Les at Leo's Hotel in Clermont was a top bloke. I didn't pull the numbers
in for him but it was a top crowd that did turn up and he thanked me for a
good show. Star was Paula. A big women in her 50's who gave me and the
crowd lots of laughs all night by telling me loudly throughout that she 'was
going to root me after the show'. She was outrageous. The funniest for me
was when she said that when she pulls a root she likes to let off a big fart
in the bedroom straight up, just so 'we can get to know each other
peerrrrsonally'.
Paula's son outside, in the front bar later, told me how she was dying of
cancer. It made me think again how your impending mortality often brings
out a desire in you to live every second. Paula was doing that.
Her son was 19. He said how he wanted to kill his other brother for one day
nearly stabbing his mum in a rage. That's why he didn't sit near him, in
the show, he said.
He then told me his story. He said he left home at 14
'and stole cars joyriding all round Australia'.? When he was 16 he fell off
a stolen motorcycle at 140km's and spent three months in a coma. He then
went and lived near Lightening Ridge for a while where he 'shared' a chick
with his mate. He then got caught in Maryborough for stealing a car and
went to jail.
Inside, he found out his favourite uncle had died. He tried
to commit suicide. They then gave him an IRO, which is an immediate release
order. He's been back in Clermont for the last two years where, he's been
with his girlfriend since, who was beside him. She's 17. Next to her was
her Mum. Her other daughter was behind the bar. Her name was Zy. She said
she was the only lesbian in the town. Zy and her mum then showed me a
topless photo of themselves in this month's Picture magazine at the 'Hog's,
dogs and utes' festival held in Clermont, a few months back.
Mum then got Zy other daughter to come out the back, for me to take a photo
of their tits out together, just like in the Picture mag.? After her other
daughter had done it, she said, see it was easy, hey!? All three of them
want to go together in next year's magazine.
Zy's ex, a girl from Mackay then rang the Mum. Zy said he ex is now better
friend's with mum, than her. Next to mum was a guy cuddling up to her who
didn't have many teeth. He was a gold prospector. He goes out everyday
with his detector which 'can detect gold to about four foot under', he said.
I like driving through towns at pace doing gigs. It's addictive. I'm never
in them long enough to get sick of them.
In Airlie Beach, I saw a young girl about 20 odd, brown hair, cute. She
walked by me with her head downish and with a tiny bit of a scowl on her
face.
Her t-shirt said, 'How about never'.
I pissed myself.? I bet there are not many guys walking around here with the
same shirt.
You know those places where people say, 'if you can't get a root here,
there's something wrong with you'. I went to the doctor's the other day.
He asked me what was wrong with me. I told him how I'd been to Airlie Beach
but couldn't pull a root.
You join a bikie gang for the exact same reason you join a football club, a
bowls club or a Tupperware party. Camaraderie.
At the Prosepine golf course, the lady at the counter chased me down because
I'd left $5 in my hired gold bag. She was puffing. I was blown away. It's rare that you get that much enjoyment and re-affirmation in humans, for
just $5. Plus, I'd got it back.
I find it strange being in a country that values freedom of speech. In fact
values freedom of speech, so much that we're prepared to send troops
overseas to invade a country without UN approval and kill and maim large
numbers of civilians there, in order for their society afterwards to have
this 'freedom of speech'.
Yet here I am, a comedian back home, getting up, swearing and making a few
jokes about sex and I get banned from performing in some venues, because
what I'm saying is too offensive. And this doesn't just come from venue
owners or booking agents. It comes from other comedians too! 'Jimbo, I've
got a gig for you but if I give it to you, you've got to tone it down a bit,
none of the offensive stuff'.
It always astounds me. If you want to know what offensive is, if you want to know the meaning of
shock is, if you want to know the meaning of man's inhumanness to man is.
Just stay at home and watch the SBS news. Don't worry about me and my silly jokes.? If you want to get irate, put your
energies into a worthwhile cause, like saving a rainforest.
There is only one reason I will not tell a joke. And that is because I
think it won't get a laugh. And if you can't judge my ability to choose
what is funny and what is not, don't book me. And if you dont like my
jokes, just fuck off out of the bar!
I've done over 4000 gigs in ten years. Don't tell me what to do on
stage! That's the one area in my life where I expect total freedom!
Comedians use the terms, 'I killed tonight' and 'I died tonight', depending
on how they went. There is a reason. Stand-up comedy is like a war, a
verbal war.
It's combative and confrontational to both the audience and
performer. That's why people go to see it and that's why performers first
get up and have a go. It's exciting and you really have no idea of which
way it will swing. That's how I felt when I had my first gig and that's how
I like to feel every time I get up on stage. Otherwise it's boring. It's
like shooting fish in a barrel. Or should I say bombing Iraqi's in a
hospital.
I.e. I only now do gigs where I have full license to say whatever I want up
there. I'm not going to punch anyone or kill anyone or strap electrodes to
their balls and then put them in a human pyramid. I'm just going to
verbally play with them in the hope that the crowd sees something
extraordinary and laughs at seeing what unfolds. E.g. someone putting a
cigarette out on their cock, or some tits out. Innocent stuff like that.
Funny, playful stuff.
Sex and violence.? It's hard to know what bits to censor. We all think
differently on the matter and we all think we're right and should speak on
behalf of other people. Some people just have more power to exert.?And
exerting it justifies our place in the world while masking our fear of
powerlessness.
What also upsets me, is not enough people turning up to cover the bar in
takings for my fee. Which is usually about $2-300. When this happens I
always reduce my fee at the end of the night. The other thing that upsets
me is when people no-one laughs all night. This usually happens when there
is less than one person in the room. And believe me, I've played plenty of
those gigs.
I rang my mate Scotty, I'd met in Airlie Beach, as I was coming through
again. He was forty.? He couldn't find work and wanted to go to Bowen to
find fruit picking work, where I was co-incidentally doing a gig that
night. I picked him up and we drove up. The gig was hard and there was a
serious lull an hour into it, where I just had to go and have a beer with
the remaining few guys at the bar, in the crowd.
In the break, Scotty
patted me on the back. He could see I was doing it tough. I went back on
and things picked up thanks to some people walking into the bar. This
second set was fun. I had an audience who were people not chairs! Scotty
and I went out afterwards with a couple of girls from the show. I woke up
with one of them. She pointed out a grey hair on my chest in the morning.
It reminded me I was 34.
In the morning Scotty decided it was time to go back to his family in
Wollongong. He was broke and his back was sore. It was time to go back
home, he said. I gave him $100 for the busfare. We hugged and said
goodbye. 'See you down the road, buddy'.? We will too. Its a long road. I
think thats why Slim Dusty kept on going around the country.? He wasnt
touring. He was just visiting old mates.
Bowen was like going into a time warp. I've never seen such a big,
beautiful coastal place that hasn't gone trendy yet.? Old Australian charm
everywhere. Huge wide streets and the best port in Nth Qld. It was
apparently going to be Nth Queensland's main port until they changed it to
Townsville, at the last minute. Bowen had amazing, seemingly untouched
beaches covered in fine golden sand.? It's also the only place on the
Queensland coast where you can literally swim to the Great Barrier Reef.
Whatever you do people, don't go there.
September 2004.
Calen was a small town below Proserpine. Marie had booked me in three weeks
back. After my show, Tim, a local, got kicked out for being drunk and
disorderly. In the end the publican had to physically manhandle him through
the door onto the pavement. Tim then went home and rung the pub up saying
he was going to sue and threatened never to drink there again. The locals
said he does this every week. The main problem for Tim though is that there
is only one pub in Calen. The next day he came into to apologise. The
locals say he does this every week too.
'The only time, I live within my means is when I'm broke', said the guy
rummaging through the bin.
