My beard is
getting way out of hand. It's not even that intense, I can pull at it
with my fingers no problem at this point which is never a state I
want my facial hair to be in, but I don't think I look like a failed
case... it's just really annoying. Itchy. Fuck I hate facial hair, my
electric shaver thingo broke in my bag on the plane to Brisbane last
Wednesday, so when I went to use it a few days ago, instead of a neat
trim accompanied by mild face-pain as per usual, the teeth just
grabbed at the thick, black hairs sticking out of my chin, impotent
and unable to cut. I was standing in a hostel toilet staring at a
face in a mirror with a set of twenty dollar K-Mart facial-hair
clippers hanging from it. My face. Fuck you Brisbane.
This
trip has been good so far, although I'm just starting to count the
days until my departure – not from hatred of this place so much as
impatience to get back to my own place and set to work on a
bunch of ideas that have been brewing in my head since I got here.
I've been writing lots, and often, and aside from two drunken nights
at the Base Embassy Hostel with an assortment of lecherous Canadians
and Norwegians, have stayed completely sober. Clear headed,
yes.
I've been thinking about the fact that my writing, and
really a lot of the writing that I particularly like and try to draw
from, isn't particularly funny. Even writers who are considered
'humorists' don't have many moments of actual, laugh-out-loud (I
refuse to abbreviate that term) hilarity in their books. I can think
of one moment in a Bukowski book, one of Douglas Adams', nothing
from Hunter S. really springs to mind. Does that mean the
expectations placed on an author, or a piece of writing, are lower?
Or that the laughter is just more internal... as if laughter is more
of a thing that comes from experiencing something funny as a group
rather than just experiencing something funny in itself.
I
guess that's where Dave Grant's idea of 'comedy is electricity' comes
from; if laughter comes from experiencing something funny as a group,
then the laughter will naturally be stronger and come easier when the
audience feels united – feels that it is a group. Reading
is, by necessity, something that we do alone, and so something really
has to be BRAIN-RENDINGLY funny to illicit a reaction to the lone
reader, sitting in his couch with a stern look of concentration on
his face, trying to focus on the messy, messy words. Comedy is easy
like that, because you know when you're doing a good job, and there
are things to do to maximize your chances of doing a good job,
like pushing the audience close together, and minimizing outside
distractions. I'm still trying to figure out how all of the different
aspects of 'comedy', or maybe even just 'writing' fit together
though. I mean, parody, for example, is generally considered a genre
of comedy, but then again, 1984 is a parody – and one so brilliant
that it continues to reveal new aspects of itself to me almost daily
– but I challenge anyone to find a funny line anywhere in
that book. (by the way if you can find a funny line in there... fuck
you, comedy is subjective, I win! CHAMPIOOOON)
I guess what
this all comes down to is that I've been thinking a lot over here,
and thinking has been good, although I am ready to rejoin the furious
rat race back in Melbourne now, and the remainder of my days in
Brisbane are looking longer than I would have liked. Yeeeeeckgh, so
restless, so impatient, so jittery at the keyboard. Shudder. Stutter.
Itch, itch, itch.
I need to have a fucking shave right
now.
Peace, Taco.
