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In the arvo, I played my DVD on the screen for a few of the guys in the bar to see their reaction. I'd just made it and wanted some critical feedback. Which bits people liked, which bits were a bit weak etc. One guy seemed to be into it more than the others. I went up to him afterwards. He jumped around really startled when I said 'g'day', from just behind him. I soon found out why. He was one of the most extraordinary guys I've ever met.

He laid out his story to me and I was enthralled. He'd just got out of a seven year stretch in jail 'over east' for shooting his father dead. He left home when he was 12 in country Victoria and ended up in Melbourne. He left because his alcoholic Dad used to belt him. He ended up in the street skinhead gang which Romper Stomper, the movie was based on.

He said the biggest fight was with a 'gook' gang outside a train station. He said five carriage loads of 'gooks' jumped out for a pre-arranged ambush with his skinhead gang and in the ensuing fight, 17 people were killed. He said it was all over the news.

He said he went back home when he was about twenty and worked with his Dad who was still a big drinker. He said he came home one night to see his Mum all belted up around the face. A fight then broke out with him and his Dad, where he said, he ended up pulling a gun off of a shelf and killing his old man, at point blank range.

A police chase then followed which ended up in him rolling his car, nine times, end on end. He was in a coma for three months and woke up to manslaughter charge. It was downgraded from murder because his Mum and sisters testified, in court about the abusive background, he'd had. He said he got out of jail feeling like he's achieved something rather than repentant.

He'd taken his Dad out. He said he won't hear of anyone saying anything bad about his father though. He said he's the only one who can do that and will smash anyone who says a bad word about him.

He said after he got out he went to get some money owed to him by old drug contacts. He said he met them at a pub and was about to go nuts on them when he met a girl outside the pub when he was buying cigarettes at the Seven Eleven, who showed him some kindness. I.e. she listened to him. They struck up a friendship. She was five years older than him.

They later found out that her brother had died when he was shot 17 times, in an armed robbery they'd co-incidentally done together, a few years back. The girl's brother's girlfriend had dobbed them into police who'd then done a sting on them. The girl's brother had died. Liam had got away without being caught.

Liam was intense with a focus which showed an untrained yet sharp intellect. His intelligence had obviously helped him survive life, despite his circumstances. He said if someone's good to him, he'll do anything to look after them and if they're not, he'll fuck them right up. I nodded. He said he was a pretty good fighter.

I was enthralled at his conversation and story. He had my full attention. He was drinking a fair bit and it was only 5pm. He still seemed sober though. I gave him my DVD and told him I was doing a show tonight here. He thanked me and said, 'You're a gentleman'. He then asked me whether I wanted to join him for a smoke after my show later on tonight.

The show was weird. But the time I started at 9:30pm, Liam was pretty drunk and had some freaks around him. By freaks I mean people who have a glazed look in their eye and can either be super friendly or super deadly depending on how you treated them. I'm not too sure if Liam knew them or whether they just naturally gravitated towards each other.

I'm glad I knew Liam's history though and treated him and his friends accordingly, with a straight bat, with all my replies to their ever increasingly loud heckles, throughout the show. A couple of his mates came up to the stage, very drunk during the show and I wasn't sure if they were going to get violent, so I gave them my full attention. Often people like this just want to be listened too. I did.

Liam was great though. He got up into the show and even handed me $20 for the DVD, I'd given him earlier, disguised in a handshake while coming up on stage to help me. I was blown away. Most wouldn't do that.

Highlight of the show was an old guy called Kingo who did an impersonation of a chicken laying an egg. He did this by turning around and doing chicken noises while pushing his elongated scrotum and balls between his legs like it was a couple of eggs being laid. It was incredibly funny and came out of the blue again just when I thought I'd seen it all, on stage. He then did an encore joke about his epileptic wife which bought the house down. This was just after three guys, including him and Liam had got their cocks out for the talent quest.

It was a pretty wild show and everyone who watched knew that they were seeing something pretty unique. Something weird and unpredictable. The type of show I aim for every night but not always achieve. Liam was kicked out by the bouncers just as the show was finishing though.

I always feel a bit guilty about this as I often encourage people for my show right up the point where they're then evicted. I feel guilty because in a way, I'm responsible for them getting kicked out. I'm then always in an awkward position where I can't overrule the bouncers as my new friend is being manhandled out of the venue, asking me for help, over the bouncer's shoulders.

The last I saw of Liam was him arguing with the bouncers outside in the car park as I packed up my amp cords. I'm glad I met him though. It's a pity he has to take so much alcohol and drugs to numb his demons though. I knew I'd never relate to him on that level. I suppose we all soothe our beast in different ways though. His way was alcohol. Mine was travelling and gigging.

When he was sober that afternoon, he was one of the most fascinating, intelligent, principled and bravest person, I'd ever met. The genius in the weeds. I look forward to running into him again sometime though. Some people you just know you will or at least hope. The long and winding road of life offers many opportunities for magical co-incidences.

I kinda dream now of just living a really quiet life in a small country town, doing basic things, one day. Chopping wood, feeding chooks, carrying water, growing vegetables. So much of my psyche is taken up pumping up for gigs each night and being FULL ON. On stage and off stage. I'm either listening to people or entertaining them. I need to opt out soon and recharge myself, big time. Re-gather. and then get stuck back into it.

"I'm not a crack whore! Are you going to stick it in or not?" she blurted.It seems some girls just aren't into foreplay.

In Wagin the most romantic place for teenagers to steal their first kiss is under the Big Ram's balls.

Australia likes to laugh at its image of being a bunch of yobbo's who like to laze around and do fuck all. The reality is though that we're a pretty hard working mob of people. Work is not only is a strong national ethic but also a religion in many ways. Anyone who doesn't 'pull their weight' or work hard, is frowned upon. It's sacrilegious.

A story on 'A Current Affair' came on recently about a bunch of guys who earn the dole and then go surfing all day. I was watching it in the pub with a whole lot of barflies in work boots and singlets after a hard day's work. Anyway, I've never seen a bunch of guys in a pub get so angry about something so political.

'Shit like that really pisses me off', exclaimed one.
They all agreed. 'Fuckin dickheads'.
I said to one guy. 'Look they're only surfing. They're not doing any harm'
'What? he said. 'Doesn't that make you angry that they're going out enjoying themselves on our hard earned tax money'?
I said, 'Look, I see no satisfaction in being on the dole but it isn't much money really and surfing is one of the things you can enjoy for free in this world. I don't feel any need to get angry at them because surfing to me, sure beats staying at home, pulling cones and getting depressed. What gets me more angry more is tax avoidance, corruption and greed at the top end of town'.
'Yeah, don't get me wrong, I don't like that either but these dole bludgers really fuckin' piss me off, they do. They should be shot'.

It seems in Australia that blue collar worker hate dole bludgers more than they hate the powerful elite, these days.

In Australia at the moment, most people like to kiss up and kick down. The liberal party loves it.The biggest irony with blue collar workers complaining about dole bludgers is that unemployment is a necessary part of the current economic system. Without people who are unemployed and looking for work, (as opposed to people who are happy to eat mung beans, stay away from shopping centres, and surf all day) workers are able to be kept over a barrel by employers.

If everyone on the dole was happy with their lot like these 'surfing bludgers', workers would have much better pay and conditions simply because there would be no-one in the queue to replace them should they threaten to walk. As it stands in today's economic system, workers haven't got much a leg to stand on because they can always be easily replaced by someone who is unemployed and willing to work.

That's why emasculated workers get off on knocking dole bludgers. They've lost the ticker to kick up and change the system. It's much easier to just sink piss and feed your brain from the toxic umbilical chord of mass media. Australia is not a country of free-thinking bludgers. We're a country of mortgaged up, debt laden robots and it's getting worse.

What we really need now is a world leader who will tell every one to 'STOP! And then go, 'What are we all doing? Where are we going?' Make us think about it. And then give us some direction. Not give a particular country direction or a particular religion direction but give the whole species and planet a direction. A mission statement. All business' have it. Why don't humans as a whole have one? The reason is because we've got it all wrong.

'Work' is the most overrated thing ever invented. We do it for fifty weeks of the year so that we can be rewarded with two weeks off to go and sit on a beach, fish, chat, root, relax and eat mangoes. Weren't we all doing that, ALL THE TIME, 3000 years ago!? Mother earth used to feed us emotionally, physically and spiritually. The dole from someone else's tax bill didn't and still doesn't, so what's all the jealousy and anger about? Greed, selfishness and ignorance.

Some people are into collecting property or money or cars or husbands or beer coasters or venereal diseases or spoons. This lady in Wickham was into collecting garden Gnomes. 879 of them.

The Esperance Hotel, Esperance. Paul the manager suggested I speak to one guy at the end of the bar. 'He'll freak you out', he assured me. I went over.

"Humans are the smartest things on the planet", he said. "The big problem is that we follow the majority. We go with the flow in order to survive. The problem with the majority though is that nine times out of ten, they're wrong. If and when humans get over this, that's when we'll thrive. Because we'll then all be able to come into our own and thus collectively reach our full potential as a species".

