darrenhayes

[darrenhayes]

Don't Look Back You Can Never Look Back

I went to San Francisco recently.  A belated birthday present from my love.  I’d planned to go in May but I wasn’t recovered enough from my jaw fracture to enjoy it so we postponed until the wires had come off my jaw and I could at least eat at restaurants like a regular person.  San Francisco was the first place outside of Australia, that I felt at home.  In some ways, it might be even more significant than that because it was a dedicated decision, after leaving Australia, to choose to be in a city that I wanted to be in, as opposed to the more logical destinations of Los Angeles or New York.   I’ll never forget the moment I arrived at Water A’s guest house in Marin County.  I’d flown from New York (where I lived at the time) and the second I got off the plane the molecules shifted and I felt I was home.  I stayed in Water’s guest house while we recorded ‘The Animal Song’ and that’s when I was fully seduced by the energy of the land, the smell of redwoods in nearby Mill Valley, and the, then, regional delights of grocery stores like ‘WholeFoods’ and ‘Molly Stones’.  After a short return to NYC, I cried all the way on the 5 ish hour flight from Manhattan (where I was leaving my first gay relationship - it had come to an end - and to spend what would be 3 months in San Rafael, the home of Wallywood studios, where we recorded most of the ‘Affirmation’ album. A month before I was due to fly ‘home’ - I called my then, manager, Larry and asked if it was a stupid idea to live in a city that wasn’t a media hub.  He told to GO FOR IT.  The my happiness was the most important career decision I could make.  Soon, I was buying my home in beautiful Sausalito and so began almost a decade of a life in the foggy enclave that possessed the most magical view of the Bay and the city of San Francisco - and a quiet, mystical and zen neighborhood in which my family visited from Australia many, many times.  I have so many treasure memories of time with beautiful Mother.   Even years later, after my ‘London experience’ - I’d return to San Francisco - often with my beautiful Mother. The last time she was well enough to fly from Australia to the USA, I made sure I took her to city of fog - and we spent time in Milly Valley and the majestic Muir Woods and of course one unforgettable night at a pretentious hotel celebrating an overpriced ticketed New Years Eve where the hostess tried to eject us upon entry.  My Mother soon put a stop to that.  We were suddenly treated to bottomless flutes of champagne al night.   I remember when my Mother left California on that trip, I was devastated.  I now know it’s because it would be the last time she’d visit me here.  It’s funny, for days after her departure I walked around my neighborhood in Santa Monica and visited the places she and I had occupied, trying to feel her energy, as though it were made of golden glitter and just by sitting at the same cafe table we’d shared coffee at, or resting on the same park bench we’d sat in and talked for hours, I could experience her again.  Sadly, all it did was make me cry.  Flash forward to my recent belated birthday trip and I’m both proudly nostalgic and sadly disappointed to admit I spent much of my time in San Francisco, chasing her ghost.  To quote my own song lyric, ''

And from the highest mountain, I went to make a sound, I thought that if I called out you would answer. But no one did’.

On the drive back to the airport, I suddenly had the most lucid memory of her.  Not just one, but all the times I’d driven her back to the airport, like layers of a photoshop image, all separated and visible at once.  My heart broke as I remembered making the same mistake of missing the exit to the terminal, just like I did every single time I was returning her to Australia. 

We had this pattern.  I’d burst into tears on her arrival and she’d be inconsolable when she left. 

This isn’t a poem or a piece of prose.  It’s not a story or a script where I have a carefully constructed and thought out ending to make me (and you) feel better.   The grim reality is, grief is hard.  It comes when you least expect it and it’s seductive, like a drug dealer, selling you a dream to chase with no reward at the end.

I miss my Mother terribly . I know it will become more bearable and more a part of me as time goes on, but my god, I wish we’d had more time.

[darrenhayes]

Photo by James Reese www.jamesreesephotogrpahy.com 

[darrenhayes]

The Watcher

When I was a boy I would sit in a tree in front of my house. It wasn’t a big tree like the kind you could build a tree house in or imagine in a fairytale, but it was large enough that I could hide in its branches and observe the world below.

I felt safe there, hidden from the world but watching it.

I spied where the Morrison’s hid their front door key, I spotted birds nesting high above, and became privy to the junk piles in back yards of my neighbors.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that tree.  It’s completely acceptable for a nine year old boy to hide, perched in the branches of nature. It’s frowned upon as an adult.

He’s crazy, they’d say.  And maybe they’d be right.

