Feeling Useless

I just read an opinion piece on Al Jazeera titled 'Obama is Closer to Nixon than MLK' about how, on the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's famous 'I Have A Dream' speech, “it's virtually a knee-jerk reaction to associate his [Obama's] presidency with the fulfillment of King's dream.” It was an amazing piece – if you have a minute you should read it (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/20138296131532445.html) – and once I'd finished it my mind was cast back, as it often is, to my favourite book, '1984'.

I feel like I'm repeating myself in my life, because every time something like this pops into my mind in conversation or writing, I end up bringing it back to Orwell. In fact, I probably am repeating myself, but I'm repeating myself for a reason; everything in that book is fucking perfect. It talks about the means to power being the control of the past, and how any organization that can manipulate people's perceptions of past events can control their ideas in the present, so now, considering the public perception of Barack Obama as an inheritor of King's legacy, it's clear how the past is being distorted before our very eyes. It's a strange sort of racism that casts Obama primarily as a descendant of the civil rights movement of the '60s purely on the grounds of his dark skin – an insidious one, and a lie really. “The first black president, how we have progressed! Joy! Joy! Let's all go join a choir!” But in placing the emphasis on MLK's push for racial equality above all other of his agendas, those other agendas have been pushed into the background – ending war and poverty amongst them, which are no more relevant than in the warring, recession-striken US today. His character is being distorted, soon only a crude outline of the original man will remain.

What is the point of all this distraction though? What was the initial agenda of getting Obama into the White House in the first place? During the first campaign back in 2008 the race card was waved around like a beacon of joy, waved in front of our faces, but more and more it seems to have been only a distraction, making racists of us all as we truly believed the colour of a man could possibly determine his suitibility to lead. A black man has been at the helm of the world's biggest ship for five years now, and still the water keeps flooding in.

I don't even know what it is about the links between '1984' and the events of the real world that are so intriguing. It is, after all, just a book... these situations really fail to get my angry, or even emotionally connected. That's in there too, Orwell covered the apathy of the masses and how it could be manufactured within them from birth through an education system geared towards producing emotional cripples. I feel like one of those cripples. Has my mind been gripped by the hand of those who wish to control me and subdued without me even knowing? Am I already a victim of the rulers of a cruel game I am unable to understand, no matter how hard I try? I should feel scared, but it's almost relieving to think of certain loss as a sweet release from the need to fight at all. But wait, that's in there too.

Ugh, I don't even know where I'm going with this... isn't it the scariest thing ever that I try to write something about an article on governance that I just read, but it only degenerates into a commentary about how difficult it is to write such a thing? Even with my (admittedly paltry) two years of study in the field. We should all care about these things, because they WILL affect us, but in trying to think about them, I run into brick walls and become tired and impatient.

Sigh, I'm giving up today, maybe it's sufficient, for now, to know for sure at least that we ARE, DEFINITELY being lied to. I'm trying to stay vigilant, I really am, but I don't know what else to do.

Desperate.

Peace, Taco.

Year Two has Begun

So I've joined a gym.

I feel like I should be reading one of those pamphlets Dr. Hibbert has in his office on The Simpsons and gives to people when terrible shit happens to them to help them cope. “So You've Ruined Your Life” for Marge's pregnancy, and “So You're Going To Die” when Homer needs surgery. I joined a gym. !!! What the fuck? I always thought I'd have just settled for diabetes.

This self-improvement tip is really taking hold... well, I mean, slow down sailor, it's only day one. I've been to el gym-o ONE TIME, but I'm pretty certain I'm going to be going back on a regular basis – the target I've set for myself is three times a week; Monday, Thursday, Saturday. Right after cleaning, once I've already been forced out of bed in the early morning by the unfortunate imperative of "money = living", I'll be ready to push, pull, lift, bite, and juggle all manner of tough metal objects in the name of health and wellbeing.

Other news on the big-things front is that I'm most probably going to be leaving Baker St, the house that has served as my home for the last twelve months. Richie is pretty keen to find a place and Phil is looking like he might finally get his fucking worthless, shit-talking ass over to this beautiful city if we can just find a three bedroom house somewhere in the inner north to set up camp in. I'm going to browse some real estate sites as soon as I finish typing this blog entry.

Today is the first gorgeous day of what looks to be a phenomenal spring on the horizon; the sun is shining and the sky is crystal blue, no clouds, no wind, nothing. Year Two in Melbourne looks like it's going to be more of the same right now, and by more of the same, I mean more changes, more work, and more frenzied development. Every day, I repeat the same phrases to myself as I slowly work on building my body and mind, every day, every day, struggling, maintaining. Never forget.

“Food goes in here.”

Peace, Taco.

A Faraday Cage and Facebook

I'm sure sometimes I write things just to write them, just to have written something. This blog is the perfect example of that, but more than this blog, I do this on Facebook and YouTube comments. The ease with which I can say something to (potentially) thousands of people really is intoxicating sometimes, and often, what seems like a great thought to immortalize online at the time of thinking, does not prove to be so.

This is no more true than today, when I stood in the elevator at Little Hunter (the restaurant I clean four days a week) and watched the number tick down one floor while holding my breath so that the smell from the bins I was taking down in the lift with me wouldn't make me dry reach my stomach lining onto the lovely polished steel interior. I went from the ground floor (GF) down to the basement – front entrance (BF), and the similar double meaning of both these acronyms was – as it is on most days – glaringly apparent. 'Girl Friend', 'Boy Friend'. This was my idea for a Facebook post:

[photo of the elevator display reading 'BF']
Caption: “Wow this elevator sure is keen LOL! Sori elevator, I dnt swing dat wai LOL JK!”

Not great huh? Pretty fucking TERRIBLE ACTUALLY – even if it was meant to be satirical (for the record, yes, it was, I'm not a 14 year old boy). But now, if you go on my Facebook wall and look at the posts on today, the 30^th of August 2013, you can clearly see that no such post exists. I don't like deleting old posts, as I think it perfectly reasonable that I should have to be held accountable to my former thoughts and ideas, however deranged or idiotic. So how did I manage to dodge this bullet?

One recollection from my time in year 12 physics with Mr Turnbull that has continually puzzled and frustrated me for five years since my graduation, is the Faraday Cage. Apparently, so our wise master taught us, a Faraday Cage is a closed three-dimensional shape (cage), composed of conductive material, that forms an electromagnetic field through which electromagnetic signals cannot pass. The cage doesn't have to be completely solid, just the frame, but it does have to be closed. In our lessons he always used to refer to something like the body of a car being a Faraday Cage, and using this to justify why using a mobile phone in a car is a bad idea – because the EM waves that make up the phone's signal are 'trapped' within the car, thus subjecting you and your passengers to far greater doses of radiation than normal. This never made sense to me cos... like, if the signal can't get out of the car, then how does your phone work at all? Okay sure, I'll accept that the radiation might be greater within the car, but a pretty decent amount of those charged particles have to be able to leave or else the phone's signal would die. Yes, the radio antenna is on the outside, but not the phone... its a phone. Ummmmm... anyway, I passed year 12 physics and did really well ACTUALLY, so there! For those five years I've been content to tell Faraday and his dumb cage to SUCK IT! Ha.

Until now... so while I was in the lift today, safely (although still not happily) breathing bin-air in through my mouth and writing what I at the time was a cutting piece of social satire, my phone lost signal. The elevator, as previously mentioned, has an interior made of polished steel – not a great conductor even, but still okay considering the completeness of the cage. So while I was there, with my half-asleep brain at 6:45am trying to post my photo onto Facebook, something inside me said, “wait, dude, someone is trying to tell you something here.” I was already unsure about what I was posting – I guess just like to post when I wake up – and this little hitch thankfully pushed me over the edge. “Nooooooo Taco, no postey postey, this attempt at satire isssss DUMB!” I closed the window, and when the elevator doors opened, I grabbed the bins, and left without ever having uttered a word to the world of social media.

So thanks, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Thank you Michael Faraday and also to your lovely cage, dumb though it still may be, you have saved me from widespread embarrassment and the shame of less-than-three-likes that draws the piteous stares of wall-scrollers the world over. I felt I should do something to repay you for my five years of disdain and dismissal, so I wrote you this post, and HEY, look at that I even learnt your first name. Good on you.

Peace, Taco.

Snapshot 13.08.29

I had a dream about Grace last night, but now I don't remember what it was about. No matter, I had a pretty decent gig last night too, after the pits of doom that spewed from my mind in the minutes after waking up late-afternoon (See: yesterday's post). I don't know why I was so foul at the world, but there seems to be something to it. Anyway, today's another day, and I already feel like it's been a win in more ways than one. The plan today is to read some more Mark Twain, and type a few pages of On The Road, which has lain dormant on the left-hand side of my table for a few weeks.

Yesterday felt like the first day of Spring – it wasn't, it's still winter for another three days. The weather was fine all day, and it would have been pretty easy to rock no jacket, just a t-shirt, from lunchtime til around sunset. Definitely what you want.

