#melbourne comedy

[blondematthew]

Demi Lardner

[evansabahnurd]

Alex Hines - Girl Culture 16/07/25

[evansabahnurd]

Nick White aka The Dull Coworker

[marcusthemotivator]

Marcus the Motivator - Millennial Motivational Master | Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2019

Some might say that being only in your 20s would not allow you to have the life experience or perspective to be able to tell people around the world how to live their life, but the moment Marcus the Motivator opens his mouth to reveal that perfectly white teeth filled smile, he proves this...

Check out my upcoming Melbourne International Comedy Festival show.

[someonetotaketheedgeoff-blog]

27.03.2018 – Journal: Andy Kaufkatality

Almost done with smoking. I smoked so much last night. For no reason. Just back to back darts for NO REASON. Today my throat feels kinda like a vacuum cleaner tube with a kink in it, my lymph nodes floating up and down my neck like a lava lamp. It doesn’t feel good. Feels like there’s been some damage done. Sometimes my in-breath sounds like a cutlery draw falling out of its sockets. Or a bin bag full of smashed glass being dragged along the ground. And sometimes it sounds as if I’m conjuring up metaphors from my hospitality experience. And I am. 

Looking for hospitality jobs in Melbourne you see many ads like such…

What I’ve realised working on and off in hospitality for the last 5 years is that for us introspective, sensitive, op-shopping, incense burning, Nietzsche reading, beer garden dwelling, backyard henna tattooing, postcards from the library collecting, brick phone using, rollie smoking, happy-hour pint drinking, bus catching, Unknown Pleasures t-shirt wearing, magic mushroom refrigerating, dips with more than one ingredient purchasing, couch surfing, open mic bombing, busking, art gallery wine sipping, dole bludging, Yoga posing, brunch eating, tiny house aspiring, earlobe stretching, short course on remedial massage taking, South-East Asia travelling, VICE watching, Robitussin drinking, friendlyjordies watching, nang inhaling, blog writing, creative, wannabe, artist, muso, dancer, juggler, wankers… you must learn how to craft and develop your hospitality persona. Because for most of us it’s not inherently there. Because as much as we are all whining babies sometimes we are, overall, more honest and call bullshit on more things. And we find it wrong to present a falsely nice demeanour to some shit customers at the café where you work, that underpays, pays only in cash while you’re surrounded by co-workers that say things that drift towards racist. And because you need the job you say nothing and then they think you’re weird.  

Because if you’re one of these ‘artists’ types mentioned. You most likely don’t spend a lot of time in the ‘real world’. You might spend a lot of time alone, doing etchings of people having sex with animals at 4am, listening to New Order records, or you might spend 3 hours in an open mic, waiting to perform some comedy for 3 minutes to an audience of 3 people and someone’s dog.

If you’ve Bukowski’d yourself into a position where you’ve never learnt how to pretend to be a ‘bubbly, outgoing and enthusiastic’ person you may struggle. I remember feeling very dysfunctional as I attempted to deal with customers after not working for 1 year. I’d watch my co-workers be so natural and comfortable and it killed me. I began developing a complex of superiority. I’d think - ‘wow I’m so much more aware of the inherent dishonesty in these interactions with these customers than the people I work with’. Which’s such an ugly thought and nothing but a reflection of severe insecurity. This thinking only hindered me more as I isolated myself further into a cocoon of intellectual self-righteousness and distaste for modern life.

Now my hospitality persona is drenched in a personal sarcasm that’s ever so subtle. I’m playing a caricature of myself but the people I’m serving don’t know who I am, they believe I’m like this and for me this’s continuously funny. It’s undetectable unless you know me. But if you only meet me at the place we work, you won’t know the difference unless we hang out privately. It’s the way to go for me because I’m a cheeky cunt. I’m just harnessing some of that cheekiness in a more professional, functional, career-based sense. I’m playing to my internal repertoire of inner cuntyness. But to be clear I’m not talking about traditional, mainstream sarcasm. You can’t get away with that. It must be subtle and personal.

In Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck (A great book that collects a massive variety of philosophy, life experience and history to give a practical guide to following your ‘dreams’, navigate life and ultimately be happy) he talks about how the West has monetised bubbly, outgoing and enthusiastic personas. Using an outer layer of forced positivity as an advertising tool. Travelling in Russia he was bewildered to find that shit didn’t exist. He recalls having a date with a girl. Midway through chatting she interrupts him to say what he’d just said was very stupid. Initially he was taken back but curiously realised it wasn’t an attack, she wasn’t trying to hurt him, she was simply being honest. False niceties aren’t part of Russian culture. Why? Well he explained it dated back to times of war where people needed to be able to trust people and they needed to able to do it quick. No fucking around, no small talk, just honesty.

Asking –‘Hey how are you?’ and not expecting nor wanting an answer must fuck us up somehow.

Maybe it’s why English’s so hard for foreigners to learn. We keep twisting it in ways to hide our emotions and feelings. Maybe we are more repressed than we even know.

***

It’s better to be bored than distracted. I miss being bored. But it’s a foreign concept now. Every time you’re bored you look at your phone, jump from App to App, then repeat. I’m even starting to think listening to music a lot on a portable device isn’t great. I’m starting to think most podcasts aren’t helpful. A real irony because this whole blog is based upon a podcast I neglect to work on and/or release.

Take for example some of my favourite podcasts, The Joe Rogan Experience and WTF with Marc Maron. These are great podcasts, but they can give the illusion of education. Apart from conversations about comedy and/or practical life advice things like The Joe Rogan Experience or WTF are merely surface level information. It has great depth in emotional information. But ironically, I don’t think Joe Rogan himself would recommend listening to his 3.5-hour podcast instead of working on something important. May’ve said it before but the people that make Grand Theft Auto probably don’t play much Grand Theft Auto. They’re too busy trying to make the next Grand Theft Auto.

I’m not shitting on podcasts or entertainment. I’m just saying some things can give idiots (like me) the impression they’re learning when they listen to Joe Rogan talk to a scientist. It’s inspiration for more extensive learning not deep learning itself. I’m saying this shit because I feel like they’re many others like me that have a brain that’s constantly thinking of new ways to procrastinate. One of which is to make me believe certain things I do are ultimately ‘research’ or ‘educational’.

Just like your nutritional diet’s important. So’s your diet of art you consume. But also, sometimes it’s good to fast for a while.

I’ve been spending time recently walking distances, sitting on trams, sitting in chairs with no distractions and allowing myself to truly think. Thinking for extended periods of time and fully fleshing out thoughts. This may sound weird. But for the last 9 years I’ve been doing anything in my power not to leave my brain on its own for too long without stimulation or distraction –  in other words; to think. It started when I was 12 or 13. I could never sleep and had terrible insomnia. Lying in bed with a racing heart that’d increase the more I tried to calm it down. I couldn’t handle it. I’d lie in my bed and make a child sized bird’s nest, wrapping the blankets around in a circular fashion and curling up inside. Don’t know why but it made me feel safer.

Other nights I’d prop myself up against the wall and these waves of darkness would surge through me. It’s still brutal in retrospect. I imagine it’s just a part of being a young kid. They were abstract feelings. Weird jangled story lines that’d play out in my head, set in a world resembling where the Shinigami live in the anime Death Note. I’d rock back and forth like a mental patient. I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with me. It’s weird to look back. I know my brain’s just looking for excuses or connections. Some sort of connection where I can be like - ‘SEE I AM FUCKED UP INHERENTLY! ITS NOT MY FAULT! SEE THE PRODUCT WAS FAULTY! IT WASN’T ME, I DIDN’T FUCK IT UP, I DON’T HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY ACTIONS’. Look, I’m aware of what I’m swaying towards and relax. All I’m doing is noting these strange neuroses.

