About Burnside

Ok, I get the sense people are way more interested in that than my uni experiences. First up: no, it wasn't like Glee or Fame. Uni was sort-of like Whiplash, though. - From the outside, Umar said it had a military vibe, and I think that's fairly on the money: we rehearsed constantly, to the point that most kids bunked off class to rehearse for concert band/orchestra/choir (or used that as an excuse to bunk). - As for Mr Stevenson: I thought he was a great teacher, and he was really supportive of me (though he didn't have much time for my twin bro). Amazing musician - I remember one day he busted out Messiaen and played it as flawlessly as he played stride piano. I knew he was gay; Mum told me - said he was involved with Michael Houston .. dunno if that's true or not. 🤣 - The music department was very pro-gay, which is why they taught us Gareth and Tchaikovsky. Whether the kids were out... not really - I can't remember any out gay kids when I was there. Christchurch was a very conservative place, and Ilam was a key National electorate (Key even went to Burnside). I certainly didn't feel like I could have cross-dressed at school, though perhaps in 2023 I could have. - For Wellington: I don't care about 'tolerance' from the NZSM - I'm simply not interested in an academic career. Those years of being treated as an unwanted nuisance have made me far keener to put them to the sword to justify their practice, as I've been forced to do for smoking pot. Seriously: trying to buy me off isn't going to work. I want real answers about the funding structures. If my rants affected the school's reputation, that's because they were largely facts, but honestly the Jack Body affair probably did the real damage. That was Nick Tipping calling them out, so perhaps that's why RNZ hired me: for bringing some light to the kink side of my world. That was well worth doing, and it's not my fault that kink is highly stigmatised in society - that's society's fault. My guess is that a lot of people felt similar emotions, which is why I'm not in jail. 😈