Here I was in the strip joint at Rockhampton looking at a guy put some money
notes into a girl's garter while she danced naked in front of him. A snap
shot, capturing the essence of so many male/female relationships, throughout
the last two millenniums where the man says, 'I want to root you' and the
woman says, 'Okay, give me your money'.At least here in the Rockhampton strip joint the exchange taking place
between the men and woman was honest and transparent.
Times are changing though. I reckon in fifty years time, most of the
brothels will be full of guy's who are paid to service the women. In fact I
think that one day men will be scarce, locked up and used only for sexual
pleasure. And outside women will plentiful to the point where every woman's
period on the planet will have come together in sync. And once a month, the men who are locked up, caged, downtrodden and
isolated.... will be glad.
Every generalisation has an alternative argument.
I met Epod in Rockhampton. She was 28. It was refreshing to meet a person
who had never drunk alcohol, tried drugs or smoked a cigarette. Her head
was clear, her personality distinct. I certainly don't meet many people
like this in the pubs I work at. Maybe there are more people like this than
I thought. She said, she'd hung around heaps of flatmates who've been on
drugs.? 'I always thought they were so much of a better person when they
weren't stoned, though', she said.
The show at Collinsville was full on. Three hours of non-stop slamming, the
crowd with crudity. It was the only thing they responded to. There was no
lead up time to even my most punchy gags. The crowd was just too noisy and
drunk. The best reactions I got were by just encouraging people in the
crowd to come up and get naked.
The guy, who won the talent quest for
getting his gear off, threatened to punch me if I made any comments while he
sung his Slim Dusty song, as an encore. He'd been in Collinsville, with his
wife of 15 years. Apparently they were cousins.
At the end of the gig, a
guy came up and grabbed my microphone and asked me to get my gear off, since
I had been telling everyone else to do it'. I ignored him. Bad mistake.
He then insisted. This time, getting the whole pub behind him. It suddenly
dawned on me. Here I was, by myself in some tough mining town, looking out
at a pub full of mainly blokes with no teeth, while they were all chanting
for me to get my clothes off.
I had been trying to encourage outrageous
acts of nudity to keep the attention focussed in may act though. 'Fair
enough' I thought, his argument did have a point. Time to face the music,
so I ripped my shirt off and said to the guy with the microphone, that I'd
match anything he did. His shirt was already off. He then looked down
nervously and said, 'he didn't want to play anymore' and handed the
microphone back.
I went back to packing up my gear. I asked him afterwards
what happened. He said, 'I wasn't wearing any undies under my jeans'. He
then said, 'It's alright for you but I have to live in this town!'. After
the pub shut, a few brawls started up down the street. The bar staff said
it happens every Friday night after closing. 'After the pub shuts, there's
not much else to do in this town'. I hear that a lot.
The next day, I went into the Mackay chemist for some legal drugs.? I had
the full head/chest cold and was feeling fucked.? The Collinsville gig with
all the smoke had worn me out, I think. It was my first cold in six years.
I went back to my favourite $10 pub in Sarina and slept all day in one of
the single bed rooms upstairs, listening to old men wheeze all the way down
the corridor. They were my comrades.
I spoke to Bill the owner of the pub. He told me about all the properties
and pubs he owns. He even has a house near the coast with his own private
beach with all the toys such as speedboats on it. He raved on about how
good his house was and then said, it's up for sale.? I asked him 'why?' and
he said, 'I just enjoy making money and continually building it up'.
He
then stepped up to the karaoke again. Later he took me out for a joint with
one of the locals. Sex, power, things and escape. That's all we really
want. We just all go about it differently. And the end result is pretty
much the same, really, especially in Australia. Some people just eat in
more expensive restaurants, stay in more expensive accommodation, drive more
expensive cars, live in more expensive houses, drink a more expensive bottle
of wine and instead of sniffing petrol, snort cocaine. It's all a similar
experience at the end of the day though. Distraction, obliteration.
I met up again with two girls Id had such great fun with in Cairns, three
months ago. Id had a shagfest with one of them. In the meantime we'd
exchanged 100s of text messages, and emails I was the hippie homeless
comedian guy. She was the office princess. We were different but seemed to
connect. I suggested we meet up again at my favourite pub in Sarina. The
one dripping with humanitys salt. The Shipwreck Hotel.
Things were
different now though. Both girls smoked their cigarettes and looked around
in disdain at the rough trade seething around them. They werent
comfortable. Two drinks later they turned to me outside the pub and said,
Jimbo, you can really do better than this, before driving off. The object of my affection texted me later:? You need to get over the scum
and move on... if only just to keep the mind active. The affair and friendship was over as abruptly as itd started. I wasnt sure whether her words had hurt me or liberated me from the tyranny
of infatuation.
Sometimes I feel like I'm going down the elevator of social aspiration,
waving at all the people going up in on the other side, 'There's nothing
there', I keep yelling.? I feel they're also saying the same thing to me.
I find my mind most stimulated in the sediment of society. The place where
my instincts and spirits need to be called upon, as much as my intellect.
I'm not too sure about the top of society for stimulation, anymore. I mean
look at the world! It's a mess.
The top of society ain't exactly producing
the kind of leaders the world is desperately crying out for at the moment.
When was the last world leader who had enough vision to look beyond the next
election? When was the last world leader who even tried to tackle seriously
the two biggest crises facing humanity: poverty and environmental
destruction?
Humans are being lead by followers to the brink of extinction,
through red herring issues like terrorism and fear of other humans. And in
the process we're losing our greatest assets: tolerance for original
thought plus our empathy for other humans.
When we think about the world outside our own social microcosms we all feel
dazed, dumped and confused. Perhaps humanity will end as abruptly as it
started too. As humans, we all think we're alone but we're not. We're in
this primeval soup together. The more we ignore each other the less chance
we've got of collectively coming up with the answers which are now so
desperately needed. Some people you have to ignore though. Otherwise you
get arrested for stalking.
I walked around Sarina two days later on a Monday night. It was different
to last week. The town wasn't in hiding from the football team. It was
very quiet. I cruised back into the Carlon's front bar. There were only a
few people at the bar. Nothing like a cute bargirl to make you stop for one
drink, though. It was her first shift. And it was my first drink in a
week.
Anyway four hours later... I'd had a top night laughing and seeing
what goes on in the bar downstairs which I can normally only hear from
upstairs. The two pissheads at the bar were classics. Filthy, drunk,
perverted. At one stage, there were five of us at the bar. One had a
prosthetic leg. Another had his right arm missing despite a right handed
glove attached to his stubby holder. Outside, his speedboat had, 'Armless'
written on the side. Brilliant.
Then one of the pissheads next to me, started wanting to fight the old guy
with one leg for mispronouncing his nickname. "Don't call me 'coon', its
Kahoon". The legless guy kept on baiting him until, the other pisshead,
suggested he stop, "because he will punch". The angry guy, then said to the
legless old guy, 'Lucky, you're not 100 years younger, cause I would have
flattened you by now'.
The legless guy was then quiet for the rest of the night before hobbling
upstairs. As soon as he was gone though, the tension in the bar, flicked
back to revelry. The two pissheads told me a story on how their mate had
once rocked into the pub, asking them at the bar, 'whether it was 5 in the
morning or afternoon?' before walking out again. I had to laugh. They were
intense alcho's, these guys but I haven't laughed and seen two guys laugh
non-stop, like these two, in a long while. Alcohol ain't all bad.
Especially before the hangover.
The best thing, I find about travelling around by myself is the amazing and
unique interactions, I get to have. The worse part is that when it comes to
telling your stories to someone later, they are generally, 'had to be there'
experiences and totally irrelevant to the person's life that your speaking
to. Maybe that's why I'm writing about them instead?
