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I drove into the pub and booked a room. The front bar was quiet with about 10 older white guys hanging around having a yarn, a smoke, a beer and a laugh. I ordered my counter meal. The girl behind the bar was straight up. She was a younger girl, with an air of no bullshit about her. There was no chat as I sat there by myself. I sat there relaxing and sipping my beer for an hour or so before she wondered over, while cleaning a glass. She then opened up and gave me a full run down of this unique town at the coalface of Australia racial wounds. I lapped it up. Perhaps I'd earnt it by being silent for an hour.

Firstly she told me about the Chinese restaurant which used to be their bottle shop until it was closed down by health officials. Apparently the restaurant had used feral cats instead of chicken and their seasoning was the inside's scraped out of cockroaches. I'm not joking! Apparently cockroach gut and cat in China is a delicacy and they decided to use it here too, albeit using a different strain of cat and cockroach!

From the pictures on the wall, I could see that Walgett used to be quite a majestic town. The now basic pub once had two storeys and a huge wraparound balcony before a fire had gutted it. The street used to be lined with huge trees and next door was a three story cinema. It had also burnt down, in a separate fire. She said, now, most of the whites were moving out and the blacks multiplying which had a lot to do with the child allowances paid out to each Aborigine kid that was born. She reckoned blacks got about $64k in handouts a year and blew most of it on piss, pokies and destroying their houses which would then be re-built again, free of charge. She said in the middle of the big drought in 2001 the local RSL made $1.6million in profit just off the pokies alone, thanks to government handouts.

She went onto describe the fights that happened in some of the bars. She said most bars had barricades that came down over the bar, (like at a bank), for when a fight started. The staff would hide behind it and only open it back up, when the fighting had stopped. She said there was a heap of break and enter crime in the town. She lived by herself but solved the problem with a dog and a shotgun which she said, she 'wasn't afraid to use'. She said her dog was actually a dingo which she'd found, befriended and trained. She seemed happy with the town though because of the sheer honesty of the people around her.

She said she knows a few people with money in the city but she can't talk to them anymore because they're so full of themselves. 'Money... It doesn't buy you happiness, that's for sure'. She then stared off through the window before trailing off to herself, 'I wished she realised that'. She regathered herself and then fondly pointed to a big friendly bearded bloke at the bar called 'Monster'. She said Monster and his mates look after her if she ever gets into too much trouble.

She says she can now spot a mile away if two guys are going to biff in a bar. They start eyeballing each other, to which she now goes up to them and asks 'whether they're now going to kiss, cause it'd make a great photo!' She says they usually then run off in the other direction to each other, totally embarrassed. Homophobia has its uses, I mused. Not long ago she said one guy was thrown through a double glazed window, for rooting the other guy's wife. At least that was personal and not random I thought. Random violence is what scares people the most. Most acts of violence have a reason behind them though. Usually related to sex or money.

She also talked about her friend who had come up with a magical homemade formula called 'Jungle juice'. He used to cure any type of cut or abrasion, she said. It was 'one third Detol, one third method and one third Rid'. Sounded good to me.

I then went onto talk to the woman who cooked my chicken counter meal (real chicken - and it was top notch!). Her name was Jackie. She spoke about the recent funeral of TJ, the aboriginal kid in Redfern who died and whose death sparked the Redfern riots. He was originally from here and went down to Redfern because he was in too much trouble, she said. She described with disgust the media circus which came to town on the day of his funeral. "They were camped out, down the main streets waiting to film the fireworks from what they thought was going to be a huge tribal funeral and hopefully also a huge confrontation between blacks and whites. And thus provide some headlines to match the Redfern riots that occurred after his death in Sydney".

She said, even the BBC had a satellite transmitter set up, waiting to get some snippets of 'how bad the Australians treat their Aborigines'. Ambulance chasing journos. Except in this case there were no ambulances to chase - unfortunately for the journos. It ended up being a small funeral, with only a couple of mini buses coming up from Redfern. The Aborigines had no intention of talking to the journos either which probably had a bit to do with the fact that Aborigines, believe dead people's name shouldn't be mentioned after their passing for a certain time - i.e. I don't think they were impressed by the media coverage either.

She said the BBC reporter was trying to get some footage off her but she refused. She also refused to serve them food, telling them that she only cooks for people she likes! I felt honoured. Her main gripe with the media and 'the do-gooders from the city' was that they don't come up here on a normal week, settle in for a few days or even a few weeks and see first hand, the problems. She said the kids are all out on the street at night, swearing and causing trouble, some as young as four because they're parents are at home getting pissed and don't care. It's out of control and if DOCS (Department of Community Services) try and step in, they can't because the whole stolen generation thing comes up again. She also said, that the reason that Aboriginal funerals were renowned for being so big was that they get paid by the government to go to them and even more if it's long distance. 'They all get their payments at the pissup afterwards'.

She said Walgett was recently named as having the biggest crime rate, out of any town in NSW, just tipping out Bourke. It definitely had a feel to it unlike any town I'd been to, in Australia. The cars of the guests in the motel were all locked up, inside barricades, at night. It was like staying in a mini detention centre. I felt safe though and was intrigued and again thankful for the honest conversations I was running into. It's a difficult problem. She said, 'people say go easy on them because they come from an oppressed race but you have to draw the line at some types of behaviour sometime'. She reckons it's all going to pot out here and it'll end up like South Africa. I took it all in and went to bed.

As I went off, I saw 'Monster' and the publican at the entrance to the street. I found out in the morning there had been a verbal confrontation between them and a gang out the front, that night, until the cops had come and dispersed the situation. Boredom and alcohol. Not a good combination. It made me a bit sad but also challenged my comedy instincts. If ever a place needed a laugh, this was this place...

At one point from my phone box in Bourke, I saw a drunk Aborigine walking behind this cowboy looking white guy yelling out at the top of his voice, 'you white cunt!' I felt a bit uneasy about the colour of my skin and wrapped up the phone call. The police pulled up a few minutes later to have a word with him. Like with all of us, it just takes a few fuckwits to ruin the reputation of a whole race, whether it is drunken Aborigine on a street corner, a pissed English hooligan at a soccer game or an Arab terrorist on a plane. From there it's just a simple step to thinking: 'They're all like that'. Life is no longer complex.

With us, after the show at Bourke was an Aborigine guy. He was 42 and had a twinkle in his eye and a permanent big smile. He flirted with the girls. He was cool. He said he had 10 kids, 'well actually 11 if you count the one I had with the other women'. He said he wanted more but was looking for a younger woman, 'to keep him young'. He said he's in a band now and wanted to get out and travel more and do his own thing. 'There's still a lot of life left in me yet' he grinned.

I wanted to go back to Walgett for some reason. I enjoyed being at the coalface of racial tensions and wanted to get closer like a kid who wants to get closer to a fire. I remember backpacking in Europe when I was 19 and being asked by a guy at the bar 'what the Aborigines were like?' I was about to go into a politically correct sound byte when I stopped and went, 'I don't know, I've never met one. I'm from Sydney'. The more I do this job, the more I realise you've got to take everyone, individually at face value. When you do, you get the best out of them. As I remember my friend Glenny once saying, 'if a psycho comes up to me, I'd just nice and listen to them... because that at the end of the day, is what people want. Someone who will listen to them'. Genuinely listening to someone. It's a great way to soothe rage.'

If you're in a relationship, enjoy it to the max. The same as when you're single. In fact, no matter what state you're in. Enjoy life while you can. We're not here long. My mate Craig who travels around Australia is a classic example. I'd met him in Broome, a few years back. He's a quadriplegic. He travels around in his specially decked out van with his mate. They pick up foreign backpackers as 'carers' along the way. They both get their fair share of roots too, (which Quads can do apparently unlike, paraplegics). Craig has even got a specially fitted out dinghy for him to get his motorised wheelchair onto, for when he goes barra fishing. In a community radio interview up North, the interviewer had cheekily asked Craig what he enjoys most sexually. Craig had said that his two favourite things were, getting his eyeballs licked and having a 'hummer' - which apparently is when the girl puts her mouth around your balls and hums! Craig can only move his head but he knows how to live more than most people who can use every part of their body.

Monster told me the story about the Abo guy, he knew who was taking photos with a disposable camera in the bush and then threw it away. 'Why?' Monster asked. 'Because I thought it was a throw away camera!' he replied. I wasn't too sure whether this was a racist joke or not. I then realised it was just something that was funny.

As I opened the gates to get out of the car park of the backyard of the Bourke hostel, there were some Aboriginal men hanging and lying around outside. I looked at one. He motioned for me to come over. I was concerned or perhaps more accurately, scared about his intentions and did what anyone who is scared usually does. I ignored him. As I hopped in the car I could hear him yell, 'youse can all go and get fucked'. The hostel I was staying in was the old Bank of London built back in the 1800's. A classic old building which had gone through many different owners and businesses since. I drove around the streets of this historic Australian town, rich in History and now steeped in one of its worst droughts ever. Two pubs had closed down in the last 3 years, which is always a good indication of how business is going in the town. The river was down. Apparently at Wilcannia down stream, the river was just a trickle, where there used to be steamboats going up and down and before that a thriving Aborigine culture living off the river. Now there were just remnants of that history.

The whites had all but left as the water levels dropped. Much of the reason the river had dried up was because of Cotton farming. The state of the Darling River from Bourke to Wilcannia was more of a disgrace than the burnt out buildings and disrepair and alcoholism in Wilcannia, I thought. And they were definitely linked. Driving through the streets, I ran into Mandy and Percy, the Aborigine couple from last night's show. They were pushing a pram with two other kids in tow. I pulled up and had a laugh with them, about the previous night. They looked happy. Mandy shared a cigarette with her 13 year old son. Percy said I'd have a good time in Walgett and thanked me for a good night. I drove away happy. I was going to go down to Cobar but I somehow felt drawn to Walgett again on my spare night. I drove out again via Brewarrina. It was deserted, with shut down pubs and lots of dogs wondering across the roads.

