“Extraordinary oddities of conduct are tolerated among Wasps so long as you show up for Christmas.”  

Tad Friend in “Cheerful Money”

***

I was about to take oddness to a new level, and it was all about a girl again.

Anna was currently the girlfriend of an actor who was going to become a mega-star, starring in films like Lord of the Rings and Matrix. Back then, he was my competition.

Now I realize I am one of those people who loves to fall in love.

Usually with an impossibility.

Although Diane appeared “impossible” to me in the beginning, we almost made it to the wedding altar, so now Anna was my goal, and I went crazy for a year. Why? I don’t know really. Was it because I wanted to stand out? Was it because I loathed my own identity? Was a premonition of celebrity brand marketing?

Whatever the reason, I started to do crazy things.

“Alexander Busking” on the streets was the first thing.

Second, I decided to find out what it is like to wear no shoes for a year. And I did it. I even travelled on a plane in bare feet. I laugh at myself today, as it has finally come into fashion in Mullumbimby – Australia’s counter-cultural capital. It’s common to see adults and kids going about town shopping in their bare feet.

But back in Sydney in 1982, you had to be at the beach to see that.

Remarkably, I was never once was refused entry because I had no shoes. But that may have been because I was distracting them by what I was wearing on top. Which was my third thing….

I was always all yellow.

Pants, singlet, shirt, bag – everything was yellow. Even my undergarments, but at least I didn’t display those. By the time waiters realized that I didn’t have shoes, they were scared of me and just pretended it hadn’t happened.

I am not a Wasp – I was bought up Catholic – but the old-world-English underpinnings of Waspiness and being a Catholic in Australia in the 50s are not so different. After my God-trip – “…when Jerry thought he was Jesus…” - my family were basically indifferent.

Anna never did love me back the way I wanted to be loved.

She did feel sorry for me, which just made my agony worse.

Over that time, I could see myself spinning out of control. Although my Alexander SATA Centre was doing well – partly a result of yellow, bare-footed busking about town – I was going into hyper-drive. I was drinking a lot, forgetting appointments and not happy.

The straw that fed me oxygen was Alexander’s Discovery. Only because I was in this work did I have the perspective to notice what I was doing to myself.

I realized I had to change.

Intuitively, I understood that change is triggered from the outside – it had to be a constant, steady influence that disregarded my emotional highs and lows.

Finally, I came to an important decision.

It was time to turn my life around…