I spoke to Bart the chef. He's leaving soon. He's got some work at a
mate's pub up north. He'll then go mango picking. He looks about mid 50's
with a great handle bar moustache. We talked about chicks. He says he
couldn't be fucked much with the bullshit these days and just prefers to not
be sleazy so that women can relate to him as a 'nice guy' and feel safe
around him. I'm sure when he sees and opening he goes for it though. The
Venus fly trap.
He said how this bar in Sarina, attracted the bottom of the barrel in the
town, which scared a lot of people off. I told him about my cold. He
said it's a virus which usually starts when the sugar crush is on each
season, with all the worker's being close together. He introduced me to his
mate. He patted him on the back and said his mate was 'like a brother'. He
then said he'd made four or five really good friends since he'd been in
Sarina.
Later on, four cops came into the bar and asked his mate for a driver's
licence ID. He said he hasn't got one 'because you guys kindly took it off
me three years ago'. They left soon after. I didn't ask.
I was in the weirdest, low life pub and loving it. The people were real,
kind, rough and mysterious.
'We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us
and call that handful our world' - Robert Pirsig.
I met a girl called Ami, at the bar, 2nite. She'd just turned 18. She was
so happy. I couldn't believe her story. Her mum was a prostitute and
junkie. She kicked Ami out of home when she was 12 years old in Townsville.
She then slept in the park for three years. Mainly in clothing bins. She
was on 'the hammer' at 13 and got off it six months later by going cold
turkey. She then met her 18 year old boyfriend. He committed suicide six
months ago.
She says she still feels guilty having a good time, without
him. She said, he wrote a note telling her to 'continue' though. She never
went to school but taught herself to read on a computer because she'd seen
how upset her auntie was when she growing up. She said her auntie, not
knowing how to read, used to cry whenever she got mail.
Anyway, she said
she'd had her 18th in Townsville last week and it was the best night of her
life, in the Mad Cow Lounge. They'd let her dance on the bar and played all
her songs. She said a strip joint had let her do some work there on the
desk recently, because 'she had a nice personality'.
She wasn't a stripper. She wasn't ugly. She was just someone who had somehow got to 18 despite
all the odds, with such a seemingly innocent and pure nature, completely
contradicting the environment she'd survived through. She said she was
reconciled now with her mum, who was so proud of her for surviving. She
read out some dirty texts messages from her aunty and mum. She then read
one out about Minnie mouse sitting on Pinocchio's nose and asking him to
lie. She said that was from her 11year old sister. She then said, 'she's a
bit of a worry, that one...'
She then told me how at 15, she was so ready
to settle down and have a baby with her boyfriend but it didn't happen and
now she's so glad she didn't because she'd be missing out on the fun, she's
now having since she'd turned 18. She said she sometimes feels guilty for
having fun knowing that her boyfriend is dead. I said to her, 'don't worry,
you're still very young and you've still got your whole life ahead of you'.
She then said, 'you know, you're pretty cute, for an old guy'.
It was 2am. I opened my door and peered into the dark corridor of the pub.
I could hear noises from the other rooms: some coughing, a guy talking dirty
and someone laughing maniacally. I shut the door reassuring myself that
nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
I read in the paper today a quote which said, 'Blogs are a great way to show
the world what a dickhead you are!' Hmm..
I had a drink in the Whitsunday Hotel before the gig. Highlight was having
a discussion with one of the barfly's over Descartes theories. He explained
his philosophies to me. This guy was an encyclopaedia of knowledge. He had
me enthralled. He then started talking about the time he nearly got fucked
up the arse in Long Bay Jail. It was an unusual segway. I was silent not
knowing how to reply. He noticed my silence and then cut back to talking
about Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher. I took another sip of my
beer and listened.
Descartes famous quote was apparently 'I think therefore I am'. Most people
now seem to believe 'I've hand-picked a few people's opinion which backs up
what I think therefore I am right'.
I'm getting so much experience meeting people. The type of people, I'd only
ever seen on TV before. The problem with TV though is that the characters
might look real but they're personalities are based on stereotypes not
reality. We need to stereotype though. 'Kiwi's fuck sheep, the town down
the road are all inbreeds...' The world's too big to comprehend, in all its
entirety and diversity. Humans have to classify things, in order to pretend
to ourselves that we do understand things. 'English are whingers, people on
the dole are bludgers, politicians lie...' It makes life simple and
understandable. or at least we think it does.
I drove off towards Hervey Bay. I had gigs booked down south. I ended up
sleeping in my car outside a Gympie Motel. It was cheaper than going in. I
was low on money, especially as I only had one gig this week. I got about
six hours sleep. I then drove to Noosa and waited for my friend Jodie. She
was moving up here from Adelaide with her five year old daughter. Her
sister had also travelled up to help her out. Jodie and I had semi planned
to meet up.
I walked around Noosaville, up and down the river where she was
moving to, sometime this week. I then walked out to the Noosa Head national
park and did the walk along the bush track. I was feeling pretty lonely,
broke and bored today. I so badly needed some connection with someone... a
root. Jodie was going to cop it from me! Hopefully she was up for it!
I'd
met Jodie after a comedy gig two years ago in Adelaide. A group of us had
gone back to the motel room. Anyway, Jodie and I ended up in bed. Her
workmate friend who couldn't find a shag herself then kind of gate crashed
our root, so it ended up being a threesome. During the shag, Jodie's friend
had said that she was 'the whore' and Jodie was the 'the Princess', which
meant I had to give Jodie the most attention, which was I think her way of
apologising to Jodie for joining in, at the last minute.
Anyway, since then Jodie and I have caught up a few times. I liked her.
She was great to chat to one on one with, something I loved, especially
after talking to crowd's night after night. Jodie rang me that evening just when I thought I might be spending another
night in the car.
She fed me, put her kid to bed and we had a great shag.
Fuck I needed it too, and I ravished her in return. We cuddled, kissed,
talked and fucked on a full stomach. It was all the nourishment, I needed.
The next day, we just potted around. Kelly her kid was gorgeous, very
confident and great fun to be around. It was good being around the energy
of a kid too, without having to entertain 100 of them at a party. I made
her balloon animals and chatted.
Whenever there was a verbal pause, she
kept on saying to me, 'What do you want to talk about?' She lapped up my
male company, which I suppose is natural when you don't live with one.
I told Jodie, it wasn't good being around such a nice kid because it'd
probably make me clucky. She laughed.
I showed Jodie and Corinne, her
sister, some video footage, I'd collected from the road. They were
interested in hearing my stories which was nice. It's kind of my gossip, I
suppose.
It's good to have someone familiar and interested to offload them
every now and again when you travel. That's why I love meeting up with
anyone familiar on the road, even if I've just met them once before. It's
another reason why I write, I suppose. It made me realise what a weird
lifestyle I have, though. I felt privileged to slot into their domestic
life too for a couple of days of 'normalcy', whatever that was.
Cooking,
pottering... Corinne, Jodie's sister was away from her husband for five
days now which was the longest she'd gone in ten years. It was such a
contrast to my lifestyle. On the last night, Jodie gave me a tarot card reading, which was great,
mainly because it just opened up the path for a full on conversation about
each other which I think is what tarot cards and star signs are all about.
I.e. they're a conversational piece that will hopefully end up as a root.
Anyway that's how guys mostly see them as. But it's the journey not the
destination!
She talked about her stuff and I talked about mine. We've all
got our stuff, it's what drives us. We talked for about five hours
downstairs, without even a bottle of wine. We then went upstairs and
rooted.
I then started talking about my big dream of writing a book. I
wanted so bad for some feedback. I read her a bit, namely a rooting story.
Anyway as soon as I'd read it, I knew I shouldn't have. She looked at me
and said I was 'satanic!' and I realised that regaling in an unrelated
rooting story to a chick just after you've just shagged her perhaps isn't as
appropriate as telling the same story, to a mate down at the pub.
