Tired

I feel tired. I've been doing so much lately: writing comedy for the festival, gigging 5 or more times a week three weeks straight, tours, cleaning, running in the rat race... not drinking enough water. I feel tired, but it's a good tired, a sign that for the first time in my life I think I am really pushing myself towards something. I think? Or maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep.

Money really isn't an issue at this point; I feel like I barely have enough time to spend the paltry amount that I'm making anyway – for those of you playing at home that's about $500 a week, which actually isn't that paltry at all, but it certainly isn't high-roller shit. I am leaving home in the mornings, every morning, and not coming home for hours. Ten hours. Twelve hours. Hours spent running around completing this or that errand, sitting on trams and trains, heading out to gigs to either do a spot, or sit in the crowd and watch. Learning, I've been learning a lot.

I've been working on this bit that I honestly didn't think would be ready for the festival, but turns out may just squeeze its way in to my show (Two for the Price of Free YES!). This whole bit is basically constructed around the idea that I had one day a few months ago that it'd be really cool to move to a new city where no one whatsoever knows who you are, and then create an elaborate, and completely outlandish fictional backstory for yourself. Nothing malicious – not like 'my family died in a fire' or some shit that would require actual acting and would seem like shameless attention-seeking if exposed... just something harmless, but fun, like oh say, that I was home-schooled. So then I decided I couldn't wait until I left for another country to play this game, and the next best place to play it would be on stage... but it wouldn't be funny if I was the only one in on the joke. Considering that the whole point of comedy is that the audience is in on the joke – and whence cometh their laughter – I'd need to figure out a way to let them in on the joke that was being played on them – that I was lying outright to them for no good reason – whilst not making them the butt of the joke.

Then I remembered the story that I have been telling about the time Tim Clark, bless his cotton socks, told me that I had a nice jacket, only to rescind his compliment moments later after it became apparent that I was going to take his sarcastic jibe at face value and proceed to talk about how much I, too, liked my jacket. He lied to me, for no reason it seems, and I couldn't understand the reasoning behind this not-unheard of social phenomenon. Why do that? Why say, “nice jacket man,” only to add after I had accepted the compliment, “oh no, I was joking, it's shit”... what he did there was exactly what I was planning to do in my lying bit about home-school. If I could tell that story, then tell another, seemingly separate one about home school, and have the audience believe it, then lift the veil and say, “hey, look, it was all a lie,” then they would know how I felt, and the joke would be on Tim, and not on them.

I still have a few reservations about the story, I mean I invented it, from nothing, which feels kind of cool to do – just like Brad Oakes said it would ha. – but still there are only laughs in the setup, not the actual story, and most of those laughs aren't that strong... but I guess my joke writing will improve with time. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

I've also been trying to write jokes about the news headlines off the Guardian – it doesn't matter which paper really, but I refuse to buy copies of the Feral Scum (thankyou Kieran Butler) or any other trashy cum-rag of a publication just to practise my joke writing. No, no, no; I will not be indebted to Rupert Murdoch in my comedy career. Not now. Not ever. No, no, no, no.

So many no's. I think I am tired. I should stop guessing and have a lie down... but there's still so much I want to do. I've nearly finished reading The War of Art that Richie gave me, and then it's on to Fade To Black (And Disappear) by an Adelaide author whose name I forget right now because I can't be fucked digging in my bag and pulling the book out to read the front cover. No. Fuck. I said no more. FUCK. There they are again. Okay, I'll stop now.

Peace, Taco.

Adelaide During the Fringe

From Tuesday til Saturday I was in Adelaide seeing friends, Fringe shit, and fam. I planned this trip and bought the tickets pretty much as soon as I got back from my Hometown Christmas last year, but this time around – without everyone having the obligation to spend so much time with their families, and everyone from everywhere being back in town – the trip was way way way way WAY much better. Here's why:

Tuesday I got into town at seven-thirty at night after a brilliant (as always) bus ride involving books, music, and some great ideas and time alone to think. I love those bus rides – there's a reason I always include at least one in each trip home. As soon as I got off the bus I headed straight to the Cranka for some free Tuesday night comedy and caught up with Ross Voss, Josh Cruze, and saw some great comedians who I hadn't seen before. Jesus, what a refreshing change seeing people's sets that I haven't seen ANYTHING from. Being around the same comics all the time in Melbourne, while obviously lovely as it gives a great sense of community, can become exhausting because whenever someone has a good set, you already know more or less how the set is going to go. I can still recognize when someone has done a good set because they have performed well or really captured the audience or whatever, but it's rarely THAT exciting to see someone do well if sixty to eighty percent of what they're doing on stage I have seen before. So seeing my open mic contemporaries in Adelaide do their thing was a great break.