Also last night I made a shitty sandwich, borne of laziness: ham, picnic bacon, cheese, onion, garlic, sweet chilli sauce, mayo, hot sauce – it wasn't even a disappointment, because honestly, who ever expected that sandwich to go well? Well, me actually, in some crazed optimism-coma. Three kinds of sauce, no salad, not even red onion, that shit was white as the KKK and burnt my eyes when I bit into it. Eugh, welcome to the future.

So I've been thinking of moving out of Baker St. That's an interesting thing for me to think; for as long as I've been of legal age and allowed to go out and party, I've wanted to live in a house where the agenda is non-stop action. Drinking, drugs, music, party. Now that I've been here for a year though, I don't know, I mean I always intellectually knew that I didn't actually want this kind of lifestyle, but I have still enjoyed every second of it for the past year, it's only been in the last few weeks that it's suddenly begun to seem tired. But look at me, making it seem as if I've been living some high-octane amphetamine-circus for the last twelve months – I really haven't. I'm sure there are just as many examples of me packing it in early or sleeping through a kick-on since I've been living at this place, as there are of me taking the drugs all night and drinking the drinks into the next afternoon. I guess I just feel like it's the right thing to do now after a year

So now I'm looking, I guess, for a new place, although there's no huge rush... The Workers is an option, as long as the rent doesn't go up too far above $130 a week like Richie said it might do once something happens with management that I didn't quite understand/want to know about... eh.

Finally, I don't have a gig tonight, but now that I'm in a fairly good mood, with a decent amount of what feels like zen stored up in my psychic tank, I think I'm going to go out on the prowl for one tonight. Commedia St Kilda could be a good bet, or the Exford. I need to finish writing my show as well, and I promised a random group of people that I'd organize and run a pub crawl for them, with barely any guarantee that I can actually deliver on that promise, so I guess there's that to look into.

That's a pretty reasonable snapshot of my life right now. I guess that's what every single one of these blog entries is supposed to be, or is, really, but I feel like today's is a little more coherent and thought-out than usual. Maybe that's what Grace was doing in my dream last night, a little bit of clarity. Clever boots, evils understood.

Peace, Taco.

Rant 005

Okay, so what happened to me today. I woke up around 10am, had a shower, brushed my teeth, then made breakfast. The breakfast post-shower was an unwise decision as I was eating cereal, and all the bits got stuck in my teeth but I'd already brushed them and didn't want to go back and do it again. I have to stop doing that. Then I sat at my computer and started doing... nothing, really. Nothing much, made a few phone calls and sent some emails. Didn't do anything substantial until around 3:30pm when I decided to leave the house to get some food. I walked around the corner to the Chinese place called Loi Loi, when I got there I asked if they took eftpos, which they did, but only with a $15 minimum spend. Instead of going down the road to the ATM to withdraw money I took the eftpos option, which inevitably meant I ordered too much food and spent over $20 anyway. When I finished eating (I managed to finish all my food) it was still sunny and warm outside, but I went back home and immediately lay down, put on a movie and fell asleep again. I woke up just now at 6:15pm, having accomplished nothing other than making myself feel shit. I have a gig now. Well, in a few hours. I need to leave the house after writing this, and go to the Rochester where I left my phone charger last night in the DJ booth. I hope it's still there, if it's not then I'll probably need to buy another one. It'll probably still be there though, it's plugged into a powerpoint in a secluded corner of the booth, and no one's likely to take it, it's pretty early anyway, and there's only trivia on tonight. Time to leave this house. I don't want to see anyone tonight.

Peace, Taco.

A Great Gig

Waking up today took around three hours, it was one of those mornings when you drift in and out of sleep and lazy consciousness, waiting for the hour when, finally, you must rise. I had a long shower and am now sitting back at my computer, thinking about the business of the day: Rochester flyers, flyering, calls to make, maybe book a few more comics for spots and go for a walk to do some shopping... but first: chips.

I guess I'll talk about my set last night, considering I seem to be running out of steam on this post already, and we're only one-hundred words or so in. I got up at Situation Comedy and did one of the three 'headline' spots (I don't know if that's the right term? They are all around ten minutes, one after the other). I felt like I did pretty well, definitely during the first half of my set more so than the second half – towards the end I definitely let the energy of the room dip a couple times while I was rattling off a few tried and tested bits and I think that showed in the lower reaction to those bits. I felt myself go onto autopilot at one point before a string of three phrases that always get a laugh, and I never really recovered from my laziness there.

What did go well though were two things: first was my little chunk (maybe 3 minutes) about Politics vs Governance – the difference being that Governance is the actual substantive thing that defines how our society works and is structured, whereas Politics is the shitty soap opera or D Grade celebrities that parade around our tabloids pretending to have relevance in our lives. I parleyed that bit into a bit about the news being shit that I tried a couple weeks ago, and it seemed to work well after I got warmed up, sloppily introduced the concept, and then fumbled through the new words – definitely will do again.

Also what I was the most happy with last night were my improvisations. I turned to the couch to the right of stage and building on an observation I'd made to myself before coming on, I riffed on their similarity to the cast of 'Friends' in the coffee shop. Later on I, apropos of nothing, threw my sock at one of the girls on the couches. I was happiest with my general attitude towards them; I was giving them the most attention, as their position five out of the seven present legitimate audience members warranted, while still maintaining a position of power and authority over them, and making fun of their perceived importance. Even if they weren't claiming such importance, I felt like everyone else had been basically playing to them, and while I thought that might be somewhat necessary, I didn't want to grovel to them like I felt some of the other acts had been.

I probably got cocky around the seven minute thirty mark, when I looked at my phone and saw how much time I had left and the pronounced, “I'm having the best time.” But the fact that I was able to get to a point where I was completely inside the moment and doing what came into my head, even if it was only for a second, is something I don't think I've experienced before on stage, and so for that alone, I think last night was one of my best gigs yet. Another Spleen in two weeks, and I'm MCing the Comic's Lounge next week – basically an audition – time to polish up.

Peace, Taco.

Drunk Monday

I'm a bit drunk right now, I'll admit it, but I'll tell you a bit about my night before I pass out. So I had a set at Situation Comedy, and I think I did quite well. Especially the first half of my set was received really well, and the bits where I improvised around likening the cliquey table of girls surrounding their new-comic friend to the cast of friends went down a treat. I threw my sock at a girl.

Then I went to the Workers club and caught up with Gwen just in time to give her the keys for work which she has to do tomorrow, thus avoiding a TERRIBLE early wake-up – I've had to suffer through that a couple of times in the past and it is the most terrible thing in the world ever.

Then back to Situation Comedy where I joined in the podcast, and also climbed up on a wall so that I could urinate from a high-up position into a bin filled with empty cans and bottles – accurate. That will all be on the podcast, which I know you won't listen to, because you're not even reading this are you? Maybe I should cross-promote. I won't though. Drunk people don't know how to make hyperlinks.

I think that's all I have in me at this point... tomorrow I'll try and wake up before midday, and write two entries... that's RIGHT! Tomorrow is the first of those elusive days. Let's get this puppy-dawgg back on par. ('puppy' = 'blog'; 'dawg' = something else) Fuck. Incoherency. Here we are again.

Peace, Taco.

A Whirlwind Romance

I fell in love today. That's right, I fell in love. I love the brevity of that expression, and the implication, because of the past tense, that the action is already complete, like I fell in love this morning, dealt with it, came full circle, and now, at only two in the afternoon can write about the experience like a long-ago high school romance. I fell in love today, it was beautiful.

I was listening to the WTF podcast with Marc Maron, episode #417 with Tom Segura (don't worry guys it wasn't MAN-LOVE I ain't one-a-dem POOFS! Hey! HA-HA! HA-HA! HA-HA! NO I'M NOT!!!!) and having a really great time. The ep was definitely in my top... top ten? Top ten guests, maybe not top ten episodes if you consider that the Louis CK and Judd Apatow interviews both span two episodes, but now we're getting off course. Anyway, so I was listening to Marc and Tom talk their talk about being touring comics and it was really great – Tom Segura is a funny guy with heaps of cool stories. He kept making reference to his wife though, and how funny and cool she is, and like, okay, maybe it was just from the cool, pal-ish tone he kept referring to her with, but I was like, “damn son, this girl sounds like one fly chick-momma.” The seed had been planted.

So after Tom and Marc wrapped it up I downloaded ep #387 which featured the aforementioned wife, whose name is Christina Paszitzky and whose voice graced my ears almost as soon as ep #387 (which is a live episode) started. Tom had described her as “very sharp” and “quick”, so I already had something to go off of, but every word she said sounded more confident and more WOMANLY. Her parents are Hungarian, hence the crazy last name, and she's a touring comic just like her husband. She. Is. AMAZING!