Five minutes later he was telling me, "Why should Melbourne have the Melbourne Cup each year? It should be passed around to different towns. It's not fair".

The genius in the weeds. The ones I love. The ones I hunt. Some of them go from Idiot to Genius in the turn of a sentence. This guy came other way round.

May 2005.

At The Wickepin Hotel a guy came up to say he had an idea for the talent quest. He turned around and showed the crowd. His was holding a half full 'handle' of bourbon and coke over his cock. I asked him what it was. He said, 'The fish tank'. He won the talent quest and celebrated by finishing off a 'stiff drink'.

It was dark. 'Chainsaw Bill' and Chris ran into the pub. 'Okay, everyone it's ready'. The whole pub emptied out onto the pavement. They had a garbage bag. A thin wire circle was around the mouth of the bag, with a wire cross and a fire lighter attached in the middle. Bill held up the bag while, Chris lit the firelighter. The heat then filled the bag like a mini hot air balloon and it drifted into the sky.

It went for miles into the sky before drifting out of sight. It was like a slow moving shooting star by the time it disappeared over the horizon. The crowd outside The Corrigin pub loved it. Bill said his mate had recently lit ten of them in Perth and let them go. He said it'd got onto the TV news that night, 'as a mysterious UFO sighting over the city'.

In between his pool shots, 'Pluto', showed me the wraparound scar he had just below his elbow. He said he'd got it by punching out a guy on the other side of a window in a pub up North.

'Who did you punch?' I asked.
'The publican', he said
'Why? I enquired back.
'I'd spent $300 in his bar buying tequila and then he goes and kicks me out'.

Pluto went and played his next shot. 'Sometimes, I think I'm insane', he said dragging on a cigarette, as he returned. 'Then again, I think we all think that we're insane, from time to time... In fact, I'll tell you what my definition of insanity is'.

I was ready. This is the talk I hunt.

He paused then let go. 'I think an insane person..... is someone who never questions their sanity'.

The genius in the weeds had popped up again. Three hours later he was at the bar mumbling to himself within earshot of those around him, 'I like to burn things'.

She was sick of the city and horrified at the amount of money she would need to buy her own house. She read, on the internet about cheap houses in Norseman at the western end of the Nullarbor. She caught the bus there with the last of her money and bought a structurally perfect four bedroom Jarrah wood house. It was a bit bare but so was the price tag of $10,000.

After the first home owner's grant she only had to get together another $3000 together to pay it off. The job she'd landed preparing food at the local cafe would cover that in no time. She'd escaped the rat race and would become a fully paid for homeowner in the space of a month. There was now, no need to work a job she hated for the next thirty years. She could instead fully concentrate on her art and web design business.

The 300km road between Norseman and Hyden is all dirt. It seemed no-one was on it this, morning. Which I thought was quite surprising because it wasn't a bad road. I was doing a comfortable 100kms an hour while having a wank. The dirt suddenly got thicker as I took a gentle bend in the road. The back half of my car started fishtailing as I slammed on the brakes and tried to keep the car from flipping or spinning. I eventually came to a safe standstill.

I looked down at my pants around my ankles. The only thing I could think about, as I nearly killed myself trying to get the car under control, was whether the coroner's report would have put in all the circumstances surrounding my accident.

Anyway the moral of the story is: Don't wank and drive, especially on dirt roads. Perhaps there should be an RTA TV ad about it with a cop pulling over a motorist. 'We suspect you've been wanking, sir. Can you blow into the bag'.

We booked a room in a nearby town called Nyabing. She was an English backpacker working at the bar in nearby Katanning. She was glad to get out of town for a night and I was glad she was as horny as I was.

We asked the owner for a double room. He said there was only twin share. He then looked at us. It was 6pm. We had no luggage and just a wallet. 'Just push two singles together', he suggested. We then ordered some red wine, with our meal. As he poured he said 'do you want it warm or cold?' We weren't too sure what to answer as neither of us had heard of this choice before with red wine. He took the lead. 'Don't know how people can drink this shit warm', he said as he dropped a couple of ice cubes into each of our glasses. 'Cheers', I said as he walked away. 'To Australian culture', she added.

Greg from Broomehill, W.A was a farmer. He said his Grandfather came over from South Australia after the First World War to peg out the land given out as grants to returning soldiers. It was all bush then. He then went back home and collected his wife before settling down here. He said his Grandfather spent most of his time ringbarking trees. His father in turn then spent most of his time bulldozing out stumps. 'The land is too bare now though. A lot of the farmers now are starting to plant trees again. We overdid it a bit', he said

He liked my DVD. He said, 'it's distinctly Australian and pushed boundaries not broke them'. I said, 'Thanks Pluto' and then wondered why a lot of guys whom I got on well with in different towns seemed to have the same nickname.

I drove back for some more. We got on well, even though it was based on sex. Perhaps that was why we got on. Two ships in the night, acknowledging each other's existence with a fuck. She suggested I shave my pubes. I looked down, 'I've never shaved them before' I said. She said, 'Yeah, I can tell'. Even guys are expected to shave downstairs now!

I was speaking to a guy in the Corrigin pub. He was an ex-truckie. Big thick set guy, singlet, unshaven with a beer in his hand. I somehow got onto talking about a book, I'd just read. He went all silent, looked around to make sure no-one was listening and then lowered his voice, while looking at the ground. 'Yep, I'm not ashamed to admit it, I do a bit of reading too....' he said.

June 2005.

Gibbo was a Vietnam Vet with a dead pan stare. The type of stare where you didn't know whether he was being intense or about to fall over. He said he was called 'Snake eyes'. I asked why. He then added 'just before I kill someone, my eyes go black'. No-one in the town was game to disagree or test him. He bought my DVD and t-shirt. I liked the guy. He supported my journey.

In W.A public notices speak the language of the people.

I was in the hostel, two nights ago on arrival, just chilling in the kitchen doing a bit of writing when I was asked to play a game of pool with this girl, whose playing partner had just gone to bed. She was a pretty, black, twenty year old, Polynesian girl. Anyway I didn't think much of it, especially when she started telling me that she was a Christian, seventh day Adventist.

She'd never even had an alcoholic drink in her life. She was travelling around by herself and being looked after by one church group after another, in each town. I think being a Christian is like being part of a big club or something with material benefits for members... Anyway, we somehow got onto talking about pubs and she said she'd never been to one.

I then told her how I work in pubs all the time and could show her some footage of what people get up to, on the inside of them. So I got out my laptop and showed her some highlights of my DVD! I.e the guy burning his pubes, the tit signing, the urine skulling. She was a bit shocked but in an amused way which made me feel good because the Christian market is potentially a big one!

Anyway, she seemed pretty chatty and the next minute she asked me if I could drive her to a pub in town and briefly show her inside. So she got in my car, practically sitting on my lap (as the car was so full) and we drove around. It was 12:30am by then though and everything was shut. Anyway half an hour later, we we're parked at the local wharf kissing, sucking and giving each other hand jobs like a couple of horny teenagers.

Fast forward to the next night... where we booked a room down the road in a two star hotel. She'd only ever done Missionary. She hadn't even heard of, let alone done doggie style. (I thought it was probably a bit early to introduce her to some moves involving the coffee table though, so just kept to the basics.) Afterwards, during pillow talk she said she knew she'd feel guilty in a couple of days, because we had just met and weren't 'boyfriend/girlfriend'.

She then said she was 'confused as to whether God or Satan had made us meet up!' I was about to whisper inside her ear 'Satan' but thought better of it. >In the morning I dropped her off at the bus stop. She was heading south to Perth to go back to Vanuatu. She said 'thanks for everything'. And I said, 'say hi to your pastor for me'.

I remember being in Gympie.

She said, 'where are you from?
I said, 'Sydney'.
She said, 'Sydney. Wow, you must know so many people'

I thought about it and then replied.

'Not necessarily. I've just lived in an apartment block in Sydney for four years. In that time I got to know maybe two other neighbours. When, I went shopping down the main street, there was rarely anybody I knew. Whereas you can walk through this town and practically know everyone, you meet. People in a small country are far more connected to people than your average Sydney person'.
She smiled, unconvinced. 'I still want to go there though'.

It seems there is nothing more Australian than a Chinese restaurant. Every county town, no matter how small seems to have one.

The fundamental core that binds most human relationships seems to be economic dependency which in turn fosters an emotional attachment. Hence the phrase 'Don't bight the hand that feeds you'. The cost of this is a curtailing of your sexual, intellectual and spiritual instincts. These things are highly personal and best not even fully divulged to a partner, let alone explored for yourself. After all it could upset the apple cart which feeds you.