On the way into Lightening Ridge was a sign that said, 'Population: ?' This is typical of mining towns. Anonymity rules. I pulled into the bowling club, ordered a beer and a counter meal. The town, like the other opal towns I'd been to, was full of old men who could hardly speak English. They played chess, punted and chatted. One guy was studying his form guide with a magnifying glass. He then put it up to his eye to watch the race on the big screen. Who needs contact lenses when you can improvise! The guys behind me were having a great conversation about golf. One guy was saying he was 61years old and had played golf constantly since he was a teenager but had never got a hole-in-one. He said he's done everything but have it go in. 'It'd 'hit the flag, at the top, at the bottom, in the middle, hit it hard, hit it slow, backspun it past the hole, dribbled it past....' He went on an on, I tried not to move my back, to show how much I was laughing, the more and more irate yet tongue in cheek he became. Nice routine, I thought.

I rocked back into the bar, I'd been two nights ago in Walgett and was heartily greeted by Jeffery and Jackie who ran the bar. They were drinking like last time, with a few of their mates. Ness was behind the bar again. She remembered my drink. I felt like I'd just walked into the bar on the TV show, 'Cheers'. Familiar faces were everywhere. Jeffery told me how he'd gone fishing that day. The area around here seemed like a big hunting ground: Fish, pigs everything. He showed me a bucket full of yabbies or as he called them 'craw bobs'. He gave me a few freshly cooked ones to eat with my beer. They were awesome. The best complimentary bar snack, I'd ever had.

He then pointed out, one of the characters in the bar who had just walked in. His name was Jan. Pretty soon, I was hearing an enthralling back-story. Jan escaped communist Czechoslovakia under a train when he was 21. He's now 47. He had some amazing insights into the political landscape of Australian culture. The conversation was interspersed with inputs from Bob who was an 80 year old local and of course Jeffery, the publican behind the bar. What bought it all up was Jeffrey talking about how strict licensing laws against drunk people in pubs had become. Jan went on to say how it had changed pubs and indeed cultural interaction, practically everywhere in Australia.

The fines, these days, for bar staff, managers and owners meant that you just couldn't serve people as much alcohol. What this had meant, was that less people hung out in pubs now. Jan described pubs as a type of 'parliament'. I.e. it was the one place where anyone could rock in and start talking to a stranger in a natural way. From there, there was then a free mixing of ideas between a wide cross section of people which back in the old days was a great way of working out a lot of things that needed to be worked out within the community, particularly politics and crime.

He said twenty five years ago in Walgett, there were 'three coppers, just as many people and less trouble'. The coppers used to drink in plain clothes, with the locals, he said. Everyone knew who they were and liked them. Now there were, '37 coppers, the same amount of people and much more trouble'. He said like most businesses, the government and the law enforcers were trying to convince people that they were needed. Their selling point was that they protected people from other people! Self governance was going. We no longer were familiar with our own powers.

In 1973, he said '95% of all houses in the area were unlocked but now the area was full of bricks flying through windows'. He said 'people don't mix in pubs now which reduces the information flow. E.g. who the trouble makers were. The only public meetings now were run by business and government, he said, 'all of which are there to push pre-existing agendas. If there is chaos amongst the people, they are so much easier to manage. 9/11 is the classic example. Get them scared and then push in more rules taking away civil liberties'. He continued imitating them, 'because you need us to protect you from other people whom you should no longer trust'.

What he was saying of the current media culture was true yet directly in the face of one of the biggest things I was experiencing while on the road. That being that, strangers are friendly! The vast majority of people are just cruising along doing their own thing. They're not blowing up shit or scared of anyone doing it to them. The media has little interest in these people. They're out there in droves, especially in Australia and they're the reason this country is still so safe and exciting to travel around.

Bob, the 80yr old then came in. I asked him about the good old days when bars like this used to be full of people that were hammered. He said if you were too drunk, you'd just fall over and have a rest. I asked him about fighting. He said, 'if there was a disagreement, you'd go out the back and sought it out one on one and then come back and have a beer together. None of this ganging up type fighting that happens now where it's ten people versus one. That wasn't on', he said. Bob called fighting, a 'slap up'. He said they were pretty rare and harmless really, despite the amount of people that used to be passed out on the floor in his day. Now they just pass out at home', he said.

Jeffery then started talking about 'Moth'. I said why is he called Moth? He said 'because if there was a light left on in town, he won't go home!' I got back to Jan. He said we're due for a revolution. It happened in France, Russia etc and always happens when the leaders become dictators and make up their own rules. I think we can see it now with George Bush, Blair and Howard. Hopefully the revolution will happen civilly, at the next elections', he said. 'Probably not though'. 'People's views of human nature now seemed to be modelled on what they saw on TV after work, rather than any real interaction with people. People are now too busy to interact outside their own particular social and work group now - especially with the three hours TV a day, everyone now seems to be doing. It's depressing', he said.

Jan then talked about 'The Grawin', which is an opal field town not too far from Lightening Ridge. Lightening ridge was basically a tourist town now, not a real opal town, he said. What he was talking about reminded me of Andamooka. He said, Grawin, was full of humpies and no cops. 'People just sort themselves out. It doesn't matter how good or bad your past was. Out there if you're a dickhead and mucked up and caused trouble, people would sort you out. The extreme way would be to put you down a shaft and bury you. But if you went that way you generally deserved it'. And it was mainly all discussed in the makeshift bars they have there. 'The flipside', he said 'to this self governance in places like Grawin was that you didn't have to invest in steel bars and bullshit security like you do in towns like Walgett, which also has police looking after you!'

We then got onto Saddam. He was saying how Saddam was actually the most liberal of the dictators in the Arab world, as far as human rights went. 'He was also a product of America's CIA. Specially trained and backed to fight Iran. It's not a war against Iraq now, it's an invasion. At least when Iraq invaded Kuwait it was to re-claim an oil rich area which had been annexed from them, after the Second World War. The U.S vs. Afghanistan war', he said 'was hardly fair. Back in the old days, superpowers used to fight each other. Not any more it seemed'. It reminded me of the pub brawling analogy, Bob had made. No more one on one. It's just ganging up to beat the weak whom are always outnumbered and out gunned from the outset. It was being mirrored on a global scale too.

Jan continued, 'Democracy here was moving closer to a dictatorship, we're losing our identity and personal autonomy. Pub culture has changed, personified by us drinking in this near empty pub on a Saturday night in the middle of town'. Outside was full of life on the street. It was like we were drinking in our own fortress. He said the communists in Czechoslovakia always used to say, 'you're either with us or against us', which sounded familiar to today's democracy leaders. He said the communist regime operated on people dobbing each other in, like the terrorist ads now encourage us to do. Dob in anything suspicious and we will explore it and put them on file. We were now fighting for freedoms overseas while at home they were being taken away. He said most people dobbed in for being terrorists were the products of neighbourly grievances or prejudices "They had middle eastern people over for dinner! They must be terrorists!" he imitated.

He said he can remember a meeting in the pub in Walgett a few years back by the 'silent majority', who were a bunch of locals, sick of the crime in the area. It was held in the pub. The head policeman turned up and was told he wasn't invited. Jan said over the next month everyone at the meeting was fined for something very minor. He then decided to stay out of it. It reminded him too much of the culture of the country he'd come from.

While he was talking, I was swapping between XXXX gold and VB or as Jeffery called it, 'Poofters Mouthwash'. He said XXXX gold had been his fastest growing beer over the last few years - simply because of the taste. I kinda agreed. I wouldn't mention that back in Sydney during state of origin time though. I felt like XXXX was coming down here as fast as the cane-toads and I wondered how long it'd be before there were sightings of it on tap in Sydney. Back to Jan. He said that it's easier to farm people than sheep. I thought about how people are spread out across this country. Sheep are far more spread out than humans. It's kinda ironic that we think sheep stick together. What is it with big cities and why do people live there? It was a question I'd been asking myself all tour. Apart from an addiction to materialism, I couldn't see a sane answer.

Jan said, 'we don't need any more police or lawyers. They only end up butt fucking us - after all that's there job. The more money that goes into law and order, the worse it gets, because the system gets abused to suit it's own ends not the people it was trying to help'. 'The system after all needs criminals so it creates more in order to support itself until it becomes ridiculous'.

Bob then talked about the Aborigines. He said he can remember when they weren't allowed inside the city limits of Walgett. 'The pub was full of cockeys (farmers) getting hammered. Drink driving has stopped that.' Jeffery talked about how the cops aren't allowed to go hard on the Abo's because of the political correctness from law-makers and public opinions in cities 'from people who don't actually experience the problems, first hand. Outta mind, outta sight'. It was a common lament out here by the white folk. They talked about the four year old Abo boy who was caught in a dog trap recently. He said when he was found a day later, he wasn't even reported missing. Again, it looped back into the DOCS issue. I didn't know the answers to all of this. Who can come up with universal answers to human fighting whether it's domestic violence, racial disharmony or global invasion? Best just to have another beer.

A guy called Bill, came in briefly to buy some take-away's but was a bit hard to crack for a yarn. I found out later he'd recently done a stint in jail while his wife was pregnant. We joked after he'd left, that if you're going to go to jail, -'when you're wife is pregnant is probably the best time'.

Bo was a guy in his 40's with a big smile who worked behind the bar in Coolabah, just down from Bourke. The town had a population of 30. Bo said he was divorced with no kids. 'Just out of interest, how long into your marriage did you realise it was fucked'? I asked. 'Seven months into it when I realised that 'all me mates were down at the pub drinking rums and I was back at home!' he said. 'So I bunged on a few arguments, spent the rent money and it was all over. Now I've got no-one to nag me and I can do whatever I want', he beamed. He said, in the seven months she never cooked once. Apparently, in desperation he'd demanded her to cook one night. He said when he came home from work she was sitting at the table smirking with a KFC bucket - 'so I sprayed tomato sauce all over her. She then did it to me. When we'd run out of sauce, we looked at each other and laughed but we knew it was over. I left the next day'.

In the morning, I was cleaning out my car, getting rid of all the rubbish and stuff. Bo walked by. I told him how the more I do this trip, the more I realise I don't need 'things' at all. They just get in my way and clog up my car. Bo then told me his story. He'd come up here when he was young a few times with his Dad to do a bit of shooting, so he kinda knew the area. A few years ago he passed through again and spoke to a guy who was selling his property which was 500 acres and down the road. He bought it for $5000. He said it ended up being heaps bigger because the owner apparently, hadn't counted it properly. He now still lives in a shed which he says has got all he needs including a fire which 'heats the place up great' and a bed. He then pointed to a three bedroom house across the road which he says he's now buying for $7000, entirely paid for, by his first home owners grant. He's then going to rent it out to pig hunters, who pop in looking for a place to stay. 'That's my retirement', he said, proudly. I looked at him and said, 'Bo, you've got it made!' 'Yep' he quipped back, 'I'm a success story!'

