On Humility

I just went on the r/StandUpComedy subreddit and had a look at a post by a comedian who said he'd been doing comedy for about a year and was asking everyone to reply to his thread with what their biggest achievements thus far in stand up had been. Proud moments, goals for the future etc. This thread excited me because while I go onto this subreddit every now and then, I don't usually stay for very long because it seems to be mostly filled with people posting videos of gigs and asking for feedback or people linking to comedy specials by comedians that I don't find terribly hilarious... and just a quick aside: I don't have a problem with people posting footage of their gigs and asking for feedback, in fact I think it's great, but I'll get to the slight problem I have with it which may not be a problem at all but just me being a dick... in a little bit.

Anyway, so I went on to check out this thread and straight away I was pleased to see a bunch of long responses, and I started reading. After reading all comments though (only sixteen, but they were all pretty lengthy) I was a little disappointed. I had hoped to find... well actually, I don't know what I had hoped to find on here, and maybe sharing comedy advice on the internet just isn't the same as sharing it in person, but I'll say now that I didn't find what I thought I had.

To me, the way the thread came off was just a bunch of comedians, in similar positions to myself, becoming excited by the invitation to talk about themselves and the growth they have experienced in the first stages of their 'careers'. It seemed like a bunch of egos competing for screen time, basically – fevered egos, you might even say (Eh! Eh!). None of the long comments had replies underneath them, they were all just individual replies about the particular poster's achievements and goals which basically said to me that these people weren't reading here to exchange actual advice, they were just looking for a forum to gloat upon... actually I lie, there was one comment that started a conversation: one between two comics, the first comment had called a particular city's scene 'cliquey', there was a friendly disagreement, and then plans to meet up with a slightly back-peddled explanation by the original poster. Fevered egos really, but who am I to judge?

I'm not even sure about the reasons that I had for coming on to this page? I mean, to be completely honest, I had no intention of posting my 'achievements' or 'goals' on there, but not because I don't like bragging... just because I don't really care about bragging to people that are in no position to get me anything for my hard bragging work. But I had a bit of a think about the reason why some of the advice that these people were handing out for free over the internet was that I sort of half-resented, half-dismissed them as idiots. Petty. Pathetic. I found myself thinking, “who the fuck is this cocky tosser? Thinking he can dole out advice like this when he's only been doing comedy for *re-reads start of comment* TWO YEARS!!!” That may be the problem with comedy advice over the internet... it's all well and good to talk about the giving and receiving of advice in person and there is a valid point to be made about the fact that it doesn't matter whether you think a comedian is good or not, advice is advice and should be taken gratefully. The fact of the matter though, is that it is a narcissistic reflex to reject advice that comes from a source whose credibility you don't have positive proof for.

There is a reason piano teachers give recitals and put themselves last, there is a reason that past football players often slot nicely into coaching roles, and it is the same reason that I don't feel comfortable being told about 'the industry' or given tips on witing by some fevered ego sitting behind a keyboard on the other side of the world. It's because we are all the same fevered egos, and we only like to be told what to do by people we know can do it at least as well, or hopefully better, than we can. Well... I don't know, maybe you're not all that shallow. All I know is the day I can come onto a forum like this, read the comments, and take a meaningful piece of advice from something someone has said without requiring proof of their talents; on that day I will finally have learned humility.

Peace, Taco.

Daydreams

Today I was eating a banana and daydreaming on the tram on my way down to lunch with a bunch of comedians. I had already finished my first banana and chucked the peel in the bin before I got on the tram, but I was about to be faced with the problem of what to do with the second peel: there are no bins on the tram, and it was looking like a solid ten minute wait between my projected banana finish-time and my stop, where I could get out and find a bin. Ten minutes holding a banana peel? Pffft... not likely, so I thought about throwing it out the window.

The tram coasted past the police station on the corner of Church St and Bridge Rd and I imagined throwing the peel out the half-open window and it landing on the bonnet of one of the three police cruisers parked on the side of the road. Glorious, I could see it there. To throw it out of the window accurately and make sure it landed on the car I would probably have had to stand up, turn around and aim my throw carefully, but if I did it deliberately then I'd run the risk of someone seeing – it was broad daylight and the tram was stopping at the lights and opening its doors. If someone – a police officer maybe? – saw me throw the peel intentionally onto their shiny police car, then I'd be in trouble. They probably couldn't pin me with much, maybe a fine for littering or at worst some trumped-up vandalism charge, but regardless, I don't need that right now. The fine for littering is probably over a hundred dollars, and I need to pay rent god DAMN it.