For humans, personal survival is still our strongest instinct. When we're NOT threatened it's easy to be open-minded. When we ARE threatened, we naturally err on the side of being bigoted towards people who have different sexual, philosophical and spiritual orientations to our own. This extreme example of this on a global scale by the first world involves either ignoring them (third world) or bombing the fuck out of them (The Middle east). Amongst friends, family and work colleagues the same principles are copied. Fight the system and you'll get sacked, sued or ostracised. Head down, bum up seems to the path of least resistance.

I heard a guy radio talking about Australia's detention policy. He said refugees had stopped coming to Australia in the last few years because of the Nth Aust border patrol, increased co-operation with the Indonesian, Malaysian and Thai governments plus the arrest and demise of the Taliban. He was an expert in the area. He said people detention was not a deterrent, like so many people think it is.

The next day I heard a guy talking in the street as he walked through the plaza. He said he thought that the detention policy of Australia was something that this country would look back with regret and sadness. I agree. There are a lot of people locked up in there who shouldn't be, for years. Most people couldn't give a fuck either way though. It's got nothing to do with them. Who gives a shit when the Demons are playing?

In Australia, the Abo's have been kicked off their land. The convicts were kicked off their land and disconnected from their families too. Disenfranchisement all round. In many ways Australian's have lost our connection and links to the land and our past. Our nomad history has gone. The Aborigines can't roam across the country like they used to. There's no new land to be explored by settlers, there's no swaggies hitting the road due to the Depression and there's no new land grants given to returned soldiers in undeveloped areas, which is how a lot of W.A was opened up.

The pioneering, exploring Australian culture has been replaced with environmental rape, drinking and materialism - with a trickle of backpackers and grey nomads in campervans popping out the other side. The days of trailblazing seem to be gone. To fill in this void we now explore the net instead.

Real Estate prices have gone berserk in this county over the last ten years, especially in the cities and coastal areas. The only thing comparable to it in our history was the gold rushes of the 1800's.

These are my favourite quotes from the book 'Journey to the stone country' by Alex Miller. "Constructing a position, she knew only too well, was more about personal politics than convictions or a seeking after the truth" "They've got nothing and they gave us everything" said Annabelle. "That's the way it is" Bo said. "The poor always got their door open". "The white men never wanna hear nothin about what's different from him. What's different doesn't interest him. He don't see it. He don't know how to respect what's different from him. He just wanna explain everything his own way."

I have untold freedom but also a fear that I will be in a town soon and realise I just don't have enough petrol money to get out of it. I'll then stay there for the rest of my life, doing odd jobs. Perhaps that'll be a good thing for me. Perhaps a travelling comedian will come through in twenty years and have a conversation with me. Perhaps he'll record this, in his diary. He'll write:

The old man said to me, 'Comedy will take you places'
'What would he know', I thought back as I wondered whether I've got enough petrol to get to the next town...

Comedy is easy. Earning a living from it is hard. I read Graham Kennedy's biography and realised that battling with censorship is part and parcel of most comedian's career. It's our lot. Like nerves before a show, you don't get over it, you just get used to it.

The female orgasm. Apparently a quarter of women never have them. Usually the ones who don't masturbate. They're mysterious things though, especially to us guys. Some girls cum easily, some girls cum and you don't even notice and some don't when you think they have. Whereas blokes! Well we're a bit simpler.

Going from jerkin the gherkin at 15 to playing with a girl's pussy is like going from a coin operated machine outside a supermarket to piloting a black hawk helicopter. There are so many more erogenous zones on a girl's dashboard than a guy's dashboard plus they're harder to find - especially the ones in her head! It's full on and requires a bit of know how.

How do you get them started? How do you get them off the ground? How do you pick up speed? Change directions and how do you land them gently without an accident?! And each girl is different. No wonder guys like wanking so much. It's so much easier and everyone involved gets off without being hurt!

I love casual sex but it can distort things though, especially when I meet a girl who likes to be fucked hard and fast, straight up with minimal foreplay. Most girls need to be warned up gradually and skilfully with a tailored performance to their sexual idiosyncrasies, learnt through time and extended communication and foreplay. Not through a one performance fits all technique.

It's something that can't always be experienced in one night on the run, especially when you're both pissed... It's still fun trying though. After all for a guy, 'even bad sex is good sex'. When a guy talks about rooting the story usually starts and ends with, 'and then I fucked her'. His mates will then have three standard responses. The first one being, 'Bullshit'. The second one being, 'I betcha she was ugly' and the third one just being 'ya cunt'.

Males are very proud of the fact that socially they are no where near as bitchy as females. Guys won't go to the lengths girls do to socially undermine each other. The sexual (not social) competitiveness of males however is much stronger than woman's and it's something which is always under the surface of most male relationships, threatening to disrupt our otherwise proud social solidarity around the bar, BBQ and football stands. This is shown no where more so than in the way women will talk together about a sex experience. There is far less jealously and competitiveness with woman and an honesty which makes most of us men shudder.

When a girl pulls a shag, they generally want to know and talk about all the details with their good friends. I.e Was he a good kisser? Did he give you a clitty? What was his cock like? Was it big? Was it wide? Was it hard? Did he know how to use it? Where did you do it? How many times? Did he do any weird stuff? Was he a good cuddler?,..

Girls even want to know what he was like to talk to after the act! Was he still affectionate?.. When it comes to sex, girls talk about it in far more detail than us guy's ever will. I always laugh when a guy comes up to me after a comedy gig and says, 'you can't talk about sex like that in front of girls'. Bullshit. Guys need to talk about sex more with women. We might learn something!

Just to ram the point home (in typical male fashion), when it comes to jealously guys are more sexually jealous whereas girls get more emotionally jealous. Girls are more jealous of the other girl whom you just confide and talk to than the odd hit and run one night stand. Whereas guys get upset more about a one night stand with the pool cleaner than they do with the 'poofy' mate whom their girlfriend can talk about her feelings with. In fact, guys quite like the 'poofy' or sexually non-threatening mate for taking on some of the emotional workload for him, free of charge. "You're going out to lunch with Trent! Sure, say 'hi' to him for me!"

The tide is turning and churning when it comes to the sexes. Economic independence for women has meant that they're now getting more confident to express themselves sexually. Young girls are now the ones saying, 'he totally ruined it by saying 'I love you' in the morning, I mean it was just a fuck!' Meanwhile the young guys are sipping their beers wondering when they'll meet a girl who wants a relationship instead of just a human dildo for the night.

Girls are starting to initiate the first moves and the marriage proposals more and more. In turn they're finding out what it's like to be sexually rejected and the emotional difficulties in dealing with this in a socially responsible way. Men are also finding out for the first time how impersonal it is to be just wanted for sex and nothing more.

I remember doing a gig in Parramatta at the Albion Hotel a few years back. After the gig one of the guys helping me on sound said he had an ex-girlfriend in the crowd whose friend apparently wanted to fuck me. I was pretty tired after doing a three hour show but agreed to have a drink with the three of them after at the bar. These two girls were pretty, young, pissed and sexually up front.

My mate's Tim ex-girlfriend was the deal maker. She said straight up to me that we'll all go back to his place where I can fuck her friend. I told her how I had to get up early in the morning and would have to go after the drink, I was having. She then said well 'how about you go over into the park and get a blow-job off her'. While what she was saying to me was a fantasy come true, I was also just as surprised at how nervous and off-putting the situation was making me feel, so what I did was a runner out the back of the pub after doing a piss.

Tim's ex however followed me into the car park and caught me as I was about to drive off. I'll never forget it. She stuck her head into my window and said, 'What's wrong with you Jimbo, haven't you got a cock? Can't you get it up? Are you a poof?.... You carry on with it on stage but off stage, you're soft and I'm going to get up on stage next week and tell everyone!'

Anyway I was a bit rattled driving away. Half of my brain was going 'Get the fuck out of here' and the other half was going, 'so why didn't you fuck her ya soft cock!'.

Anyway the next week I was driving to the gig again wondering how I was going to pull a three hour show out of my arse. I got thinking about what the girl had threatened to do and I thought to myself, 'Well I ask people some extremely personal stuff on stage, I should be at least be able to take it back and besides as long as the crowd is amused and it chews up stage time, who cares?'

Straight up in the show, I pulled her up on stage. I asked her, 'So have you got anything to say?'. She then grabbed the mic off me and barked to the crowd, the same thing she'd said to me the week before while an inch from my face through my window. 'Last week after the show, Jimbo wouldn't even fuck my mate. What do you think is wrong with him, hasn't he got a cock, can't he get it up, is he a poof!?'

That's when the inspiration hit me. I grabbed the mic off her and said, 'So does that mean that any guy in here is allowed to go up to any girl in the crowd and demand that they fuck their mate and if they don't it's okay to corner them in the car park and go, 'What's wrong with you, are you a Leso, have you got a dry cunt!?'.

I then faced the crowd and said, 'Us guys are sick and tired of you girls just using us for sex. We've also got feeling and emotions and until you can start attending to these things as well you're not going to get any sex off us at all!' In unison, every guy in the pub then got up with their raised beer in hand and said, 'Fuckin oath' and then started cheering, while a whole lot of girls in the crowd sat back gobsmacked. It was a magic moment!