Then the Rhino late show that night was awesome – Will Anderson did some great stuff about framing Adam Hills for a murder by hopping away from the crime scene. Then we somehow got into the Artists' Bar. Then we got drunk. Then we went home. By the way 'Home' for this trip was Phil's place in Kent Town, which was a fucking great change in and of itself because it was a ten minute walk from town, and the posse that he lives with are fucking sick. Sick as dawgs.

Wednesday I woke up earlyish with a hangover, me Elle and Leon went to breakfast at ETC which was always one of my favourite Adelaide breakfast spots. We consumed, then I sweated my shit down to the DMV and got my full license. Tick. Then back home, broke into the guys' house through Leon's bedroom window and crashed out for the afternoon under a fan waiting for MA BOIIII S. Rouse to call, but finally having to pay a Twenty-Five-Dorrah cab to his place during rush hour after he was to shit to get out of bed all day. We reminisced over Pool Party (WHOSE PARTY?!!) days in Empire and then I had a gig at the Ed Castle that night where I also met the lovely German, Sarah for the first time after chatting to her for ages on CouchSurfing since mid-year. The gig went okay – good enough, although I felt I performed a really tight set, but the crowd reaction wasn't AS amazing as I would've liked, but I was happy enough – then me, Elle and Josh Wills jumped into the Artists' Bar again after Rouse went home to crash.

Thursday: another hangover, another breakfast, another cruisy afternoon in Kent Town that ended with the most brilliant snap-decision of recent times with me, Phil, Leon and Nick Fuckenwhatever unanimously agreeing in about five seconds to go to the Tap Inn and have beers. After this I went on to dinner with the fam and shaking Dad's hand after his last day of working some shitty job that he's had for the last ten years and moving into semi-retirement at the tender, supple age of forty-five. He now plans to become a stay-at-home wife and paint the house while Mum Dawgz is off making DEM STAX. Now THAT'S Feminism, bitches!

After family dinner I went off to see David Quirk's Fringe show which was fwarking brilliant I have to say, notwithstanding the tech blunder that sort-of ruined the ending. I can forgive that, the show was great, and I still need to write to that dude and tell him how much I liked it because it really was that good... if any of you reading have a chance to see David Quirk's 'Shaking Hands With Danger' at either the Adelaide Fringe (until march 16^th I think?) or the Melbourne International Comedy Festival later this month, do it. Drinking and deep hangs with Lucy at hers, and then the Rhino Room Late Show again capped off my Me Time before I headed to the Botanic to romp some cunts I'd never met before in doubles pool and crash out around three AM watching something I don't remember on the laptop. Or maybe it was music? Three days into this journey I start to get mixed up about details.

Friday played host to another breakfast/lunch thingo at the Austral with Phil and Eliesa, and then meeting up with Sarah again for a CouchSurfers' picnic in the Botanical Gardens. I convinced my new CS friends to join me in jumping the fence into WOMAD that night to see the Cat Empire – I decided to jump even though I had a press pass, a move that infuriated Phil after I lost his pass in a drunken haze later that night, but for which I'm sure he has forgiven me, and will understand. Adrenaline baby. A-dre-na-line. Before WOMAD though, we went to the UniBar for some final nostalgia and I caught up with Sammy B and Chess – DA BOIZ from Immanuel College. We spat the shit over jugs of cider and laughed heartily as if we were seventeen again. I know I'm not really allowed to reminisce that heavily because I'm still only twenty-two, but whatever, fuck you. I remember shit too you old fuck reading this. That's right, you. Old.

After loosing my shit to the Cat Empire (six years since the last time) me and Jaleesa the Dutch girl went to Trashbags in EC and I capped off my stay catching up with the Kings of Hindley St: Johnny Monday, Jason 'Terror Terror' Petersen, Jake Baker, Liam Ball, and a million other cats that were there that I won't start to list off now mainly because I don't remember shit and I'd probably start guessing, and guessing poorly. When I woke up at ten am on Saturday, I looked at my phone and confirmed what I knew instinctively was the case anyway – I had missed my bus. Mum bought me a plane ticket because she's a diamond, and I spent the rest of the day in Glandore, spending some time with my little bro watching Louie off my hard drive, and then driving around with Eliesa in order to make up the loss of the press pass to Phil. I bought the boys a bottle of wine for letting me crash at their place, and then at nine pm, Eliesa drove me to the airport, and an hour later I was inside a flying steel box, soaring over the country on my way back to Melbourne.

