22. Artist in the Park Rymill Park Adelaide Australia

With Leigh’s baseball progressing and Sacha’s interest in spray painting taking on several aspects some good and some not so good (not everyone is thrilled about self-proclaimed urban art projects that see fences and old buildings, particularly ones along railroad tracks, as canvases that needed decoration which only a graffiti artist would understand) and my push toward my own international artist acceptance we were all very busy and we felt we were headed toward some heights unknown to the mere mortals that surrounded us. A month after Leigh featured in the Victor Harbor Times I upped the media coverage by being in the Advertiser, Adelaide's daily paper. Soon after I got permission by the Adelaide Council to set up an Art Zone in Rymill Park a photographer took a photo of Leigh and me in the park. We had a story in the news inviting artists to be a part of this exciting and vibrant new venue that no doubt, at least in my mind, would rival the outdoor art displays in New Orleans and Paris. The photographer even had a beret for me to wear to give me that artist look, something I never wore before or after in my life.

6 April 1994
5 St. Kilda Street
Victor Harbor
South Australia  5211
PHONE  085 527 119
Dear Dell,
Had to send you this newspaper clipping - a real flash back isn't it?
Well, I had accumulated over 1000 (actually more than one thousand) picture-poems - and was missing those days in the park.  It is nothing like New Orleans here - I do not like South Australia anyway.  Maybe Sydney, Brisbane or Melbourne would be better but I am a bit stuck here.
According to my computer the last letter I wrote was July 20 1993 - is that possible?
My youngest, Leigh, at ten, is 5 foot 3 and an All-star baseball player.  My older, Sacha, is 13, and is five foot eleven.  He goes to private Catholic school - wears a uniform and all.
My brother, Robert, in New York City, died last week.  Very sad for me - I had always wanted to dogallery shows and have him come to them - I think he died of AIDS though they say it was cancer.  Did you ever get to meet him?  I know he spoke with you on the phone - and we went to your apartment one time in Chinatown a few years ago.
Am still in contact with Robyn - who of course is on her way to visit us soon - we did not see her when we were in the States.
Got a letter from Randy's daughter - well actually, Sacha did - she said Randy wanted me to ring him as soon as possible - I have to wait until next month as I have made too many long distant calls - because of my brother dying to afford it at the moment.
Just wanted to touch base with you.  How is your art?  Your life?  Have you become rich and famous yet?  I find being poor, sucks.
keep in touch.
Love Terrell.

Paula Brinkworth, Advertiser Thursday February 3, 1994.

East End may be zoned A for art

             Adelaide’s Rymill Park could soon resemble the famous artistic zones  of Paris or New Orleans if artist Terrell Neuage has his way. 
             He has spent  the past year developing a project to set up Adelaide’s first art zone based  on the popular art zones in overseas cities. 
             The United  States born artists idea has been backed by the Adelaide City Council, which has approved an art zone  opposite the old East End Market on a trial basis each weekend during February. 
             Mr. Neuage, 45, said  yesterday the art zone would be an area where up to 100 visual artists could  display and sell original paintings, drawings or photography.
             The former  New Orleans street artist, now living  at Victor Harbor said the zone would not only benefit local  artists but also enhance the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the East End.
             I like the  outdoor art market because you meet the public and you find out what they like,  he said.
             It also  gives artist a bit of confidence because if people like their art they can  develop it.
             Artists  interested in displaying work can contact Mr. Neuage on 204 7034 between 12 noon and 4 pm on  Friday.  

Rymill Park 'Artists in the Park'

The City Council gave me a desk in the Department of Recreation to sign up people. I had written to every radio station in Adelaide, I was awarded mention in their “what is happening in the community” sections and by the time the big day came I was so excited that I left Victor a couple of hours before sunrise. The City Council was a bit concerned about what would happen if every artist and their monkey showed up so I had said I would limit space to one-hundred artists and I had said that in my announcements to the radio stations. I even had my signup sheets numbered from one to 100 and a large neatly scribed sign apologizing that I would have to put artists over the 100 number on a reserve list.

