TedxSydney: A Day of Dreams, Adventure, Tears and Inspiration
To stop people in their tracks with something so powerful, so meaningful and so human, that it leaves you breathless. That is TEDxSydney
TEDxSydney 2016 - JJ Halans
As much as I try to be I’m not a morning person, so it takes a lot to get me up and eager to be anywhere at 6.30am. After months of planning, Wednesday May 25 was one of those days. It was time to launch at TEDxSydney 2016. When the chance to volunteer on the social media team came along earlier this year I of course leapt at it. TED/x is one of those brands that I’ve looked at in awe and wanted to be part of for years, so I was already excited to be living one dream. With a background in performing arts, the first surreal moment of the day happened when two dreams collided. In one hand I had an access all areas pass to the Sydney Opera House (the dream of my 16 year old self), in the other, all of TEDxSydney social media accounts.
It was one of those moments when you ask “What is life tho??!”... or when you wake up from that dream (which was entirely likely to happen considering I was still half asleep and my morning piccolo was yet to be found).The coffee arrived and it was showtime. Exploring every theatre and room with my mate Sam (who was at the helm of TEDxSydney Youth) we got our bearings, and our respective behind the scenes selfies, and sprung into action as the excited crowd, spotted with a few familiar faces and friends, started to roll in.
Filled with arts, culture, humanity, science and futurism, the speaker line up was epic and inspiring, but I didn’t actually see any talks, musicians or get involved in any of the activities of the day. I still felt every moment though. When it comes to social media I’ve always been a one man selfie band and, taking on Splendour in the Grass for Spotify in 2014 - living the rockstar life and running all their social channels live for 4 days from the media pit myself, I knew how intense bringing an event to life on social media is. For this one I was very happy to share the day with a hugely talented team and playing to our strengths, we all took a channel.
I landed Instagram and with only one job to focus on, instead of my usual 10, I was left free to roam, talk to guests and experience the day through the eyes, and emotional impact, of others. With the right filters and well chosen words, #tedxsydney was instaliving. (I think this is what you call #lifegoalsbro!)There were some powerful moments through the day. Peta Murchison talking about living with the expectancy of her young daughter's death from cancer, just without knowing when it would happen, was a moment that touched everyone I spoke to, in many different ways.
Nina, a young muslim woman I met, was inspired to focus less on our materiality and more on our relationships, while a 30 something white father of two young girls, Oliver, suddenly valued his daughters even more than he thought possible. Peta reminded us that some values like family, strength and raw humanity are as powerful as they are universal, and connect even the most different of worlds in the most human of ways. It’s a lesson our world never seems to learn.
TEDxSydney overflowed with once in a lifetime experiences, and not all of them happened on the stage; bossing the Country Women’s Association around to get the perfect #picoftheday (not many people get to boss this group of strong women around they told me, with the warmest of smiles); watching a friend own the stage for 60 seconds of magic with his fast idea ( so proud Gary Nunn); being immersed in an environment of incredible individuals gathered for a single purpose, to have their minds opened and to be inspired - no conference or event has ever come close to creating the atmosphere that filled the Sydney Opera House that day; and working with a hugely talented team of volunteers coming together to create a memorable, and wonderful experience (not all of whom I met, or admittedly knew what they did… but hey we did it together). We even attempted to break a world record - Deb “Spoons” Perry led us in taking on the Guinness Book of World Records Spoon Playing record.
Not your average day at the Opera House.
After far too many delicious CWA scones, the day drew to a close with, what was for me, the most emotional and memorable moment of the day. Backstage of the Concert Hall Gil Hicks had just finished her talk on her dedication to peace and why, after losing her legs in the London bombings, her response was to create her charity M.A.D for Peace .
“You’ve just stepped off stage, how do you feel?” she was asked, with a camera eagerly awaiting her response.
“Walking out on to the stage and standing on the red dot was a one of those moments when I wish I had my legs again. To feel the ground under my feet as I stood on that stage, that would have been a privilege.”