So that's why this trip was better than the one over Christmas. Any questions?

Peace, Taco.

It's Been Too Long

It's been too long, so I have to write something, three weeks almost, but what to write? Updates? Last week I had six gigs – one Sunday, two Tuesday, one Wednesday, one Thursday, and an MC spot Saturday. One of those went okay, three went very well (I'd at least say well, but at least two I was quite happy with), one went to shitsville and was me eating dicks for five and a half minutes, and one (the MC spot) went averagely for the first half, but then pretty well for second half. Now that I'm breaking it down like that, that's a pretty good ratio – and I think I'm being fairly honest with myself there.

That was a good week, not just because of the volume of gigs, but also because of the quality, those three that went really well felt great while I was doing them, and with the solid five minutes that I've got on me now, as well as with the twenty or so minutes of other material, I'm feeling fairly confident going into my run of ten fifteen-minute spots at the comedy festival. Also this week I printed off my flyers for the festival – eighty A4 sheets each with four flyers on them – so that's three-hundred and twenty A6 flyers ready to be given out to people that I meet in the next three weeks... I think I can do it. I'll be pretty happy with myself if I can hand out all of those flyers by the end of the first week of my run.

What else, what else? I'm going to Adelaide for a few days (Tuesday the 5^th to Saturday the 9^th) which should be cool, doing a spot at the Ed Castle and hopefully catching up with a wide array of crew down there during the fringe. The fringe is going to be sick, and I've got a few cool shows lined up that I want to see as well – Wolf Creek the Musical should be sick. Rhino Room Late Show should be sick. Grills at Phil's and jumping into WOMAD, it's all going to be sick. When I get back I'll have to sort out this Centrelink Bullshit that I'm too confused and tired to go into right now, but suffice to say that it needs to be sorted, and quickly, or else I'll be sitting in a room full of lifetime fuckup losers learning how to write cover letters and 'effectively present myself' for job interviews.

This has been an update from Tugzy, your pal, out in the midst.

Peace, Taco.

Failed Organization

Directly to my left stuck to the wall with Blu-Tack is an A4 piece of paper with a bunch of dates and corresponding dollar amounts listed on it, which are divided into two columns: 'spent' and 'earned'. This depressed, abandoned piece of written record is just the latest in a long line of failed attempts at organization that stretches as far back into my past as I can remember. I'm always trying to order things like this, and I always give up. Half-finished projects and notebooks full of meaningless numbers haunt me from the bottom drawer of my bedside table. Why?

The column on the left of this thing hanging on my wall is the 'spent' column, and the one on the right is 'earned'. Basically, from what I can tell after deliberately ignoring it for the last two weeks, the idea of this little table was that I would write down every dollar I spent on the left, and every one I made on the right, but I think the catch was that only money that didn't pass through my bank account would be included... the idea behind this was that, of my two jobs, one pays in cash and one pays into my account. So my cash job would fund spending money, and my other job would be for rent, which is direct debited on the fifteenth of the month. Since I make roughly $250 a month more from my legit job than I need for rent, I should be able to save $250 a month in my account, and so if the 'spent' column equalled the 'earned' column on this little sheet, then I'd be $250 up at the end of each month.

It was a good system, in theory, but there are millions of variables that always contribute to these things not working out. I won't go into any of them here because we all know that to organize the finances of a twenty-one year old male requires at least a bachelor in some sort of accounting as well as a keen readiness to accept mysterious syphoning of money into nefarious late-night/early-morning frivolities. That having been said though, surely I should have been able to stick to the system I'd devised for myself for longer than – hold up, I'll just read the dates on the paper... – nineteen days. Jesus christ, that's woeful.

