Gary Lonesborough, author

Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin writer from the South Coast of New South Wales. He's the author of two young adult novels, The Boy from the Mish – a stunning depiction of a queer summer romance between two Indigenous teenagers – and the brand new We Didn't Think It Through.

We discuss music by Bob Dylan, Kylie Minogue, and Elton John.

You can follow Gary on X here, and on Instagram here. You can learn more about Black Rainbow here, and listen to Gary's Queerstories episode here. 

Tracks of Our Queers is produced, presented and edited by Andy Gott.

You can listen to our Spotify playlist, Selections from Tracks of Our Queers, and find Aural Fixation in your favourite podcast provider. 

Transcript

Gary Lonesborough

Andy: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to Tracks of our Queers. 

My name is Andy Gott, and each episode, I chat to a fascinating queer person about one song, one album, and one artist that have soundtracked their life. 

We are over halfway. through this current season of episodes, and there are some beautiful conversations yet to come. Producing tracks of our queers is entirely a labour of love, so if you've enjoyed what you've heard this season so far and would be happy to buy me a coffee, I would be enormously appreciative.

It's best that I limit rather than increase my caffeine intake, so instead, any and all donations go straight to covering the costs involved in putting the show together. Just 5, or 3, goes a huge way, and a big thank you to everyone who has supported so far. You can find the donation link in the show notes.[00:01:00]

Gary Lonsborough is a Yuin writer who grew up on the south coast of New South Wales, as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. I first came across his novel, The Boy on the Mish, just last year, and fell in love with his characters Jackson and Thomas. Two boys getting to know each other over a hot summer.

Gary has since published his second book, We Didn't Think It Through, and has experience working in Aboriginal health, the disability sector, the youth justice system, and the film industry. Somehow, he's still managed to find time to talk to me in the studio. About some of his queer roses. Over to Gary.

Gary, welcome to Tracks of Our Queers.

Gary: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Andy: First question, straight off the bat. What was playing [00:02:00] at home as you grew up?

Gary: I spent a lot of time at my nuns growing up. There was always Elvis, always Johnny Cash. Slim Dusty. And then like at home, dad liked the, like midnight oil cultures, all Jimmy Barns. So yeah, it was, it was a mix of like rock and country. And so I kind of found pop music on the radio that I felt more was my kind of style. 

Andy: So what was the first sort of album or artist that you remember finding and thinking, oh, this is something that I found. This is like my thing. 

Gary: Well the first album I made my, my parents buy me was the Kylie Minong Ultimate Kylie compilation disc. Yeah, that was kind of like the first album I had and it was just all of her good songs.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that kind of got me into Kylie. Mm-hmm. Brought me more into the pop music. Yeah. . We had a lot of, we had a lot of cassette tapes, so my mom used to record the radio on the cassette tapes.

So I just remember re like re-listening to [00:03:00] mixed music on cassette tapes at home a lot. 

Andy: You are an author of two books so far.

 Ready When You Are. And The Boy From the Mish, which I read a few weeks ago. I would love to know about how your two boys, Jackson and Thomas how you came to tell that story.

Where did they come from in your brain?

Gary: You know, I've struggled to like, think about this myself and I can't really remember exactly where they came from. I'd written this short film script when I was at film school in like 20 14, 20 15. There was about these two aboriginal boys who had this secret relationship living on an Aboriginal mission, and it was kind of the last day in their relationship before one of them moved away.

So I wrote that script and then I thought, cause we had to make thesis films, and I thought about using that script for my thesis film in the, the second year, but [00:04:00] I ended up going with something much different. So I, I guess I really loved that story and it kind of stuck with me. I always wanted to be a writer growing up, so I was always kind of starting and stopping stories and trying to find like the story that I would finish. I read this book called Simon versus Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Elli. It's an American book about this closeted gaytan who is a kind of coming out story. And I read that book and, and it kind of made me think, geez, I'd love to read a book like that, that had an Aboriginal character you know, had an aboriginal boy coming to terms with sexuality and coming out and going through that journey.

