First Day of Summer

It's summer, that's right. “Thirty-seven today”; the opening line of every work-conversation I've had this morning. “Fuuuuuck! I'm definitely heading to the beach!”
“Lucky you mate! That's what I'd be doing!”
“Yep!”
“THIRTY-SEVEN! They say...”
Yep... the weather sure is interesting.

Yesterday I woke up at 8:30am to the sound of my phone buzzing and ringing through the still, hungover air at Thomas McMahon's lovely apartment in East Melbourne – I had no idea where I was. On Saturday once I'd finished work, I'd forgotten to take the keys for the venues I clean and put them in the PO Box for the next person to use, so now I was being rammed upright and forced out of bed. Three hours sleep. Still drunk. Acid Hangover. It was already hot, but I bustled out of the house and onto the tram, down to Meatballs, put on No Woman No Cry over the speakers, and started cleaning until Kim got there, I realized I wasn't needed, and dazed, headed back to my room in Richmond. I was in far too good a mood.

By the time I got back it was getting hotter, my hangover was kicking in, I remembered a sandwich (realistically, it was two pieces of bread with a bunch of cheese in the middle, chucked in the sandwich-maker for thirty seconds until I said “I HAVE TO GO!”) that Tom's girlfriend made me, and realized I would need to brush my teeth. I did that. I had a shower. I watched a bunch of South Park episodes – drifting in and out of sticky consciousness... Phil called, “do you wanna go to the 007 Exhibition?” In truth, at that point, not particularly, but I had to do something, so I agreed.

A few hours later and the 007 Exhibition plan was off, I waddled down to the air-conditioned pub to see what was going on, 4:30pm. All the regulars were hanging around, playing pool, drinking, smoking out the back. Andrea told me about a party in the park to farewell some Scottish chick who had been denied a long-term visa and had to go home on Monday, “I have NO money” (-$60 on the bank balance). We bought some 'John Smith Extra Smooth' beers – a case – that had passed their 'best before' date in March – they cost $30. I owe Jake ten dollars from that purchase. The beers, as promised, were Extra Smooth, and although being extra warm as well, proved the hit of the party once we got there. I shotgunned one, some old guy (he was forty, whatever) shotgunned two... or was it three? Jake did one. We played drinking games with cards until the sun set at 9pm.

On the way home after being abandoned by our lift without notice, we (Jake, Brett, and I) ran across the train tracks and were stopped by police and our details taken down. “Look mate, at this stage, we're gonna have a talk about it, but you'll probably be getting a fine in the mail.” Cunts. As one text correspondent put it when I told her the news,
“I hate that, say yes or no don't be a tease!”
Don't we all? Well I know a fine is coming, even if neither of our valiant Mr Protective Servicemen (not even real fucking cops, just chumps, with chump titles) could decide for us. I like to imagine that as they went back to their posts to consume the pizza that had arrived for them while they were fighting crime, they were struck simultaneously with a crippling sense of shame in their pointless actions, and so when their steaming-hot cheese-covered treats touched the rooves of their respective mouths and the skin sizzled and gave way, they knew, in that moment, that justice had truly been done.

The three of us got back to Station 59 just as Stiff (Steff, she's a Kiwi) was closing the bar. Macca was there too, and we all sat out the back and drank Mountain Goat until the jug ran too low for Stiff to top my drink up while I wasn't looking, and I went upstairs to bed. There's not much of a point to this story, other than to let you all, who care so so much, know about how I spent my Sunday. Solid experience overall, full of the trappings of any exciting or woeful day, but gladly it was neither. I don't know what else to say, or what I could say even, to polish the memory of my first day of summer 2013/14 so that when I look back it might stand out amongst all the other days that shine and blend into a radiant, sepia-lit history. There is nothing else, so I guess that day will just fade in as the distance grows, lost in the rear vision mirror.

Peace, Taco.

Saturday and Serene

I love Saturdays, when the expanses of the weekend seem to stretch out before your feet like an endless desert, or a road, paved with possibilities. The sun is shining down on the tarmac on Church Street, just outside my window. Today I figured out how to roll my makeshift blinds up with the sheet that also hangs down over my window. And let the stiff breeze blow. Sunlight. Summer. Saturday.