I imagined the police officer, just walking out to his car after grabbing a coffee or whatever police do in the station, when he sees a young, dark-haired, olive-skinned youth wearing a red Adidas jacket intentionally throw a banana peel out of a tram window at his vehicle. He would yell, “OI!”, drop his coffee on the ground and give chase. “Stop the tram! OI! YOU!”
At this point I'd be sitting in the tram, fretting and trying to think of how to get out of my fine, the cute couple sitting across from me would be smirking at me, having seen what I'd done, and now knowing they were about to see me get caught. I would run up to the front of the tram and beg the tram driver to keep going; “Pretend you didn't hear him! Please dude, just go!”

And he probably would go, because he's cool. He doesn't like cops either, and it's perfectly plausible that he didn't see or hear the police officer, who is now just an angry, but receding figure in his side-mirror, yell 'stop'. After another couple stops though, the tram driver would tell me that I had to get out, I couldn't stay in the tram – he'd be remembering his responsibility here, plus what if the cop called in another car to intercept the tram? He wouldn't want to get involved in this thing. But all the while I'd be reassuring myself that it was only a banana on a police car – how could he possibly care that much about a little, frivolous act of trivial civil disobedience. I'm sure police get that shit all the time...

I get out of the tram, and wonder where I'm going to walk now, because I still need to get to lunch, but before I can really do anything I hear more shouting, and see the angry, yelling figure running up the slight hill on Church St. Running right towards me. WHAT THE FUCK?! Overzealous motherfucker... so I run. Bolt down a side street and into the suburbs, but I know he saw where I was running, so I know I have to get away. I need to hide somewhere, I need to blend in. I stumble upon a sunny park at the end of the street with a playground and two single mums playing with their kids. Some guy in skins is doing laps of the oval before lunch and a girl is sitting on the hill reading a book with the midday sun on her back. I run, panting, up to her and sit down, still looking over my shoulder.
“We've been talking all morning.” I try to run her through my alibi.
“What? Who are you?
“It doesn't matter, look, we've been talking all morning, okay? I've been here with you all morning.”
The shouting comes from behind us and the cop charges over the little hill and runs down it, straight at me and dives, arms out and face red with fury. Tackle. He lands on top of me and we both go flying a good couple metres along the grass before he pins me to the ground and shouts something about a little prick. My ribs feel broken, I can't move, everything hurts.
“What the fuck?!” the girl jumps up and screams, looking accusingly at the officer.
“This young man is under arrest for wilfully vandalising police property! THE CHASE IS OVER BUD!”
“What chase, what are you talking about? We've been sitting here all morning!” She sticks to the script perfectly, and at that precise moment, I fall in love.

During the lengthy court proceedings that draw out over many long and arduous months, I learn her name, and her birthday, and her likes and dislikes and all her favourite things as we fight in the halls of justice against police brutality. I even remember the colour of her eyes: green. She is my witness and with her help I win a victory worth millions in compensation for the injuries I sustained, I was an innocent bystander randomly attacked by a deranged agent of the law. My injuries keep me from work and I lay a spurious claim to a life-long disability pension. Me and my beautiful witness kiss outside the courtroom, and then go off to spend our millions on eating, drinking, and being merry. I propose to her in the park where we met and for the rest of our lives we are happy, and in love.

I imagine this all, while I am sitting on the tram holding the now-finished banana peel in my hand. I imagine it, but it never happens, because I am way too scared of getting caught and fined for littering. Instead the peel goes under the seat, and I brush my hands clean, before pulling out my notebook and writing the story I am not yet brave enough to live.

Peace, Taco.

On Stragglers

I remember a conversation with Brodie a few weeks ago about Adelaide, Melbourne, and the dozens of people who seem to be stuck in between. I couldn't put an exact figure on it, but there would probably be at least ten people that I know who are caught in some premature stages of moving over to Melbourne, or saying that they are moving, or thinking about moving, or wanting to move but not knowing how. Some of them I trust when they say that they are coming, I know that they'll get here when they are ready, and some, on the other end of the spectrum, I know are just sitting around puffing on pipe dreams, and I'll be lucky to see them down here for a weekend.