We both
freaked out and had a bit of a brain explosion and then realised it was
mainly because we were so tired. It was 5am. We'd been talking non-stop
for eight hours. We drifted off to sleep and then laughed about it in the
morning upon remembering that our relationship was based on spiritual
honesty and self revelation not white lies and formal civilities.
I had some offers, after the Hervey Bay gig, to go out afterwards but
declined. I just wanted to go back and read my Bill Bryson book on
Australia and relax. My battery after leaving Jodie was full.
It made me thing that love, companionship and horniness can come so much out
of loneliness and boredom. I just had to recognise when I was like this.
It was at these times, I was most dangerous though. A month without it and
I go nuts, like a stray dog in the jungle, looking for something to get his
teeth into. I then start to dribble out the side of the mouth when I see a
girl which makes things worse. It's a vicious circle really!
At Jodie's, I slept like a demon. I slept in and also had a few hours
during the day. Jodie thought it was because I was bored of being in a
domestic situation and that was the only way I could handle it. Perhaps I
was tired, perhaps she was right. During her tarot session, the idea came
up that I was torn between my nomadic gypsy lifestyle and a desire to have a
family and more settled life. Staying with her made me realise that, I'd
have to make sure I really wanted it if I had a family. It'd certainly be a
massive adjustment for me to have a family. Just finding room in my
passenger seat, for one.
It's definitely a bit of a turn off my lifestyle though, especially for
girls. Living it, full-time, that is. I like to get my hands dirty. I
think it's easy to take for granted as a male, the freedom we have to do
basic things like go for a walk at night by yourself or rock into a pub by
yourself and have a beer without being sexually harassed. It's a man's
world in that sense.
I heard a great book revue about a guy who went out on foot into the world
on an artistic mission to find the 'genius amongst the weeds'. I related
big time.
I love that phrase, 'The genius in the weeds'. They're the people I look
for.
If someone does one thing wrong to us (especially if they ripped us off
materially or hurt us emotionally) we tend to brand them negatively and then
try and convince everyone else that they're 'bad'. We become blinkered.
CrUSades start.
I'm feeling much better physically today. I think the cold I got in
Collinsville took about two weeks to fully get out of me. I'm eating heaps
more now which is good. It made me think about the importance of being
healthy though. It truly is your best asset. Life is able to be grasped so
much more firmly when you're healthy and full of energy.
We went down to the Airlie Beach pool. It's a big outdoor pool beside the
harbour, beautifully landscape and full of gorgeous young things tanning
themselves during the day. It's nicknamed 'The Gene pool' because of the
amount of condoms in the morning, that are found floating in it.
October 2004.
Sheryl, from the Universal Hotel in Warwick, says she misses her daughter in
Canberra. She says her daughter thinks Warwick is too boring. Terry the
publican said it's a 'weird town'. Every town thinks they're different.
Every person thinks they're different. That's what makes people and towns
all so similar.
Michael told me about all the rules and regulations publicans now have to
abide by. State and Federal laws, the Dept of gaming and racing, the LAB
(Liquor admin board), the Police, the Local Gov, the NSW Health, the RTA.
They're all laying out rules for pubs to abide by. To be a barperson now, you must do an RSA course (responsible service of
alcohol) plus an RSG course (responsible conduct in gaming).
Whenever there is a DUI charge or any drunk and disorderly, domestic
violence situation etc the police ask where the offender had they're last
drink and at the end of the month a linkages report is done to the local
pubs. One room in the pub must be smoke free. In the pokie room there must
be two clocks seen by all and natural light coming in but no frontage onto a
street as you are not allowed to see or hear a pokie room from outside.
The basic conclusion most publicans lament now is that if someone got into
trouble after drinking, 'no-one was responsible'. It was the pub's fault.
Soon you won't be able to smoke in pubs. I wonder if in sixty years,
Grandchildren will be hearing stories like, 'I remember when you could drink
in a pub'. 'No way, Grandpa!... you must be so old'.
Outside the pub one arvo, I saw the 'drunkest man alive' bang his head into
a shop window. He was beyond drunk. He'd apparently been at the races all
day. He hit the pavement and didn't get up. It was 4pm. Why?
Guyra was freezing. The local Caravan Park claimed it was the highest one
in Australia. Bullshit. I still reckon Nimbin's caravan park was higher.
'This guy was huge', he said.
'How big?' I asked.
'Well, put it this way' he replied, 'you wouldn't want him to fart on your
last pound of flour'.
A 'Gock' is apparently a gut over a guy's cock. I'll let you figure what
out what a 'Gunt' is.
I found a million dollar ring. I then lost it before realising that I
didn't need it anyway. I then woke up. What a re-affirming dream, I
thought.
When back in Sydney, I did a gig at The Bull n Bush. It went for five and a
half hours, which was a record for me. Aiad the Iraqi who I'd met last year
at a show in Parramatta came down. He's a big fan of mine and I'm a big fan
of his. He was getting right into the show. Afterwards he asked me to come
back to Iraq with him in January to do some school shows for the kids. I
said I'd like to, except I was worried about getting my head cut off with a
blunt knife or going to Guantanemo
Bay.
He said, 'not to worry as his surname was the most popular in Iraq and
he knew lots of people there'. It sounded exciting. I asked him again, if
he was sure I'd be safe. He said, 'all I needed to do was get my hair dyed
black and brown contact lenses and everything would be alright'.
She's 30 and talked about how having a man in her life would be a hassle.
'Just little things like having to tell him what I'm doing each day'. Her
house was all set up with everything she needed. A bloke would just disrupt
it, she said. She said the idea of having a kid interested her more than
having a relationship.
Times are a changing. It seems the more women get financially independent
the more they realise that a full time bloke in their life, just gets in the
way. A women's emotional needs can be met far better with her girlfriends
and all her sexual needs can be met far better with a shag buddy. Sex is
then something 'casual and fun', instead of 'routine and boring' and just a
phone call away. Like Charlie Sheen said about prostitutes. 'I don't pay
them to have sex with me. I pay them to leave, after sex'. The same can be
said about the guy who comes out to do the guttering. The type of work
which financially independent women, no longer need a husband for.
She told me about a shag buddy she had this year. He came around at 6am,
instead of going to the gym. Said she liked the excitement of it all, until
his wife found out.
I stayed for four days at Kate's house. It was perfect. I had the house to
myself all day to do my admin work and then she came home from work. 'Hello
honey, how was work?', I'd say.
We went over to her friend's place for a drink. There were two other
couples. We talked and drunk while they're kid's played in the other room.
I find it real hard to stay awake when socialising. I nearly went to sleep
but couldn't because I knew how rude it'd be. They were all enjoying
gossip. It was also a break from the kids for them, some rare adult
company to indulge in. I didn't relate but totally understood. If it's not
full on stuff, I find it tiring to maintain interest in conversations,
though. It's hard work. I chip in every now and then with a gag though.
After all, that's my job. We ate pizza and heaps of it.
I spoke to Jodie from Noosa. She said her daughter refers to me as 'sleepy
head'. Whenever I'm in a domestic situation, I tend to sleep and eat heaps.
I love the rest and static nature of these settings but know it's not good
for me. I just go to pot. I'd end up like another bean bag in the house.
The lazy good for nothing man. I need the dynamic nature of the road. Old
people are lucky. They can snooze off in company when they like and get
away with it, without being seen as rude. I can't do that just yet... but
I'm working on it.
I love driving out of a town and the feeling of the road disappearing under
my wheel. The adventure, apprehension and excitement of what's to come,
lights me up. It's my drug. I also really need the familiarity and love
and connection of a stay, like at Kate's. It's like plugging my phone in
for a recharge, every now and then. I leave town on a full battery which
is important out here in this big huge, mysterious, delicious country.