Nineteen days of diligence... this reminds me of when I was a kid and I used to race marbles down my Hot Wheels car tracks two at a time, pitting the marbles against each other in a sixty-four-marble elimination competition and studiously recording the scores as one beat another and another and another and eventually the grand final was contested by the remaining two. I had massive sheets and tables and a track that extended across my room and I would draw up the fixtures in preparation for the competition, and the games would begin. Inevitably though, the four that ended up making it all the way through to the finals were my four favourite marbles, and the gold one always won because I thought it looked prettiest – I was never one to accept the outcomes of pure chance. I could never sit by and watch my world be ruled by chaos... now that I'm twenty-one though, controlling reality is hardly as simple as giving old 'goldie' a little nudge at the start of the race. Shit is real in here... shit is DEEP.

I do it all the time: my system for recording comedy and blog ideas is split into two books, the distinctions between which I have yet to be able to confidently define... and each book is split into a front and back section, which are also separated in an equally arbitrary fashion. This one has jokes... that one has premises... but then this one has a few premises that are sort of half in joke format... and that one has stuff that's slightly more developed... and this one has stuff I tried last night... but that one has a few bits and pieces in it that belong in the other book but I'd left it at home that day... that one has something about Christopher Hitchens next to a shopping list... this one has poems on the middle page. It all means NOTHING. USELESS. DROSS. Swear words.When I go to find my new bit about how my housemate owes me eight beers, I know which book I wrote it in, because I just remember... as much as I wish that I had a system, so I didn't have to remember anything, I don't. So to the casual observer, it may look like my life is arranged neatly in a simple system that allows me to work at optimal efficiency, but this casual observation is a fallacy. My shit is fucked. I don't know where anything is. I'm admitting it. Right now. I'M COMING APART AT THE SEAMS!!!

I don't know what else to write here, because I didn't plan this piece of confused word-jumble out before I wrote it. I guess I should end with a funny quip – something to tie everything together nicely and make me feel good again, so that I can accept the mess that is my bedraggled existence with a smile and a flick of my long, flowing hair. Quips... jokes... funny chucklings... if only.

Peace, Taco.

Enrolling to Defer

You know what I just did? Like, just right now? I paid eighty-nine dollars to the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC? More like Vee-WACK! Amirite?) so that they'll process my application for uni next year. I'm applying for Bachelor of Arts at University of Melbourne, and the plan is to get accepted, transfer my one-and-three-quarters of a year's worth of credits from Adelaide over to Melbourne, get a student card, and then defer again... maybe do one subject... maybe... maaaaybe... that's a bit fucking maybe. I'm definitely not stoked on the idea of traipsing back to uni next year, so the question is begged then; why apply at all?

I've had some great times during my prolonged years of tertiary education: Adelaide University was a bastion of restraint during three years of my life which were filled, almost exclusively, with drinking, dancing, and lip-bitten comedowns. Every week of classes that pulled me out of bed in those torturous days studying politics, morality, and mindless electives is another week that I can count as having not thrown away completely into the furnace. I learned some degree of planning – sitting in the smoking area of a club at 8am on a Sunday, it seems irresistibly tempting to drop another sixty on pills and cross fingers that this Monday's comedown wouldn't be so rough. I learned to keep to deadlines, and I learned – or to be fair, let's say rediscovered – the joy in feeling smarter than other people. What did I do this week, you ask? Well I didn't really do very much for the first three days, to be honest, but on Thursday night I sat in a computer lab all night researching and typing out a gloriously passable account of Rawlsian social theory... what's that? You don't know what that is? Well it's all about... well... fuck, actually I've forgotten, but seriously guys, I did that assignment, and for a week afterwards when people asked me what I'd been up to, that was the dick-hardening answer that I threw out to their bemused faces.

Had I not attended uni for the past three years, my life would have been almost completely devoid of any structure and any purpose. In the four years that have passed since I finished school I've been at uni for at least a few weeks each year – fuck in 2010 I actually did a whole year!! While my measly six upper-level course completions speaks volumes for the sub-par effort that I've put in during those four years, it feels good to have done anything at all... I mean, I almost feel like I've been able to get the best of both worlds with this double life of uni student slash hardcore club-head that I've been leading. On one hand, I know what it's like doing assignments and writing essays and sticking to deadlines and going to tutes and studying and putting off drinking and facebooking during lectures etc. etc... but on the other hand, I have delved, at least some way, into the perilous world of hardcore drug taking and seen the shadow cast by our society's vast underbelly. I'm no Rhodes Scholar, nor am I about ready to stand in an alleyway and sell four nights a week, but I've had a taste of both paths, and I feel wiser for it... is that an arrogant thing to say? Is that repulsively self-congratulatory? Am I just trying to warp my own arbitrary experiences into a coherent narrative to excuse myself for the lack of direction that my formative years have been characterised by? I honestly don't think so.