Everyone in the room - the interviewer, crew, and me, were immediately brought to tears.
We composed ourselves, finished the interview and Gil Hicks left through the stage door, and us silently contemplating the power, humility, depth and emotion of her words
To me that moment is the meaning of TEDxSydney. To stop people in their tracks with something so powerful, so meaningful, so human and so unexpected, that it can leave you breathless.
Thank you TEDxSydney, let’s do it all again next year.
Next goal...a talk of my own.... To hear more about the impact that TEDxSydney had on our audience, check out our Ideas from the ForecourtFollow TEDxSydney on SocialInstagram, Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn, FlickrTEDxSydneyYouthInstagram, Facebook, Snapchat ( TEDxYouthSydney)
TEDxSydney 2016 Volunteers
ICYMI: More about TEDxSydney2016
http://collectivehub.com/2016/05/what-did-we-learn-at-tedx-sydney/
642-10: What Does Writers Block Feel Like?
You wouldn’t think it would be hard to breathe life into dreams of drag queens from space or legendary women singing Sondheim.
Nothing is flowing. Finding my characters, creating their story, bringing them to life, writing something interesting, finishing an idea, it’s just not happening. Every idea sounds too self interested, not creative enough, too creative, bland, copies of other pieces I’ve read or just not very good. I'm annoyed, frustrated and i want to give up.
The more I try the more it feels forced and the less anything, even anything bad, bubbles to the surface. Ideas for stories stare out at me, teasing me, tormenting me... i just don't where to take any of them.In the (clearly dusty) creative corners of my mind I found Mike and an astronaut.
Mike has clowns at his front door. Poor guy has coulrophobia and doesn’t know what to do when he opens it. They just need help finding their miniature giraffe who was spooked and ran away but he’s frozen with a million horrors running through his mind…. And I’ve just got no idea what happens next.
Cruising through Ursa Major the astronaut is having a most perfect day and is waiting for me to tell their story. They may be a long way from home but my creative engine is struggling, limping at low impulse to the moon.
Creative experiences have even filled my week, you'd think that would help. In a room called “Swap” part of “13 Rooms”, a brilliant experiential art exhibition challenging perception and human interaction Chris, a lady in her 70’s who didn’t believe in her own storytelling ability, created an enthralling story from the heart in her first ever attempt at stream of consciousness writing. At the insistence of the artist she it read publicly. The room burst into genuine applause and admiration as she stood shyly in disbelief and self doubt.
In the same room I swapped my just purchased Earth 2 comic book for an old school 80’s $10 note. It wasn’t for the money , it was for the value in an item I’ll probably never see again, and a tangible memory of the whole experience. It’s now framed with details of how I came to have it.
There is so much to tell about the vibrant, enthralling, fascinating, challenging experience that was 13 Rooms and this is only one part… It feels self indulgent and I don’t have the words to do it justice.
Creativity is also alive in my dreams.
The Barbarella, Star Wars and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert mash up of rebel, space fighting drag queens that has been a recurring dream for years is a story worth telling, I just can’t get it to sparkle.
In another dream a Sondheim musical is staged in NYC’s Central Park. Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, Angelina Jolie & Patti LuPone star as fictional broadway leads telling their story, playing to a sell out crowd. I only get to see it thanks to my fairy godmother Toni Collette…
You wouldn’t think it would be hard to breathe life into dreams of drag queens from space or legendary women singing Sondheim, some of the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had - rivalling the recurring night terrors made of either spiders or clowns - but here we are.
Living the definition of writers block.