Anyway like I said, times are a changing. There are huge sexual shifts happening now. Economic emancipation has given the Goddess her confidence back and guys for the first time in two thousand odd years are sexually on the back foot. In short, young woman are behaving like males, young men are behaving like females and old people of both sexes are behaving with disdain. I.e thinly veiled jealousy.

For three generations, Seabird, the sleepy fishing village hadn't changed much. It was named after a shipwreck offshore marooned in the 1800's. 'Wooducks' is what the locals call the new people moving in. 'They buy cheap houses and land and then spend two weeks of the year living here. They then complain about the noise we make each morning when we start up our fishing boats. We don't mix with them much but they're starting to outnumber us'.

The guy in the Dongara pub after my show explained to me why there are no Aborigines in the town. 'They were all slaughtered and thrown in the river'. He says if he sees any around and they say they're from here, "I laugh and say, No you're not, you were all thrown in the river. Now piss off before you end up like your grandfather".

I find it funny how white people came up with terms like 'savages' to describe various indigenous races. European descendants have killed more people than any other race by a factor of millions. In fact Caucasians don't kill people, we decimate whole races. Or in the case of Tasmanian Aborigines, exterminate the lot of them. Is it any wonder that Aborigines walk the streets at night in groups together?

I don't think anyone on the planet really knows what's going on. Being 100% confident about life is at best, guesswork, blind faith or narrow-minded arrogance. The main thing gripping the world now, at this point in history seems to be materialism.

I think I know why too. I've got a theory! The thing most people want than anything else is to be listened to. To have someone listen to their personal ups and downs and perspectives on the world - because it validates their position in life's uncertain swamp and elevates personal meaning to life. The thing that the human brain craves the most. This is best achieved by having another human who will hear you.

The best way it seems to get people to listen to you is to have money and power which is best represented by 'things' that you own. That's why people want money, things and power the most. It's not for its own sake. When you have money and power, (whether it be economic, spiritual, sexual or otherwise) people listen to you, in the hope that some will be transferred onto them, as they seek instinctively to ascend the >human pyramid of society.

People only pretend to listen though. Much in the way, an employer will pretend to listen to their boss's personal problems in order to get what they really want out of their boss: a pay rise. Or someone listens intently to the emotional goings on and minute details of 'what happened to me today' from the host of a BBQ who also happens to be supplying the free food, grog and access to their swimming pool.

Whereas a homeless man sitting in his own urine in the gutter doesn't get many people listening to him because there is no money or power to be gained through doing it. You walk on, no matter how interesting his story may be.

The problem with money and power though is that people, who've got it, then start to think that people are listening to them not because of their money and power but because of the importance of who they are and what they have to say and how 'right' they are in their beliefs about the world - and they in turn, start down the well worn road of becoming megalomaniac, narrow-minded and arrogant.

Self delusion. All because of their very real ability to make other people follow and listen to them. In the pursuit of material gain however on a global scale, humans are now losing at an increasingly alarming rate, their greatest gifts in life: that is, a healthy environment and empathy for other humans. The result is poverty in the third world like never before and drug abuse, overeating and depression in the first world like never before.

Make sure you're trusted by the people you lie to', Pink Floyd.

I love going through small country towns and reading the signs on the outskirts which promote the towns best attractions. The signs and phrases on them are obviously chosen by a local committee in order to encourage passing motorists to stop and check the attractions out - and in the process contribute a few dollars to the town.

"Wongan Hills: Tracks, trails and tractors! I wonder how many people who see that sign think, "Where's the handbrake! I must stop!" If small towns want motorist to stop, I reckon they should just be honest and say something like this on their sign: Wongan Hills: A great place to stop and have a piss! (Do a shit in the next town).

I arrived back in Geraldton. I had no gigs booked ahead. I wanted cheap accommodation but I didn't want to stay in a room full of bunks. I also didn't want any one around me who wanted to talk and I didn't want any women around to distract my cock. The naughty Siamese twin that led me on too many wild goose chases.

The Blue Heelers Hotel looked forbidding. It had a rough reputation. I knew by now though, like the pub in Sarina, that these pubs were the ones I liked to stay the most in. Looks and reputations can be deceiving. I was told at the bottle shop that a week's accommodation was $105. It was cheaper than the youth hostel. That was only the beginning of its features though.

I had my own single bedroom with a bar fridge. There was a common kitchen area and a common bathroom. They gave me clean sheets every week so I had no cleaning to do apart from my dishes. There were a few smoker's coughs at night down the hall and a friendly mix of old men with unknown pasts and a need to drink each morning. They were quiet though. I wasn't staying in a five star hotel and wouldn't want to. Here the friendliness was rough but genuine.

The humanity in the old men's weather-beaten faces and scraggly beards as I passed them in the hallway and said 'G'day' was palatable - not paid for like from someone behind a customer service desk who was smiling at you with one eye on the clock. I.e. there was no false courtesy here. The pub was near the beach which had a good five kilometre coastal walk along its windswept foreshore. Huge export ships, lined the horizon waiting to come in to pick up minerals, carted in by train, after being extracted from this wondrous land.

I'd been on the road for nearly a year an a half around Australia, doing some pretty outrageous shows. I'd met so many people. I needed somewhere to anchor myself. Here was the perfect place for me to rest where I didn't know anyone. I didn't have to say jokes, or pack my car everyday, listen to any more stories, root anyone or eat takeaway... I spent a week there, catching up, looking back where I'd been, writing and re-charging before my next gig in Mullewa.

July 2005

There's a lot of divorced men in this country sitting at the end of the bar confused and down on woman. The reason? "The bitch left me and took half of everything I worked so hard for". There's usually an extra twist too, added on. "Straight after I sold my house, the property boom hit and the house price doubled overnight". These guys are usually at the bar, with another mate who has gone thru the same experience. They'll then both complain about how they're now renting a house in a street where they used to be a homeowner.

It's a common problem for men to get to retirement and then not know what to do with themselves. They've spent a lifetime complaining about the amount of work they 'have to do' to support other people around them only to realise that when they stop work it's the one thing they miss the most. The one thing where all their self esteem and social status comes from.

They don't know how to interact with people if there isn't some kind of financial leverage or social prestige involved because they've had little practice at doing this in their previous 40years. They also find that golf and gardening just doesn't do it for them, like they imagined.

They're like the guy in the movie 'Shawshank redemption' who kills himself when he gets out of jail because he doesn't know what to do with himself. Or the battery hen that gets freedom but doesn't know how to move it's legs. And the women fleecing these guys for money at this stage in their life, are not only doing it because they can, because the laws allow them to do it and because they're more financially literate and confident in these gender equal times, they're doing it because they realise that money is all that their men are now good for.

The man's money and the children is often the only emotional attachment they've got left with their partner. The only thing sadder then this is the men. who in return who have no reply. They're only antidote being bitterness. Victoria Bitterness.

I sat down after my gig at The Club Hotel in Mullewa but was called over to a table instead which had been the front row of my show. I just wanted to have a drink. I hoped they were cool. I didn't want to feel like I had to continue telling jokes. I'd just been doing that for two hours.

I was tired and just wanted to chill. I started chatting to the girl sitting next to me. I could see during the show that she didn't look very impressed so I didn't expect much from her other than 'Does your mother know what you do for a living?'

Somehow we got past that though and onto talking about anisogamy and the physiological basis for behavioural differences between the sexes, Wicca folklore and the environment. The bar was suddenly shut and everyone was herded out. I grabbed her email not wanting the link to be severed. I emailed her two days later just to find out whether the connection I had with her was real. She emailed me back:

'......One thing that shocked me even more than your completely disgusting gags was your transformation from a filthy mouthed, patronising and typical Aussie prick into a completely switched on, sensitive, interesting and polite guy. And I really admire you for following your heart and having the courage to embark on your journey with no one but yourself and your instincts. That's why I've moved out here, it's to start a totally different life and it's nice to meet someone else on the same path.....'

Wow! I thought. Thank God I had a week off before my next gig. We met up for dinner. I then moved into her place, fell in love and lapped up every moment with her like a thirsty camel at a billabong after a trip across the desert.

At the end of the week, it was time to move on though. Reality was knocking at the door and I was trying my best to ignore the fact that I was a broke 35 year old world weary comedian, living in my car travelling around the countryside doing dick jokes in pubs and she was a 21 year old Goddess, straight out off uni and just as excited as me, about exploring her own path in the world.

I drove back and forth to her place after doing gigs I had booked way up the coast, three times before realising that I if I came back again I'd probably lose her friendship as well! Like Bob Dylan once said, 'you can't be in love and wise at the same time'.

Coral Bay would have to be the most beautiful place I have ever experienced on this planet. Almost as beautiful as the girl I'd just kept going back to.

The sand was fine and virgin white. From the beach you can see the Ningaloo Reef breaking two kilometres out to sea. In between the reef and the beach is a snorkeller's paradise. Chockablock full of coral and fish, namely the very tasty Red Emperor fish which swim right up to the waters edge. The piece de resistance though, is the fact that there is nothing in the water harmful to humans. No crocs, no dangerous sharks and no stingers.