Wilcannia. I love this town. It's forbidding. The only town in the middle
of a 500km stretch between Cobar and Broken Hill. The only supermarket in
town was burnt down last year. The main street is littered with shops,
bordered up with chicken wire. Years ago it used to be NSW's third largest
country town. The home of Reschs Brewery set on the mighty Darling River,
accessed by huge paddle steamers.
The river, a source of food for the
Aborigines for thousands of years is now a trickle. The town is on its
knees. White people drive through it. My gig was at their golf club.
People in Broken Hill told me I wouldn't get out alive. As usual, in so
called 'rough towns', the gig wasn't that bad. It was a tough start though,
getting people going. They weren't used to comedy shows in this part, so I
made up for it by going out hard.
In the break Richard the security guy, Terri the manager and Boydie the
bargirl pulled me aside and said I had to tone it down. I was being told my
behaviour in Wilcannia was a bit out of line. The Abo folk in the crowd
were apparently complaining to the staff that if they carried on with the
language I was using, they'd get kicked out. I could see the dilemma.
Controlling language in mixed towns was a way of controlling behaviour
inside establishments and I was flying right in the face of this fragile
social order. Bad language was for outside the pub, not in them. In the
cities, it was the other way round.
The second half of my show, flowed. People were used to me now. They in
turn, came up the front and I had a good time too. The main antagonist in
the crowd (which I need for my show to work) was Colin who alternatively
wanted to bash me and praise me. He tested all my heckling and surviving
skills.
Several times he approached the stage to clock me for paying to
much disparaging attention to his wife (who couldn't shut up). Her name was
Janelle. One time he came up to the stage with his fist fully cocked. I
went into full comedian survival mode. That is, I engaged full eye contact
with him, stopped the show and leant forward towards him, listened and
apologised. His anger had nowhere to go plus he could get out of it saving
face. At the end of the show he bought a shirt and said, 'God bless you'.
Unreal, no hard feelings.
Stars were the three road crew guys who rocked
up. They were at the show in Geurie where the guy had hauled me into the
dunnies mid gig. They must think I nearly get beaten up every show.
Perhaps they're right. One looked like Mark Geyer, the Rugby League player.
I started calling him that and Colin came up and shook his hand thinking
he was. This was a fanatical league town. After the show, Terri upped my
fee from $200 to $250 and wanted me back. Duncan behind the bar with all
the tatts and piercing told me how he was from Wollongong and came up here
for something different. He said houses were often broken into here but
cars were interestingly left alone because people of the town (even the
thieves) respected how much they were needed here because of the isolation.
November 2004.
Next day I drove out to White Cliffs, the historic opal town which used to
have a population of 2000, one hundred years ago, in its heyday. It's now
got about 200 people living there. I spoke to Fred who was sitting outside
the pub with a beer in hand. He said he'd been banned from going inside for
swearing. I had a yarn to him He told me about the AA meetings they used
to have in White Cliffs. 'We used to rock up there with a dozen cans', he
said, straight faced. 'You see he didn't mind you having a drink because
the more people he got in, the better off the meeting was'. 'Well I suppose alcohol is one way of getting them there', I reasoned back.
I spoke to Jock who lived in a dugout house on the side of a hill. He said,
there wasn't much opal found there now. 'Most of the people here, came
looking for a fast buck. They're now too poor to get out. It's a hard town
to leave if you've got no money', he said. 'It's a long walk to Wilcannia'.
I drove on from Wilcannia and rang Sam in Nyngan from Cobar. She said I
could stay. I'd met her last time I did a show here. Sam cooked a nice
salmon patty and veggie meal for me. She told me how she was stoned from
year 7 til year 11 and used to be really introverted. She tried heaps of
drugs at Uni until a couple of good friends had a car accident on acid. One
is now a paraplegic, the other went to jail for 18 months. She said that
kind of snapped her out of it. She said, her parents find it ironic that
their 'problem child' is now a school teacher.
Dunedoo is near Dubbo. Apparently a few years back they were going to
create the 'Big Dunny' in town as a tourist attraction. It was narrowly
voted down, mainly by the old family land owners. The said, they didn't
want their town known for a big toilet that adorned the main street.
Out
the back of the Dunedoo Hotel, there were a couple of greyhounds sitting
quietly on a leash. I went to pat one. He was placid. I then patted the
other one. I think I needed the affection as much as they did. Coming back
past the first one, I gave him another pat. He was no longer placid. He
was jealous that I'd also patted the other dog. His teeth sprung out, into
my wrist. I was a bit shocked at the sudden realisation that I was being
attacked with the teeth of another animal. I recoiled back. Blood was not
running out but more gently oozing out of my wrist, like I'd had an
unsuccessful suicide attempt.
I walked into the pub and showed the owner
and told him what had happened, hoping to get some sympathy and maybe a bit
of dettol and a bandaid. He looked at my injury and then said straight up,
'Is the dog alright? The only thing stopping me from being indignant at his
lack of concern for me, was the speed at which he'd delivered such a funny
line. I had to pay it.
After getting my wound cleaned up, I had a yarn to an old guy at the bar.
He said, 'You see, what you've gotta realise when you come into a new town
is that you've got to approach the dogs and the women very carefully, cause
you don't know which ones are going to bite you'. Wise words.
During the gig, one guy started telling me and the crowd his life story. It
was pretty interesting. He was a Hell's angel, a Vietnam vet, had done ten
years in jail, plus he'd had five wives and 14 kids. Amongst this included
a story on how he'd left his second wife and then married her sister as his
third wife. I said 'was the wedding weird?'. He said the best bit was, 'I
didn't have to meet any new parents-in-law'. I then went on. 'Did the
sisters taste the same?' He shot back immediately with, 'Mate there's a
difference between vegemite and marmite'.
After the show he was telling me
about his son who has got a crippled leg. He was going into his primary
school tomorrow to build a railing in the playground for him. I also got
talking politics with a girl after the show. She was adamant that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda and Sept 11'. I asked her
why she thought this. She said, 'cause I've heard it said, heaps of times
on TV'
Problems, issues and neuroses. We've all got them. I think they just come
to the fore by not dealing with them. They also come up when you don't have
mental 'distractions' in your life. If life's rocking, you couldn't be
fucked worrying about other shit. It's not as exciting. Your brain
couldn't be fucked. It doesn't want to revert back to old thought patterns.
Hence the commonly used phrase, to people who always moan about the same
shit in their lives: 'Get a life'. I wonder if ghosts say that to each
other.
I went to Young, the old gold mining town which is also the country's cherry
picking capital. I had a swim in the local pool. Country pools are great,
they're practically empty during the day. There was no-one else in my lane,
let alone the whole 50m pool. In Sydney there are always a few people in
each lane. I went past the local Real Estate office of John R Barton, who
was also my uncle. What is it with real estate managers and the middle
initial in their name!?
I did a gig also in a place called 'Wombat'. A one pub hamlet and full of
characters. The town was named because of all the holes around the area
left by the gold diggers. Outside the pub was a sculpture of a wombat which
was donated by an English tourist who once stopped in there. He sent it
over from England when he returned. At the show was a local character. His
nickname was 'Wombat'.
It wasn't because of the name of his town and it
wasn't because he likes to 'eat, roots and leaves', when he goes to a party.
It was because he dead set looked like a wombat! He had a protruding face
and big bushy eyebrows. He told me that Wombat was the healthiest place in
NSW. 'Yep' he said, 'they had to shoot someone to start a cemetery here'.