Brodie and I were talking about this while we sat out the front of our 3121 abode, he was smoking cigs and I was probably eating stir fry of some sort, it was probably around six in the evening. Tommy Martin was supposed to come over and live with Lolly and Tim, but he's doing something at uni now. Phil is still sorting his shit out in Adelaide before he makes the jump. My mate Jayden, and to a lesser extend his partner in shit-talking T. Wood, have talked about coming over many a time, Jayden even going as far as to say that he almost has a job lined up. Chris... well, Chris is a bit of a lost cause at this stage. But there are plenty more, people who are 'coming' to Melbourne, just not yet. Just not now, just wait, hold up while I get my shit sorted.

This isn't some post railing against those people and trying to paint them as lazy, or dumb, or useless, not at all, and I know that sometimes you need to lay your plans properly before you hatch them or else they'll go sour. A few people who have said they are coming have my genuine trust, I know they'll make it over here, it's only a matter of time. But what Brodie said in the midst of this idle list-making struck me as a bit of fair warning to anyone who has ever had even the most cursory thought about leaving Adelaide and coming to join the youth of the world in Melbourne. “Yeah, maybe they'll make it down,” he said, “but it won't be for a few years at least, and by the time they get here the party will be over and we'll all have moved on to bigger and better things.” He said it like it wasn't even news. Like that's the way things were always going to be, and it was as obvious as the colour of the sky, but I had never even considered it that way.

The party will come to an end, eventually, but not because anyone says it has to, it'll just come to pass, some moment will fly by and the Melbourne vibe will be finished with. I've heard Chris, several times, bemoan his lateness in arriving to the town scene in Adelaide. “I can't believe I missed those few years of partying with you guys, I don't even know what I was doing?” I've heard him spill these words out after again hearing the stories of climbing cranes or lighting fires or Block Party or stupid, one night absinthe fling-benders. So why are you missing it again, then? I don't know... just know what you're doing, I guess. If you have a plan and you're doing something, make sure you know why, or at least have a fair idea. Don't be putting off what you really want to do in favour of what seems easier now, because what you really want might not be there forever.

Peace, Taco.

Understanding Cliches

I'm starting to understand a few things a lot better lately. Things that other people have said, and yes, some of them are cliched to the hilt... but things are cliched for a reason, namely, that they are often true.

Hunter S. Thompson said – and no, I can't remember where, but he did say it – that “music is fuel”. He sort of approached that realization by talking about how most people have a very sentimental attachment to music and they over-complicate their relationship with music by making it into some all-mighty force, some god to worship that saves them from the black abysses and carries them through life. I feel you there, Hunter, there was some video by a fairly run-of-the-mill late-emo band whose name I forget that I remember had the band playing their song life, interspersed with footage of their fans, all emoed out, staring into the camera and saying how music had 'saved their life' while choking back tears and shrieking. Ok, fair enough, if you feel that way. But what HST said is beginning to resonate very much with me because even though I still have an intense connection to some of my favourite artists, music as a whole is more like a thing that I find keeps me going when I get bored. The sensation of finding new music and listening to something – discovering it for the first time – is pretty hard to match, and that's where the analogy to fuel comes in I think: finding a whole bunch of new music over the last few days has given me so much energy and from feeling pretty shitty on Saturday afternoon, I suddenly feel pretty damn good. Great, even. And if we are going to get really picky or defensive about the 'music saved my life' thing, well music is just the medium through which amazing artists work, really. It's not music itself that saved you from ending it all when you were fifteen, it was the artist – The Used, or Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, or Bullet for my Valentine, or whatever guitar-saviour you happened to stumble upon when you needed help. They are responsible.

The next thing that I've started to understand a whole lot better, and I realize now that there are only two 'things', even though at the start I said that there would be 'a few'. Oops... the next thing is that thing that comedians tend to say about comedy, that they, “feel like they can be themselves when they are on stage.” Nothing sounds more cliched and over-sentimental, I recoil at the thought of ever saying those words to someone without a meaty preface and some damn strong context, but it seems that they are starting to become true. For me. That's right. When I first thought them I thought the speakers were trying to say that they don't have the courage to be themselves in other situations, or trying to imply that they are somehow being brave by getting up on stage and 'being themselves'. Those explanations don't really make complete sense though, and so when Rach and I were in the middle of an afternoon-long 'talk' ('talk' as in 'we need to talk' talk) and the conversation came round to my love of standup, it started to hit me. On stage, it's so much easier for the things that I say and the way that I am to align with my internal monologue – that ever-present voice inside my head that represents the way that I would ultimately like to express myself but that I can never perfectly match because of the limiting distance between my brain and my mouth. On stage, there is no one talking back, and diluting my thoughts with their silly external opinions in real time: this is both a good and bad thing. It's a good thing because I can get whatever thoughts I have out there without interruption, even if, admittedly, at this stage the thoughts that I'm 'getting out there' aren't that groundbreaking or important (“it's not so easy for guys to pee standing up, you better RECOGNIZE!”). It's a bad thing though because sometimes it's good to have someone else keeping my thoughts reined in, in real time, because if they are allowed to run wild and unchecked then there is the very real possibility of my unrestrained ego having a field day and saying something stupid and regrettable. Something that I don't really mean, that maybe seemed fair at the time, after five straight minutes of me, me, ME!!!