I was most happy if it rained when I was in the tree. The branches would afford me just enough shelter that I could remain dry from the rain and watch as the world retreated indoors.  I felt safe in the tree.  In the world but not of it.  The rain was like a cloak of invisibility or a poison that terrified others but to which I was immune.   

It conspired with me, the rain, allowed me be the watcher.

When the rain stopped I would feel sad, knowing  it would soon be time to come inside.  They’d probably be looking for me I guessed. They never were.  Most times, they weren’t even aware I’d gone.

Sometimes when I feel my age and get tired of pretending to be a grownup, I fall asleep imagining I’m back in that tree. Caught up in its branches, time slowing to an impossibly sluggish meter - the kind that hides the sprouting of a leaf, the fading of bark or the decay of roots from blinking eyes.

Today the tree is half way around the world from me.  It sits on a pavement, disturbing concrete on a forgettable street.  I visited it a couple of times.  If it remembered me it didn’t say and I’m ashamed to admit I could not identify exactly which one it was.  All the trees seemed too small to hold a boy.

Least of all a man.

[darrenhayes]

Someone just tweeted me the cover for the latest Birds Of Tokyo album and said how much they thought it looked like the cover for my 2007 album This Delicate Thing We’ve Made.  What is even stranger, is that one of the first (but ultimately discarded) cover designs for my album was almost identical to the Birds Of Tokyo album (red origami swan, green/blue background). That was the first concept we came up with, and then it was handed over to designer Jane Wallace who collaborated with us to create the neon bird cover you know today.   I don't at all think anyone ripped anyone off, nor do I presume my album was even on their radar, but it’s amazing how ideas and themes are out there in the ether and find their way to the surface.

[darrenhayes]

Demo written in 2009 with Carl Falk.  (D.Hayes, C.Falk c SonyATV)

[darrenhayes]

The force is something special once more..

It hit me tonight what the new Star Wars movie might just be getting absolutely dead right.  Magic.  You can see it in this 3 second GIF of Finn wielding Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.  He holds it with great awe, wonder and even fear.  It is an object of great power and a rare artifact.  A treasure and a responsibility.   My biggest criticism of the prequel films was that it diluted the specialness of the force, quantified it and explained it away.   When Luke Skywalker first held his father’s lightsaber in ‘A New Hope’ - we could see his fascination with this ancient weapon.  We could see his wonder.    Obviously the time frame helps, but I’m thrilled that in The Force Awakens, ‘The Force’ is once again something special.  A legendary power, a whispered secret - and a great ally.  

[darrenhayes]

Equal

You can’t control or choose your sexuality.

I wrote that lyric 16 years ago when I was trying to tell the world that I was gay. It was from a song called ‘Affirmation’ and I still remember the moment when I performed it on the Jay Leno show, and on that particular line I looked toward the camera and winked. I wasn’t ready to do a sit down with Barbara Walters or have my ‘story’ on Us Weekly magazine. But I needed to let the people who loved me know that I was slowly starting to love and accept who I was.

I was born gay. 

I’m not a scientist, but I think it’s pretty clear sexuality is a trait, not a choice, and no more or less significant that eye color or shoe size. But a trait perhaps with more in common with skin tone or race. A trait that has been used as means of discrimination and separation.

The Supreme Court ruling today is a massive shift in human consciousness. Many people who take exception to a trait that I did not choose or decide upon, will feel slighted or maybe won’t understand why this is so significant to me and the millions like me. But let me put it to you in these terms. That trait was used to separate me, isolate me and make me feel outside life looking in for many many years.

When I was a little boy, I was innocent. My sexuality was emerging, like everyone’s does, through social behavior. I would maybe sometimes want to play with the girls, or dress up their dolls. Once I was caught kissing the boy next door. Society told me in no uncertain terms, that was wrong. And the feeling was bad. A feeling of deep shame, of wrongdoing. A feeling that made me feel like I was a bad person.

I was a child.

I grew up, knowing that who I was, who I was born to be, was bad. I grew up, knowing that the fairy tales were for everyone else. The Prince marries the Princess. He doesn’t marry the Prince, right? The happy ever after was for everyone else.

So for years I buried myself, and that burial was brutal. Combined with a very traumatic and violent childhood, and years of being bullied and physically threatened for being gay at school, I think I experienced depression and anxiety as a result. Conditions which I still deal with at 43 years old. My depression got so bad, and my self hatred so extreme, that I was, like many LGBTQ people, depressed to the point of suicide. Thankfully, because I had such an understanding family, beautiful friends and the privilege to be able to afford to go to therapy - I managed to work through a lot of my sadness and get to a place in my life where I was emotionally strong enough to not only come out, but to also be open to love. That’s how I was able to finally have a healthy relationship and ultimately find a soul mate.

