Allan and Kevin. Photo courtesy Age newspaper.

In 2006 SBS television produced a documentary series based on the Age newspaper’s ‘Two of Us’ column. I was very flattered that my contribution, below, was the only Melbourne story to be filmed.

Interviews by Simon Sellars

‘The Two of Us: Kevin Brophy and Allan Martin’. Originally published in the Age newspaper’s Good Weekend magazine supplement in September, 2005.

Kevin Brophy is a Melbourne poet and academic and the co-founder of literary magazine Going Down Swinging. In 1981 he taught writing skills to inmates at Pentridge prison, including Allan Martin. Allan is now a published poet and a volunteer worker at Ozanam Community Centre; his writing has appeared in Going Down Swinging and Overland, among other publications, and Abalone Press published a collection of his poetry, Spitting Out Sixpenny, in 1984.

KEVIN: When I became involved with the writing workshop, I was ready for anything. I grew up in Coburg, around Pentridge, so it seemed the right thing to do. I made contact with the prison and was told, ‘Yeah, there’s a couple of blokes here who write. You can go and talk with them’. They were in Jika Jika: the maximum-security division. Jika was fi lled with violent inmates and warders who looked equally capable of violence. The warders wouldn’t have known what to make of me – I was a hippy and looked it. I ended up working with Allan, who was in prison for armed bank robbery; later, he escaped from Pentridge and robbed more banks.

Allan spent 20 years in prison, but I assumed from the start he wanted to be as professional a poet as possible. When he first showed me his poetry, I was inspired by the way he held together the intensity, intelligence and balance of a poem. He was already an exciting and interesting poet, but he was also extremely intense, and I never would have guessed that 20 years later we’d be long-term friends. He’s not what he seems. He’s worth getting to know, but you have to watch out because he’ll work you out quicker than you can him. He’ll be the one deciding whether you have anything more to do with him.

Allan can inspire terror in someone three times his size; I’ve seen half-a-dozen people stand at a safe distance while he made some very forceful points. But he’s mellowed dramatically since he’s been at the Community Centre. Allan works with homeless people, making the centre more human, more creative, more efficient: establishing a clothing exchange, setting up a garden, making documentaries, encouraging people to play music, perform plays, read poetry. He just loves to be with people who are real characters.

I admire Allan for what he’s achieved, despite what he’s done and what’s been done to him. He has a big heart for other people. He’s like a community elder. Our friendship encountered difficulties when Allan was released from prison. He was institutionalised, demoralised and confused and it was easier for him to ask me for money, or whatever he needed, than to build his life up again. Later, he found work and always managed to make a success of it, but for a while, when others didn’t work as hard as he did or couldn’t see that his way was the best way, his anger and frustration would become too explosive.

I felt great compassion for him, but I became afraid I was going to be a target. One night Allan arrived at my door to tell me he had a gun in the car, and to tell me what some other people had done to upset him. I assumed he was going to use the gun on them, though it’s more likely he was thinking of robbing another bank, or maybe he had no clear ideas. I was badly shaken and told him I’d have to ring the police. I thought I had come to the end of our relationship and I was worried I’d put the people around me in danger. The next time I saw him, he said the gun was in Port Philip Bay… I came to understand that this anger was part of Allan’s personality – that it came and went, and that it wasn’t a reason to end the relationship because there was always another Allan waiting to emerge.

That’s what happens with long-term friendships: you come to understand the different phases, the different rhythms of the other person’s life. Allan hasn’t written much recently due to some severe physical problems – he has damage to his eyes after some violent incidents in jail, and he’s recovering from an operation to fix a pinched nerve in his neck that was gradually deadening his right arm. He still has the fire to write, but something else weighing him down is the massive impact of twenty years in prison. Each time he sits down to write, there’s this question at the back of his mind: ‘Well, what do I do with that?’ It’s the stuff of nightmares. And who would want to revisit that?