It's incredible. Plus there's more! What amazed me the most was that the area isn't built up like the Gold Coast. There's an isolated road to get in to the place and once there, there's really only a caravan park, a backpackers and a pub with accommodation and a few shops.

I found out on the day I arrived though that The Hilton chain had just bought the pub and got approval for a low density eco-friendly hotel to be built over it. I can see why they lobbied so hard to get in. Coral Bay is an incredibly beautiful place with a typically magnificent Western Australian sunset. Just out from the beach is a huge bit of coral about 10 cubic metres. It's estimated to be about 3000years old! It's known by the locals as 'Ayers Rock' because of its shape.

Anyway for a living organism, it's been around for about 1000 years before Christ said, 'I'll be back'. The mind boggles! Despite the land being Aboriginal owned there are no Aborigines around. It's apparently a taboo area to live for them due to a huge tsunami which wiped out every thing in sight at some unknown time in the past.

I did a gig at The Beadon Bay Hotel in Onslow. Another classic Aussie, down-to-earth town, on the coast. A new gas field has been recently found off the coast. BHP has moved in. House prices are just starting to double.

You wouldn't know it though. It hasn't translated into a coat of paint on the pub yet - thankfully. The second story of the pub has a 360 degree balcony and the beach it faced out on to was at such an angle that you were able to see both the sun rise and set over the water each day. Magic. I was lucky enough after the show to be taken out fishing by some of the locals who wanted me to experience something local, off stage before I left.

'We don't get many entertainers coming into town', Tim and Luke said. It reminded me again why I love doing gigs off the beaten track. The friendliness and hospitality you receive is always, unique and real. Like a home cooked meal.

Publicans are a weird mob. The reception you get from them as an entertainer is so varied. Some just automatically assume you're there to rip them off and you can feel their vibe immediately. I.e. you have to beg them for a room key, they make you pay for your drinks and after the gig they hand over the money begrudgingly without even wanting to sit down have a drink with you or have a yarn.

Others (and thankfully most), are the opposite. We low profile entertainers travel such long distances to get to gigs and are lucky to break even after food and petrol costs are added up. It makes it all worth while though when you rock into the pub and are greeted with a beer and a feed, have your free room key handed over immediately and are given a bar tab.

This reception also makes it so much easier to psyche yourself up to give their patrons the best time you can possibly give them. The best publicans stay on for a drink with you after the bar is shut and by the time you get to bed you realise you've got a new best mate.

Glenn from The Royal Mail in Meekatharra was one such publican. We raved until 5am. He was 35 and an ex-copper. He said he didn't want to make much money in life, just have a good time on his way through. He said his dream was to one day own an ice-cream van. He said he'd love to just feed ice-cream to kids and laugh at how fat he was making them while he took their money. I pissed myself.

He also had a great story from when he was a copper on parol on the edge of the Nullarbor. He said he was on highway patrol one day with another copper. They basically had to cruise across the Nullarbor for the day. Anyway, he said it was a pretty boring trip so they did what most people did when crossing the Nullarbor with a mate.

They stocked a mini-esky with about five beers each, took their shoes off, put their feet up and cruised down the straight listening to tunes. He said after about their fourth beer their radar went berserk. Someone was coming towards them doing 170km/h so they stopped in the middle of the road and pulled the guy over when he eventually arrived.

He was an Italian guy with gold chains over his singlet and he was driving a red Ferrari. Glenn said, all three of them were standing on the road and the Italian guy was giving them no attitude, just a straight face. Glenn said he then asked the guy if there was any reason why he was speeding.

He said the guy then paused for a second, looked down at his red Ferrari which was still smoking, looked around at a road which was dead straight and flat for 140kms with no trees or nothing at all to hit on the side of the road for miles and then looked at the cops with his hands and shoulders shrugging, as if too say, 'Come on boys, isn't the reason I was speeding a little obvious!'.

Glenn said he did it in such a beautifully succinct manner with out any words or hint of arrogance that he decided to let him off with a warning. I loved it. A classic case of human to human interaction without any of the societal bullshit influencing the reality of the situation, out in the middle of the Nullarbor. Discretion at its finest.

Glenn also had a great sign above the entrance to his pub which enabled him to cut down on the cost of bouncers.

Below is a snap shot of Newman. When I went into set up my speakers at lunchtime at The Red Sands Hotel, the Aborigines without jobs were being herded out. They weren't allowed in the pub past midday. One of them heard I was a comedian doing a show that night. As he walked past, he whispered into my ear, 'Do us a favour bruz, can you say something nice about the Abo's for us tonight'. He then looked at me seriously before winking and leaving with his mates, without saying another word.

Ladies there are some real gentlemen in W.A just dying to meet you! Below is one example.

A well kept secret in W.A is the native 'Hops' tree which grows beer on it.

August 2005.

The gig went well. There were mostly blokes with a smattering of chicks. One cute, young and verbally forthright girl in the crowd didn't like my act though despite everyone else laughing. She was continually yelling out that my act was disgusting and for me to stop. She was doing everything during my act to try and distract me: throwing bottle tops at me, threatening to pull my power cords out. At one point she even indicated that she was going to throw a full bottle at my head.

After the gig, she came over and I had a drink with her. She was still pretty uptight and I gave her my usual spiel trying to explain that my intent wasn't to offend people, I was just trying to make people laugh, which does involve at times the necessity to go over the line of political correctness. She wouldn't listen though and kept telling me I was a disgusting foul mouthed individual.

She then put her hand on my leg. Two hours later, I was back at her place in her bedroom. After we'd gone thru most of the positions, she finally turned over and said she wanted it up the arse and she wanted me to fuck her really 'hard and fast'. Anyway, as I did my load, I thought, 'is it any wonder that us blokes find it hard to understand women!'

Skimpy's (topless bargirls) in W.A can do some pretty impressive tricks.

The deserts of Australia have many hidden secrets. Wildflowers of incredible beauty and variety are found right through arid W.A. All you have to do is look out your window, at the right time of year.

In mining towns, Workplace safety has been taken to ridiculous lengths. This sign at a Paraburdoo bus shelter is one example. The sign below that is another which was outside the Paraburdoo supermarket. Sometimes I think there are so many rules in the world these days that our brains are no longer necessary. We're been treated like robots: programmed to work and not think. It's like we're blindly letting governments and business' do all the thinking for us. It's a bit scary, I think.

The Crossing Inn at Fitzroy Crossing is a pretty full on pub, especially for any white folk who haven't got out into the country much. It's on the outskirts of town and from the outside of the pub all you can really see is beer cans and bodies lying in the grass outside.

I desperately wanted to do a gig in there. What a challenge I thought, being a white fella and rocking in to The Crossing Hotel and trying to make everyone laugh for an hour. I rocked in and asked the publican whether I could do a gig. I didn't care about the pay. I just wanted to do it.

He said, 'we don't put on entertainment here any more'.
I asked, 'why?'
He said, 'Last time we had a band here there were too may rapes and assaults in the park afterwards, so we don't do it anymore'.
I said, 'All I do is comedy, it's a bit different to a band'.

He wasn't impressed with me at all. He then repeated himself, 'Like I said, last time we had entertainment here there were too many rapes and assaults in the park afterwards, so we don't do it anymore'.

I had one more shot at it, 'Well seems to me like they need a laugh round here, don't you think. Please let me have a go. I'm dying to do a gig - especially here'.
'Maybe next time around, there will be a more open-minded publican', I thought as I drove off. Then again, maybe he'd just saved my life.

I was talking to the publican at Karratha about the gig, I'd just done in Fitzroy Crossing. He said he use to run The Crossing Hotel a few years ago and told me a great story about the place. Apparently ten years ago NASA became quite concerned about with Fitzroy Crossing.

Among NASA's jobs is one where it does thermal imaging of the whole planet. This is also a way of finding out if some places are holding certain things which could be a security threat to America. i.e. weapons. Anyway they couldn't work out why the 'one horse town' of Fitzroy Crossing was emitting such a high heat source on its readings.

They did some inquiries and the locals guaranteed them they weren't hiding a nuclear warheads. NASA persisted though wanting to get to the bottom of it. Eventually the problem was solved. The high heat was been generated by the extraordinary amount of empty beer cans which were littered around Fitzroy Crossing in the bushes, particularly near the pub and down by the river.

Below is a typical Karratha man leaving the The Karratha Tavern holding his six pack.

Karratha Tavern was a wild gig. A real Aussie bar full of workers, still in their work gear having come there straight from the local mine. Hardly any chicks in the crowd. I gave them what they wanted and they ran with me. There was no need to tame it down with this crowd. 'Broad-minded', I think is the term.

Forty minutes into the gig a guy pushed his way to the front of the crowd and hands me a pipe with dope in it and a lighter. Anyway he and the crowd all insisted I knock it back. I ended up having two cones on stage, just to make them happy.