642-9: What Can Happen In One Second
You can see the world in a grain of sand – William Blake
one second, a sunflower opens, their first kiss, newborns first breath, dance like crazy, extinction of a species, clock ticks, the violinist dramatically pauses, his heart is broken, a wave breaks, pop a pill, an idea sparks, lightning strikes, dinner is finished, i do, caught by the storm, dancing in the rain, a contagious giggle, that lightbulb moment, holiday starts, best orgasm ever, now it's time, great news, stub your toe, first word, start to cry, everything changes, you won, the swan dies, sonata crescendo, a new friend, an old friend, happiness glow, milk's empty, the last tree falls, now your late, a war ends, a whale breaches, the lights dim, the concert starts, second chance, an ice cap melted, exam over, impulse decision, new kitten arrives, a star falls, party starts, plane leaves the ground, love is shared, step on lego, champagne pops, death takes a friend, fire, recognition at last, first contact, a kookaburra laughs, uncontrollable erection, smile, scandal breaks, love reignites, start a new book, daydream, that song plays, toes feel the beach sand, peanut butter jar empty, a butterfly hatches, a war begins, howl, apocalypse, zombies chase, laugh with joy, sign the contract, last day ends, sunrise, snuggle in, breathe.
You can see the world in a grain of sand – William Blake
Creative Writing inspired by the book 642 Things to write about
642-8: Describe in Detail the Most Boring Thing Imaginable
This story is about one of the most boring things you could think to write about, hanging out the washing…
Alphabetising music, movie and tv collections, counting fruit as it's cut to ensure an even number of pieces and the need for colour order and neat patterns are all special quirks that are just part of being me.
It’s the neat, orderly, frustrating freak streak that it sounds like.
This story is about one of the most boring things you could think to write about, hanging out the washing… but when you have a need for colour, colour and order, hanging washing, cleaning my room and even putting my clean undies away - they can all be hilarious entertainment for others to watch.
T-shirts must be fastidiously folded, clustered by colour and arranged in tones and shades, darkest to lightest. If my baby blue Grover t-shirt is mixed up, propped next to the dark blue Star Trek tee.. for just a moment, contemplating the cruelness, the world stops..Socks can only be ordered by pattern. The mad mashup of colour and movement that are HappySocks makes any other order impossible. You have to understand, it's utterly bewildering when the blue, black and orange argyles are staring at me from between the multi coloured party of polka dots. Recovering from the ataxia takes a breathe and a befuddled scratch of my designer stubble.The same ocd crazed colour & pattern tenets are also at work with the leather, drag and Sunday best hanging behind the mirrored wardrobe.While this ocd crazy makes everything easier to find (though not preventing the classic clothing crisis that happens every time i leave the house) it does leave my wardrobe looking like the set of Gumby.
Bright, mostly primary colours splash out me at screaming, "wear me, i'm amazing".
Of course even my obsessive little quirks spark up on the gayer side.Hanging washing is where it really gets amusing. It always starts fairly innocently… the pegs holding up my Justice League of America t-shirt just have to match (let's say they both have to be a matching white). They also have to be a different colour to the pegs on my Green Lantern pants hanging to the left (say, matching green pegs) and the dusty pink shorty shorts on the right (matching red pegs sound ok?) ... follow this and a pattern organically forms... and then it descends into madness.I bet you didn't know there are a great behemoth of choices when it comes to hanging your freshly unblemished undies.
Actually there's more than you can possibly imagine. As I peg my dripping wet, freshly spun pants to the line the need pops into consciousness with a fun loving, hell raising little smirk and a sparkle in the eye.
When hanging clothes some of the rules and needs I can be bound by are:
All items of the same colour must have the same colour peg - fair enough, thats pretty easy and reasonably normal
Colours must be hung in neat and tidy lines - it's a bit picky for such a temporary installation that no one sees but sure, ok...
Clothes can’t be inside out and all must face the same direction ( eg fronts of tshirts, trousers, pants, singlets etc must all face away from the house, toward the garden etc) - wow, dude... you need help
Clothes need be hung in an alternating colour order on alternating lines.( It looks chaotic until you see the pattern in the detail.) - oh ok...wait, what the fuck? Confused? It goes something like this....lines 1 & 3 - clothes are hung in the order red, blue, green, white, black .lines 2 & 4 - hang in reverse order. black, white, green, blue, red. WTF? no, actually... WTF Are you mad? (yes, of course I am)
Wait, which order do they go in again? What is the this dumbfuckery I deal myself into?.