So it was a combination of, you know, that reading that story the way it made me feel when I finished it and this script that I'd written years earlier, still kind of, still kind of lingering in my head. So the main character in the book is Jackson, but Thomas was the first character that came to me.

And he was a very different character out in those first drafts, but he was a visiting tourist to, to the south [00:05:00] coast. I just had this idea of this aboriginal kid exploring his sexuality and, and coming out and falling in love for the first time.

And it was only through revising and rewriting that, that I found that Jackson was actually a better man character to have for the story. Rather than the, the mysterious love interests that he was in those first drafts.

Andy: It's pretty special that an aboriginal queer boy or girl or person might find a book like The Boy from the Ish, which they can read and see themselves more accurately reflected.

Gary: Yeah, exactly. And there was a point when I was writing it and I was thinking, geez, like I would've loved to have been able to go to my school library and pick out a book like this.

And like doing school visits and spending times in school libraries through, you know, publicity and promotion for the book. I've seen that a lot of schools these days have like queer book sections and specifically queer YA sections, which is amazing. 

Andy: Especially

when you see what's going on in other parts of the world where

Yeah, exactly.

Queer Ya [00:06:00] books are actively being banned 

and yeah, 

portrayed as like disgusting perverted material when we are lucky enough to live in a place where it's actually being exposed to kids who probably really need it. 

Gary: Yeah.

Yeah. So like the book you mentioned before already when you are, it's, it's the American version of the Boyfriend of Mish.

Oh right, sorry. Oh no, it's fine. It's a mistake a lot of people have made. This is a bit confusing. Different cover, different title. 

Andy: Didn't do my research properly.

Gary: No, it's fine. But I was contacted a while ago after the book, the book came out in America last year. I was contacted a while ago by this college student who was part of this queer group that were trying to take banned books and get them into the hands of teenagers.

 I think he just wanted me to know that he was helping to get my book in the hands of teen readers. And I was following his posts and there was like photos of him handing out my book to different people and all these random like teenagers in this public like [00:07:00] space.

And I thought that was really cool that the government or the authority wants to ban these books ,

and

these young people are standing up to it and, and getting the books out there Anyway yeah, I thought that was really cool.

Andy: You say That you related more closely to Jackson as the writing went on.

I have to ask, did you have a Thomas? 

Gary: No, I did not. I was, I was a very closeted teen. I had a lot of internalized homophobia. Like I played rugby league for the local footy team. Mm-hmm. And it was a very homophobic, masculine, manly, macho environment. 

I began to realize I was gay when I was like 13. But it took me till I was 2021 to actually accept it. And yeah, I was very scared of it. Like Jackson in the book. Very scared of losing relationships with family and friends. So I Really wanted to put a lot of myself in there because cuz yeah, in the end, you know, I wrote the book for myself to start with and that's a book that I would've liked have read when I was a kid. And to know that someone else. [00:08:00] Had felt what I was feeling and was going through what I was going through, I think it would've made such a difference to me at the time.

But yeah, I was a very, very closeted teen. I do feel like I missed out on that really, you know, cool, exciting teen romance a little bit because of my, my fears.

Andy: I think maybe, probably a lot of people listening to this might be thinking the exact same thing in that we do to a certain extent romanticize these experiences and the rush of Teen love. But the reality for a lot of us as queer people is that we are quite lonely and we are trying to find people like ourselves, but we don't even know who we are half the time.

And actually just the chances of finding someone who is like you, who connects with you, who you are attracted to, they're not as high as we'd like them to believe, maybe for a 15 or 16 year old. But they do happen. There could be young queer people listening to this thinking like, you old man, I have had so 

Gary: much 

to Yeah. 

Andy: Interesting. Do you [00:09:00] listen to music as you write?

Gary: Usually I'm a music listener. Usually if I'm just trying to get a story, like in those early stages of a first draft, just trying to get it all out, I'll have some music on usually pretty loud.

Cuz it kind of switches off my brain. 

Yeah. Like, I think too much about the writing, it'll slow me down. So having the music on loud kind of makes me not think about it as much and it's just getting the words out, which is the ultimate goal for me in a first draft.