After her portion of the live ep finished I stopped paying attention, and continued swooning, and as soon as I got home from cleaning where I'd been listening to the podcasts initially, I went online and downloaded a few episodes of the Your Mom's House podcast which Tom and Christina do weekly, but not before doing a google image search of Christina Paszitzky to find that, yes, my auditory-based assumptions were correct, SHE'S BEAUTIFUL. And she slays on the podcast, as, to be fair, does Tom. They're both quick-witted and clever, but fuck Tom, fuck him right in his stupid head, because my love for Christina had blossomed into its own fully-fledged beast with eyes and ears and a heart beating savagely in the mist, illuminating darkness. I realized though, after about an hour and a half of dreamy bliss-listeining (blistening) that it could never be, and that for every fantasy I was having of hilarious passive-aggressive confessions of my amour by way of email to the Your Mom's House podcast, they had probably already received a hundred similar ranting scrawls of passion from lonely male fans in fits of lust.

So I gave up my dreams of her, and put them to rest in a small cardboard box inside my heart, and buried them in the back yard, next to the fruit tree and the suspicious mound when Uncle Denny went back to Europe. I will continue to listen to Christina and Tom on their podcast, always slightly envious of their happiness, but never again with the same eagerness as on that first morning, when I was transported, by that “very sharp”, “quick” mistress who will forever hold a place in my heart, Christina Paszitzky.

Peace, Taco.

Unintentional Passive-Aggression in Hecklers

Last night's gig was at Club Voltaire and involved me MCing a music night for four different musicians, each doing around forty-five minute sets to a small assortment of their common friends etc. The crowd seemed warm initially, and very responsive to my material – although to be fair this was only in response to my opening chunk – but each time I took the stage they were less enjoyable to play in front of, with the night finally turning into a hugely frustrating and infuriating experience.

During the second break in which I did about twelve minutes of material, the crowd were fairly rowdy and I failed to calm them down, but I'm not sure whether this was a failure on my part or not. I could hardly tell them to shut up because as far as it had gotten, they had been fine during the musical acts, and I was the only comic of the evening. Their interjections were not mean-spirited at all, and they seemed to be listening to most of what I had to say – and indeed all of the musicians. When at one point I asked them a mostly-rhetorical question with the aim of going into some more material but instead they all piped up into general discussion of the matter, I only blamed myself for letting loose the reins. “I did ask them a question,” I chided to myself, “this is what I should expect, really.” After about a minute of unruliness I managed to regain their attention with a stern tone and a leading story, but I could feel myself getting aggressive, and I wanted to tone that back in my next set, “so as not to risk losing them”, I thought.

After that though, in the third and fourth sets I did between acts, they got worse, and I think they must have taken my passivity in the first instance as an unconscious cue that their interjections were okay. They weren't okay, they were basically heckling me, although in a kind-spirited way, without realizing they were in any way ruining my set, but still, they were heckling nonetheless. The worst part was when I introduced a bit with the line, “do you want to know the saddest thing that's ever happened to me? // When I was nineteen, I ate garlic paste on toast.”

This is CLEARLY (or so I thought) an obvious piece of hyperbole aimed at getting the audience's attention before I launch into the explanation of why that was the saddest point in my life – therein lie the jokes. Before I could get to the justifications though, one woman from the crowd yelled, “oh you have lived a sheltered life!” Now, how the fuck am I supposed to take that? That, a clear attack on my authority as the MC, but levelled in such a passive way as to seem like a joke. As far as I can tell, there's no way I can take that while still remaining on happy terms with it's owner, but unfortunately, that's what I tried to do. I tried to laugh it off and smiled as the audience laughed over the top of this woman's continued passive-aggressive jeers of, “ooooh okay, let's hear about your story then!” As if it was her who was allowing me to perform for her on the stage. The worst part was, in that moment, that was the case, because I fucked up, and let it happen.

So what would I do differently next time? Next time, when faced with laughing, passive-aggressive hecklers ignorant of their own negative input into the show. I've been thinking about it a lot (obviously) and I'm not completely sure yet, but I think after listening to Patrice O'Neal's new album 'Unreleased' I think the key is to maintain the assumption that everything that is happening is happening on my terms. I needed to teach her that what she was doing was not helping the show, and was in fact hindering it and making it worse. I did go some small way towards that after she tore me down by asking her, “okay, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?” But she came back with, “no you're telling the story!” At which point I should have said, “that's right, so let me tell it, but before I do, let me tell you why what you just said was ignorant.” I could have tried to teach her something about the mechanics of comedy – I'm sure she already knew intellectually what these are: that the leading phrase of that particular bit is deliberately ridiculous or shocking to get the audience's attention preceding a justification/explanation of it, with jokes. The fact that she interrupted though – even if she did have her own jokes and must have thought that she was making the show better because of the subsequent laughter – means that she didn't instinctively understand what was going on. She needed to learn, and I wasn't quick enough to teach her.

God damn it. Just talking about it is frustrating me again. That's the only way to learn though, I guess, and a gig like last night's should prove a valuable learning experience in identifying a heckler immediately. Never again will I give a heckler the benefit of the doubt and, subsequently, my good temper. I don't want to lash out viciously at a heckler either, but that woman last night spitting her unintentional passive-aggression needed to be dealt with better. I fucked up.

When she said goodbye after the show she was lovely, and I probably need to reinforce that fact – that she was a lovely person for coming to see a show at all – but I was feeling way too dark to engage her in any sort of farewell. I tried to explain to her friend briefly what had happened, but it was too soon after, so my words came out jumbled and pointless. They seemed to enjoy the show though, which is the main thing too, but to be honest, I would have rather them not enjoy the show, had I been able to find a way to maintain my dignity as a performer by holding the stage and not giving in to the will of the crowd. Always learning. Always watching.

Peace, Taco.

I'm Not Excited

I've noticed it's taking me until later and later to leave the house lately – the weather is pretty shitty still so I'm going to put at least part of it down to that. During the week now that I only work Friday-Monday mornings, I'm getting up later, and spending a lot of time in front of the computer. Facebook, emails, random blogs and videos. This usually lasts until around one or two in the afternoon when I realize the time and tell myself I need to get out of the house and do something for the day before comedy time around seven.

Today I think I'm going to head into town to Officeworks and put in an order for another B0 poster for the Rochester to replace the one that was ripped off the wall a couple of weekends ago, then I'll come home by way of Aldi, and buy some bacon, eggs, sausage, mushrooms, salad, and butter, and cook me up some Full English Breakfast. That'll be sweet to take me through until four-ish, then I'll head back out to Officeworks, pick up the then-finished B0, and take it to the Rochy. Sounds like a plan, Tug. What else?

Okay so yesterday I got an AMAZING call from Brent Ilicic, a fellow comic who started a few months ago but has been absent recently. I really wish I'd written about this yesterday now actually, because I was way more excited about it then, and now it feels more like a forced report rather than an excited story told in fits of passion... basically he was calling to ask me if I wanted to take a job on the Gold coast for the week from September 30^th – October 4^th that pays $1000 and includes flights and accommodation paid for... and the job is, fucking get this: Hype Man for the Ice Break Tent at the Uni Games. WHAT?!!?! Ugh... this excitement feels really forced now – rest assured, I was bouncing off the walls when I heard that shit yesterday. Okay, the position isn't actually 'Hype Man', but as far as I understand right now, I'll be standing with a microphone accompanied by another guy at the Ice Break tent, and every now and then when there's a break in the sports matches, we have to get people to come to the tent and take part in our little games, whilst commentating on them. Sounds awesome.

I hope I'm not jinxing it by writing about it on my blog right now, but it sounded pretty much like I'd gotten the job when Brent called, they just wanted a bit of info about me and a few pictures... should I have linked them to my facebook? I didn't, but should I have? My last few DPs that actually show me are of me either topless or drunk. Then again, the pictures I sent them were of me either on stage, or topless... and drunk. With drink. In hand.

Ugh, I'm really struggling to find the verve today, I'm not feeling this entry at all. I'm writing about the coolest shit that's happened to me in easily a few months, and I can't even find a funky adjective to slap in front of it. Fuck this, I still need to write the story I promised yesterday. Maybe that guy will prove a little more inspiring.

Peace, Taco.

Money Get Fucked

Eugh what a fucking day so far. Amidst booking some shows for Melbourne Fringe in a few weeks, and lining up a venue for Adelaide Fringe in February, I just got a call from the Melbourne manager of I'm Free Tours – the company I was hoping to start guiding with – telling me that the owner's of the company in Sydney have laid down the law and said that they won't take guides who aren't from the city they're doing tours in. Fuck.

This once again throws my financial situation into sharp focus, as my savings slowly diminish by around $50 a week and no new cashflow comes in... fuck I have to send James my invoice for this weeks work. Fuck I have to send centrelink my earnings report. Fuck, I missed a PVS appointment yesterday. Fuck Fuck Fuck. I honestly only remembered those things just now, as I wrote them. You are witnessing my life's inner shudders live, reported direct from the ground.

I fucking hate worrying about money – I don't hate not HAVING any money, I just hate that I'm the one who has to worry about my own finances. If someone were to just tell me, “hey fuckhead, here's how much money you have to spend every week for the next six months, now shut up and live off beans.” I'd be happy. I'd be so happy. I'd buy five-hundred cans of fucking beans and keep them next to my old shirts in my chest of drawers, and ever breakfast I'd take out one of the cans, open it, eat half, and then give the rest to neighbourhood cats, because I'm a nice fucking guy, and because I don't even like beans anyway. I just want to stop thinking about money. It's infuriating.

