I love this town, but that’s a whole other blog.

Click here to access the very first episode of Home Made Radio, a highly experimental and completely uncensored podcast which is full of things you’d never be allowed to say on the radio.

My ears are still ringing. Literally. I’m sitting in the silence of the kitchen at home writing this and there is quite literally a ringing sensation in my ears. I feel like there is a sock over my ears, and the silence seems to make it worse.  The fact that it’s taken more than 12 hours after the U2 show to return to normal is starting to alarm me. I should have worn earplugs. Having said that, if this is the method by which I blow out my eardrums permanently, it will almost have been worth it.

That was the fourth time I have seen U2 live, and it was by far the closest I have been to the stage. Bravo to the band for letting people with their hundred buck GA tickets get into “the inner sanctum” area up close to the stage – simply by turning up early enough to get in before it filled up and the security peeps stopped letting people through.  I dare say I was a lot closer to the show than the suckers who paid several hundred dollars for their allocated seating. I’m glad I didn’t make that mistake this time around like I did on the Vertigo tour in 2006. I am completely convinced that stadium shows sound better when you’re on the floor of the arena, and even that was a special experience, walking on to the Etihad surface for the first time made me feel (go with me here) like I was walking on to play a game of footy.  And I didn’t do an anterior cruciate ligament or anything. Mind you, these events are a marathon for the feet. We walked in just after the gates opened at 5.30 and we didn’t get off our feet until just before midnight. But that’s the price you pay for being up close to the biggest rock event in the history of the planet. Seriously. This thing was incredible. Even in daylight the set looked impressive, the sort of thing that Aliens might look at if they came to earth and go “oh, someone’s already been here before us…” But when the sun went down and U2 ambled on stage that stadium suddenly felt like a loungeroom. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Jay Z has never really interested me that much. To me the best bits of his songs are the bits with some actual melody in them that are usually sung by someone else. I am obviously way too white to connect with the whole hip-hop thing, but having said that his set was tight and impressive, and the other people in the Inner Sanctum seemed to dig it, so I was able to dig other people digging Jay Z, which was interesting in itself. It was interesting to note that out of the dozen or so band members Jay Z had on stage with him, at one point I counted just three of them playing an actual musical instrument (2 of whom were drummers!) And no, for the record, I do not count a laptop as a musical instrument. I can’t quite work out why U2 chose Jay Z as a support act, I would have thought they’d both have had better options, but there you go…

So then came the wait between Jay Z and U2. I’ve never been comfortable sitting on the ground, especially in a packed crowd, so I opted to stay on my feet while my friend Mandy (who flew all the way from NZ just so we could see this show together – get that!) sat down for a while. I stood staring at The Claw, which we were basically standing underneath, as the roadies put everything in place. As soon as I heard Bowie’s Space Oddity (having read all about previous 360 concerts at U2.com) I was completely covered in goosebumps.

I saw Zoo TV twice, and as I mentioned before I also saw the Vertigo tour, and on all three occasions I was a million miles away from the stage. But now The Edge is on stage and he’s standing right there. I can see the expression on his face without looking at the video screen. He starts playing the riff from a ball-tearing new song, “Return Of The Stingray Guitar” and I look over in the direction of Larry and Adam… but where’s Bono? I can hear him singing but… Mandy grabs my arm and points. There he is, walking up and down the ramp that’s behind us. We are quite literally surrounded by the band. Let me in the sound, indeed.

Those first five or six songs were just perfect. Beautiful Day made everyone in that Innner Sanctum lose their shit, and after a little bit of Here Comes The Sun woven into the end of Beautiful Day they launched directly into I Will Follow, thank you very much.

Elevation and Mysterious ways are both perfect stadium songs, and by now the bridges that join the stage and go out into the crowd were moving towards our position front-and-centre. The Edge walked over the bridge and onto the walkway behind us, Adam went for a walk on the other side, Bono was running around everywhere. I have no idea what it was like for people in the rear of the stadium, but for us it felt like U2 were quite literally running circles around us.

Aah… I’m worn out now just thinking about it. I’ll link you to the setlist rather than running through it all individually. I think I need to lie down in silence for a while

Suffice to say it was an incredible show. Stadium gigs can be horribly impersonal affairs, but U2 knew just how to make it feel inclusive, and don’t even start me on the magic tricks their video screen did for City Of Blinding Lights and Vertigo.

That was a ridiculously great show, hearing loss aside.

OK, so I’ve been getting calls and texts… Better go and get the West.

It’s a bit shameful really, I mean, this site looks like shit. I know. I get it.

Bookmark it, but.

I’ll be working on it when I finish thrashing out Kev’s book.

“DILLIGAF: The Life And Rhymes Of Kevin Bloody Wilson, as told to Gavin Miller” will be on shelves by Christmas, but these suckers don’t write themselves, so that’s all for now.

Gav
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