ALLAN: Jika wasn’t traditional jail – it was the world’s first computerised prison system. There was always bullet-proof glass between the screws and us, and the entire place was climate controlled: no fresh air anywhere. It was very oppressive, a bloodbath from Day One. Sometimes screws would push the wrong button and the wrong door would fl y open and maniacs would run around and literally chop people’s heads off. I had to lock into something and writing gave me detachment. But in jail everyone always says, ‘Oh, what a great work of art!’ No one criticises because they’re afraid of what you might do to them.

Kevin was never patronising. I was doing a lot of experimental writing, stumbling around in the dark, and he gave me direction and structure. He taught me how to remove myself from the subject and just observe. That helped my self-esteem – it made me more able to articulate my thoughts. I was scared for Kevin in prison because you look at him and you know he’s not a fist fighter, even though he’s been a fi ghter all his life in other ways. He wanted to extend the writing program to other prisoners, and I don’t think he quite understood he’d be dealing with mass murderers and people going off their heads every second day. I think he finally realised when the yoga group, with all these gurus brought in from outside, was attacked by some lunatic with a pillowcase full of soap.

But Kevin was very anti-establishment; he had disrespect for all the screws and he never exhibited any fear. Kevin’s always been a hippy. Back then he never had money for a cup of coffee and he was always on his pushbike; he’s still got the long hair today. He once came to see me at Jika wearing a belt with his bike tools around his waist. Alarms and metal detectors went off and screws were running around everywhere. But the typewriter incident tops that. When I was transferred from Jika to the Metropolitan division, Kevin turned up with a typewriter. But he forgot he’d put some grass under the cover to dry. They searched the typewriter, found the dope, and accused Kevin of trying to smuggle drugs in for me.

I never thought for one moment that Kevin’s arrest would land him in prison. I told the court that even though I’d been guilty of absolutely everything else, at that stage I’d never used drugs in my life so how could Kevin be guilty? He had a squeaky-clean police record beforehand so he was entitled to make one mistake in life without it leading to a prison term. My concern was that Kevin would be banned from visiting me in prison – he was barred for 12 months.

The plea in court was that he’d forgotten about the dope because he was absent-minded, self-absorbed, but I’ve never really found that to be the case. He’s just very focused. Very direct. I can ask him anything and get a straight answer. And he’s never judged me, unlike the rest of society. Kevin’s poetry isn’t judgmental, either. Like him, it’s subtle and has great warmth. Writing is Kevin’s lifeblood and without it he’d be lost, so it’s been really pleasing to see him achieve the recognition he enjoys now.

True friendship takes a long, long time to develop, and ours has been through many tests, but it’s still here. I didn’t consider myself a violent man. It wasn’t until later that I understood that, yes, sticking a gun in someone’s face is considered an extremely threatening act. So when Kevin admitted to me recently that he’d been afraid of me at different times, that shocked me immensely, because I had absolutely no comprehension that he would be scared of me. I didn’t think I radiated anything like that.

I haven’t written for a few years, and some writers break their connection with you when they hear that, because that’s all the friendship’s based on – writing. But my friendship with Kevin hasn’t diminished in any way. We both like helping people, and we just enjoy each other’s company.

I’ve been watching his steady progress: he’s made that transition from being the hippy on the bike to the man he is today. I lost a lot of years, but even so I still feel that compared to what he’s achieved, my output has been so minor. In prison, Kevin gave me a voice. He humbles me.

The Claw Girl: photo by Beatka Provis

by Simon Sellars

‘Life’s Journey: In Search of the Real Japan’. Originally published in the Age newspaper’s Travel supplement, May 15 2004.

Two years ago I visited Tokyo. I was in Japan to see my friend B—–, an English teacher in the northern port of Ishinomaki. We hadn’t seen each other for 8 months so we were starting all over again, with a lot of fear and trepidation tempering the anticipation. But Tokyo’s textures eventually injected a high-voltage dose of Japanese electricity into our veins. Not even the trials of love and commitment could dilute that brief, but ultra-energised, time we spent together.

We originally made guarded attempts to understand Japanese culture. But we soon realised there was little sense in trying to ‘feel’ a tradition we weren’t part of. By the end of our time together, we had started to accept Tokyo on its own terms, romping through the streets like giddy kids, intoxicated by the warp-speed collision of light, sound and fashion.