So medical testing is, once again, looking like the most viable option. In Fed Square a few days ago I had a chance run-in with the lovely Tanya from Britain who I had met a few times MCing burlesque shows at Club Voltaire in the past few months, and she told me she has the contact details for the Melbourne equivalent of Adelaide's CMAX and would pass them on to me – I just sent her a text pestering her to that effect. Stick your tubes in me, you strange men of science, I require assistance.

My recent spending in the aesthetics department has probably not helped my financial situation, but has definitely boosted my image of myself, adding to my already dangerously swollen confidence. I feel that this, along with my fidgeting, twitchy amounts of energy will be the only thing that gets me through the next twelve months which are shaping up to be. That's all I have to say for now, but look forward to my next post later today, which I am very excited about after conceiving of last night. Ha-ha, ha-ha, twitch, shudder, involuntary movement.

Peace, Taco.

The Value of Concentration

I don't normally write while I have music playing; I don't know what it is about music, but it always seems to distract me. I remember reading a study – or maybe I didn't even read it, maybe it was just relayed to me... come to think of it, I have no idea how this piece of information came to be in my head, but here I go, about to spurt it out as sheer fact – that said that classical music is the best to study to, and hip hop and house the worst. The reason for this was that the strong beats are distracting to the mind, and constantly vie for attention over the thoughts that we're supposedly concentrating on. Classical music has no heavy beat, or repetitively percussive beat like much of the popular music of the modern era, and so it wins out.

Right now I'm writing this while listening to Alle Farben's 'Fusion Secret Gig 2013 Mixtape' which is full of disco-house and heavy 4/4 drums... I don't want to jump the gun here, but as far as cogency and train of thought, we seem to be going fairly well. Oh... nope, self-referencing... not good... getting meta... having to refer to the present in order to come up with material here. Maybe I spoke too soon?

So I was talking about how I can never concentrate with music on: when I was in Bolivia I remember sitting in a cafe in La Paz after being denied entry into numerous hostels and driven around by a taxi driver clearly extorting us for two hours' cab fare. The cafe was the only one in the city that we knew was a twenty-four hour affair, and it was about 6am, so we went in and decided to wait out the time until the internet cafe opened and I could receive an email from my host-brother containing my passport documents which would allow us to finally check in to a hostel. As we sat there, I saw Sandrine, a lovely French woman who I spent a lot of time with, pull out a book and pop in her headphones before commencing reading. She was listening to music WHILE reading... this I could not wrap my head around, but apparently women can multi-task?

So another study... this one seems a bit more reputable in my memory, and without checking google right now, (what a weak move that would be) I'm going to say with a fair degree of confidence that this one is steeped in real fact. This study claimed that the barely-noticeable flickering of fluorescent lights distracted the male mind to such an extent as to make study underneath one impossible for us dual-chromosome-wielding dullards. Urban myth states that women can multi-task, while men cannot, but this study gave a clear, demonstrable example of a situation where the difference could be observed. Fluorescent lights, you old devils, you.

This music is really fucking great, I don't want to turn it off, but as I near what feels like the end of this disjointed and ultimately undirected rant, one thing is becoming clear – I am not concentrating.

You win again, un-researched, possibly made-up science. Victory is yours, and to the victor, go the spoils. What the fuck am I talking about? None of the words in those last two sentences meant FUCKING ANYTHING WHATSOEVER. This has been a struggle guys... I think I'm going to have a nap. I just had a fucking cold shower too... fuck.

Peace, Taco.

I Fucking Hate Seagulls

The seagulls in Fed Square are beyond ruthless, they wander the open square in packs searching for anyone with food, and when they find them they encircle the unwitting victim, who usually finds their approach cute and humorous. They cannot be deterred.

One day last week during one of my ever-more-frequently pointless trips to Fed Square (my tour company is failing so I usually go to the square and wait for twenty minutes for no one to show up, and then leave) I was accosted by a group of these flying rats. I was finishing the first of two baguettes I had bought for my breakfast (Metro Baguette, corner of Elizabeth and Flinders, $5, ridiculous) and was about to start on the second. As soon as I'd arrived in my usual waiting place I caught the attention of these thugs of the sky, and about ten or twelve of them drew up around me, waiting for crumbs to spill. I'm not a charity service, nor do I support the special brand of insidious violence these animals perpetrate, so I made sure to spill nothing. Not a crumb. Not a sliver of salad.

This morning I saw a similar situation taking place – actually two at once, about ten metres from eachother – in the first, two small children, around six or seven years old, stood a few metres from their parents with snacks, and were joyously feeding the seagulls small portions of their food. The second involved a young lady sitting on a concrete slab eating her lunch, unwittingly inviting the gulls' attention in the way a rape victim invites her attackers by wearing pants, a skivvy, and an oh-so-tantalizing thick, hooded jacket – not at all.

So this day last week – now that I'm thinking about it, I'm fairly sure it was Friday – while I was eating my second baguette, I was also keeping fairly strong in my no-crumbs vigil, even going so far as to stamp small lettuce leaf that fell from my sandwich into the floor, ensuring that it would not become fodder to encourage my hated, white enemy. I was pissed, they kept coming closer. “Fuck. Off!”, I could be heard to curse, while swinging my satchel over my head at the fiends like a crude, medieval mace. I was crazed and livid with fury, I hated them, I still do, it seethed through my veins like hot chocolate, the poison kind, and made my vision turn red with bloodlust.

As I watched the two children feeding the birds this morning I felt a slight uneasiness at their situation; their parents had their backs turned and no doubt did not give a second thought to their offspring who were slowly being completely encircled by a throng of disgusting birds. The children were blissfully ignorant to the very real, emergent threat of being completely engulfed by these airborne goons – their childhoods were about to come to a rude and abrupt end. My mace-arm twitched while I considered walking over and shooing the foul beasts away, but before I could commit to what would no doubt be an unnecessary act of aggression in the eyes of the public, the young woman on the concrete slab screamed, and my eyes darted over to her just in time to see a seagull in the retreating arc of a giant swoop, and the woman's food flying from her hands and onto the floor. The pack of birds quickly ran on their scaly feet to where the food fell, and in seconds the pack dispersed leaving not a crumb behind on the battlefield – the dumb violence of the world playing out in a few short seconds as these Darwinian beasts fought for scraps of life on the concrete floor.

I fell victim to a similar attack on Friday, even after my continuous displays trying to assert my dominance over these wild things while I ate my food. I can't expect any different than that they should exercise their biological imperative and search for food, but I am fully prepared to loathe them nonetheless, and loathe them I do... oh god I hate them so much. As the birds screeched an uproar over their unfortunate victim's breakfast today, I felt quietly vindicated for my violent posturings on Friday  – I can only hope that her opinion of seagulls was ruined forever. Maybe you'll think again next time you see some wild animal with what you believe to be humility in its eyes approaching you as you nibble on some human snack. Maybe, or maybe you just think I'm an animal hater. I mean, I probably am, but I'm probably right too.

Peace, Taco.

Reflections on the Random Encounter

So at the gig on Wednesday I got chatting to fellow comic Brendan Maloney's girlfriend whose name I have dutifully forgotten and is conspicuously absent from his facebook 'about'. Shitballs. She was talking about how they live in Richmond (way close to us, actually) and we started sharing stories of the daily filth that is 3121, and so naturally, I had to share my Smackhead Door-Knocker' story from the other day. (See here)

As soon as I had finished my story she told me a similar story of how her house had been almost broken into: she was lying in bed and heard the door knock vigorously and at volume, for a few minutes, but couldn't be fucked getting up to answer, so she stayed put. They live with six other people but no one else was home, so the door stayed unanswered. Rather than being left to return to comfy bed-ridden silence though, she was startled by the figure of a Richmond Regular scaling the outside of her house and attempting to break in. To BREAK IN!! No less. Which means that the knock at the door was just an attempt to see if anyone was home – they were casing the joint. That's what they were doing at my house too... that guy with the heroin eyeballs could have just been putting the whole thing on... holy fuck... holy jesus... holy fuckjesus. Wow.

So that scared me... a lot.. and made me think about the security of our house and the shit inside it. I mean, I'm not going anywhere, (fuck that, we only just resolved our neighbour issues, we're staying put for the long haul in here mo'fukkas) but it's crazy to think not that there are people in our area who are out to do that kind of stuff – that I can reconcile myself with pretty easily. The wild fact that made me jump was the realization that I had ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE of picking someone who was looking to rob our fucking house. I don't know, I just thought I had better instincts than that. The guy looked so absolutely pinned, I had no qualms about dismissing the mad incident on Saturday as just a random act of some lost junkie. He could have, and now that I think about it, probably was, putting most of the act on.

Brutal times and harsh realizations here today, friends. Sometimes we're just not as clued in with the world as we think we are. That's something that's rather hard to admit for me, and even from here, I think I'd rather cast the situation in the light of 'lessons learned' rather than 'ignorance exposed'.

There's a war going on outside.

Peace, Taco.

