This Post is a Little Bit Arrogant but Eeeeh...

Karmon's 'Wowshit' is blasting from down the passage, bass is shaking the floorboards and the fifteen-hundred dollar sound system in our living room is being given its daily workout. I love living with these cats, every week during the day the sunny ambience of the house is inevitably broken when one of the three DJ inhabitants of my Richmond abode decide to jump on the deck s and have a mix. Deep house and techno are the staples of this summer, and while the weed smoke sits heavy under the ceiling and soaks in to the plaster, the pounding bass sends ripples through the air. I sit in my room and write. Listen. Focus.

Then every weekend at sunrise a new horde of loud, obnoxious freaks crawls through our front door and pile themselves on couches and empty floorspace and throb with the music. They are messy and uncouth and ugly and their eyes twitch and their faces are dirty from sweat and alcohol. They are fucking brilliant.

What I have noticed, pretty much since I moved into this place, is that this is the house I have always wanted to live in. Constant parties, a parade of new faces and stupid conversations, drinking, drugs, people... this is the place I wished so hard for every weekend from the moment I turned eighteen, but never managed to secure. I always felt like I was on the outside of some huge social network, forever looking in through the tinted windows, trying to make out the figures within. I strained to see the people inside as they did all the amazing things I thought I could see them doing, I beat myself up wondering why I could never find the way to acceptance. I now realize that this very desperation which has so shaped me the last few years was the reason that I never felt like I was in the middle of things – that I always felt like I was on the outside looking in.

Now, only a year or so later, I have stopped going out and looking, begging for that acceptance and trying furiously to get into the middle of that scene; the town scene. Ironically, after all that fruitless toil, it is only now that I have stopped trying that I somehow find myself sitting in the middle, in the room with everyone else, behind the tinted glass. Of course that's not how it feels, it still feels like I'm on the outside of something, and when the people come into my house on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I don't feel like these are my people coming home, or that I am one of them and they are here to see me, because they're not... but I know that to anyone sitting where I used to sit, out in the world of clubbing and partying and weekend benders, I must look like I'm running the show back here.

I guess the lesson here is something that I've been repeatedly telling myself for quite a while now, something that is undoubtedly, irrevocably true, but that never seems to fully sink in, no matter how often I say it. Everyone is insecure, everyone is troubled, everyone stresses about things and no one really has it as together as they would have the world believe. We are all struggling to fit in somewhere, or impress someone, or live up to some lofty ideal. I look at some people and just think, “wow, you are just fucking cool”... some people just seem to have it and exude positivity and excellence wherever they go. But those people are looking at someone else too, saying the same shit, and wondering the same things. “How do they do it?” We're all looking to someone else, wondering how they built their house of cards... well... like maybe not Brad Pitt or something.

Brad Pitt is the apex of humanity. He is the monolithic idol from which all subsequent human endeavour can be traced. And with that grand, overreaching statement, I think I'm just about finished for today.

Peace, Taco.

November Life Update

What has even been going on for the last few weeks? I haven't kept y'all very well updated have I? Not that the majority of people give two shakes of an indifference stick about my day-to-day potterings and trips to the toilet, but for those of you who do, enthralling tales of a young man out in the wild lie within. Tacooooo is doin' it for hisself!

I have seven days of drinking left for twenty-twelve (FINALLY, my compulsive need to type numbers has paid off, none of this 'two-thousand and twelve' bullshit) and it's looking right now like they are almost all spoken for. I'm saving four for my trip back to Adelaide from the 20^th to the 28^th of December, which means only three remain. One will be for next Thursday when I hit up the Peek Tours pub crawl in an effort to gauge the amount of alcohol required to achieve complete standing-unconsciousness – doing it for science – and that means the last two days will fall somewhere in between a week from now, and December 20^th. I've found the best nights, even with my freakishly regimented year of monitored alcohol intake, have been the unplanned ones, and so with that in mind, I won't be pre-booking nights for those two remaining nights of drinking, but I'm sure that someone cool will pop up in the three or so weeks and convince me that Now! Now! Now! is the time for drunkenness.

Money-wise things are looking slightly tighter than I would like – and with every indulgent cafe lunch the noose keeps slipping – but as it stands I am making $250 a week from working at Yah Yah's, and probably another $250 a week from doing walking tours. Let's make that $200, just to be conservative. Realistically I'm probably pocketing around $550 a week, but at least a hundred of that goes straight into the wind so it's not even worth counting, $450 it is. Rent is $170 a week, so with another piece of nifty rounding that leaves me $250 a week to play with – and I really have to catch myself here, because although I use the term 'play with', what that should really mean is 'put away in an envelope and not look at'. I have to pay $500 by mid-January for the festival show I'm doing with Rob Caruana at Station 59, and a bus up to Adelaide and Plane back for Christmas – probably another $250 – and I'll be wanting some party-money for when I get down there, so unless the opportunity for sort of Mafia-sponsored contraband run on the Greyhound bus presents itself in the next month, that'll be four weeks of income spoken for. Conveniently, four weeks is the exact amount of time that stands in between me and Adelaide right now, so without getting too confident here, I think it's gonna be ok... there's always the surprise phone bill to worry about, but fuck it... live a little.

My ankles still hurt from repeated falls off my skateboard, although I'm getting better (marginally), although I'm guessing it's going to be a while before these badboys return to their regular size. Cruising down to the river-side skatepark the other afternoon with Brodie and his bro was easilly call of the week, watching people who can actually do things other than roll around gave me the balls to eat shit in the hope of being able to land even one tiny little trick. I just want to be cool guys!!! Fuck, that is seriously not far from the truth.

