Comedy is Hard

I'm slowly piecing things back together after the shittiest few days I've had in a long time... yesterday it was confirmed that because my 'heart conductivity' (or something?.. don't ask, I didn't understand) is 0.05% above the necessary range, I can't go into the clinical trial I wanted so I lose sixteen-hundred potential dollars there. But the story about the blind girl is coming together somewhat, and I'm learning some valuable lessons about telling stories on stage in the process.

On Tuesday after I had probably a four in front of my parents at the Rochester, I had a chat to Jonathan Schuster (who CRUSHED it that night as the MC by the way) and he told me a great rule that he uses for storytelling. “Everything I say has to fulfil one of three purposes”, he said, “it has to either endear me to the audience, further the story, or be funny... and being funny is the most important one of the three.” He used his cum-eating story as an example, as during it he cites three (count 'em, THREE) times that testing whether drinking pineapple juice makes your jizz taste like pineapple was HER idea. He really forces that idea on the audience, and reiterates it, and spoon feeds it to them, stopping on it and emphasizing the fuck out of it every time.

Also they day before that, on Monday when I was at the Brunny only half an hour after that horrible death while my butt was still sore from the fucking, I had a chat with Beau Stegmann before his set and he told me what he was trying to do in his new bit about going to see a scary movie. He said that every punchline should – ideally, at least – feel like it could be the end of the bit, so that when you keep going the audience is pleasantly surprised, and all the energy that they built up on the last laugh that they thought was their last, is carried over, and so the story gains momentum. I remember him telling me that a tag/punchline (the bit didn't really have a punchline, but this cap I had at the end of it more of an afterthought and so sounded like a tag) that I had at the end of a long rant once was the best part about it because the audience thought I was done when I finished yelling, and so the afterthought was a surprise for them, and they laughed harder.

Armed with these two pieces of advice, I have rewritten the story about doing my set on Monday while being oblivious to the blind girl in the front row. I'm not going to introduce it as a story, I'm going to open by thanking the audience for sitting the right way as if it's an observation, or at the very most just a bit about it being good to face the front. Then I'll lead that into the story, which has individual jokes in it, and then when I walk off stage in the story, I'll do the punchline. I've also changed the punchline to a deaf girl, rather than a blind one, as someone who is blind could still hear the things I'm saying, and so even if they aren't aggressive or bad, I'm still an asshole, whereas a deaf girl couldn't hear the things, and so the joke becomes that I've just spent my whole set trying to get someone who can't hear me to turn around, and playing to the back of their head. I'm the loser, not her. Finally I'm going to use the line, “... but I thought 'I won't get angry, because I'm here to make people laugh'” as a recurring thought as I recount my set to endear myself to the audience and hopefully get them on side for the punchline which, even when it's a blind girl, still leaves me as a bit of a dick.

If I can make this story work, I think I'll be able to take these skills and use them to write a bunch of other stories that I've tried or wanted to tell on stage in the last eighteen months – peeing into a condom, getting yelled at by a homeless guy in front of a tourist group, bartending at a strip club etc. Then also I can apply these lessons to my show, which definitely needs some touching up in the opening twenty minutes as I regale the audience with stories of why I'm a fuckhead and how I needed to change.

Comedy is hard, guys. Every time I think I'm onto something, and I feel like I have a solid chunk of material that I can take around to rooms and do well with, I try to write something that in my mind is going to be the easiest thing ever, and it completely stumps me, and casts me back to square one. I spent the entire week before last trying to make a bit about 'the worst thing that's ever happened to me' (eating garlic paste on toast) work, and it just didn't. I kept trying to crowbar new jokes and ideas into it and engineer callbacks and new contrived observations in, but I was just battering my head against a wall. Sigh. Yep. Comedy is hard.

Peace, Taco.

Shit Week

This week, what a cunt.

On Sunday Luka, Blake and I drove out North in search of an open mic music room that was supposed to be on but turned out to be a jam rather than performers taking turns on stage, so we couldn't do comedy there. Then we came back down to Richmond to find an open mic that no longer existed at some random cafe. No gigs on Sunday.

Monday I went to the clinical trial place and took a blood test (I fucking HATE needles), which I would subsequently fail after testing positive for opioids (apparently Codral contains codeine). Then I went to the Penny Black and had what I will hereafter rank as my worst gig ever in which I pointed out a chick who wasn't facing the stage at the start of my act, and spent five minutes dying, only to find out afterwards that everyone else in the room knew that she was blind except me. Cool.

Last night (Tuesday) we had our worst turnout at the Rochester in a few months, and also had a band playing upstairs which, while not ultimately detracting from the night, gave me a great deal of stress beforehand. My parents were in the audience and saw me bomb for the second half of my set after I tried telling the blind girl story with little preparation. After the show the girl I had made a few increasingly overt failed advances on in the weeks previous professed her equally overt desire for one of the other comics' semen, and also, the weather was shit.

That's the bad things, I guess. The list got a little petty towards the end, but in for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes. I could list all the good things that happened, and there were a few, but I won't, that much is clear from this juncture. Now I just need to figure out why.

The thing that stressed me out the most was the poor turnout at the room – why was last week slightly below average (our hypothesis was the rain), and this week even lower? Uni holidays not being on? Maybe? We flyered just as much as we ever have, and the lineups are only getting better with a few quality acts dropping in regularly asking for spots. I'm hoping that once summer really kicks in, the room will kick off... but last night was not what we needed the week before what we have been saying is going to be our best week yet. November 5^th, I only discovered last week, is Melbourne Cup Day... fuck I hope people still come out. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck.

Still stressing. Yep. I'm not going to start making lists, I promise.

I have organized, in my mind, a better way of telling the blind girl story, which I intend to try tonight at Station 59 granted I can get a spot. Schuster gave me a few helpful tips about storytelling on stage after his KILLER MC spot last night: “everything I say has to have one of three purposes; it either endears me to the audience, advances the story, or is funny – and funny is the most important one.”

