My Reality, by Fosco Antonio

My Reality
Fosco Antonio

As I grew up, I began thinking about history, wondering how the whole thing had happened. Something had been going on for a long time. Yet, I wasn’t there. So where was I? Maybe I had not existed! These questions puzzled me.

My parents sometimes talked about happenings of the twentieth century, events they had lived through. But their story sounded different from the official version, especially when they talked about the war. Their narrative seemed amateurish. I thought my parents didn’t know what they were talking about. Now I know they were right. History is made by amateurs.

The official fable told us what the great men did: the great Adolf, my own much revered Il Duce, Winston, Joseph and the generals. My parents instead spoke from the other end: what had been done to them. Eventually I came to see that that’s the real story – what is done to people. That’s what’s left in the collective psyche, the energy which continues in the aftermath when all the great men are dead. That’s the kitchen table story of history, which I inherited from my parents.

But I wasn’t the only one. We all did. And we were now in the aftermath. Strange things began to happen, moved by an even stranger spirit. There seemed to be no pattern, not at first. Some people began asking questions. Just simple questions. They weren’t about the big things, economics and politics, or religion. It was all about the little things. Like, what does it mean to be a man, or even a woman for that matter. Others asked why ask such questions. Things were alright, the war was over and appliances were on their way. But still the spirit moved.

Some people began to say things should be different from what was before. Just small things. Like for example, between men and women. Others said there was no need to change. Things were okay. But still the air moved.

Intellectual people too were puzzled. Change was definitely needed. They knew history so they knew that. But why at the little end? It took decades to see but the strange spirit was right. The devastation had been so deep that we had to return to the basics. Historians say the engine-force of the gender revolution was that women worked in factories, while the men went off to war, and afterwards the womenfolk didn’t want to return to the kitchen. They must have been middle class, these historians, and never worked in a factory. Whatever their work experience they were wrong. They only understood social theatre.

Back in Christian society we had the gentlemen ethic. Gentlemen were to be chivalrous towards women. On public transport a seated gentleman was to give his seat to a woman. Gentlemen were to open doors for a woman, allowing the lady to pass through first. Men who didn’t do this were dogs. These days only Her Majesty has gentlemen treating her this way. They’re paid.

But some people questioned the gentlemen thing. At first they seemed malcontents, but ultimately they were correct. They went into the psyche of it, where they saw the seed: ‘defenders-abusers of women’ was a duality of the same psychic space: men owed women. But it wasn’t just a question of emotional property, or rather theft. In the psyche it was the genesis of the military myth. This is where the revolution began.

The togetherness of man and woman was to be redefined. A new covenant was needed. The old neurotic Christian one, set by St Paul in Greco-Roman times, was dead. The revolution started here because the communal gender space is the quanta of society. New Age people were to disagree. A cave in Nepal, with the lone meditator chanting the Om, was their quanta. But they were wrong: ultimately our deepest aloneness is found in the intimacy of another.

There was only one option. Move on! Nobody knew how to go about it and ideas don’t grow on trees. So we were left with guesses and experimentation. But somebody did come up with something: do no harm! Actually, they got it from Florence Nightingale. That was the sole compass direction. All else was to be learnt through experimentation. Ultra-feminist radicals said ‘forget it’! The gender space should be no more, we should go our separate ways. The pain was too deep. Women should be with women! And men should be with men, dogs, scorpions or any other loathsome creature we wished. Yes, there was a lot of anger. Completely understandable, after what we had done to them.

Radical separation was a worthy experiment, necessary for some to allow for a period of healing, that time out. And it did lead to a very interesting conclusion. Mono-gender space was found to be as fucked as bi-gender.

Mainstream reconstruction of the communal gender space began with sex. There was no discussion about it, it seemed natural. The species had to continue – only Pentagon and Kremlin generals disagreed. They continued with plans for the mega-annihilation of everybody. What else could the old men do? They were too old to be sixties sexual experimenters. Or maybe they were where the money was.

