Paul Capsis

Well, she encouraged me to sing, which was a disaster.

Not to sing, to perform because...

Well, she and I, I don't know, they encouraged us to perform in our class.

So she would play the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band album.

Cool teacher.

What a time.

And then she'd encourage us all to individually do something for our class, just for us.

And I, because, would attend many Greek weddings, my Greek side of the family had that Islamic Turkish thing with the music.

So this belly dancing would happen at these Greek weddings.

So I belly danced to this Beatles track in front of my class and everyone thought that was hysterically funny and Miss Haskell got really excited and said...

what a great idea it would be to perform at the school assembly i'm breaking out in a cold sweat i know i think i break out in a cold sweat just thinking about what i did in my gray uniform

I mean, it really was the beginning of the end.

I stood up in front of the entire school all the years, all the girls and boys, and belly danced to a Beatles track.

It's a strong statement.

And even as I was doing it, I felt the energy, the humiliation, the anger.

How dare you make us watch this?

And we're talking the 70s when we had Cher on our TVs and Sonny.

But you don't do that.

And you don't do that if you're a Greek boy.

Because I think because of my surname, Capsus, I was identified as a Greek person in this.