I'm really fucking shaken after the last few days. I think I'm going to have a lie down now, actually. God damn it, I thought I was past this for a while.

Taking it easy, not thinking too much. Looking over the edge somewhat.

Peace, Taco.

Please, I Can't Focus

Funds, funds, funds. Always funds. Money on my mind. I need to figure out a way to make my mind less cluttered. Next Tuesday I'm going to start meditation classes at some place in Fitzroy whose name I have forgotten and am too frazzled to look up right now. I'm really looking forward to it. I need some focus in my brain, because right now, and lately a lot, all of my thoughts come at once, and it's paralysing. It isn't that bad yet, but I can tell it's only going to get worse unless I act.

This is something that a lot of people around me have talked about – being bogged down in the mire of too-many-tasks-to-do-not-enough-time-to-do-them-in-too-much-time-spent-thinking-fuck-now-it's-Wednesday... I never used to be able to understand what the problem was when I would sit in my friend Sam's living room with the lights off and a piece of paper and pen, waiting for him to dictate to me the tasks of the day, his mind helplessly cluttered with thoughts strewn wild by damaging drug use. “Why the fuck can't we just START something?!” I remember thinking, every second of every day spent by his side. But now I'm beginning to understand. It's hard.

I don't want to start listing the things that I have to do here, lest this post be reduced to a mere shopping list of thoughts, but then again it's tempting... because I have to pay this thing and that thing and get money and do invoices and... AGH! NO!!

It's hard to catch myself, but when I do, I do it with all my consciousness, so that instead of thinking about doing this or that thing, I'm thinking about not thinking about doing this or that thing. Still useless thoughts, more and more mud in the swamp. More wading to do. Hours fly by and I manage to free an arm, a leg, but only at the expense of losing the other two.
“Maybe I should go get lunch... get outside for a bit... that always helps, to START the day by venturing out... just abandon the tasks left remaining, cut your losses.”
These internal monologues are dangerous, because if dwelt upon too long, they can become their own tasks, and the absent mind stares out through glazed-over eyes into space, accomplishing nothing.

So what am I doing right now? I had a shower maybe two hours ago (judging from how dry my hair is, rather than any actual recollection of time), and after that I sat down at my computer and sent out a bunch of messages booking acts for the Rochester in January 2014. About five minutes ago I put on my jacket and shoes for the day, but since writing this post – as my mind is never completely focussed on one individual thing – I have realised that I need to report online to Centrelink and invoice my boss to get paid this week... they both lead to more things. No, no no no no. Concentrate. I have more time after this, some of which I will use to walk down to Lentil as Anything and get a meal for which I will pay around $1.50 because I'm poor. My door still doesn't have a lock on it, the smoke detectors beep all night, I need a light for the fixture on my roof.

I think the ultimate danger is having too much time. If I absolutely have to do something and only have a limited amount of time, then I'll find a way to make it happen. But right now I have about four hours and no urgent tasks other than eating, so I find ways to sit around and do nothing, wasting the time. Wasting it. God damn it, look at me go.

I am starting meditation on Tuesday. I am starting meditation on Tuesday. I am starting meditation on Tuesday. Next Tuesday, that is. It looks like a paradise island, somewhere off in the distance. Please save me from myself, I need calm thoughts, because right now, and every day always, I feel like I'm drowning.

Peace, Taco.

Fights at Fishface

My parents are in town today... well, they're not in town yet, they're still waiting for their plane in Adelaide Airport apparently, but they're coming to town today, which is to be, according to all reasonable expectation, lovely.

Today I'm planning to catch up with Fleety for a beer (and hopefully to get the cash that I lent him yesterday back, although let's not go wild with expectation just yet haha), then meeting Mum and Dad at five or so for early dinner at Meatballs in town, and then catching a show at the Butterfly Club at 7. I've checked their lineup, and I think this cabaret show at 7 looks like it'd be a bit more broad in appeal than the show at 9. I can't remember what the 9 one was, and I don't really know what the 7 one is, but that's just the feeling I have, so I'm going with that.

Honestly I wouldn't mind going to Les Miserables, which I believe has started at Her Majesty's Theatre, but I doubt Dad would be too into that, plus it's probably a super-long show, and expensive too. I need to get out to see more theatre though. Tonight is going to be cool.

Last night at Fishface I had a great time struggling through an interaction with this chick in the crowd who was sitting at a table that did NOT want to be talked to, or it seemed to pay any sort of attention to the show whatsoever. They weren't being rude really, but they weren't watching, and in a small room like that, if I'm comfortable on stage, which I am down there, I'm going to try and bring them into the show. I like it when everyone is paying attention.

I was doing all new, so I opened up with what I had intended, and then said something to her and managed to get her to look at me and engage for the amount of time that I was directing my words at her specifically, but as soon as I started addressing the crowd again, she turned back around and continued talking in hushed tones to her three friends. After my next two bits I asked her whether she thought I was going well (I was going okay, maybe a 6-7 out of 10), and said something like “I want to yell at you, but I feel like I've used up our interaction credits and if I do something bad will happen.”
To which she responded, “yeah.”
Audience “ooooohs” – I was excited at this point and I launched into some random chatter with her, poking fun at how seriously she seemed to be taking herself. I ended up going into a routine about having never been in a fight to close out the show, and walked off feeling good and having made everyone except her and maybe the other people at her table (I couldn't see) laugh.

So I was pretty happy with that set... when I listened back though and reflected, it occurred to me that the only reason I was able to do what I did with her was that the rest of the room was already on my side, and the reason they were already on my side is because about seventy percent of that room was comic-friends of mine, and regulars who see me perform every fortnight and know me and my style. If that had happened in a club situation and I wasn't fully in control of the room I wouldn't have been able to react the way I did to that girl's distant aggression, it's just lucky that they were on my side, because my reaction was completely natural and in no way planned for or rehearsed. Maybe if I had been in a different position in terms of the crowd liking me I would have reacted differently, but I should probably reflect a little more and think about what happened and how I could have reacted differently so that if (let's be honest, when) it does happen again, I have other options, and don't lose the room.

