Kia Ora koutou katoa.
I was born into a warzone.
Lost and angry, I was afraid of my own family.
The youngest of four, my Scottish/Australian mother and Maori father were both my ally and my enemy.
Their marriage imploded when I was a baby, but my inheritance was guaranteed; a cycle of family violence spanning generations.
My father only knew how to talk with his fists. This was the first language I learned to speak.
With the gift of wisdom, I can empathise now. Neither of my parents had a childhood I would envy, both suffering unspeakable traumas.
This damage was compounded by mental illness and a lack of educational opportunities, making it almost impossible for my mother and father to deal with me and my own behavioural issues as I grew up.
Rudy-Lee Taurua
Soon, I had graduated to being a “handful” at school (when I was there).
When puberty hit, most young men were learning how to shave. I was introduced to glass pipes and the world of methamphetamines.
In a perfect storm of hormones, drugs, anger and confusion, I tumbled into a decade long, “lets burn this fu**ing world down,” saga which, after the storm settled and all that rage had poured out, I still found myself angry, afraid and lost.
At 23 I thought I’d found the solution when, out of nowhere, I fell in love.
People raised in violence often romanticise the idea of being “saved” by a good woman. But not me, I fell in love with a man.
Is this why I felt out of place? Was the gay “community” the home I’d been longing for?
If only it were that simple.
Queer people are exactly that, just 'people'. We’re imperfect. We’re flawed. We can be jealous, judgemental and exclude others.
After finding myself lost in the queer community, I needed radical change, so I sold everything I owned and headed to the home of my ancestors, Waitangi Aotearoa.
I moved in with an uncle I had never met, diving head-first into my culture.
It was there that the feeling of being “lost” softened. I found the language of my people, our customs and our honour.
I am defined by many things. I am a son. I am a brother. I am a gay man, a proud Maori.
What I experienced there was enough to convince my father to return briefly after more than 40 years to face the demons that plagued his whole life.
But this was only the beginning of my journey to belonging.
Not long after he came to Waitangi Aotearoa, my father returned to Australia to die. I couldn’t let him die alone, so I went back to Adelaide to care for him in his final days.
Watching him pass and making all the decisions a child should never have to make changed me.
Suddenly I wasn’t that angry little boy anymore. I had seen in my father what a lifetime of anger looks like.
After his death, when my siblings and I were clearing out his possessions, I realised how much his anger had robbed him.
He had achieved nothing.
He was a gifted musician that never believed in his dream and let self-doubt stop him from ever asking the question “what if?”
I promised myself I wouldn’t be this man.
Ever since I was a child, despite all the chaos, anger and torment I was raised in, there was always laughter. And I’ve always wanted to be a comedian.
It’s only now, 31 years on this earth after trying and failing at so many things that I’ve found my home.
Home for me is that little dimly lit alleyway smoking a cigarette before a show, or broom cupboard we call a greenroom where I’ve found my people, my home.
I am defined by many things. I am a son. I am a brother. I am a gay man, a proud Maori.
And I am a comedian.
I choose laughter instead of anger.
To quote Harley Breen “not everything is funny but there is funny in everything.”
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutot katoa.