This time of the afternoon is the best, when plans are like freshly poured concrete, still uncertain, setting. I'm so calm right now, look how many commas I'm using. Descriptive words. Short, broken sentences to describe only feelings, rather than the actions that traditionally accompany them. I have about four hours all to myself now, and I couldn't be happier. Maybe I'll meditate a little? Maybe I'll write more – I've already written about five pages of notes and bits today. Maybe I'll sit here and tap out words on my laptop. Browse YouTube or Reddit, or maybe I'll just fall asleep. I could do some reading... my room is my world, and this world is my oyster.

I love the feeling of the sun shining down on my skin, light brown as it is... that's something interesting, isn't it. I have a strange rift in the way I see myself as a 'white' person... that phrase is so useless anyway. I mean, there really is very little pressure in Australian – or at least inner-city Melbourne – society to identify with a particular racial group. I feel like a white person, insofar as I presumably know what a white person feels like. I don't feel like a Latino, or whatever else people might think I look like when they first recognize that my skin colour is markedly different to their, and my complexion too. 'Racially ambiguous' is the term I've used thousands of times over and over in my head. I feel white, but that's not what my skin is, so what does that make me?

This is not a burning question in my head, and one that even if it does require an answer – and I'm not even sure it does to be honest – doesn't require one in the immediate here-and-now. That's thinking for another time. Maybe in America, when I eventually get over there, my skin colour will become a more important fixture in my identity... but even then, as soon as I open my mouth, I'm sure my accent will wipe any presuppositions about ethnicity completely out of anyone's mind.

I had this idea for when I go to Spain: I want to be forced to practice speaking Spanish when I get over there, otherwise I'm sure I'll just fall back into the easy habit of speaking English with everyone I meet, and not improving my Spanish skills whatsoever. So my plan is to tell everyone I meet – especially if I end up working on a farm for a few weeks – that I am from Australia, but that I'm Aboriginal, and that in Australia, Aboriginals don't speak English, they speak a different language, and as such, I can only communicate with you all in Spanish, because I don't speak English at all, sorry. I feel like there is a lot of merit and potential to this plan (much like my Saturday afternoon... OOOOOH POTENTIAL TIE-IN!), the only sticking point would lie in my ability to Commit to the Bit. I am such an habitual bit-bailer. I bail from bits. I find the idea of even doing a bit at all so silly and hilarious that I crack up as soon as the bit-doing business has begun. I would have to commit to this bit, and I would have to commit hard.

I'm sure I'd tell them after a while, maybe at the end of our engagement. I'd have to... it'd be hilarious I'm certain.

I just got a message so I think I'm going to stop here... reading, that's probably what I'll start out with. If I fall asleep from there, so be it. Today is Saturday, the day so good, they wrote a catchy song about it. Whoopee.

Peace, Taco.

Bullshit

Fuck. Cunt. I just wrote a really good post about last night at the Rochester and treating running a room the same way I treat comedy in terms of rates of improvement and cultivating it like a skill and things that Beau said and I burnt him really good too and I framed it by talking about my new phone that I got yesterday and I was pretty happy with it like happy enough to put it on Facebook and link it from the Rochester page too which is what I wanted to do yesterday when I was going to the Rochy I thought “hey wouldn't it be cool if I wrote something tomorrow about tonight's night and linked it from the Rochy page and then it'd all be cool and happy” and it almost was but them MY LAPTOP CRASHED GET FUCKED CUNT FUCK!!

Ugh... not happy. Whatever.

I need a shower.

Maintain Maintain Maintain

FUCK! It really is such a struggle. Maintaining... keeping up with this blog. How does Herring do it... a post every day FOR OVER TEN YEARS!!? The man must be half insane. Half insane, and half of the most grounded, sane type of person that exists in our world.