I still haven't had a shower yet today, I should probably do that. Mums know when you don't wash, at least, that's what I'm led to believe. Maybe I should run the gauntlet and test this little theory. It is a nice day for science... well, I'll leave it with you guys to decide what you think I actually did. Happy Weekend, friends.


Peace, Taco.

Opportunity

Today I slept in a while, until eleven, and then went downstairs to the Side Door Cafe and practised making coffees with Swanny for a while. I've wanted to learn how to make coffees for ages, so this little opportunity is nice, and also with the uncertainty around the cleaning business, it's a good fall-back option to have.

The Side Door Cafe is a part of Station 59, the pub I live above, and so if/when I start working there I'll be able to literally jump out of bed and walk downstairs to work. They do barely fuck all trade though, and Mick (the owner of the place) seems pretty hesitant to give free reign to Swanny to put on any specials that might pull customers. The cafe around the corner – Tree of Us, one of my favourites in Melbourne – already has the twenty-dollar market cornered around here though, so the only real option to get people coming in is a cheap special. We live in the middle of a heroin basket people, no one is paying for smiles.

So the idea, I guess, would be to figure out some sort of cheap, easy special for people – Swanny's idea is a coffee and a toastie for $6 – and then make up flyers with that special, a map, and whatever else... maybe a clip art picture of a cake? Send those bitches out by foot to houses in the area, and local businesses, and BOOMBA-BIMBA, that's some possible local interest. As it is the place only does like ten fucking sales a day. What is there to lose? Nothing whatsoever. I could definitely see myself working in a place underneath my fucking house for cash and generating the business myself. That would be absolute heaven.

Since living in Melbourne I've found – other than my initial stint working bar at Yah Yah's which was doomed from the moment they put free drinks under my nose eleven hours a weekend – I've found that all of my jobs have come from random social opportunities, rather than actual concerted searching. That's the way it's going to be I feel, for as long as I continue to toil in the 'workforce'. Fuck trying to break into some place where no one knows who you are, or what you're about, and fitting in to the scene of the joint is based on a roll of the dice alone... fuck that right off. There are plenty of opportunities for hustling money around the place with people you get along with if you just keep putting yourself out there.

That's the trap of being born without affluence, I guess. For someone like me, who grew up around people who would end up running businesses and deciding their own destinies with plenty of room to move, it's pretty fucking easy to be in control of your own world. I could count on one hand, maybe even one finger, the amount of times when I've been really in danger of falling into a bad situation and having to look for help to pull myself out of it. And even then, for me, help exists.

So many people don't have these opportunities thrown at them on a weekly basis, not getting to choose which ones they like and which ones they can see themselves doing. Some people are still handing out resumes at thirty. Thirty-five. Hairs greying. Hope running out.

I'm really excited at the possibility of working at a cafe that sucks, because that means it's a blank slate, and I may be able to have a hand in making it into something worthwhile and profitable. That's really cool, and from where I sit, I feel pretty fucking lucky right now.

Peace, Taco.

Nice People

What is 'nice'? I mean, okay, being nice is important, it's an important trait to have, but when someone is described primarily as 'nice' – as in when that's the first word used to describe them – what does that mean?

I think it could mean one of two things: it could mean that the person doing the describing doesn't know their subject that well – like when people say, “they seem nice”... “I like her, we didn't really talk, but she seems nice.” That's not really anything much. So if you've spoken to someone a few times, and they still just “seem nice”, then it probably means that you don't have much of a connection to them. They don't interest you and you don't interest them – or at least the former, but more than likely both.

That's why I don't understand why someone would want to be 'nice', or to be thought of as nice. I don't know how I want to be thought of... maybe as someone who brought happiness to everyone that met him, or someone whose thoughts and words were interesting and thought provoking, someone who was funny. Not “a nice person” though, not just that. I couldn't think of anything worse. And yet some people do want to be thought of as nice, and they still fuck EVEN THAT up. Because sometimes behind niceness hides passive-aggression. Sometimes someone who is trying to be 'nice', and declaring that as their goal, is really just too scared to identify what their actual aims are. Maybe they are ashamed of their true desires, or ashamed that they have selfish desires at all. Notice that I said that I want to be 'thought of as someone who...' etc. etc., because it's still about me. Of course. At least a little.

I really don't trust people who are unable to admit that they have selfish desires that may motivate a proportion of their actions. I'm sure of it, even in my language here, using the word 'admit', I really do believe that everyone who wants to continue to participate in life is doing so for some measure of selfish reason. Because they want to get something out of it. And that's okay, that's what we are supposed to want, I think; to add something, and to get something back in return. So when someone says to me, “I'm just trying to be nice”, I think,
“I know that's what you're trying to do, and as much as I'm sure you think you're achieving it, you're not. You're just afraid, afraid to admit that you want something, afraid to admit that you want life to be fair, and you want to get a return for the effort that you wish everyone saw you were putting in. But you're not, and you don't like it, you don't want to tell anyone, you want them to notice on their own, but why won't they? Why won't they notice you?”

Because they are thinking about themselves too, and if you don't make what you want known to people, then you're not going to get it by accident, fuckhead. The world does not provide for everyone.

I think that's what I need to say... this blog post seems very cunty, it's okay, I'm just trying to figure out an argumentative position for a bit. I don't really hate nice people. Well, maybe a little bit. Because it's funny to hate things for no reason, and because even if I wanted to, I doubt I could ever be one of them.

Peace, Taco.