And I think that's just about enough of exactly that, for now. I downloaded a pretty cool skip-hop/ambient mix yesterday from the Friends of Friends mixtape series, and it feels like my day is amping on the up-and-up. Day time. Yes.

Peace, Taco.

...aaaaand we're back

Two weeks exactly since my last post, and things have changed quite a bit in those two weeks, but I don't even want to talk about those things. I just want to sit. I want to write something. I just found this mixtape by a dude called Joey Bada$$ whose name I have heard around the place in the last few months, but as is always the case with new music, I've been way late to jump onto the new stuff coming out, even if it is TRAGICALLY up my alley. Basically the idea behind this guy and his crew (Pro Era) is that they love the 90's New York hip hop sound, and they are making music in the style that came out of the greatest city in the world during the Golden Era. I cannot express how much I would have absolutely lost my mind over this about eighteen months ago. Two years ago. This would have been the most amazing thing in the world. Now, it's just a nice surprise.

Today has been a nice surprise, sunny outside, and at ten-thirty I woke up after getting to bed at four-thirty in the morning, and felt great. I felt so great, in fact, that I went for a run with the Vintage Beatlab Podcast number twenty pumping through the headphones I found at the Workers last night. Luck luck luck motherfuckers, it's coming in through the windows.

I've been stressing this week about the looming rent day on the sixteenth, which is tomorrow now, and I was about ready to cruise down to the bank with a pocket full of coins and fifty bucks I'd borrowed off of Benny to pump my account up to what would have been about fifty cents above the required amount. Shit was deep. Things were getting thingy. But then, just as I was finally contemplating the beginning of preparations to leave, I saw an email come in – PAY SLIP. I'd forgotten about my pay from the one night I worked at Yah Yah's on the weekend. That's A-Hunned-and Twenty-Fo' of them sweet sweet dorrah ladies and gentlemen. Crisis averted. The lucky streak continues.

Tonight I'm going to kick the football around with Rich and Mick in Flagstaff Gardens – and yes, by football I do mean soccer ball... oh how I await the day when I don't feel the need to clarify on that point. Then, after a bit of social outdoorsing, I've got a gig at Stomach Ache in Collingwood where I'm OPENING of all things, and have a seven minute spot. I've written a bit of new shit over the past few days and am actually feeling okay about it. This week is going to be all about new material. Heaps of new. I've been getting a bit lazy on that front I think.

Okay, so maybe I will talk about what's been happening lately, I guess I kind of can now, I feel okay about it. Not great, but okay. Rach and I broke up. I mean, we talked for ages and it was shaky and we couldn't come to a decision, but I think I've sussed out that I need to be by myself. Yeah. That's what's going to happen. Who cares. HAH! This music is so fucking good. The 1999 Mixtape by Joey Bada$$ – it came out in June last year – so about the time that I was heading over to Melbourne DAYM SUHN... but I'm recommending it now. Listen.

Wow that feels good, finally, something written down. Stay tuned, whoever is tuned at the moment, I feel a resurgence coming on. Fuck, I just jinxed it.

Peace, Taco.

What was Two-Thousand and Twelve?

Last year started with a crusty-eyed glance out of a second-story bedroom window in the Cactus Hostel in La Paz Bolivia. As I focussed my vision and adjusted to the harsh light coming in through the thin, high-altitude air, I saw a condom – mine, fresh from the early-morning ,sloppy, drunk frecking only a few hours before – dangling off of an electricity cable over the street and dripping Nobel Prize Winners onto the pavement below. Two-Thousand and Twelve was a good year.