Andy: That's really interesting and I have not heard of that before and I might try it cuz the voices in the head.

I do need to shut up now and then, so I haven't thought about playing really loud music.

Gary: The Thing is with writing, you can go back and fix it. In fact, you have to whether you spend years working on a first draft and you know, going each line meticulously you will have to go back and fix it.

So for me, I just want to get the, the story out as quick as possible in the form that is seen in my head. And yeah, a lot of writers do work like that as well, but I'm another tip as I like to turn the brightness down on my [00:10:00] computer, so I'm not able to read it as clearly.

Andy: I love that. So it kind of puts you into a bit of a meditative state 

Gary: you're focusing 

Andy: on that, just literally translating story from brain to the page and you're not thinking about typos or whatever.

And where Did you grow up, Gary?

Gary: I grew up in Bega on the far south coast of New South Wales. We moved around a little bit when I was younger, but I was born in Bega. We eventually moved back to Bega when I was nine, that's where I had my, all my formative years. Nowadays there's a lot more diversity in the people, but when I was growing up there, it was very much near either a white person or you're an aboriginal person. 

Andy: And when did you move to Sydney?

Gary: I moved to Sydney when I was 19, so I was straight outta high school. Moved to Sydney to go to film school and yeah, moved into Redfern. Lived on my auntie's floor for two years. Lived in the share house. So yeah, Redfern was my first experience to Sydney, which is great.

I loved it. Loved it there. It was like even now, I know it had changed a lot by the time I'd gotten there, but it's changed even more [00:11:00] since, since moving, moving out of there. It's forever changing.

Andy: For people who don't know Sydney or Australia, what's so special about Redfern?

Gary: I just love the vibe there. The, it's kind of a very vibrant part of the city. There was a lot of like students around, so they're always young people. A lot of Aboriginal people there.

So I always, you know, felt like there were Aboriginal people nearby, which is, I guess for me, it made me feel safer. I was living with my auntie when I first moved in, so so I had a family member there that could look after me. But now I just look at Redfern as this place where I had all these great memories and met all these great friends you know, learnt so much about, About film, but also being an adult and, and what it means to be a person in, you know, modern Day Australia. 

Andy: Let's move into the music. This is why we're here. So you've picked a track, you've picked an album and an artist, and we're gonna talk about all of them, but just beginning with the song, what track did you [00:12:00] pick and why?

Gary: For the song I picked Desolation Row by Bob Dylan. 

 This,

This, song was very strange to me when I first heard it. 

You

know, I first listened to it when I was like 16. And over the years I've re-listened to it and it's like, still don't understand what it's about. There's just all these different characters and different stories within this one song that I just loved.

Like looking at it now, I kind of see it as what storytelling is, is bringing a person into your world and giving them a kind of sense of security and safety and trust, and then taking them on a journey and playing with their emotions, kind of managing their emotions and, and how they're feeling and. Ultimately just controlling how your reader will, or your listener in this instance will perceive the story.[00:13:00] Which I felt like Bob Dylan kind of did really well in this song. Cuz it starts off with like a happy kind of folk guitar. And then, yeah.

Just as he sings a song, you're just like, what the hell is going on here? But I just love Bob Dylan's storytelling and, just the way he wrote those songs and, and the lines he wrote. The fact that you can never really understand or say confidently that you know what he was singing about and can explain it in a very black and white way.

 It's just always felt very kind of magical and almost like a, like a party. That song, even though it's not a party song at all, but it feels kind of like you're in this room with all these different people and all these different stories and you're trying to make sense of everything everyone's saying, but it's just so hard to, to gauge that.

You just have to sit back and listen to them all talk to each other. 

Andy: [00:14:00] You're selling it to me because if I'm gonna be completely honest, I'm yet to crack the Bob Dylan code in that.

I'm completely aware of how respected he is, especially for his craft, especially for his songwriting and his storytelling. So I completely see that. But I've yet to have a light bulb moment where I'm like, oh my gosh, I get it. I now see what everyone else is because he has some very passionate fans.