Thoughts on a Polite but Cold Audience

Last night at Crab Lab I hit another road-block. 'Stumbling-block'? Maybe a better phrase? I'm not very happy with either of those... regardless; I have a problem.

A few weeks ago I resolved to stop writing material until the Fringe, so that I could work on the ten to fifteen minutes of stuff I have that I'm fairly confident will do well in the nine shows I'll be doing for the fringe. Last night though, while playing to an admittedly cold room, most of my set fell flat, and I realized that I need to figure out a way to inject new energy into it so that when I perform the material for the tenth, twentieth, and possibly hundredth time, it doesn't go stale.
I don't even really have a single set that I pull out, although the material that I have is SLOWLY crystalizing together where I can find logical connections between separate bits. I'm doing another spot tonight though, at Agent 284, the new Commedia Dell'Parte room in Collingwood, and I'm planning on doing either exactly the same set, or if it starts going poorly like last night, then I think I have something up my sleeve... I really felt unprepared for the situation I landed in last night though. Everyone in the second bracket was getting lukewarm responses. Nothing brutal, and not really terrible silence either, just a few titters and the unbearable silence of people listening, waiting to give their approval. Eugh.

The headliner Laura Davis took an interesting tact that, as soon as she did it, I wished I'd thought of – she was nice to them: “do you guys realize you're a very quiet audience tonight? It's okay, I just wondered whether you knew.” I don't think they did... or maybe they did? I was never going to think of that though... my first and only real idea was to get angry at them, which thankfully I steered away from, although I did try a bit of condescension which got about the amount of slight acknowledgement it deserved. The whole time before I went on though I was thinking about the gig down at The Basin a few weeks ago where I managed to win over a poor crowd who were talking through acts by asking them rather aggressively, “are you guys enjoying being a shit crowd?” I knew that wasn't going to work last night, so I went on, did my stuff, tried a few things, and got off mildly disappointed.

This morning I thought of one thing that I possibly could have done – as is always the way; ready with a comeback once the moment has passed. I don't know whether this would have worked, but I thought that I could have said that clearly each of the individuals in the audience was a lovely person: they were all sitting politely, barely any whispering or chatter, waiting, laughing quietly at times. They were all great as

The headliner Laura Davis took an interesting tact that, as soon as she did it, I wished I'd thought of – she was nice to them: “do you guys realize you're a very quiet audience tonight? It's okay, I just wondered whether you knew.” I don't think they did... or maybe they did? I was never going to think of that though... my first and only real idea was to get angry at them, which thankfully I steered away from, although I did try a bit of condescension which got about the amount of slight acknowledgement it deserved. The whole time before I went on though I was thinking about the gig down at The Basin a few weeks ago where I managed to win over a poor crowd who were talking through acts by asking them rather aggressively, “are you guys enjoying being a shit crowd?” I knew that wasn't going to work last night, so I went on, did my stuff, tried a few things, and got off mildly disappointed.
This morning I thought of one thing that I possibly could have done – as is always the way; ready with a comeback once the moment has passed. I don't know whether this would have worked, but I thought that I could have said that clearly each of the individuals in the audience was a lovely person: they were all sitting politely, barely any whispering or chatter, waiting, laughing quietly at times. They were all great as individuals, but just as a whole, as a crowd, they sucked. That doesn't have to reflect on them as individuals, but when they all got together, they were killing comedians. It's like the holocaust, all of those Nazi soldiers were fine people, but when they got together...

Yeah look, I'm not saying it would've worked, and had I thought of it at the time, maybe I would have had the balls to try it, maybe not. I'll never know will I? I'm just hoping tonight's gig goes better, is all... although it would be interesting if I were put in a similar position tonight... I don't know, maybe I'd just try a bit of different material at the end to wrap it up, or maybe I'd try and open with a bit more energy? Ugh, fuck. No idea, really.

Peace, Taco.

There's Bread in Our Toilet

There's bread in our toilet. I'm not necessarily against it, but I mean, it probably shouldn't be there. Not heaps of bread... not even a full slice, in fact, I'm not even sure it's bread, it's a chunk of something a little bigger than your average crouton and it's floating in the toilet bowl. I thought it was spit at first, like someone had just spat in the toilet (as people do – not being ironic here, I definitely do that almost every time I go to the toilet) but then I tried to flush it and NO NO NO it wouldn't go down. Why the fuck am I writing this, seriously?

But it was weird, it's like, okay so now the question is – if we're all in agreement that yes, it is bread – where did it come from? Was someone eating a sandwich while using the toilet (unhygienic), and if so, were they going number 1s or number 2s? If they were taking a slash then okay, sure, I'll let it slide, that makes SOME sense, even if it's still a bit gross to be eating a sandwich while standing at a toilet pissing, and it also raises the tricky question of how they got their fly undone or how they were aiming. But if it was either a girl, or if they were Daking a Tump – just, if they were sitting down – then SORRY! That's fucking GROSS. Do not eat sandwiches while you're sitting on the fucking toilet, you animals. You beasts. You creatures devoid of hope.

Okay, I'm still not 100% sure it was bread... but no, I am not going back to check. Okay, I'm thinking about going back to check. I could poke it with a stick? But we don't have any sticks in our house that I'm willing to poke into the toilet for the purposes of miscellaneous object identification (MOI). Also fuck that, I doubt I'd be able to learn anything:
“Okay, so I poked it with a stick and it didn't cling to the stick, nor did it change shape in any way.”
“Still stumped?”
“Still stumped.”
I can't see that going anywhere useful.

What would annoy me the most if it did turn out to be bread – and just for the record guys, I think we're all going to have to reconcile ourselves with the unwelcome reality right now which is that we're probably never going to know what it was, and it will most likely be gone by morning – what would annoy me though, is that it's not like we live in a house that can boast a proud abundance of bread. We're not bread starved by any means, I mean, I did buy two loaves the other day, and we're only halfway through the first one... but still, who the fuck is anyone to go throwing crouton-sized chunks of bread into toilets like Elvis fucking Presley right now? We don't have that kind of bread (pun) (See: The Young Ones) and frankly the only time I like to see food in the toilet is if it's gone through a good several metres of digestive tract first, and even then I'm not thrilled about the experience.

All I wanted to do was take a nice little piss by myself after coming in from the cold night and this is what I'm greeted with? Bread in my fucking toilet. Well I don't know what you guys think, but I've just about had it with this day I reckon. Bed time.

Peace, Taco.

Last Night's Antics

The first good thing that happened today was I woke up. That sounds a bit morbid doesn't it? Well dead the arrogance guys, every day you don't wake up to fire bearing down on your pathetic human face and bugs crawling beneath your skin, you should be thankful... today was one of those days for me, and I chalked it up to good luck.

Also though, I woke up at 10:30am with very little hangover to speak of after a reasonable effort drinks-wise at the Rochester last night, so that's another boon. Finally though, I woke up to the reality that my family and close friends do NOT, in fact, hate me, and want to destroy my comedy career. What more can a guy ask for! Okay, explaining: I had a dream just before I woke up wherein I was on some sort of comedy tour, and my family and a few close friends were there – I seem to remember there were exactly fifteen people, for some reason. They were all standing in a line along the bar, and I was in the middle of a sparsely populated room, trying my best to entertain apathetic losers, and in doing so, going way over my allotted time. I got halfway through my 'Friend's Girlfriend is a 9.5 out of 10' routine, and then my mum called me out for going over time. Infuriated, I threw my bag on the floor and stormed out of the bar and into the bar toilets, where I found an almost full bottle of vodka, and, feeling slightly dejected and stroppy, partook upon it's liquid delights.

I don't know why I stated getting all wordy and verbose at the end of that description there... maybe the ethereal nature of the dream necessitated a flowery description, or maybe I'm just a cunt. We'll never know for sure, will we?

No.

Also something great about this morning is that I get to listen back to the thirty or so minutes of me MCing the Rochester last night. We once again had our best night ever, that makes three weeks in a row now of breaking records, hopefully things keep going like this. I'm pretty sure the posters on the ground are proving a great success and I can see people looking at them every time they walk past so FUCK YEAH! I'm still unsure about my 'Nursing Homes into Casinos – Racism' routine, it didn't completely hit last night, although I did still get to say everything I wanted to say and it finished on a big laugh as well... it doesn't have the pacing of a great routine, but it does have a few big laughs in there, and for something that actually has a point to make (more or less... ha) it should be okay for a few months... I might pull it out for the fringe show, we'll see.

Finally, last night I, true to form, was shot down for an drunken offer for last-minute sexy sexy times by a ladygirl. Nothing new there, but considering how fucking great the night preceding my ultimate failure at the hands of woman-kind was, I think I can handle it. You win some, you lose some folks, and as the great Ned Kelly once said, “at least I can still jack it to internet porn when I get home.”

Peace, Taco.

Rant 004

Last night I did a bussy shift at the Workers and it was fucking GREAT! Cruising around, dancing, chatting shit, a few brews... I didn't realize I missed working hospitality, and I'm so glad I got off my lazy ass and accepted when Hugo asked if I wanted the shift last night... I told him to keep me on call for any other random spots that come up.