Also our internet is capped, which is probably the most crippling ailment known to civilized man. I have slowly begun to doubt the existence of AIDS, Hepatitis, and all forms of cancer, by the logic that if God wanted us to suffer needlessly through our lives, he wouldn't waste his time with microscopic viruses and fiddly tumours, he'd just cripple us by taking away our access to the infinite database of porn that should, according to all sane reasoning, be available to us instantly at any hour of the day. That's exactly what he's been doing to me and my housemates for the last six days, folks. God works in mysterious ways, and today his name is Telstra.

I think I just lost my notebook – one of three, even in note-taking I am meticulous and thoroughly organized – no massive loss really because this one contains the hurried scribblings of ideas for jokes and stories that I then look back on and expand in my other two books, but still annoying nonetheless. I've found myself lately thinking about the way that we use paper and the written word as a method for dumping the thoughts that occupy our brains onto a physical medium, thus eliminating the need for our minds to stagnate upon them. It's kind of like the way a computer uses a hard drive to store information it isn't using right now, while the info that it does need immediate access to is stored on the RAM. The written word is so amazingly useful because it allows us to free up our minds constantly for new information, and ensures that if we have a good idea, we don't need to stress ourselves remembering it, because we can just record it and have it waiting for a time when we feel ready to pick the thought back up again and follow it through.

I've gone off track slightly... but now that we're here, you can get a pretty good idea of how my life is faring right now. Without anything serious to think about – no real troubles to speak of, no stress, no pain, no emotional hangups – I am free to float and dawdle around whatever thoughts and pastimes I want. Sometimes things feel hard – comedy is not an easy pursuit, as friendly as the people might be (and they are), the stage is a lonely place – but whenever I feel myself getting down on setbacks, I recount the things I've done in the past week and shake my head once the ridiculous simplicity of my life sinks in. Life gets hard friends, but right now it seems easy.

Peace, Taco.

Comedy Laundry

My Beautiful Laundrette is on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, contains a number of washing machines in varying sizes and dryers of varying noisiness. It is a pleasant, if bare environment, and always seems to be kept at optimal room-temperature by fans – I haven't counted how many – positioned in above eye level and hanging from the walls or ceiling. I go there every couple weeks to do my laundry (duh, fuckhead) and... wait... hold up... ok, what the fuck was that?

In the past months I've become increasingly frustrated by what I have started to understand is the biggest problem with my comedy. As much as I pet and cajole myself after every gig, and as much as I mentally prepare myself beforehand, I can't seem to reliably win the audience over. Every now and then I'll have a great gig, but that's nothing to celebrate – everyone gets lucky every now and then. For the majority of my mediocre spots I seem to have the audience steadily suspended somewhere between vague enjoyment and frightened annoyance and as great as this may sound, it really is not gold comedy territory. So I've been thinking about why this is and what I can do about it, and I think I've hit upon a small something... hopefully? Maybe? We'll see I guess.

Firstly, I mentioned that I've had good gigs, but I mentioned it dismissively, and with good reason – it seems to me that most, if not all, of the really good gigs I've had have been mostly down to luck, and I say that not because I'm trying to get down on myself, but because it's true. The approach that I've been taking with comedy has been very much along the lines of “write material; decide whether it's funny enough to do on stage; do new material on stage; decide whether I should keep it; compose predetermined sets from bits of new material that worked mixed with old material”. I guess there's no problem with that approach, in theory – ah those beautiful words – in theory it should be fine. In theory I can continue to push through a wall of silence after my opener falls flat, or receives a lukewarm response. In theory I should just keep going and try the next joke. Maybe they'll like this one better? Maybe that was just a false start? NO! That's a stupid fucking theory; comedy isn't about theories, and comedy isn't about robots getting on stage telling joke after joke after joke and crossing their fingers in the hope that a few of them stick... fuck... FUCK... COME ON...

I had noticed that my gigs had been falling in quality – maybe a better way of putting it would be that they have been lacking in consistency or predictability – and I tried a few things. You'll notice up top there at the start of this piece that I reached out for anger and attacked you, my gentle readers, when I realised that I had gone three sentences into my intro without cracking one joke – I got nervous and lashed out... it was a cheap shot borne of fear, and I need to dead those cheap shots. Put them away, and start really reading the audience. Connecting with them. I need to tell them – let them know? – that it's ok, that I'm in control. Maybe first it would be nice to actually be in control, but hopefully one will beget the other I guess... ugh, thinking about comedy is hard. Comedy is hard. Look guys, all I'm trying to say, and all I will say for the moment, is I've realised that in order to regain control over the quality of my gigs, I'm going to have to go out on a limb and break the fourth wall. Break it, smash it, shit on it, and eat it for breakfast. The audience need to feel like they have some control over what is happening so that when the comedian jumps out and surprises them from behind his cleverly placed misdirections and traps and cleverly constructed sentences, they aren't so surprised that they turn on him. They need to trust me. Trust me audience... please?... Ok., working on it.

By the way the laundrette really is quite nice. Four dollars for a wash cycle, one dollar for fifteen minutes of drying, and everything I said about the room-temperature was true. My Beautiful Laundrette Brunswick St, Fitzroy – I recommend it.

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.

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.

