When I was in my first year of high school, Hey! Hey! It’s Saturday used to play the video clips of the latest hits. I was upset that a weird, classical sounding song had knocked ‘Mickey’ off the number one position. The song was ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’, 12 years before it opened the movie Priscilla.
When I wrote The Naughty Play (the hit of the Perth 2002 Gay and Lesbian Pride theatre season), I had the lead character Tommy describe ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’ as a prophecy about the Olympic Games.
Think about it. Where has Charlene been?
- Georgia. The 1996 games were held in Atlanta, Georgia.
- California. The 1984 games were held in Los Angeles, California. Hang on, that’s not a prophecy, because when the song got to number one in 1982, everyone knew that’s where the games were going to be. But wait – ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’ was actually written and first released in the seventies.
- Anywhere she can run. Olympic stadia.
- The Isle of Greece. The 2004 games were held in Athens, Greece.
She was undressed by Kings. Billie Jean King appeared to be happily married in the seventies, but was having secret lesbian affairs and went on to coach the US women’s tennis teams at the 1996 and 2000 games.
She saw some things ‘that a woman ain’t s’posed to see’. Women weren’t allowed to watch the Ancient Olympics.
Charlene concludes that although she’s ‘never been to me’, she has been to Paradise. And so have I: Paradise Harbor, Antarctica, at the small Argentine base of Almirante (Admiral) Brown.
It was where I kissed the mainland with tongue.
