Southpaw Grammar Radio Show

This show happens to fall on Invasion Day (otherwise known as Australia Day), and is a dark day for Indigenous Australians and those that condemn the ongoing genocide of Aboriginal people.

On our show we discuss a memoir released in 2004 by Noel Tovey. Little Black Bastard is the autobiography of a dancer/actor/choriographer and deals with Tovey’s queer and Aboriginal identity; and his traumatic experiences growing up in Melbourne as a member of the Stolen Generation.

Little Black Bastard also details Tovey’s incarceration in Pentridge Prison when he was 17 years old. He was charged with the offence of  ’buggery’, after police raided a drag party he was attending in Albert Park. Tovey went on to live in London and dance with Judy Garland and act in the premier of nude theatre classic Oh! Calcutta. Little Black Bastard is one of the most affecting memoirs you will read, and a great insight into the oppression of queer Indigenous people.

On this show we also put the spotlight on Judas Priest in our regular segment on queer musical acts. We play their classic song ‘Breaking The Law‘ and also discuss the S&M/leather imagery that Rob Halford appropriated in the late 70s, which became the dominant aesthetic of heavy metal.

Sam and Alex chat about what they’ve been reading over the Summer, including some top finds in second-hand bookshops in the West Australian wheatbelt.

Alex does a review of Sherry Wolf’s Sexuality and Socialism, a very readable book on the history of LGBTI struggle in the United States. Check out this video interview of Wolf talking about the book.

Alex talks about a classic queer book that he’s started twice and just can’t seem to finish. Edmund White’s A Boys Own Story. Sam has read it and likes it. We find out why Alex just can’t seem to finish it. And we chat about Edmund White in greater detail. His latest book is called City Boy. Check out this great interview with White from Butt Magazine.

We also hear a short poem from one of the most significant English-language Modernist poets of the 20th century, W.H. Auden (1907-73). You might know Auden from his poem ‘Funeral Blues‘ which was a feature of the 90s rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral. But we’ll listen to Auden read another one of his poems about loss, ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats‘.