He said he's got no electricity bills where he lives, nothing. He said all his money, apart from $300 in rates, goes 'here'. He then slapped his belly, with both hands. He then went onto say how some people who stop by for a drink and yarn with him feel sorry for him but he always replies that he's got all he needs and he can do whatever he wants and doesn't go home to anyone who nags him! 'They don't understand. It's fuckin perfect!' I loved the guy. He was the classic, happy go lucky Aussie. He came back later and opened up a tin box, which had his ID. It included a fishing certificate he'd got years ago at he The North Entrance fishing club. He said some guys had come into the bar once and were talking about fishing. Bo told them how he used to fish a bit with a club. They asked him which fishing club, to which he replied North Entrance Fishing Club. The guys then all looked at each other, as if they'd just caught the biggest bullshitter in the world. They said, 'Mate, I'm the president of North Entrance Fishing Club and I can't remember you'. Bo then went back to his house and got out his certificate and showed it to the guy, who went, 'fuck, that's my signature at the bottom,.. sorry mate'. Anyway, Bo then rummaged through the box again. He said all he needed to do now is somehow find his birth certificate and the place across the road was his.

I spoke to my mate Rick, who was wanting me to be the lead in his movie, he'd spent the last 20 years writing. He said he'd send the updated script to my e-mail. I found out on my return to Sydney the next week that two days after today's conversation, Rick died of an aneurism. This is how he died apparently. He was having coffee on the pavement outside a coffee shop, with his script editor, mate. Apparently he all of a sudden went white and grave looking. His mate asked, 'what's wrong?' He said, 'Matt, I'm about to die, can you call an ambulance for me?'. He then got up calmly walked over to the waiter and instructed him to get out a pen and copy down what he was about to say. He then lay down on the floor next to the cashier and said what he thought were his last words. 'Tell my Mum, I love her and my brother... ', etc.

He was 51 and had just recently got married for the first time after a life time of bachelorhood. He'd apparently been best man for 16 different mates, which I think must be some kind of record. Anyway he said to say to his wife that he loves her dearly and is glad for the time they had together. He signed off by saying that he wanted everyone to know that he is totally at peace with God and ready to meet his maker. He then passed out, just before the ambulance arrived. Back at the hospital, he then came too. His first words were, 'Fuck, I thought I was dead'. The doctor then informed him that it wasn't a heart attack but an aneurism. That's where a major artery breaks and spills out blood into all your internal organs. The doctor told Rick, he had about three minutes left before he blacked out forever. I don't know what happened then but his wife was there to hear it. What an exit! Rick and I both write stuff but I think we'd both agree that when it comes to a good story, truth trumps fiction any day. Live it while you can.

I decided to check out the great western plains Dubbo zoo. I went out there and hired a bike to ride around. It's definitely a top zoo. No cages, just moats to protect you. The only thing missing was a joint to smoke. As you do, as an adult in a zoo. There had been a massive national drug bust apparently in Dubbo last night with a nationally co-ordinated sting, so I didn't like my chances. Not that I've ever scored pot in my life. I just seem to have it when someone forces it into my face at a party when I'm bored. Scoring is an interesting thing though from what I can see. It's a skill. I reckon there should be a reality show whereby five guys are sent into a strange pub and the winner is the person who scores the quickest. I reckon it'd make great viewing. Apparently more people in Australia smoke pot than drink red wine. The market is certainly big enough for it. Don't know what the legal team at the TV station would think though. Another one of my great artistic ideas which is commercially a leper!

Going to the zoo every now and then is always great. It reminds you of being a kid. It also reminds you that we're not the only animal on this planet. Of course the big attractions are the A-list celebrity animals like the lions, elephants, rhinos and hippos. There are also a heap of other ones which are cross between these glamour animals. The B-List animals e.g. the Tanzanian horse goat or the Mongolian gazelle or something like that. Seeing these animals is like discovering that Granny Smiths or Pink Lady's from the supermarket, aren't the only apple. It was a bit weird too seeing the kangaroos, penned up like they were an attraction after I'd dodged so many of them on roads around Australia. A day ago, I had one face plant my right bumper and now I'm paying money to look at them!

What's worse? Being burnt in love or scolded by a women's scorn?

Afterwards I popped into the Jane at the local cafe. She was the lady who was yelling out about her dildo, called 'Thomas' at last night's show in the Nyngan Bowling Club. We gave each other a big smile, as I rocked in. She said, I must have been good, to get that information out of her. She said the whole town now knew. She made me a sandwich. I told her about the Nyngan Museum in the old railway station which I'd just visited. It was across the road. She said she hadn't been there yet. I asked her how long she had been in Nyngan for. She said, 'all my life'. I then asked her why she hadn't been to the museum yet. She paused and said, she'd been 'too busy, I suppose'. With 'Thomas' I added.

Apparently farmers do crops, graziers do livestock and ringers work for graziers but there are not many ringers outside the Northern Territory because the grazier's here can't afford them. The properties aren't big enough to justify having them. People who live near traffic lights have no idea of this shit. I certainly didn't.

The best story after the gig at The Nevertire Hotel was about Noddy. He was about 45 but looked 80. He lived with his Mum, Eva who was 78. A guy at the bar said that he'd thought, they were a couple, when he'd first arrived in town. Noddy doesn't have a job. He gets a bit of part time work every now and then but nothing more than a couple of days work every fortnight, cause it 'wears him out'. He's manages to spend every night, down at the pub though. The story he told me was how his mum was cleaning out his cupboard one day and how his blow up doll fell on her, from on top, without her seeing it. She'd said at first she thought someone was attacking her. I questioned Noddy about his blow-up doll collection. He said his best blow-up, repeated the words, 'please, please....' upon squeezing it. I questioned him further on whether he actually stuck his cock in it and came. It was something I was intrigued by. He went all shy. I felt I'd maybe gone over the line so I said to him, "Sorry mate I didn't mean to get personal... about your girlfriend and all".

Do you see the glass as being half full or half empty?
Or are you more concerned with how much is left in the bottle?

Outside, Trangie was a guy with his thumb out. He was the first ever hitch-hiker I'd ever picked up. He wanted to go to Dubbo as well. I pulled over and he was in the car before I even realised, what I was doing and before I knew it, like I was in a dream, I was driving off with a stranger suddenly in my car. I wondered whether he'd done a Jedi Knight trick on me. He looked alright and once he was in, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. We chatted and bonded on all the common people we knew from the gigs I'd done, up the Mitchell Hwy.

He was a local. He'd apparently sold a few goats to Bruce, who I'd met in Coolabah. Goat prices had gone up to about $20 now. Apparently the Indonesians love eating them. His name was Mick. He told me about his nine year old kid, he'd had to a lady while living in Western Australia. They thought it was a girl, 'until it popped out with two testicles'. He said she didn't bond with it because she already had a boy to another bloke and was hoping for a girl. He said, she then basically gave the kid to Mick with full custody and they went their separate ways. He said the boy was the best thing in his life. The kid was basically his one and only friend. He talked about his time hitchhiking around Australia plus working as a teacher's aide in Waterloo and Redfern in Sydney with the Aboriginal kids and he talked about working with the Red Cross there and handing out food to kids who each morning were dirty and hungry. He said the area was picking itself up since the riots there thanks to some high profile help too.

We got onto Iraq. He said he reckons the CIA after the cold war, didn't have much work, so it seems 'they have decided to make some up'. He talked about his experiences in one school yard where 10 year old kids were fighting over the war based on their different ethnic backgrounds. He said it was one of the worst things he'd ever seen. They were fighting so hard, they were hyperventilating. He said they then went on to become the best of friends. I think there's a certain respect for an opposition when a fight is close. We also talked about how everyone is basically you're friend when you're a nomad. He talked about how heaps of people just sit on their couch, smoke cones and play x-box. He said he used to do that until he fell into teaching which got him going and 'a bit more interested in life', as he put it. He said he still smokes a bit but doesn't feel bad about it. "For example, I'm going to enjoy some tonight", he said. He added, that since starting work, he'd basically been on the "right side of happiness, most of the time now".

I thought it was a great phrase, "I'm generally on the right side of happiness" He had some old video equipment he wanted to hoc in Dubbo before getting the bus back, 'for a couple of bucks'. "Gets me out of the house", he said. He sprinkled his talk with a few bible references. He talked about how the phrase, 'the love of money is the root of all evil', came form the bible. He also said that he's been reading the bible a lot lately but every time he finishes, he ends up just as confused about things, as when he started.

He also told me a funny story about how he'd gone out on the piss one night in Trangie and woke up in Condobolin. He had no idea in the morning how he ended up 100kms away. He also told me about the night he got on the piss in Orange. In the morning he went to the police station and decided to be just straight up with them. "My car's gone but I don't know if it was stolen or whether I've just forgotten where I parked it". They found it that afternoon where he'd parked it. We shook hands as he got out and wished each other luck. We're all just out there, doing the best we can, trying to make sense of this life, I thought. I drove away appreciative of my work. I didn't make lots of money but it was more than enough, when I thought about what a lot of people survive on. He talked about pubs too, saying that's where he's picked up a lot of his work. 'People who need someone to work for them, go to pubs', he said, 'not centrelink'. That's where I get my work too, I thought. We'd talked together non-stop from Trangie for 60kms. I'm glad I picked him up.

What I have realised however was that life, no matter what you do etc has a natural ebb and flow of moods and if I'm ever down or off centre the best thing to do, was not to deny it or fight it but just accept it. It makes capturing and being open to the next moment, which is what life is all about, so much easier. And as Mick and I said ten minutes before when he'd got out of my car, 'no matter what you do, you've just got to keep going, after all, that's what it's all about'. I then thought, 'fuck I can hardly be down. I'm just resting out and re-charging myself'. The thought buoyed me.