Rant 005

Last week I found a site called IndieShuffle.com that has basically saved me a lot of time more than anything. It's a music site where the people running the site review new music coming out in a few genres – Hip Hop, House, Electro, Techno, Indie Rock, and maybe a few others I've forgotten – and then tag the songs with their relevant subgenres, so that when you pick a song out of their library to listen to, the site creates a dynamic playlist for you with songs it recommends. The authors of the site have basically taken the arduous trawling through blogs that I don't necessarily have time for, OUT of looking for music. Their library isn't that extensive, but I'm hoping it will grow, and it's already thrown up a few gems for me, so fuck it, I'm happy.

I'm also listening (as in currently, in progress – it's a serious task) to Four Tet's EIGHT HOUR mix for Rinse FM and so far it's pretty fucking great. The guy always starts off with some weird tribal shit or 'World Music' or whatever, and if I'm in the mood to just groove to something it can be a bit of a task to wade through, but once he gets going it's always worth the wait.

I really love music. My tastes have changed so much in the decade or so that I've been really listening to whatever music I like; from The Living End, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Offspring; through Slipknot, The Butterfly Effect, Il Niño; Nas, Big L, A Tribe Called Quest... all through that there was the Hilltop Hoods – until they got shit, but then again, so did the first three, to varyingly devastating extents. Then I started going clubbing, and listening to Noisy Techno and later on and up to now I listen to House and Disco. I've started listening more to genres though, more than specific artists, although I do have my favourites. Maybe that's a sign of me becoming lazier in my digging as comedy has started to take up more of my time.

And now we're on the topic: I've written two new bits today. One is about Asian food and chopsticks and includes the phrase, “you know everyone in your family hates you, right?” While the other is a story (an untrue contrivance, is probably more correct) about me shooting a napkin over the counter at Oporto and into the bin, with hilarity ensuing. I can feel that I've lately turned another corner in my joke writing and am now much more able to consciously steer a bit in the direction of the punchline. I feel less and less like I am just fumbling around in the dark.

Finally, every time I walk into my room after the window and door have been closed it smells a little heavy, like varnish. I only gave the floors one coat as I got lazy in the days before I moved out (replace 'lazy' with 'drunk'), so maybe that's it... maybe I didn't seal it in properly... or... something? I don't know how varnish works. That's man business. The first night I slept here though, I got a headache, which is definitely not the desired effect of sleep, and although I've not had a repeat of that situation in the week since, it's still a little worrying when the smell comes back in the day while I run my errands. Never mind. Cancer is still a good thirty years away guys, that's for Future Me to worry about.

Eugh. It's scary that I just wrote that.

Peace, Taco.

Dandenong

 Once again we reach Saturday and find me running on very little sleep after three days' activities. Last night I went down to Dandenong to do some standup at an open mic night in a local pool hall... what a strange experience.

I'd never been to Dandenong before last night, and my only experience or knowledge of it at all was a joke told regularly by Doug Gordon, a comic from around the place, which goes; “Did you know there are over 300 languages spoken in Dandenong? That's crazy, how many ways do you need to say, 'gimme your wallet!' ”. Make of that joke what you will, it is liable to plant a certain picture in the blank mind of any wary traveller. Then just before I left to jump on the train I stopped by Baker St to grab some stuff I left there on Tuesday and say hi to Brodie and Jimmy, and after I said I was going to Dandenong Brodie (ex-dealer with more than ample experience dealing with sketchy people and shady situations) told me to be careful, and not to walk around at night. Fuck.

So I jumped on the train notably tense and began rehearsing a script in my mind for what I was now sure was the inevitable run-in I was going to have with a gang of angry youths as soon as I stepped off the train. “If you can make 'em laugh then you'll be right” - I remembered the words Plummy told me one day a long time ago as he recounted his story of being backed against a wall by three guys in Adelaide and getting out of it by calling one of them a fluffy teddy bear. I don't fancy my chances tickling someone's tum-tum while they stare into my face with the “I-want-to-pulverise-something” eyes on.

I tried to spy my foes on the train, but saw no one other than a few cute girls and some sad, repressed business-types I couldn't help myself from gleefully judging internally. No threats, but my head was on a tense swivel. As we pulled in to Dandenong station at the end of the line and a twenty-five minute ride, I saw the blue and white checkered pattern of the police force on the side of one of the buildings and let out an audible sigh. But I still had the walk to the pool hall. Phone out, and I started adding up the value of all the clothes I was wearing just in case they muggers were organized tax-wise and were offering invoices. I remembered advice from Bolivia; don't walk over bridges because then you can be trapped by two people... but I also remembered my blind confidence from Bolivia, and so when faced with a foot-bridge, I crossed that shit like a motherfucker. WOOOO!!!! WHATTT?!! PROJECT CONFIDENCE! HEAD UP! BREATHE STEADILY! LOOK AT HOW IN CONTROL I AM EVERYONE!!

I got to the pool hall in one piece, they didn't have EFTPOS, I had to walk another ten minutes back to IGA to get cash out (back over the bridge, and back over it a third time on the return!), and when I got back the salt-of-the-earth types that I'm sure would be offended by such a condescending label were setting up instruments for their various open mic bands. I went up third to maybe twenty strangers whose attitude towards me ranged from indifference to mild uncaring opposition, and I ate shit for seven minutes and forty-eight seconds, throwing out my punchiest material to two or three one-note chuckles at each painfully delivered punchline. “These people are so different to me, this place is so different to mine, how can I possibly hope to connect with this audience, or with any of them individually?”

After the show most people who had shaken my hand before conspicuously avoided eye-contact, and the couple behind the bar advised me as to the differences between my sheltered inner-city home and their gritty suburban locale. “They'll laugh at anything over in Richmond, mate! 'Sept they'd prob'ly do it like this [mimes snobby cigarette-holding hipster laugh].”
“Yeah, look dude, you're probably right.” is what I wanted to say, but my response probably came out a bit more mumbled and unclear as I just wanted to get out and home so that I could get to planning my next trip out there. For a comedian, each different crowd is a new puzzle to be solved, and there is a solution to every puzzle, make no mistake. What started out in my mind as a frivolous and ill-advised danger-mission to one of the 'worst' suburbs in Melbourne quickly turned into the beginning of an exercise in empathy. My ego won't let me to give up the idea of walking on to the stage on Friday Open Mic Night at The Green Table Pool Hall/Social Club in Dandenong and capturing the hearts and minds of those twenty odd people, so different to me, but surely not that different where it counts.