B—– collects Japanese comics and anime, and the plan was to make regular trips from Ishinomaki to specialist shops in Tokyo to fuel her mania. I’m interested in Japanese tradition and history. I grew up with the Samurai TV show, with its stylised depictions of ancient Japanese magic and ritual, and at university I studied Kurosawa’s intricate period films. But I, too, loved Japanese animation and electronic music, and I wanted a definitive answer to the question: “What is real Japanese culture – computers and video games, or samurai and geisha girls?”

Somehow, it’s become a bit clichéd to even posit such a dichotomy, and sure enough, Lost In Translation sparked off a touchy debate in the US for doing just that. Critics said it harboured a preponderance of Japanese stereotypes, positioning Japanese culture as either bound by tradition or over-the-top wackiness, with nothing in between. But Tokyo is a place of real extremes. Large-scale industrialism nestles against imperial relics. Gee-whiz technology thrusts against time-honoured ritual. It’s palpably confusing and contradictory to the outsider.

Actually, Tokyo can make you feel like you’ve landed on another planet. The Shinjuku district, an inspiration for the sci-fi film Blade Runner, is uncanny at night. That’s when most surface space on the densely packed buildings and department stores is lit with bright neon exhortations to buy, sell, consume, all couched in that unique Japanese mix of cute and cool. Shinjuku was a bit much for my first, thoroughly jetlagged, day in Tokyo. B—– had travelled from Ishinomaki to meet me straight off the plane, and I was glad when she took me to a ryokan (a Japanese-style hotel) in the Ikebukuro district, with its traditional trappings – tatami mats, green tea and thin walls. There was also a tiny bath, and I had to hug my knees to my chest to get a good soak.

A Japanese guest, noticing my reticence to get into the piping hot water, informed me that bathing in Japan is an ancient ritual based around meditation and purification. ‘It’s customary to wash and soap before entering the bath,’ he told me, which is poured as hot as is physically tolerable. ‘Once in, take your time, clear your thoughts – relax. Steam yourself of all impurities. Don’t empty the bath for those who follow’ – the water should be clean as no actual washing has taken place. I contorted myself and eventually relaxed. After bathing, we even spoke of visiting the Imperial Palace, in the heart of Tokyo near the Ginza district. I also wanted to visit the various museums brimming with historical paraphernalia and artefacts from Japan’s Edo period.

Score a point, then, for ‘samurais and geisha girls’ – tradition and ritual was nosing in front.

We hit the streets the next day with renewed vim, only for my interest in Old Japan to be suddenly, effortlessly crushed. I emerged from the Shibuya train station and caught a glimpse of the three super-noisy, giant video screens inset into the side of the department-store buildings overlooking Hachiko Square. The sides of the buildings seemed alive, crawling with animated animals and super-enhanced human characters. Hachiko Square was full of people working tiny, gleaming mobile phones beaming to the internet and to forests of satellites above the Earth (possibly to Mars for all I know); other unknown devices blinked with LCD displays and unfathomable electronic dreams.

The tables had turned: popular culture was bulldozing ahead.

Dazzled, I followed my nose for neon, scouring the rabbit warren of alleys, bars and worlds never thought possible. We stumbled into a shop that sold equestrian goods and racing memorabilia. Nothing too odd about that, except that the entire three storeys were kitted out like a racetrack. Customers sat on pavilion benches inset into fake turf, watching live horse meets on a massive TV screen. Ersatz bookies pretended to take bets. To make a purchase, presumably you had to visit the lady dressed as a Canadian Mountie. What was this place – a shop or a theme park? Was it a front for something altogether different? Or was it simply a manifestation of the Japanese obsession with exact detail? Naturally, to sell horse-riding gear, one must look like a jockey – perhaps that’s the logical extension of Japanese consumer culture, where the product is weaved seamlessly into reality. But this place represented a kind of virtual reality – illusion and artifice ruled supreme.

photo by Simon Sellars

Love hotels are another manifestation of this tendency. These odd little establishments have become another cliché of Japanese life, and we simply had to experience one (because, ostensibly, we were in love). Of course, love hotels don’t have to be used for nookie – many Japanese also hire them for intense karaoke sessions in a really weird environment. And that’s what B—– and I intended to do: get drunk on sake, sing a few songs, get lost in the strangeness of it all, and forget about the urgency of our situation.