I paid that eighty-nine dollars today, the blow was made so much softer by the fact that I cleaned UP on my tour this morning, but when I paid it I couldn't help but think that what I was doing was basically flushing that cash away for the chance to be able to say that I haven't thrown it all away just yet. Uni is such a clearly defined path, and I can't say that I've totally given up the idea of going back at some point and finishing my (snigger) Bachelor of Arts... but right now I'm so happy – so insanely, illogically, unreasonably content with where I'm headed and the way my life is working – that it would be stupid to fuck with everything just because forgoing the safety net of tertiary education feels a little scary. When I came out here, I came out with the intention of living without a net. I wanted to stare into the abyss and jump, knowing, guessing, hoping, that there would be something in between me and that infinite black to grasp onto, and that that something would be enough to justify the sheer stupidity of the initial leap of faith. I wanted to exist beyond my familiar comfort zone.

I'm not going back to uni next year, but the option is still there, I haven't lost sight of the path completely, not yet, maybe soon though. For now, the edge is still out there. For now, I'm still holding on.

Peace, Taco.

Today I Had the Idea of Doing This

I seem to be on the downward side of one of my frequent oscillations between king-hitting happiness and the trough; a sad, abandoned laziness best captured by the word 'no'. So, in light of my recognition of this mental state, I have decided to play a game: every day, for as long as I feel like doing it... maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks... fuck it, I might even stop after today... but every day until I stop, I'm going to describe something that has happened to me in the twenty-four-ish hours since my last entry. So I'll start with today I guess.

Today I had the idea to do this thing, this writing thing, the thing that I'm doing right now. I was not so much sitting or lying down, but maybe a fair way to give a quick description of my position would be to say that I was in a position halfway between the two. I was on my knees, knelt at the side of my bed with my head and the upper part of my torso slumped across my mattress in a sort of groaning-prayer position. I had my eyes closed, and it's likely that my mouth was openly drooling. One of my books was in front of me with the title 'Retelling Something Daily' scrawled hurriedly on to the top of a new page – I was looking for something to write about. The idea had come to me tentatively as I was reading Catch-22 – well I wasn't so much reading it as I was looking at the words for the first two paragraphs of chapter eleven, I can tell when I'm not actually reading something because I start to get mental images of things that have nothing to do with what I'm pretending to be taking in.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there is it? No. I had the idea to write about something every day – some episode or story or happening or just something interesting that I can retell in a chronological way so that I might practice pure storytelling and focus my style away from pretentious, stream-of-consciousness ramblings on random, disconnected topics. I keep giving myself excuses to continue with the patterns of writing that I find easy: 'stay true to yourself', 'genius is often misunderstood', 'develop your own unique style'. These petty reaffirmations are useless and will only serve to distance me further from any potential development. I need to push myself. Pressure. Focus. Force. Words. Do not become comfortable.

So I wrote down 'Today I had the idea of doing this' on the first line of the page. I wrote it just under the heading that I'd scrawled quickly before dumping my face on the bed in a tantrum of self-defeating exhaustion. I went back to reading with a bit more focus, and with a reasonable confidence that in around half an hour or so I would embark on the first of what will hopefully be many quick retellings of odd, daily events. “Do one thing, every day, that scares you” – I am scared of writing drivel, and as far as I can see, the day-to-day life of a barely employed twenty-one year old contains nothing but, so here we go. I am afraid.

Peace, Taco.

Spring Rocks and Julie is Fat

Every year for the past three or four (I really struggle to remember anything clearly from before I reached drinking age and I'm sure that somewhere in there there's a pro-alcohol argument waiting to be fleshed out) it seems that the first half of the year contains the vast majority of shitty happenings and a whole bunch of fretted damage control, while the second half – from about midwinter onwards – just fucking rocks. Down here in the southern hemisphere we've got spring and summer to kick us into the Christmas and New Year season and while the sky rises in the sky, so too do spirits seem to soar, but the utter brilliance of the tail ends of the last few years has led me to believe that something else – some more hidden, more other force – is at play here.