I'll figure you out Dandenong, see you in November.

Peace, Taco.

Frank Woodley

 Last night after I got home from the Rochester I sat around in my new room and set everything up: bed, table (I have no recollection of how the fuck I got that thing together), wardrobe, chest of drawers. Everything is set up now, and I'm feeling good about this. Next up on my list of purchases is a small bar fridge that I can put at the end of me bed and store perishables in. I reckon if I had stuff for sandwiches sitting in my room right under my nose I wouldn't be able to ignore it and let the ingredients go off. Now THAT'S thinking.

But last night though, at The Rochester... holy fuck. So at around 6pm Luka got a call from an agent from Token who introduced herself as Frank Woodley's agent. She was asking if it'd be okay if Frank came down and did a drop in spot tonight... fucking YES!?!?! So at the end of the first bracket – about 9pm – with the front bar absolutely packed out with people standing right out to the door, Frank Woodley took the stage with two Nerf guns and got two volunteers from the crowd to tape targets to their heads and fire at each other while he played a drum to simulate a medieval duel. Simulate? Well whatever, it was fucking great, and as the tension built almost to the point where we were wondering whether it would be best to just give up, one of the bullets stuck to its target, and the crowd, to use a cliché, 'lost it's shit'.

I'm still blown away that our room was the room recommended by whoever did the recommending as the Tuesday night room that Woodley should go down to to try out his new bit. The guess of the night was that it was Karl Chandler and Steele Saunders, the guys that run Spleen – Steele MCd our room a few months ago and came back to do a spot just before we made the move to the front bar. I can't think of anyone else, but I also can't think of a situation where they would have said “go to the Rochy”. I don't know, I guess I don't really know how this kind of shit works. Whoever it was, thankyou so much.

I got super drunk after the show, as I had said I would (I AM A MAN OF MY WORD), and probably embarrassed myself but that's just what has to happen sometimes isn't it.

When I got home after we drove past Maccas, I called Troggy – the go-to tenant at Station 59 – to let me in. He opened the door, and I waved to him, but we stayed sat in the car to finish our food, and as we ate someone came out from the door and walked off down the street. They locked the door behind them. “FUCK! GET FUCKED!” went through my head, but I called Troggy again and he came down again and again he let me in. Good on ya Troggy, finding mundanity in a potential situation. Good.

Peace, Taco.

Moving Out

 I'm moving out of Baker St today. There's something surreal about this day, I don't really trust that it's actually here, but it is, and I'm about to start packing up my bed once I can wake up Benny and ask him if he's still got my alan key.

I've been living in this house for over a year – by far the longest I've stayed anywhere other than my parents' house in Adelaide – and it's been a great year. When I first moved in I was just relieved to be out of the Melbourne Connection Travellers' Hostel where bed bugs tore through the night and my food was stolen from the fridges weekly. I moved into the house and the environment that I had always wanted to live in; when I was nineteen I pined for a 'party house' and lamented that the house I lived in in Clearview wasn't one. Brodie the Instigator proved to be the catalyst that my house had lacked, and so almost every weekend here there was something happening and my house was turned into a revolving door of beautiful drug people.

At first I felt at peace with the whole thing and felt that I couldn't be happier with my surroundings, but this is what went wrong: I am no longer an active part of that lifestyle. Sure I go out to clubs every now and then, like maybe once a month or so, but this household is predicated on the every-weekend lifestyle. Benny and Brodie live for clubs and clubbing and pounding techno music, but for me, the night is only a passing fancy. The ever-changing circus of people coming in and out of my house began to blur, faces coming and going like a merry-go-round, and I found myself adrift in a sea of strangers every Sunday morning. And I was a stranger to them too, a stranger in my own house.

So I've started to withdraw into my room and not speak, not move, never emerge when the house is alive and the air is full of basslines, because I know that if I do, I'd be greeted by a bunch of people who I don't know, and who are operating on a different level than me, because I've not been up all night and they have. I don't know them, as much as I want to and would love to, I can't, because I can't commit to that world. On Sunday mornings I really fucking wish I had been out all night just so that I could sit down comfortably and feel normal. Fuck.

So my ever-present scrambling to fit in and forcibly identify with some group of people has led me to this, moving out after a year of living at 45 Baker St, Richmond. It's been a good year, and although I've been less and less comfortable with it in the last few months, I'm glad that I have ticked 'live in a party house' off of my teenage bucket-list, if only so that now I have that book of stories to tell people too, full of embellishments and characters whose names I never knew myself. I can't help but be subject to a feeling of slight melancholy as I finish this blog post, knowing full well that as soon as I do I'm going to have to start picking up the clothes from my floor and packing them into drawers, ready to be carried the 300m and then up stairs, into the room that waits for me above Station 59, one block over. I think I'm finished here though. Actually, I almost certainly am. Now at least I can come back, after an actual absence, and be a part of this world on my own terms and surely be more comfortable. A stranger in a strange house, at 45 Baker St, Richmond.

Peace, Taco.

Plenty to Think About

 Last night I was at a party celebrating (lamenting? It's a party though... anyway) Arielle's return to the USA after being here for most of this year. The place was full of comedians and other people, obviously friends of Arielle. I really wasn't feeling the party or the night at all, and I was at home in bed by midnight, frustrated and confused.

