I’m going to start this by saying that I generally hate
writing a biography for myself. I’m only
doing it now because I was asked to write something about myself for a project
I’m working on. The reason I hate it is
because the fundamental problem with writing a bio for yourself is you
either end up writing in the first-person and sounding like what the Italians
would call a ‘baggadouche’ or you have to write in the third-person and it just seems like you’ve enlisted the services of an imaginary friend most people
should stop listening to the voice of during child therapy sessions their
terrified parents make them attend. Or
best case scenario, despite your use of the third-person approach, everyone reading it
knows you wrote it yourself and you just look stupid, like you sent yourself a
Valentine’s Day card from “A Secret Admirer”.
Ideally the way I (or anyone for that matter) would want my
bio to come about is for it to actually be written by someone influential who’s met
me, just to give it a bit more credibility.
However, Novak Djokovic isn’t replying to my emails and apparently
Jennifer Hawkins doesn’t have phone signal in Myer, so here we are. That’s why I’ve decided to do something a
little different. I’ve done brief re-cap
of my life so far, with dot points of the important bits... but I’ve done it in
three parts because it seems more digestible that way and, well… let’s face it, we friggin’ love trilogies. That being
said, I plan to live at least another 30 years so this could turn into a
‘Rocky’/’Police Academy’ scenario in years to come. Nevertheless, have a read, have a laugh and
checkout some of my “greatest hits” (that you may never have heard) from the
80s, 90s and today!
1986
- Born in Baxter House, Geelong Hospital on June
29th at some time in the early hours of the morning. The entire experience must have been awfully
traumatic and difficult because I’ve blocked all memory of it out of my head.
- Photos later confirm that I in fact ‘came out’
butt-first, thus the reason in photos soon after, my rear looks like the face
of an intensely sunburnt cyclops.
- Meet my Mum, Dad, Grandma and other family…
enjoy their company so much, I continue to live with them for a number of
years.
 |
| Already getting centrefold poses organised. Incidentally, this image would appear in the Geelong Advertiser as an 18th birthday greeting from my parents. True story. |
1989
- Enter ‘Bay City Plaza Geelong’ and upon being
asked by an MC hosting a performance event, “What do you want to be when you
grow-up?”, in front of 500 parents and children I proudly proclaim, “I want to
be the first frog in space!”
- We move out of our unit in Bell Park and into a
new house in Highton. Fortunately, due
to my still tiny frame, I am excused from assisting with the moving process.
- My sister is born – I mostly quietly but
occasionally vocally, object to the introduction of a new housemate without my
authority.
- My godmother buys me my first ‘outfit’ – a crisp white
sailor suit, with navy embroidery, shoulder cuffs and gold trim on the
sleeves. A sailor’s hat and navy sandals
are also included. Only years later will
I realise just how cute I really am at this moment.
 |
| You may need to adjust your screens to deal with all this cuteness. |
1990
- I Begin Sub-Prep at St. Andrew’s Primary School in
Newtown, Geelong. Play ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ with
twins, Evan and James McDonald at recess on my first day. We become best friends.
- Develop a deep affinity for eating ‘Play-doh’
and ‘Klag’. Hence the reason I start
referring to ‘art time’ as ‘tea time’.
- Like the rest of the boys, and some of the
girls, I have a bowl cut hairstyle. It
seems like an incredibly easy time to be a hairdresser.
 |
| Bowl cut on point and some pics with the twins throughout primary school. |
- Continue to fight the urge to suck my thumb when
I sleep. Parents buy me a product called
‘Ban-suck’, which is rubbed on the thumb and causes burning when put in the
mouth. I continue to suck my thumb and
become accustomed to the pain. This is
possibly the first documented example of the term ‘thug life’.
- I learn that we are not all on the same ‘toilet
clock’. I realise that none of my other
‘non-ethnic’ classmates have to go to the toilet as often as me… I'm 4-years old and it is my first
encounter with the phrase “when in Rome”.
1 hour later, I poo my pants. Mum
picks me up and drives me home, while I lay face down in the back seat of the
car, apologising profusely.
 |
| "Shout-out to all the people out there who ain't grow-up to be suckas just because they was little thumb-suckas" - Anonymous rapper. |
1992
- Perform my first creative piece at ‘Show &
Tell’; a collection of poems and humorous song covers including a rendition of
Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’, which includes the lyrics “I’m too sexy for
my shirt, too sexy for my shirt…. that’s why I wear a jumper.”
- Give mum a letter to send, with illustrations
and stickers, to ‘Agro’s Cartoon Connection’.
She promises she will give it to her “good friend” and host of the show
Anne-Maree Biggar. I win no toys… I meet
no puppet. Years later, I learn that my
mother never sent the letter. Nor does she, nor did she ever, know Miss Biggar.
- During a visit to the Geelong Show, mum and dad
tell me that this is ‘Disneyland’. The
first true test of my limitless imagination.
 |
| Post-'Show & Tell' class photo: This is what bad-asses look like in the private primary school system. |
1993
- I get lost at Canberra Serbian Festival while
waiting for mum and sister to come out of the toilets. I assume that after 15 minutes they must have
come out without me seeing them so I go walking to find them. I am sad, until a nice lady with a floral
dress helps me find my “mama”. My mum
finds me and she is happy. Then she
smacks me for walking off alone. I am
sad again.
