bedlam updates

I'm building a time machine so I can travel into recent history and kill our Prime Minister. I realise that is a complicated plan but I'm trying to find a way to talk about murdering the Australian Government that won't get me put on a list. Of cool people! Hi guys, let's talk politics. This week an American white women is telling the world that she is actually black because she says she is and that's that. Meanwhile in France anti-racism activists are terrified that the search for Viking DNA will stir up hard feelings. What's going to happen when activists discover France is really quite close to Germany? How offensive will that be? How come no one makes sense anymore? Is this The Singularity? Yes. We have entered the time of great bullshit, where the simplest things are confusing, where hardworking humanitarians using only the power of baffling jargon wrestle with the Imperial US Empire. For the right to wrap up and package our freedom, forklift it into a ...

I was grinding my teeth about going because I get depressed about this shit, but my feelings of futility about activism were outweighed by the chance to make some sweet propaganda for the cause. So I went to Richmond Town Hall to video the attempt by fascists to hold a rally there. I arrived and there were hundreds of folks waiting for these Nazi scum. What a party! I said hello to mates doing street medic and legal observer duties and made out the fascists way off down a side street. These tiny idiots in the distance became even smaller as they marched closer and the details of their ridiculousness became clearer. Cops in their dozens carved out a pathway for these cockheads all the way to the steps of Town Hall, but even with horses trampling our folks they just couldn't do it. 50 full on bigots with 100 cops helping couldn't manage. Good one. I get extremely frustrated at people in this country refusing to get involved in anything that looks like a hard struggle. If ther...

It's Tuesday and I'm two days into work on a Fringe show, which right now looks like it's going to be about the way conspiracy theories are going mainstream and ruining all life. I was into that madness before social media went big, however when I crapped on about terrible threats and dark forces I had to do it under the burning heat of actual eye contact. Which cured me. Now people are egging each other on (circle jerking) online, they're creating their own weather (a circle jerk) and things aren't looking good for stories that aren't part of a (circle jerk). Great time to wank publicly though, so yay for that. Superfoods. 9/11 Truth. People having delusions of grandeur about food(!) because they think it's probably best for everyone if all finicky middle class people live forever. Folks wanting to share the unique wow factor story that governments lie. Wellness. Truthness. We're in trouble unless people work out that stories are just stories, but tra...

In the United States a cop murdered a black man by shooting him in the back, putting him on the ground with as many bullets as he could manage conveniently. He then faked up the crime scene, probably thinking (and quite rightly) that a little bit of stage magic would make the whole thing go away. Unfortunately for the badge wearing murderer the whole thing was caught on video. The only thing that remains is to see exactly how he eventually doesn't face justice. Because he won't. They never do. Black people in America are inconvenient. They were shipped in to build an empire and haven't had the sense to disappear now that they are no longer necessary. White people in America are largely desensitised to the brute facts of the thing: you used black people to build your empire of comfort, your Sloth Heaven and you don't even realise you want them dead. You live off the suffering of others and facing that fact would be so hard on yourself that it's easier to be philoso...

Around this neck of the woods a view is developing and it is that the growing and monstrous wave of man child behaviour is a fairly direct and cowardly reaction to climate change. Because the future is so terrifying, young people are disappearing into fantasy and bullshit and when I say young people I mean everybody. It's just a shame that the people who are usually so good about angrily railing against injustice, the young, are so pants pissingly terrified of the future that all their energy is going into building a bubble of bullshit for their boofhead selves. The young have historically lost their minds and fucked shit up when presented with outrageously unfair bullshit, but in the case of climate change they're playing possum. And why is it that the only young and outraged political stand up comics I know are from Queensland? Melbourne people should be embarrassed that we have to fly in talent from other states to hear funny opinion that kicks against the pricks. But Melb...

We had a Herald Sun reviewer in the audience last night. From the moment we appeared from behind our silly curtain with our funny faces, he was clearly exasperated. We've had absolutely glowing feedback from earlier shows so we are just enjoying our performance and getting lost in proper fun. Which is hard to do when a guy you know is a reviewer is sitting there looking like we are Yoko Ono breaking up the Beatles. His review gave one and a half stars, by the way, which people who don't think for themselves will take as gospel. Tonight we stopped by a group of young comics, some of whom had obviously read the review, because one of them was doing something different, which was looking like he was going to pass out from not knowing what to say. We didn't mention it, just enjoyed their discomfort for a moment before moving on to go home to do damage control, which this is. Oh, and if I want to end a sentence on "is", I will, stick your review up your arse. And...

Last night I saw my friend Simon Keck do his show Eating Tiger Dicks. He's sort of ultra cerebral and filthy, moralising and warm hearted, all that good shit. As a comic he tries to do hard things, not gimmicks or anything he's dumbed down for safety, though there's no reason he couldn't be a mass appeal pop entertainer doing exactly what he's doing. I hate him. Spoiler alert: I am not going to describe the show at all. It's comedy. Comedy is Jesus. It's great to see a comic talk properly about what he's really interested in, no matter what it is, in such an unaffected yet clearly passionate way. And he's super fucking gross. My God. And in a really good way that doesn't exclude anyone. When he drops invented six letter swear words it's shared joy, not some fucked up hammer of shock. I hate him. Anger without warmth is just bitterness. I wouldn't call Simon Keck an angry comic, but there is that kind of anger underneath that com...