I feel like lately I'm being a bit of a dick... I don't know, maybe? I'm hesitant to say that of myself, because on one hand I'm just being who I feel like all of the time, but on the other hand I can often feel myself flying dangerously close to brazen arrogance, and having to remind myself “don't do that”. Running a fairly succecssful room is probably feeding into this – I've been thinking that for a while – because now I'm in a position where I can ask whoever I want from around the Melbourne comedy scene to come to the room and I get to hang out with them. It gives me at least one day a week where I have a false sense of importance and accomplishment relative to everyone else, and I'm sure negativity from that is brewing inside me.

Other than that though, I've also started to withdraw into myself and only include a small circle of friends with whom I feel safe, rather than continuing to meet and socialize with new people. That's no good either. Meeting new people is one of the main fuels I run myself on and I definitely need to maintain an active and fluid social life to stay healthy. I think I just need to recapture some variety in my weekly activities and make sure that I'm not digging myself into a rut.

This week sometimes – probably Wednesday – I'm going to start meditation with Richie. We still need to find somewhere to do it, probably somewhere in Fitzroy, but I think that will be a major help in clearing my mind and allowing me to be more of the person I want to be rather than dwelling on other people and past events. I need to be more present and live more in the moment.

That's all for today. Not much structure, but a lot to think about.

Peace, Taco.

Lists

It's an odd feeling to have thought of something that I think is funny but to still, after two years of getting on stage and trying to make people laugh, have absolutely no idea whether it's going to bomb or not until tonight. And that's on a good day, when I have a gig that night – and providing the gig is somewhere I am at liberty to try new material, rather than a place where I have to get up and do well to impress someone. Not even because I'm getting paid (yet (?) ) either, because on the rare occasions that I do get paid it's because I'm MCing, and when I MC I almost always try new material, or end up riffing most of the show anyway.

When I write something like what I post on my blog every day, I know pretty much as soon as it's done – or really about halfway through, because I know how something good is going to end before I write it – whether it's going to be good or not. This thing right now, probably a five out of ten.

I'm sitting in my new room-to-be upstairs at Station 59 right now having just bought $50 worth of shit to varnish the floors and wash the walls ready for painting tomorrow or Sunday. I'm moving in on Wednesday. The next month is looking like an exciting time in the Melbourne Saga, as I leave the unfettered chaos of Baker St for solo living here, and also Phil finally (touching wood) moves across from Adelaide. I'll txt him in a second to make sure he gave his notice at the Botanic last night. Scratch that, I txted him just then.

Shit I need to do in the next few months after I've moved into this place includes:

• Go to Medicare and get a new Medicare card
  
• Book appointments at the dentist, and a general check-up at the doctor
  
• Meet with Rochester management about more weekly cash for the room, also need to speak with Gamze about her not running it with us anymore
  
• Look in to medical testing, possible one in mid-November
  
• Figure out plans for Christmas and buy tickets for planes/busses
  
• Register for Edinburgh 2014, MICF season at Station 59, talk to Hugo about MICF season at Workers, pay all relevant cash for Edinburch, MICF, Adelaide Fringe to get up to date
  
• Sort out internet for new place
  
• Keep writing and polishing '36 Hours', figuring out new material to slot in as asides and getting it ready for the Fistival season in January
  
• Buy new shoes and new laptop and convince myself that I'm allowed to take two weeks off of comedy and writing over Christmas to play GTA V if the PC port is out by then
  

Yep, that's the next few months. Tasks planned. I told you this post would be a five out of ten – CALLED IT! I'm pretty happy with those points though, I can probably tick a few of those off even next week.

Okay, as Richard the Stoner said to George Moutzouris at Coles Kurrulta Park in 2008 and then George later told me and we pissed ourselves about it because Richard was a mong and any story of him in discomfort was hilarious to us: “I gotta scrub the fucken walls man.”

Peace, Taco.

Being Without Internet

Our internet isn't working at the moment, which is both annoying and... well, actually no. I was trying to force myself to see some sort of positive in this grim situation as I type thoughts straight from my head, but no, there are no positives here. It's annoying. I'll even go so far as to say that not having internet on this Thursday afternoon as the predictably unexpected Melbourne rain cuts through the 'Spring' air is shit. Shit, guys. How about that?

I feel like my phone bill is going to be a it of a motherfucker this month – while I was in the Gold Coast I used my phone every day as a modem for my laptop so I could check my Facebook and emails properly rather than with Android which is so much clunkier. I've been streaming YouTube a bunch as well, and as we speak I'm listening to Anna Lunoe's June mix on SoundCloud through my phone plugged into my room's speakers. The internet is so great.

At the Rochester we've just started taking donations at the end of every night, this week we made thirty-five dorrahz, fifteen of which I gave to James Masters, the headliner (who TORE IT UP for the record), and twenty of which we have donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). I remember watching a great keynote address by the mighty Dan Harmon earlier this year in which he retraces humanities evolution throughout history and charts our use of communication technologies, from speech to writing to telephones, radio, TV, and now the internet. One of his closing points was about how each of these new technologies (or at least, the more recent ones definitely) have started off as free, uninhibited playgrounds for the general public of the time to do with whatever they could imagine, but were slowly usurped and regulated by fearful governments and power-hungry corporations. TV was the most recent, and as regulation and business came, so left the true creativity that used to exist on the medium.

He went on to talk about the internet and its huge potential to be the playground of the masses that gives rise to such creativity, and made the bold statement that it may very well be one of those sitting in his crowd that finally discovers a way to reign in the freedom that now dominates the internet, and monetize it, thus destroying it's true value in exchange for individual power. That's why we've started donating profits from the Rochy to the EFF, because it's such a good cause. Governments and private lobbyists (more the latter working through the former, really) with vested interests in the ongoing regulation of information are constantly trying to take control of the internet – an absurd notion akin to trying to trying to control people's ability to speak to eachother – and if people like ourselves continue to do nothing until it affects us personally, then by the time it does, it will be too late.