I'm telling myself, now and for the next however many years, that the reason he's able to keep up that blog every day, is because he's forty-something years old and doesn't live the same lifestyle as me. But honestly, he's a comic too... I'm sure he knows about beers in the night and late afternoon hangovers piercing through the will to live... I'm sure he knows about the lack of motivation that comes in cycles coupled with thrilling, manic spurts of insane energy... I'm sure he knows about the creeping, questioning uncertainty, every day, every day, “do I really want to do this?” But he keeps going. Ten years, not a single chink in the armour.

Maybe I need to read more of his posts, maybe they aren't as emotionally involved as mine, I know that he tries to tell a story from the day before, rather than succumbing to the narcissistic urge to endlessly introspect – narcissistic, and also oh-so-tiring.

I just seem to run out of juice. What could I have written about yesterday that would have been worthwhile and maybe turned into a 600-word story? Well, I caught a cab home with SCumming – mine and Luka's new nickname for new comic Simon Cumming, although I personally prefer Scummers, we'll see how it goes – that was eventful. The cab, not the words in between the hyphens... GOOD GOD LOOK HOW I SIDETRACK MYSELF. There really is no hope.

I need to go to the toilet now, as is common with the minutes just after waking up... I had some wack dreams last night... dreams in which my brother owned a pistol and was arrested for shooting someone on a soccer pitch. I had to defend him from the investigations, led by Richie. I bought a phone from a service station and changed my voice to something else so that I could pretend to be someone with information – a witness or something. Real family shit. Insanity, my brother would never shoot anyone.

Dreams last night, dreams today, this world is an ever-evolving blur in front of my eyes.

Peace, Taco.

Open Mic Drive

 I haven't been writing in here every day AT ALL, for the last few weeks. I need to get my motivation levels back up again... as I lay in bed a few hours ago listening to the new Opie and Anthony Podcast – 'The Best of Patrice O'Neal' – on repeat, I found myself wondering at my recent lack of motivation. “Why have I suddenly fallen into this slump?” But then again, I found myself wondering the opposite, in equal measure: “What reason is there to get up in the morning?”

This question needs an answer, but the answer has to come from somewhere, and the best kind of somewhere I know of is me, so here it is.

OPEN MIC DRIVE!

Luka, Blake and I are starting a podcast called 'Open Mic Drive' (it was between that and 'Open Drive Life'; the title being a nod to the well known 'Open Mic Life' starring Doug Gordon and formerly Russell Wigginton, now Dilruk Jayasinha) about... well I don't really know what it's going to be about yet. It's going to be completely different from any other podcast, and I think people are going to love the idea... the basic premise of the actual audio is that the three of us, who share rides home at least a couple nights a week after gigs, will record our post-gig conversations and take the best bits to form an episode every week. If Luka gives someone else a lift home, then they'll be the guest for that week. If we pick up a hitchhiker, they can be a special commentator. We'll listen to music and talk about life and yell at people out the windows and rag on Blake for not having a dad... OH THE POSSIBILITIES!!

I feel though, that when we first announce the podcast, there will be waves and parades of eye-rolling throughout the open mic community – and so there should be. There are so many fucking comedians doing podcasts out there – funny and talented people all – but it's just too much. There's so much information to wade through, with only the faint promise of stumbling across something truly amazing. The next WTF? Unlikely... with every new podcast the herd gets thicker, and harder to traverse.

So what of us? What of 'Open Mic Drive'. What of the hypocrisy of railing against the never-ending tide of podcasts battering our screens and making it harder to find gold, only to join said tide and hope to find some arbitrary point of difference to stand out from the crowd? What of it indeed.

I know this sounds like blatant own-horn-tootery, but have faith, our podcast will be different. I can't tell you why yet, but I'm excited, friends. This is now my reason to get up in the morning... well, one morning a week, anyway. I'm excited right now. Yes. Yes. Open Mic Drive Yes.

Peace, Taco.

Something that Happened Yesterday

Yesterday while driving down the Great Ocean Road we stopped at a fish and chip shop in Apollo Bay. The choice was between two shops; one with a blue exterior – the kind of blue you would usually associate with a seafood place, and I would usually associate with bad smells – and one with a bright red (if I remember correctly) exterior. The red one looked bigger, and more popular (to me at least – there were no people in either). Phil said we should go in the blue one, so we did that.