I got a text from someone saying: 'long time no see, when's your next gig?' I had no idea who it was from. I rang the number. It's always weird doing this. You want to work out who they are straight away, when they answer and not let on that you didn't know who they were, when you rang, just in case, you're meant to have them in your speed dial or know their number or voice. It wasn't happening though but I thought 'maybe I could work it out, if I kept talking'. At this point, in the conversation, is the big crossroad though. Because if you keep going with the 'how are you going' familiar chit chat and then give up five minutes later and go, 'look who are you?', you feel like a bit of a dickhead, so I said straight up, 'who are you? Anyway, it was good to hear from Mum.

After my calls, I went down into the front bar of the Garden Hotel in Dubbo which I was staying at. It was full of older guys having a beer, a smoke and a punt. I pulled up a stool at the bar and dropped two bucks each way, on the trots at Sydney on Race 1. The waitress behind the bar was working all the guys with quips as they came up for a drink. One guy came up next to me. He grabbed three long necks of beer, from the lady or 'King Browns' as they're called. He gave me a wink as he waited for his beer. He said he was babysitting the Grandkids. 'I'll just put them to bed as soon as I get there and then get into these', he said grinning widely. He had a weather beaten head and bloodshot eyes. You could tell he was enjoying life though. Which probably had a bit to do with the fact that he'd been pissed, most of it. I won $3.20 for my four dollar outlay on Race 1 and decided to walk into town to find a pub which served a counter meal.

I treated myself to a great lunch on the pub balcony of vegies and fish while looking at seven council workers across the road, hard at it. (Well two of them were). Fuck, I've got no idea how hard it is to be a council worker. I've never done it. I just thought I'd drive home a cliché with no personal basis for believing it. Here I was, eating fish on a balcony, trying to make out that five of the council workers, I was looking at were being lazy! No one ever calls a stockbroker lazy after he's won a million dollars with the press of a button. Council workers are maligned for being bludgers because everyone can see them on the job unlike most people who are lucky enough to bludge at work behind closed doors without members of the public driving past and watching them. I wonder how many jobs there are where people spend more time pretending they're busy than they do actually working. 50% of them? Stereotypes are so easy to automatically believe and confirm especially when you don't question them. I suppose that's how they spread.

I went for a walk and ended up inside the Old Dubbo Goal, which was now a tourist attraction. It sounded like a dodgy tourist trap. I thought I'd give it a go though. It was only a few bucks. I ended up being quite surprised. It was better than I thought (especially as I could leave whenever I wanted). Each cell had either a recording or a lifelike human-tronic person talking you through a story. Solitary confinement was horrific. It has six feet of sand, around the roof and all the walls, so that no sound or light got in. Prisoners were in there, for up to 21 days at a time. Apparently the game in solitary was to rip a button off your shirt, toss it against the wall and then to try and find it in the dark. Like rabbit fishing, going to work everyday, having kids, sitting on the pokies, travelling around the country doing dick jokes, I suppose it passed the time away. The other cells housed about three people each. Conditions were harsh out here in the early days. The brochure said that people used to commit petty crime on purpose just to get a guaranteed roof, warm clothes and a good feed for the winter, out here. The Abo's who were out hunting their own food and shelter must have thought, 'those lazy white pricks. The next thing they'll invent is the dole...'

I heard a conversation today as I went past a cafe. Three ladies were coming out and talking animatedly about some mutual friend. Anyway they were having a bitch about her. 'She doesn't have to be like that...' It reminded me of the beauty of being alone. I didn't have to get into conversations like that. If you've got an issue with someone, tell them to their face. I.e. cut out the middle man. When we're in groups, why do we say things about people to everyone else but them? Humans are social animals but it makes me think a lot of relationships just cause more trouble for each other that they're worth, at the end of the day. I'm sure we create more trouble for a lot of people than we even realise! Not often you hear someone bitching about themselves. Apart from depressed people, I counter argued - with myself. And fuck when it comes to being depressed or down every now and again. Just cop it. It's part of the human experience. I'm sure if heaven is true there are a whole people walking around bored up there. 'It's all just happy, happy, happy round this joint. It's starting to shit me'. Then again, perhaps they're all thinking, 'I wouldn't be alive for quids!'

Love at the end of the day is just a spell put on us by nature to make us breed. Everyone's individual dreams, aspirations, idiosyncrasies, frayed edges and personal journey is so different and varied that it's impossible to bond on every level with someone, all the time. Simply because our experiences are different. Or as Dean Moriarty says in Jack Kerouac's book, On the road, 'Try and make her mind, my soul'.

We're all alone here. Which is what also unites us. Tolerance, respect and companionship are what gets us through in the long run. Romantic love is a momentary thing which at best lasts a few years, in order to keep you together enough to raise children to a level where they can wipe their own arse. It fuels our most basic requirement as a species. That is to breed, replicate, and evolve. Yet this requirement to multiply seems almost counter-productive to our survival now for the first time in history. Humans now, are like an out of control locust plague on this planet.

We're eating up the earth's resources at a rate which is unprecedented and only getting worse. To survive long term, humans are going to have to ditch a lot of wisdom handed down from our elders, indeed our very own instincts. Being greedy, storing up stuff and not sharing beyond our tribe. Is that smart? It's going to hurt to go against this lores handed down to us from every generation and I don't know if we're capable of doing it. It's too ingrained in us and we're too far down the track to stop now. The homogenous cultural momentum of humanity is huge. I wonder if humans are as smart as we think we are or just a link in the chain to whatever life forms supersedes us. Perhaps we do have a role. Maybe our mistakes will be their lesson.

History hasn't taught us much. Maybe it'll teach some other species. We're still doing the same shit, making the same mistakes as we always have. 'Humans were tribal, ruthless and selfish animals. This book they left called 'The Bible', sums it up. They had tendency to fuck and kill each other above all other instincts. The planet eventually got sick of them and flicked them off like an irritating flea on a dog, just when they thought they were masters. There were signs of intelligence in them but it was mostly delusional'. Perhaps that will be our footnote in history by the next dominant species on earth in 600million years, just like 'ferocious, huge and dominant', are how the dinosaurs are remembered by us.

There's an economy of thought, in many ways through being by yourself. In conversations, with someone else, if you want to change tact, you generally have to steer the ship around and waste a lot of time doing it, to get things back to your own agenda. When you're in your own head, you can choose to have a conversation with yourself about anything and change topics at whim, particularly when you're making no sense or talking shit! Plus there's no need for subtle direction changes, every time the conversation gets boring or too controversial. I think that's what I like about stand-up in boisterous pubs, as well. Subtlety and politeness are counter-productive. Crude honesty can be a good antidote for most day to day interaction and the staticness of chit chat. That's my job. I'm paid to say the things that we're all thinking but too scared to say. Sometimes what I say is universal and the crowd responds with a laugh and sometimes the crowd doesn't laugh. To me this is like them saying, 'sorry mate that's your shit not ours'. I love the mystery of it. It keeps me alive.

Time capsules are weird. What do they write? 'Sorry for fucking things up for you but fucked if we were going to plan for you! You see, we're dead now which means we don't give a shit. By the way, here's a picture of a forest! Yep, our oxygen came for free. It was all around us!!'

Apart from gravity and some scientific stuff, there's no real advice however that you can call totally universal. e.g. ' every cloud has a silver lining.' That's utter bullshit. Hardly any cloud has a silver lining. You just have to look up to see that. For every spiritual, political viewpoint or in fact any type of opinion there's always an equally valid opposite one. Consensus is a poor justification for righteousness. We can all pick out people who agree with us, to back up an idea we have, especially if they have to suck your cock to survive. In fact the more unoriginal and stupid an idea, the more people there are who will agree with you. It's called conventional wisdom. I love that phrase. The economist John Kenneth Galbraith gave it to the English language. He used it to 'describe opinions that, while not necessarily well founded, are so widely held among the rich and influential that only the rash and foolish will endanger their careers by dissenting from them.'

Everyone thinks they need more money and everyone feels hungry at some point in their day.

One of the best stories I ever heard from an Army guy was late one night after a gig, I'd done in East Timor. I'd done the gig in their recreational area to about 100 of them and instead of ending after an hour, I just kept on talking. About four hours later, I had the crowd whittled down to about five guys, which is what I wanted because that's when I can relax and hear all the top notch stories back from them in return. One guy was talking about how they got back to Sydney on their week off, horny as hell, not having had a fuck in six months. A mate had told him about this chick he was rootin and asked them both over to meet her. She lived in Newtown in a warehouse. Anyway, the three blokes went round and had coffee with her. Half way during the coffee, she goes and gets a plastic tarpaulin sheet, lies it down on the ground, gets down on her back, naked and says she wants all three of them to fuck her. The boys couldn't believe it and all went a bit shy. Anyway it was on. All the way through, she was barking orders at them on what to do etc. The guy then paused and said, 'at one point my mates cock was up her arse, and she ordered me to put my hand up her cunt and grab his cock, through the membrane. Anyway, I did'.

As he was telling the story, he then looked down and looked around uneasily. 'Guys, does that make me a poofter?' I pissed myself and then took the mediating role. 'Don't worry mate, I think the fact that there was a cervix wall in between your hand and his cock, gets you off that charge'. It's a weird world though. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. One woman's sexual fantasy is another woman's idea of rape. The line is very thin and can change any instant - but only in the individual beholder. It seems the less people interact with other humans, the more opinionated they are on right and wrong human behaviour. Get out into the washing machine of life and you haven't got time to even think about what you're doing. Just like a guy on the front line about to shoot another human being. You just do it. Life. Instinct. The heat of the battle. That's what I loved about stand-up the most and life when it was at it's best. It can be intense.

It doesn't matter what you do in life, the amount of people who turn up to your funeral, is very much dependant on the weather anyway". Anonymous.