It’s actually fucking amazing the washing isn’t dry by the time it’s all hung.
The truth is though, obsessive and out of control as my burning needs are, boring is never dull and there's method in the madness. The most mundane things, like hanging washed clothes & putting away the crisp, now fresh and untainted wares starts to feel like a game of 'go fish', played with UNO cards.... and having Whitney Houston deal from the deck. You just hope you can remember whether the "lemon zest" Sesame Street tee that you're folding is a shade lighter or darker than the Stay Dench shirt you bought last week that was helpfully described as "yellow".
As for the method in this madness, it's never more obvious or useful than when a surprise catches you off guard. Need to find the royal blue sports jockstrap and the dark & baby blue football shorts to keep the order... NOW....
A quick few switches to make everything match and off I go. It's the most amazingly ridiculous stuff you'll ever see.
642–7: What a character holding a blue object is thinking right now.
The blue was even more vibrant than she remembered, like sunshine bouncing off the ocean on a bright summer day.
It was all she could think about as she looked deep into its rich, sparkling blue .
It’s blue was even more vibrant than she remembered, like the sun shining off the ocean on a bright summer day. Her mind wandered back to memories of her grandfather, watching the sunset over the ocean.getting lost in the imagination of the way he told The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It was her grandfather’s favourite poem.
He would recite it to her, his voice tempered with character and emotion, and the last verse always welled tears in his eyes.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.
Her grandfather wasn’t an overly emotional man but she could feel his connection to that mariner in his voice – although she never knew why. When she was young he used to say that he’d sailed the open oceans on that journey. Of course now she was older she knew better, but the feeling of being engulfed in the adventure and rhythm of her grandfather’s voice as her told the rime stayed with her forever. Her memory of his storytelling was like a joyous dream.
The blue sparkled in the sunlight and, engulfed her in the wonder she felt as a child. At first not realising she was crying tears of joy, she smiled.
I hadn’t written from “642 things to write about” for a while and I managed to surprise myself with this one.
Read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor Coleridge OR
Listen to it’s magical storytelling as Richard Burton reads the Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The Tale of the Roller Skating Drag Queen...and other life lessons
A true story of why it’s important to never take yourself too seriously. It’s always better to get in first and be laughed with than at.
"Ok Puss, your pain relief should be kicking in now. What? You want more? But you've already had double, greedy bitch!
Ok she's refusing to move until she can suck the thing dry… Just give it to her"
The paramedic with the killer smile telling me to go deeper with his whistle and suck the pain away was kind of kinky and hot….. but playing Dr / patient wasn’t how my night was supposed to go.
It all started so well.
I rolled in loud and sober announcing that I had to be careful because “ There’s no fucking way I’m going to end up in an emergency room dressed like this”…..I had boys of muscle and ginger by my side, the music was disco, my hair was huge, the crowd was dressed to play and my make up gun was set to “kids colouring book”. It doesn’t get much camper than a roller skating drag queen… until you fall over, fracture and dislocate your elbow and become sequin roadkill scraped off the ground and into the ER.
Hot.
Crawling off the roller floor on your knees, dodging skaters and hoping no one runs into you or knocks off your weave, wearing a confused expression for help that no one can recognise through your paint job, cradling your arm which felt odd, but not yet realising what you’ve done looks like it sounds…. a lone clown in the middle of a dodgem car track. They do say the best comedy does comes from tragedy.
I finally got to the edge of the disco floor, hauled myself up by the side rail and immediately saw the impossible that made me confident that something wasn’t right …the colour drain from the face of a ginger…..(bet you didn’t know that was even possible!)
He took me by the arm that wasn’t flailing about like the disembodied arm of barbie and rolled me out back, past the man with the broken wrist, and sat me down. I hadn’t actually realised or seen what I’d managed to do when my roller-skate sent me crashing to the disco floor…yet….but as I was helped to sit by the gingers and muscles treating a lady with the class she believes she has, I moved my arm….that’s when the sickening wave of pain finally hit.
