Autism rocks!

[Guest guest]

The Age [Australia]

By Sacha Molitorisz.

FOR many, the prospect of appearing on national TV brings on butterflies

and sweaty palms. For Mark Boerebach, it's worse. When he stepped

through the doors of Melbourne's Espy to audition for RocKwiz, the

anxiety nearly sent him running.

"Mark has only ever been to one pub in his life," says filmmaker and

musician Kilbey. "He hates noise and clatter and if he doesn't

like the music he can't bear to be in the room."

Boerebach has Asperger's syndrome, a condition related to autism. Those

with Asperger's often find it difficult to interact socially. They may

also experience symptoms of sensory overload.

"If you and your friends walk into a room and there are lots of lighting

and colours, that's no big deal," says the 39-year-old Boerebach. "But

for someone with Asperger's it can be a really horrible experience."

So what made Boerebach, who was born blind but now has some vision after

surgery, try out for one of TV's noisiest shows? For a musical quiz

recorded in a pub with a rock band and a yelping audience?

"Give me a date and I can give you the top five," Boerebach laughs. "I'm

talking about the Australian charts from 1979 to 1992. That just came

from watching Countdown and Sounds and listening to 2SM and 2UW and

TripleM."

Boerebach is the subject of Rainman Goes To RocKwiz, a documentary about

his trip to the Espy. "We see this as a bit like Hans Christian

Andersen's story of The Ugly Duckling," says Kilbey, who directed the

doco. "Andersen apparently had Asperger's and the ugly duckling is a

symbol for beauty.

"If you look through history, in a way the condition of Asperger's is

almost an evolutionary imperative. You look at people like Andersen or

Newton or Jefferson or perhaps even Einstein.

"A lot of characters in history who changed the world had Asperger's or

autistic traits, some of them were socially hopeless and couldn't pay a

bill without their wives."

Earlier this year, Boerebach enrolled in Kilbey's TAFE music business

course. The pair quickly bonded, partly because Kilbey has a son with

Asperger's, one of the three children he has with wife Amy Scully.

"Last year, and I made a film called Courage is a Telescope

about our son Marlon and boys who have Asperger's," says Scully.

"While we were finishing that we read about Mark in the local paper and

then he ended up in 's class. found out pretty quickly he

had this savant ability of naming the top five if you gave him the date,

so sent an email to RocKwiz on a whim. They called him half an

hour later saying, 'Come down and try out'. But the reality of that

turned out to be a bit daunting. Having a child with Asperger's, I

realised it was a real fine moral line of not wanting to push Mark too

far, yet also knowing he needs to break through."

Boerebach has never had friends or a job. With his love of '80s music,

he had dreams to work in radio, which he keeps alive at the Planet Rock

website (www.2prfm.com <http://t.ymlp179.com/ubwapaujeaoaesmbaoaubjq/click.php>). He says he wants to turn his passion into a

career: "I want to design CD covers. And I'd love to be making my own

compilations, like Rhino Records. There are so many great artists from

the '70s and '80s who have never had their music put out on CD."

Kilbey says Danish software testing company the Specialists "only

employs Asperger's, because they have this incredible ability to focus

to the exclusion of all other things".

Rainman Goes To RocKwiz shows Boerebach as a creative bright spark who

also inhabits a fully realised imaginary world. When he dreams, he

travels to this parallel world, where he has a wife, family and is an

astronaut and a rock star.

The film weaves footage with hand-drawn scenes in the style of a comic

book. "We really liked American Splendor," Kilbey says. "Comics are a

great art form that's not appreciated in our society."

With Kilbey's help, Boerebach wrote and recorded a song for the film.

"That was a thrill," Boerebach says. "Though there were some tricky

moments, mainly because

I have no sense of rhythm."

"It's a very moving song," Kilbey says. "The words are, 'So many things

in this city, there must be something here for me'. It's about doors

being slammed in his face.

I was amazed by his voice, which sounds a bit like Antony from Antony

and the s."

"The reality of doing such a thing couldn't make me happier," blogs

Boerebach at tinyurl.com/4vq78p. <http://t.ymlp179.com/ubqapaujeanaesmbafaubjq/click.php> "And more importantly the fact that it

is giving me the chance to really get to the nuts and bolts of my

Asperger's, and why I experience the things I do."

"He was pretty depressed before he went to TAFE," says Scully. "And then

the stuff that happened at RocKwiz, him being accepted and applauded,

that was magic."

"As a special needs person, a lot of people tend to ignore you,"

Boerebach says. "This has been a life-changing experience."

Rainman Goes To RocKwiz is on SBS, Wednesday at 8pm. Mark Boerebach's

appearance on RocKwiz is on SBS, October25 at 9.20pm.

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