I was aware that the creative masses would overwhelm the process, and artists would flood in to sign up. As my life had been a totally under-whelmed event in an over-whelmed mind so far, I thought it would be good to have the experience of so many people caring about what I had to offer. Perhaps one overwhelmed event would take the place of so many times when it looked like I lived in an amusement park at the centre of La La Land and my life appeared as that of a loser who exaggerated all the time.

Even my astrological chart for the day looked good or at least one aspect seemed interesting: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 20-22 degrees of Capricorn; the last time this happened was in 1821 with Uranus conjunct Neptune at three degrees Capricorn. This was a time of nationalistic independence movements that helped reshape the world but of course, this had little interpretation for my art zone. Uranus symbolizes the principle of renewal and the breaking through of worn-out patterns whilst Neptune is the principle of the spiritual impulse in us and especially the imaginative impulse in art.  At the time, (not 1821 but in the 1990s) I looked carefully at this aspect and thought this would be a change in my life even though it did not touch any personal planets (my Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Moon Ascendant and the like) in my own chart. Neptune was found in 1781, the planet Uranus had been discovered telescopically from Britain by William Herschel. It was the first planet not known since ancient times, because with the naked eye it is too faint to be noticed. Though I doubt it would be better viewed with a fully clothed eye either. I was concerned that my art zone may be too difficult to find but I ploughed forward, primarily by sticking posters all over Adelaide. I studied the other Neptune conjunct Uranus aspects and was quite sure this was quite the exciting time:

• 1993/94: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 20 degrees Capricorn [Neuage begins art zone in Rymill Park in Adelaide, South Australia]
• 1821: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 3 degrees Capricorn [industrial revolution, end of monarchies, start of nationalism, industrialism]
• 650: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 15 degrees Sagittarius [end of religious wars, states become dominant, end of Holy Roman Empire]
• 1479: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 29 degrees Scorpio (The folks who financed Columbus, Ferdinand and Isabella come to power in Spain and this was a time of exploration) [discovery of America within a few years  of course with astrology we have room to make things fit what we want, height/spread of Renaissance]
• 1307: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 14 degrees Scorpio [power struggle of Rome versus monarchies, split of papal power and church]
• 1136: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 29 degrees Libra (This was the time of the start of the French Gothic movement. French Gothic lasted from 1136 to 1300 -- exactly one Uranus Neptune cycle. Maybe Picture-poems would go from 1994 to 2165 at which time I would re-incarnate and ascend to the lofty position as Lord of the Picture-poems) [Monarchies, age of romance, crusades, chivalry]
• 965: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 11 degrees Libra [town life becomes the wave with the Holy Roman Empire]
• 794: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 26 degrees Virgo [Charlemagne crowned]
• 623: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 10 degrees Virgo [Islam comes into being]
• 453: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 23 degrees Leo
• 281: Uranus conjunct Neptune at 08 degrees Leo [this is only two-degrees from my Venus – so close in fact my life would have been a continuous orgasm if I had lived in the year 281.

Of course, I could go on and on about what happened at these times but like any bullshit philosophy we can make the facts fit the data121F . Nevertheless, in my forty years of astrological study, I have found lots of stuff that seems interesting but then anything can be said to mean anything one wants to and I wanted to be successful. The unfortunate aspect of the day was the conjunction of Venus and Saturn. This is not good in anyone’s book. I know because I have this aspect in my own personal chart. In most interpretations, we find that with Venus and Saturn conjunct in an individual chart the mother and father most likely presented a united front that placed certain restrictions and limitations upon the poor loser’s psyche during his or her or its formative years. Of course, in my case it was Christianity. Before I was adopted my parents were just a couple of shits in relationship to me in some grand cosmic scheme preordained before the present universe was begun – in other words it has taken more than 14-billion years to get to this point.