One ridiculous thing that happened, happened around 10:30pm... I was ducking and weaving like a Rude Boss all night, getting back into DAT glassy groove, but this particular time I whipped out from behind the bar, around two girls who were standing at the water jugs getting water, and just as I did so one of them turned around with her glass and caught me right above my eye. Glass on bone. MOTHERFUCKER! I reeled back into the wall and stayed down for a good thirty seconds, she stood over me asking if I was okay, I walked away with a nice cut above my eye. Tonight I'll tell people that a homeless guy threw a 20c piece at my face – add a bit of whimsy to the world.

Another beautiful thing happened today, when I was about to leave the house to go to the Salvos and buy a belt, Benny walked back through the door having just been to the mediation session between us and our neighbours who have been trying to get us fined for being too noisy. He didn't invite me, which I thought at first might have been a bit shit, but after hearing about it may have been a solid judgement call considering my propensity for short-fuse argumentative vigour. (AKA yelling) He went by himself, apparently our property agent was there as well, and took a slew of pseudo-abuse from our neighbours about our loud music and their terrifying accounts of sleep deprivation and Chinese water torture. Tears and tears... well apparently they were a bit aggressive with their accusations, because our agent, having been previously against us in this fight, was swung back to our side. They had an ace in the hole, these ridiculous people, and they blew it. Looks like we're staying at Baker St for a long time yet... Winner winner chicken dinner.

Other things... About to go buy bulk amounts of tape to stick up our laminated A3 posters pointing people towards the Rochester every Tuesday night – we have to take them down at the end of every evening so that the council don't get at us for vandalism. Probably should print more flyers too. Stickers are coming (I mean, no they're not, we don't have stickers, I don't know what you're talking about officer). I feel exceptionally good today.

The last few weeks have been a torrent of positive energy and good vibes – great things happening. Look at me, I'm in a good enough mood to allow myself to say something as douchey as “positive energy” un-ironically. I think I might sit here in my room for another hour or so before launching into the business of the day; maybe look at pictures of cats, old people, girls getting shut down on facebook. I forgot to have my vitamins with lunch again... that's annoying, now I need to eat another meal.

Peace, Taco.

Tired From Skype

I'm tired this morning because I had a Skype chat until 11:30 last night with French Girl and had to get up at 5am to clean, then had a tour at 10:30am which ended up being cancelled (although I did flyer one of the two people that rocked up for GUFFAW at the Rochester), and then came home and filled in a sheet of places I've applied for in the last month so that I could go to a Centrelink appointment which only required me walk through the door and cite my Customer Access Number to the man with the iPad. My legs hurt too, and I'm going to have a nap this arvo.

I've been thinking more about my show and the writing process lately because Alan Driscoll and Sofie Prints have decided to hold an Alternative Comedy Festival at the Barley Corn for four Mondays during the Melbourne Fringe this year, and I'm going to be performing a half-hour version of my show on two or three of those Mondays. The final thing that I'll be taking to Adelaide, MICF, and Edinburgh in 2014 will be fifty minutes long (ideally, hopefully), but for now I think thirty minutes will be the perfect length to allow me to work out the narrative arc of the whole thing and then probably re-write most of the peripheral information to make it better, funnier, slicker, more gooder.

I love talking to Melanie every few months on Skype because our chats are a good chance for me, myself, to take stock of what I've done in the time since our last talk. This time I told her that my tour company is shutting down at the end of the month – a huge relief to be losing that source of stress; I'm revamping my look with new clothes and a realization that I don't think I'm ready to put on here just yet; and my hair is long enough to put in up, for the first time ever. Tropppp sexy!
Okay, no one actually said that but me.

I'm going to watch some 'Freaks and Geeks' on YouTube now and settle into bed for a few hours before getting up to finish writing the third of four sections of my show. '36 Hours' is coming together – and yes, that's what I'm calling it... I want to get this badboy in the front of every festival guide HAHA! Genius Tuck; you are one of them.

Peace, Taco.

Rant 003

Do I need to do my tax? I mean, fucking come on... I earned a ridiculously paltry sum of money last year, easily less than the old tax-free threshold, let alone the new one. I didn't get a group certificate from either of the two legitimate employers I had last year, but if my mental sums are correct, I'd say I earned about $5000. Shut up ATO, just stop it.

I'm actually in a really good mood today, I've just come back from Direct Factory Outlet, (should I call it 'DFO'? Eugh, I don't know. So continues the constant struggle against my own contempt for my attempts to better myself... “Really? Really? It's such an integral part of your life now after having been there once that you're going to abbreviate it the first time you mention it in a blog post? Really? Fucking loser.” says the spiteful part of my brain. “But it's so much quicker, and plus, Mitch and Blake called it 'DFO' yesterday and they both knew what each other was talking about!” says the part bent on betterment. “This parenthesis has gone on too long.” says the part that worries about this blog post's structural integrity. “You just used a derivatives of the word “integral” twice.” says Mr OCD) where I purchased clothes.

The trip to Essendon got me out of the house for a solid few hours, and I got to make a start on “Roughing It” by Mark Twain, which I've been meaning to read for fucking EVER – I downloaded it as an e-book on my HTC while I was in South America but could never get into it, but I'm sure it'll be way easier with the actual book. On books, I finished 'If Only It Were True' yesterday in a fifty-page frenzy while sitting in a corner at the Comic's Lounge, and I must say (I can't remember whether I decried the book at some point last week...) my opinion of it drastically changed from my initial impressions. Although I will still maintain that it is, essentially, emotional porn for girls – in the same way actual porn is designed to play up to the stereotypical male fantasy, so this book plays up to the stereotypical female fantasy – I will say that the end of the book contained a nice little spin that brought everything full circle, and after taking the first hundred or so pages to fully suspend my disbelief, the ride was fun. I'm just glad it didn't end with some stupid, “and then they kissed *sigh*” moment. That would've been disgusting.

I had a bit of a scare after getting back from work today when I turned the taps in the kitchen only to find that they weren't working... that would have been fucking perfect – water disconnected. I stormed around the house for a good five minutes while on the phone to Phil screaming, “OOOOOH GET FUCKED!” and other inventive obscenities. Then, about half an hour later, I distinctly heard the rushing of water in pipes, went out to the kitchen, tried the taps, and they worked. Must've been council shit.

Now I'm going to do something... I'm not sure what yet, but there are plenty of things to be done, so I'll wrap this badboy up for today. New site coming, design quoted from Blaise's company at $300. Changed URL to something more straightforward. Exciting Times. Heady Days. Do A Backflip.

Peace, Taco.

The Best Pun

The cream came on the market during a time of fear. “VinceCream™, be your own best friend.” There were rumours that the original development team had formulated the prototype with the goal of permanent transformation, but marketing had watered it down for mass-production. No point in selling a once-off, better to make it temporary and keep the money rolling in. Vince Melling was a God: the fastest, the smartest, the most well-groomed, wives on every continent. Nobody could resist.

The day they brought it out doors were rammed down in every department store across the developed world. China, Japan, South Korea, Great Britain, The European Continent, Australia, North America, Brazil. Also in developing countries: Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico, New Zealand. The wave of homogeneity spread out from each source as people rubbed VinceCream™ on themselves and their faces and bodies, even voices, changed to resemble the one true Vince Melling. Everyone's change was different – no one looked exactly the same as Melling or each other after the three hour transformation period, but “the product's effectiveness was assured across all races and body types”, they said, “to within three standard deviations from True Vince.”

Within three months the first customers started coming back after their little plastic tubs started to run dry... the elderly, the infirm, those who needed more VinceCream™ daily to maintain their new state (for the wonder-drug also cured sickness and disability, as Vince Melling, it was widely known, had never been sick in his life). VinceCream Lite™ was a smash hit with twenty-something women. VinceCream Starburst™ with pre-teens. Mothers bought their children VinceCream™ for their third birthday. Sex bars stocked glow in the dark VinceCream™ to use as lubricant in late-night orgies. Vince's sexual prowess was renowned.


The years wore on and VinceCream™ remained the number one selling product of any kind world wide, children were born in hospitals full of look-alike nurses and doctors and parents with smiling faces chiselled from the same stone as their charismatic god. Vince Melling, he walked Earth's every corner, every day, his clones in billions of places, all at the same time. No one could object, and it started to be that even those who had no particular fondness for the man initially had started using his product – social pressures. Don't be left out. Don't be left behind. Racism ended, gender inequality too, and the world was divided into Vinces, and the steadily diminishing ranks of those who continued to hold out. The fringes of society: outlaws, rednecks, idiots, followers of the old religions in the strangest parts of creation where the sun, it was assumed, no longer cared to shine.


Tolerance is not an easy game, and so these corners were slowly wiped out... eventually by force, though never were the hold-outs long in their protest. One week of VinceCream™ can turn anyone, and once the world has been rearranged by a new set of eyes belonging to the immortal himself, like faces in a cloud, it is hard to ever see the chaos again.

*****

Vince Melling sat in his mansion, surrounded by beauties – himself. Walking mirrors, talking and moving in a way almost identical to his own, he spat upon them. They fell directly at his feet.