I stayed with my friends Nicky and Pat in Dubbo. Nicky was a single Mum
with three daughters who was gone through years of depression and a couple
of suicide attempts. She then got herself together and met Paul. They
truly were mates. They plan to marry soon. We sat out on their porch, under
the stars, drinking. I felt at home. Nicky said her idea of success has
changed over the years. She said now success to her is simply 'to be able
to entertain and put up friends like you, when they drop by'. I felt
honoured.
He took me up his four wheel drive track in the pine forests on the edge of
town. Off road driving was his hobby. The track he took me up, was at
least 45 degrees. We got stuck. I said to him after, 'you're mad'. He
said back, 'well Jimbo, a lot of people would say that you're mad, for what
you do as well'.
At The Globe Pub, in Cootamundra, I spoke to an old guy who lives there,
upstairs. We watched the cricket on an old big screen TV in the common
room. TV's used to be big, then they went small screen now they're all
going back to big screen again. Fashions come and go.
He said he couldn't
sleep last night because someone next door was coughing all night. He said
he'd given up alcohol two years ago. He was old, skinny and continually
rolled cigarettes. He said he'd been busted yesterday afternoon by the
owner for taking two slices of bread from the kitchen common area. He was
upset about it. He didn't think he deserved to be admonished over that. He
kept his eyes on his rolling hand while talking to me, not that he needed
too. It looked like he'd rolled a few in his time.
On the road it can get pretty lonely. That's why I always carry my blow-up
cow. Below are some before and after inflation shots.
This night's gig was a disaster. I started at 8:30 and the room was full of
absolutely blind people who had got back from drinking at the Harden Races
all day. I was in the corner room with a pool table in front of me. Most
of the crowd, of about twenty, were around the corner in the next room. It
wasn't the best set up for doing comedy. I went real hard to fight for the
attention of their remaining brain cells.
They were blind drunk. They
were literally falling over. Their attention spans weren't up for any
subtlety or any long lead up to a punch line and I wasn't going to give them
any. I got them but after a few warnings that I'd 'gone over the line',
with my content, Barney the owner came up to me and told me to stop because
I was scaring customers away. He gave me $50 and a room key though.
I went
upstairs wondering what I was doing for a living. A couple of guys offered
me a drink but I didn't feel like hanging around the bar and talking shit.
I finished off my Henry Rollins book, 'The first five', about his first five
years of touring on the road. It was awesome. That guy's travelling down
his own path. I totally related at a time when I needed to. I still felt
low though after a tough gig. I don't have Henry's rage but I felt his
encouragement. I left in the morning to go to Tarcutta for my 2pm gig. I
said goodbye to my mate. He was watching TV and rolling tobacco again.
She looked old but it was obvious her mind was still sharp. It was sad to
see her sight and hearing all but gone. She said I was the first person to
visit her who didn't want to know all the details about what was wrong with
her. I wanted to get her laughing with a few road stories, instead. She
said, 'I'm 88 and the most important thing in life is your happiness...
That doesn't mean you have to be on top of the world the whole time mind
you, but happiness is the most important thing.'
I bumped her chair with
my leg while talking. She didn't know what it was. She thought maybe it
was a tremor and told me about the time when she was a kid and felt tremors
in Canberra. I said to fill in the conversation gap, 'we wouldn't want a
tremor'. She paused and said, 'I'm probably the wrong person to ask that
question... you see I'm one half here and one half on the other side'. It
was obvious she wanted to go and move on from this life but it was also
re-affirming to me that she still had her sense of humour. I left knowing
it was probably the last time I'd see my Grandmother.
Nature is so unsymmetrically perfect.
Dec 2004.
The gig in Werribee blew me away. Joseph 'the gangster' as I called him,
owned it. He was short with gold chains and a big aura. Italian. He
lived most of the year in Papua New Guinea, where he said he went to get
away from the world and all the bullshit. He said he had 17 wives up there
and I reckon he did. He was obviously with the manager plus Alice who was
by his side, also drinking with him.
She was a Melbourne society lady.
Joseph, despite obviously being a wealthy man, was her 'little bit of rough'
on the side, I gathered. They'd been having an affair for 20 years now.
They were both on, loving life and raging against the dimming light of their
youth. Affairs aren't for everyone but they're not all bad. These two were
vibrant.
Joseph had organised a good gig. He was the man. Up the front of
the gig, on the front table were three young lesbian couples who were
kissing each other all through my show. I found it hard to concentrate, so
I spoke my mind, mid show. I pulled one couple up and asked them to go down
on each other in front of the whole crowd.
One was up for it, the other one
wasn't. The crowd was on their feet in anticipation, like school children
who were suddenly being told by their teacher, mid way through an English
lesson, how to pack a bong properly. The girls thought about it but in the
end after 20 minutes of teasing, nothing happened. The crowd were glad I
tried though. I'd had a go!
I remember being selected to do a VB television ad. It was a campaign
involving three guys sitting on a couch, watching sport, having quips with
each other while drinking VB. The casting agent went through fifty actors.
He couldn't find the third one. In desperation he went to the Sydney Comedy
Store which was next door to the casting agent and asked whether there were
any yobbo looking comedians on their books between 25 and 35 years old.
I
was sent down on a cattle call and jagged the third spot. Afterwards, the
director said to me, 'Mate that was fantastic acting. You should get an
agent'. I said to him, 'Mate, you asked me to sit on the couch, watch
cricket and drink piss while having a laugh with a couple of guys. I'm
hardly an actor'.
I did a gig at The Manly Boatshed. At the end of my set, I mentioned the
word 'Mother' in one of the set-ups to a punch line. One pissed lady up the
back all of a sudden started screaming at the top of her voice, 'Don't talk
about mothers... My mother is dead, my mother's dead..' She wouldn't shut
up.
The whole crowd went silent and so did I. The crowd was looking at me
in anticipation. I said to them, 'you're probably wondering how I'm going
to get a laugh out of this aren't you?' The crowd laughed nervously back in
acknowledgment. The lady kept on going. I milked it. It gave me time to
work up the tension and think of a punch line for the crowd to release a big
one. I could feel a big opportunity coming. She yelled out again, 'My
mother's dead'.
I have one responsibility as a comedian. That is to make my audience laugh. I knew I'd have to go left of field on this one. I was in a tight corner
but loving it because in order to get a laugh here I was going to have to
think left of centre and take a big risk. These are the moments on stage I
love. 'Yeah' I replied. 'Well how about I dig her up and fuck her'. The
crowd lost it. There were people vomiting their last mouth of beer back
into their glass. People were falling over.
I'd nailed it. It was a
comedy orgasm from hell. A magic moment or so I thought. The outraged
women then pushed through the crowd, walked up to me and threw the remaining
bit of her wine glass, in my face. I was impressed. It was the perfect
finale. I then said, 'That was the big ending I was looking for, you'll all
remember this gig and so will I, thank you and goodnight'.
After I got off
stage, I went up to the lady and gave her a big hug and thanked her for her
theatrics not really caring whether they were real or not. I then asked her
what the story was. She said her mother had died ten years ago. She then
apologised for being a bit emotional. She said she'd just broken up with
her boyfriend which she said had bought it on. I asked her to join me with
my friends for a drink. She stayed with us for about half an hour and then
thanked me and said goodbye.
The next day, I got a call from the agent who
had booked me. Someone in the crowd had rung up the owner of the venue and
complained. The venue owner who wasn't there was horrified. He then rang
the agent for answers. I was in turn reprimanded strongly and told I won't
be booked there again. I tried to explain. I was cut off, 'Jimbo, you just
can't make jokes about digging up someone's Mum and fucking her. There is a
line, Jimbo and you crossed it'.
I thought about the situation I was in, on
stage. This was even tighter. I used the same technique. 'Hey, it wasn't
like I said, I'd stick her femur up my arse and cum into her skull. There
may be a line but its all relative...' The agent didn't hear the last bit.