I could feel myself turn that sickly grey green colour of shock setting in.. “thank fuck no one can see this under the 3 tins of dulux wash and wear on my face” I thought… actually the muscles, gingers and security watching over me were laughing, so I figured I must have said it.
They were also wincing and as I felt my elbow flailing around out of it’s joint i felt their voices fade into mumbles. As my hair and tits ( ok balloons) were removed to keep me from passing out, Xanadu started playing. Even in this state the irony of having an Olivia Newton-John song playing in this moment was not lost on me.
#fuckcancer I giggled, in some delirious twisted joke.
I don’t know how long it took for the hot paramedic to arrive, but it had been a long time since I had been as happy to blow anything as I was to deep throat what was waving around. ( his morphine whistle… you filthy fuckers)
Like a gentleman, he held out his hand and guided me to the ambulance. After what I’d just done to his whistle, we were both smiling.
Dressed only in my pink and silver sequin cheerleader gear, with no wig, no tits, no heels, my arm in a sling and still deep throating the green whistle, and my make up still mostly perfect… I was wheeled into the emergency room looking like pageant runoff. I’d outdone my hot mess self.
“Why is no one getting a picture of this?”
Nurses, Dr’s, x-rays, patients thinking their drugs were either really fucking good, or really fucking messing with them as I was wheeled past their beds, and more of the hot paramedic telling me to suck down on his ( morphine) whistle later, I was laid out on a table in the ER to be fixed, like a broken Barbie at the doll hospital.
“Come on babe, you can suck deeper than that, keep going.” he said with a smile and a wink. He was in on my seeing the whole situation as the ridiculous and laughable thing that it was.
As nurses stuck their hands down my leotard and attached monitors while chatting casually about my make up, how I was feeling and whether I had any allergies….I looked down to see my tattoos and chest hair poking through the sheer white leotard. For a moment I saw reality clearly… I was a 36 year old man in an emergency room, dressed as a disjointed cheerleader, wearing the whole Mac counter on my face… and I could'n’t even remember if anyone had come with me in the ambulance. I wondered where my pom poms were… I also wondered why things like my keys, wallet, and phone weren’t my first priority….
“Just keep laughing and for fucks sake keep your legs closed. No one deserves to see up your pleated sequin mini skirt to your kind of tucked silver-wear”…
Dignity was thin, but somehow still holding on…
Hesitating with an oxygen mask so I could be anaesthetised the Dr resetting my elbow smiled “I just don’t want to ruin your make up, it’s amazing”. As she put me under I offered to trade tips if she fixed me…. and then i woke up to a her looking at with a very concerned expression on her face.
“I’m really sorry” she said… *horrifying pause*
“While we were resetting your elbow I accidentally knocked off one of your eyelashes.”
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? I’M IN AN ER AND YOU GIVE ME YOUR BEST “YOU”LL NEVER WALK AGAIN” FACE… OVER A FALLEN EYELASH… ( with all the glue I’d gotten in my eye putting it on in a hurry.. because, drag time….It probably wasn’t secured all that strongly anyway)
Apparently it takes a bit of force to stick a fractured elbow back in its socket without doing more damage, and she was very apologetic.
“Oh just pull the other one off babe. I don’t think I can be much more of a mess, and I don’t think I’ll be heading back out out after here” I said through my semi conscious morphine haze .
Feeling very Shirley MacLaine in Postcards from the Edge I was rolled into the ER’s overnight unit, looking exactly how a broken, scalped drag queen should look… and I wished I’d packed a turban… just for a little subtlety and drama.
Not the first life lesson of the night though.