In the bathroom he locked the door, and drawing his face up close to the mirror and carefully with his hand, trembling with fear and anticipation, he rubbed the VinceCream™ into his own face, then sat silently, waiting for something to happen.

At noon the next day, the world seemed empty. A godless, barren wasteland, filled with living bodies wandering; images of a ghost. Even Vince Melling, because no one is un-Vinceable.

Random Encounter

What. The. Fuck.

First of all, I hate when people knock too many times on your door. Knocks on the door are a tolerable intrusion at the best of times, and only because they herald the bringing of lovely things, but when someone raps 5+ times on my front door with a sense of entitled urgency audible through the house, it makes me unhappy. I'm trying to restrain myself here, because this isn't really part of the story.

I heard one of these obnoxious knocks at the door just now, and left my room to answer what I thought would be one of four or five deliveries we get every week. I opened the door and a gaunt, pasty smackhead, stoned out of his mind with a half-smoked, unlit cigarette in one hand, stood before me. He was swaying.

The first thing that struck me was that this person must have summoned up all of their strength to execute the knocking that had caught my attention, because as he stood there on my front doorstep it looked as if any change in local air pressure would have him reeling on his ass. I've heard plenty about the miraculous feats of balance addicts are capable of (see: David Cross, 'Bigger and Blackerer') but to witness something like this first hand was really a wild ride to Silly Town.

Then he asked me if I had seen his dog. “I've lost my dog... it's a little shitzu... if you find it... I'll give you my number...”

Normally I would have been excited about this... actually, scratch that, I WAS excited about this... but not yet. I was a little worried, or maybe just anxious for this insane interaction to be over, so that my excitement at having had something dumb happen to me today could kick in. “Who are you, ridiculous person?!” I could hear myself preparing to ask. I could hear the story formulating itself in my head already. I love telling stories... I just had to wrap this thing up, this beautiful present that the world had offered me up. Saturday afternoon in Richmond. 3121.

“...uuuh... yeah okay dude.” was all I had... and all I really needed to be honest. The guy had probably forgotten that he'd offered me his number, or that he'd asked me where his dog was, or that he'd ever had a dog (did he ever have a dog?) or what a dog even was. We stood there for a second in silence – just a second, but long enough for it to be mutually understood that our time together was at an end – and then I stepped back a fraction, and began to close the door, looking at his face as I did so. His face looked back at me, and then turned, with the rest of his body haphazardly following it, before disappearing from my view. I heard the gate open, so I know he's not asleep on the couch out the front right now... that's good. I'd to go past there at some point.

It's strange that we live here, so close to the barely-beating heart of the heroin scene in Melbourne's inner East. It's weird to see people consumed with a half-life, stalking the streets every day, I often wonder what their day-to-day lives are like, even though the mystery really isn't hard to guess at. Today though, I didn't have to wonder, I got to peek in, I was allowed the rare opportunity to gaze over the edge and into the blackness in the abyss, just for a second. Only a glimpse. Initially I was angry for the intrusion, then spiteful... but that was just a reflexive reaction. Enjoy your heroin bro, it's your choice, and as far as I can tell you're not hurting anyone – it doesn't hurt to be woken up from idle daydreams every now and then by a bit of reality. That's the reason we live here.

I'm going to get lunch now. The pasty, white ghost with whom I shared a twenty second conversation at 2:45pm this afternoon will probably start feeling sick before sunset. I hope he finds somewhere warm to crash, some downers to help him sleep, and a lighter for his unlit ciggie.

Happy Saturday.

Peace, Taco.

(To read my thoughts on this encounter a few days later after some interesting information had come to light, click here)

My Body's No Body's Body But Mine

I think I've had my Ultivite today... I'm pretty sure... yeah, I think I have... no, definitely I did. I bought this jar thingo of 150 Swisse Ultivite like a month ago I guess, when I was really sick and looking to force my body to be healthy without having to do any work. I don't think I've missed more than one or two days in the time since I bought them, but now I'm wondering whether they are actually working or not. How the fuck are you supposed to tell? What is 'wellness'? How do you measure that? Should I buy more of these things once this lot runs out?

Today I walked over to the Lentil as Anything in Abbottsford Convent – for the uninitiated, Lentil as Anything is a restaurant (?) that serves vegetarian and vegan food with no obligation to pay, you just put whatever you think your meal was worth in a box when you're on your way out. I heaped my plate up, as I always do, and paid three dorrah. Is that stingy? I guess it is a little. BAH! Fuck you! I don't need to justify myself to you people...

Okay, maybe I'll chuck in ten next time.

I won't though.

I like to trick myself into thinking that things I do every day like walking medium distances at a brisk pace, or running for a tram actually have a positive effect on my health. Yes, Aidan, you definitely deserve two slices of cheesecake with whipped cream and strawberry because today you skipped down a flight of stairs at Parliament Station. Of course you should have McDonalds on the walk home, you did just WALK HOME didn't you? Go Go Go, you health nut. You picture of sensibility. YOU! are a healthy, modern gentleman.

What I think I'm trying to say is I probably eat too much... and I've noticed in the last six months or so – well it really has been a slow progression ever since I noticed that I have a belly – that I've been more concerned about my body image. Not concerned enough to actually take any sort of action of course. HAH! Get fucked... no, but still concerned enough to look down at my stomach from time to time and utter words like, “I wish you'd never been born.” And I do. I can't remember who it is but there's a comedian who has a bit about the body being like a disgusting child that we have to feed and nurture and take care of and why can't it just shut up for a change and let our mind free from its cellar to roam around in the sunshine. WHY MUST MY MIND BE FOREVER HELD HOSTAGE IN THIS DISGUSTIG FLESHY PRISON!!!

I think 'fleshy prison' is literally the phrase that particular comedian uses in their bit. Sorry, whoever it is. No one reads this anyway, it's fine.

I think I will keep buying Swisse Ultivite, to be honest. I like to hedge my bets.

Peace, Taco.

Image

I think I just realized that the reason I have always worn the clothes I have is because I am embarrassed to be seen as 'trying'. It's the same reason I never approach girls myself, I don't want to be seen to be trying, because I don't want to take the risk that in trying, I might fail. I've always worn clothes that are obvious and extremely ostentatious – bright, colourful, obnoxious – but never actually 'good'. By wearing the clothes I have worn I've been unknowingly crying, “I am afraid to try to look good, but pay attention to me anyway!” I have a wardrobe full of random rags and sirens that bear no relation to eachother, or to who I want to be. What the fuck? How am I only just realizing this now? How have I lived five years of my life like this? I need to learn how to dress myself in a way that expresses who I want to be, and be seen to be, rather than just a klaxon blaring out into the world pleading people to look in my direction and see, “ooooh, look at that, nothing in particular...”

Eugh. I feel embarrassed right now, trying to change. Like people will look at me and laugh piteously at my attempts at betterment. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Logically I know no one's looking, but that's a hard fact to honestly come to terms with... I'll try and change anyway, and convince myself that it's to spite them.

Peace, Taco.

No More Wristbands

I was walking down Brunswick St in Fitzroy just now, wearing the jacket I bought a few hours ago from the Salvos and carrying my washing in a sports bag on my back. I stopped at the lights, took the blue, rubber charity band from around my right wrist, and threw it in the nearest bin.

When I was fourteen my friend at the time Ross Novak came to school with a bunch of charity bands that his mum had given him to give to his friends – I don't think it was properly explained at the time that they were in support of cancer, we just put them on without thinking. Everyone else quickly tired of theirs, but mine stayed on for years... Then at a party in 2008, my white band with the word 'Friends' now well and truly worn away from the surface SNAPPED, and fell off of my wrist. I had barely spent an hour without it on in the last three years.

I called my recent ex-girlfriend in tears, drunk and stupid, and tried to explain to her exasperated patience what had happened, and then when she hung up, I kept drinking, and eventually, later that night, smashed a glass bus station with a hammer that I had in my bag from a Scout camp. That evening ended up costing me around two-and-a-half thousand DUCKING FOLLARS. Actually, I don't think the band breaking and me smashing the tram stop are connected at all... it's funny to look back and place irrelevant events together on the same timeline though, huh? Searching for meaning. A world full of disorder.

I had a few more bands after that, each of them breaking after a few months, but the one I threw away today had lasted me a particularly long time; I think I picked it up in early 2011. I was in the City Cross Food Court in Adelaide, just off of Rundle Mall on the King William St end. I got some KFC – presumably to eat. Just as I was walking away from the counter I noticed that they had a little stand full of charity wristbands just like the one my wrist was conspicuously devoid of. I had grown to feel naked without the constant light bouncing of one of these faux-jewelery thing-a-dings reminding me of wrist's continued existence. I can't remember whether I bought the band, or whether it was free, or whether I stole it, but whichever it was, I wore that band, again, almost every minute from the moment I put it on until about an hour ago, when I threw it in the bin on Brunswick St.