They'd hung up. Tough crowd. Not everything goes right in comedy. It's a
tricky business.
At my Coogee gig, My Iraqi friend came to the show. I got him up on stage
and told the crowd how he'd asked me to go to Iraq with him but I wasn't
sure because I didn't want to get my head hacked off with a blunt knife or
end up in Guantamao bay. In the break a guy accosted me at the bar. He was
furious and intimidating. He pinned me against the wall and said, 'my best
friend got his head hacked off in Iraq. Don't you ever make a joke about
that again, you hear me!' I said, 'I'm sorry'. He then walked away.
I
then realised what I said on stage wasn't a joke. Of all the people in the
crowd to realise this, I'd assume this guy would be one of them. Then
again, maybe he was just fucking with me. Like I said before, earning a
living from comedy can be tricky business at times. I love it in the same
way a heroin addict loves his next hit.
New Year's Eve, Sydney. Maybe if I put fireworks on before my show, more
people would turn up.
January 2005.
I did a gig at The Tourist Hotel in Sandy Hollow. I got talking to a guy
afterwards who works nearby in a Hunter Valley winery. His name was Neil.
He said he was a wine taster. I asked him why he was drinking beer all
night. He said he can't stand the taste of wine. He then added 'but I know
what a good wine tastes like'. I was puzzled, 'if you don't like wine, why
have you got a job as wine taster?'.
He said, 'because, I'm secretly working towards getting my dream job in
another part of the company I'm working for. It's part of a grander plan'.
I was intrigued. 'What's this dream job you want?' I asked.
His eyes lit up. 'I want to be a beer taster'.
I absolutely love the change in people and scenery my lifestyle, offers.
The only slight sadness is that I know I'm addicted to something which is
the total antithesis of settling down. As a wandering spirit, there's about
10% of me which would love the companionship and stability of a monogamous
relationship. But I know, that when I'm in 'a relationship', there is 90%
of me that dreams of the freedom of having a full-time leave pass. Be
careful what you wish for.
Nat and I slept outside her Dad's girlfriend's place, on the front lawn, in
an open swag under the stars. We were in Gulargambone. Halfway through our
shag a young guy, about 17 stopped on the nature strip, on his way back from
a party. He asked us if he could join in. Nat, said 'No!'. Unperturbed,
he then started talking to me. 'I'll bring my girlfriend over in the
morning for you to try, in return'. I didn't know what to say. Nat's Dad's
girlfriend then swung open the door. We thought she was asleep. 'Fuck off
back home will you', she said yelling at the kid who had propositioned us.
She then disappeared back inside the house while the kid moved on.
'Well that was all a bit weird' I whispered to Nat.
'That's Gulargambone for you', she said.
Apparently Yabbies are vegetarian. When you put meat in a Yabby net, they
go towards it to kill it but not eat it. It's a territorial thing.
Next day, I just relaxed at home, watched the tennis while she went out and
did some stuff around town. At about 5pm, I could tell something was wrong.
I said 'you're double booked with your local shag buddy tonight haven't
you'. She said 'yes'. I knew exactly how she felt. Stressed about
upsetting two people and being in the middle of it. I said, 'no worries,
I'll leave'. This guy had been up in Cairns for a week and was itching to
see her. I would have been too. She then said how said she was a bit
worried because 'he was becoming a little bit too keen and possessive,
lately'.
'Yep, I better go', I said to myself. 'This town ain't big enough for the
both of us'.
It's a bit like income tax bracket creep, relationships. They just come up
on you and before you know it you're in deeper level of commitment due to
the inflationary nature of time. I try and ignore time in the hope it
ignores me too. Maybe that's what Dreamtime was about?
February 2005.
I was back at The Werribee Hotel for a return gig. I chatted afterwards to
the bar staff. We agreed that we're all very insular as a society which
breeds a lot of discrimination and fear of fellow humans. Joey talked about
a few classic scenes he's seen there, including: The mum and daughter who
came in. The daughter was a little girl who had made a little pink drawing
book for her uncle who was in jail. Her mum was showing it around and then
ripped a bit of string off it which was holding the book together and said
to her daughter 'better not put that on, he might hang himself with it'.
Joey said it was said so matter of factly, like it was 'normal'. And
everything is, in a way. He also told the story about the local chick who
cheated with a guy and then egged on her jealous boyfriend to stab the guy
who she'd slept with. He did and had guts hanging out everywhere, Joey
said. The girl then went off with the guy who got stabbed and they're still
together now. Joey said around here, 'AVO's and stabbings are a form of
romance'.
The farmers around here grow a lot of market vegetables. There has been a
bit of a drought lately. The farmers wanted to use bore water but the
government didn't let them, telling them that the bore water wasn't theirs.
The government claimed it was 'government property'. Last week a big storm
hit and flooded out Werribee and millions of dollars worth of crops. The
farmers are now trying to get together to sue the government for flooding
their property with water which they now say, by the same argument is,
'government owned'. The laws of nature are mysterious yet balanced. On the
other hand, the more logical and fair human law tries to be, the more of an
ass it becomes.
The local Warnnambool paper, did an article about a guy in the surrounding
area who last month had been caught fucking a horse. The last line in the
article said, '... and the horse wasn't even his.'
I'd met her at the gig. We went out for a drink. She then asked me back to
her place. She was 17. She turns 18 the day after I turned 35. She said
her Mum was coming around at 10am, to visit her. She was a bit concerned.
It was now 8:30am. I said, 'No worries, I'll be off. besides, I'll probably
want to fuck her too'.
I checked the rear vision mirror as I pulled out of town. It was a
re-occurring dream. 'One day I could live in this town'.
At the bar was a knockabout guy called Jeff. A drifter, 40 years old, on
the pension plus getting part time work at the local mine. We were at the
Iron Knob Hotel. He was, drinking, laughing and telling me about his tough
past. 'My cousin tried to kill me, he stabbed me 12 times and then I turned
11... I got chased out of Albany by bikies 10 years ago and been travelling
ever since'. He then went quiet and showed me a huge picture of his late
Dad's face, tattooed on the side of his chest. 'He's dead now', he said.
The bar closed at 2pm. He had said I could crash in his room out the back
but he seemed like an old drunk who would want to talk all night. I felt a
bit of a vibe from the bar girl but it was a long shot and would require me
hanging around to closing at least.
I went out to my car. The rooms were
$50 but I promised myself I'd get from Warrnambool to Perth on $300 which
was enough for petrol and supermarket food. I was due for a night in the
car, I reasoned. Then a brainwave hit me. The car was totally chockers,
back seat and passenger side but there was a small gap on top. I crawled
through and found I could stretch myself out. Perfect.
I wriggled around
and found a position like I was the missing bit in a jigsaw puzzle,
consisting of my speakers, amp, clothes and everything else I owned, all
neatly positioned in my car, with a space in between for me. I remember a
friend telling me that the best way to sleep well is to 'have a mentally and
physically challenging day every day of your life'. That way, when you go
to bed each night, your body will want to sleep. You'll go out straight
away. I did.
I got to the Nullarbor roadhouse and saw a few pushbike riders coming the
other way. There's always someone doing it tougher and loving it. Sleeping
in my car wasn't that bad
All the advice was to not travel the Nullarbor at night. They said it was,
treacherous especially for a small car. There were camels, huge roos,
cattle, emus, wombats all over the road. I was in the mood for a challenge
though. I drove at 60kms an hour. You definitely get into a zone on these
long drives and I loved it.
I went over the usual stuff in my head. What I
loved about being by myself was that there was no-one with me to bother me,
'you can't drive now' or to tell me that I was bothering them cause I didn't
think or do the same as what they wanted and vise versa.