In the infant days of the revolution I was very young, with no sophisticated understanding. Bogged in the swamp of Catholicism, I saw the whole thing as lost in sin. Yet I did have an opinion: I told everybody that men should learn how to cook. This was a creative insight. I had no idea where it came from. According to me the reconstruction should have started not with sex but with food. Of course, this may have just been my fear of sex, though it didn’t matter anyhow, as nobody took any notice of me. Looking back, they should have! Food is safe and simple. Sex is too political. [...]

John and Yoko’s New York co-habitating was to be the seminal experiment in forging the new gender space. Their togetherness would provide us with the emotional mapping we sought. They were the Adam and Eve of post-Christian society. Although some said it was just a media stunt by two attention-seeking clowns. Naturally, John sexually experimented outside the communal space shared with Yoko, as was his entitlement for being the more charismatic. Yet Yoko organised his women! This is the devil in the detail. John got the sex, but Yoko held the power. She was the interpreter of their communal gender space. And power is with the poet. Strange that Lennon, gifted by the Word, didn’t know this. Benaud did!

A few years after the revolution I was living in a shared household. Yes, even I did that! By then John and Yoko had become social formula, people did it without thinking. But there had been an alteration. Idealism had slipped and looking after the interests of petty self was back on the agenda. Or maybe things had simply returned to normal.

In our household there was also a couple. Most people didn’t want to share with a couple but it didn’t bother me. The place was unstable, anyhow. People came and went after petty feuds. The couple were doing the John and Yoko thing but with variations – they were One when working out their share of bills, but became individuals at household meetings. This didn’t bother me. So long as they kept out of my room – which they did, because of the smell – I was ‘cool’ about it.

Being cool about things was the language they used at the time. Privately, I thought it was a nonsense expression. Even the Sisters at school had more interesting language. I know that I’ve said some vile things about the Sisters, but to be fair they did a good job at teaching me English. As far as household meetings went, I never attended. I knew they bitched about me, I could tell by the vibes. I refused to live communally and I refused to do gardening. That was their issue, though of course, they saw it as my problem.

Communal living was a romantic illusion of people from small Protestant families. It simply doesn’t work. It starts off with great enthusiasm but ends in tears. I knew that because I came from a large family. But despite my attitude I was never asked to leave. They had come to the conclusion that I was an Italian male needing a ‘good Italian girl’, who would then tell me what to do. And they were going to be nice and middle-class about it. But this was nonsense… I was never asked to leave because I had a strategy: I was the household’s least disliked person. As for gardening, that was total nonsense. We were living in inner-Melbourne, there was no backyard. The vegetable patch was a few buckets of dirt. And these pathetic gardeners? Oh, God. I had seen my parents do the real thing. To take seriously this middle-class children’s playtime would have been an offence to the food preparation skills of my ancestors.

I became friends with the male partner. Sometimes, late at night, we would drink wine together and talk philosophy. It’s strange that you can meet a couple, like one and loathe the other – and wonder how they could possibly like each other. Well, that’s what happened with me. I thought the woman was a bitch. Egotistical, I’m sure she had her own room as a child and was given chocolate on demand. Of course I said nothing, kept my thoughts to myself, was two-faced and a hypocrite. Hypocrisy doesn’t bother me at all: it has prevented at least as many wars as has been caused by truth. Sometimes she would make these snippy little remarks about my sexuality, his sexuality, and why we drank wine together late at night. I said nothing. Maybe she was feeling insecure. Her insecurity was just egoism. She was having a secret affair.

‘Secret’ needs to be defined: everybody knew except him. I didn’t know, but it was none of my business. But matters got more complicated. I was set up: through third parties and in strict confidence I was told of the ‘secret’ affair… the bitch had put me in the shits. I had to tell him. He had the right to know. How could I sit there, talk about abstract philosophy, yet withhold information on the most important happening in his emotional life at that moment?

But life isn’t simple. If I did tell him I would be betraying ‘strict confidence’; if I didn’t tell him I would be betraying him. You can see how she had me! If I acted on principle and told him, the household would explode. Everybody’s feelings would be hurt. And it would all be my fault. Yes, she had got me in every direction...

£6.00
212pp, 22 x 15 cm
ISBN: 0 9757380 2 x

(Can I pay by cheque?)
(Where can I see it in shops?)