I also used to wet the bed like a mad cunt. I was one of the best, ahead of my time. I was versatile and did well during away games (I could piss the bed at any sleepover at anyone’s house). I could’ve had it all. I had big dreams of dishing out golden showers on king sized beds while being showered with actual gold. But my Mum took me to the equivalent of bed wetting AA. They gave us this metal box that was connected to a rubber mat that I put under my bed sheets. When I inevitably pissed during the night it’d trigger the metal box, making it ring like a fire alarm. I’d wake up thinking the world was ending and turn it off. Soon after I didn’t wet the bed. I could’ve been good you know. I had a scholarship lined up at 40 Winks, but alas, I had to hang up my plastic sheets.

Funny how embarrassing it is when you wet the bed as a child, but you hit 18 and pissing the bed due to Jack Daniels or XXX Boags is almost cool in some circles. It’s a symbol of someone that knows how to party. Then 8 -10 more years and it becomes, not embarrassing, not funny but edging on sad. And then after about 30, (I can only imagine) it’s consistently sad. But then after 80 it’s normal again and, I’d like to hope, funny again. It’s always good to close on a joke.

Life’s worth living. I’m gonna live it. At the end of last year, I thought I was going to kill myself. But I didn’t. Now I’m looking at my life like a new toy you get when you’re a kid. It’s got that new plastic smell. You keep getting it out just to look at it, and you run around to all the adults you know showing it off.

I’m getting a little better, but I need to figure out how to stop distracting myself.

How to focus. How to focus. How to focus. I want to learn to focus. I want to control my basic impulses. But I lack the discipline and I lack the drive. And that’s fine. At least I know. Because for the past 21 years I’ve been denying it.

Unfortunately discipline from the exterior world isn’t worth shit personally. It works though. Enrolling in the army and getting screamed at like it’s an American movie will force you to do certain things. But you take away that cunt shouting in your face and you’re back to normal, back to your own impulsive self.

‘It’ (what you want to achieve) itself doesn’t get easier or harder, it’s constant. It’s you that’s the variable. ‘It’ stays at a constant level of difficulty, whatever that thing may be, it’s consistent. YOU are the variable. The task’s the same but the weather’s everchanging within the field of you. You don’t have control of the weather. But you do control how you navigate it. This makes following your dreams seem so hard; your goals like impossible moving targets. Because some days you’re great and some days you let slip by in a re-watching-of-peep-show-for-73rd-time malaise.

Fear and love. Bill Hicks. It’s always an available choice. And I like to bring it back to this - 2 choices; fear and love.

My brain likes to fuck me over and think of the worst possible scenario where fear is viable. And then it doesn’t really make me feel as theoretically invincible. I repeat in my head, sitting on buses – Fear and love, fear and love, fear and love. Then I think about if I accidentally got someone pregnant, or ended up in jail, or got a horrendous disease, etc. Then I think about the rational option of suicide. How that is viable. And I truly, still, consistently believe that. And that’s something I’m going to change.

[someonetotaketheedgeoff-blog]

11.03.2018 – Journal: Returning To Melbourne

I sat in the Hobart airport terminal. I checked my Commbank App. My main account read -$13.87. I’d never seen anything overdrawn from my account. I swallowed in my mouth and checked my account.

The transaction read: -$35.36 – Some Fucking Charity That Saves Gorillas Or Something, Probably, Maybe, Don’t Worry About It, We Definitely Save Gorillas.

Weird name for a charity I thought. My memory flashed back. I was in the mall in Hobart. I’d just broken away from a kiss. I said goodbye and turned left to walk home. Then this undercover charity mugger, dressed like a snowboarder/rapper/DJ/barista beamed at me.

‘Hey man! How’re you doing today man?’. He said with enthusiasm so strong it sounded sarcastic.

‘Ah… Um… Yeah hello… Yeah I’m alright, how are you?’. I replied.

‘Yeah good man, fantastic, incredible, great, amazing… Now, do you like animals?’.

‘Ah… Yeah… Look… I just want to go home man…’. I said.

‘Why? What do you have to do?’.

I thought this was overly investigative, a bit much, but I couldn’t be bothered lying.

‘Ah well, I need to go home to get changed, I have a gig… And I haven’t really practiced much… So, I need to… I need to go man’. I said.