Insecure Ramblings of the Fearfully Conscious Mind

I am walking down the road wearing clothes, experiencing the weather, and thinking about nothing in particular. I am always reliably secure in my thoughts and free of worry when I am alone, and alone I am right now. Two guys turn around the corner in the middle distance – fifty metres – and they're walking towards me. The sidewalk is narrow, just wide enough for two people to walk abreast, although not comfortably. It is always the way on these sorts of narrow sidewalks that groups of three are awkwardly split into two walking abreast, and one walking in front or behind, straining to listen and participate in the conversation of the other two. “These are treacherous walkways”, are the words that I think to myself as the two strangers pace towards me, and I towards them. Strange words, they are odd, and so I trace over them several times in my mind. “These are treacherous walkways”, “treacherous walkways be these”.

A car whizzes past on my right from behind me, and swishes off into the distance, stopping abruptly at the spoon-drain that marks the intersection of the road the two guys just turned off of – they are getting closer now. Almost within earshot. The one on my left is talking, with his left hand – the one closest to his partner – gesturing slowly and making circles in the space in front of them. Who are they, what are they talking about? What do they do here and why this street? Why now? They both look up together, simultaneously, and spot me as I had spotted them just before. The tone of the speaker dips slightly as they approach me, surely an unconscious reflex, but I wonder to myself though, what is it that they were talking about, and why am I not permitted to listen? Even by accident, even by complete chance. Surely their conversation is not relevant to me. Surely not? Surely. Surely.

I furtively throw my gaze up from the pavement for one last time before we pass and resume our previous roles of complete strangers – never having met, or even exchanged pleasantries. Their gazes haunt me though, as the distance between our backs grows at the same rate as before. My walk speeds up slightly, and my brain races along with the determined stride of my feet that carry my along the thin footpath. What if they were talking about me? They had every opportunity to look me up and down as soon as they rounded the corner; as soon as I could judge them, so they could judge me in turn. What anomaly could be so obvious in my appearance that they would have discussed it at length, before secretively hushing their judgement as we crossed paths? What did they see? What is wrong with my clothes? My face? My hair or the way that I walk? Why do they hate me, these strangers, two men who I have never met?

Maybe their stares were ones of pity, or sadness, as they saw my pathetic figure approaching them, alone and depressed, with my hands hanging down my sides like limp appendages, swinging without purpose. Maybe they could see in me what I have not yet identified myself, some awful predisposition to failure, or unhappiness. They could tell more about me from one quick glance, than I could possibly have discovered in all my life, after all my wanderings, and searchings, and introspective thoughts. Maybe that is the very reason they could see it... because I have searched so long for imperfections within myself that the truth of my complete inadequacy has eluded me... glaringly obvious as it is, sitting right in front of my nose. I think these thoughts, and I trace them over several times in my mind. “Complete inadequacy”, “obvious, complete inadequacy”.

I think of turning around. I twist my head. They are far behind me... almost far enough to shout? To call out to them? “WHAT IS IT? WHAT DID YOU SEE?” I consider screaming, for a second, consider running, consider finding out. But it would be no use. I march on, slowly rationalizing things and coming back to myself. Of course they didn't see anything, they were just two people, the same sort of people as me. They were talking to eachother, as friends often do, and they maybe glanced up at me as we passed and saw some menace in my eyes. Some judgement that maybe provoked fear in the scared corners of their hearts as well... maybe not, but they surely weren't judging me. I make these things up, these frantic, fretfully insecure worryings... and as I walk down the road, I realize this, and laugh to myself. “They were just the same as me, repeat it Taco.” I say that to myself as I walk on, slowing down slightly and again becoming comfortable. “Everyone is just the same as me.”

Peace, Taco.

Comedy Brick Wall

I have always viewed the tendency of our over-sentimental Facebook generation to preface comments on current feelings with the qualifier 'sometimes' as pointless and evasive. Sentences like “sometimes it hurts too much to think”, or “sometimes you miss them and you don't even know why”, or “sometimes I masturbate to people's tumblr feeds” are perfectly normal declarations, obscured by the dirty word 'sometimes' which dilutes their power and sullies their meaning. I was tempted to commit this foul sin just now, as I started to write this blog, but instead decided to comment on it which, as far as I have thought in my own silly mind, counts as not doing it. The following are not emotions that happen 'sometimes', no matter what qualifiers I slap onto my sentences out of habit and laziness; the following are things which I am feeling right now.

I am currently finding it hard to muster up the courage (courage really isn't the right word here... maybe strength? Or 'emotional resources'? Something something something, you get the point) to write more comedy and perform stuff, or work on stuff, or whatever I need to do. I'm just finding it hard right now is what I'm saying. It's weird, I know I can do well on stage because I've done so before, and I've had good gigs on nights that other comedians have done poorly – ie. it wasn't just because of a good crowd that my best gigs have happened. But lately I've been dying a lot more... well not dying per se, just not doing well... getting a few laughs here and there but not loads and I'm having a fucking hard time figuring out why that is.

I have been told by a few people that I need to write some self-deprecating material and open with it so that I can get the audience on side and then have license to get angry and rant about whatever else I want to rant about. I've even had a go at writing some stuff like that, but the first crack I had at it led to my worst gig ever, and the material ended up having the opposite effect to what I had desired – almost making me come off a bit conceited and arrogant. God damn it. GOD DAMN IT. How does this stuff work? Sometimes (FUCK! there it is – I'll leave it in a a punishment, come on Tuck, you can do better) I feel like I want to just stop doing the whole comedy thing and retreat behind the shield of approval that is the written word. Behind my keyboard no one can really harm me and if my sentiments or attempts at humour fall flat, no one is around to be silent and stare up sympathetically. It's safe. Secure. Easy. Tame.