At the Narromine RSL, I went for 40 minutes and then went and sat down and had some beers with Heidi and Ev the two ladies who were cracking me up, from the back with their heckles. They were both about 50 and what lives they'd lived! They'd tried every drug, hitchhiked around Australia, one had died in a car accident and come back to life. They both said they'd go mad if they hadn't met each other here. They were both here to help look after their grandchildren. They said other than that, they hated the place. 'All the rich people stick to themselves and gossip about people like us, which is good' Ev added, 'because while they've got someone to talk about, it lets some other poor bugger off'. They were certainly a dynamic duo. They said how a lot of the people in the town haven't been out of it much. One lady was 64 and had never even made the 30km trek down the road, to Dubbo. They said they spoke to one guy here in his late 20's who thought that the whole world was in NSW. They went home and got a world map and bought it back to him. They then educated him and dispelled a few of his misconceptions. E.g. they explained how places like America weren't somewhere down the road. Anyway, these two were full of life and ticked. Ev said how her son was a gifted and natural piano player who had taught himself but stopped teaching other kids now because he said, 'they're mostly sent there by their parents, not because they want to be there'. She said she was sent to a girls school for discipline as a kid and she was a leso from 11-17 until 18 when she became pregnant after her first fuck. They went onto say how they've tried crack, which they think is easily the best drug. Heidi talked about blokes, 'one bloke was so selfish, I ended up saying fuck off, I'm better off doing it myself'. Ev talked about a guy who kept on wanting to root her up the arse. She said to him, 'how about I get a dildo the size of your cock and stick it up, you. My arse is made for shitting, not fucking!'

The universe hasn't stopped expanding yet and life hasn't stopped changing either. Join the party.

Houses are storage units for people and their things.

Cities are where people gather, to get in each other's way.

June 2004

At the Molong RSL gig, Ray was the director. He looked like 'Big Kev' from the TV ads, with his massive gut, broad smile and booming voice. He says the only time he gets sex out of his wife is by throwing his pay-packet under his bed and then sticking it in while she dives down to grab it.

Gibbo the barman was full of life. He said he liked my 'I fucked a goat t-shirt' because it basically said, 'I don't give a fuck what you think of me'. I was happy to have met someone who not only knew but clearly translated so eloquently, the deeper subtext to my words. He went on, "you work hard all your life, so you may as well go through it laughing". It was a common theme I found coming through from the happiest people, I'd met on tour. He then backed it up with his Rodney Rude laugh and full face squint grin. The laugh lines were well etched in this guy's face. Sarah, who was drinking with him, said she'd set Gibbo up with her Mum because he saw the lighter side of life and "she needed that". I said to Gibbo how he needs to walk down the street with Sarah and a shirt that said, 'I fucked her mum'. He replied, 'Have you got one!?'

Skye told me about the 'Brethren' people in Molong whom she was working with. She said they pretty much ran the town. They were a bit of a christian religious sect who had bought up a lot of property in the town and ran a lot of the businesses. She worked at one of their shed making companies. Apparently, they also owned Freedom Furniture. They didn't fax or use computers because they reckoned it took up god's airwaves. I asked her how they managed to run such big businesses without using computers and phone lines. She said they set up their businesses so they went across the road to someone else's business who was really their employer who they'd paid to act as a boss for another business so they could then use their fax! I wondered whether God was actually fooled by this loophole.

At the Park Hotel in Bathurst, the best story was from a guy who said he'd gone to a 21st party. He said he and his mates shaved off their pubes and somehow convinced the birthday guy to wear them on his face as a beard for a joke, except not knowing they were his mate's pubes. He thought it was just head hair. Anyway after his speech, they then all pulled down their pants and showed him, their shaved cocks or 'Mangina' as it's called when you pull your cock between your legs.

I woke up thinking about my night. When it comes to picking up. One thing has been true all my life. It never comes when I go out specifically looking for it. It always comes when I'm not trying to anything else but have a good time and oblivious to the potential of rootin, anyone around me. It's then that women seem to make the move and the less I pick up on their signs, the more forward they get until it gets to the stage where I think "well fuck, I better root this poor chick, she seems like she needs it". It's happened with every girl on this tour I've been lucky enough to sleep with and also pretty every other girl with the odd exception where I might have put on the hard word a bit! It also explains why guys are always complaining why girls always crack onto them when they're in a relationship and hardly ever when they're single. You break up thinking you're going to get heaps and then suddenly your leads dry up quicker than the sperm in last night's tissue paper.

You broke my heart, now I'm going to stalk you, bash you and make your life miserable.' That ain't love, that's extortion.

This pub had a DJ pumping out the pop music and a bar three deep, full of all the people who had piled out of all the other pubs, they'd been in, earlier. It was the last bus-stop and a familiar scene to me, different town. It was my shout. We'd come up here after the gig. I lined up, dead sober to buy a drink my round. I looked around at the bar with all the people leaning over to catch the attention of the flat out bar staff, trying to keep pace with the stampede. I then pictured a nature video in Africa with a myriad of animals after the rainy season, drinking with their heads down, all at the edge of a water hole. I then pictured two stags clashing with each other for the attention of a deer to mate with and then pictured two guys belting each other, out on the pavement. I then pictured a croc dragging down a zebra which was crossing a stream. I then thought of cops pulling over a drunk driver. I then pictured two beasts fucking, 'like they do on the discovery channel'. I then pictured two people from the bar, later on tonight, fucking each other madly on a bed. There wasn't much difference. We're all animals - especially on a Friday night.

Her words pierced my virtual boredom as I stared out on to the dance floor sipping my drink. "It's funny, looking at them, they work, come out get blind, come down, feel shit get on it again tomorrow night, come down, feel shit, do it again and then go back to work...it's a weird mating dance they're all doing now." I looked around at people pashing each other. She added, "Four hours earlier, they were all sitting around, too scared to talk to each other..." She then went onto tell me how she used to be a heroin addict and stripper. Bingo, I had a real person here, with a catalogue of real experiences, thinking exactly how I was about the surrounding circumstances: Loving it but wanting more than sensory stimulus.

We walked outside. People were milling around, cabs circling. A guy came up to her and said 'g'day". They knew each other and chatted. He told me how he used to live in Sydney but didn't like it. He called it the 'monkey house'. He said he only knew one person down there and when he went out and met someone and got on well with, they were usually from some faraway place and were just passing through, so he'd never see them again anyway, and be able to build on the bond. He said also, that Sydney people generally didn't talk to him when they realised he wasn't from Sydney or in their group. He said he hated it and loves it here. He pointed around to all the people around him. Here, 'we all know each other'. He then asked me where I was from. I said, 'the monkey house!' We laughed and said goodbye.

On her wall was a sign that said, 'to find joy in life you mustn't avoid it'. We spoke about love. I told her about the gypsy saying that says, 'whoever says I love you first, loses'. She shook my hand and said, she totally agreed. She said as soon as she's expressed it, it'd gone to pot straight after. I asked why she thought it was so. She says because as soon as you profess your love to someone, you loose your power. And when you loose your power you loose your ability to be in the moment, which is the only moment, you ever have power over. I loved it, it was like the one thing that was continually ramming home to me all trip, was now being eloquently packaged in confirmation by this amazing women. She repeated it again. 'The only thing you have got the ability to effect is the present moment, which is why you should always live in it. Yearning for the future or regretting the past was useless and resulted in wasted moments, while you worried about it'.

The gateway to infinity is, in the moment. And there are only a finite amount of moments in your life. I felt alive again. Mentally, sexually and spiritually. She also talked about how it doesn't matter how good the sex it, it's vital in the long run that you've got someone mentally and intellectually on your wavelength and capable of listening and talking to you. She talked about a few cockhead boyfriends in the past. I was interested in her definition of a 'cockhead'. She said a few things. The last thing struck me as the best. She says it was someone who wasn't empathetic. Empathy I thought was essentially the mana of life. She also talked about the importance of balance. She was well qualified to talk on the subject, I mused: heroin, three marriages, she's now a fitness fanatic, she has a little bud every night before going to sleep and also raises two boys.

She says she'd like to be out there more but thought this time spent raising the boys was vital for them and something she had to do. It was time for her to lay low, she'd had a good time and lived a lot before they were born, she said. She'd moved away from Sydney to Orange so that she could have a backyard with chooks, it was cheap and provided them with stability, plus her parents were here. She said though, "we only borrow our kids. They're not ours." Many parents don't realise this and find it hard to let go. She said shes got them trained but emphasises to them, when they grow up they can do whatever they want.

I laid back and drifted to sleep at about 5am marvelling at my luck at how I'd managed to meet such an incredible women, again. Love is what made the world go around. What comes round goes around and the moment is the only bit of time we have an influence on. She also talked about materialism and how people are so caught up in it. We so don't need much. We both thought it was far worse than heroin, cigarettes, piss, gambling or drugs at the end of the day. So many people walk around in a stupor, concerned about things and how they'll ever have enough to buy more! Unbelievable. When are we all going to learn, that enough is enough?! Hopefully before we totally fuck the planet up.

July 2004

When I'm in a big city like Sydney and talk about going to small outback towns, I'm often told, 'be careful in these towns, there's a lot of weird people in them who do weird shit. 'Have you ever seen that film Deliverance? A lot of people just disappear in small towns.' Then when I go to these outback, small, isolated, backwater towns, I'm always met by friendly, resourceful people. People that are quietly going about doing their own thing and only to happy to help anyone doing the same. And when I talk to them about going to the big cities, they invariably say, 'I wouldn't go to a big city, too many people who want to mug and kill you, for my liking. You gotta be very careful these days in a big city, you can't trust anyone there'. GET OUT PEOPLE from in front of your TV sets people! The world and the people in it aren't that bad.

Mitchell was the 24yrear old manager of the Nyngan bowling club. He was born and bred here, very proud of his town and comes from a family which has lived in Nyngan for several generations. He said he played Football one year when he was 18, for the rival town of Cobar because Nyngan couldn't field a team that year. At the end of the year they went together as a team to the Gold Coast to have an end of season pissup. When he awoke after the first night there, he was horrified to find a 'Cobar Roosters' tattoo, on his chest. He says he doesn't mind now. 'It's a good story and part of my history', he said with a smile.

He came up to me and rolled down his bottom lip. On the inside of it was written, 'Fuck you'. Apparently he's got 'Fuck me' written on his cock. Ouch.

At the Nyngan Bowling club there was a great couple canoodling in the crowd. They were in their late 30's and had a great story. They were teenage sweethearts at school and married soon after. They were each others first lovers. They had one kid and then broke up and went their separate ways. She went onto have three more kids. Seventeen years later they got back together and have been acting like teenagers ever since.