‘Aw great, yeah sick, a gig!? What do you do?’. He said, the deadness in his eyes increasing.

I sighed a long-irritated sigh.

‘… Stand-up… Stand-up comedy…’. I said defeatedly.

‘Oh wow, fantastic! That’s great man you like Dad jokes?’. He asked.

‘Ah… No… I certainly don’t’. I said.

He continued anyway.

‘What kind of music do kangaroos listen to?’. He asked, looking smug and confident at the same time.

‘Fuck… Um… I have no idea, what kind of music do they listen to!?’. I replied, bumping up my sarcasm.

‘Hip Hop’. He said.

There was a long silence. I looked at him like he’d just murdered my mother. It was a look of pain and anger but also one of deep cosmic questioning; why have you done this? I showed this with one versatile glance into his eyes.

‘… That’s … That’s horrendous…’. I said.

‘You can use that one tonight’.

‘I won’t’.

He talked to me about animals. Or something about animals. I don’t even remember. He represented a charity, as expected. I focused in when he said - ‘You must send confirmation when we send you an email as to whether you want to donate or not’. Oh well sure then I’d love to sign up! I can maintain all the social grace and don’t have to be a cunt and I don’t have to donate any money to this organisation I know nothing about because I’ll never give confirmation. But as you can probably guess they took my money regardless.

***

I watched two men fish out a smart phone with a long grabber claw off the train tracks in Southern Cross station. The two men obviously worked at the station. A man in a suit watched them, sort of unfazed as the dude carefully grabbed at the phone.

It was a weird scene. The large smart phone, a symbol of the pinnacle of human progression through technology, had assumedly been accidently dropped onto the tracks. It was these guys job to fish it out. I watched from the opposite platform. The claw gripped tight and the phone was slowly lifted to the other guy who grabbed it dramatically. Like a final mark as the siren rang for full time, 50 metres from goal, scores level (that’s right, I watch cricket).

The guy who’d dropped the phone was vaguely thankful. Not enough I thought. The grabber-claw-maverick did that blokey half hug thing where he patted him on the side of one shoulder, handing him the phone. My train came. I hauled my bag filled with everything I somewhat care about onto my back. Something heavy in the top of my bag rattled around and made me focus on my balance. It was fucking heavy. Picking it up suitcase-style reminded me of picking up trestle tables when I waited tables for massive weddings the last time I was in Melbourne. It was a shit memory. It triggered many more shit memories. Like the dreadful feeling when you’d be asked to move an object; a table, a bunch of chairs or a pot plant. As you went to lift it you’d think about how far you had to carry it and the pain your arms and shoulders would be in. That’s how I’d describe that job to you - arm pain. It’s mostly what it was. Just having your arms in pain while you walked from point to point, thinking of shit in your head to stop thinking about the pain, singing one line of a song over and over in your head like an insane person to distract yourself. OK probably a bit too dramatic but I’m a sensitive soul man. I’m designed more for sitting in chairs, drinking shitty black instant coffee that makes you need to shit while talking shit, then going to sit in another chair to write about said shit and then eventually, taking a shit.

I picked up my bag and got on the train to Flinders St.

I got off and went up the escalator. I took a moment to smoke out the front of Flinders Station. I leant against the stone wall near the never-endingly busy steps. They’re reminded me of the entrance to an anthill, a bottle neck of foot traffic, but less ants and more people looking into their smart phones. Not looking happy, not depressed, just blank. I leant against the stone wall. It was sticky. Which annoyed me. Why would a wall be sticky? I guess you don’t want to know. But also, you’ll probably never find out.

I watched a charity mugger sweet talk two young dudes. She was a cute red headed girl. From a distance I could tell she had a Satan-esque amount of false energy. She was almost jogging on the spot as she pitched to these guys.

It unnerved me. If I met up with anyone, friend or stranger, and they constantly half jogged on the spot, giving off the aura of a smoker being let out of a Tasmanian prison*, fanging for a servo the way she looked like she was fanging for a star jump I’d be like – ‘What the fuck’s going on? Could you relax? Please, you’re stressing me out’. Like those people that must constantly vibrate their legs, usually cross legged, ciggie hand resting on the knee, in a dive bar, smoke being blown down diagonally like a sword being swiped, talking about black metal.