But that's exactly why I need to NOT stay back here in safety, because it is good to do one thing every day that scares you. Well I don't have gigs every day, but maybe if I scare myself two or three times a week then I'll meet enough of the quota... I don't get that nervous before gigs any more – not the regular gigs that I've been doing anyway – because they are just that, regular gigs. But maybe I should be getting more stressed out before gigs... I certainly haven't had a really good one in a while (notwithstanding the aristocrats night at Station 59 where I wasn't doing material) so maybe I should be feeling a little concerned that people may begin to see me in a negative light if I keep going this way. These are rantings of a paranoid mind, I know that even as I type them, but I can't help feeling stressed. Comedy is hard... fucking hard... I'm hitting a wall here people, and I don't know how to make it work again.

Frustrated. Scared. Paranoid. Feeling alone.

Peace, Taco.

A Bad Day Turned Good

This blogging thing seems to be going in cycles and I've decided to stop trying to force it so much and just let it happen. That's not to say that I won't be pushing myself to write whenever I have a free moment – hell yes I'm going to be writing as much as possible. Just that if I've just had a few good weeks of solid output, I can accept maybe that my brain might need some time to catch up. I CAN'T KEEP UP MY RED-HOT, FULL-TILT, MAXIMUM PACE ALL THE TIME!!! That was a Red Dwarf quote, for those of you playing at home.

So today has been a great day so far, and it only promises to get better. If we are going by the conventional 'midnight-to-midnight' day system – and for the purposes of this recap I think we just may – then the day started rather poorly with me beginning my shift at Yah Yah's. Yah Yah's is a great place to work; it's fucking brilliant actually, but starting work is never any good... although, being as it was that my shift started at midnight exactly, and that I had realistically already started working by 11:55pm, it could be said that the worst part of my shirt – the dreading anticipation of a night's labour – was already over by the time the thirteenth of October, twenty-twelve was upon us. I only worked until three because I had to give a tour this morning at 10:30am, which required a 9am alarm and it seemed the day was going to be one feral shit-storm from the get-go, but I think all that sad, dejected moping about how much my Saturday was going to suck has ended up turning things on their head.

So I got home at three thirty to my housemates (and OH what mates they are) parting hearty in the lounge room with thudding house music and deep grooves aplenty. I bought a pack of Doritos (Cheese Supreme you FUCK what else?) on the way home with five dong I found on the floor at work and skated down the big hill. Yes, yes and yes. The scenes I return home to after work every weekend are inspiring to say the least. This is the house I always wanted to live in from ages eighteen to twenty – a natural after-party destination that any self-respecting head would want to return to after the din of the dancefloor dies down. It is precisely because of my adolescent desire for such a place that I never was able to create one in those days, and the greatest comic irony of the whole thing is now that I live in the house of my naïve, popularity-obsessed self's dreams, I don't so much care about the parties that happen here. I'm willing to join in for a while, maybe suck down a few puffs of the spliff in circulation, but before long I'm in bed, and sleeping while the walls continue to shake.

I did my tour – woke up at nine, pickups in town from ten, tour until one, and made eighty cash units from the seven people on my tour, although I did forget to take the photo of the group (god DAMN it I keep forgetting that shit) so I'm looking at a thirty-dollar pay-in for that one. 'E neva lerns, duz e'? Nope. Also ran into an old friend from way back in Adelaide – Dom the Drummer from Brighton. He picked me out of the lineup at Aldi and by the sounds of it he's doing the do just like everyone else is over here in Melbourne; tearing shit up and screaming down the dangerous road. Numbers were exchanged and I'm sure we'll be seeing much more of olde Dominic from now on.

Back at home by one-thirty and in bed watching season two of Community with commentaries by two, and now I'm up at five thirty after a quick chat to Peter Pan of Neverland fame about how he's striking his demons back with bamboo poles and a head of positivity... things are looking up. Tonight I'm doing a spot at Station 59 for the late show, and then work, which somehow seems a lot less ominous after last night's shift and the catharsis of writing this post. Everything is so much simpler when it's laid out in simple terms doncharekkin? Yes, is the answer we were looking for there. Yes people. Just yes.

Peace, Taco.

Make Me Angry

So it's looking like I'm going to be moving in with Brodie and Desh in the next week or two as Tim moves out of the Richmond place and in to his own sex-nest (my words, not his) with his lovely lady-friend Lauren. Logistics for this move will be tricky and Ill be recruiting my main main Philly P for transport duties when he drives down from Adelaide next week, hopefully with my queen-size mattress fixed semi-securely to the roof of his car. Bond is only seven-hundred-and-something dong so that shouldn't be a massively stressful ordeal, and seeing as rent is taken out monthly by direct debit I'll just have to make sure that my bank accounts are set up nicely so that more than enough is sent to my net account each week so I can't get at it with my evil plastic money funnels. I'm definitely looking forward to being out of this hostel and into a room of my own where I can crank beats and kill the light at any hour I desire, although I will miss the communal feel of this place and plan to come back every now and then to kick it with the few friends that remain... god damn it I feel really boring today, is this really all I have to say? 'really' twice in one sentence... I can't even string a sentence together. AGAIN? REALLY TACO? REALLY?