You are, you are. You might be one of them. People who 

love Bob 

Dylan really love him, and I kind of want to get in on that. but one day maybe something will switch. There's no doubt about it that this song is incredible. It's 11 minutes long, like 

Gary: you say, Yeah. 

Andy: many stories are told within it.

It talks about lynching attacks in parts of the us. It talks about many different things. Do you have any other Bob Dylan favorites?

Gary: I guess [00:15:00] after Desolation Row I might say tangled up in Blue is another one I love. And I want to as well. That'll be another one of my favorites. The music I've, the cigar music I listen to late at night when I'm alone

I just need to hear or immerse myself in storytelling. 

Andy: How, when or who were you introduced to Bob Dylan? Through 

Gary: I watched this movie called The Hurricane which is, it's a Denzel Washington movie. It's a, it's a true story about this African American boxer named Ruben Carter, who got arrested for this murder and was exonerated like 30 years later, or 20 years later, however long it was.

But when it actually happened in the seventies, Bob Dylan wrote a song called The Hurricane, and it was about Ruben Carter. So the song is in the movie, and that's where [00:16:00] I first got exposed to Bob Dylan.

, yeah, that's, that's how I got exposed was,

um, Benton 

Andy: Washington was your gateway 

to

Gary: Bob. Yeah, dude, we would've thought Yeah. Well actually this murder that happened 

in

the, seventies Oh, was my gateway all these years later brought me to Bob Dylan.

Andy: Well, moving swiftly on from that too the album you picked, now I'm very excited to talk about this, but I'd love you to introduce this album and tell us why you picked it.

Gary: Yeah, I picked Aphrodite by Kylie Minogue. That was for me, this, this peak, Kylie is Aphrodite, but it's also the album that came out when I was like 16, 17, 18. And I kind of made this decision that I wasn't gonna. Act on my sexuality. And at the same time, still trying to figure it out, you know, what I was, what my label was [00:17:00] who I was as a person where I was gonna go in the future.

And this album came out and I loved it. And yeah, like I said, I think that, I think it is Pete, Kylie. But I just remember like listening to that album and like in my room really loud and like dancing. And it was the only time I actually felt like I was being myself was when I was listening to Kylie and dancing Alone in my room listening to Aphrodite.

 Whenever I listen to songs from that album, I think of that, time in my life when I was really scared of being gay and really scared of my sexuality and, and for these brief moments I was. I was fine and I was myself and I was happy when I was listening to Kylie I actually did a queer Stories podcast reading where I wrote this letter to Kylie and read it out and I talked about that a little [00:18:00] bit in that, that podcast.

But yeah, that was what Kylie was for me as a, as a teenager, when, when that album came out was this little break from this straight person I was trying to be. So yeah, I, I always feel very, very, not, not, sorry, I feel I'm not what the word is.

I feel

this compassion for that teenager that finding this escape in this music and I just wish I could give him a hug and tell him it was actually all gonna be okay.

Cuz when I was alone in my room listening to Kylie up full volume and dancing by myself when. When I felt gay, when I felt like myself. And yeah, when I think about that album, I love nearly every song. It was this time in my life when I was able to feel like myself when I was really trying hard to mask who I was and be this other person. Yeah, that's why that album meant so much to me,

Andy: [00:19:00] Gary, I just, I didn't see this coming. I, I'm 

only

Gary: having 

Andy: a 

Gary: non-alcoholic

Andy: beer tonight, but that was making me a little bit emotional hearing that because, I, it's so easy to tap into that feeling that you described of you've got a pretty good inkling of who you are, but you are not happy with it and you're definitely not ready to share it with the world.

So you have the version of the you that you present to the world when you leave that bedroom and you're operating in the world, but you close the door and you are yourself. And it just so happens at the soundtrack to you being completely relaxed and okay with yourself happens to be a Kyle Mano album.

And I just think that is so beautiful. And I've again, when you said that you. You didn't feel sorry for that person, but you certainly felt compassion for them. I think that's something that so many of us can relate to. Again, in, we're all on a journey, [00:20:00] right? We're, many of us are still on the journey, but those of us who have come a significant way in how we view ourselves will always have that younger version.