As my drugs were kicking in nicely I realised I was lazing around the ER still looking like that cheerleader who always falls out of the locker room at 4am after her own game time with the team, and that’s not what I wanted to face when the buzz wore off. Perfect timing for my rolling ginger to roll in with clothes, bag, keys, phone, wallet… and even make up remover and plan for someone to pick me up when the hospital was ready… As he bounced back out to the night I was meant to be having, to the disappointment of the night nurses I headed to the bathroom to strip back my beat face…
Thankfully they were as complimentary about the bewildered, sore, little guy with the streaky face of badly removed make up that came out as they had been about what was left of the broken glitter-ball that was rolled in . Lucky for me, with one functioning arm and the other in a cast i needed someone to get up close and personal and button up my shorts.
As the morning rolled on, staff changed over and a spunky orderly appeared…making enough trips past my bed for his lack of subtlety and cheeky little smiles to be noticed.
#heygurlhey
Chest out, shoulders back, eyes not quite focussed, still sparkling with glitter and in a different type of sling, I smiled and put on my best injured homo charm. We made conversation, had some laughs, he bought me real food to replace the “lunch” the hospital was trying to pass of as edible, and it was a little bit of gay serendipity.
In true gay style, I couldn’t remember his name and we never saw each other again.
It may have been daylight, and I was told my ride was on their way, so you may think this story is over… but no, not yet. There was one last laugh in a night full of things you could only laugh at left….
and that’s when I saw my ex walk in, giggling and waving his car keys at me…asking if i’d been discharged and was ready to go home yet….
“of course it was you they called you to pick me up…”
Thank fuck we’re friends… and fuck the bitches who called him to pick me up without warning me..
A couple of days later as I was unpacking my make up bag, I found a note from one of the nurses in it
“The sights you see in the emergency dept lol
xx”
And that's the story of why drag queens shouldn’t roller skate and you should never take yourself too seriously.
A true story of why it’s important to never take yourself too seriously. It’s always better to get in first and be laughed with than at.
642-4: Memories of "home"
Having a very unconventional childhood I actually find this one difficult to know where to start, and probably for others to relate to.
Flipping through my magic book of 642 things I stumbled across the topic ” What is the place or object from your childhood that you most think about when you think about home.”
Having a very unconventional childhood in a household of drug addicts, drug dealers, police raids, hookers, bikies, bikie moles, tough guys, domestic violence, changing partners of either gender and lots of moving about, I actually find this one difficult to know where to start, and probably for others to relate to.
I have a lot of memories and experiences from this colourful upbringing.. most are things that a child should never experience. Seeing my first death from a heroin overdose at around 11, being on a first name basis with the police as they apologised for interrupting my homework to search my room during a raid, babysitting 5 year olds as the adults got seriously fucking high.. and just feeling sorry for her and life she’d been born into, standing between my mother and an abusive partner at 10.. asking him to hit me instead just so I had a reason call the police, acting as the adult which included getting my mother up before school so she’d go to work and knowing how to mix up smack in a spoon properly by 8… and most strangely, rationalizing all of this and more as completely unhealthy and abnormal - but normal for me.
We moved a lot, I remember two houses in the one street, a caravan park, a caravan on a family member’s property and finally public housing… before moving cities and in with my uncle and his partner into a more stable environment at 15. One thing I did get the joy of is almost any money, toy or distraction I wanted. I had every Transformer, He-Man figure, Star Wars character, lego set, book, video music and a great collection of teddy bears that a kid of the 80’s could want. I had a (stolen)TV, stereo & VCR (remember those?!) in my room throughout my whole childhood.. for this my friends were envious! Fair reparation?
In amongst my memories of school, play time, catch’n’kiss, tag, band practice (yes I was a trumpet, trombone & piano playing band geek) are the day to day experiences, instability and stories that can stop people at a dinner party mid-desert that are the reality of my childhood, .
When I think of my childhood I don’t think about “home”, I think of these. I’m not ashamed to admit that (unsurprisingly ) for a long time I was a bit of mess and it took a while to get my head sorted as an adult. Thanks to a fair amount of therapy and many rough patches… other than a lifelong management of depression, which comes and goes, I’m mostly fine now