Fuck, should I get fired up about something? Uuuugh... This morning at knock-offs after work conversation turned to the now-recurrent theme of government and civil rights and I must say the fact that this is becoming a regular topic is both scary and exciting. Exciting because it's nice to talk with people about the shit that gets me really revved up and ready to debate, but scary because I know, before even entering into the discussion, that my frequently held position as devil's-advocate may not sit nicely with my work-mates, including managers and owners of the venue. Nevertheless, when we started talking about minority rights and the three other people sitting at the bar all begun the ritualized back-slapping that is common to people who are prepared only to energetically agree with eachother and sit back in comfortable chairs while the world's problems solve themselves, I could see exactly where things were headed. I raised the point that while affirmative action and quotas may hold a part of the solution to problems of, specifically, gender inequality, their implementation could conceivably, and from experience, does, cause resentment and feelings of tokenism among the non-minority groups. I'm not claiming to have a better solution here, but I would rather be a part of a debate where unfinished ideas are fleshed out and considered openly than sit back as one side's unfinished ideas are presented as though they are complete and uncontested, and then accepted as truth.

God damn it, still not really getting riled up here am I... What is wrong with me today? I don't feel blurry or anything, although Remi, my French room-mate, did just ask if I was hungover today, so maybe I am a bit worse-for-wear this morning (7:13pm) than I thought? I'd start on another topic here for the sake of attaining the magical number of three different ideas for this blog, but I really don't see the need... or have the impetus or energy. Yesterday Rachel and I went to Alex's new place in Coburg where they had bands playing in their basement and a fire going in the back yard. The place is fucking enormous and promises an amazing summer of backyard parties and lazy Sunday afternoons... but I'm finding it hard to gather up the furious excitement that I know that place deserves right now, so even with this hot at hand, I'm going to leave you guys waiting. I'll tell you about it next week.

Feeling half-faded –
sad, unenthusiastic.

That's me, signing off.

Peace, Taco.

Heartbeats, Fast

God DAMN it I have been busy... at least it feels like I have. Often times I have to breathe out quickly and mentally slap myself in the face, then focus on something still and try and figure out which set of emotions that I seem to constantly dart between are real and which are make-believe. Am I constantly on the verge of losing my head and jumping out of the nearest first storey window, just to exert the frantic energy that frustrates me from within? Or are the moments when my body feels most on edge simply fleeting weaknesses? Am I really so stressed? Am I really so busy? Is life really as hectic as it seems in the depths of my most flurried of moments? Or am I still floating gently through a series of difficult moments, only ever becoming conscious when the times seem far too tough?

This week I took a quick trip to Adelaide (I left on Sunday night by bus and returned Tuesday afternoon by plane) with the original stated purpose being to farewell my now-estranged ex-girlfriend, Melanie. While I had made a commitment to return for her last day in Australia several weeks ago, I knew deep in my heart as I departed Melbourne at 8pm Sunday evening that I did not want to go, and I bore a shameful resentment towards her for the fact that I was spending money that I didn't have on a trip that, really, I didn't need to take. I had a good time in Adelaide – I got to see my friends again and performed a killer spot at Rhino Room – but the truth of the matter is that I didn't need to be there and I should have just told her I wasn't coming in the end. We had fought enough and the last hug wasn't a hugely moving experience, as all the goodbyes were said long ago. I need to learn to say no to myself and to other people when faced with hard decisions that involve other people's feelings and I need to man the fuck up and cut my losses sometimes. This was one of those times. Yeah I mate a commitment to go, but what good was that commitment once it had become clear than any friendship we were going to have would be hollow and forced for the remainder of the time that she was in Australia and.... ugh, I'm just going to stop myself there. I think I've said everything I needed to say on that... Melanie is gone. Adios francessa, bien viaje.

So with that I can move on to something else I have been avoiding discussing in here – my new girlfriend... and there's an ugly little phrase if ever I saw one. We made it facebook official today... wow. If I could delete those last few sentences from this page and replace them with some sort of dot or squiggle or picture of a cat with a funny caption that could convey the same meaning, then I would... those words are ugly, and they make me cringe. Unfortunately though, they are a necessity, and while I'm not happy about writing the words themselves, the events that have brought me to this point could not have been better.

Rach and I met in the first couple weeks that I was in Melbourne while I was on the door at the Worker's Pub taking coin for a gig in the band room... she came up to the door and we chatted for a while, but I didn't ask for her number under some misguided pretence of 'playing it cool'. Good job Tugboat, cool. Professional. “Don't worry babe, I've done this all before.” Well anyway after your standard courtship etc. etc. we made it official for us on the 9^th of August (her calculations not mine) and then made it official for everyone else a few hours ago. I'm seriously fucking ecstatic to have met such a funny and interesting girl after only having been in this city for two months and am excited to see what happens with us as time goes on. But the catch – and there is always one – is that she is leaving for a gap-year tour of Europe on the 11^th of September and, while her stated return date is somewhere in February, it could be as long as that, or as short as the time it takes to get mugged at Heathrow Airport and be extradited home for vagrancy outside the international terminal.

It's the uncertainty that's really getting to me, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess, and for the moment, I'm having the time of my life... as always pretty much. I don't want to expound on this shit too much here, as these are really thoughts for my private pages and surely are as laborious for you all to read as they are difficult for me to write. Other than that though I have done three spots this week, and did as many last week, and I have a big one lined up for Tuesday at some place called Soto E Sopra which I have invited all DA BOIZ to come and check out. I know I have grown a lot in the two months that I've been here and while seventy percent of the material I put down ends up being scrapped before I even get to the stage, I have managed to put together a fair amount of good stuff including a solid five to seven minutes that I am confident I can take to whatever stage I can get on to. I can safely say that the initial period of settling in here is finished, and interestingly enough I feel like the first stage of me as a stand-up comic is over as well. I am confident enough on stage now to not fall completely to pieces if a bit doesn't work and while I am still coming up with a lot of stuff that, upon reflection really isn't very good, I can look back on the gigs when I ate shit back in Adelaide and say that I roll with the punches a lot more smoothly now.