And fuck those bands, really, the thing meant nothing to me. I don't give a fuck about charity... not in any real, tangible, I'm-actually-going-to-give-you-money-and-spend-time-thinking-about-this-issue way. Whenever anyone has asked me about the wristband – and let me just qualify this by saying that such events have been truly few and far between – I've only replied with a boring, “Oh, I just like wearing wristbands... I don't know what it's about.” And that's a fucking lie anyway, it used to say “From Hunger To Hope” before constant wear rubbed the indented letters away. I don't know whose hunger was being magically transformed by my constant wearing of a blue rubber loop, or what hope that trinket could possibly bring anyone. What a stupid piece of nothing. What a pointless, blue, wristband-shaped turd. I threw it in the bin, and now I'm going to stop thinking about it.

Wristbands, eh? I'm fighting the good fight, here, people.

Peace, Taco.

Unsent Letter to Rosanne Hammer

Yesterday I sent a txt to Roseanne Hammer – god DAMN it, I don't think I've spelled her name right there, that's going to dilute the soothing catharsis of this post a little. Rosanne was my piano teacher from year 8 when I was thirteen, until my enthusiasm and work ethic petered out around the age of nineteen. She wrote back immediately.

I sent her a text (why the fuck did I spell it, 'txt' before? What a fuckhead...) about a year ago simply asking “hey is this rosanne? [SIC]” and she replied then as well: apparently my name came up as 'Legend' in her address book. Legendary. I didn't respond to that message until last night, but the day that happened I wrote her name on a piece of card in my room which I stuck to the wall to remind me to formulate some sort of reply to her at a later date. That card was subsequently moved from the wall to my table where it has occupied an increasingly subordinate place amongst my heaping piles of random paper scraps during the last year, but I never threw it out.

I don't know why it was such a big deal for me to even write that text... a little over a year ago I wrote a piece called “I Used to Play Piano” which was about my gradual acceptance of the fact that I could no longer truly call myself a 'pianist' because I had lapsed into a state where I no longer remembered how to play most if not all of my old repertoire. Somehow the muscle memory of those chords and scales remains to an extent, and of that I am grateful. Roseanne was a hugely important figure for me during my tumultuous formative years though – I use the word 'formative' here like they are done... wishful thinking maybe? – our lessons provided emotional stability for me as well as a sense of direction as I worked towards various goals she set for me in my musical development. She fought battles with me, and in some cases for me, against the evil Jazz Department, and she was always in my corner, even though my prejudices must have seemed frustratingly arbitrary to her at the time.

I don't remember a huge amount from 2009 – at least not the day-to-day details, although I do have a fairly structured sense of the over-arching narrative of that period. I do remember though that in that year I had a bunch of piano lessons, and I don't think they were ever paid for. I don't think Rosanne ever even mentioned the money... or maybe my mum paid it without telling me? I'd say she knew where things were headed though. Half-guilty memories of time spent drifting off course.

This is the message I sent her last night:

“Hey rosanne! I really messed up replying to your msg a year or so ago huh? Haha I'm living in melbourne atm and have been since july last year, I dropped out of uni and im a sand up comic! HAHA! Doing my mother proud :p I do 4-5 gigs a week and m currently writing a 50 min show to take to a few festivals next year including the adelaide fringe so if you want you can come and see me although the writing process is hard and I'm not sure yet if the show will be any good haha

The reason I thought to txt you tonight though is I just finished playing piano in front of an audience for the first time since playing in your front room in adelaide and it was an amazing buzz, I played a shit version of a jack johnson song and then emaline by ben folds, but it was crazy because obviously ive learny so much about stagecraft and holding an audience that I never learned playing music so it was a totally different experience haha

I hope you're doing well... If you want to chat hit me up on email crazhore@gmail.com (hah!)
Aidan”

She replied, and I guess that means I have one more audience member for Adelaide next year (this was all a cunning marketing ploy... now to mine my past for other influential figures to spruik to). I'm pretty sure her name is actually spelled 'Rosanne'. I just fucked up at the start. What an idiot. Thanks Rosanne, that's all I'm trying to say here.

Peace, Taco.

Another Cycle

“So I missed a few days... but I went back three weeks straight!” That's not how I should feel, and I'm not sure whether it is... but 'Notorious' is a fucking great movie, and that's the quote I'm going with.

This weekend feels like it should have been bigger than it was, but I'm coming off it pretty smoothly right now to be honest... Elle and her new boyfriend Ben – who I knew from around the place in '09/'10 town days – came down to Melbourne to sample The Lifestyle and hit it up with us for a few days. Friday at Fishface saw me do a decent set to a virtually non-existant crowd; Saturday I cleaned and then slept most of the day; Sat night we went out to Baker St and then Sunday I didn't drink (thank fuck) and then played piano at Voltaire for the music night... that was awesome.

All up I think I got everything done I wanted to get done, and notwithstanding a promise that I feel I now have to keep to get drunk on Brodie's birthday in two weeks (not that I don't want to, but I said I wouldn't... quandaries, quandaries. 'The Lifestyle'. That really is what we are living right now to be honest – as much as I've felt down and out intermittently over the past few months since the end of MICF, I can't deny that the way I leave and the means by which I provide for myself are pretty fucking brilliant. It's a good situation at 45 Baker St, and after finding out that Sean has found himself some semi-permanent digs up in Coburg, it's looking like we might be staying here for a while longer... maybe this set up will even last until I leave for Europe next year? Who can tell at such a blurry stage.

I've got another couple of posts to churn out today to catch up to my one-a-day average-goal, so I'll keep this one brief. I feel like I'm coming on the up-and-up again though guys. Me, and everyone around me. So begins another cycle.

Peace, Taco.

Richard Herring and My Ten Minutes for Fringe

Last night I downloaded Richard Herring's discography and started watching 'Menage a Un', but I noticed that it was mostly stuff I'd seen before, and also that it really wasn't what I expected from the best friend and comedy partner of Stewart Lee. I went out and did a gig, and then came back home and got into bed ready for sleep, and decided to go for 'The Headmaster's Son' instead. I was not disappointed.

I've only watched half of it as I write this, having just stopped at the interval, but I already know it's going to be a great show when it wraps up after around an hour and forty minutes. One thing that struck me almost right away was how GOD DAMN FAST Richard Herring's delivery is – he is like a fucking steam roller, he doesn't stop, modulating his voice and shouting, going down, cutting himself off, interrupting his own trains of thought. I can only guess at what is written and what is improvised (it look very much like more of the former and only some of the latter). He also uses barely any 'filler' words and 'um's and 'aaaah's – something I've noticed I use quite a lot and have been debating with myself about whether or not needs to change.

At my own gig last night I finally broke through the fifteen minute mark – I did 16:30 in front of about twelve artist-types at Club Voltaire, a space that has become somewhat of a territorial training ground for me in the last six months. For my show with Rob during MICF ('Two for the Price of Free') I did fifteen each night for ten shows, but looking back – and even at the time, really, I felt this – I almost cheated because I had an eight minute story that would kick off about halfway through my set and close the whole show out. I really only needed to remember six or seven minutes of material and then once I saw the 7:30 flash from Lucy in the crowd, I knew the rest of the show would fall in like clockwork. Doing fifteen minutes of just observations and jokes has been something that has eluded me since the end of the festival; every time I get up (mostly at Voltaire, but also a couple of other times around the place: Situation, Brunny) with the intention or opportunity of doing fifteen, I get to around ten or eleven minutes and then bail on the rest of my material. I generally tend to think that the stuff I've got planned to fill out the rest of the time – even though it may have been written in the last couple of months and done well even two weeks ago – isn't good enough, so I bail early, rather than have a mediocre patch in my set.

That's a false victory though, because of course there are mediocre patches in my set regardless, and if I could just bring myself to breathe some life into 'old' material that isn't even that old anyway, then I'd be able to crack fifteen minutes easily. I had a chat with Beau the other day about this kind of thing and he said when he first started he was doing THE SAME five every year, noting a facebook post he wrote in 2011 saying, “I think I'm going to write my five for this year”. That idea is so foreign to me, and he acknowledged that it is ridiculous to do the same five for a year as well... but he also warned of going in the other direction and not sticking with material long enough. Having a new five every few weeks.

I think that's what I have been doing, pretty much since festival, and I need to slow down a little I think and work on my stagecraft, so I'm not going to write any material for a few weeks and just try and work on the stuff that I have right now, which is definitely good enough to stick with for a few months. We're about a month and a half out from the Melbourne Fringe too, so this is the perfect time to pick a set of material and start honing it in preparation for my nine shows there. Each show will be ten minutes, maybe I will do the same ten every night... wouldn't that be an achievement: allowing people to think that that's all the material I have. Put aside the ego for a second Tugzy, this could be a good move.

So I'm about to go have a shower before I watch the second half of 'The Headmaster's Son', and I'm really really really REALLY looking forward to seeing how Herring closes out the clear bookend that he opened at the start of the show with his story about burping in front of the whole school and his dad having to make the decision to punish him. He began his hour-and-a-half of sidetracking with the earnest statement that he was “really happy to have had the idea for this show”, and I can see where his excitement is coming from. There's nothing better than a good concept to play with.

Peace, Taco.