I wasn't ready to stop!

Hello, my name is Lajos (it's Hungarian for Louis). I'm an Aries born in the year of the Horse (I'm a fire horse indeed!) and I'll let you get your abacus out to try and figure out when I was born. I was born in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory at the Royal Canberra Hospital ... a building that was meant to be imploded but actually ended up killing some poor girl standing on the other side of the lake when it all went boom!

I haven't always done the creative thing. In fact I would describe it more as a slow dawning ... And I thought it might be interesting to give you that potted history.

The main activity of my schooling years, apart from learning, was sport. I played Australian Rules football mostly. I started in the Under 6s and 7s playing for my primary school - Sts Peter & Paul. I didn't play footy for a couple of years after that until I gave Rugby League a go in the under 10s or 11s for a team called the Woden Valley Rams. This would later turn out to be interesting in that the team did a trip down to Wollongong that year (1975?) to play a local team called the Corrimal Cougars which was my first trip to Wollongong - the place I now call home.

I played Soccer for my new school, Marist Primary, and then spent quite a few years dabbling in Hockey, Rugby League and Aussie Rules. I eventually settled into a steady diet of Aussie Rules on Saturdays, Rugby League on Sundays and Cricket over the Summer - with other sports peppered in as time and fitness allowed (mostly Hockey). I played one year of Rugby Union when I didn't want to make the leap from Under 15s to Under 17s in the Aussie Rules and got to try out for the ACT team that year. In fact that year I played Union on Saturdays, League on Sundays and I also worked on a milk run 3 nights a week ... I was a pretty fit dude for a big guy! I ran the 10km Canberra Times fun run in 42 minutes that year. In 1983, as captain of Marist College's 2nd XVIII, I won a scholarship for playing Aussie Rules! In a Rugby school!!

I went on to play senior Australian Rules for 2 more years after school and some Rugby Union along the way before spending my last 3 years of competitive sport playing Field Hockey and Cricket.

The only artistic passion I can own during most of that time was music. There were two sources for that. One was my Mum who loved appreciating music. I remember seeing her singing her heart out along with Donna Summer's I Feel Love. My Mum couldn't sing very well but she didn't leave an ounce of passion in the shed when she did sing and I got that! The second inspiration were my neighbours - Pianist, Flamenco Guitarist, Drummer, Rhythm Guitarist there weren't many days in my childhood when I couldn't here one member of the family practicing or just playing. But I only appreciated for the longest time.

My Mum had suggested that I might like to try some Jazz Ballet when I was younger but I'm sure sport was probably considered the right thing to do and I had been on my school team for the Eisteddfod to do a miming performance piece but I never made it.

I had had some unofficial music (drum & guitar) lessons with my neighbours but we couldn't afford to pay and other things always seemed to get in the way - footy! Rah rah rah! But in 1984 I had my first guitar lessons and learnt how to play Home on the Range. In 1985 I joined my first legit band, Sons of Lovers, I played the Bass guitar and I eventually bought my own Guitars - a Washburn Accoustic and a Yamaha Bass guitar which I still have and love playing.

In 1988/89 I got my first taste of musical theatre when I was in the orchestra, as Bass guitarist, for two locally written rock musicals - Spaceship and Tommy's Angel which I did with friend George Huitker and his group called Ghosts Youth Theatre (google him - he's an interesting guy). And then I became a Busker!! It's an amazing thing with way too many crazy stories but it's raw performance, honest, and the way I chose to do it very solitary.

Before I left Canberra in 1992, I had been playing with my then band In Tibet (after the Tintin comic) for about two years. I was the guitarist and singer; we had a drummer who used to travel with kit in his Mini , but it was our amazingly talented and constantly disappearing Bass player Tim that made things very difficult. And so I left Canberra to chase my creative muse as I planned to get into the Creative Writing and Acting courses at Wollongong Uni.

That didn't eventuate, but whilst doing my Arts degree I managed to work with most of the local community theatre groups - Stanwell Park Arts Theatre, Arcadians, Workshop Theatre, Roo Theatre and even did some stuff at the Uni as I was doing the writing courses as part of my Arts degree. During that time I was also performing with the Folk-Rock group A Far Cry as a guitarist/bassist/drummer/singer.

But, the major turning point for me was when I joined a group of disaffected writers from the University as we pursued our own theatrical outlet in the Blue Cow Children's Theatre. For 2 years we wrote, rehearsed and performed a new piece of children's theatre every 2 - 3 months. We even managed to do an adult night of plays and were in rehearsal for more when the group disbanded. It was not long after this that the driving force behind the Blue Cow Children's Theatre and my acting mentor Les Shaw passed away (a fortnight after my sister).

From the ashes of the Blue Cow came Gobsmacked. Bertie McMahon and I had been in the Blue Cow together and were also members of A Far Cry. We decided to write some songs and see what we could do in the children's theatre vein. Bertie and I have been doing Gobsmacked for just over 10 years now. We've toured from Byron Bay to Geelong and many stops in between. We're regulars at The National Folk Festival in Canberra and the Illawarra Folk Festival in Bulli. And to our credit we were rejected for accreditation by the NSW Education Department for being too entertaining! It's true!!

I have also toured a one man theatre piece, A Stretch of The Imagination, by Australian playwright Jack Hibberd and of recent years have been doing much work in Community Development Theatre with the Illawarra Legal Centre, Illawarra Migrant Services and Wollongong College of TAFE.

Wow ... looking back on this is some list and it's by no means a complete list. I might have to indulge in some life writing to flesh out some of the juicier details. I have directed many shows and acted in many more, I still play music regularly and have branched into filmmaking and podcasting. I have taught film theory at Uni. Each step of the journey seems to open up an opportunity here and there and most importantly allows me to keep learning. I don't believe you can ever perfect creative skills - they must always be in a state of kaizen - constant slow change, step by step, with each performance and life experience adding colour and depth to the canvas of life.

Woah! That was a deep ending ... On that note I'll say goodnight.