I have yet to directly ask any of my Northern-Hemisphere facebook-friends about their feelings on the second half of the year, so I don't know whether this vibe that I keep getting around August every year is universal, or if it is confined only to the bottom half of our globe, but I'm sure it's not just an Australia thing because I was in Bolivia last October to February, and those fuckers were joyous. And I'm not just describing a lift in spirits here either... I mean sure, once the first few real days of spring come through – those days when the sky is clear and shirts are optional – people start to get optimistic. I could bury myself in a pile of useless copper if I had a penny for every time a tenuous September conversation fell on the crutch of “I can't wait for summer”, but the change in attitude is only part of why I love August to February, there is another, more mysterious piece to this puzzle.

I reckon about seventy-percent of my sexual encounters have happened in the happy months of Spring and Summer – and I'm not talking about that tired 'okay, if you really want to' shit either, we're talking mad, rowdy, crack-the-bedpost-and-set-off-the-fire-alarm fucking. Springtime fucking – way more common in the spring. Add to that the fact that almost every relationship I've ever had have started between August and February, and they all tend to end around March. Huge moves have been made in my life in this part of the year – my trip to Bolivia, my first pair of good shoes, the time I lost my virginity, finishing school, starting stand-up comedy. While the other half of the year – springtime's ugly, overweight half-sister; let's call her Julie – has played host to job firings, two arrests, almost every one of my breakups, squatting in a crack-den in Clearview; Adelaide, depressed friends, and countless instances of arson and petty vandalism which only went unpunished by the sheerest of sheer luckiness. Julie, Julie, Julie... but why, people? Why does it always seem to be like this?

As I put to you before, I don't buy into the simple explanation that the sun shines brighter on the face of man, making him happy and cheerful and glad... not a fucking chance. Many of the brilliant things that have happened to me in the springtime have been completely separate from any human interference, and a whole slew of the bad shit that goes down on Julie's watch is down to my own stupid choices... what, is some behavioural scientist going to come up here and try to tell me that clouds make people angry? Rain drives youths to cover cars in petrol and turn them into towering infernos in the deep of the night? Piteous posturing! Why bother with nonsense hypotheticals, when a simpler, rational explanation sits right in front of our noses?

Birds.

Birds are great, and birds are plentiful in spring. As my housemate just said then when I asked him what he liked about birds, “they look so majestic when they fly.”... Uuuh... fuck, yeah ok guys, look, I'll come clean with you, I really can't think of anything else to write here. I was going to go on a bit of a tirade here about how birds have magical powers, or something, and how it is clear that while the springtime possesses it's own inherent charm that makes people happy and renews vitality in our hearts and souls, the birds are what really make this time of year special. I was going to be clever, verbose, and very very satirical. Ironic. Facetious. It would have been funny... but I can't, I can't think of anything, this piece just fell flat on its face. You are now witnessing, live and uncut, what happens when I try to write something special and it gets knotted up in its own specialness... speciality? Specially.. spe... fuck this, it's sunny and I'm going to play outside.

Frustrated, yes. Beaten, not yet.
I still love the springtime.

Peace, Taco.

My Room Again and Newer

(NOTE: This post is a loose sequel to a previous post which can be found here)

I'm in my room again. In here, just like always, brooding away and chewing pens. Biting down hard. I'm sitting at a desk now – my desk apparently – my parents chucked it in the moving van with all my other stuff from Adelaide and said, “you love desks don't ya mate? How about this one then?” I'd never seen the thing before in my life, but Rolly, Dosh, and Jodger my mittens, this thing is LARGE. It's about two metres long – yeah let's go with that – and a metre wide and while one half is supported by the heavy-yet-flimsy wooden board that some more adventurous types would term a 'leg', the other side is propped up by one of my big speakers which is almost the same height as the leg, (just a bit taller) and that height is made up on the leg's side by a few bricks that I stole out of the back yard. I'm going to keep those bricks when we move out, because I don't give a fuck what anyone says. I am a lone ranger. Revolution. etc. etc.

On top of the mighty table is all the electrical equipment I own in the world (take note, potential burglars) including my newly purchased 2TB external hard drive... last Monday I went on a bit of a spending spree which was facilitated by the finalisation of my dealings with former boss and professional fuckhead Nathan Walker... he owed me five-hundred and fifty wing-wangs, and when those wing-wangs came, oh how the money did fly. New skateboard – over by the wall. New kicks – Puma Suedes. (nowhere other than the internet could I find any Puma Clydes which SUCKS because the pair I bought about three and a half years ago now are still the most amazing pair of shoes I have ever owned) And the hard drive... it's quickly filling up with movies now... let's see if we can't do some real damage to this internet quota here lads – I'm not even sure if there's a limit?

