Otis Carey. Photo: Insight
Once the adrenaline had worn off and Otis had a chance to sit down, he let out a deep sigh and shook his head in exasperation. He’d been through a lot to get this far – the Grafton mission, race hate in Coffs, the brawls to defend his family – and arrived in Sydney hoping to find tolerance and new opportunities for him and his newborn child. But while making his way home from a swim at Bondi a short time ago with his dad, his past came calling again. “They were saying, ‘Otis, ya putrid squirrel (aka hipster) cunt!” he recalls of the crew of local hoods that confronted him on the main street. It was the second time in as many weeks they’d come after him; the first ending with Otis giving one a touch up outside the pub. This time there were a couple more, and they had whacking implements.
“There was nine of them and one had a metal pole and one had homemade nun-chucks. I was like is this really happening?” recalls Otis.
He was being heckled for being a hipster. It’s not the first time he’s been heckled for his appearance. Back in Coffs, he’d copped much of the same, only it was more racist. That he was now copping it from the other end of the judgment spectrum was just plain confusing.
Otis had always known he was different. He was the only black kid in school and during his really early years on the Grafton Mission, he’d seen a whole lot of shit he was pretty sure most kids weren’t having to deal with.
“It was hard to be a young aboriginal kid and ignore all the violence and stuff,” he says, though adds, “I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a lot of love, so it was quite easy to steer clear of that and not get caught up in all that crap.”
His dad, a white man and a famous fisherman from the Coffs area, was a staunch figure of authority in the Carey household who gave Otis little sway for delinquency. On his mother’s side, their close connection to the traditional beliefs of the Gumbayingirr people (Otis’ grandmother had evaded capture by Christian missionaries by hiding in the mangroves of a nearby estuary and his granddad was one of the last initiated members of his tribe) meant he was reminded often what his responsibilities to his heritage were.
“We were raised always being around family and always in a happy environment and raised to be proud of what color your skin is and just to embrace it and to be spiritual,” he says.
Sometimes that meant “listening to the trees.” Other times it meant fly-kicking some goon trying to stand over his little brother. It wasn’t easy finding that line between pride and keeping the peace, and Otis didn’t always succeed. Surfing was always there for him, and on the clean-green-walls of the mid-north coast, he expressed himself fully.
“The beauty with some individuals is they surf to their own formula and express themselves on a wave that feels correct for them when it’s so easy to feel claustrophobic and surf to a criteria. That best sums up Oat’s approach,” says former World Tour surfer and Coffs native, Lee Winkler, who watched Otis develop in his youth.
It was on the beach at Coffs that Otis would meet Travis Grace, a biggish-time fashion photographer from New York who would become a mentor of sorts. Travis urged him to embrace the sense of difference he felt. “He’s just full of comments like, ‘fuck the world but love it; ignore the shit and see the colors kind of thing,'” he says.
It was after meeting Travis that Otis’ interest in offbeat fashion began. “I bought my first pair of girl’s jeans when I was 15 and ripped holes in my knees and skated downtown. I used to get shit for it all the time,” he recalls. It didn’t stop him, and today, with his denim jackets emblazoned with the Koori flag, split-pea pedal pushers, a bushman’s beard and a dozen or so DIY tattoos – ranging from the righteous (the name of his people) to the less righteous (a hand-drawn dick and balls on his left arse cheek), you could say he’s definitely embraced it.
“It did make me feel good because it made people realize that I was different. I think that is so important growing up. You need to feel different and yourself, like an individual,” he says.
His cousins on the mission think his steeze is hilarious. Take a trip to Coffs Harbour today and you’ll find pockets of indigenous groms with steeze every bit as ridiculous as their hero and aboriginal flags on their boards. “I know there is quite a few Koori kids around following me and they write to me on FB every now and then, and I love it,” says Otis.
“It’s so good to know there are young aboriginal kids who look up to me, and I’m so honored to take on that role for them.”
Things are still pretty rough in Coffs. Often, he’ll log on to Facebook and find racist rants in his “friends'” updates, but at least he’s found a way to deal with it. He hopes the groms can follow his lead. “I’d like to think I’m teaching them a different path of having an open mind, to be different and to do things out of the box with a lot of color. And just express yourself in any way possible,” he says.
When the nun-chuck wielding anti-hipster youth came looking for him, it was undoubtedly a test of his creed and he admits the Otis of old began to smolder. “I was ready to go hell for leather. The only thing I could think of was how dare could these fucken cunts treat someone like this in front of their father,” he says. The anger faded quick enough, however, replaced by his new wisdom. “Then I realized they were a bunch of kids, and it’s just something that young kids do when they’re full of ego.” – Jed Smith