Over the next few weeks I'll be working on a few stories that I have been telling to friends, and taking them onto the stage without having them written down word-for-word to see if I can capture a bit of the improvised feel that I have noticed crowds respond really well to. I'll still have my strict material there and will keep developing more of that stuff, but I think if I can make something that isn't written down work a few times in a row, then I'll be on the way to becoming a lot more versatile and gaining another level of confidence in myself again. It's all working towards what I know to be a very important goal – to be able to trust that what I'm going to say on stage will be funny, before I say it, and even when it isn't funny anyway, to keep saying what comes into my head again and again.

Fuck this entry is a little all over the place... um... I dunno. Maybe it reflects my slightly rattled mood at the moment. I feel like I have a lot of shit to do today, but really I don't at all... in fact when I walk back to the hostel I'm going to take it slow for once. Yep, that's the ticket folks. No worries. Maybe I'll listen to some Bob Marley... by the way, if you pay close attention, almost every one of his songs starts with a quick drum fill... now you know.

A little Easter Egg for everyone who kept reading.

Boobs.

Peace, Taco.

Week Five? Six? Fuck it... Brain. Melting.

The rising sounds of Above and Beyond's 'Sun and Moon' tinge a new Monday with a drop of melancholy this clear afternoon. Spring is almost here, eleven days by my chronograph, and yesterday was Sunday. It was one of those Sundays. Oh boy, was it ever.

Losing control of your emotions never comes highly recommended, even when surrounded by close friends and sure allies. Yesterday as I was paralyzed by the burning fear raging inside my nerve centre my emotions swung back and forth and round and round, flinging out in all directions and taking out pedestrians like a giant truck fishtailing down a slippery, one lane road. CRUNCH – a mailbox. BOOM – three rows of apricot trees. BAM – the front of some lady's white sedan. I took my foot off of the brakes yesterday, and, as always, today I am left trying to get my bearings and pick up the pieces.

Melbourne really is an amazing city; there are ridiculous amounts of opportunities for anyone with even the slightest leanings towards artistic expression. Today I've made contact with an online magazine called YAWP that follows Melbourne's comedy scene and gives comedians and writers in general a place to display work and write about our world – I might just submit a few articles for those guys to have a look at... probably a few of the things I've written on here recently that I'm pretty happy with. Also there's a TV series on channel 31 (some community channel) called Crack Up Lab that will feature twenty-five up-and-coming Melbourne comedians in a five-episode stand-up competition with the winners from each episode going into a sixth episode final. I've put my name down for that and even if I don't get selected to go on, I'll probably end up in the crowd checking out which comedians that I've met around the place do spots. That's just the thing about this place, it is literally impossible to be stuck for something to do... if anyone somehow is then I would suggest fairly confidently that they aren't looking very hard and probably spend more than the fair allotment of time smoking weed and touching their dick.

But yesterday man... the part with the Adelaide crew at Timmy, Brodie, and Desh's place... I don't know what it was and I'm sure the fair majority of it was in my head, but there were some wack vibes floating around that place towards the tail end of the afternoon. I was paralyzed in silence for around two hours at the height of my trip which was definitely less than enjoyable, although it did give me time to think about my drastically altered social life when compared with the easy comfortability of Adelaide. Gone are my best friends – those who I can be absolutely sure to call at any time, day or night, and know that they'll be down for whatever cause I throw at them. It really goes along way towards creating a deeper appreciation for the few friends that I have found who I know will be friends forever. It's just like that song says; “understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on... work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.”

I feel like all my life I have been like that truck driver, trying desperately to keep my load under control, to stop it from taking out the bushes and fences and old people's shitty cars on the side of the road. If I let my attention slip, even for the briefest moment, some bump or twist will send the dangerous trailer viciously into the side of Mr Gerald's tool shed. Even sometimes when I remain vigilant, the task of keeping my emotions in check is too great, and shit inevitably gets fucked up. It's hard, this control thing... and sometimes I wonder whether I'm doing the right thing at all in trying to play puppet-master with my own feelings. This is all I know for now though... I guess that's the reason I'm out here. To break the cycle of destroy and rebuild, destroy and rebuild, destroy and rebuild. To kick the bad habit of entropy.

Peace, Taco.

Musings on Immoral Behaviour

This morning I woke up at 9:30am, had and went downstairs to the kitchen where I found that my milk had been stolen and the walls had been written on. There you go... that's a perfectly straightforward English story right there. No frills, no bows, very little difficult language. For those of you with shit to do today – the dishes, bathing, religious ceremony – you can stop right there safe in the knowledge that what you have just read fairly and concisely sums up the first hour of my day today. For those of you with a few more stones in your belly, continue on. Let's make an afternoon of it, shall we?

The last couple weeks there has been a string of seemingly random food thefts perpetrated by a shadowy, anonymous stranger lurking within the annals of the hostel... last week I lost two tupperware containers of lovely chicken-vegetable something that I had cooked and saved for myself. Jean lost one as well, and a few other random items of condiment or whatever have been reported missing from different people's food stashes in the freezer or pantry. Needless to say this behaviour is looked upon fairly unwelcomingly by the community and before long people had started leaving long, sometimes eloquent notes on their food to discourage the thief - my particular words were along the lines of “don't touch my food faggot, go buy your own... actually before you do that, kill yourself”. (I would like to say that I have been the spearhead of this movement and maybe in the eloquence department I fairly could, but plenty of other people have had some rather colourful words attached to their shit – it's not just me) Anyway... considering the recent string of mooch-crime it sadly came as little surprise to me this morning when I trekked downstairs after a shower (not in my favourite shower this morning – it was occupied by a couple of Germans AKGH – but that's neither here nor there) and found that my two litre milk was nowhere to be found... wait that's no good. My milk, that I had found... wasn't... find? Found. I couldn't find it... even when someone hadn't founded.... ugh

Some dick had stolen my milk... is basically what I'm trying to say here.