In my break a bouncer came up to me and said the manager wanted to see me in the office. I walked around to the office, knowing I'd pushed it a little by smoking dope on stage. I was hoping he was going to be cool and realise I was there to rock the crowd, first and foremost. 'Anything it takes', is my motto.

Anyway I nervously went into the manager's office and sat down to hear what he had to say. He outstretched his hand to shake my mine and told me I was doing a great job. He then asked me if I wanted another cone. Like I said Karratha Tavern was a wild gig.

You know when you go out to a party and you're around the BBQ with a few people and you crack a joke and the attention comes onto you and then you back it up with a funny story and then another one and you're on a roll. You're in 'good form'. You're entertaining people. It's a good feeling. Now times that feeling by a million and that's what it's like to come out to a raucous crowd of 200 strangers in a pub and nail them with punchlines every ten seconds for an hour and a half. The feeling is better than sex, love, drugs and money.

And now the flipside. You know when you're at a party and you say something that which you think is funny and EVERYONE looks back at you in silence. You then look around really embarrassed and quickly try and cover up your faux pas with something else which turns out to be even worse. People then turn your back on you and for the rest of the party you are wondering around with no-one talking to you until you eventually decide to leave unnoticed, out the back.

Well times that feeling by a million and that's what it's like to walk out to a raucous pub crowd and have no-one listen to your jokes except one guy who wonders up on stage and whispers in your ear, 'You're going to wake up in the morning with a shit on your forehead'. And then when you come off stage instead of people buying your merchandise, they try to steal it off you and then when you go to the publican to get paid he says, 'I'm not paying you for that'.

It's a long way to the top if you want to do comedy. When you get a good gig where the crowd gets right into it, it makes the thousands of gigs you've taken to finesse your act to that point and the millions of kilometres you've driven to all your gigs, seem all worth while. And when I meet someone like Tracey after the show, all of sudden all those nights where I've slept in my car and cum into my ash tray while wondering what I'm doing with my life, no longer matter. There is no future, there is no past.

Doing a job I absolutely love with all my heart and soul is incredibly emotionally rewarding. The cost is it's also at times a bit emotionally lonely. Despite me always going on about how you don't need money to be happy, a lack of money and job security is my biggest emotional Achilles heel. Occasionally I feel like talking about it with someone. I mostly know better though.

The usual response is "well why don't you get a real job like the rest of us!" Which is fair enough I suppose. On the positive emotional side, I'm always keen to share with someone my road stories. Particularly anyone I know. Even if I've just met them once before and I appreciate any friend who indulges me by listening to my gig stories as I don't get the chance to do it often. I suppose it's my gossip. And if they listen and make a good go of pretending that they're interested, I'll then ask them how their wife, kids and renovation plans are going.

People often say it must be hard being a comedian with everyone expecting you to do jokes all the time. In reality, when most people find out I'm a comedian, they mostly spend the night trying to make me laugh and telling me their stories. Which is good but also a little tiring at times, no matter how entertaining they are.

The other thing is that when you rock into town and no-one else knows you, it gives people an outlet to talk about their issues knowing you're going to be gone the next day and not gossip. I find this a huge privilege as it's usually pretty raw. The flip side though is that I don't really have anyone to talk about mine when they arise.

Thank God for phone and internet. I appreciate all my friends who let me rave about stuff good and bad from time to time. You know who you are. And I think that's why I don't really indulge in the drink or drugs too much. Moving around all the time requires me to be constantly alert, I can't really afford down time, to be overly emotional or to make silly mistakes like losing my car keys which holds everything I own in it or being late, hung-over or sick during gig time.

When I'm on, I've got to be on. There's no going though the motions. The spotlight doesn't allow it. The buzz from indulging ain't worth the costs for me nor are the highs as good as that which comes naturally from a good gig. Maybe if I settle down one day, I might be able to be a little more slack - and get hammered every night and reminisce about my life on the road, while snorting coke off the back of my garden gnome.

I've done over 100,000kms since I left Sydney in April which is a lot of driving. It can be dangerous at times especially at night. It's only a small car and there are lots of animals on the road. I can see myself one day hitting one. The police will eventually turn up and see a dead animal on the road and then they'll see me dead in my car on the side of the road. They'll then go through my car and find one hundred 'I fucked a goat' t-shirts which again will make for an interesting coroners report. Maybe then I'll finally get some publicity!

Jay was from Mandurah. The Guinness Book of Records TV show were filming him, for having the widest tongue in the world. It was eight and a half cms across and was so big it had flaps on each side which came down once it was outside his mouth. He said the girls love it.

Since white man arrived in Australia, rock art has been taken to new levels.

The advice on the dunny wall read, 'Buy what you've been bought with'. Underneath read, 'If at first you don't succeed, sky-diving isn't for you'.

Fitzroy Crossing's pub was rough but the public bar in Halls Creek Hotel, 300kms down the road would definitely have to take the cake for being the roughest pub in Australia. I've never seen anything like it. It was straight out of a Mad Max film.

The bouncers took me in for a look. The pub was full of blind Aborigines jumping around having a wild time. The bar had steel pull down shutters like in a bank, for when fights broke out and the staff needed protecting. Inside, the décor theme was a cross between a bomb shelter and a cell. The bouncers said that anything not bolted down just gets trashed.

I was introduced to a guy called Jacko. He had his tongue cut off at birth for some reason. He communicated via making grunts. He looked and talked like an Ewok. Outside was where they all lived in the long grass. Hence the term 'long-grassers'. It was teaming with groups of people, yelling, laughing and fighting.

I asked the bouncer 'is this what they do all the time?' 'Yep' he said, 'their whole waking life is spent drinking, fighting and rooting. They pay for the alcohol from the royalties they get from the mining rights off their land. The pub in turn, makes a killing from it.

'Drinking, fighting and rooting', I mused. Half of me was thinking 'how depraved'. The other half of me was thinking, 'Maybe these guys have got it all worked out'. They're certainly in touch with their core instincts more than most humans are these days. They're certainly not behaving like robots.

Most people, I think don't' have the guts to carry on like these Aborigines in Halls Creek, despite probably wanting to. Social conditioning forbids them. The only time most people get to carry on like this is when they're given a leave pass from their partner, to go on a 'golf weekend'.

"It is not clear that intelligence has any long term survival value" - Stephen. J. Hawking

When I'm thinking of sleeping with a girl, I like to focus on something thing about her which is beautiful. It could be her eyes, her tits, her mouth. Sometimes it can even be something as obscure as her personality.

After my gig at Wyndham Town Hall, Tom came up to me and said, "I really like your act mate. I think exactly the same things as you, except whenever I say the stuff you were talking about, everyone thinks I'm a psycho".

The boys told me after the gig about one guy at the show called Roy. Apparently he's got an extraordinarily big cock. Whenever new nurses come into town he goes up the hospital and gets them to check it out on the pretence that he thinks 'there is something wrong with it'. The locals say it's his way of advertising.

A guy called Terry came up to me and said "if you go to Humpty Doo pub in Darwin, check out the photo of a guy doing a handstand on a bull. That's me. Look closely too and you'll see that the bull and me are both skulling a can of beer at the same time".

Sue and the crew working at The Wyndham Town Hall Hotel were so friendly. I lapped it up. Sue asked me to do a kid's show the next Monday which she advertised in all the schools with a notice. I did it on the pub lawn.

I've done over 1000 kid's parties in my time before I got into stand-up. In fact, I can see that the chaos involved in entertaining screaming kids running around everywhere has been perfect training for me for dealing with drunks in a raucous pub environment. It's the same energy.

We as adults only seem to be able to access this playfulness however when we're on alcohol or drugs though. Kids do it naturally. Anyway the kids show went well. A lot of parents turned up to watch. In fact I think the main reason they turned up was to make sure I didn't use the same language I used in my pub show!

It all went well. After dousing the kids in shaving cream sprayed from my leaf blower at the end of my show, I thanked the crowd and explained to the kids, "Now that you're all hypo, I'm going to hand you back to your parents", before disappearing. Job done. Below is the children's playground found in Wyndham. Kids under four apparently, don't like going there.

What I love about Aussie towns like Wyndham is that people are just so straight up with what they think about you. Imagine wearing this shirt to your next family reunion or Christmas staff party!

Barra fishing in Wyndham ain't bad either!

One of the benefits of being broke most of the time I see is that, I can't really afford, fast food, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol or drugs. Instead I mainly drink water, eat raw food and try and go for a walk before a show rather than hang around the bar and listen to someone tell me how much of an arsehole their boss is, while I spend money listening.

One day I might have to get a real job though and find out what it's like to have a boss, a liver problem and a mortgage. I'm doing my best to avoid it though. Maybe if I do get a real job one day I'll then go and see a comedian every now and then in the hope that they cheer me up.