Luckily, I have massive headphones. It acts as a deterrent. Although occasionally some persistent mental people have made me pull them to the side, like a DJ that also does counselling. I made sure I didn’t make eye contact with the girl.

I flicked through my phone at absolute nothingness. Then I looked across the busy street. I looked at the massive billboard opposite. It was for the isotonic sports drink Maximus, Powerade’s doughy, deadbeat, but tolerable cousin. It was a wide landscape photo of a guy drinking it in very high definition. In the background there were young men sitting in camping chairs by a campfire. It had some tag line that was like – ‘When you need to go all out’.

This was fascinating to me. Because for many years these drinks have always been marketed with a sort of health/sports vibe. Endorsed by athletes and so-called experts. The drinks themselves displaying small, all capital print on the labels saying shit like – POWERADE REPLENISHES FIBIO ACTIVE NECTAR POINTS 8 TIMES FASTER THAN ANY LIQUID ON THE PLANET - Darrel Muntface, trainer of the transgender Australian air hockey team.  

But what this billboard displayed was a subtle or a maybe not so subtle depiction of the underground, meme-esque culture where these drinks are also associated – partying and getting fucked up and hangovers and recovery. It was kinda scary. Because I’m sure that’s what they’re doing. It was showing a bunch of boys getting on the piss and then this guy was taking a break to very scenically smash a blue anal prolapsing dildo shaped bottle of Maximus in front of an invisible camera so he could then have the stamina to keep drinking piss and possibly smash a few lines of Ketamine off a Hilltops Hoods CD case while sitting in a van so full of Winnie Blue smoke it functioned as a sauna and actually cleared pours.

I glanced over and accidently looked into the red headed girl’s eyes. She was talking to a new guy now. He was tall and stood over her. She looked up into his eyes with vicious intensity. Like a girlfriend in a honey moon period, listening to his every word and bullshit anecdote. She was still half jogging on the spot. I was disgusted. It felt like more than just a blatant ‘sex sells’, more a blatant - ‘false interpersonal human connection sells’, or maybe even ‘a temporary relief of loneliness sells’. Don’t know why I read that much into the way she looked at him. She had overly wrinkled eyelids and a Spas-12 smattering of bold orange freckles that gave a heavy charm. I could vaguely hear the pleasantness of an Irish accent, like a smooth jazz playing out a window of a café. Again, I was disgusted. I hate the way the world works in this way. Monetising a bubbly, outgoing, enthusiastic personality, that if there was no monetary value would you even behave that way? It’s a fucking charity. I’m sceptical of charities but it’s at least, hopefully, going towards a worthy cause. It’s not that people don’t want to help, you just can’t trust shit at all. So, they hirer these young, attractive sociopaths from foreign countries that have this Donald Trump level of confidence. Then they saddle up to brooding, depressive cunts like me and ask if I care about trees and if I ever buy pints of pale ale and then tell me if I just had one less pint of pale ale then I could get an all seasons pass to the fucking after life because I’d have been such a good boy and given my credit card details to a complete stranger for a cause and/or company I’ve never heard of for something I know nothing about. The sort of people that believe in karma and have faded haircuts but also wear Jeanie pants and bomber jackets. The sort of people that might own a dream catcher but also deal speed. The sort of people that have a star sign tattoo on their neck but also watch overly dominant, potentially unethical pornography, and never talk about it.

I stepped on my ciggy, pealed myself off the stone wall and walked to the tram station.

My phone was dying. I realised that when your smart phone dies in Melbourne, you die. I don’t know where anything is and frankly neither does anyone else. No one knows tramline, trainline timetables by memory. We’re all relying on our devices. It gave me a pang of stress, but I figured it out. I knew what tram to catch and vaguely where to get off.

I got on and cocooned myself onto a seat, putting my massive bag to the right of me and my smaller bag on my lap. It felt kinda claustrophobic. More people filled the tram at each stop. It’s an annoying thing when this happens because the more crowded it gets the more of an inconvenience it inevitably is to get off the tram. I craned my neck backwards to see where we were. My heart racing each time it turned a corner I couldn’t remember. Eventually I got off at the right stop.

I walked up the street smoking a pre-rolled ciggy. I bustled past 2 black girls, one was pushing a pram. I walked up to door of the flat. Turned the metal knob and was greeted by a loungeroom full of Brent’s shit. Boxes of Xbox 360 games, boxes of Nerf guns, figurines and other random shit. I put my bag down on the couch.

*Risdon Prison, the prison in Tasmania has an absolute ban on smoking tobacco (as well as most states in prisons in Australia). They’re still allowed NRT (nicotine replacement therapy); gum, lozenges and patches but absolutely no tobacco. I haven’t done the research for a while, but I know for a fact that inmates fang so hard for darts they microwave nicotine patches in a microwave, cut them up, mix it all together with black tea and roll it up into make shift ciggies.

***

Now I’m finally back in Melbourne. Seems like not that much time has passed. But it was at roughly 4 months. Maybe a little more, maybe less. I can’t be bothered working it out.

Staying at my cousin’s empty house about 35 minutes train from the city I went to smoke on the balcony and saw the same beer bottle I’d used for cigarette butts the last time I was there.

‘No way…’. I whispered out loud.

I don’t know why it amazed me. It’s just a weird thing to still be there I guess. It’s my mum’s sister’s house. I’ve always felt they share a similar level of cleanliness and household organisation. It seemed strange she’d leave an empty Stella Artois bottle filled with 8 cigarette butts. It was a weird object to trigger memory. It made me think about being there before leaving. Smoking on the balcony, playing the same songs on guitar, randomly calling friends from Tassie without having much to say but after some brief small talk the bullshit that constantly swirls my brain would flow out. On a technical basis though the conversations didn’t mean much. I remember starting to feel better. And realising I wasn’t mentally ill. That’s a thing with being super sad. It’s a complete unknown arena. A completely new experience. So, when it happens it’s frightening on a technical level because you don’t know what’s happening and there’s prominent fear of losing control. You jump to ‘mental illness’ these days because it’s the current climate. Generations ago, people coming back from war didn’t question if any mental damage had been done. They just got on with shit.

The whole ‘well it could be a lot worse’ argument’s something I’ve always had trouble with. The whole ‘putting things in perspective’ in attempt to make you feel better about your shit is a weird way to approach a problem. I’ve never understood it. So, what? When you’re having a rough day, when you’ve been fired for being late to work even though you left with ample commuting time to get there, but there happened to be bus replacements on the trainline and then when you got home you realised you’d lost your wallet, then some fuckhead pokes their Rik Mayell like head comically sideways through the doorframe of your bedroom door and says – ‘Well it could be a lot worse you know, imagine being one of the Jews in the gas chambers!’. It’s irrelevant and cunty. Do you look at homeless people and feel good?

As Stanhope says – ‘How does their suck make my suck better?’.

Your pain is your pain, in the reality you’re a resident in, whatever pain you have has to be experienced properly, naturally and be completed and expelled somewhere safe. It mustn’t be avoided or suppressed, it must be dealt with properly and maturely. I guess it’s just telling you to broaden your reality and to think about the scope of pain and trauma in general. I was going to write that if the extent of your pain’s simply - there was no vanilla thick shakes available at MacDonald’s, then you’re a fuckhead. But I’m thinking against it. If that truly is what upsets you the most (no vanilla), then sure, go ahead be sad about it. Who am I to determine another’s pain?

I guess what that statement’s forcing you to do is to stretch out your emotional intelligence. Which’s weaved within general intelligence. Maybe that’s what all those mental issues are; sociopath, psychopath, autistic, aspergers, etc. The two intelligences are unwoven. Or they were never woven together in the first place.

I think I might be done with heavy drinking. It’s lost it’s appeal. Not entirely. Not forever. But it’s fading into the background. After reading a book called The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck I reconsidered my values. It’s basically what the book’s mostly about, I’d highly recommend it to anyone.