In an event chart Saturn shows restriction. Venus is the arty thingy, and in Pisces, we get that washed out emotional effect. Saturn seemed like it could possibly put a damper on things but in my optimistic form now I thought Saturn was just going to be the structure and Saturn conjunct Venus in Pisces we would have art within a confined environment with certain restrictions. For example, only one-hundred artists could show on each day rather than the few hundred that were anticipated (at least by me and of course my children, who believed in my optimism and did so, well into their adolescence).
To make a short story long, which is what I just did; I should just end the agony here and confess that no one showed up, but I did get a dozen or so phone calls. But that did not deter me a bit and Sunday I went out to Rymill Park and I was set up by sunrise with my pictures hanging from ropes between trees and a sign-up booth for the many artists that were obviously going to wait until the very day to sign up because that is the way artists are. I had a large banner at the start of the wooded path through the park that was visible for a block away: ARTIST IN THE PARK

No one showed up that Saturday or the following Sunday to sell their art but I did sell a few pictures. After several weekends of this one other person came out and set up next to me.  I did not charge him ten dollars as he did not sell anything for several weekends but one day finally he sold a couple of pictures and then he did not show up again. His pictures were of rural Australia and sold for several hundred dollars each unlike mine which sold for ten dollars each.

I had done the artist in the park in many places: Honolulu, New Orleans for years at Jackson Square, Baltimore Maryland, NYC, Boardwalks in Jersey

I did this for one whole year and no one else set up with me. I spread out hanging rope from tree to tree with hundreds of picture-poems hanging by clothes pegs from them. I even set up in the winter on rainy days with plastic tarps over things if the rain got too heavy.  It did not matter to me that no one else showed their art. I had really only set the whole thing up for me to display my picture-poems and at the end of the day that is exactly what I was doing. I never made any great amount of money, but I continually sold enough to pay for my petrol and more supplies. Sacha came out and sat with me on the weekends, sometimes Leigh visited Lesia and other times he stayed with me. We threw a baseball in a field nearby and if anyone stopped to look at my pictures, I wandered over to my display to be available.

On Tuesday, March 30, my father telephoned to tell me that my brother, Robert, had died. He had been in Terence Cardinal Cook Health Care Centre since November 24 the year before. My father had gone to New York City a few days earlier – took the bus by himself – a three hour ride – one month shy of 89. He got around New York City by himself and visited Robert, held his hand as he lay dying. My father said Robert was just skin and bones and did not say anything, but he smiled – that is my father’s last sight of him alive. Robert was the first person that I had known personally to die. It would be another decade before death would enter my world to show me how futile and transient life really is. The head of my religious order, HOOM, had died but I did not feel anything, and I am sure there were others who had died that I knew but I do not recall feeling anything. There was no one I could talk to that was close to my age, the only person I could talk to was Leigh.

On the day my father telephoned me I bought a four-litre cask of wine and for hours I shot baskets with Leigh, drank the cask of wine and talked about Robert. I had set up a basketball hoop at the end of our land and I had put up a couple of lights so we could shoot baskets after dark. Leigh was a good listener and even though he was ten years old, he was a great support. I told Leigh that Robert was gay, that he had died from AIDS and Leigh did not act overly surprised. We shot baskets until I had drunk too much and I went inside and slept.

I wrote a series of poems that I posted on my brother's website (that I created) https://neuage.org/robert.htm

POEMS BY TERRELL (Adsit) NEUAGE FOR ROBER ADSIT

at your last breath

to see if I could catch a glimpse

of where you were going

The air was still

birds were quieter than usual

The neighbor's dog didn't even bark at me

but looked at me knowing my feelings

Me in Australia in Fall

You in New York City in Spring

but for an instant you were here too

yet still I couldn't catch a glimpse

of where you were going

my forever gone brother.

            4-08-94 Victor Harbor SA

I did away with time

so we would still be together

I did away with distance

so we would still be together

I did away with death

so we would still be together

3-27-94 Victor Harbor South Australia

My father rang from across the sea

another son

Today buried he

He said he had tears in his eyes

as he looked up to the stealing skies

Another hole in the ground

another life without sound

Wife and brothers buried before

gone off to a distant shore

My children and I all that's here

remembered

Today in my father's tears.

            4-16-94 Victor Harbor SA

I want to be with you one more time

but I don't know how to

step into death

and return to life

4-17-94 Victor Harbor SA

I have the house yet to clean

the children need to be collected from school

and the dog needs his flea bath

So for now take a neighbor or two

and just leave me be."

 I was standing in the kitchen thinking about what to make for dessert tonight.

I set the table for you.

Poured the wine.

Hoping it's red that goes with tofu.

We will have such a long talk.

Brother to brother

You will tell me about life in the Big Apple.

Oh how I envy your life.

Fast paced.

All those people.

Everyday such an adventure.

Me?

Well what can one expect living in this small town in South Australia?

The driest state on the driest continent.

See!

We live by the ocean.

We can surf at any time.

Have to watch for the sharks.

A different type of shark than you get up there in the Big Apple.

I wish I had some wine glasses.

Who in New York City would ever drink wine out of a mug?

But we are not fancy here.

I can't wait until my brother sees the boys.

They have grown so big since last we were in the Big Apple in 1992.

I was just telling the boys the other day

how surprised Uncle Robert will be to see them.

But it is almost time for the school bus.

I better put away the wine and the table settings

before the children see I was pretending again

that you were coming to visit us even though I know you died so far away and all alone up there

in the Big Apple five long months more than I can cope with.

8-14-94 Victor Harbor South Australia

Everyone was there

my mom who put me up for adoption

my mom who raised my then died

my brother who was my favourite human

my girl friend who killed herself

my girl friend who society killed

my friend killed in Nam

my master teacher who died of a brain tumor

my master teacher who killed herself

We shared a glass of liquid light

talked about the old days

and how strange it was

that I was still alive

when the plan had always been

that I would go first

and meet all them

after I had set the table

for this our final meal together.

      8-2-94 Victor Harbor South Australia

I began to speak with you to tell you

my wishes, hopes and what has happened

since last I saw you

Then I remembered you had died

But I could not believe it when you stood

before my mind saying that the love

you had give me was my sustenance until I became

one with you once again

in the one world you now know.

All my dead family and friends keep asking me

for favors

Last night one of my dead girl friends

asked me to feed her dead cat.

            8-25-94 Victor Harbor South Australia

            BROTHERS 

Deep in my memory where we still play in childhood

We act out all that we will be when we grow up

Of course we will be famous:

You the artist, musician, actor

Me:

writer, lover.

We will have mansions and limousines, Lear jets.

We will be on the news, in magazines, and in the gossip columns.

We will visit one another on occasion to say how famous

we are and how far we have gone since childhood

when we were so poor and pretended we were rich and successful.

But then I emerge from deep in my mind

We are no longer children.

You are no longer alive.

And I am middle-aged living in a foreign land with not enough money

for my houseful of children that I am raising on my own.

Who right now are talking about how great life will be

when they grow up and are famous.

My 10 year old is pitching a no-hitter for the Yankees in the World Series

and is receiving millions of dollars a year.

My 13-year-old is a rap artist doing graffiti and playing basketball for some out-lawed team.

The 14-year-old who lives with us is rich and famous - it doesn't matter at what.

And on the cycle goes.

New memories of what it will be like being created deep inside of young minds all over again.

9-06-94 Victor Harbor South Australia

I was looking at what I wrote you

after you died

seven years ago.

i remember that day

I told my, then, ten-year-old

whilst shooting baskets in the backyard after drinking

a cast of wine

that brothers are forever

but that you have gone forever no loner seems so important.

Since that time so seemingly long ago and far away

I have watched my children grow to teenagers:

one heading off to New York in just another month to play baseball

the other living on the other side of Australia

doing graffiti and hip hop shows

What has changed?

in this world of the physical there are always changes

ask the folks of ancient Greece

the cave people

the first to speak

the first to crawl upon the land

we live to change

we change to live

it is so sad you could not change to live

and that the rest of us who are still here could

but what is life?

Do you have more life than I do now?

Every day I think of you and remember all the things I would have said if I had the chance to say them now then.

but basically as I am sure you are aware - life sucks - except for the Internet - that is a bit cool, and I know you would have had a great time with it - even e-mailed me more often than the once-a-decade letter you sent during the last thirty years of your life.

Deconstructed post this post that life that we live

a planet full of broken memories

everyone so full of post-shit - not taking the Aquarian experience in its stride

But I do

talking to myself

another senile old man waiting for the train in the rain talking to his brother.

see ya soon bro.

On Saturday, I sat in the park surrounded by my picture-poems feeling closer to my brother than I had for many years. I wrote a series of poems, which a few years later I put on a memorial webpage I made for Robert

.
Sacha was not doing well with his stay in North Adelaide. He had several instances when I had to intervene.

• One morning he telephoned me collect in tears because he told me that Lesia had left him at the bus stop without any money to take the bus. I telephoned Saint Ignatius and asked someone from there go to the bus stop and collect him.
• He complained about sandwiches Lesia made saying that she made tuna fish sandwiches on Sunday night, froze them and then by the time he got to eat it the sandwich would be all soggy.
• He said he had to go to her workplace and sit around until seven PM with nothing to do after school each day.

He was so happy to come home on weekends, and I was concerned that his private schooling days were nearing an end before he got through one term. 

The end came on a late Friday night. I was asleep when Sacha rang saying his mother was not going to let him come to Victor for the weekend which had been all our agreement. Because she had locked him in her house he had to climb over an upstairs balcony and down the side of the house to get to a pay telephone booth. He was crying and wanted me to come in and collect him, so I got Leigh up and we drove to North Adelaide getting there at midnight. Sacha was sitting alongside the curb – he said that when he had returned from telephoning me, he had found his belongings in large trash bags sitting on the sidewalk. Sacha did not visit her again for three years.

Shortly after Sacha was back with us and going to Victor Harbor Primary again – now in year seven, he made friends with Ulysses. I met Ulysses one day in an after-school meeting with Don C and his son. Ulysses with his mother and Sacha and me plus a few unhappy teachers and a principal or two were meeting to sort things out. It seems the three boys had become a handful, and we were all called together to come up with a strategy to see what we could do to save the day. Don was one of several single male parents that I met in Victor Harbor. Don's wife had died of a stroke leaving him with three children. Sandy, whom I helped start the radio station, Encounter FM, had two sons by way of a woman who had come and gone, another male single parent had two children and he too became involved with the radio station so there were four of us male single parents at the radio station. I met another single male parent at the bus stop where the kids took the bus into Adelaide to see Lesia. He too had an ex-wife whom was a psychologist that collected his two children in Adelaide, but I only saw him the one time. He was a surfer and moved to the south to surf and to get away from his son’s mother.

Male single parents have a different approach to child rearing than women do. There is not a lot of discussion about daily chores or a lot of emphasis put on what the children will wear or what great new stunt the baby and so on all the way past adolescence is able to perform. This is especially true with social media now- Good Golly! Do we get to see every moment in every baby’s and child’s life? OK so I sound a bit judgement of today’s parent and their exhibitionism. I guess knowing how I am that I would have done the same. Posting every move my children made from their first stretch of the day to each word said. Would my father have posted stuff about me when I was adopted? Something more than writing in his diary in October 1950 ‘Cloudy day. Brought Terry home’. Maybe he would have posted on social media my first interaction with a cat, a chicken, the neighbour’s daughter…

With male single parents children just are there, there is no whooping and hollering and what needs to be done is done and all frills are left behind. From what I have seen, children of single male parents are better adjusted than the children of single women. Email me if you disagree.

Ulysses’ mother and family seemed to have a difficult time of life itself.  There were several children in the family and a few fathers including twin brothers. She was married to one brother and had a child with him and then somehow had a child from the other and everything fell apart. Ulysses was sent off to an uncle in Berri (South Australia) and we did not hear from him for a few months until the day Ulysses’ uncle delivered him to our door saying he could not find the mother but he thought she was somewhere in Adelaide doing things that would not be best for Ulysses to be around to witness and could he stay with us for a few days. All Ulysses had with him was a bag of clothes. Thinking he would be with us for only a couple of days I agreed that he could stay. After a few weeks living in a crowded situation in our small three bedrooms home and no sight of the mother even though we had gone to Adelaide looking for her I realised Ulysses was with us for a while. The Rosalskis loaned us a trailer that had a kitchen and bed set in it and Ulysses moved in to our space coming in the house for meals and everything except to sleep. He stayed with us for one year.
I have these events noted in my diary. I will not go into the details, but I had my troublesome moments during parenthood.

July, 20th Larceny/Graffiti with Ulysses

September 01 Family conference report with District Council of Victor Harbor – Ulysses

Meanwhile I continued to go to Adelaide and sell my picture-poems and after close to one year the council decided that I was never going to get anywhere with my great art-zone and I received a letter that the trial period of three months had already been extended to six months and now was nine months since I had started and there was no one else involved so basically it was time to piss off. Of course, I panicked and did not understand. I had my big sign – which was becoming quite tattered hanging across the entrance to the park, and I had boards of picture-poems and ropes between several trees with my pictures hanging from them. I suppose in their view it was not quite what the council had in mind to put the city onto the world stage. Adelaide had already had its day in the sun but blew it. I think an apt description of it would be “When Adelaide came alive” and of course it had gone back to sleep over the years since. There were wine festivals and the festival of arts every couple of years and the “Tour Down Under” bicycle race from the city up to the nearby hills but in reality it had slipped back into stories of once upon a time when there was a chance of it being known and actually visited by anyone outside of relatives and friends of people who already lived there. However, for eleven years Adelaide hosted the Formula One Grand Prix.

Poster for Artist in the park

As synchronicity would have it someone posted an article in Facebook today saying Adelaide was the most liveable city in the world. Can you imagine that?
The Grand Prix was a four day event and I went in each year with the children and we watched the cars go around and around the city track; the 3780 m track 81 times to equal 306.180 km. The first race took close to three hours to finish (two hours and forty minutes) and the average speed for the winner was 154.114 kilo meters per hour which was quite fast for winding city streets. The only thing that seemed exciting to me was that Adelaide had taken on a world aura for a few days – I felt like a tourist and that is all I ever wanted to be whilst in Australia. Many people came to Adelaide for this little race and by 1995 when the city could no longer keep it together to host it the final race in Adelaide had an all-time race-day record of 205,000. The city was very festive and there were all kinds of shows and displays and it almost felt like the Mardi Gras - it was one big party.

Therefore, the bottom line is Adelaide throws away its chances. From “Artists in the Park” to the Grand Prix we all get the boot.

I had hoped to be able to last until Christmas but the council wanted me out before then. So in November I wrote to the Glenelg Council asking if I could set up there.
Glenelg is Adelaide's primary beach side resort suburb (according to some South Australian brochure – I would not concur with that but then again I would not concur with much to do with Australia being much a primary place to do much of anything at the best of times). It was the centre for the establishment of the colony of South Australia, in the early 1800's and there is a tram that goes from the beach through the town and to Adelaide. It is the only tram still running in South Australia. In the summer, Glenelg is quite crowded, and I thought this would be the best place for me to revive my Artist in the Park scene/plan/hope/dream/fantasy/mistake. To my surprise, the council said I could set up on weekends and they did not charge me so with a week to go before Christmas I began dragging my stuff out to Glenelg. I situated myself at the beginning of the footpath that went to the main beach. I was only a few feet from the end of the tramline and across from the largest hotel in Glenelg, The Grand. There were a few small trees, and I tied ropes around them and hung pictures as well as set up large boards to hang my pictures on and I had a few tables with boxes of picture-poems.

I had also printed a booklet of poems, I think there were about 800 in each book, and I had been selling them at the incredible rapid rate of about one or less per week for the previous few months. Of course, I knew it was only a short time before a publisher would come across my work and I would be up there with the great poets. There would be the story of how I had spent three decades flogging my crap just to get to the point of being published, recognised and loved by anyone who could read and that is a lot of people because it would be published in the 6,800 known languages that are read and spoken in more than 200 countries of the world.

For now, I was going slowly with the one-hundred books I had in English. We all have to start somewhere. With me I just have a very long start. I suppose I am like a track star that needs a ten-mile start to run the 440 only to realise I have no jock on. Oh forgot I did that one. The worst thing that could happen is that my picture-poems become published after I die and then become public domain on the Internet for everyone to tattoo my poems on their butts or whatever humans would do with my verses. An even worse scenario would be that I died, and some ex-wife would sell my poems to the National Rifle Association to use for target practice.