You just want to go back and say, you are gonna be fine. 

Yeah, 

it 

is gonna be okay.

We

can't do that. But maybe Kylie was telling you that in her own way, that Kylie was saying, actually, you're gonna be okay, not so much in those exact words. 

Gary: Yeah. And I definitely feel like Kylie saved my life a few times. I've always loved Kylie from like, when I was like five, six. you put 

your finger 

Andy: on why, like you mentioned 

earlier that you asked your, ask your, your parents for 

Gary: the 

Andy: Kylie city, which I can

see. 

I can see her face on the cover, but, but it's a question that I ask many people when we talk about icons.

So 

I love Kylie, I love people like Madonna. You've got your Beyonces, your Brittany's, whatever, people have their icons. Not always, but yours is Kylie and I, I want to get to the root of why.[00:21:00]

Gary: Mm-hmm. It's weird. I don't know. Yeah. It's hard to actually. Pinpoint, but I do know hearing, like spinning around and can't get you outta my head on the radio on a night like this.

Yeah, just hearing those songs that it felt like, that was my, like, that was my thing. Like, like my nan had country music. Like my thing was Kylie cuz it was just like I was a child, but it was the music that I was, that felt good on my ears. I can't explain why.

Have you 

seen her 

lot? It's always I did. Yeah. I saw her it was her golden tour when she 

was 

in

Sydney. 

Yeah.

Yeah. It was the first time and I was so gladd that I was able to go there as an openly gay person and someone who was happy with who I was at the time. Because I was dancing in the rows with people and [00:22:00] Yeah. Strangers, and it was just perfect. It was like the best night of my life. Like, I can't, I don't think I'll ever get back unless she does another tour 

eventually. You

Andy: mentioned that Aphrodite, in your opinion was you know, probably Pete, Kylie. I definitely think she has a stronger times and maybe not so stronger times, but Afro seemed to come at her point in her career where she had this renewed confidence. And for someone who maybe has a reputation for being a bit of a throwaway pop singer, in my opinion, her strongest work is often when she's been involved in the writing of the songs and the production.

Our most recent album, disco.

Quite intense production and writing contributions from her a lot down to the pandemic. But Aphrodite had a lot of input from her in a creative way. And I think that comes out and definitely it had a cohesive flavor and sound [00:23:00] to it. Like someone had, well, Stuart Price, executive producer, the songs are all very different, but there was just enough similarity that you felt like you were listening to a kind of cohesive piece start to finish.

And I think that's probably why it stands a test of time.

Gary: Yeah. And I think, this period in her, her life was when she kind of found,

well,

she was expressing herself the way she really wanted to express herself. And I feel like, like her earlier stuff was amazing. But Aphrodite was just kind of like, it was all her.

It felt like it was all her. Like to me anyway 

Andy: you did write in one interview that part of your daily ritual is to listen to 20 minutes of Kylie Minogue. Almost like some people go for a run, some people do yoga class. Gary listens to 20 minutes of Kylie 

Minogue 

Gary: there was definitely a period of time when I was doing that maybe for about a year.

probably a bit more 

than a

Andy: year 

Gary: I had a reminder on my phone maybe to do with the pandemic. I had a reminder on my phone, recurring calendar reminder, like Kylie [00:24:00] time. Cuz I just wanted to, it actually, it might be, it might have been just pre pandemic and became more of a thing in the pandemic.

Yeah. 

Where I

needed my Kylie dose and cuz I listened to a lot of Kylie when I was riding the boyfriend, the miss as well. I kind of saw it as this thing to get my creativity going. Yeah, I kind of used it as a way to inspire myself. to No, I did not. No. My my hope is that she'll listen to the Queer Stories podcast one day and, and reach out. But yeah, we'll see.

listen to 

this 

or 

Andy: reach out, I think you mean. 

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. That's the thing. I've talked about 

Kylie so much. 

It's impossible. are 

going 

Can't on 

the 

Andy: Gary's mentioned me 

Gary: Yeah. And like every time she does something, I re-share it on my Instagram and it tags her. So eventually she'll get to my message and be like, oh my God, this guy's messaged me for like years. Yeah.