There are around a hundred rooms in an average love hotel, and in the lobby you can peruse illuminated pictures of the rooms. We considered variants of Moorish temples, baroque palaces, sci-fi vistas – all designed with the equestrian shop’s unnerving attention to detail. Eventually, we chose a room bathed in UV light, with a black-light mural adorning the main wall – a smiling moon and stars atop a fairytale village scene. Fish, teddy bear and clown motifs decorated the other walls. There was a TV with naughty videos (the naughtiest bits blurred as per Japanese convention), a big bed and a huge mirror on the ceiling. There was also a karaoke machine and a sauna lit up from the bottom in rotating hues of red, purple, orange and green.

For a while, B—– and I just sat there. The combination of black light, fairy-tale imagery and soft-porn trappings felt like an acid trip – a demented inversion of childhood memories. I’m not sure if it was romantic, or even erotic. I really don’t know what was going on in the minds of the interior designers. But from there on in, each of my senses was finally alive and permanently hotwired to the intense, multifaceted layers of Japanese culture. And they needed to be, for Tokyo has a habit of mugging the unwary, assaulting the senses with the subliminal thrill of progress.

Tokyo was virtually levelled during World War II by aerial bombing from the Allies. It’s had a lot of catching up to do, and the Japanese obsession with bleeding-edge technology, so often associated with Tokyo, could be said to be a symbolic representation of this – the city seems to be on permanent fast forward. That’s also the case with fashion. In Tokyo, trends appear and disappear in months, weeks – perhaps days. Hybrids seem to be the key, but really I have no idea what makes Japanese fashion tick.

Strolling through the Harajuku district one day, B—– was gobsmacked by the sight of an apparition before her, dressed in black – like a cross between Brandon Lee, in the gothic fantasy The Crow, and Edward Scissorhands. As she drew near, Beatka saw that the creature was in fact a young lady sporting a claw and gas mask/headpiece accompaniment. B—– engaged her in conversation and discovered that she had constructed the outfit herself. The headpiece featured an imitation crow’s beak, inlaid with a circular array of spikes. She was wearing white contact lenses and there was some kind of frosting on her black one-piece latex outfit that made her look like she had been sleeping in a freezer. She cheerfully posed for a photo with her clawed hand hanging limply in front of her. Apparently, she was on her way to high school.

Later, as B—– excitedly showed me the photo, musing on the meaning of it all, a posse of teenagers pushed past us, matching the Claw Girl for sheer effort and attitude. They were like a clan of superheroes, each in a signature outfit: one looked like Sandy from the Monkey TV show; another looked like a female Ultraman (a popular Japanese superhero); the third appeared to have a medical fetish; and the fourth was Kabuki-inspired.

Tokyo Girls: photo by Beatka Provis

‘Wait!” we called after them. We had to know more. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To a pop concert.’

‘Is it normal to dress in such a fashion?’

‘We believe so.’

That really was it for me. After spending so much time in this mad place, I fancied myself thoroughly inured to Tokyo’s gadgetry, fashion and futurism. So lulled, I imagined that a cash advance on my Visa card at the bank would be a breeze considering the technology that must be at their disposal. But there was nary a computer in sight, and the few that were in use were as old as the hills. After considering my request, a process involving head scratching and embarrassed glances at co-workers, the bank clerk consulted a huge folder, following about 20 painfully slow steps to get my money. There was much writing down of figures and entries in ledgers, followed by a frenzied bout of rubber-stamping.

After an hour and a quarter, I got my cash. All the while the clerk kept apologising and smiling good-naturedly. He knew it was crazy. I smiled back at him, ruefully, for I understood that Tokyo was having the last laugh. I’d thought I had it pegged but I realised that it couldn’t possibly provide the answer to my naive question, “What is the real Japan?”, because Tokyo is beyond analysis. It is in fact a metacity, a living, breathing, untameable organism, forever scuttling expectations.