The guy at the counter sounded Russian to me, although Phil was adamant his accent was Greek. We made jokes at his face as we ordered, he told us that “no, the sauce is not free”. He said it in his accent though, so it wasn't that clear. Between us we only had fourteen dollars, so we decided to get eight dollars worth of chips and a piece of fish worth six – that's fourteen all up... MATHS!

The guy told us we could wait outside, maybe, if we were lucky, he'd bring our food out.

Earlier at the petrol station... OH MY GOD! We spent about half an hour with our petrol gauge on ZERO, flying through the hills and winding roads next to the Great Ocean, praying to non-specific gods that we would make it the remaining 35... 19... 15... 10... 5 kilometres to Apollo Bay without running out of gas. HEARTS BEATING THROUGH CHESTS!! We made it though – goodliest of good fortunes – and rolled into the petrol station... we got some petrol and made some jokes and laughed a lot and one of us said something funny to the attendant who laughed with us too – she was having a great time. Then just as we were about to get in and head to the fish and chip shop (still undecided at this point on blue or red), I quipped that Phil had said he was going to get some cigarettes. I was half joking, half being serious because maybe I wanted one too OKAY!!!? So we got some cigs too.

Because of all of the previous things together, we found ourself sitting outside the blue fish and chip shop, smoking cigs (one each) and not saying anything because we were both insanely tired. I only half finished mine before realizing I didn't really want it, and walked the ten metres to put it in the bin after consciously fighting the urge to flick it away like a James Dean lookalike – I even said words to that effect as I walked back, glad at having made the right choice.

Two minutes later when Phil finished his cig, he DID flick it. Right onto the pavement. Motherfucker. I picked his up too, squashed as it was after being butted on the table, and ferried it over to the bin to be disposed of responsibly. Because I'm a good bloke. Okay?

And then we got our chips, brought out by the Greek/Russian man (probably Greek) and took them, with the piece of fish that was hidden underneath, to the car. We ate most of it save three or four little chips at the end, drove for another few hours, and at 1am, arrived in Melbourne.

That was something that happened yesterday.

Peace, Taco.

My Homework from 'A Brief Guide to World Domination'

Today I am in Adelaide, and like most days in Adelaide, I am spending this one at my parents' house doing nothing much and essentially waiting for something to happen. Is this what I want for myself? To wait? I don't know, that wasn't a rhetorical question.

Who do I want to be? I read something a while ago called 'A Brief Guide to World Domination' by some guy whatever who cares, which asked two questions that it said should be at the core of everything we do:

1. “What do you really want to get out of life?”
   
2. “What can you offer the world that no one else can?”
   

Tough stough... (just a little spelling joke there, before I start getting serious)

Okay, so number one. What do “I” want to get... out of... life... what do I want to get out of life? No holding back. Okay, what I want to get out of life, I think is... everything. No. Okay. I want to get everything that I want. I want to be able to have everything that I want at any given moment accessible to me as soon as possible. But what do I want? I think I want people to pay attention to, and like me. Pretty shallow huh...

I'm sure I can do better than that – the danger here though is trying to dress that fairly base desire just laid down there in careful rationalizations that make them look more altruistic... well I want the people that I care about to be happy. That makes me happy. But then, I do want their happiness to somehow involve me, like maybe I want people to be happy, BECAUSE of me. I want to make people happy. Yes. I don't want people to just be happy at random, I want to be responsible for peoples' happinesses – as many and as great as possible. That's right. Me! Taco!

That sounds realistically selfish while still being acceptable, doesn't it? The oft-quoted eulogism, “all he wanted to do was make people happy”, I feel can be translated to this selfish desire.

1. “What do you really want to get out of life?”
   “Well, Mr So-And-So Psychiatrist, I would like to be, through my own actions, personally responsible for as many peoples' happiness as possible. And it'd be nice if they knew about it too.”
   

Now what can I offer the world that no one else can? Fuck me, really? Ugh... okay... my blood? Fingerprints? This word - “Quertykoacquatlophyx”... ?

Stop being an idiot, idiot.

I honestly have no idea... okay, so currently, what I want to do with my life in the long term is I want to be a stand-up comedian. I guess that implies that I believe I have an unique point of view that no one else can offer the world. That doesn't really feel accurate though. Louis CK – arguably the best (Most original? Funniest? Most successful?) comedian in the world right now has quite a few AMAZING jokes about how if you're in your early twenties you are the most worthless kind of person and have nothing to offer the world. (“If you're twenty... okay... fine... we'll see.”) As degrading as that sounds, I can't help it from sounding pretty reasonable too. I have potential, but that's it.

But is that it? Potential? Eugh... Is the answer to question two that I have an unique potential, different from that of anyone else? I am now, being as I am at my wit's end with this question, going to attempt to unashamedly list what I perceive to be my positive attributes that I might better understand the nature of this disgusting 'potential' that is apparently so important to my happiness:

• I am good at communicating my thoughts
  
• I am driven and work hard
  
• I am generally likeable (queue sarcastic jeering)
  
• I am funny when given the opportunity ie. When I am sufficiently comfortable in a social situation
  
• I'm pretty good at mental arithmetic, and making lists
  

That's all, I think. I don't actually have any real tangible skills that have been cultivated or worked on, these are pretty much all either basic character traits, or things that I have developed over years interacting with people socially. But I guess the skill that I'm cultivating right now is stand-up comedy, which, for the uninitiated, is definitely a skill make no mistake.

So I guess that's it:

2. “What can you offer the world that no one else can?”
   “My potential, apparently, whatever that is.”
   

What is probably the most damning detail here though is that even after being so obviously affected by the two questions posed by 'A Brief Guide to World Domination', I couldn't be bothered remembering, or even looking up, the guy's name who wrote it to put in my blog. God damn it. I guess I'll have to reconcile myself with the fact that as endeavouring to bring happiness and fulfilment into other peoples' lives is an anonymous and largely thankless endeavour. But then WHERE DOES MY SELFISH PART GET TO COME IN??!

I guess, really, I only wanted to be famous.

Peace, Taco.


[if anyone wants to read the actual thing I'm referencing here:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/40787/worlddomination.pdf]

Pump the Brakes

After what I wrote yesterday, I don't really know what to say today... I wasn't even going to post it because it felt too inward-looking and I felt like no one would care about what felt like the whingeing life-updates of a megalomaniac. But people loved it, and now I feel really good about having written it, like, way better than I felt when I posted it yesterday. And that's strange as well, because apparently I only judge the worth of something based on other peoples' reactions to it.

Never mind that though, tomorrow morning I'll be getting on a plane bound for Adelaide and then spending the day hopefully catching up with a few people if they have time for me. Then Phil and I will jumping in his car and driving to my grandparents place in Lucindale, and then the day after, completing the drive back to Melbourne. Phil is moving here, finally, and as is the general theme of my life at the moment – more so than usual – I don't know what to expect.

I feel like he and I are in very different places at the moment, and I'm worried that once we are again living in the same city our differences in lifestyle will become clear and we'll drift apart. This is where I have to start applying what I was writing about yesterday though; so I could either worry that we are going to drift apart, or I could just live my life the same way I've been living it for the past eighteen months – the way that seems to be working for me – and make time for Phil around that... think of him. What does he want to get out of moving here? What can I bring to the table to make his and everyone else in that crew's lives in this city better?

I really need to stop stressing so much about what everyone around me is going to think about the things that I do, whatever they are. I need to relax. I need to go with the flow. I need to stop predetermining my actions. I need to get out of my head. For the next week, I'm going to try and make this blog be the retelling of a story from the previous day, rather than intense introspection. Goal, set.

Peace, Taco.

Hard Things Are Hard

Right now, for maybe the first time ever, I don't have a girl in my life, or any sort of open romantic attachment to anyone. Also, coincidentally, this week I feel strange.