If you consider why you want to drink to obliterate your consciousness, it’s interesting what you’ll find. Did I once believe it would lead me to enlightenment? Maybe. Did I think it was cool? Certainly. Did I think I would be a better person or a better comedian if I drank heavily all the time? Definitely. Did I think that it was a gateway to truth? Absolutely. But why? Drinking. Or drinking heavily, regularly, really retards you, slows you down and allows for less guilt riddled procrastination. I used to be so nervous socially when I didn’t drink. Now it’s the opposite. I feel nervous when I’m drunk. Especially around new people because I know it’s a shit, sloppy, version of myself that’ll make promises I can’t keep and talk senseless shit. And I hate that. I apologise profusely when I’m drunk and meeting new people. In the drug world the concept of ‘escapism’ is always circled around. What are we escaping? Ourselves? Our morality? Our minds? Our pain? Our traumas? Our problems? Our pasts? Our futures?

Regardless, I still think it’s an important thing to do - to drink. It’s what’s provided in our world. What’s deemed OK or cool. Ads subtly but surely bigging up drinking, making it seem like a tantalising, sophisticated gateway to truth. Because yeah, alcohol’s some of that shit. But only like 10% of it. It’s an outdated, clunky, illusionary training wheels for self-esteem. That might help you spill some shit you were holding inside but fuck me it’s inconsistent. Usually it just makes you throw up and feel like you’re dying the next day.

I still like drinking. I still like the idea of drinking heavily with friends and being retarded, that’s fine. I just don’t want to do it every 2 or 3 days. While in Tassie I experimented with my desire. I’d come home from work around 10 – 11pm. I’d take one, just one, of my Dad’s beers from the fridge. Go outside to smoke and sip it very slowly from a glass. Focusing on the taste, focusing on the effects, focusing on why I even wanted it in the first place. Many times, I would only drink a third, feel jarringly shit and I’d pour the rest down the drain (sorry Dad). It was fascinating. Once I reshuffled and reassessed my desire and reasons for why I drank I then tried forcing myself to drink the same way I had over the last 5 years and I just had no interest. It seemed dumb and unproductive.

But like I said - I still want to drink. It’s just not my go-to for dealing with pain. My pain’s manageable now. I suspect it’s because of how much pain I was in about 4 months ago. It’s stretched out my perspective, the wounds have cauterized, the radiation in Chernobyl has subsided and is inhabitable again. Now I can go about solving issues and problems with a sort-of practical enjoyment. As opposed to just hitting the wall mentally, giving up or not even contemplating the situation and just drinking until Bo Burnham videos make me cry and the balconies I smoke on become like Indonesian temples as I symbolically sacrifice 25 grams of a White Ox. Followed by waking up feeling so ill that if I woke up like that without drinking I could only assume I had weeks to live.

It’s certainly a sign that your drinking has gone too far for your body if you must pop 2 Panadol Rapid during your drinking session. Which’s something I’ve been doing the last 6 months. I remember doing it and making sure no one was watching. Which’s weird, it’s not as if they’d know it was common occurrence. It’s also 100% a sign your drinking’s gone too far when you have 2 Panadol Rapid every time you wake up after drinking. After a while all the fantasy and romanticism of regular heavy drinking washes away and you see it as it is (especially solo drinking) - self-harm. That’s all it is after a point. It’s like online shopping for self-harm; pain will be delivered in 7 – 8 business hours, you can track your order using your fingers on your temples.  

But like I said, not done with drinking. Just done with regular, destructive, hateful drinking.

I kinda had to drink when I was super sad because I literally couldn’t deal with my reality surrounding me. When I was drunk I narrowed down my consciousness to a manageable point, a bite sized piece I could chew. Sometimes we can only handle a tapas sized portion of reality.

***

The nicotine lozenge, which I’d put under my gum to stifle my desire to smoke only jacked up my heart rate and took away my sleepiness. I didn’t want to smoke anymore though. I lay in bed like a patient awaiting treatment and reminded myself if I desperately needed to smoke I could shake out the Stella Artois stubby I’d been using as an ashtray on the balcony and roll a butt rollie. I pushed that thought away. I’m quitting now – I thought. I’d been reading Allen Carr’s The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permanently. The same book I’d used to quit around 3 years ago.