I drove across the border out of W.A. I was going to miss this state. It's definitely a different world from the East Coast. I hope it stays that way. Somehow I don't think it will though. Too many people are going to find out how good it is here. Anyway I was now going into another great Aussie place, the Northern Territory. The place where "everyone with a dodgy past runs too".

"Let's catch up for a coffee",
"Let's go outside for a cigarette",
"Do you wanna go to the pub and have a beer?"
"Have a cone with me",
"Would you like a line?"
"Do you want to go halves in pill?"
"Which pizza shall we order?"

I often wonder, if it wasn't for fast food, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and drugs whether people would actually even socialise! When you catch up with someone who is addicted to these things, are you actually catching up with them or just listening to them dribble shit during medication time!? In fact maybe taking these things is the only way people can stand other people without making such rude comments as I've just made then. That's how the addiction starts.

'You don't even drink coffee or tea!' I hear a few people say? No and I've got a reason. Most people wake up every day to an alarm clock. They then have to drink coffee, otherwise they get sacked for not turning up to work on time. The main reason I've got out of bed in the morning for 90% of my adult life is because I'm bored. I start the day real slow. No rush. I aim to peak when I come on stage at about 9pm.

Right throughout Australia I've found there is a serious drug problem. Namely demand far outstripping supply. The result is low grade back yard produced shit being distributed, especially in isolated country towns. Customs in this country shouldn't be stopping drugs coming in, especially high quality stuff from countries like, South America and Afghanistan. This shit is far better for people than window cleaner.

Lets start being realistic about drug use for once. Customs should be a quality checker for drugs and nothing else. People will always need drugs in order to survive the harsh realities of a life and economic system which simply has no intention of liberating the masses.

Drugs are also needed to cope with social situations, where people predominantly talk about themselves. 'Zero tolerance on SHIT drugs' should be a government backed ad campaign, I think. Bad crack is also on the increase in this country too which is scaring a lot of single women away from pubs and causing the sale of porn mags to skyrocket.

When we first start taking drugs as an adolescent (experimenting what it's like to be a grown up) we are often told by our peer group how tough you are for being able to handle more drugs than your body is saying is sensible.

This philosophy carries on well past the point of addiction which is ridiculous. If you've drunk 30 beers a day for ten years, it's hardly a 'impressive' thing to do to have another ten after your first twenty for the day, especially when your body starts shaking because you've slowed down.

Having another one is easy. Not having one is tougher, especially when the same peer group is still egging you on. I'm lucky I've never really become addicted to any substances. I'm too much a wimp to get past the initial indoctrination pains i.e. the headspins, the hangovers, the vomiting, the paranoia. And I know I wouldn't be tough enough to stop either after becoming addicted.

From what I've hear from ex-smokers, ex-drinkers and ex-drug addicts a zillion times a day, it's not easy to give up which is another reason I'd rather hang out with substance abusers at the end of the day. In the wash up, I find them more interesting. Their conversation topics have more elasticity and they aren't a slave to the guidelines of political correctness as much.

They aren't as pompous and they are also more likely to enjoy hearing ideas which are different from their own. They're also more aware of their shortcomings which makes them much more human, relatable and empathetic to deal with. Up to a point that is! Not when they've had too much! When they go beyond that, get the fuck out of there! They turn into animals! Which brings me to my final point. When you buy a Donna kebab at 5am with your mates still around you, you give the Donna Kebab man shit and he gives it back. The world becomes balanced again.

September 2005.

I was walking through the park behind a guy staggering in front of me. He was wearing frayed jeans and bare feet. Suddenly he stopped, made an horrific noise and keeled over. His body started shaking. I didn't know what to do. I went up to him and asked him if he was okay.

His eyes were shut and blood was trickling out of his mouth. He then started snoring loudly. He was lying directly in the sun's 35 degree heat. I ran back to my car and got some water and came back. He was sitting up now and took the water without saying anything and then got up and staggered away. I still didn't know what to do. It seemed to me like he was having a bad day. Then again, how was I to know? Maybe this was one of his good days.

I'm getting so sick of social chit chat. Then again maybe I'm just getting worn out from being on the road so long! 'Hey you're the comedian! Come over and join us for a drink!' I'm trying so hard not to get stuck into idle conversations these days. Despite being the source of most of my written inspiration, I'm getting really burnt out lately from just listening to stories and chipping in with gags.

I'd rather be by myself and read, write or plan and organise gigs, in order to keep going. It's becoming a vicious circle. Unless someone can tell me something incredibly personal, filthy, interesting or uniquely spiritual in the first two minutes of talking to them, I'm no longer interested, especially if they're just using me to whinge about something minor that happened to them in their day or to brag about why they're so fucked up or alternatively why they're better than other people.

I'm so bored of low level emotional outpourings about situations, things and people that have nothing to do with me. It's also got to do with the fact that my low level emotional bullshit can't often get an airing in return, like 'fuck I'm broke, how do I keep going, what am I going to do next!?'

No-one but my own instincts have ever given me answers to these questions. Which in turn, I realise means that I'm missing out on the core tenant which sustains most relationships. i.e I bore the shit out of you with my trivial problems and minor victories in life and then in return you get to do it to me!

It's called 'politeness'. Well fuck that, if polite small talk is how the conversation at a BBQ or social gathering is going these days, I immediately steer the banter around to the joys of fucking a goat, until someone comes up with something more interesting to say or offers to blow me. And if no-one does, I fuck off. In summary, I find myself leaving parties by myself a lot these days.

We were having a drink together just after the gig. We somehow started talking about sex. She then said to me, 'My first sexual experience was when I was fucked up the arse by a dog when I was eight years old'. She seemed a bit nervous when she told me. I was blown away with her honesty and tried hard not to spit my beer back into my glass. I wanted to act like what I'd heard was normal in order to get more details.

She then said,
'I've never told anyone that before'.
I said, 'How come you told me?'
She said, 'well you're always talking about fucking goats'.
'Touché' I thought.
'Well have you? She then asked. I instinctively said, 'no' because I wanted to be searingly honest in return but as soon as I said it, I felt bad.

Her whole premise for telling me, what was probably the most personal thing she'd ever told anyone in her whole life, was gone. I didn't want her to feel bad though and close up, I wanted her to elaborate.

'But I'm not ruling it out', I continued, 'I just don't think I've met the right goat yet'. There was pause. Having heard so many yarns from so many people every night, I crave unique conversation which comes from the coal face of human experience like an opal hunter who yearns for the sight of colour in a rock. This conversation had it all for me and I wanted to dig further while there was suddenly a huge opening from the mundaneness of chit chat which I'd been feeling so jaded from lately.

'So you and the dog', I asked. 'How did you meet?'

She said she'd grown up in South Australia on a farm where there were lots of animals. One day as a kid she was playing ball with her neighbour's dog, when she went to pick up the ball on all fours, after it'd gone over her head. She said the dog then mounted her and begun thrusting. She said it felt strange but okay so out of childlike curiosity she pulled her panties down to see what would happen. She said the dog then stuck his cock in the first hole it could find.

I then said, 'Did the dog cum?'
She said, 'no, it just had a few thrusts and then I pushed it off'. The comedian in me wanted to then say, "So not only are you a dog-fucker but you're frigid as well". I didn't though. I took a sip of my drink knowing I'd just had the most extraordinary conversation of my whole life and I thanked her for her honesty.

During my gig at The Crossways in Katherine, Lerch a huge mountain of a man came up on stage and demanded to know who my 'minder' was because he was going to smash him out. I explained to Lerch that I didn't have a minder or tour manager or any entourage at all, so if he wanted to smash someone it'd have to be me. I then said, 'if you smash me up on stage, that'd be good because it'll count as the first entry in the talent quest'.

He didn't believe me, 'Bullshit, I know there's someone here in the crowd looking after you and I wanna smash him'. Finally the message got through to him that it was just me. When I got off stage he came up to me with a bourbon, shook my hand and said 'good show'.

Later on that night when I was in my room just reading, I had a knock at my door. Outside was a guy holding a beer. 'Look I'm staying next door and was wondering whether you want to come in for a beer, a cone and a bit of a yarn'. I didn't know what to say. He then said, 'look I'm no poofter or nothing, I just saw your show tonight and was wondering if you want a chat'.

Pete ended up being a top bloke, who was travelling around Australia doing his own thing as well. We bonded instantly. I love intense one-on-one chats. We both knew how amazing it is to travel by yourself and how you have so many more experiences which you wouldn't have if you were constantly with someone else. The flip side being of course that there was no one there to share the minute details with.

Pete said he gets depressed every now and then and occasionally thinks of ending it. He said his true passion in life was animals. He said he's not scared of any dog, no matter how vicious it is because he knows how to talk to them. He likes them more than humans. He said he'd love to do something like being a Guide Dog trainer.

We swapped details and I later sent him some info from the Guide Dog website about being a trainer. It made me think how lucky I am to have found what I want to do in life. It gives my life meaning more than a beer, a bong or collecting real estate does. I hope I can keep doing it, in one form or another and I hope to run into Pete again down the road somewhere.