I think I need to maintain this feeling... well, not maintain it, not cultivate it and hope for it to stay, because it doesn't feel good, it's not a positive feeling and it certainly isn't giving me energy at all. But I need to actively feel it, force myself to feel it. For my show '36 Hours' that I've been writing for the festivals I'm doing next year, I wrote the line;
“Once I decided to find the pain inside me that I'd been trying to run from and just experience it, I found that there actually wasn't that much there – at least, not so much that I couldn't handle it.”
I was really happy with myself the day I wrote that line, I think it speaks to something very true in my life, and hopefully in the lives of other people. I feel like it's something that I need to keep in mind right now.

What is probably going on here, is that for as long as I have been running around and chasing girls, I've been simply trying to distract myself from my essential loneliness. Oh... I mean, I'm not actually lonely... maybe that would be better as, my fear of being lonely. I'm afraid of being alone, of feeling alone, of feeling sadness that comes from being alone, so I try to plug that up with temporary human distractions, but then those people end up turning away from me because they know or at least sense that I am doing just that: using them as a distraction. It's a pretty selfish way to be, but it's not such a bad thing, I don't think. I'm not beating myself up over it, I just think it's important to acknowledge that that's what I've been doing so that I can put a stop to it.

I read something else yesterday with the title, “I don't think marriage is for me”. Classic mislead – the article was about this guy who's been married for a couple years admitting that he'd been a little selfish in his marriage, and that marriage isn't for him, it should never be for you, it should be for the other person. That goes with all relationships... but I think I've been living and thinking of my relationships with everyone around me in terms of what they can do for me, and that's why they continue to become stale and unfulfilling.

So what can I do from here, right now? Other than say, “I pledge to be more mindful of other people and to treat others with respect in my interactions with them every day.” Wouldn't that be be hilariously hollow... I don't know, like practically, I don't know. I don't know what this means or how I can change my actions to reflect this new realization.

I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know...

I wonder how many times I would have to write that before the letters would line up with the top line again? It'd be different once published on my blog, because the margin is different. I've stopped introspecting now, I guess I thought it all sounded way too hard.

I'm trying guys. I promise.

Peace, Taco.

I'm Naked (not a metaphor)

The thing about milk crates – besides their unparalleled usefulness as footrests or for carrying various cargo including milk – is that they are shaped in such a way that while being very easy to grip, also makes them uncomfortable. The ridges that make them so convenient to grip onto also serve to dig deep into the skin, and the same goes for when they are being used as a footrest. As such, when I think that I'm going to be resting my feet for any sort of long period on the milk crate that lives under my desk in my room – for example, if I plan on writing a lengthy piece for this blog – I am always sure to put socks on, to stop the thing from growing painful on the soles of my feet. This fact, along with the current time (11:33am, Monday morning) should reasonably account for my current state of dress, being as I am completely naked sitting at my desk, save for a pair of comfy, white socks.

I have been dressed today before now... I had work at six at Meatballs, so I got up at five thirty or so and got dressed and got on the tram and went down there, because you're not allowed on the tram without a shirt on. Most of the other early morning types were out, the ones I recognize from my three or four trips before sunrise every week. High-Vis Vest, Fat Man, no crazies because those people at least afford themselves the luxury of sleeping in on weekdays, and me with my clothes on, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.

After work though it was straight back home to comfy bed again, and since I haven't had a shower yet, I divested myself of my slightly-dirty work clothes before lying down for my nap. Nothing exciting has happened to me yet today, and it's midday already. Nothing exciting happened to me yesterday either – the day was spent downstairs in the pub with the local crew drinking beer and playing pool all afternoon. That in itself is fairly exciting though, not as an event, but as a prospect – being able to throw away an entire day and consign it to nothing is the most exciting thing in the world most days, and I did it yesterday, although admittedly that time I did still have to put on pants.

I have deleted SO MUCH of this post, paragraphs that you people will never get to read, because I have deemed them, in the shortest minutes, completely unreadable and worthless, and so purged them from existence. You might even say I hate them. I do, and you very well might say that.

I can't help it, you know. Other than being naked, there's nothing else today that's really captured my imagination, which is sad, because it's not Monday's fault, as much as everyone usually seems so eager to cast blame on this poor loser of the week. Hate Mondays? No, you're just bored with your life I think... Mondays are great when taken advantage of. Today is not one of those Mondays for me though, or it hasn't been so far, anyway. Right now I am going to put on my gym gear and get on the tram to Fitzroy to make an attempt at salvaging something from this grey situation. Tonight I have a set at Alan and Sofie's room in Collingwood, and then after that I'm doing a glassy shift at the Workers. So there are a few points of interest on the horizon. Nothing to jump up and down about though, so I won't be doing that.

