Paul Kidd is a forty-something-year-old writer/journalist/activist/iconoclast, a survivor of HIV and Irish Catholicism, an unreconstructed socialist, environmentalist, pacifist, outspoken queer resident of Australia. He is interested in progressive politics, appropriate technology, art and literature, critical social theory, altered states of consciousness, spirituality, sustainable living, slow food, golf and masturbation. He lives in rural Victoria with his strikingly handsome and devilishly clever husband, Brent Allan, occasionally joined by their similarly handsome boyfriend Nathan, and two Labrador retrievers, Jasper and Balthasar.
And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.
— Robert Frost
Who am I?
- I am not like other boys. I think I knew this from the earliest part of my life, and you probably realise that too, otherwise you wouldn’t be lingering here. I am not the most interesting person, nor is my story entirely unique. But I believe it has meaning, that I am growing in wisdom and it is my pleasure to share that with you.
- I am lucky – extraordinarily lucky. After more than four decades spent circling the sun, I am deeply conscious of the good fortune that has befallen me. My life, complicated by illness, is by no means straightforward, and I suppose I could probably view my situation through the prism of grief and regret if I chose, but I don’t. Life is good.
- I have notalways been this person, exactly. For much of my life I much was less self-aware, less self-assured (and less self-obsessed) than I am today. From there to here has been a journey, at times difficult but always instructive.
- I have faith (but I’m not religious), courage (but I’m not brave), love (but I’m not perfect), brains (but I’ve made some really stupid mistakes).
What do I love?
- I love my man, my boy, my boys and my mates.
- I love knowledge, beauty, truth and love.
- I love paperbark trees, ginger, skinny redheaded boys, platypuses, thunderstorms, frangipani, spiders, the ocean, cryptic crosswords, goat cheese, Robert Frost, Judith Wright, WH Auden, TS Eliot, Noam Chomsky, Tim Flannery, Terrence McKenna, Mark Simpson, Chuck Palahniuk, Tori Amos, Jane Siberry, Andrea Bocelli, Chumbawamba, Elvis Costello, Mark Rothko, Vincent Van Gogh, Attila Richard Lukacs, sex, beetroot on my hamburger, sushi, the radio, bitter chocolate, dark beer, eucalypts, wattles, cacti, the planet, sticky date pudding, sandalwood, vetiver, my ex-boyfriends, words, books, bookshops, the internet, libraries, Newtown, Melbourne, San Francisco, Paris, Telç‹, Chicago, Sandon, music, dancing, the Dome, straw bale houses, rain, cold winter mornings, hot summer nights …
Iris the Virus
She has been my constant companion for more than twenty-five years, my arch-nemisis and my special girlfriend. She’s a bitch but I respect her.
My life story (long version)
Probably of little or no interest to anyone but me, but here it is anyhow. Read how a small, chubby, self-absorbed little boy grew into the paragon of fabulousness we all know and admire today. But be warned: I grew up in the 1970s, and that means I’ve seen some funky shit.