I relate and love sharing a bit of bonhomie with lone guys like Pete. Especially if they're getting on a bit. Its funny how when you're a single male and beyond 35 how people take you. If you don't have a partner, kids, a house, possessions or a regular job, most people don't know how to talk to you anymore. There's no conversational reference point for them.

Instead the keep their distance and talk about you increasingly behind your back, especially if you hang around the area and have no obvious routine. We become targets for words like 'weird', 'dodgy', 'mentally ill', 'drug addicted', 'criminal' or 'paedophile'. And in turn mainstream people (the type of people who continually talk about their possessions and 'how busy they've been lately' and ask leading questions at parties like 'what do you do?') also become targets for our words e.g 'Narrow-minded, boring..'

Whatever light inspires us most in life is what we must chase. We owe it to the universe in return for giving us a go at life in the first place.

I did a gig at Granites mine, in the middle of the Tanami desert, eighty kms down from the most isolated Roadhouse in Australia called 'Rabbit Flat Roadhouse'. Apparently it's run by a guy who comes out with a shotgun when people pull up and demand petrol after hours. He apparently points the gun at your head and tells you to wait until he re-opens the next day.

Apparently the Australian Army were once doing exercises down there and dropped in late looking for petrol. He apparently pulled a gun on them too, despite them also having tanks as back up. In the end he got his way. He didn't care who they were. Like anyone else, the Australian Army was forced to camp and wait till he opened up in the morning.

Anyway I did my gig at the mine and as usual got big laughs for all my politically incorrect material and a caution to tone down my show in the second half from management. Mines are so strict now. All the crew, especially the boys are under the thumb big time, in return for healthy pay packets (paid for mostly by China who are the end buyers of most of our minerals resources at the moment.)

Workers are drug tested regularly in order to reduce compensation payouts through accidents, they're given correct diet regimes in order to reduce sick days and the boys are continually given lectures on sexual harassment laws in the workplace due to mines now employing more women. I spoke to some girls aged in their forties after the gig who were working at the mine. They said, 'it's all a bit boring now on mine sites because the guys are now too scared to even flirt with us'.

One of the best laughs I got was when I was telling the crowd how I think it's great how women are now breaking through the glass ceilings in industries like mining and getting the top management positions. I then continued, "Because it finally gives us blokes a chance to fuck our way to the top as well!"

As all the men and woman workers pissed themselves, I could see management up the back squirming though. 'Who booked this guy?' They'd apparently paid someone heaps to come in the week before me to outline to the boys the correct attitude when dealing with woman. I'd just undone all the messages that had been drummed into them in two sentences. And my act had only just begun.

I came off after my gig at The Walkabout Tavern in Nhulunbuy and had a yarn to a few guys at the bar. They were talking about their workmates. They said there was one guy at work who was always on the drugs. They said they call him 'V8'. I asked 'why?' They said, 'because he's due for a burnout'. They then started talking about their boss who was always stressed. They said the call him 'Towtruck'. I asked, 'why? They said because he's due for a breakdown.

I spoke to a guy at Groote Eylandt (I love how they spell Island there!). He said he liked hunting. He said when he gets bored of shooting pigs he gets his crossbow out instead. He then started talking about why he hates 'coons'. It was the same argument I'd heard all around the country. "Did you know they get so much money from government handouts and mining royalties that they buy a brand new car, drive it until it breaks down and then just go back and buy another car. Lazy pricks, people like us are paying for them you know"

Hmmm. This is what I've got to say on the situation. Saying that all Aborigines behave like this is a bit like an Aborigine going to a Casino with Bill Gates and Kerry Packer and then extrapolating that all white people can afford to drop a million bucks on the blackjack table and not blink an eye lid.

The majority of Aborigines in Australia can't read let alone pass a drivers licence test. How many Aborigines does one see around Australia lying on the ground barefoot and dehydrated? The Aborigines of this great land certainly don't need white man's pity but nor do they deserve our jealousy. Directing jealousy like this, at all Aborigines is just dumb and lazy thinking in my opinion. Direct it at the Aborigines who do treat cars like a throw away camera, not the whole race.

Or even better, direct your ire at politicians that are driving humanity to the brink of environmental disaster, or driving tanks across protesting students or driving bank profits up and social security down. So what if Aborigines spend their money on piss or new cars?

It's the white man who gives Aborigines their money and the white man who gets their money back the next day too. Money just passes through Aborigines hands. Culturally they have no concept of money and the need to accumulate it before you die, like us.

The dole is a white man's concept. The monetary breadcrumbs handed out from an economic system which for centuries has consistently maintained fantastic amounts of wealth in the hands of a few and poverty in the hands of the majority. The dole is not an Aboriginal idea. The Abo's lived in communal villages and shared resources.

Their goal was to accumulate wisdom not wealth. They listened to spirits not their accountant. Blaming Aborigines for accepting the dole a bit like blaming Aborigines for accepting our bullets. I'm not saying that running down Aborigines is racist. We're all racist. I'm just saying that surely our brains are capable of questioning a little further the generalised prejudices that are handed down to us by our own peer group elders? What this guy was telling me was not an original idea that had come out of his brain.

When Aborigines look at white man's obsession with building tall buildings in cities like Darwin, they just shake their head. Nature will eventually wipe everything we build away like the sandstone nose off a sphinx. Australian western white culture and Indigenous Aborigine culture is as about as big a contrast as you can get, on so many levels.

There within lies the big opportunity for Australia. We should be exporting to the world a fusion of spiritual wisdom from an Aboriginal culture that worked with the land and the practical know how and genius of western innovation. One obvious example is renewable energy. Australia's economy is based on carting raw materials like minerals, meat, wheat and timber onto a shipping container. This cannot go on forever. The profits Australians generate from these shiploads of goods largely go into real estate and liquor shops right around the country.

The wedge between white and black culture in 2005 is as stark as ever. We're not addressing that as an opportunity. We're just pretending it's a problem that will eventually go away. How many people who walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on National 'Sorry day' in 2002 interact with an Aborigine, once a year let alone daily?

A lot of white people who deal with Aborigines daily always complain about how they 'smell'. Not many of them know that Aborigines also think white man has its own peculiar and distasteful odour. Especially the ones who swallow a lot of meat, dairy products and narrow-minded outlooks on life. I didn't tell all this to the white guy at Groote Eylandt though because the football was on and he'd already warned me how good he was with a gun and crossbow.

Terrorism isn't stopping backpackers travelling. Signs like the one below which are found in modern hostel dorms do though. Like I said before, some of the rules being thrown around this world now are ludicrous.

The days of shagging a someone who doesn't speak your language in a dorm bed seem to be gone. I.e the old rites of passage to becoming an adult. I was pleased to find out that no-one in the dorm seemed to mind me having a wank though.

I love democracy! It brings people together!

'What I don't like about David Hicks' said the guy in the pub 'is that he is basically a trained killer'.
I said, 'you mean, like everyone who joins OUR army'.
He then steered the conversation back who was winning the footy.

I had to do a tour to Kakadu. I didn't get to do it when I was last in Darwin, fourteen odd months ago. I went on a tour with eight others in the back of Jeep. Highlight was Jim Jim falls, the crocs, the wetlands, the rock art and the fact that most of the rocks in the place were so old that they predated micro organisms. meaning there were no fossils in them. Mind boggling stuff from Mother Nature and Father Time. I was also reminded by our tour guide how ice-ages naturally occur on the planet every few thousand years which cause the water levels to rise and fall the odd hundred metres.

Below is one of the crocs we were feeding at our campsite. Heinrich was his name. We called the croc Fred. What is it, with the words, 'German', 'tourist' and 'crocodile'? Why are these words found so often in the same sentence together in newspapers?

During the trip around Kakadu, I stayed pretty quiet in the van we were all sharing. There were eight of us. I just wanted to chill. I didn't want to tell anyone what I did for a living. After all I was on a three day holiday.

On the second night I started arking up and ripping off a few gags amongst the campfire banter. One girl said, to me, 'You should try stand-up comedy'. I thought she was trying to pull my leg and then realised she was serious. I smiled to myself like a married man who has just gone out on the town without his wedding ring on and pulled a root. 'I still got it', I thought. All I gotta do now is find out how I can make some more money from it, so I can keep going!

Only in The Northern Territory are there signs telling you to slow down to 110km/h.

After the gig at Howard Springs Tavern I got talking to Ernie. He said he was once driving home pissed down the Stuart Hwy when he saw an RBT unit up ahead. He said he then did a U-turn and was chased up the road by the cops until he pulled over outside the jail where he opened the door and fell out of the car. The cops then asked him why he driven off on them. He then replied while lying on the gravel, 'Well you were only going to take me here anyway'. He said they let him out of the jail two weeks later.

I spoke to another guy called Stan. He said, 'a cynic was someone who didn't have the guts to neck himself'. He was wearing a self designed t-shirt which said 'Ease your conscience. blow your fuckin brains out'.

[Click here to read more of Jimbo's Diary!]

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