Another reason I won't be jumping up and down is that it's not a good idea to do that when you're naked, how's that for a mental image? Grim? Unnecessary? I'm not surprised, but that's what I'm going to leave you with.

Peace, Taco.

A Well Made Drum

For the first time ever, I have a costume. Well, okay, it's a drum... but HEYFUCKYOU this is the first time I've ever been ready to go to a costume party. Finally, I won't be that loser who didn't dress up because he 'didn't care' or he 'thinks costumes are lame' or his 'skin becomes inflamed when exposed to most fabrics' – lame excuses every single one, and if anyone pulls that shit on me tonight they are getting a smack upside their head-bone. Fuck all you hoes. I have a drum.

So what I did was I found a bucket that had been sitting outside my room for like ooooooh fuckennnn... two weeks? Not a big bucket, it's a modest affair, like maybe something you would get five kilograms of lard in from a grocery store for the grossly overweight. It has a handle, which I was unable after some effort to remove, but that shouldn't be a problem. I have tape in my room always, so when I saw the bucket my mind made the connection between those two items and the weird slouch-hat thingo I have never worn that's in my wardrobe and went 'BEATNICK'. Oh fuck yes.

I tried a few different materials for the skin of the drum before I hit upon a winner: old shirt? Not able to be pulled tight enough for good sound, plus looks dirty, plus can't fasten well and is too bulky – shit. Plastic bag? Tightness problem solved but has too much give in it as a material to make a good skin, doesn't POP when struck, as drum should – shit. Paper bag? Good skin, slightly weak, but can be taped over to make strong, plus as added bonus can draw peace symbol on with pen – YES!

DRUM!!

The bottom of the bucket (it's white, I think I found it and used it to wash my brushes in terps when I was painting the room) is still showing out of the bottom of the skin (I used a brown paper bag in the end) and the sticky tape looks kind of tacky when it reflects the light. But my drum makes a nice POPPING sound when I hit it, just like my old bongo used to. The idea for the costume ACTUALLY came from Phil – I was going to use the hat as the foundation for a French Philosopher outfit, but he suggested Ned Flanders' dad from that tiny cut-scene in The Simpsons: “Ned spilled ink all over my POEMS MAAAAAN!”

The best.

So now all that's left to do is figure out how to incorporate a red scarf thingo into this outfit – there IS a way – and go buy a tiny pocketbook from a newsagent before they all close so that I can walk round the party drunkenly accusing people of spilling ink all over my poems, and I feel like I have a fair chance of taking out the title at this Halloween 'party'. There's no title, as far as I am aware, but there will be. I will be sure of it. And when I win, I'm going to beat the fuck out of my drum, probably put my fist through it, cry, yell, and then throw it at someone's head.

Watch the fuck out Melbourne. Today, is Saturday.

Peace, Taco.

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.

I've Backed Myself Into A Corner

Today in the Gold Coast: sunny, sweaty brows, twerking womenz, and 1.5L of Ice Break sloshing around in my stomach. The sun woke me up at 5am, but I got to lie in bed until 6:40 which was seriously one of the highlights of the last few months for me after having either five hours of sober sleep, or nine hours of drunk blackout-time, seven days a week. Eight hours of sleep... yes, yes, and yesyes again.

We got to the field and set our shit up, then started pumping deep house out of the speakers and calling to people walking past. “Win $100”, “Come play the Ice Break game”, “when are you guys going to have sex?”. Real obnoxious shit. It's weird having the microphone and being in charge of bringing people over to the tent; the system is loud, and my voice is playing over fifty to a hundred people at a time. We had people coming back for repeat tries at winning the daily prize, and people hanging out and chatting for most of the day. We watched the games, I commentated poorly, and at the end of the day one team of girls twerked in unison when we put on a song called 'Ass” (actually I think it might be spelled 'A$$', I'm not sure).