Andy: Yeah. Yeah. That worries me about the celebrities that I do that too [00:25:00]

Gary: Yeah. 

Andy: Gun head, top three. Kylie, go.

Gary: Oh, geez. Your Disco Needs You mm-hmm. By 

get outta my way.

 gonna

say better than how we know. 

Andy: know. Yeah. 

Gary: Yeah. 

Andy: Now, you could have picked Kylie for your artist, but you didn't, you 

picked her for your album. Who did you pick for your artist and why?

Gary: I picked Elton John. I picked Elton John because well, he's, firstly, he is amazing. He's a legend. And whenever I look at Elton John, I see, you know, he always brings this different costume or different, different look, different style.

And, and for me it was always like, look at this gay man express himself and like, like in a stadium full of thousands of people. Yeah. And I [00:26:00] just loved his music and I loved, I loved that way that he was just so, so unapologetically himself. Yeah, I don't know. 

I, in my teenage years, I was only listening to three artists that were Elton John Kagan and Bob Dylan.

My gosh.

And I had to figure out which one I was gonna do for what? Topic. Yeah, they're my Holy Trinity. So yeah, I picked Elton for the artist because one, I had to fit him in there.

But yeah, he was always just kind of lesson on expressing yourself to me. And you know, through his costumes and, you know, going to see him live and, and experiencing him on stage kind of showed me that it was okay to be who I was. And everyone's weird and everyone's bizarre and everyone's got weird things about them that might shock people or, or confuse people.

And yeah, just falling in love with Elton John kind of made me realize that it was okay [00:27:00] to be my whole self and be all the weird parts of myself at the same time. And yeah, his music's just freaking great as well. Love, love all his music. I don't know what my life would be like without it on John.

Wow.

Less colorful. Yeah.

Andy: Do you remember how you first were exposed to him? 

Gary: You 

like, Yeah. 

one 

of the 

earliest

times? I'll, the first memory I have is he's cameo on The Simpsons where he is at the airport and Oos like trying to say all of these different Melton John songs to like, to get him.

And so I definitely remember that being my first exposure to Elton John as a person. When I was in high school, maybe 13, 14 one of my cousins. We're listening to his iPod 

throwback. 

Yeah. While we were waiting for the bus or something. And he played Tiny Dancer and I was like, this song sounds [00:28:00] so familiar.

 And I'm like, who is this? He said, Elton John. And then he played Crocodile Rock and I love Crocodile Rock. Mm-hmm. And then he said, oh, like if you like him I can burn you a CD back when people burn CDs. And I was like, yeah, do it. So he burnt me and it was a bit sad cuz this cousin turned out to be very strange and I don't really talk to him anymore for various 

reasons. 

Andy: okay.

Gary: He burnt me to Elton John Cities, just like all his I, random Elton John songs. And I listened to him and yeah, I just. Yeah, I just loved him. I love, love his talent on the piano. I love the lyrics that he sings. Similar to Bob Dylan, it always feels like he's telling stories in his music yeah.

Like each song has a story. Yeah, I think there's this part of me that loves, that just loves pop and [00:29:00] noise and, and feeling and, and rhythms and a part of me that loves storytelling in music. Elton John's a bit of both. Bob Dylan's the storytelling and Kylie's the Rhythm.

Andy: Yeah. You could go back into his archive and just pick an album, especially from the sixties and seventies and you could probably listen to the whole album start to finish. And there's still songs that I certainly wouldn't have heard before 

Gary: Mm-hmm. to me.

Yeah, 

Andy: that there's this incredible talent who has 50, 60 years of music to explore, even though I, think I know the biggest hits and 

there was a song I kind of had a rediscovering of probably during the pandemic. You know, someone Saved My Life Tonight.

Yeah. I think it's one of my favorites too, 

by far. And it wasn't until recently that I realized what the song is [00:30:00] about. It's a really beautiful song. It is. Yeah. And again, yeah, just like moments like that. So songs that you think, you know, by Alton, but that take on a new meaning when you probably know a little bit more about why they're written in their words. 