Overall, I was happy. Sacha was going to turn fourteen in January, Leigh was on the All-Star teams and progressing well and my schooling was doing well. My schooling was doing better than I had expected. Somehow, and this will always be a mystery to me, I complete my Bachelor of Arts Degree through Deakin University. I did not get any fantastic scores and barely got by. But for what it was worth I completed the degree, and I had a BA in journalism combined with a BA in literature. When I learnt that I had completed, sometime toward the end of 1994 I had the insane idea that I could keep going. I had never really completed anything much in my life and to have completed a four-year university degree was quite the do in my mind.

I felt smart, almost gifted, and proud along with being happy and confident. I applied to do an Honours degree in literature and sent in my forms. To my amazement I was right on the border for their acceptance – one- millionth of a point less, there was not a hope, and I was accepted with some reservation. How lucky I was came clear when a person who had been my instructor or marker or something for my BA told me that if he had been on the panel he would have not let me continue. I had met him once when I went to Melbourne for a weekend school and he had made some rude comment about my educational ability. He was a short fat balding person that seemed like an idiot to me and once I got my letter of acceptance I did not care about what he said or thought and the fact he was not at the particular meeting (he said he was out of town) that picked the candidates from the group I was in which surely was a sign of something.

Of course, now looking back at the same time as I am doing my last checks of dots and crossed “t-s” for my PhD thesis before sending it off makes all that seem quite significant. If this wanker had been there ten-years ago and prevented my continuing education, I would never have gotten past my BA, which in all honesty I barely succeeded at anyway. I think the joker’s name was Trevor though I would have deleted the name from my joker’s file.

I was so thrilled – it did not matter that I was finally getting my BA at 47 years of age. For all I had been through, trying to make a few dollars, moving about the place, being a single parent, trying to succeed at a radio station and not having any friends and longing to be in the States I thought I had done quite the thing. My proposal for my Honours thesis was to write a thingy entitled “graffiti as text - how youth communicate through street art”.  I was so up myself with my abilities of brainpower that I figured I would probably even do a master’s degree following my year of Honours. I was to do a year of essays, study of children’s literature, and conclude with a ten thousand-word Honours thesis. I had never written anything so long in my life, but I knew I could do it. I had written lots of 2,500- and 3,000-word essays as well as many children stories and ten-thousand words sounded to me at the time like it would be my life’s work. In my dented and over inflated world, this was really the big climb and surely, once I had an Honour’s Degree people would recognise my writing talent. Society is such a dickhead, it does not matter how talented one is or untalented one is. The one with the degrees gets listened to. I even had a terrible fear, luckily, which I was able to dismiss quickly, that I would probably have to get a PhD before anyone would listen to me. Of course, that is stupid and even with just my BA I had intellectual clout that I had never had before – I was an educated person, what I said suddenly would make sense. And I would be believable.

Yesterday, August 02, 2015, a week before becoming 68, Sacha came to visit from Melbourne here in Adelaide. We went for a walk up Anstey Hill Recreation Park  which is in back of Narda’s and my current home. There is the Adelaide–Mannum pipeline along the trail (which supplies 20% of Adelaide's reticulated water). Sacha with all his graffiti knowledge, starting with age 11 or 12 told us about the graffiti on the pipeline saying at what level the tagger was at. Apparently from my personal art-historian these pieces were by early adolescents learning to ‘throw up’ their first tags. It was quite the walk with twenty-five years of history being shared.

Terrell 2015 Anstey Hill graffiti

23. Ordinary Themes

Terrell Neuage, (dual citizen USA/Australia) is a South Australian/New York poet, writer, and digital artist known for his evocative poetry and extensive research on conversational analysis in on-line communciations (including communication in the AI era; from sharing information to making sense of it). His best-selling autobiographies;Leaving America (Before the After) & Leaving Australia (after) – exploring life as a hippie, brother in a California Cult (Holy Order of MANS) as Brother Terrell Adsit, Astrolger (40-years) to non-believer, and adventures in Australia, single parent, tofu manufacturer/street artist, China, the USA & fifty+ other ountries. From high school drop out, Shenendehowa Central School, Clifton Park, New York at age 16, back to school at age 44 (BA & Masters from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) to PhD from the University of South Australia at age 58 to knocking on your door at age 77.