I'm sitting in my room at the hotel right now drinking a sparkling red with a strawberry in, and in a second I'm going to go down to the pool and have another swim, and then I'm planning my set for tonight. I have a spot tonight at The Loft. That's kind of scary, none of these guys have seen me perform before, or know anything about what my comedy is about, but my gigs lately haven't been so good, as I've discussed previously, so I'll really need to pull it together to nail this one otherwise it's going to be an awkward morning. Pressure, pressure, FUCK, this is what I've gotten myself into.

Brad Oakes told me when I had lunch with him the other day that I should (or at least 'could') open with my 'room mate' joke – it's a good joke, but a little blue. I've got a good tag for it now, and then three more jokes involving my family, they're all a little risky and if they don't pay off then I might end up in a little bit of trouble, but I don't really have anything else to open with. This is frustrating. Once I get into it I can do my 'Girls' bit, and then the 'BrisTrain' story, and probably close with 'Herpes', I just need to get started. Eugh. It'll be fine, it'll be okay, I'm going to have a good gig.

Enough motivational self-talk, I'm off to have that swim.

Peace, Taco.

Evil Impulses

I'm not sure whether everyone has these mad impulses like I do.

When I was in primary school at BFPS in Adelaide we had a main road out the front of our school, and so every day after school I'd have to cross the road to get home. In year six we were trained as 'crossing guards' and we would have to stand two on each side of the road with a rope across the crossing and when the light went green we'd pull the rope back across and let everyone pass. After school the crossing was always PACKED for twenty minutes or so – maybe thirty or forty people (kids and adults) on the school-side of the street waiting to go home. I used to ride my bike. I used to wait out on the side of the crossing with my bike, along with all the other older kids who rode home. And I used to think:

“What if I pushed my bike out into the traffic?”

Sometimes when I'm in important situations with people I don't know very well who hold major decision-making power over my life – job interviews, meeting friends-of-friends, some sort of reviewer-interview (that one is made up I think... I don't know, I have a particular image of this one in my head, hopefully it will become clear) – I tune out to what the other person is saying. I have trouble maintaining concentration at the best of times, and often catch my mind wandering in the middle of a conversation in which I am having to do a lot of listening. Sometimes I think people can see it in my eyes. I'm sure they can, but no one ever says anything. Some of the time, when the window to my soul gets cloudy, this is because it is being spoken to by the most reckless part of my brain, and that deranged corner of me is urging, begging, pleading with the screaming laughter of an imagined possibility.

“Kiss them.”

Eugh. Sickness, that's what these thoughts feel like. When I catch them like butterflies in a net, I always reel back with horror, but also chuckle a little inside for a second, remembering that part of myself that still wants to start the fire that burns down the city. Self-destructive. What would the point of leaning in with eyes half-closed to kiss a bank manager accomplish? Absolutely nothing. I'd probably get thrown out of the bank, and maybe have to pay some sort of Kissing Fee.

Today while I was sitting next to the pool at our hotel and reading my book – 'Naked Lunch' by William S Burroughs who shares my birthday, and whose apparently seminal, beat-masterpiece is causing me no end of grief. My attention was failing, but I didn't want to flip ahead and see how long the current chapter had to go, because that would just be shamelessly displaying my urge to finish the book like a chore. I should be enjoying it as an activity in and of itself. I am glad that I am able to read books. I like reading. I like that I bought this book. I am happy with myself. I am happy. I am a good person.

“Throw it in the water”

FUCK OFF! FUCK! FUCK! NO!! PLEASE! I DON'T WANT TO THROW IT IN THE WATER. I had to stop. I let out a quiet sob, caught myself, and went back to peacefully reading. No one saw.

I don't know what these thoughts mean, if anything. Anything? Probably not. They are just brief flashes of madness that should not be indulged or pursued, and to be honest, should probably not be given any more thought than absolutely necessary. Writing some six-hundred words about some perverted desires to act like an insane person is probably not a good way of dealing with those perverted desires... at least I haven't tried to kiss anyone though.

Peace, Taco.