	^ Click on cover to see bigger version	My Reality Fosco Antonio As I grew up, I began thinking about history, wondering how the whole thing had happened. Something had been going on for a long time. Yet, I wasn’t there. So where was I? Maybe I had not existed! These questions puzzled me. My parents sometimes talked about happenings of the twentieth century, events they had lived through. But their story sounded different from the official version, especially when they talked about the war. Their narrative seemed amateurish. I thought my parents didn’t know what they were talking about. Now I know they were right. History is made by amateurs. The official fable told us what the great men did: the great Adolf, my own much revered Il Duce, Winston, Joseph and the generals. My parents instead spoke from the other end: what had been done to them. Eventually I came to see that that’s the real story – what is done to people. That’s what’s left in the collective psyche, the energy which continues in the aftermath when all the great men are dead. That’s the kitchen table story of history, which I inherited from my parents. But I wasn’t the only one. We all did. And we were now in the aftermath. Strange things began to happen, moved by an even stranger spirit. There seemed to be no pattern, not at first. Some people began asking questions. Just simple questions. They weren’t about the big things, economics and politics, or religion. It was all about the little things. Like, what does it mean to be a man, or even a woman for that matter. Others asked why ask such questions. Things were alright, the war was over and appliances were on their way. But still the spirit moved. Some people began to say things should be different from what was before. Just small things. Like for example, between men and women. Others said there was no need to change. Things were okay. But still the air moved. Intellectual people too were puzzled. Change was definitely needed. They knew history so they knew that. But why at the little end? It took decades to see but the strange spirit was right. The devastation had been so deep that we had to return to the basics. Historians say the engine-force of the gender revolution was that women worked in factories, while the men went off to war, and afterwards the womenfolk didn’t want to return to the kitchen. They must have been middle class, these historians, and never worked in a factory. Whatever their work experience they were wrong. They only understood social theatre. Back in Christian society we had the gentlemen ethic. Gentlemen were to be chivalrous towards women. On public transport a seated gentleman was to give his seat to a woman. Gentlemen were to open doors for a woman, allowing the lady to pass through first. Men who didn’t do this were dogs. These days only Her Majesty has gentlemen treating her this way. They’re paid. But some people questioned the gentlemen thing. At first they seemed malcontents, but ultimately they were correct. They went into the psyche of it, where they saw the seed: ‘defenders-abusers of women’ was a duality of the same psychic space: men owed women. But it wasn’t just a question of emotional property, or rather theft. In the psyche it was the genesis of the military myth. This is where the revolution began. The togetherness of man and woman was to be redefined. A new covenant was needed. The old neurotic Christian one, set by St Paul in Greco-Roman times, was dead. The revolution started here because the communal gender space is the quanta of society. New Age people were to disagree. A cave in Nepal, with the lone meditator chanting the Om, was their quanta. But they were wrong: ultimately our deepest aloneness is found in the intimacy of another. There was only one option. Move on! Nobody knew how to go about it and ideas don’t grow on trees. So we were left with guesses and experimentation. But somebody did come up with something: do no harm! Actually, they got it from Florence Nightingale. That was the sole compass direction. All else was to be learnt through experimentation. Ultra-feminist radicals said ‘forget it’! The gender space should be no more, we should go our separate ways. The pain was too deep. Women should be with women! And men should be with men, dogs, scorpions or any other loathsome creature we wished. Yes, there was a lot of anger. Completely understandable, after what we had done to them. Radical separation was a worthy experiment, necessary for some to allow for a period of healing, that time out. And it did lead to a very interesting conclusion. Mono-gender space was found to be as fucked as bi-gender. Mainstream reconstruction of the communal gender space began with sex. There was no discussion about it, it seemed natural. The species had to continue – only Pentagon and Kremlin generals disagreed. They continued with plans for the mega-annihilation of everybody. What else could the old men do? They were too old to be sixties sexual experimenters. Or maybe they were where the money was. In the infant days of the revolution I was very young, with no sophisticated understanding. Bogged in the swamp of Catholicism, I saw the whole thing as lost