Gary: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And it's like like songs I heard when I was a teenager and as an adult I've gone to find out what they were about at, well, at the same time, discovering all this other music that is written. To, yeah. Finding out the, the stories behind them that weren't just my interpretation.

Yeah, it's been really great. Cause everything has a story. 

Andy: And

certainly a complicated character in that we all know his tantrums and tiaras. 

Yeah. 

And he's got a vicious tongue about people that he doesn't like. 

But 

I think 

one of his greatest legacies will actually be how he is known for lifting up younger artists.

Yeah. 

And he probably knows far more about contemporary music as in music that came out in the last six months than I ever will. He seems so on the pulse, he's not young. But really in the, in the music industry and [00:31:00] across the world, definitely here in Australia, especially in the uk and of course the states. Is known for platforming young artists and giving them a crack and giving them a stage. And I think that's really special. The 

Gary: other 

thing 

we've certainly 

Andy: be known for is his Alton John AIDS Foundation, which was founded in 1992, has raised something like $600 million for AIDS research, which if he did nothing else.

That's an incredible legacy to have. Last question on Alton from me is, are you familiar with Song for Guy?

Gary: Yeah, 

yeah,

Yeah. of 

course. 

Andy: too.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. When I first, was listening to that CD that my cousin burnt me that song plays and, and I'm getting like three minutes into the song and I'm like, when's he gonna start 

singing?

Right. 

And then I realized it was just a instrumental. Yeah, the instrumental. And then[00:32:00] yeah, then he sings a little bit, but.

Yeah. In Latin funeral for a friend. He's just so good on the piano. Yeah, he's, yeah. Like he's telling stories with the piano as well, like without the words and it's amazing.

 I actually bought a keyboard at the start of Covid cuz I wanted to, oh,

Andy: you wanted to be on 

Gary: stupid to say I wanted to play like Elton John, but ended up losing all, running outta money and selling the keyboard. Yeah, he's, he's, yeah, he's amazing. 

Andy: Thank you very much. What's next for you, Gary? What are you writing? Or you, you can't tell me, I imagine.

Gary: Well I've actually got a second novel coming up this year.

It's called, we Didn't Think It Through. It's another young adult novel. It's about a 16 year old aboriginal boy named Jamie who, I don't really know how to explain the story yet, but he steals a car with his friends and winds up in juvie. And it's a story about him kind of, you know, learning the consequences of his actions and learning how to navigate [00:33:00] life and how, how to handle or manage his emotions and understand who he is.

But it's also a story about reconnecting with his family and, and you know, a story about Aboriginal families in general. And about connection. Yeah, that's coming out this year and I'm really excited about it. Very much inspired by working with aboriginal youth in, in juvenile justice centers and out of home care as well. Really looking forward to seeing how that one's received. 

Andy: Brilliant.

Is there a queer charity initiative, social media account you'd like to give a shout out to?

Gary: Yeah, I just wanted to quickly shout out Black Rainbow which is, as far as I know, one of only maybe two specifically Aboriginal supporting charities for Aboriginal queer people. Yeah, I just think the work, like the mission is so important that they're doing you know, reducing. Suicide and, and queer ab Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people.

Yeah, [00:34:00] I, I lost a cousin myself who was, who was gay years and years ago to suicide and, and yeah, it's something I feel very passionate about. I do know Damian and a little bit from conversations we've had who's at Black Rainbow, so yes. It's a charity that is working towards something I'm really passionate about and love to give them a shout out and the amazing work that they do.

Andy: Thank you very much, Gary Lansbury, you are queer and thank you very much for your tracks.

Gary: Thank you for having me. This is great. Yeah.

Andy: You can find out more about Gary, his novels, and Black Rainbow in this episode. Show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. Leave a rating or review in your app, or even better tell a friend. This episode was produced, recorded, and edited on Unseeded Gadigal land. By me and Igot. You can email me at [00:35:00] tracksofourqueers at gmail.

com, or follow the podcast at tracksofourqueers on social media. See you next time.