I married my husband, Richard Cullen 3 times. Once illegally in the UK in 2005. Then a Civil Partnership in 2006. Then again in the United States in an ‘actual’ marriage with a license and everything in 2013. That’s how much I love him. But when I was an 13 year old boy, praying to God to not make me gay, fearing I was going to die from AIDS and being spat on at school - I don’t know that I ever believed I would be here today. But here I am.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to live in a time when I know that the journey I went through is one that many young people in The United States, and other countries where same sex marriage is legal will be able to avoid.

Acceptance is a trickle down theory. Equally must start from the top tier of society and work its way down to action and results. Today, the United States has sent a very clear message about the true nature of equality and I feel so very grateful for the hard work and perseverance all of those who came before me.

Love yourself. Love one another.

"You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true." - Richard Bach

[darrenhayes]

Graceless - by The National

Graceless Is there a powder to erase this? Is it dissolvable and tasteless? You can't imagine how I hate this Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm graceless Don't have the sunny side to face this I am invisible and weightless You can't imagine how I hate this Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm gone Through the glass again Just come and find me God loves everybody, don't remind me I took the medicine and I went missing Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen

Graceless I figured out how to be faithless But it would be a shame to waste this You can't imagine how I hate this Graceless

I'm trying, but I'm gone Through the glass again Just come and find me God loves everybody, don't remind me I took the medicine and I went missing Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen

All of my thoughts of you Bullets through rotten fruit Come apart at the seams Now I know what dying means

I am not my rosy self Left my roses on my shelf Take the white ones, they're my favorites It's the side effects that save us

Grace Put the flowers you find in a vase If you're dead in the mind it'll brighten the place Don't let them die on the vine, it's a waste Grace

There's a science to walking through windows There's a science to walking through windows without you

[darrenhayes]

Props and costumes from The Force Awakens up close and personal from Star Wars Celebration this weekend.  

[darrenhayes]

Take Me To Church - Sinead O'Connor

I don't wanna love the way I loved before I don't want to love that way no more What have I been writing love songs for? I don't wanna write them anymore I don't wanna sing from where I sang before I don't wanna sing that way no more What have I been singing love songs for? I don't wanna sing them anymore I don't wanna be that girl no more I don't wanna cry no more I don't wanna die no more So, cut me down from this here tree Cut the ropes from off of me Sit me on the floor "I AM"; the only one I should adore

[darrenhayes]

On the set of the 'Stupid Mistake' video - make up test. 

[darrenhayes]

I Knew I Loved You - Acoustic 2014 live studio demo

[darrenhayes]

Photogrpahed by David Slijper in 2007. c. David Slijper

[darrenhayes]

ghosts

I stand at the counter waiting for my coffee.  The baristas know me by name now. They make my drink without me even asking.  Part of me feels embarrassed I'm so predictable.  Part of me feels relieved to be developing a habit.  When I think back to my sense of home and all we left in London, a lot of that was steeped in rituals.  The walk to the park, the familiar paths and once or twice a day standing at a counter waiting for my espresso.   After a year in another country, I realise some of this is feeling like home but there's still a strange isolation. Is this outsider syndrome? Is this othering?  And then I see him.

The old man with silver hair and beard.  

Such kind eyes. He must be at least 70.  He looks at me as though he knows me.  I think he wants to sit in the chair I had my eye on so I offer it to him instead. 'No no I'm fine.  It's just.. you look like my son,' he says. Funny, he looks like my Dad. He stares in to my eyes and I know, in that moment, he is not in his son's life. Just like I am not in my father's. Is his son still alive? We don't discuss it. I am the ghost of someone else as he is a ghost to me. Maybe we are idealised versions of the people we never really held. I smile and leave and he watches me, wistfully. I wonder if we'll strike up a conversation one day.

[darrenhayes]

The answer to the most frequently asked question. 

[darrenhayes]

I know what it is about old malls - especially 'dead' 80's ones that move me so much.  The memories. I think about all the moments that must have happened there. First kisses, birthday trips, excited Christmas dreams. Dates. Fights. Stress. Arguments. Apologies. Life.  All the dreams and memories just ghosts now.

[darrenhayes]

The Hoyts Regent Cinema, Brisbane. Built in 1929. It's where I first saw 'Return of the Jedi'. Some of the happiest memories of my life were created there.  It had been listed as a protected building but was demolished and sold to make way for a 40 story office tower and carpark.