I woke up and drove to Geurie which is about 40kms south of Dubbo. The publican at The Mitchell Inn there had promoted the gig real well. It was a packed crowd of about 100 people in their front bar. A bus had shipped in about 70 of the publican's mates from Dubbo. I went out hard and immediately got into a heckling exchange, with a big guy up the back. I was getting big laughs and thought he was enjoying it too, until I noticed him muscling through the crowd. He came right up to me, picked me up by the collar and dragged me into the male toilets which were beside my speakers. He then told me to stop giving his shit or he'd belt me. He said he was particularly upset about the gag which insinuated that he, 'swallowed semen'. I couldn't remember saying it but assured him that there was no way I was going use him for a laugh again. He seemed to accept my apology and let me slide back down the wall. We then walked back out to a stunned crowd, who I later found out, thought the whole incident was a pre-arranged, comedic set-up.

I continued the gig. I went for two hours and sold a few DVD's and shirts which I'm always happy about. Petrol money to get to the next town. The juke box then kicked in for a couple of hours. The guy who wanted to bash me even bought one. I started mingling. The crowd was mainly full of old football players who wanted to tell me about the time they got selected to play, half a match for the Canberra Raiders, back in the mid eighties. At midnight the pub shut and they all piled onto the bus to take them back to Dubbo. I snuck off to my room. They wanted me to keep partying with them. I thought I'd got away until I heard them knocking on my door, 'come on Jimbo, you're coming with us'.

Jeff a big huge guy assured me he'd look after me. I hoped on the bus with $30 in my pocket and found myself at the Amaroo nite club in Dubbo, 40kms away. The boys wanted to drink. I went upstairs and proceeded to dance by myself on the dance floor for an hour an a half. I needed the exercise and had a great time going off into my own little world. I then went downstairs and had a few drinks with the boys who were getting more and more pissed. I then went up stairs and sat down on a couch and spent an hour trying to undo the dreadlocks in my hair while watching the goings on of all the kids, playing the mating game. I then went downstairs again. I felt like going home a few hours ago but couldn't.

Jeff said I could stay at his place but it looked like he was going to stay drinking till closing time which was 5am. By about 4pm, one of Jeff's mates who, I'd been drinking with and yarning with started casually asking me whether I wanted a fight. Not in an aggressive way but more in a casual 'would you care for a cigarette' manner. Meanwhile a guy who I'd seen at the Geurie gig walked past with blood pissing out of his forehead closely followed by a guy being manhandled by a bouncer. I stood up and went over to the window. I didn't have enough money for a cab back and was seriously regretting my decision to go into Dubbo. I should have just stayed in my room and not answered the door!

I started talking to a girl, who was beside me. I told her my predicament. She asked me where I was staying. I asked her straight up, if I could stay at her place. Going back to a whole lot of pissed footballers place, all rum-ed up, wasn't my idea of fun. She said, 'yes' and we walked out of the hotel and tried for a cab. We got bumped about five times by guys muscling in, just as the cab arrived for us. Eventually we got one and then Jeff and his wife jumped in with us and demanded we go back to his place. Our cab had been hi-jacked. We arrived at Jeff's place with the noise waking up all the kids in the house, who were yelling out for Dad to 'shut up' and make less noise. He didn't care. Natalie ordered another cab. Jeff insisted on giving me a bottle of piss and a coca-cola yo-yo. I thanked him and left for Natalie's place.

Natalie was 28, divorced, with two kids who were at her parents place for the night. Tonight was her going out' night for the month. It was now about 6am. I just wanted to sleep, so jumped into bed. She wanted a root but we didn't have condoms. I explained to her that I only had twenty bucks in my pocket and no condoms. She said, 'no worries, I'm on the pill, we don't need a condom'. I said, 'there's no way, I'm having sex without a condom. Sorry house policy'. She was a bit pissed off and tried to convince me, but I remained firm. Anyway, we mucked around for a bit before drifting off to sleep.

I woke up at 10am and had a minor panic attack. I was 40kms from my pub room, which had my laptop, my wallet with $800 in it and my keys to my car which had the rest of my worldly possessions in it. This could be a major fuck up, if I didn't get back, soon. Natalie was hung over and didn't have a car. She then made a phone call. Afterwards she put the phone down and said, 'no worries, my Dad is coming around to pick you up and drive you back'. I asked her whether she was coming with us, she said, 'no, because he was dropping the kids off as well and there'd be no room for us all'. I couldn't believe it. What was I going to talk about with her Dad in the car for forty kms?

Dad: 'So, was my daughter a good root?
Jimbo: 'No mate, honestly we didn't root'.
Dad: 'What, isn't my daughter good enough for you? Looks like I might have to turn off here and get my shovel out'.

In the end, he ended up being a top bloke. He was a shearer from Trangie. We had a good laugh all the way back in his car over various travelling experiences. He told me one story of a beggar who had asked him for $2 in the streets of Dubbo. He'd apparently told the beggar that he only had $1. The beggar then took the dollar and said, 'you owe me one'. Back at the pub, I gave him an, 'I fucked a goat' t-shirt for doing an 80km round trip for me, out of his way. He loved it. I recalled the night's story to the boys behind the bar. They couldn't believe it. I included the incident with the guy who wanted a fight. They then told me that his nickname was, 'psycho' because he was renowned for head butting people at the end of a night's drinking. I was relieved. All my stuff was still in my room and I'd made it back in one piece.

I spoke to Natalie afterwards by phone. She said, she'd told her Dad upon returning, 'that clown, I bought home last night, didn't have a condom to fuck me with but when the kid's came around he pulled out all these balloons out of his pocket and made 'em poodles!' Her Dad had then said, 'Well why didn't you get him to roll one of them on?'

I know it's such a good thing to relax in front of after a hard day's work but I'm convinced that television makes you more stupid and less aware of what's really happened in the world. I can't stand it how people look at the standard evening news snippet on the Middle East and then go 'they should just fence them off and let themselves blow themselves up'. How do you think we'd react if we were invaded by another country on the pretence that they were saving us from our leader and giving us freedom, while at the same time, taking control of all our natural resources such as mining, wheat, timber and sheep? Every disenfranchised male in the country would suddenly be given something to do, instead of pull cones in their bedroom! We'd be making home made bombs and doing all sorts of shit to make life difficult for the invaders. Especially in the country. It'd be a powder monkey's wet dream. In fact, I reckon there'd be a lot of blokes who'd want it to happen. It'd give their life some meaning! Patriotic hooliganism!! We'd be going nuts!!! And what response would we get from those people overseas? I'd bet they'd just say while eating their TV dinners 'They should just fence those bloody Aussies in and let them blow each other up'.

All religions seemed to be focussed on the next life, whether it be heaven, nirvana, re-incarnation or whatever. They all tell us too to abstain from the things in this life that make life so pleasurable. I.e. food, sex, drugs. In fact anything to do with sensory pleasure. Sure, too much of these things can lead to problems. But if you can't enjoy these things, in this life as a human being, when can you?

I go through so many coastal towns that have had a recent doubling of house prices. The difference between them and the rundown sea shanty town down the road is usually a coat of paint, some council re-guttering, a cafe with steel table sets out the front and a health shop selling dream catchers and incense. The types of things which make people with money think, 'Yep, I'd be safe in this town'. Meanwhile the sea shanty place down the road is unaware that they're the next town to be ripped up and ripped off. There's not many left. The great push for a real estate buck is now going inland in this country. I think that's why the national average for watching TV each day is three hours. Three hours of killing time hoping, that your house prices are going to go up further than your interest rates.

'It's a bad area' the guy at the bookstore said describing where his new house is. He went on. '"The thing about bad areas is that some kid might rip off your VCR or steal a bottle of bourbon every now and then. But if you piss your neighbour off in a rich area. Well fuck, they'll sue you for everything you've got - your house, your livelihood, the lot! Watch out!"

2004.

I met a young guy after my gig at the inland mining town of Dysart. He had a big grin on his face and was on cloud nine. His name was Brownie and he said to me: 'Mate, I've just had my best week ever'. I asked him why. He said, 'my football team got into the Grand Final and I got my first root ever........ without paying for it!', he added.

Imagine calling your kid Wolfgang and then giving it a middle name of 'Bang'. i.e. "There we go kid, good luck at school and if you get into trouble as a teenager... good luck with the magistrate".

I felt a bit lost today. Bored, the calm before the storm, lost? I don't know what it is .

I drove to Cairns where I had a swim and a run along the promenade. I had a good chat to some Islanders in the pool who were rehabbing their knee. I felt good today, I suppose I was just due to be a bit down. Maybe it's because I haven't had a thumping gig lately. Without it my life does feel a bit empty. I perhaps need some company. Then again I get bored of company too. The chit chat... I'm somewhat sick of the rootin, party, getting blind scene too but also just as bored with idea of a sedentary life and the conversation topics that go with a partner who you're going through life, collecting things with. 'Which shower curtains do you think look best, dear?' 'I don't care honey and I if I ever do please feel free to shoot me'.

Empathy for other beings. A quality which can be inversely proportional to one's thirst for political power and wealth - Bob Brown's quote.

I felt my mojo come back today. I'm glad I just let my blues play out. When you're in them, you think they'll last forever. A bit like good moods I suppose! Moods are like tides. They have a purpose, ride them, in and out, in and out and beware of tsunamis, especially other people's! When you're in a mood though, it's natural for you to want someone else to relate. But everyone is so particular and it's impossible to get ultimate empathy off anyone anyway (unless they want money off you, want to root you or want you to listen to their feelings in return!).

I'm now in an Ayr Hotel. A buck's party is raging downstairs. I heard the cheers from the stripper coming on. I ca now hear them all yahooing down below. I've heard it all before. Cultural homogeny, everywhere.

Fear is being used to barge through all political agenda's these days. Apparently the first governor of NZ said this about the Maoris. 'These people value themselves on what they can give, not what they have. In order to conquer them, we must teach them greed'. The whole western world is so able to be manipulated because greed is king particularly amongst workers - they're now even being manipulated to fight the environmentalists, the only people with long term convictions and policies for this planet. 'Kiss up the social ladder and kick down it', 'Breed more, build more and produce more. It's good for the economy'.