- Realise I have a knack for maths timetables
after winning several timetable competitions in class. It begins a long run of amusing but mostly
useless skills.
- Have first artistic tantrum when my first
published piece of work, (a poem called ‘The Follow Dog’) is printed in the
school year book, in the bottom corner of the page. I protest that it should be centre-top.
- Dad lets me get my hair cut ‘number one’ all over. My mum blames him for years that this is the reason my hair is no longer straight… or blonde. The bowl cut soon makes a return.
 |
| The shaved head look slowly growing through on a trip to Fiji. Don't know whether to address the fact that my head looks like an egg with three-day growth or that I would've made an awesome addition to the 'Lion King' Broadway show. |
1994
- For two months, I’m convinced that ‘finger’ is
in fact pronounced ‘thinger’ and proceed to inform and gradually convince my
Grade 3 class of this fact.
- Mum enrols me in gymnastics for coordination
purposes. It seems I am walking into too
many walls and injuring myself a great deal, and in a variety of ways –
possibly due to my head, which at present, is still too large for my body. She buys me a pair of pink and black spandex
shorts for the activity. I comment that she
needs help with her colour-coordination.
- Start playing basketball with the Knicks at
Geelong’s ‘Life Be In It Centre’. In my
first season I sprain my ankle and dislocate my little finger. For the remainder of my life, this will leave
me almost completely unable to perform an adequate ‘pinky promise’.
- Start learning to play guitar; mostly Elvis
songs, which I proceed to play at every opportunity for my classmates,
particularly at ‘Show & Tell’.
Unrequested/unwanted encore performances become a trademark.
- Come runner-up in a school camp ‘talent’
competition by performing an impersonation of Elvis as an elderly woman, along
with my Indian friend Sujain. This,
coupled with my ‘Elvis guitar serenades’, lead to me having the nickname
‘Elvis’ for the remainder of primary school.
 |
| Girls love a guitarist... except when his guitar has Disney stickers on it and he wears his grandma's vest while playing it. |
1995
- Buy first ever CDs (all singles); ‘Spice Girls –
Wannabe’, ‘Los Del Rio – Macarena’, and ‘Seal – Kiss From a Rose’. The last of which, I’m ashamed to say, I will
go on to request at OzSkate Rollerblading Centre, during a weekend visit. I also get my mum to write on each CD cover
‘Stefan Popovic’ so that (unfortunately) there’s no doubt whatsoever about who they belong too.
- Start learning Taekwondo. My training includes 2 hours of martial arts
training each week, as well as renting every Bruce Lee movie ever made.
 |
| When you really want to be Bruce Lee, but instead you're the only kid who forgot his Taekwondo uniform for the photo day. |
1996
- Go on a world trip with parents and sister for
two and a half months. See the real Disneyland. Dad
tries to joke that this is the ‘Geelong Show’.
- Perform in my first school play. There isn’t enough room left in the cast for
the main production, so I am left to perform in a separate play to the rest of
the class, with the nose-picking, asthmatic British kid, Johnny Joseph. He plays a giraffe and I’m dressed-up as a
bear.
- Later that year, I perform in another class play
about ‘Waltzing Maltida’. I play the
‘Coolabah Tree’, due to my freakishly tall frame. It literally involves me just standing with
one arm outstretched over the rest of the cast holding an empty box of ‘Coolabah’
cask wine… in school uniform.
- Soon after, St Andrew’s Primary School closes
down.
 |
| Disneyland. Some have gone so far as to refer to it as "the 'Geelong Show' of the northern hemisphere". |
1997
- Finish Primary Schooling, and begin Secondary
schooling, at Kardinia
International College. I bring the bowl cut with me.
- I keep playing basketball, and after playing and
training 4 times a week, combined with watching ‘NBA Action’ and ‘NBL
Highlights’ every Saturday morning, I am convinced I will be the next Michael
Jordan… only more pale.
 |
| I only realise now that we had essentially the same hairstyle, except my sister's was 'salad bowl' while mine was still at the 'soup bowl' stage. |
1998
- I audition for ‘Hey Hey It’s Saturday’ in the
same room that the Keno lotto draw is filmed.
The routine consists entirely of me impersonating Scottish, American,
Indian and English people. I don’t make
it onto ‘Red Faces’ and the show is cancelled soon after. I begin to notice a trend with the effect my
performances have on the fate of the venues at which I am performing them.
- Decide to stop wearing Speedos, just in time for
my first end-of-semester beach trip. Am
happy that certain things have been left to the imagination, out of sight and
out of mind.
- Learn how to make highly realistic fart sounds
with my hands, providing my classmates with endless amusement during excursions
and class movies in the auditorium. I
also become the bane of my teachers’ existence.
1999
- I go to Japan for one month on study
exchange. My Japanese improves
significantly while living with my host family and going to a Japanese school,
but I seem to get more out of walking around the city kicking buildings whilst
shouting, “Aaargh GODZILLA!”
- Start to get the reputation as the ‘class
clown’. Girls think I’m hilarious, but
just want to be my friends. Begin to
feel like puberty has been wasted on me.
 |
| Japan trip 1999: No knives and forks, no shoes, no problem. |
The End of Part One.