When I came back from Bolivia it was the middle of February, and I had a girl travelling from France – the other side of the world – to Australia to come and be with me. No story has ever begun more beautifully, but it only took me five weeks between her decision and her arrival for me to ruin it... not that I'm bitter or angry at myself, these things just happen, and the luxury of time passed allows me to speak so frankly about it. But I messed that one up, and hurt a lovely girl quite unnecessarily in the process, she really was lovely. She really is. Lovely. We were together for two weeks full of shame and falsity and when everything unravelled it took only a few days to destroy a summer's worth of good memories. They weren't destroyed forever, I look back and smile now, but when it was happening, it was tough. Easter was tough. I bawled my eyes out after she left in the side-street behind the Cranka just of Rundle, but after that I couldn't cry anymore, which surprised me a little. Two-Thousand and Twelve surprised me.

I stayed at uni for another semester, but you know me – and by you, I mean me, because let's face it, I'm talking to myself here – I sat around and did the minimum required to feel fulfilment at the end... that's two years of a three year degree finished, but I can't see the final year materializing in the near future to be honest. I volunteered at a Salvation Army store because I thought it would look good on my resume and I couldn't think of someone who would give me a nice reference – OH! That's the other thing, I spent like six months desperately unemployed – the first six months of this year. Jesus that was terrible, I don't ever want to be that unemployed again, lucky I turn twenty-two in a month and qualify for Centrelink (YES!)(Yes?). Two-Thousand and Twelve was skint, and really, really slow to get started.

I finally landed a job around June selling energy door-to-door for a joke of a man named Nathan in his AIDA franchise in Adelaide. That job lasted for two and a half weeks and was easily the worst stretch of employment I've ever had, even if it was also the shortest... a few funny things happened at that place though: getting screamed at by the office pussy for lighting up in the back of his brand-new car and spending the day at the pub instead of knocking doors. Roaming the streets of some shitty suburban region of mid-northern Adelaide belting out Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team' between houses and sitting by the river under the bridge in Black Forest hiding from the boss... not everything about that place was terrible. The people and the routine got me out of the house for about twelve days, and the brutal stupidity of my situation for those two and a half weeks finally pushed me over the edge and into Melbourne. Two-Thousand and Twelve was dumb.

I just remembered that we're supposed to be pronouncing it 'twenty-twelve'. Sorry guys, too bad, looks like the programming hasn't quite sunk in has it? Two-thousand and Twelve. I'm not changing just because it's quicker – I'm going to need a really clever piece of marketing directed at me from 180 degrees backwards and wrapped in chocolate to get me to kick this inefficient habit of pronunciation. Two-Thousand and Twelve sounds sexier.

Melbourne has been a constant firestorm of new faces, busy evenings, words, pictures, and no pedestrians... that doesn't really sound like a firestorm does it? I think I'm trying to be over-dramatic... but Twenty-Twelve was a bit like that as well... inconsistent. I found a calling this year – maybe that's a bit over-dramatic as well, but it sounds ok to me, not completely superficial. Stand up comedy has given me a place to go where before there was only the night stretching out past sunset and it has filled the void that used to bring so much dangerous introspection. I finally feel like I am going somewhere, and doing something with purpose, not just because I know it's healthy for me to be filling my time with things. Two-Thousand and Twelve has given me something that I am going to be able to carry around with me for the rest of my life – a purpose. Don't ask me what that is just yet, I'm not that far, I'm still figuring these things out, but Two-Thousand and Twelve helped. Thanks Two-Thousand and Twelve, cheers for the hand.

Quote of the year, although I think I might have actually heard it last year to be honest, is as follows:

There is no way to happiness,
happiness is the way

That's Buddha, apparently, but it doesn't really matter who it is, just what it says. After everything that's happened in the last three-hundred and sixty-five days, I feel like that quote could sum it all up pretty near perfectly – the whole year, and all of the years before it, I have only been having as much fun as I have been willing to admit. And now that I'm over in the most hyped youth destination in the fucking world, it's almost like I have to report back that I'm having the time of my life... it's no coincidence though, that I really, completely am having that time. The best time ever. And whether it's because I came to a place that was supposed to be brilliant, or because I found that place within myself, and then happened to move cities, it doesn't matter. Two-Thousand and Twelve was Happy.

Twenty-Thirteen?... let's go for 'spontaneous'. Sorry about the sappy, seriousness of this post for anyone wonderful enough to have made it this far. Thanks for reading, whoever you are, to be serious for a second, if you have ever taken the time out of your day to read anything that I've written and pushed out into the ether, it means more to me than I can put into words here. Thankyou.
And I promise I'll put more funnies in next time. Until then, dicks dicks dicks. Big fat willy. Asses.

Happy New Year everyone.
Peace, Taco.