To my right is a letter from my grandma with a few of her short stories on it, sent at my request, and also a letter from the first French girl I ever kissed, back in the original envelope with the words “keep your old love letters, throw away old bank statements” scrawled vertically down the side... I know I said it in the last one, but I'll say it again now, you have to hold on. Hold on. Hold on... A reading list hangs next to it with my hopeful conquests of the next six months including some Stewart Lee, Charles Bukowski, Mark Twain, Kafka, and a self-help book that Rich has recommended called 'Why People Fail'... Because failing, that's not what you want is it? (rhetorical question; easy one there, nothing too strenuous) An angry note to myself – “ONLY ON SUNDAY” – sits right in front of me, glaring down from the wall above my laptop screen. Burning a hole in my retina, it will remain there until I learn... what I need to learn, is for only me to know. I feel lame even saying that it's there without being prepared to come clean about why yet... but I guess that's just part of the process... it will come, once I've learnt. As a now completely insane person once said to me in once of his last glimpses of brilliance before he slipped off the edge and fell down into the lonely recesses of his own mind, “he needs to learn”. He was right... I really do.

To my right, and behind me, each item of furniture is slowly settling into place; a millimetre here, a creaking floorboard there, each leg or stand or corner slowly creating a groove in the wooden floor, and making sure that whenever it is all removed – hopefully not for a long time yet – the hardwood will show up lighter in the places it once sat. I love my furniture, emblazoned as it is with bright, meaningless stickers from a long-forgotten childhood. I don't remember putting any of them there, but I know it was me... it's basically all I used to do. There's some there from the Navy, from ABC Radio, from McDonalds, from random lollies and showbags from the Adelaide Show, National Geographic, caricatures of Darren Lehman and Adam Gilchrist of the Australian Cricket Team in the mid to late nineties, and my favourite, 'My Dog is Registered Because I Care <3'. (Note: I do not, nor have I ever, owned a dog – that's why it's funny, yeah?) If I were over-sentimental, I would tell you that each one of these stickers tells a story of a fond time that I can treasure in the back of my heart. I'd say something soft like "they make me smile, breathe, sigh, and do happy things with my hair..." and trail off with an ellipsis... ew, gross. That would be complete bullshit, they're just stickers, and they bear no meaning other than that they are there now, and I'm pretty sure they look fucking dope... Giddy Goanna; the guy is a straight up badass.

My bed behind me has remained empty but for my lonely, increasingly hairy body for the last few weeks it has been here, and I know a pretty girl who will be very happy to read that should she chance upon this particular entry... but I don't think I'll tell her about it directly. Leave small presents here and there, that's the best way I think. Little treats, little surprises, scattered about the world for those inquisitive enough to find them. This is her present, all the rest of you will have to wait for yours.

Strewn around the floor I've still got clothes... still, god damn it – even with drawers and cupboards my clothes end up catching bread-crumbs on the floor... holy fuck yesterday I ate some cereal with ants in it. Not a funny story there, just the truth, which I hope you can all appreciate and take something away from. It happened because Desh – one half of the famed BroDesh collective, so named by me and me alone, that is comprised of my two housemates – was drunk and whatever else on Saturday morning, and smashed a whole bunch of shit up in the kitchen. My cereal was on the floor when I came home and I lazily didn't pick it up; instead I just stood laughing in eye-rolling disbelief at the scene before me, and then went to bed. Later on when I went to have a bowl of cereal yesterday, I poured the fruity stuff onto my Weetbix and ants came out with it... not heaps of ants, but enough to be worried about you know? Like maybe five per spoonful. So I tried to wash them out with water first, and then sieve the cereal... but that was an idea born of desperation which proved as utterly futile at the time as it looks right now in writing. In the end, I resigned to eating the ants with milk and cereal together – just as god intended – and as my stomach filled with acetic acid, I knew I would be retelling this with what really is an unhealthy lack of embarrassment or restraint, very, very soon.

The plan for the future you ask? Well first I'm going to the toilet, and then I'm gonna grab some incense and light that shit up next to my half-open window, and put on the kettle for another cup of tea. That's about as far as I've thought it through to be honest – my days of late are spent between silent meditation and furious passion over one or another of life's meaningless details... and it's so perfect it makes me want to take my head and smash it into a wall. That doesn't make sense does it? Of course not, what ever does.

Peace, Taco.