I only handed out
forty-nine resumes, fucking useless piece of shit failure that I am,
although I do have a job now. (well... I don't know when my shifts
are yet, but let's be nice and presumptuous and say yep, job sorted)
I'm still looking into maybe getting another job during the day time
at some cafe or equally menial place to make dem papes mad longer,
na'im'sain... for now though, a few shift at week at Yah Yah's (oh
god cross those fingers) would be fucken' chipper.
Last week I had a
five minute spot at Station 59 on their Wednesday open mic night...
I'm sure I've already said enough about that but on the comedy front
on the whole, I guess things have been going pretty well. I realised,
pretty much as soon as I got here, that I am at a stage with comedy
where I need to really think about taking it seriously. There are SO
MANY people in this city trying to do the exact same thing as me and
from what I can tell plenty of them are funny as hell and they are
all willing to put in the hard work to make their acts work. What I
need to do now, I've been thinking, is start coming up with ideas for
bits every day, and writing them down, in full, word for word, and then recording myself saying each one into my phone. Since I don't have my
own room and am not really keen to be seen ranting to myself by the
general public or room-mates, I'll be doing this from the safety of
secluded park benches and empty coffee shops around mid-afternoon. After I record each bit
I can listen to it over and over again, hear what's good about it (or
what isn't) and either change it and tweak it enough so that it is
funny, or can it so that I don't waste valuable stage time telling
bits that just aren't going to work. The feeling that I'm starting to
have is that stage time is going to be fucking rare like dogs in
Chinatown... that was a terrible simile, sorry, I got lazy, and the
departure of the Asians that infested my living quarters with their
shitty manners and ridiculous amount of boxes and assorted crap have
left a sour taste. Y'all just got a bit of the dark side there.
In my first week
here I have met a fair few cool people, from Aaron the Queensland
drifter, to Aaron the surly Pom: there's Myrthe the mental Dutch
chick who tried unsuccessfully to slap me in the face with a two-foot
dildo on Sunday night when I was out of my mind on mushrooms. Leon,
the Melbourne local who came down to stay in the hostel for the
weekend because it was cheaper than paying the cab fares back to his
place three or four nights in a row – he gave me the mushrooms on
Sunday night and also gave them to a group of guys from Townsville
who stormed through our hostel on a tuxedo bender and flew out of
town like drunken horsemen after the apocalypse. The strange Asian
lady who stalks the passages and stairwells of the hostel at night is
growing more and more deranged by the day as her cruel instincts
struggle to escape the quiet, pottering exterior she has managed to
erect in their place. Nobody likes her; the turning point for me was
when she burst into the TV room while I was watching Just For Laughs
the other night and changed the channel, stating in a fed up tone,
“no no no, I don't like this... these jokes...
no no”. Fuck you lady, that time when you insisted I hold my hand
out so you could pour steaming hot casserole into it, the time when I
heard you talking to yourself at the kitchen table, the time when you
asked every single person in the building whether they could fix your
laptop for you... everything clicked into focus at that moment. The
patter became clear. Crazy Asian lady, you so crazy... way too crazy
for me.
So
now for Centrelink... wellity wellity wellity... I just got off of
the phone with an unexpectedly lovely gentleman from the Centrelink
office with whom I discussed my claiming options. Apparently because
I moved to Melbourne by 'choice' (as in I didn't meet the required
ten abusive episodes per childhood year to be considered independent
'by necessity') I may not be eligible for government assistance until
I'm twenty-two. I'll still be going to an appointment at their office
next Wednesday and telling them that actually NO, I didn't move here
because I just wanted to get out of the house and go see a few shows,
I moved here because there was no fucking work in Adelaide, and I
don't want to sit in my parents' house all day every day smoking
bongs and pretending I'm having a really hard time doing uni work
that frankly is NOT THAT HARD TO DO... when I can escape that free
ride and actually get out into the world to find challenges where
before there was only filled time.
It
really perplexes me that a person under the age of twenty-two can be
working a full time job for eighteen months and then be considered
'independent' and thus eligible for Youth Allowance, and yet I,
having been a full time student for two and a half years (with a six
month break) am NOT eligible. But the person that has been working –
earning an income –
for eighteen months, has already proven that they can live by their
own means simply by the fact that THEY HAD TO WAIT EIGHTEEN MONTHS TO
BE ABLE TO CLAIM... whereas the student is still considered to have a
full time job by other government standards, but gets no income from
this job, and yet they are still not eligible for government
assistance. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I know there's a
bit of upper-middle class privilege whining in there that should be
weeded out – maybe I need a smart slap in the face and a good
shake-down by a couple of hairy, downtrodden street-urchins to remind
me that life really isn't that fucking tough when you come from the
right side of the tracks. But regardless of my white-boy upbringing,
the double standard that I have just pointed out remains very real,
and glaringly fucking stupid.
Oh
well, that's week one down. I'm pretty damn happy with that summary,
all in all it's been a good week, and if I can just get this
half-sure job situation under hand I'll be singing in the fucking
rain over here in Melbourne. I think I've earned the mountain of free
drink that I'm going to consume tonight at the Peter Stuyvesant
party, and I plan on stealing a lot of free cigarettes for reselling.
Puff puff pass motherfucker.
Peace,
Taco.
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