70s 80s Disco
George Harrison,
The Carpenters,
Tina Charles,
The Triffids,
The Go-Betweens,
The Sunnyboys,
A-HA
Movies
Save The Tiger
The Swimmer
Cutter's Way
Midnight Cowboy
Hud
The Exorcist
Badlands
In Cold Blood
Charly
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Wake in Fright
Walkabout
Love Letters From Teralba Road
Books
The Communist Manifesto
The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson
Tender is the Night
The Great Gatsby
Sons and Lovers
Ulysses
Time Remembered
The Magic Mountain
The Catcher in the Rye
Heroes
Rock Hudson
Tab Hunter
Dirk Bogarde
Elvis Presley
Kirk Douglas
Karen Carpenter
Bobby Kennedy
Gough Whitlam
Don Dunstan
Harvey Milk
Neville Wran
Ted Bundy
Vladimir Lenin
Leon Trotsky
Fidel Castro
About me: Michael was born on the morning after a Federal Election in October 1969. That night was immortalised in the David Williamson play and later film "Don's Party". It was an election the Australian Labor Party narrowly lost after twenty years in the political wilderness. Michael is eternally grateful John Gorton and the Liberals won that election because he has been reliably informed that had Labor won that election he would have been named "Gough" after Labor leader Gough Whitlam.
Michael's family moved to the Northern Beaches in 1972 because Michael's father liked the attractive, open style of play of the local Rugby League team the Manly-Warringah Sea-Eagles.
1972 was a very good year. Manly-Warringah won the first grade Rugby League premiership for the very first time and at the end of that year Gough Whitlam and the Australian Labor Party won national elections and formed government for the first time since 1949.
Michael describes the formative influences of his childhood as being the Catholic Church, the Australian Labor Party and the Manly-Warringah Sea-Eagles. The Whitlam Labor Government was dismissed from office in November 1975 and suffered one of its heaviest defeats a month later. The Manly-Warringah Sea-Eagles enjoyed better fortune, adding two further premierships in 1976 and 1978. One of Michael's most cherished memories from childhood is of following Manly through the 1978 play-off series.
At the age of 11 Michael decided that he was a Communist as you do, and remembers arguing with relatives and teachers in favour of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. At the end of his schooling, Michael took advantage of an opportunity to study in the former Soviet Union. It was an exciting time to be in the Soviet Union because the reforms of glasnost and perestroika initiated by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev were well under way.
Michael remembers that initially, Gorbachev's reforms held out tremendous promise, there was a belief that the Soviet Union might evolve into a truly democratic and humane socialist society that would be a genuine alternative to capitalism. In reality the Communist system was on the verge of collapse.
Michael was in Moscow the day of the coup which ultimately culminated in the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Communist ideology which had sustained it for over 70 years. These events did not shake Michael's faith in Socialism. He has since spent a year teaching English in Cuba and is one of a few Australians to visit North Korea.
Upon returning to Australia Michael attended Macquarie University and developed an interest in acting. Between 1994 and 1996 he studied acting in Los Angeles and New York.
Michael endured 12 years of Catholic schooling including another two years at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney.
Michael is a regular contributor to the GreenLeftDiscussionList, Leftwrites and the World Socialist Website.
Michael is a trained teacher and currently works with children with physical and intellectual disability.
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