I've talked to Bobby, the night manager, about checking the cameras in the kitchen to try and pinpoint who the thief is and while there's been words and times floated around the place, I was sure from the beginning that no action would be taken in this crisis. Yeah sure there are cameras and it's not so hard to switch on a TV and check them from particular dates and times, but knowing the calibre of staff that operate this place, even work which basically involves watching an extended version of Big Brother until you see the bad guy is going to be put off for as long as possible. Bobby ain't a bad dude... he's great in fact. But he's never going to do it.

So then at around 10:10am when one of the other managers came out and said something to the effect of, “yep, that's it, we've got em all on camera” in a serious, big boy tone, my mind did backflips. “WHO IS THE MOTHERFUCKER THAT STOLE MY FOOD? WHEN CAN HE BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE? HOW MANY PUNCHES TO THE FACE DO WE GET EACH?” Real forgiving shit... So that was at 10:10am, but before I go any further I need to take you guys back to last night. Just real quick. Because it's fun. It breaks up the main narrative. And adds dramatic effect.

Last night I went and saw a couple comedy shows including one at Pugg Mahone's (interestingly enough, 'pug mahone' apparently means 'kiss my ass' in Irish soooo... there you go?) where Myrthe – a Dutch girl from the hostel – works. Apparently I left without saying goodbye – a faux pas that I was later chastised heavily for, especially because I managed to squeeze a free drink (a squash though, let's be fair) out of the lovely lady while I was there. I got back to the hostel around eleven and found Ollie, the lanky German with the brilliant laugh, back amongst the living after a week in Thailand. This is the guy who suggested to Jean (who has hilariously small eyes) that we should “have a competition to see who can open his eyes the widest and the loser has to buy everybody pizza” so yeah... he's alright. Ollie had bought a litre of Smirnoff back from the duty free store, and Myrthe and Hannah (black English girl... sassy etc.) were down for a drink. Simeon (looks 26, is 21) and Kieran (looks 26, is) joined as well... and the next few hours writes itself really.

After a few hours of these guys slamming down vodka and getting loud with me vicariously enjoying their antics we turned our eyes to the wall behind us which is covered in photos of people who have stayed at the hostel at various times in the last few years partying and having fun. The main problem that we could see with these pictures was that they were not of us, and as such were ripe for alteration... so ripe... top ten ripest. We set to work with a permanent texta rating the people in the pictures out of ten: top angle looking down on blonde girl – six. Fat girl hooking up with other guy – 2. Sexy girl with black hair who is hot in three separate photos – 9. Passed out dude with wack face – MONG. Etc... The real vandalism started when Dutchy and Hannah got on their bitchy-soapbox tip and started ranting about some guy they had both slept with who apparently was “too slow” and “gave no orgasm” and “had a lot 2 learn private lessons could have been 4 free bad personality X”. They wrote it on the wall in thick, blue permanent and faced the cameras blatantly. I'm on camera writing on the photos, which can just be pulled down, but their hateful mural will have to be painted over... silly silly... nothing good ever happens after 2am.

So anyway, that happened last night, and to bring us back to 10:10am this morning, the manager from the hostel had just rolled out the big guns, “yep, that's it, we've got em all on camera”. I realized though, after my initial hopeful fancy that it had been about catching the food thief, that he was talking about the writing on the walls, and that my ass could very well be on the line here. This was only a second after vicious, bloodthirsty images of a lowly, broken bastard, tied to the stake and gnashing his teeth, breath still smelling of my chicken-vegetable something and staring down the barrel of an open, running sewage pipe that was about to be blasted into his face. Guilty as fuck and fucked for sure...

...and now that was me. I was the one staring down the pipe and the sewage was coming straight for me. I am, and it is. And as much as that sucks, I brought it on myself. I did the stupid thing on camera, and even if they caught my thief, his crime is really no worse than mine... well marginally, but they are both shitty things. The photos that I drew on can be taken down, and so too can my food be replaced... the base transgression at the core of both actions is disrespect. I didn't ask to draw on the photos, fagboy didn't ask to take my food. In both instances, I'm sure the answers to the request would have been yes – “can I have some food?” 'yes'; “can I draw on these pictures of mongs?” 'yes' – but the question was never asked. After last night I have been forced, as I seem to be on about a weekly basis, to re-evaluate my position and rethink some of the hasty thoughts that have sprung into my head. Simply reacting to situations is only the clumsiest way of getting through the day and I really have to stay vigilant on my snappy, self-indulgent thoughts if I am ever going to make change. Ultimately, I guess I just have to start making my food a little less obvious. I'm never going to find the thief – sinful bandit fucker that he is – but at least I can make my stuff a little less appetising for his grubby little thief-fingers. Maybe then he will disappear forever, and I can forgive him for his sins, and those two serves of chicken-vegetable something that I miss so, so much.

Peace, Taco.