in sin. Yet I did have an opinion: I told everybody that men should learn how to cook. This was a creative insight. I had no idea where it came from. According to me the reconstruction should have started not with sex but with food. Of course, this may have just been my fear of sex, though it didn’t matter anyhow, as nobody took any notice of me. Looking back, they should have! Food is safe and simple. Sex is too political. [...] John and Yoko’s New York co-habitating was to be the seminal experiment in forging the new gender space. Their togetherness would provide us with the emotional mapping we sought. They were the Adam and Eve of post-Christian society. Although some said it was just a media stunt by two attention-seeking clowns. Naturally, John sexually experimented outside the communal space shared with Yoko, as was his entitlement for being the more charismatic. Yet Yoko organised his women! This is the devil in the detail. John got the sex, but Yoko held the power. She was the interpreter of their communal gender space. And power is with the poet. Strange that Lennon, gifted by the Word, didn’t know this. Benaud did! A few years after the revolution I was living in a shared household. Yes, even I did that! By then John and Yoko had become social formula, people did it without thinking. But there had been an alteration. Idealism had slipped and looking after the interests of petty self was back on the agenda. Or maybe things had simply returned to normal. In our household there was also a couple. Most people didn’t want to share with a couple but it didn’t bother me. The place was unstable, anyhow. People came and went after petty feuds. The couple were doing the John and Yoko thing but with variations – they were One when working out their share of bills, but became individuals at household meetings. This didn’t bother me. So long as they kept out of my room – which they did, because of the smell – I was ‘cool’ about it. Being cool about things was the language they used at the time. Privately, I thought it was a nonsense expression. Even the Sisters at school had more interesting language. I know that I’ve said some vile things about the Sisters, but to be fair they did a good job at teaching me English. As far as household meetings went, I never attended. I knew they bitched about me, I could tell by the vibes. I refused to live communally and I refused to do gardening. That was their issue, though of course, they saw it as my problem. Communal living was a romantic illusion of people from small Protestant families. It simply doesn’t work. It starts off with great enthusiasm but ends in tears. I knew that because I came from a large family. But despite my attitude I was never asked to leave. They had come to the conclusion that I was an Italian male needing a ‘good Italian girl’, who would then tell me what to do. And they were going to be nice and middle-class about it. But this was nonsense… I was never asked to leave because I had a strategy: I was the household’s least disliked person. As for gardening, that was total nonsense. We were living in inner-Melbourne, there was no backyard. The vegetable patch was a few buckets of dirt. And these pathetic gardeners? Oh, God. I had seen my parents do the real thing. To take seriously this middle-class children’s playtime would have been an offence to the food preparation skills of my ancestors. I became friends with the male partner. Sometimes, late at night, we would drink wine together and talk philosophy. It’s strange that you can meet a couple, like one and loathe the other – and wonder how they could possibly like each other. Well, that’s what happened with me. I thought the woman was a bitch. Egotistical, I’m sure she had her own room as a child and was given chocolate on demand. Of course I said nothing, kept my thoughts to myself, was two-faced and a hypocrite. Hypocrisy doesn’t bother me at all: it has prevented at least as many wars as has been caused by truth. Sometimes she would make these snippy little remarks about my sexuality, his sexuality, and why we drank wine together late at night. I said nothing. Maybe she was feeling insecure. Her insecurity was just egoism. She was having a secret affair. ‘Secret’ needs to be defined: everybody knew except him. I didn’t know, but it was none of my business. But matters got more complicated. I was set up: through third parties and in strict confidence I was told of the ‘secret’ affair… the bitch had put me in the shits. I had to tell him. He had the right to know. How could I sit there, talk about abstract philosophy, yet withhold information on the most important happening in his emotional life at that moment? But life isn’t simple. If I did tell him I would be betraying ‘strict confidence’; if I didn’t tell him I would be betraying him. You can see how she had me! If I acted on principle and told him, the household would explode. Everybody’s feelings would be hurt. And it would all be my fault. Yes, she had got me in every direction... © Fosco Antonio £6.00 212pp, 22 x 15 cm ISBN: 0 9757380 2 x (Can I pay by cheque?) (Where can I see it in shops?)
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