The problem with the science of economics is that it was based on the premise that natural resources, like water, timber, clean air, coal etc were not only free but unlimited. This premise may have been appropriate a couple of hundred years ago when it was relatively true. But not now. Water, clean air, timber and coal etc today are now seen as the opposite. That is, increasingly scarce and valuable as opposed to free and unlimited. Yet the economic models still don't include factor these costs in to its model. It's false economy. The world is heading for a human induced economic/environmental meltdown. We all know it. Hopefully it won't be in our lifetime though. And besides who cares? We all die. It won't be our problem. Besides the footy is on... Go the Eagles!

I felt really organised today. I always am when I'm alone. When I'm around people, I feel I should entertain them or empathise with them, which tends to create a bit of disorganisation with me. I'm really getting into the idea of company, empathy and why we need it. I've had it all really, plus some. We are such herd creatures, particularly on issues of right and wrong. It's consensus. 'Don't stick out'. Getting real original conversation and strong thought on topics that interest me is getting harder. I want someone to stick out. I hunt connections from unique individuals and never know who I'm going to get it off next or where. It could be the drunk at the pub, the newsagent cashier, the person walking down the street. The main thing is to be ready for it when it does come... Opportunity, the genius in the weeds, the cryptic muse gently guiding me to untold wonders. I don't want to miss a moment. The keyhole to infinity. It's easy to forget that it's around us always, we just can't see it. We get trapped in our own fog.

I did a good show and ended on a good note and got thanked by the owner which was nice. Two hours of gags. Nudity tops everything though. We're such animals. Tits, cocks, doing silly stuff. With moods, especially down one's I sometimes feel it's a bit selfish to want someone every now and then to empathise with me on them because moods are such just transitory things. Plus raw truth can be dangerous to the stability of any relationship. I don't really want much. Just to keep going.

I ran into Shane who worked in the pizza shop and who was at my show last night, at Magnum's nite club in Airlie Beach. He said he'd ended up in a dorm last night, rootin a German chick. He had that grin of a guy who was tired but energised from a big night out.

I woke up this morning and beat off to the memory of a girl I'd shagged a year ago and hadn't really thought of much since. The great thing about having been through a few partners is the wank bank vault for all the times in between when you've got no-one. Memories to last a lifetime. Psychic fuel.

So much of our thoughts (or mine at least!) are really just justifications of who we are and how we behave, rather than necessarily an accurate depiction of the world or other people. Thinking about life and forming opinions can be so insular just when you think it isn't. I wonder if cow's ever stop chewing for a minute, look up into the sky and think, 'what's it all about?' and then go 'ahh..fuck it' and start chewing again.

I read an awesome quote in a dunny today, written with tags from three different people:

'Question authority!!?'
'See if they answer.'
'No, they won't.'

Authority never answers if it doesn't want to. Power justifies silence. The people who are questioning authority then get so pent up that they explode. That's when the people in authority then go, 'you're being rude now', which they then justify as their excuse for not listening and indeed retaliating. Pulling someone up on 'manners', ensures that the battle is not started on the less powerful person's turf. Therefore, learning manners is necessary, in order to not be sucked into drawing the first punch. Learn the rules first, before you break them. Manners are also meticulously used by people who are too afraid to express themselves beyond what they are told to think. The type of people you don't want to be stuck talking to at a party for too long.

'They're lulling us into a FALSE sense of INsecurity'.

A diary is really just a friend. Breadcrumbs that keep you connected to who you are in the future. I'm not too sure if it's for other people though. Writing them and putting them out there is risky business.

Everything bores me to a certain extent now, which is why I'm staying so healthy too. Walking, swimming and eating well. I've gotta do something constructive to keep me going until the passion returns.

It was dark. I went back to my hostel in Mackay. On the way a guy in a cheap suit, followed by two others jumped out from behind his car and tried to sell me a watch. Hustlers. I picked up on the scam straight away. I'd fallen for it in the Sydney, when I was 15 years old, about twenty years ago. I'd bought a necklace which I thought I'd got for an absolute bargain. I bought it to give to my girlfriend. The one I was going to find in the future. It cost me twenty dollars. When I got home I realised the necklace was plastic. Santa Claus wasn't true. I'd been had but I was still impressed a little bit by their performance. I'd bought an experience.

I was now twenty years older and couldn't believe the same scam was being thrown at me, so I decided to reverse the situation this time. He gave me his spiel. I said to him, "twenty dollars was too cheap for a watch, how about I give you forty dollars, no... One hundred dollars for it instead'. I then started talking manically to him, before asking his two offsiders, (who he was obviously training), if they could do a better pitch to me. They tried and then realised I was taking the piss out of them. They then told me to go away. I laughed at the thought at how they'd accosted me and were now telling me to go away! 'Usually it's the other way round isn't it?' Anyway, they cheered me up.

Life's funny. I think the reason no-one speaks their mind these days is because in reality everyone's thoughts really are so fluid, changing and full of hypocrisies. We're scared of that reality and therefore project what we fear onto other people. Earth, wind, fire... We're made up of 90% water, the most malleable energy there is. We don't like to admit it but that's our lot. These days you can get sued for saying something outta line, even if it's off the cuff. It's probably why, now in politics too, that being unwavering in your policies is seen to be more of an asset than the substance of what you're saying. Having a wishy washy approach to policy is also the greatest weakness you can show up in an opposition. And the best way to be unwavering in your own policies it seems is to be just be a hardliner, the whole time. Be a cunt. Be a prick. 'They're all murderers sent to our shores. Lock the fuckers up without question.' Perhaps too, the reason politicians are so paranoid and incite fear so much is because they're constantly surrounded by bodyguards, the whole time. If I was surrounded by bodyguards, every time I did my morning walk, I'm sure I'd become, paranoid and suspicious of people too!

Don't use me to break your heart. Let me bathe beside your cup of love that overfloweth.

I've decided to end my diary here or at least take a break. The reason is that my life has become so boring, it's not worth writing down. I've got to less time thinking about what I'm going to put in it and more time living: getting into trouble, meeting people, hanging out, rootin, everything. Humans. We like to fuck and we like to fight and I haven't been doing enough of either lately. It's all been a little too comfortable... Adios reader, I'm off to live!

A little tanty there. I'm back.

"Cities like Sydney and Melbourne are places where people work really hard, so that they can buy stuff in order to impress people whom they don't like anyway", I heard this off a grey nomad, in Mackay. Grey nomads, the term used for retirees cruising around the country with a caravan behind their car with something like, 'Ray and Pam' written on the back. Good on them, I reckon. I heard someone once call them SAD's. See Australia and Die! That's a bit rough though I think. See Australia and Live, I think is more appropriate. SAL's isn't as funny though.

I wanted to hear the frayed edges of people's psyche. Not their baggage or their 'PR spiel to the world' on how they were going. I wanted to hear a report from the expanding edge of their universe. The point where they weren't terribly sure of, their distilled essence, the diamond where they cut whatever came in their path. Some people didn't even seem to know where this was. In which case, that was their edge. Whatever it was though, I wanted to hear it, in all its raw glory. The truth that was far stranger than fiction. This was the opal, I was hunting for. Sometimes you ran into it and it was a rich vein that never seemed to end. Sometimes, you felt you were digging dirt forever. Whether I found it or not though, the important thing was that I had the fever. The fever that told me that maybe, maybe something could happen today which would blow me away....

They were two couples in their 60's. I regaled them with a few stories. They said they'd love to do what I did and just pack up and go and not have to come back to bills 'but, It's a bit late at our age'. I said that's bullshit, that's what people say at my age too and I'm 34... They then got onto wondering whether I got lonely or not and did I worry about having a stable future. I said, 'no, the main thing is to just have a good time, now in each moment'. Phil laughed and said, 'well you definitely won't die of stress!' June asked me about my messy hair and questioned me on whether I had knits. I said, 'no' and then looked at the boys while winking, 'but I reckon a few of the girl's I've woken up with have'. They all pissed themselves and then Phil got up and said, 'well, we better go'. I felt I'd done my job. I'd amused them. June then thanked me for the 'free show, I'd given them. I.e. I'd ripped off a few jokes over dinner for them. They'd done their job too. They'd given me some company and listened to my stories and laughed. I was now alone. I looked around at the empty RSL, to the girl behind the bar. Another drink couldn't hurt.

I was in a hostel in Mackay for five nights. On the first night, I went to the toilet. Someone had left a trail of spew down the hall, right up to the toilet. I thought, 'how can people get that drunk, it could hardly be fun'. I was in the middle of a two week, get fit, eat right, rest, read and do nothing much stint. Four nights later after going out trying to chat up girls, dancing all night, while drinking red wine, I came back to the hostel and did the same thing (except I thankfully got it all in the bowl). The next day, I was pretty light-headed. In a strange way though, I felt the spew and general night of 'letting go', or having a blow-out and having fun, had totally cleansed me, in some weird way. I had a new fresh perspective, which I hadn't got from exercising and eating well for a couple of weeks. I now didn't give a fuck. I felt good and I reminded myself to perhaps get on the piss a bit more often.

I think good-looking girls can get away with so much, especially verbally. They don't have to work as hard to get a guy's attention. It must be boring for them sometimes. We're pretty basic creatures really, humans. Especially guys. We think we're all 'humans' but really we're just stimulus receptors for all the sensory pleasures. We love to eat, smell, touch, hear, taste. No wonder sex can be so much fun. It engages all our senses at once. It's kind of the ultimate human experience.

This country is so easy. I mean how many people starve to death? All the main traps in life here are self inflicted: gambling, cigarettes, too much alcohol, too many drugs, no exercise, poor diet, speeding, drink driving and perhaps the biggest one: materialism and the stress involved in 'keepin up with the Jones''. As my mate Scotty from Airlie Beach said, 'Keeping up with the Jones's! What a waste of time that is!'

Cops, Criminals and Entertainers. Together we roam the social boundaries, herding people together, separating them and generally stirring things up. It's our job.

Meg was a backpacker in Airlie Beach. She said she was a Virgin. The extraordinary things you find, in the most unlikely places!

'Dream like you'll live forever. Live like you'll die today'. - James Dean.