Earlier in the day my Nan came over to pick up her car from my cousin’s house. The doorbell rang. It was a nice door bell. Not too jarring, not too loud. It surprised me though. I winced at the thought of socialisation. Not because it was my Nan. I’d had roughly 3 days alone and was starting to forget about human contact. I looked around the kitchen. It wasn’t too messy but not impeccable enough for the image I’d like to project. I took 2 Vegemite smeared butter knives and aimlessly chucked them in the sink and shut the pantry door. I went to the front door and opened it.

‘Oh, you’re here!’. Exclaimed my Nan and my cousin’s relentlessly well-mannered partner Jacob.

‘Ah yeah, yeah it’s me, hello’. I said.

My Nan walked up the porch steps, breathing audibly. I immediately noticed her nose. It was all flaky and red. I hugged her and as I pulled away I felt a nose flake scrape my shoulder. I didn’t say anything. There’s nothing worse than people commenting on that sort of shit. The person knows. We all know. I know I push an ‘honesty all the time’ policy but with that shit it’s unnecessary. Read the room. If it’s a close friend - talk about it immediately. If not, wait until they bring it up.  

Not that me and my Nan aren’t close. She’s always been pretty into my shit and I’ve always been pretty shit at keeping in contact. For some reason she’s always reminded me of a late Robin Williams. And I mean that physically. I don’t mean she looks like a man or unfeminine. She has Robin William’s smile. That kind, very emotional smile.

She came in and we started shooting the shit. She’d been at Phillip Island. I asked how it was.

‘Oh, you know, Phillip Island, you know, not a whole lot to do really’. She said, shamefully like she should’ve been doing more.

‘Yeah cool, well that’s OK, I’m sure it’s the place for that – not doing much’. I said, trying to counteract her low energy response.

We got to the kitchen. I sat down and immediately started scrounging around the last of my tobacco. There were a few pinches of Golden Virginia that I’d kept in a bag of filters for an emergency (or for when I’d inevitably ‘quit’). I took out all the filters onto the bench and soon there was a small pile.

‘What are these? Your cigarette butts?’. My Nan asked.

‘Na, they’re the filters’. I said.

‘Oh yes for your rollies, I remember using them in Uni’. She said.

She started telling me about a thing she’d heard on the radio about how social media isn’t controlled by any government, or country and the power they have. She said it in this ABC radio tone that was enjoyable to listen to. I imagined her voice through AM radio distortion, sitting in the front passenger seat of a car, driving through Tasmanian country side. It relaxed me. I used the last crumbs from my pouch of Port Royal and Frankensteined it together with the Golden Virginia to roll one last ciggy. She watched me intently as I cupped my hand on the bench and brushed the last dust of the tobacco onto the paper below.

‘Do you have Facebook?’. I asked, getting up.

‘Me? No, it’s far too confusing for me, especially at this age’. She said.

‘Got a light? I found a lighter the other day actually and I left it in the… I think I… I forget where I was… It was quite… I should’ve brought it –‘. She rambled.  

‘– It’s OK, I’ve got one, it’s upstairs, I’ll be back in just a sec’. I said, bounding up the stairs 2 at a time.

I grabbed the lighter and went downstairs. We went outside. I felt bad dragging my Nan outside, so I could smoke. But she didn’t seem to mind. We sat down.

‘So, what’s been going on Nan? Tell me a day in the life of Nan…’. I asked.

‘Ahehe, A day in the life of Nan? Well there’s not a lot really going on. I guess I’m trying to re-invent my life. I haven’t been very organised, and since Rex died. You know I got so used to living with him for around 10 years and now I’m a bit confused’.

‘Maybe you should try stand up?’. I said.

‘Hahaha, oh God no’.

[finding-best-engagement-qb]

Lover of learning Disclosure by Ramandeep Sukhdev

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