Look at me ranting and raving about causes and shit... it's important though, isn't it? I debated for a second over whether to put a question-mark at the end of that last sentence. Rhetorical question, yes, but also, firm statement. It is important. Freedom of the Internet, knowledge is power, and power should belong to the people. All People. Equally.

I think the idea that the government is – by definition – The People, or at least an extension of us, is lost on far too many. So many people – and correct me if I'm wrong – seem to understand the government as a separate entity that is a force to be pushed against and somehow defeated; that it is a force outside of us and that we should do away with it. The government is us, and we are the government. We govern ourselves, those who we install to do the work of governance do not govern us, but merely govern for us, so that we can get down to important things like having sex and eating ice cream. Come on guys, they are just time-savers, and can be done away with whenever we want, if we should so choose.

I feel all ideological today. It's nice, maybe it's the rain. I can hear it like static, falling on the roof as Anna Lunoe's house music beats underneath my thoughts, here on Thursday afternoon, in Richmond, 3121.

Peace, Taco.

Have a Good Life

I just answered a phone call from John from Habitat Hostel in St Kilda, John was my contact down at Habitat during my year as a tour guide for Peek Tours – the best job I've ever had. He was calling me to ask how the tours were going... at least, I think he was, I didn't really get the gist of what he was calling about as our conversation was cut short when I told him that Peek Tours no longer does the free tour. We got edged out by the competition ('I'm Free Tours' /petulantspitting) and had to shut up shop. This would be our last phone call, oh the mildly shocking emotion.

The first time I met John I didn't really meet him, and for the first months of our relationship (is that the right word? Friendship? Not quite... professional relationship is too long, relationship is too... gay?) he existed to me only as a number saved in my phone: 'John – Habitat'. I would call him on Friday mornings when the groups he chaperoned on that day each week were late, or failed to arrive at all. “Anyone for the tour today dude?”
“Nah, no one was interested.” He would say.
“Aaite, cool. Catcha later.” And we would hang up. Click.

Our tour company suffered from a severe lack of promotional funds, and slowly but surely we were pushed from first to second position in the free tour market by I'm Free, but Fridays were as close as we had to a sure day of at least ten people. John – Habitat brought groups every week of fun tourists and backpackers, and after a while he started hanging out whenever I was on and chatting for five or ten minutes while his group lingered in the background acting awkward and not knowing to do with themselves. He'd usually ask my how my comedy was going and what I was up to, and I'd tell him, and then tell him my latest interesting story of some weirdo on the tour, or some shitty heckler at a show. Once a scary-looking, bedraggled homeless guy approached me in the Block Arcade while I was talking to a group of fifteen or so and yelled almost incomprehensibly; “LIAR! FUCKEN LIARRRR!” My group were fairly shocked and taken aback, and looked to me to resolve the tension and extricate us from the situation, I turned to them and replied:
“Okay guys, this is Dave, he's going to be one of our new guides but he's still training and learning the ropes, so everyone say 'Hey Dave!'”

I was pretty happy with that.

Whenever we talked on Friday mornings the conversations never strayed far from basic, surface level chatter, but I always liked how John – Habitat hung around for a little rather than bailing straight away. Maybe his job back at the hostel was a little boring, or maybe I was a little boring and he just felt obliged to make idle banter? Or maybe his job was great, but he just enjoyed talking to people. Or maybe he didn't work for Habitat at all? But was just a strangely motivated homeless man who would drag tourists who seemed lost from the streets, round them up, and take them to a free tour under the guise of working for an established hostel in St Kilda. Maybe, but probably not.

It's weird to think about how many people we meet in just one day, how many people you say “hi” to, how many people you make eye contact with, how many people you walk past on the street and share nothing but the air of an artificial city and the harsh streets covered in crushed-up rocks and chemicals. There are a lot of them. Our days are all a constant parade of changing faces dancing in and out of our tiny little personal worlds, some of them stay for a while, some of them leave before we learn their names. John – Habitat was a small part of my life for a year, and when I told him that Peek Tours was no longer running, we both understood that our professional relationship was about to come to an end.

I am very quick to attach undue meaning and emotion to these kinds of tiny events that, much like the aforementioned faces, crop up hundreds of times in every day. When we hung up the phone, I couldn't resist pointing out the harsh reality of this particular goodbye. What does it mean? I knew you for five minutes, every Friday for a year. Is that significant in any way? I'll probably forget your name in another year. Although John is a pretty easy name to remember... but then, it's John. Easy to forget too.

“I'll see you around them man... probably never.” he said to me as our conversation wound down and we prepared to return to our existences.
“Yeah man, have a good life.”
(together) “Haha...” Click.

Peace, Taco.

Today, Today

How is it already nine days into October? When the fuck did that happen?

Last night at the Rochy we had a pretty good night – numbers-wise it was nothing special, although the bar still did over a grand, but the crowd's energy was huge, largely thanks to MC Mitch Alexander. I think the secret (what secret?) to good MCing is just to be genuinely excited about the night and about the job you're doing. Mitch was so stoked to be getting up there and the crowd could tell, so they got behind him and everyone had a fucking great time. The same thing happened to me last time I MCd the Rochy; I was super excited about it because Dewberry's car had broken down in town and I was getting to MC at the last-minute, and I went up at the start and told everyone how excited I was, and lo and behold, we had a fucking ridiculous night. The. Most. Fun.

I can't wait for November 5^th, that night is going to be huge. Tommy Dassalo as MC, and Justin Hamilton headlining... fuck yes, that shit is going to be brilliant. I'm going to organize a meeting this week with management for the venue to see if we can get a $150 marketing budget for that week, and after that night if we could up the MC's pay to $100, get $50 for the headline, and $50 for us to spend on expenses and drinks. The night is really going well, and I see no reason why we can't crack $2000 over the bar one night before the end of summer.