Soon after, I prepared to leave Japan to work in London. B—– informed me she wouldn’t be coming along, like we had tentatively planned – she was returning to Ishinomaki. It was an emotional moment and there were tears, because on one level our Tokyo romp had failed to have the desired effect – our relationship was clearly over. But we’d found our own personal playground there. Perhaps we’d never see each other again. Perhaps we’d move on to different partners. But we both knew that nothing could ever surpass that experience.

And nothing would ever be the same again.

by Simon Sellars

‘Questions for… Adam Elliot, Animator’. Originally published in A3, the Age newspaper, 3 Oct 2003.

Adam Elliot is being hailed as Australia’s most successful short filmmaker. His 23-minute claymation, Harvie Krumpet, won three of the four major prizes at Annecy, the world’s largest animation festival, and picked up Best Australian Short Award at the 2003 Melbourne International Film Festival.

You have a hereditary ’shake’ that affects your entire nervous system. But don’t you need steady hands to be an animator?

I was born with a physiological tremor – everybody shakes but I do more than most. Because animation is all about intricacy, this means my models are bigger. They’re designed to make it a lot easier for me to move them. My condition has actually fed into my style – my characters look the way they do because of my disorder and it’s also why my drawings are wobbly, with very few straight lines.

Your subject matter is beyond the realm of most animation. Characters have thalidomide and cerebral palsy, and Harvie himself loses a testicle. What attracts you to underdogs?

I just find that animation tends to steer away from things that are too difficult, and I always want to make characters that audiences can really relate to. Like the next-door neighbour, or someone you might see on a tram – people we engage with on a daily basis. But I do get nervous. With Ruby [Harvie's daughter] and her thalidomide, I thought, ‘Am I going too far. Is it all for effect?’ But I always try and focus on the positive elements. With Ruby, the emphasis was that she was successful, that she had a great spirit and loved her father.

Your style is observational. How does that translate into a storyline?

I start off with a detail and work backwards. I say, in this film I want the character to have his testicle removed. That’s one ingredient. Another: he has to have a daughter with thalidomide. I want quotes in a film: how am I going to weave them in? It’s like a dinner party: I want all this stuff and can we mix it all together and is it going to work?

How do you construct your models?

Well, they’re about the size of a wine bottle. The arms are plasticine, the head and torso are made of car bog – the pink stuff panel beaters use – and the sets are wood. For Harvie we spent a lot of time at hardware and fabric shops. We had to think laterally. We’d get into the studio and realise we’ve got to make eight miniature wheelchairs. How? We used shopping-trolley wheels.

As a child you were very shy. Could this be why you are drawn to the solitary nature of animation?

Definitely. I don’t mind my own company, but there are times when it gets a bit lonely. A lot of people think animators are megalomaniacs and can’t collaborate, but I do like to work with people I think are inspirational.

Do you ever talk to your models?

Yes! Especially after 14 months of shooting. You get very stir crazy.

On a typical day, how much footage would you shoot?

For Harvie, it was three to five seconds a day. Some days we’d do a whole minute if we had a static shot – we’d just let the camera roll over.

Harvie contained around 280 cuts and took 14 months to shoot. Do you have the stamina to make a feature-length claymation?

I think so. I used to reckon half an hour was impossible but now I’ve done that I think maybe I could do a feature. Unfortunately, it would cost anywhere between 10 and 80 million dollars to make. It took Aardman 20 years before they made their first feature, Chicken Run, so I’m not in any hurry. To be quite honest, I’d be happy to just keep doing shorts. If I can survive and still move an audience with shorts then I’m happy with that.

Perhaps there’s a children’s book in you.

Actually, I’ve just finished a kids’ book. It took me eight years to write and it’s called The A to Z of Monsters. It rhymes, which is part of the reason why it took so long. We’re not sure what to do with it. One idea was to make it an animated series first and then turn it into a book. It’s probably a little dark for kids, but then I keep forgetting how sophisticated kids are these days. The other night I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and this little girl next to me said she only shut her eyes once. And I thought that film was very scary!