Week Four: This Post Is A Pipe Bomb

I don't know how long it's going to be before I start accruing things again, rather than losing them... or even whether it's a good thing that I want to start accruing things again. I keep thinking about that George Carlin bit about stuff where he says that looking down on a city and seeing people's allotted houses all in rows is like looking at 'a bunch of people's stuff with a roof over it'. It's true, most of the stuff in your house is crap that you are never (or hardly ever) going to use again, and realistically you could get by without ninety percent of it, but it's still nice to have, for some reason. It's probably the security of knowing that whenever you need to do something – be it cook or wash yourself or eat or sleep or be alone or drink or spend time with people – you have a space to do that and all the items that are necessary. But there is a certain idealistic freedom to not having to lug all that stuff around and worry about it when you can't see exactly what it's doing. This is stuff that may not be critical or even incidentally useful in day-to-day life any more, but stuff obviously has cost you money at one stage or another, and thus retains some value even after its usefulness has long passed. Right now though, my stores of 'stuff' are, slowly but surely, depleting. I am becoming a free, vagabond spirit, through no choice of my own.

Since I've been in Melbourne I've lost one Jacket (my warmest and favourite one) and another remains in the possession of a friend so I guess I'll tentatively say that that one's still ok. I've also lost a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, a bottle of sweet chilli sauce, a jar of spaghetti sauce and a full thing of salt... like, the big one. I attribute all disappearances bar the jacket to the group of Asians that shared room six with me during my first week of the hostel, (I KNOW those boxes were for something the sheister bastards) but nevertheless... food is replaceable and spring is coming so fuck the jacket anyway. I think I'm just about ready to let go of that one... sigh uhhhh (wistfully)... yep, there it is. Closure.

I'm sitting in the state library right now typing away on my laptop which I dared to bring on a rare adventure out of my room – the battery lasts all of about five minutes now so normally there isn't much point, although I might try and make this a bit more of a regular thing as being away from the hostel means no temptation to eat out of boredom, or sleep out of laziness. I might go play some chess in the fabled 'chess room' that I've heard so much about... although I'm guessing the chess monkeys that surely inhabit the upper levels of this complex would prove more than a match for my feeble chess skills. I guess there's only one way to find out: chess it is. Sorry JayBone, can't really be Charles Dickensed looking for houses today... I think it'll be better to wait until you're up here too so we can sort out going to inspections together... I'll have more money by then as well. Save save save. Come on Taco. Fuck.

Anyone still following this? Didn't think so...

Ugh. I need some chicken.

Peace, Taco.

I Just Realized I Haven't Eaten Chicken in Two Weeks

This week has been a good week. I've been to comedy shows four nights in a row, and tonight at Monastery will make it five, and played five minute spots on two of those nights. (last night was my second impromptu showing at Station 59 that has ended up in me getting some stage time) I've written a whole bunch of new stuff – including a phenomenal joke about the word 'ejaculate' that I seriously cannot keep to myself. I've been pretty damn careful with money, and the only money I have spent was $70 on a new pair of pants for work that I had taken up and refitted... so basically I look fly as a mo'fukka there. Add to that the fact that Monday night was just feqking awesome in itself, and last night me, Myrthe and Big Aaron stayed up til 2:30am chilling and talking shit about people in the hostel... and this week is travelling along pretty nicely.

On Monday I'm going to Sydney to meet up with Melanie for a few days – still pretty unsure about how that's going to go but we'll see I guess. When I get back from that I should (fingers crossed, I hope I haven't jinxed this shit already) have two jobs and be ready to start looking for a place so that I can send out the conch signal and get Jaybone, and possibly Tgoog over here to join. I'll need to suss out one of those prepaid internet sticks for my comp – or a plan from Vodafone that includes unlimited net access – and I'll have to start doing some leg work during days to make that house shit happen. Money is starting to be a worry in my mind, although I know I'll be ok if I end up with two jobs... that's the final piece of the puzzle that is yet to fall into place over here and I'm waiting for the day that it does so that I can stop stressing about cash so much and start building everything else that makes life yummy up from street level.

I think my goal for myself in the coming months – let's make it until the end of November – will be to go to four (four ideally, but at least three) comedy nights a week. That'll go a long way towards getting my face out there and keeping my name in people's heads. I've been meeting a few comedians from around the place as well which is always cool and as much as a place like Spleen is really tough to break into, there are plenty of other places where comedians can meet other people at their level and talk about jokes and gigs and whatnot... the scene is not nearly as ruthless as I feared it might be before I got here. On spleen; some people say it's cliquey, but I be pretty hesitant to use that word, it's more like the guys that run it are so used to amateur comedians introducing themselves and asking for spots that they have appear dismissive and bored with us because... well basically because they get hassled by the same kind of people every Monday night. I'm sure if they saw an amateur at another night and liked his or her set they'd get in contact with them themselves and try to book them... but then again that may just be naïve, wishful thinking.

But anyway, after two weeks, things are still cruising along pretty smoothly... the next two are going to be tough for a few reasons that I am clearly avoiding here, but will probably, knowing me, analyse and speak about at length with the power of hindsight. I can't wait. The storm is already here though, and god damn it, I'm in Melbourne motherfuckers.

Ok, my joke about the word ejaculate that I can't keep to myself... as Mitch Hedberg said, “I can't rob you of this one”:

I want to write, produce, direct, and, if possible, star in a buddy cop movie where the protagonist's name is Jack, just so that at some point in the movie – I do not care when – he can rush in to the station and the angry, black sergeant can yell, “EY JACK, YOU LATE!”

Oh yes.

Peace, Taco.

First Week Roundup

So after one week it's time to take stock of where I am and what's been going on. From the list of goals I set myself on the first day here, this is what's gone down:

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.