Today I'm heading down to the bagel place that Luka and I were going to go to yesterday but missed by one minute – they close at 4pm – I'm excited about food. Later I'll be at the AYCC offices booking some presentations so I can get that job off the floor, and after that I have a consultation at the gym, then Station 59 tonight and Death Star after that. Big night – I need to find some time somewhere to write a new bit for my show to try at Station. Some time this week I have to paint the walls in my new room and varnish the floor. I'm moving in on Tuesday. Getting out of Baker St is going to be a good move. Summer is coming, my life is a hive of activity.

I can't write any more today. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Peace, Taco.

Taxi Guru

These blogs have been hard to write the last week, probably because I was away and my routine was completely different, but also possibly because I am running out of steam. Maybe? Eh, probably not. I think when I go away from now on, if I'm going to treat it as a holiday, then I need to stop writing the blog as well. This is something that I do seven days a week – I'm always 'working'. That's how I want my life to be, and that's fine, but I think I need to give myself some down time to recharge when I go on holidays like I did last week, or else the quality of the posts is going to suffer severely anyway, and what's the point of writing shitty blogs?

Last night I had an amazing cab ride; I met up with a crew of uni students and took them on a short pub crawl of Fitzroy, and then just after ten I left them to their easy Sunday adventure, and went home. I saw some guys getting out of a cab on the street, and leaned my head in the door to ask if the guy was free – he was, I jumped in. During the changeover one of the guys, as he was getting out of the cab, said , “enjoy” – just took it to be a random farewell from a stranger, but as soon as my cabbie opened his mouth, I guessed that it may have actually been a deliberate comment on what he knew I was about to experience.

The guy was old-looking – probably in his sixties – with grey hair and one of those old person mouths with lips that go in a little bit like the event horizon of a black hole. Softly spoken, but completely deliberate and purposeful, he started telling me that he was the master of all relationships, and that he had developed a philosophy which he intended to share with me in our short time together.
“Where are we going?”
“The Imperial first (I had to pick something up), and then Baker St in Richmond.”
“Okay, now listen.”

He started talking, and I immediately identified with the things he was saying about the self, and the need we have to know our selves so that we can be true to those around us - “only when we are true to ourselves can we give to the world.” (I'm paraphrasing of course, but these were pretty much his words). I wanted to ask him about meditation, but I decided to let the conversation be steered without my input; it seemed clear that he had practised this pitch before. That's what it started to seem like too, a pitch. I found myself becoming cynical as I wondered when he would whip out a clipboard and ask me to sign up to his mailing list. “Dr Benicci's Health and Personal Wellness Seminars only $29.95 a week, sign up now and get a free hat”. But no, no offer, no ask, nothing but an old man in his cab spilling knowledge into the world to an audience of one.

I was captivated, he slipped here and there into rhetoric, and so I asked him how I could put some of these ideas into practice – how do I actually apply this philosophy to the real world? I understand that I need to actualize myself, and that I can fulfil my duty to bring happiness to others and good into the world when I am working towards my truest desires, but how do I do all of that? Should I go home and watch a TED Talk? Buy a scooter? Learn to count in Russian? What?

He said that the great untapped resource of humanity is the unconscious, and then he gave me one simple tool to help myself become more focussed on what I want, and direct myself more towards that. He said that I should take a piece of paper, and on it, free-write anything that comes into my head that I would consider a desire of mine. Anything. What do I want out of life? What do I want to be or do or feel? I should keep writing on the piece of paper until I feel that my I have found the absolute NUMBER ONE thing that I want, my first and foremost goal. Then I should write this one thing down on pieces of paper and stick them around my house, and keep them on my person at all times. Every night before I go to sleep, the last thing I do should be look at this piece of paper, and in doing this as well as having the message around my house so that I am constantly exposed to it, I am training my subconscious to think about that thing. Putting it to work, effectively.

It reminded me of a TED Talk by John Cleese (I don't know if I was being sarcastic before or not, TED Talks are really great), where he talks about writing a script that he was really happy with, losing it, rewriting it from memory, finding the original, then comparing and finding that the re-written version was far better. He gave this as part-proof for the idea that the subconscious works on things after our conscious mind has decided that they are complete. My taxi driver's idea doesn't seem so far-fetched to be honest.

Today I have to go to my new room and start sanding the floors, and also probably hammer down a few hangnails, but before I do I'm going to sit here with a piece of paper and a pen, and set to work figuring out what my dreams are. Because there's always time for introspection.

Peace, Taco.

Last Day in GC

Last day of the Gold Coast and things have worked out pretty damn well. I've got myself a pretty decent tan after a week in the sun, and managed to stick to my $200 budget which really is a pretty fucking extraordinary budget considering I've had a drink every night and not cooked a single meal. I've made some great new friends and possibly hooked up a new avenue for on-again-off-again employment at Rockstar Promotions. I've hung out with some mates from back in Melbourne and made some great connections. And finally, this afternoon, I got the number of a cute little honey from the rugby... I doubt that will go anywhere, but I got the number didn't I? Yes. Yes I did.

I had a really good hang last night with Richie, who has been staying in GC for the last few weeks relaxing and getting into a positive headspace; we talked about life, and or goals, and who we were, and we drank beers on the balcony of the place he's staying at. When he gets back to Melbourne on Wednesday he's going to be working in a new place, and looking hard hard hard to find a place with Brodie's girl, Jana, and the one and only forever-absent Loose Phil. North Melbourne.

Right now I'm sitting on the floor of the lounge room in our hotel listening to old Kanye and drinking a bottle of James Squire's Fifty Lashes, today was a great day, and I have a feeling that even though tonight probably won't turn into a huge crew-fest, something good is going to happen.

I'm way too distracted to write this now, but rest assured friends, this week was a great one, and when I get a second tomorrow, after I buy my return plane ticket to Europe for next year, I'll jump on and write something great about the last week's non-events, which because of their lack of real memorableness are entirely memorable as a whole of themselves. Huzzah, holidays. Achievement of the week: figuring out how to do nothing.

Peace, Taco.