I spoke to Mick the bouncer, outside Magnum's nite club in Airlie Beach, about my plan. I told him, I can't get mainstream publicity from my show on TV and newspapers because my subject material is too rude. Therefore, I need to be arrested, like Rodney Rude was the 80's. 'It'll help my profile', I said. 'I think I can organise that', he said. 'I know the cops real well and I'm rootin a journo from the Proserpine Daily'. He sucked back on his cigarette, like it was an easy problem for him to solve.

Mick then told me about all the properties he owned. I asked him why he still worked. He said, 'you have to do something'.

I started repeating the word 'Vagina' over and over again while driving the car down the hwy. I don't care who you are, try it. You'll end up pissing yourself. Who needs company?!

As a reaction to western materialism, consumerism and hedonism people often turn to other philosophies for meaning. e.g. 'I've become a' Buddhist, a yogi... whatever'. Why don't you hear people say, 'I've decided to become myself - i.e. I've admitted I like to fuck, laugh and empathise with a wide cross section of people while still asserting my individuality. In short, I've decided to join the cult of me'. I think everyone should be their own religious leader. Prayer time can be sleeping in every Sunday. In fact, every day, if you're really devout.

It was midday. The sun was shining. The air was warm. Business was slow. I was sitting in Airlie Beach aka, 'the young foreign bikini wearing capital of Australia', chatting to some work weary staff out on some benches in front of the main cafe strip. We were talking about how bored we were.... Blah, blah, blah'. Then we realised, 'if you're going to be bored, you may as well be bored while ogling at tits all day!' I love tits. Big ones, small ones, medium size ones. They make life worth living.

Words can be such bullshit. When I went to East Timor to entertain the troops over there, I spoke to the head guy Army there. He said that officially East Timor has access to 90% of the East Timor gap oilfields but unofficially, '90% of the oil is in Australia's 10%. Funny that! One hour of fuel to run a black hawk helicopter costs $16000. Because we went over there to entertain the troops for free, they gave us a ride in one. I remember thinking, 'fuck the joy ride, give me the cash'.

I remember being up in the hills in East Timor at a place called Bobanaro. The place had been decimated with a heap of atrocities from the retreating Indonesian militia two years before. Untold horrors had occurred. There was now a house which was full of about 60 kids running around unsupervised. Orphans. Their parents were dead. Anyway the troops put on movies on a projector, once a week. The villager's loved them, especially the violent ones like Gladiator. Fearing they were getting a bit wound up during them though, the officers started putting on a few more 'chick flick type romantic comedy movies'. Anyway, eventually after one two many Meg Ryan movies, the villagers rioted, chucking stones at the projector and onto the tin shed of the army base in protest. It made me think that perhaps peace and love is not only unrealistic all the time but maybe not what humanity constantly wants anyway. If the whole world was one big Club Med, we'd all get so bored. Just ask the staff who've been stuck on an Island Resort, for more than a week feel. They can't wait to get off.

War on terror. It sounds so noble. But really, it's about as altruistic as saying, I'm going, 'Make love to a supermodel'.

The hindsight of a relationship break-up. 'They were an absolute bitch' or 'He was an absolute cockhead'.... or alternatively 'They were the one, my soul mate' In reality, they weren't that bad or good. We project our fantasies and insecurities onto partners. When it's over we then go and find another person, 'to abuse or adore'. Love is definitely a drug for humans. And a fuckin' good one too.

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page" - anonymous quote, outside a travel agent.

When a guy says, 'he loves his woman'. It usually means, 'Fuck she puts up with a lot of my shit'. When a guy says he's' in love', it usually means, 'gee, I'd like to root her again'.

I stopped in to try and line up a gig at The Calen Pub. Marie behind the bar told me about the guy in town who had a bung arm, with no feeling in it. He'd had it since birth. It was useless. They called him 'Roo Paw'. Anyway RooPaw was saying one night how he was thinking of getting his arm cut off because it hurt and was no use to him and never was. He was asking his fellow barflies for advice. One guy then said, he should. Roo Paw, asked "why?' 'So we can get it stuffed and placed behind the bar for every time we need to scratch our backs. At least then it'd be useful'. RooPaw then took another sip of his beer, contemplating the merits of his friend's advice.

Prawnie at the Black Nugget Hotel in Moranbah won the talent quest by setting his hair on fire. Matt came second for skulling jugs of Rum and Coke. Sutto came third for doing a back flip off the bar. I got there a night early and slept in the car outside the pub and then on a park bench, the following arvo. When you sleep on a park bench you start to notice other things like birds and creatures at close range, a bit more. Time comes to a standstill. It's different. When you've got no money, you're daily routine changes. It's good or at least not that bad. I wasn't worried though, I had a gig tonight that was paying cash.

After the gig, Matt took me back to his mate, Pete's place. We drank and yarned and I ended up getting eight hours of sleep in a bed which sure beats leaning across the handbrake in between a box of DVD's. At Moranbah, there's a church called 'St Joseph the Worker'. It's like the priest has thought, 'how can I get coal miner's in this town to come to church? I know, I'll call it St Joseph the worker!' A bit like a Kings Cross priest calling his church, 'St Mary, the slut'

I thought about Mick the bouncer at Airlie. I was talking to him and he pointed out a girl that he'd fucked. I said to him back, 'fuck... she's a babe'. He then turned to me and said, 'Yeah mate... I only fuck good looking chicks. Don't do pigs'. Now we all know a guy like that, perhaps he's your best mate. Perhaps it's you. Well this is what I've got to say on the topic. I'll use the analogy of restaurants to equate to how good looking the girl is. I like to dine out at good restaurants as good as the next person. Bring it on. They look good, someone puts a napkin in your lap, they pour the wine for you and the dunnies don't have skid marks. But I also want to say, I don't mind a good feed down at the bistro either. The people are friendly, you can be yourself and for 10% of the price, you generally walk out having had a top feed, a great laugh, a top night.'

Getting back to not having enough money for accommodation and waiting for the next gig. When you sleep in a car, which is chocker block full, you don't get much sleep. I had about four hours at Moranbah which wasn't bad. By the next afternoon though, I was tired and basically just wanted to find somewhere where I could have a snooze. Being homeless and finding a place to have a snooze, is pretty tricky. The main reason being that when you're asleep, you're probably at your most physically vulnerable. A three year old kid could come up and literally poke you're eye out before, you'd even awoken. So the main priority is to find somewhere safe. The first instinct for safety is right out in the bushes. But this is pretty dangerous because if someone does come across you, they are either going to think you're dead and freak out or be in a pretty good position to roll you, without anyone else seeing you. So the best place is somewhere quiet but open enough for perhaps someone else to intervene quickly if someone came up to you and chose to do something anti-social on you. It's the same reason why people like to live in cities, I think.

The best place ended up being a next to an oval and community centre, on a park bench. It was only after I'd lain down that I realised where I was. I was 34 years old, going around the country, saying the most offensive comedy in the nation and sleeping on park benches in between gigs because I didn't have enough money. I laughed. So what? I was healthy and generally on the right side of happiness. From the park bench, I noticed all sorts of cars stop and people get out with their kids and run around and do chores. There was a certain bliss in the knowledge that all I needed to do each day was get enough sleep and a bit of food, (which is pretty cheap really when you just go to the bakery and buy bread and a bit of fruit and stuff). I felt for a moment like I'd really dropped out. I had none of the day to day worries that fill up so many people's day. The static of existence. I looked around and noticed a couple of birds pecking at the ground for worms and how they seemed to be working in a team. I would have never noticed this before. I wouldn't have had the time. I then thought about beggars and homeless people and how people don't give them money because they think, they'll spend it on 'drink'. Imagine if that was the same attitude for everyone. e.g. A boss was just about to hand over a pay-packet to his employee at the end of the week and just before he did, he pulled $100 out and said," I'm not going to pay you this, because I know you're going to spend it, on grog this weekend!" What he said would be true for most of the population but could you imagine the justified uproar?! I don't really drink much but out of all people in society, I don't think we should begrudge a guy who sleeps outside in the cold and scrounges around for food, a drink at the end of his day, for fuck's sake. This guy deserves one for surviving his day as much as anyone else! So next time you go past a homeless man. Tuck a fiver in his pocket, for a bottle of sherry, and tell him to go and enjoy a drink, 'on you'.

Getting back to Prawnie, the guy who lit his hair on fire. At one point he stopped and yelled out while coming back to his table with a whole lot of beers in hand, 'I've got a question!' The whole bar was suddenly silent. He then stood up and loudly proclaimed with his hand wide open, 'Jimbo, what's it all about!?' Fantastic. I love that. We'd pushed through debauchery and humour to the edge of existence. The land our minds fear to travel to. No-one knew the answer to Prawnie's question but at the end of the day, every one of us in the Black Nugget didn't know anymore than anyone else, outside The Black Nugget. The best you can get really do to answering questions of such a profound nature is confident guesswork. Ardent, faith. Even then, you are bought to question your faith every now and then. Which may in turn make it stronger or weaker. In the midst of the mayhem, the biggest pisswreck in the The Black Nugget Hotel in Moranbah out in the middle of the QLD coal belt had reminded us all about our place in the universe. It's a total mystery! We were all lost. I love that. I then went back to the goat-fucking gags and they went back to drinking.

Prawnie also said how he likes to ring up prostitutes in Mackay from the classifieds. He said 'they never look like they say they do in the ads though'. He said, he once 'rooted one who had a prosthetic leg'. After the shag, he asked her to take it off. He then said, he ran off with it. I said to him, 'so you were both legless'. Hopefully he was joking too.

After the gig, Matt took me back to his mates place called Dave after he heard that I was sleeping in my car. He was 23 and huge and could drink more rum than I've ever seen anyone do. He then cooked up a packet of fish fingers and a steak and ate them while drinking Southern Comfort and telling me about his prowess with women. Dave nodded in acknowledgement. Matt said Dave was not his blood brother but he was his 'brother, if you know what I mean. I'd do anything for him'. Dave was estranged from his wife and two kids because of a restraining order. 'I just went downstairs and let out my frustrations on the punching bag one afternoon after a fight with her - that's all I did'. He was pretty upset at not being able to see his kids for 18 months. I asked him their names. He didn't answer. Instead he pulled his sleeves up to his shoulders. The names of his kids were freshly tattooed in huge letters down the insides of each of his arms.

To be continued...

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