Driving the
Nullarbor at night was a twilight experience. It was awesome. There are
plenty of reasons to stay awake too. No. 1. Death, if you fall asleep at
the wheel. No. 2. Hitting a beast. No. 3. Being Falcony's next victim.
Cars hardly passed me and there was only the odd road train. At one point a
car stopped ahead of me and did a u-turn next to another Ute. I passed
them, then they both followed me. I was shitting myself a bit. It's so
isolated here. I grabbed my juggling knife from the back and opened the
door ready to run into the bush, in case they pulled me over. My blood was
pumping.
One Ute passed. I was in between them for a long while before the
other one passed along with my ill founded fears, 50kms on. The buzz kept
me awake though. Life's a moment thing. Bring it on.
I eventually got into
Balladonia. I'd collected another three hours time zone difference but it
was 3am in old time and I was tired but still pumped. The mental
concentration required to continually look out for animals and stay at the
right speed limit was a good workout and I recommend it. I went to sleep
again on top of my speakers and boxes and plugged a gratuitous six hours
sleep.
Norseman. The end of the road. A very long road.
Keeping company with someone can be a bit of hard work, especially when I'm
just thinking mainly of all the hack work needed to get gigs. It's got
nothing to do with them. They don't want to hear it and I don't expect any
help off them either. It's not their area of expertise. I wouldn't be able
to help a jeweller much. As I get older, I get worse at chit chat. I no
longer pretend that I'm into it. unless I think I can get a root, a top
story or a gig out of it.
He said to me over a beer, 'Jimbo, why do we hurt most, the people who are
close to us?'
Perth was about as relaxed a big city as you get but still it was too big.
I stopped into a pub on the way and asked the manager for a gig. When I
said I swore, she said, 'sorry this isn't the right venue for your show'.
They'd just done renovations and were trying to smarten the joint up and get
a better clientele. I walked out depressed at the changing state of
Australian culture. It was all chasing money, which meant, sterile,
non-offensive environments. It gave me more resolve to just get back out
into the country and do my stuff there.
I wasn't flat but feeling a bit down travelling into Narrogin. I ran over a
rabbit and killed it, to make things worse. It made me think that perhaps
all life just gets reabsorbed into the Great Spirit, only to bubble out
again in another form. Things are connected. Who knows? I feel certain
things are keeping me going.
The driving gods for one have been great and I
thank them every now and then for keeping me safe. I usually, get up and
thank them in the middle of the night. It's the only praying I do. I've
done a lot of kms in my time around Australia. Easily, half a million kms
over the years, since I started driving.
Anyway when you're by yourself you
can get into the occasional negative loop in your mind. It's best to just
to snap yourself out of it and truck on. The best way, I find is for
something to distract me. That's what I love about travelling, something
new is always around the corner. You've got a better chance of being
distracted from your own fog by something new and interesting. Your fog
doesn't lift, you just drive through it.
I drove past one pub which looked
pretty busy to another one that was less busy but more inviting. A big huge
balcony always does it for me. I walked into the bar and immediately two
guys asked me what the poster in my hand was for. They were in a great mood
and sent me down to the owner at the end of the bar who was sitting next to
a guy called Charlie. They were both into it and Ike the owner immediately
booked me. Then Charlie, bought my DVD unsighted for $20 and I then asked
Ike whether the $20 I now had in my hand, paid for the accommodation for a
single bed for the night (despite knowing that the sign out the front saying
$25). I was now feeling cheeky. He not only agreed but bought me a beer.
I was no longer down. It didn't take much. I just had to keep going. I
ended up having three with Charlie and felt amazed again at how much of a
friendly and relaxed time I was having in such a great pub. I was back. I
went up to my room early. I needed a good sleep. I'd been in Warrnambool
less than a week ago and had done 5000kms in between. I needed a rest. A
holiday within a holiday and I had the idea to just maybe hang here for
maybe even a week to just catch up on reading writing, planning, exercising,
rejuvenating and getting positive. I drank my beer toasting to myself that
I'd made it across to the west coast of Australia. Unchartered territory.
I think that's what excited me most about the new state I was in and also
why I was feeling temporarily lost.
Surviving on the road, looking for cheap places to stay and eat plus
covering big distances while hussling gigs was taking its toll. It wasn't
so much me getting run down but if I didn't rejuvenate I would kind of miss
out on capturing the best out of what's ahead of me, I thought. That's the
secret of travelling. There's a rhythm to it which needs constant
monitoring.
I heard on the radio the other day an interview with a guy about his trip
around Australia on a motorbike and the book he wrote called, 'Not all
ringers and cowboys' by Drew Radford. I picked it up yesterday and have
been reading it, since. I love it and can really relate to his insights of
travelling alone. It seems the beauty of travelling alone is all the
amazing and unique experiences you have. The only trouble being you can't
share them, unless you write about them and even then it's not the same.
It's a Catch 22 in a way because if someone was with me, then I probably
wouldn't have had the same experiences. Was that fucking obvious or what!
That's the good thing about having someone with you, though. They can let
you know when you're dribbling shit, instead of having it just running
around your mind in circles, unchecked!
In his book Drew interviewed a great guy called Pete up the top of
Australia. He was an old guy who travelled around by himself out bush in
serious 4WD country. Pete said: 'No I don't worry about my personal
welfare, I think if you start worrying about that, then you shouldn't step
out past your front door. If you worry about dying or getting hurt you
might as well go back home and stay there. This makes people live longer.
Your brain gets out of that rat race, where everyone is trying to eat you,
clamber over the top and beat you. Once you get out here, you are your own
boss. If you don't want to go any further today, you shut her down, brew
some coffee and tell a few more lies', Pete was quoted as saying.
I couldn't agree more. Drew mentioned a lot in his book how he loved
travelling but realised he was on a deadline to finish stories and get
places from his backers, which created a bit of stress and stuff. I
realised that's the beauty of what I do. I'm on a shoe string but I'm my
own boss and can take breaks like now if I want. I'm only planning ahead
really a couple of months and can pace myself with stuff and have no
deadlines or wife or kids to get back to.
There's was also a great quote in the book from a guy called Ken Norton at
his desk at the Sandfire roadhouse, W.A. It said 'A man who is true to
himself will always have enemies but among the genuine he will always have
friends'.
Drew said he'd got this bit of advice from a traveller in Pakistan: 'Travel
is work'. By this he meant, 'it was about keeping your batteries charged so
you can get the most out of what you are experiencing, which requires
occasionally taking a break, resting and rejuvenating'. That to me was what
this week was to me and it gave me encouragement to take it. It wasn't lazy
or indulgent, I thought against my misgivings. It was necessary. My
spirits were soaring. I'm stoked at not having to move far or talk much to
anyone. Books are my new friend.
In Ewen Macgregor's book about riding his motorcycle from London to New York
with a mate, he talks at the beginning how he loves getting out by himself
but finds it hard disguise himself from people who recognise him. I so
don't have any of that. Unreal!
I went for a walk today and saw a great
three bedroom house in a nice area close to town for $35K. I couldn't
believe it and for a good few hours dreamed of settling down here. Then I
thought what would I do with a house?! Just sit in it and watch TV. Fuck
that.
I had a drink with Dave who I'd met in the bar. I told him I was
writing. He was a painter but said he wrote a bit. He went upstairs and
bought a piece of paper down, which he'd written a piece on lately. It was
awesome. It was all about introspection and the pointlessness of
materialism. We had a definite connection. I knew it all week from seeing
him drink by himself. He was 37 and another loner on his trip. We had two
beers. He went to dinner. I went upstairs. It was just the sprinkle of
interaction I needed. Short and intense.
I was more into books now. I was a bit peopled out.
For the month of March 2005, I decided to write an in depth diary describing
pretty much everything I did - from the mundane to the exciting. Here' tis!
In April 2005, normal transmission will be returned.
March 2005:
