The Syntax Memoir – “Welcome to Silent Hill” The ups and downs of Newcastle

The Syntax memoir – Welcome to Silent Hill

It’s amazing how much impact you can have with a single show; as I would later discover, the word ‘impact’ has implications and meanings that go beyond the very nature of the word. When it comes to spending time in Newcastle, seemingly the concept of ‘impact’ is a very real and physical thing to experience.

This particular story begins harmlessly enough with an offer to support Vents in Melbourne. Another act had to pull out of the support lineup, and after some text exchanges with DJ Flagrant, I bundled my shit together to put on an impromptu set at the Espy.

I say impromptu, however that doesn’t really cut the mustard. To be honest, tsunami and earthquake victims get more warning than I did. In all no more than three hours separated the moment from when I got off the phone until I was expected to walk the boards and perform that night.

I’m always nervous before a show, and the confidence that I’m quite often known for rapidly dissipates in that golden 10 mins before show time. I lose all ability to recall a single lyric, and on most occasions even as I step onto the stage the opening line to my entire gambit is as foreign to me as a makeshift Indian toilet is to a rich kid from Toorak.

“Wait, where’s the seat?”

Somehow despite the issue of little time I managed to pull an impressive set out of my arse, one that managed to turn a few heads and create a few more Syntax fans.

My manager urged me, “Hit up Adfu for more shows” and after several beers and an indeterminate amount of slurred speech, I had somehow scored another support slot in Newcastle.

I had only ever been to Newcastle once before – passing through the town in the front seat of my brother’s 4WD, casually watching the greenery of Northern NSW undergo slow and tranquil metamorphosis into the soot covered brick veneer of the steel city.

We had taken a wrong turn and somehow ended up on the main strip – a single train line slowly dissipated, and the forlorn shops soon melted away into a rocky cliff face overlooking a flurry of boats slowly circling a distressed Pasha Bulker.

While the locals flocked in droves to watch the ship resting calmly on the beachfront, we came to the conclusion we had come the wrong way, and quickly circled around and left the town as quickly as we had come.

Needless to say, when I booked my flights to support Vents, my knowledge on NSW’s second largest city was limited – about as limited as the options in a Tasmanian fish and chip shop.

“Errr, fish or chips?”

The plan was simple and fiendish – book an early flight in the morning to save money, spend some time wandering around experiencing the highlights that the inner city has to offer, and then party on until the early morning, where hopefully I’ll be leaving the local bars and pubs just in time to jump on the first flight at 6am.

Fiendish, simple, easy.

Of course when it comes to anything Syntax related, the concepts of ‘Simple’ and ‘easy’ are about as likely to be a reality as Jessica Alba falling into my lap out of a passing plane while demanding from me non stop rigorous anal sex while rolling around on a bed of cash……that she would give me afterwards.

The first thing I would come to discover about Newcastle, is that Newcastle Airport isn’t actually in Newcastle.

Oh, your ticket will SAY you’re going to Newcastle, but you will in fact be landing in a completely different town, one that is nestled closely on the outskirts of the city. Of course, being somewhat rural NSW, the public transport to and from said airport is barely registerable. The roadkill that littered the small and inoffensive terminal was out in greater numbers than any of the buses that were said to frequent the premises.

After leaving the gate I found myself face to face with a bus, and after a brief discussion with the driver I was told I had to wait for the next one. Seemingly it was only then that a passing mother of six whispered softly in my ear that the departing bus was indeed the bus I was meant to take.

“When is the next one?”

“About an hour”

An hour? What the fuck am I meant to do for an hour? Do you know what goes on in the space of an hour? Entire empires rise and fall in the space between the airport shuttle bus. Even Gold Coast Surfside services, complete with nonchalant drivers and crystal ball evoking timetables are more effective than the ‘not-so Newcastle’ airport buses.

Somehow a Taxi had ended up at the airport like a lost dog wandering from house to house, and after pushing over an old woman into a bin I ran into the street and threw myself across the windshield.

The polite elderly white man behind the wheel presumably wasn’t used to the fancy ‘Melbourne’ way of getting a cab, and after a round of expletives coarse enough to make a randy sailor blush, he let me into the front seat and proceeded to tell me that my destination was over 30 minutes away.

“Exquize me? Baking powder? How far away is it?”

“About 30KM”

I sat and watched the money slowly rise, and with each and every turn leading to another long winded road with no end in sight, I began to curse myself for lacking patience enough to endure a single hour of waiting.

$70 later I was deposited at my destination, a dimly lit and dilapidated strip of shops that I was assured was the central hub of Newcastle.

As I looked around, all I could think was that ‘Newcastle’ had been spelled incorrectly on the street signs, it clearly should be spelled “S-I-L-E-N-T-H-I-L-L”.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes – all I could see was a single street, carved on both sides by row after row of empty shop front. Most shops were barren dank shells, while others boasted stale bread, advertisements for scratchies, and discounts for concession card holders. The brightest store in town was a modest bridal fashion store, with dresses in the shop window that looked like they had been stitched together by blind Estonian immigrants in second rate working conditions.

I spent four hours wandering backwards and forwards, looking in vain for something that resembled 21^st century design and manufacture, and after following the trail of a single row of modern looking shops, I found myself out the front of a modest KFC.

I sighed, and spent an hour inside looking at my phone, all while trying to avoid the stares of acne ridden Lowes polo shirt adorned workmen and their overweight and rum stained girlfriends.

My plan to set the day ablaze with the sights and smells of inner Newcastle had faded away faster than hypercolour t-shirts, and after five hours of wandering I had seen nothing more than a bookshop, a strangely designed shopping centre, four thousand empty shops, and the confines of an under-staffed and underwhelming KFC.

I looked at my watch and thanked god that Sound Check was imminent.

Well I say that, I actually had no idea at all, the brief on the show was practically non existent, and my plans for soundcheck had been gleaned by eagerly reading the twitter updates of all the protagonists involved.

“Oh, they’re at the venue” was all I could mutter as I trudged slowly towards to the small and inoffensive pub where the evening’s events would take place.

I would soon discover that my presence wasn’t needed – and after wandering a boring and empty city for several hours, I was deposited back on to the streets to wait for another few hours in the rainy and bleak conditions that had suddenly formed over the inner city.

Seemingly I had also underestimated the cold – I had left Melbourne on a balmy early spring day, and although it was a touch nippy I had opted to take very little with me in the way of clothing. I mean, let’s face it, my barnstorming idea for an early flight early departure negated the need to pack anything more than the clothes that adorned my back.

It soon became obvious that my thin and unflattering hoodie just wasn’t cutting the mustard – as far as mustard cutting goes I was attempting to sheer a rainforest with a pair of hello kitty safety scissors.

The rain bellowed down, and I wandered further into the cold abyss than I had done all day. The empty streets had suddenly come alive as workers were cut loose from their employment, and a swarm of umbrellas spilled on to the pavement eagerly pressing themselves into buses and waiting trains.

All the while I wandered, wet, cold and with nowhere to go.

My feet ached, but I pressed on.

Soon the inner city clutter disappeared, and before me opened up a part of the city I hadn’t yet experienced – tiny roads splintered across steep hills like thinly split veins splattering themselves over the grey landscape. They wandered between the buildings, which were modern in construction, and boasted an array of modern stores, cafes and interesting knick knack emporiums.

I was gobsmacked.

It was like a passing Persian had whispered “Open Sesame”, and the chain smoking gaunt faced thugs had instantly changed themselves into beautiful young tight jean wearing bubble butt women, all the while the barren shop fronts rolled up like garage doors to reveal a modern and attractive city scene.

Apparently I had spent all my time in slumsville, and only after had all the stores closed had I discovered the true pounding heart of the town.

I found myself a café, purchased a flat white’s worth of wall space and iphone recharge socket, and sat and waited until showtime.

After another hour, I was confident that I had enough power pushed into my phone, and slowly trudged my way back across the main road down into the ghetto.

I passed a dimly lit and equally grim “Public Housing Office”, and all I could think was that Newcastle’s public housing crisis could be easily avoided by giving waiting families the keys to one of the many empty shops that infested the entire cityscape.

The first act was Kerser, who had made the trip up from Sydney, and soon shouted the lyrics of all his songs to a confused and slightly reserved audience that seemingly were backing away in fear at his over the top attitude and forceful demeanor that resembled a stab wound attached to every bar.

Johnny Utah had also put in an appearance, and after exchanging pleasantries and nerd infused chit chat I clambered on to the stage to kick off the set.

One thing was definitely on point that night – I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with a mic that sounded as awesome and crisp as the one I held in my hand that night. Normally as the music bellows I find myself shouting over the top of a flat and empty stage. This night however I felt confident.

I had also dispensed with a DJ – relying instead of operating the CDJ that had been placed on to the stage by the stage manager. It was easy enough, press play, the track ends, I press play again when I wanted it to go.

Nothing could go wrong.

“Wassup everyone! HOW ARE WE NEWCASTLE?!” I shouted. The crowd responded.

We were off to a good start.

I mentioned who I was, people nodded in appreciation, and the spectacle of the Syntax stage show began.

To say I was off to a flying start was putting it lightly – I felt so on point, so precise, every word was timed perfectly and the mic and the fold backs were doing me all the favours in the world in making sure the entire process was easy, simple and crowd shattering effective.

That was until I fell off the stage.

Like a lion standing atop a rock I strutted, and then all the majesty and ponce that is attributed to the king of the jungle slowly faded into the ether; the big cat proved itself to be a kitten and tumbled down the side of the rock face in front of the rest of the pride.

Two large speakers had been attached to the stage – well, I say attached. In fact two large holes had been cut into the stage to allow the speakers to fit in nicely. Of course, the holes that were cut into the stage were not perfect, in fact, you could say that they were made a foot too big.

‘My’ foot too big.

While strutting backwards in a display of swagger and pompery, my foot had got caught in one of the holes and wedged itself between the speaker and the stage; I tumbled backwards mid song with all the grace of a lemming falling off a bridge into a lake of molten lava.

The music kept playing.

There was no DJ to stop the show.

The entire crowd stopped and looked, I heard an audible laugh, and the allure and mystique of Syntax burst like a refined English gentleman had just been dacked in the centre of Piccadilly Circus.

I dusted myself off, skipped to the next track, and the show went on.

I slinked off the stage and licked my wounds, there was no ‘backstage’ area, no rider, and I was eating into my savings by trying to drown myself in cheap bar purchased schooners.

Among the chaos of Vents’ set, I surreptitiously muzzled myself up to one the venues many wall sockets and proceeded to charge my phone – I looked at my watch, it was 11:30pm. Still another six and a half hours until my flight.

Well, I thought, everyone here is having a good time. Usually the show will go on till about 1am, there’ll be drinks after, chilling out with the punters, maybe a bar or two to visit afterwards.

Things were panning out just fine.

It was at this point that a young lady sidled up next to me and started conversation.

Alright, I’m on here.

I adjusted my metaphysical tie and made nice with the talky talky.

My thoughts of riding the stinky mattress train until 6am were soon interrupted by a drunken swaying man that proceeded to plop himself in between myself and my impromptu date.

“Errr hi, how are you mate?” I blurted.

“Fuckkkknnn good aye”, he muttered with speech so slurred I felt the entire time space continuum had collapsed and we had wandered into a passing time bubble, “awesome fuckkknn show aye buddy”.

“Cheers mate” I replied.

Hiro Nakamura, the man who could control time and space, then proceeded to put his arm around the young girl and the two kissed tightly.

Apparently, it was his girlfriend. I retreated to the opposite facing sofa and wormed my way out of the situation by making idle chit chat.

We talked calmly and nicely until midnight, when my entire world was shattered when a passing security guard ordered everybody to vacate the premises.

“C’MON EVERYONE, OUT YOU GO, WE’RE CLOSING UP”

Wait, what? It’s midnight. What do you mean closing up? It’s Friday night, we’re in a town populated with nothing but drinkers, smokers and sex addicted factory workers, what do you mean you’re closing up?

My plan to stay at the venue was blown to dust.

To complicate matters the polite couple invited me back to their house.

“It’s ok, we’re not going to rape you” he drunkenly assured me. Alarm bells ringed loudly. When someone has to re-assure you that rape isn’t an option, more than likely rape is imminent.

I declined their offer and stepped into the cold, dark, rainy night.

The streets around were empty, I wandered up to find somewhere warm to rest and have a beer, but every bar, pub and speakeasy had closed its doors at midnight, presumably so the townsfolk could gather in a paddock somewhere and burn some heathens in the Wicker Man.

I slumped into a chair, frozen, underdressed, defeated, and looked at my watch.

It was 12:30am.

I still had another 5 and a half hours to fill until my flight.

My iPhone buzzed its low battery warning once more, and I admitted ultimate defeat.

I hailed a passing cab, slid into the passenger seat, and told him to take me 30km out of town to the non-Newcastle Newcastle airport.

“Airports are open 24 hours mostly” I told myself, “Yeah, I mean there are red eye flights all the time going in and out of Melbourne. I’ll just sit myself down in the warmth of the empty departure lounge, plug my phone into a wall socket, and have a peaceful sleep until my flight is ready to leave”.

Simple.

Of course as we have already established the words ‘simple’ and ‘easy’ mean nothing in the world of Syntax.

The Taxi driver deposited me out the front of an empty and darkened terminal, only a few feet away from the bus station that had begun my long winded downward spiral into the underbelly of NSW’s second largest metropolis.

As he sped away into the night, my dreams of a warm and comforting sleep exploded into nothingness when the automatic doors of Terminal 1 failed to open.

After I had scraped what remained of my head off the closed door, I sat down on a bench, cursed myself till I was blue in the face, and waited.

Of course I didn’t have to wait long until I was blue in the face – the temperature had dropped to 4 degrees.

At that moment in time I would have murdered a family of ducks for warm clothing – I toyed with the possibility of catching and skinning a passing rabbit for its pelt, and as it ducked under a nearby Mazda I fell to the ground a broken, spent, sore, cold and tired human being.

I sighed, huddled behind a bus shelter for warmth, and reminded myself that every artist goes through this on their way to the top.

Yeah, they must.

They must.

The Syntax Memoir – Angry Midgets with Tyre Irons

Angry midgets with tyre irons

I can honestly say without a doubt that the first two years I spent out of school were quite possibly the most awkward of my entire life.

I was a nerd, I had very little dress sense, style or flair, and my ability to chat wonderfully with women was constantly overshadowed by a complete lack of ‘sealing the deal’.

After year 12 had subsided, and the sudden stench of unemployment and career floundering had smacked me swiftly in the face, I did what most 17 year olds did; I picked up a course guide to see how I could waste the next few precious drinking years by studying something mundane at university.

Business? No. Medicine? GTFO. Acting? YES!

My exploits here are documented elsewhere in my blogs:

It was only after my non acceptance into university did I do the next best thing: I went to TAFE.

I never even thought about IT, more than likely because the computing classes I took at school were far beyond my development and far beyond anything that I could honestly understand. There was no discussion about hardware; it was all Windows 3.11, flow charts and Boolean string equations.

My computer teacher was a character called Mr Komarmy.

Mr Komarmy was Picasso-esque in his construction; a cubist version of a human being. His long, black thick beard made him look like a Rabbi, but his nasal American voice was similar to a bad guy from a 1920’s New York mob syndicate.

“Yeah see, with this Boolean string equation and the insertion of the correct integer….you’re not going to get me copper…never!”

I half expected him to walk into class each morning carrying a Tommy Gun in a violin case, all the while smoking a cigar and spouting nonsense about ‘running the numbers’.

Rumours flew around the classroom about his extra-curricular activities, and one suggestion was that my good friend John Gerards had clicked on Mr Komarmy’s computer and found a cache of Star Trek pornography.

Considering this was 1997, a large collection of ANY internet images was considered an achievement.

And so, on the first day of TAFE, as we sat in the classroom and a fat redheaded man talked gingerly about the course I spotted two young gorgeous looking girls from across the room; Candice & Celeste.

We got along straight away; them with all their awesome gorgeousness and stories about sexual adventures in places that I had only pictured in my mind….and me…with….errr…..hmmm…..it was a pretty one sided friendship when I think about it.

Of course all this did was compound the awkwardness I had at TAFE, but the awkwardness came to an earth shattering conclusion when I met Plucka.

Of course, Plucka wasn’t his real name, he had one of those long winded asian names that no tutor could pronounce when they read the roll:

“Men-ee-sa-wah-saw-shin” they would often remark, screwing their faces up like they were trying to order something from a Chinese restaurant that they couldn’t quite get their tongue around. Unfortunately for them it wasn’t as easy as pointing to the name on a piece of paper and saying “Number 23….with black bean sauce”.

To this day I can’t remember the name, somewhere along the way the class had decided to call him ‘Plucka’, because it was sounded similar to the way he pronounced his last name.

He was slightly effeminate, and everyone thought he was gay. Despite his protests to the contrary, his case wasn’t helped by the fact that he drove a tiny red Mazda 121 ricebubble and proudly sang Spice Girls songs when we got into his car.

“I rearry rearry rearry wanna zigga-zhag-ahhh” he would stutter in his thick asian accent.

Of course at lunch time it was common for us to all pile into his car between classes, and head to the local shopping centre to eat and pass the time shopping.

Something which abruptly ceased the day we had the run in with the midget:

One sunny afternoon in the 3 hour break between our morning class and afternoon classes, Celeste, Plucka, another friend and myself decided to drive to the local store and buy some lunch. After a less than satisfying meal from KFC, we stumbled back to Plucka’s ‘in-the-closet-mobile’ to discover one of the front tires was flat.

We were in a pickle; picture a man who bordered on being a ladyboy, a skinny black girl with no body mass, another man who looked like a thin version of Don Johnson in a Hawaiian shirt so loud people blocked their ears when they saw it, and a fat bloke who knows nothing about cars.

As far as pickles go, it was quite the one….I would go so far as to say it was beyond a pickle….this was full blown cucumber territory.

As Plucka looked through his car to find something to jack the car up with, I noticed an early 90’s Toyota Starlet sitting in the bar beside us, with a car jack and tyre iron sitting proudly in the low slope backed glass boot.

It was almost mocking us; it was like a glass of water tired to the back of a slow moving tortoise, taunting a man with no arms dying of thirst in a sandy desert.

“Check to see if the boot is open” I slyly noted.

“There’s no way it’s going to be open, this is Southport, it’s going to be loc…..” and with that sentence, the boot of the car next to us opened up, and the warm summer air trapped inside blasted itself on to Plucka’s face.

*Insert joke here about things being blasted on to Plucka’s face* – I couldn’t be bothered readers; you’ll just have to use your own imagination.

The next 20 minutes was something similar to an Abbot and Costello routine.

We all tried in vain to change the tire, and after several attempts to use the Car Jack, it swiftly snapped under the weight of the car.

The full horror of the situation was compacted when a midget emerged from the side of a nearby building, casually whistling a tune like one of the seven dwarfs strolling towards the ageing Toyota.

With an audible “oomph” he launched himself into the driver’s seat and sat there for a minute trying to decipher the tangled web of keys he had in his possession. At any moment I felt like he could have looked at us, squeeled something about his ‘precious’ and retreated with haste into the dark recesses of the Mines of Moria.

Whether it was guilt, or whether it was the fact we just swindled a midget, we all looked at each other with expressions on our faces so gormless we could very well have been nazi’s exposed to the Ark of the Covenant while on the trail of Indiana Jones.

“Sorry mate”, I offered up an apology to the wee man.

“We had to borrow the Car Jack from the boot of your car”.

“What?” he angrily stumbled, “Wait wait wait, you STOLE the Car Jack from the boot of my car…” he continued. Before he could finish his sentence I cut him off:

“And broke it…”

“And you BROKE IT?”

The midget paced back and forth and began to mop the top of his sweaty brow with his hand. In a combination of anger and confusion he turned a bright shade of red, muttering a non-sensical string of words (possibly magical incantations) under his breath. The four of us looked on, and almost a minute had passed watching the midget swing back and forth like a pendulum before he spoke again.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“Look, we’re so sorry mate” I spluttered, and Plucka quickly opened his wallet and offered the man $50.

Not knowing how to handle the situation, the small man didn’t know what to do, and he furiously began to repeat himself:

“YOU STOLE IT?? FROM MY CAR?? STOOOOOOLE IT?”

It was fast becoming obvious that no one had control of the situation, and the midget glowed a bright red in frustration. With his white shirt, it looked like a passing giant had dropped a lit cigarette.

It was official, we had an angry dwarf on our hands, and as he snatched the $50 from Plucka’s hand, we all slowly retreated back into the car and drove with our flat tire to the nearest petrol station.

As the vertically challenged man drove off screeching angry words like the town drunk of Hobbiton, it dawned on me that this was one of those situations that would remain with me for the rest of my life.

Mostly because I now realise that all of my bad luck may stem from that awkward encounter; the day a pixie placed a curse on us all.

The Syntax Memoir: I am the Unicorn

I am the Unicorn

I should officially be the fittest man in town; the nature of the business has given me more opportunities for run-around’s than I care to mention.

Labels are untamed animals, and unfortunately when you stare deep into the belly of the beast you get to see it for the shivering self obsessed paranoid monster it really is.

There is no money in the music industry for labels, only enough to support wages and keep ageing corporate hating graff writers swimming in enough cocaine to keep them happy.

It is in the middle of this paradoxical soup that a young thrusting rapper is meant to find his or her legs, and make enough noise for the labels with no dosh to ‘loan’ artists enough money to release their albums.

It is a far cry from the lifestyle that most people are deluded into believing exists when they first put pen to paper in the hope of making their music dreams a reality.

Of course, this doesn’t stop individuals who run labels from filling your head with idealistic nonsense about how they are going to make you a star, how far your music could go with the right push, and most importantly, how uselessly crap everybody else is in the entire world when handling their music business.

I’ve been lulled several times into those situations, when suddenly you believe the hype, and suddenly someone who runs a music label from their living room starts to resemble Suge Knight in his prime.

In some cases after a particularly heavy meal, they actually do.

On numerous occasions I’ve stood in the offices of label owners, each of them particularly keen to sign me to their fledging businesses, hoping that a hilltop hoods-esque coup will sweep them onto the same stage as Obese or Elephant Traks.

As late as 2009, I was even prepared to sign my music away to one such label.

I requested the contract, and three months later I was still in the same position I was in three months prior; no contract emerged.

It seems to be characteristic of my, ahem, career, run around after run around searching in vain to find somebody to release an album that was starting to lose its impact more and more as I sank further into obscurity.

As far back as 2002 I was being poached by young new labels.

Chairman Records was a Gold Coast based dance label whose artist roster consisted primarily of a lounge DJ called DJ Szab. Even back then in my impressionable youth it was easy to tell that Szab was just taking whatever samples came free with his version of Cubase, putting them over deep bass drums, and distributing the whole package in artwork that looked like it was a promotional item for a pride march.

The owner’s name was Mal, an idealistic nightclub owner who looked like the gruff bald man who famously had his arm stuffed inside Agro and entertained children for many years.

Mal had a whispy little beard that made him look like a wizard who just had a makeover, and his obvious attempts to clutch to his fleeting youth were reinforced by his adoption of hip hop culture and with his fraternisation with anyone under the age of 20.

He was madly in love with one of my songs, and after a quick discussion both he and I planned to release it as my first single.

Of course, at the time I had little understanding of the music industry, and as a wide eyed 20 year old the fact that this man knew very little about rap music was overlooked because on the surface of it all he talked good game.

I’m sure he could coerce the underpants off a Brazilian supermodel if required.

He owned a succession of popular Brisbane RnB clubs that were always filled to the brim with undesirables; this was long before popped collars and sunglasses indoors, in those days it was spikey hair and neon Fubu 05 tops. It was the kind of material that needed a wash an hour after you wore it, and you could always pick someone who recycled their outfit from the day before because they smelled ominously like a mixture of B.O and novelty fart gas.

On several occasions I was asked to come into one of his clubs and perform; there was no stage, a tiny DJ booth, and apart from a mural on one wall, it was a nightclub that resembled the inside of a concrete shoebox more than a place of entertainment and frivolity.

I wandered around the dance floor with a cheap cordless mic, trying to rap to a crowd that didn’t contain a single white face, and were more inclined to lynch me for being a cornball white dude than throw me any sort of praise or admiration.

Mal’s hangers on all congregated in the tiny store room he had in the back; white rappers wearing flannel and adorned with blue bandanas crowded around trying to scam as many free drinks and associated praise they could from a man who saw himself as the next Suge Knight.

I simply grimaced, got my fill of bourbon, took the cash and went home feeling more sorry for myself than I ever did before.

As I scanned the room I shook my head and fell even further into despair; I was slowly associating myself with people who were doing me more harm than good, and the unfortunate taint of ‘urban’ music that lives, breathes and dies in ‘the club’ was slowly weaving itself into the fabric of my being.

In the end we simply parted ways and never returned each other’s calls, and I often wonder what might have become of myself had I been more proactive with Chairman Records. More than likely I would have ended up as a hype man for a series of ridiculously named RnB theme nights that make white single males look like backup dances for the World Class Wreckin’ Crew, adorned in outfits so outlandish that the juxtaposition could easily be mistaken for a melting Ken Done painting.

In subsequent years more label opportunities would present themselves, but in the end they always seemed to fall short of the hype and expectations that were dictated to me by those people who were ready to promise me the world.

As such, the last few years have been a perpetual running man; a slow dance that required every ounce of my strength and focus, yet always seemed to leave me rooted in the same spot.

I still have all of my label correspondence, including those from Simon Cahill, director of A&R at Sony/BMG, who told me he “loved the music, but it doesn’t fit in with what we are doing at the moment”.

This of course is the nice way of saying “after thinking about it, no”. The musical version of “It’s not you, it’s me”.

So again we parted ways, and with every ounce of strength left in my exhausted soul I filled out a fortnightly form and once again joined the back of a Centrelink queue.

Thus, the perpetual running man continued; the slow exhaustive dance that forever left me glued to a fixed point, never moving forward.

It distinctly seemed that my run of bad luck spilled over from the world of live music performance and into the business aspect that preceded it.

While sending out promotional copy and CD’s to media contacts after the release of my first solo effort IOUs, between the date I gleaned my addresses and the date the promotional material arrived, it appears that a large percentage of the recipients moved address, adorning dozens of packages with ‘Return to sender’.

It was just my luck.

By the time 2008 had come around a new label was beginning to show interest; UndaK9 was a self affirmed independent Sydney label famous for two things:

The first was its primary artist Figgkid, who himself was special for not only securing a deal with Sony/BMG for distribution and release, but also for being the most hated rapper in Australian history.

UndaK9’s second point of interest was its domineering and assured owner/director Lui, someone with a reputation that exceeds any other owner or promoter in Australia. There is scarcely anyone in the industry I know that doesn’t have a story that can’t be attributed to the over-bearing nature of this short statured Napoleon-esque warrior.

To be honest, I love Lui, and anything I say here can easily be taken out of context as poking fun or being ungrateful for everything she’s done for me, but to be honest, as I sit back and reflect on the events that almost lead me to pack up everything I own and move to Sydney, I thank whatever god was watching that day that it never was enacted.

Lui and I would chat on the phone, sometimes for almost two hours about how she felt about my songs, the role I could play in the Australian music scene, all while recanting the luminous volumes of stories of her time working as an intern for studios in the US.

“When I was hanging out with Eminem he told me…..”

Whatever it was that Eminem had told her worked, because I was slowly being sucked into the world mutual pats on the back and self assuredness of my own ability. I was being haunted by visions of Mal and his smoke filled concrete shoebox, cramming idealistic nonsense into my head in an effort to get me to sign on a dotted line and put my future in the hands of someone who talked mad game.

With no other offers on the table, and the creeping inevitability of age, I thought, fuck it, and leapt headfirst into my first true music contract with as much plans for the future that suicidal lemmings put into deciding what they want for dinner the next day.

And so come late 2008, I called Lui and told her:

“Let’s do it”

Through her resounding cheers and exclamations of joy, something reluctantly stirred in the back of my mind. A nagging feeling that I had just sold myself short and put into motion a swinging axe that would soon decapitate any chance I had in making a real impact in the community. An axe that had brought swift and resounding justice to Figgkid, and the new UndaK9 posterchild Bukkcity.

The contract never arrived.

A chorus of promises soon followed, and nearly 2 months passed and no contract had reared itself from its cavernous hiding spot.

Punxsutawney Phil slowly meandered from his hole, saw no shadows, and bunkered down for a cold and indefinably long winter.

By April 2009 I began to make other arrangements, and as the first tracks for ‘The Musical’ were being cobbled together, a semi conscious depressive state had crow barred its way into my head; I found myself calling people up for no reason, purely to take my mind off the balancing act I was involved with as I teeter tottered between unemployment and the slowly melting shards of my music hopes.

Of course the reasons for my calls were quite obvious, and on a few occasions I was met with responses such as “Seriously, are you ok?”.

I wasn’t.

As early 2009 began to tick over and fade into the ether, I looked around the dusty confines of the makeshift office/writing space I had set up for myself in my parents garage. Friends who came to see me found a sense of comfort in my garage space, however all it represented to me was an overwhelming sense of non-accomplishment; a labyrinth of walls that served only to contain my self esteem, and drag me compliantly into death with a slight whimper and nod of appreciation.

At the time, after 9 years of making music, all sense of idealistic bravado had been sucked away by the overpowering brutality of people’s apathy, and the ethereal spine tingling succubus we like to call hip hop music.

I broadened my job search, and after only a week of scouring the employment opportunities other cities presented me, I made a hasty and rash decision.

I was moving to Melbourne.

Within three days I had a place to stay and over 6 job interviews lined up before my one way ticket was even purchased.

I’m not too sure what came over me at that time, it was by far the most irrational and least pondered decision I had ever made; It was like a passing muse crept into my bedroom one night and whispered sweet nothings in my ear, promised me the world, and filled inside me a sense of accomplishment and determination that I had never felt in over 25 years.

The only promise I made to myself was that I could never return to the Gold Coast unless I come back adorned ornately with more than I left with.

Considering all I had with me was a mobile phone, a spare pair of dress shoes and a suitcase, some would consider my mission more than a considerable success, and even now as I sit in my own two bedroom apartment surrounded with an array of electronic equipment I never thought I would ever be able to buy, I still feel my mission is unresolved.

I’ve conquered the mountain of financial distress, and now I can turn my attention to bludgeoning my way into music, a single solitary fan at a time.

Soulmate Records took some interest in the first draft of The Musical sometime in 2009, and after some tweaks I had managed to obtain something that most artists in this country crave more than the oxygen they are so lucky to be given a chance to breathe.

I had a recording contract.

It’s only after the signatures have long since dried do I now realise exactly what the concept of a record deal entails; it means living up to the expectations asserted by others. At the time I had enormous boots to fill, following releases from 360, Pez and eventually Prime.

The record deal is the death nell that pangs after the label cuts the cheque and sits and waits patiently to recoup on their faith in your ability.

And faith in my ability Soulmate has, and I won’t ever forget that.

All I need to do now is break through the barrier of apathy, and I’ll start being able to pay back the emotional cost of my association.

I feel like the Unicorn, an icon of strength and inspiration, coming to the eventual realisation that as Noah sails away into the horizon on his ark the rising water will erase away my existence.

I am the Unicorn; a mythical creature that was once flesh and blood.

I spent years treading water, struggling as the water rose around me.

Now I have found land.

Alone and forgotten I’m still alive, waiting to be discovered again.

Death Starrs – Novocaine (Hilltop Hoods Remix)

So Mules and I have thrown down the gauntlet in the Hilltop Hoods Remix competition…

Mules took this shit to a new level, and I’m dropping some double time bars.

Enjoy – http://www.triplejunearthed.com/DeathStarrs1

The pocket sized Syntax Memoir: Miranda Kerr bombs battleships

Miranda Kerr bombs battleships

Wine flowed freely around our radial table at Nobu.

A scant collection of friends laughed, clinked glasses and reminisced over old times while the table’s around us murmured softly in polite conversation.

Wonderfully lit surrounds prompted everyone to look in awe at our environment, and It didn’t take us long to spot the gaunt and beautiful figure of Miranda Kerr hovering coquettishly in the corner of the restaurant.

After a few looks in her general direction, the party put their heads down and continued on its wayward conversation.

While the others spoke warmly of ex lovers, old flames and tested relationships, I noticed that Miranda Kerr had left her seat and began to make her way towards the surreptitious toilet entrance on the other side of the restaurant.

I watched with a keen interest as she sauntered across the room, and effortlessly pushed open the door; her movements were so graceful and so becoming of the celebrity she so rightly deserved.

20 minutes passed and my attention had been moved on to the wonderful first course that had been laid out in front of me. It was at this point out the corner of my eye I noticed the toilet door open once more, and a sheepish looking Miranda Kerr emerged and began to strut confidently towards her table.

Awkwardly positioning sashimi between my chopsticks, my brain suddenly clicked.

Hang on.

She was in there for quite a while.

A metaphysical wheelbarrow of bricks suddenly fell atop me, and in one of those life changing eureka moments that happen only once in a lifetime, it dawned on me exactly what I had witnessed.

Miranda Kerr had just done a poo.

She had to, she was in there long enough, what else could she have been doing?

Miranda Kerr was bombing battleships, she was negotiating the release of some brown trout, dropping the kids off at the pool, and (my own creation) she was shaking hands with Colin Powel.

I didn’t know what to do, my palms became sweaty and I looked around in excitement, desperately trying to find someone to tell what I had just witnessed. I hadn’t felt this excited since watching an episode of Heroes where the main character turns to the deaf protagonist and says, “I’ll call you later”.

WHAT? ON THE PHONE? SHE’S DEAF DUMB-ARSE.

I turned to my friend beside me and whispered in her ear.

“What? No way, are you sure?”

When the evening was over I looked back at the events that had transpired and I wondered what the fuss had been about. With celebrity seems to come an overwhelming sense of perfection; we forget that these people are no more or less human than the rest of society, and when they exhibit normal behavior we pounce on them like kittens on amusing stuffed animals.

To be honest I didn’t really have any other place to put that anecdote, so as a fitting testament to uselessness and as an example of what else to expect within the confines of this memoir, I stuck it here.

And so if you’re a first time reader then welcome, welcome to over 20 years of my life neatly rolled into a cheap sushi roll, dipped in the soy sauce of awkwardness and sandwiched between the chopsticks of disappointment.

Thus, as my life slowly circles itself around in front of you on the sushi train of existence, pick it up, give it a go, have a read.

Before you abruptly put it back down and vow never to try that particular plate ever again.

I think the sushi analogy is beginning to wear a little thin.

I’ll stop now.

Enjoy.

The Syntax Memoir: Oh, my poor pussy

Oh, my poor pussy

It takes a lot to make me blush, probably because years of violent video games, movies, strange science fiction and hardcore pornography has left me completely desensitised to most emotional situations.

The last time I remember crying was while watching the Korean film Brotherhood of War (which had the mouth watering tagline ‘This makes Saving Private Ryan look like a children’s movie’ ); the final scene involved an elderly man uncovering the remains of his brother on the hill where he left him 50 years earlier after a climactic Korean war battle which was amazingly over dramatised in traditional asian cinematic style.

There was not a dry eye in the house.

But I think that was because of a sudden outbreak of pink eye.

When I was a child, my parents reveled in the glory of their VCR; we weren’t the first in our street to have one, but we always managed to stay on top of most technological breakthroughs.  While others were still maneuvering a red chicken across a road on their Atari 2600, we had already upgraded to the Commodore 64 (with 5.25” Floppy Disk drive, none of this tape nonsense). To this day I still remember the commands to play games.

Load “*”,8,1

It’s no surprise that when DOS came around I was already a dab hand at it.

I think a lot of my younger readers have switched off by now. The prospect of typing in commands to get their copy of California Games working seems as ludicrous and antiquated as having to spin a little wheel when trying to make a phone call.

Oh yeah, we had to do that too. There was none of this ‘pushing buttons’ business. It took no less than a few minutes to dial a number. If the number you were dialing had a lot of 9’s in it, then you had better pray to god you were adequately hydrated because you would probably be there all day.

Saturday night was video night, and like clockwork I would often trundle down to the local video store and get myself a variety of violent tapes; the age of DVD’s have unfortunately spelled the end of one of my favourite aspects of the video shop experience: the amusing shaped covers.

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s ‘Overboard’ came in a box that was filled with blue liquid, giving it the impression that the image of the boat on the cover was surrounded by water.

Brilliant.

The ‘Fright Night’ box was shaped like a coffin, in fact, most of the horror section was arranged in a way to accommodate the bizarre shapes and sizes of the boxes contained on the shelves. Most of them had puffy jackets, and any movie that had eyes printed on the cover were more than likely adorned with those funny googly dolls eyes glued to make the printing seem more lifelike.

Tsshh, yeah, because ‘real’ eyes do 360 degree spins when your car hits a speed bump.

For a 10 year old however, it was like being in movie heaven.

Unfortunately as time went on and the videos were passed from one renter to the next, you could watch their condition slowly deteriorate like wilting flowers on time lapse cameras.

By the time I had any sort of desire to watch Overboard, the jacket had been well and truly punctured and the amusing blue liquid had drained away, presumably over someone’s distinctive early 90’s white plush shag carpet.

I also learned quite quickly that if you position yourself on the other side of the ‘Adult’ section, you could look at the back of the R Rated videos without arousing suspicion from older folk.

Genius.

Of course, when we upgraded to the VCR from the humble Betamax machine (which in some ways was actually superior to the VCR), the old clunking supposedly inferior format simply lay collecting dust in our garage; a sleeping giant waiting to be loved once more.

Seeing as it was no longer being used, I converted a section of our garage into a multimedia centre. Of course the term ‘Multimedia centre’ isn’t particularly the best way to describe an overturned milk crate, a gargantuan Betamax machine, a small mattress and an ageing wood paneled Rank-Arena television. Although at one point I did manage to encircle the enclave in curtains, more so as a desperate attempt to mark my territory and let my older brothers know that this cordoned off patch was ‘mine’.

Of course it didn’t deter them from pranking me; one of my brothers had soon discovered that he could fart in a glass, hold his hand over the top, and open it in front of my face releasing the terrible gasses trapped within.

Using this method he could effectively fart on me from any room in the house.

Quite ingenious really.

Of course it meant that anyone using the glass afterwards would soon discover that their tap water would be filled with bubbles.

It was like a poor man’s Sodastream.

I would waste my Friday and Saturday evenings in my space age multimedia suite, re-watching the only good Betamax titles I had in my vast collection. It didn’t take me long to learn all the words to Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II.

“I get $20 for a car, $50 for a limo, what the fuck is this?”

“This is my truck, here is $100”.

Ahhh Chris Rock, you were a genius in that movie.

And so, after years of guns blazing, soul draining video games and constantly watching my Betamax because I felt “the need, the need, for speed”, I can confidently say that it takes a lot to make me blush.

Although I am squimish at the site of medical procedures.

But that’s beside the point.

Anyway, you can imagine my surprise one day when my grandmother was able to break through my normally observant stone walled exterior; ironically it took the likes of ‘Are you being served’, the lamest comedy series ever screened on television to do so.

For those not in the know, Are you being served is a British 70’s sitcom that follows the exploits of a number of over acting and limelight seeking employees of Grace Brothers department store. The show itself was so camp that if the name had been changed to ‘Scout Jamboree 1976’ then I doubt the viewing public would scarcely have noticed.

Most of us will be familiar with the character of Mr Humphries, the outwardly gay store assistant played by John Inman who was well known for his catch phrase, “I’m Free”.

Others however may not be familiar with the exploits of another well known character, Mrs Slocombe, who was dearly in love with her prized cat, creating all manner of hilarity when she would walk into the store and loudly exclaim, “Have you seen the rain outside? Awww my poor pussy is all wet”.

Essentially it was the role of Mrs Slocombe to walk into frame, drop a few double-entendres regarding the state of her feline, and then walk off shaking her head while repeating the phrase, “Oh, my poor pussy”.

As you can see, Are you being served will go down in history for its true comedic genius.

Now I like to think that in some way, shape or form my memoirs have the ability to act as a sign-poster or a warning of what not to do in some socially awkward situations. I want to let it be known to all and sundry that watching Are you being served is not particularly a negative experience that one must avoid, however it should be noted that watching it alone in the company of your 89 year old grandmother is probably not the wisest decision one could make.

After laughing gingerly at the awkward situations presented in this week’s episode, both her and I sat with smiles on our faces sipping warm cups of tea, happy and content in the knowledge that our evening’s television viewing was relatively pure and unspoiled.

Enter Mrs Slocombe.

“My pussy has an infection, its puffed right up it has”.

Suddenly alarm bells began to ring in my head, the introduction of Mrs Slocombe into any scene of Are you being served is basically a visual warning that the level of double-entendres in the next few minutes would probably reach highly unacceptable levels.

I began to sweat and cast an eye sideways towards my elderly grandmother as Mrs Slocombe delivered round two of her deadly vagina monologues.

“Oooooo yes, I think it’s an infection, my pussy has swollen up to the size of a watermelon”.

All I could do was cringe and wait for the constant barrage of poorly scripted comedy to finish. By the time Mrs Slocombe had walked out of shot, the definitive air of silence had become almost deafening in the cool and dimly lit front room of my grandmother’s house.

To add insult to injury, Channel 10 had cut to a commercial, and an all too familiar blank screen appeared; the sign that something had gone wrong while switching to a commercial and whatever had been lined up to fill in the 30 second spot was not ready or cued up properly at the control desk.

And so there we sat, the two of us had just witnessed an awkward display of ear cringing pussy themed comedy, a barrage of bad jokes that were resonating more due to the 30 seconds of blank screen silence that followed.

After a minute of sitting awkwardly in my chair, my grandmother leaned across and whispered softly in my ear.

“All that stuff….”, she began

“Yes?”

“All that stuff”, she paused, “that had a double meaning you know”.

I sat dumbfounded. She nonchalantly flicked the channel over to the ABC and began to look longingly at Kerry O’brien as he feverously dissected the GST.

I was still in shock, and after another minute I turned my head to the 7:30 Report, pretending that then last two minutes of my life were merely a dream, and that they had never happened.

Anything relating to sex seems like it is taboo for most people to discuss with families, and I often think that anyone who has an excellent report with their family on the matter of copulation doesn’t really have as healthy of a relationship with their loved ones as they would think.

I cringe whenever I overhear in shopping centre’s a mother/daughter team talk about sex openly without any sense of decency. I think because in most cases parents never officially sat down to talk about sex with their children, instead leaving it to the school system to educate their young ones on the intricacies of sex and its repercussions.

My parents never gave me ‘the talk’, in fact the first mention of sex my father ever nervously made in my presence wasn’t until I was 18, and he waited until the opportune moment for one of my female friends to arrive at the house for a visit before he hit me with anything sex related. As I was walking her to the front door he shouted to me down the hall, “Use Condoms!”

She looked at me bizarrely and a sense of panic seemed to run rampant across her face, she must have thought that I was about to do something terrible to her.

Thanks dad.

I still distinctly remember our first sex-ed video in primary school. I don’t exactly remember the year, but as young as grade 6 we were garishly given the ins and outs (excuse the pun) of ‘making love’ by Ms Owen, our elderly religious education teacher.

If the whole affair wasn’t bad enough, Ms Owen revealed to the class that she used to be a nun, which explained her penchant for playing the guitar (at that point the only nuns I really knew of were in terrible 1960’s children’s movies), so her sexual knowledge wasn’t exactly the most reliable port from which to launch young impressionable minds into the stormy seas of fornication. I liken the experience to leaving a man with no arms in charge of a classroom of push-up enthusiasts.

Curiously Ms Owen was also only born with two fingers on her right hand, a thumb and a pinky, which of course lead to the unfortunate nickname ‘Ridgy Didge’.

Nobody ever saw her lose her temper, but we often heard stories about poor unfortunate students who were caught doing ridgy didge impressions in her company; expulsion often resulted.

And so our entire grade squeezed themselves into the tiny music room of Marymount Primary to watch a nervous two-fingered ex nun introduce our feature presentation, “The Miracle of life”. As she apprehensively pushed the VCR cassette into the player and pushed play, the boys around me became quite excited; would we get to see some tits? How in depth is this really going to go? Do babies really come out of a woman’s arse just like Norbet Benton had told us in the playground only a few days before?

After a few seconds it became apparent that tits were definitely not on the menu.

Instead, a naked cartoon boy and a naked cartoon girl invaded the television screen. 18 Years later I still haven’t forgotten the first line of the video:

“I am a boy, I have a penis”, cut to the girl, “I am a girl, I have a penis on the inside, I have a vagina”.

A penis on the inside? A small murmur began to descend over all assembled, and one girl began to freak out as she realised that her vagina was really an inverted penis.

Or so we were told.

In the end we filed out of the room looking a lot more confused than when we went in, and even the accompanying teachers shook their heads in amazement at the level of simplicity sex had been reduced to by the presentation.

If what the video was saying was true, once our penis goes inside a vagina, an army of sperm suddenly descends from nowhere and wiggle inside the naked cartoon girl; 9 months later a child magically appears in the arms of the naked woman, both smile, cue credits.

It didn’t explain the bizarre stiffening of my penis on occasion, and it certainly didn’t explain why I found it so pleasing to look at Virginia Lee from across the classroom. It took me until grade 7 for me to realise that all those years ago, she was my first crush.

As a frantic bi-fingered nun shooed us towards the door I couldn’t help but feel that the school’s sex education class had let me down. Where was I going to be in a position to be naked with a girl? I was in grade 6 for heaven’s sake, the closest I came to naked women was finding my father’s stash of Penthouse magazine’s he had hidden under his bed. Lastly, where was I going to find these ‘sperm’ things? Were they a type of tadpole? I didn’t realise that to have sex I had to wade knee deep in water and begin examining the life cycle of frogs. Was this before or after I find myself the naked woman?

It was all too confusing.

The chicken and the egg scenario had suddenly been blown out of proportion; what came first, the chicken or the egg? Neither, apparently before anything came, a trip to the local estuary was required.

Come grade 7 and I still hadn’t really got my head around the intricacies of sex.

The coolest kid in our grade was Anton Mayer, well, I think he was cool; every free dress day he came to school wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey with matching shorts, brand new Jordan sneakers, and an array of stiff Starter caps that sat precariously on the edge of his bob haircut.

He looked like a ball player, nay, a member of East 17, his only negative feature was the fact he was a clear foot shorter than anyone else in the grade. That didn’t seem to stop the girls from liking him, especially Danielle Camilerri, the tallest girl in our class who towered over the top of him like a Brazilian catwalk model bending over to pick up a dropped can of corn at the supermarket.

The two would often escape into the ‘unknown’ of the trees that surrounded the tuckshop area, emerging only after the bell rang smiling gingerly from ear to ear.

It amazed me; Anton didn’t have to lie about his sexual exploits, unlike Luke Cowan, who foolishly told me he had sex with Katie Winkleman in the nearby lake when they were both in grade 3.

“Wait, in the lake?”

“Yep, in the lake”

I pondered what he said, the sheer physics of it didn’t seem right; not that I knew enough about sex to pull him up on his outlandish claim. I simply nodded, and continued reading the Penthouse magazine the two of us had just stolen from the newsagency.

Our cunning plan was to spend 50cents on a newspaper, slip the offending title in between the broadsheets, and then make a quick getaway before the shop owner cottoned on to the fact that we have just scarpered with an expensive 18+ magazine.

We took our ill-gotten gains to our hang out spot, the empty block of land over from the Luke’s house, a location that conveniently overlooked the lake where he and Katie had supposedly ‘done the deed’. The water lapped gently at the shore and after a few moments of looking at the photos, becoming excited, and then not knowing what to do about it, the two of us buried the magazine so we could return the next day and pick up where we left off.

Of course the local council seemed to have other plans, and as the two of us coasted up the street walking back from the local shopping centre, we stood a gasp at the site that presented itself before us; an army of trench-diggers feverishly cutting fresh holes in the dirt, directly over the spot where our pilfered issue of Penthouse magazine lay.

We were heartbroken.

The next day work had ceased, and approaching the site we ran across the newly ploughed earth, our noses alive with the smell of freshly maneuvered topsoil, and began to dig desperately for our beloved stick magazine.

It was gone.

My first ever porn mag had disappeared into the ether, either stolen by a disheveled council worker or dumped among a huge pile of unclean fill in the backlot of a council dump station.

And so began my downward spiral into the addictive world of pornography, every waking moment of my life from that point seemed to be aimed towards trying to recapture the high I experienced that fateful day while in early primary school.

Back at Marymount Primary, as the sexual education video climaxed and Ms Owen gently nudged our class towards the door, my mind began racing, flickering over the exuberant claim made by Luke Cowan in that vacant block of land years before.

I imagined him and Katie Winkleman swishing around in the water, kissing madly as they both removed their clothes and began to have sex. It was at that point I truly admired Luke and his marathon effort in nailing Katie; he was a smart kid, his plan to have sex in the lake was genius.

I mean, he didn’t have to go far to find the tadpoles.

The Syntax Memoir: This is my stop

This is my stop

I always manage to attract crazies, there’s something about my personality that seems to magnetically draw people with unsettling dispositions towards me. Whether it be on a bus, on a train, walking the street or at a live gig, some sort of hormonal scent lures people from across the room to invade my personal space like the smell of roasting food lured Wile E Coyote into the jaws of death in the Road Runner cartoons.

It’s always me that cops the brunt.

My most infuriating memory is backstage at Xzibit in 2007.

After performing a set we all retreated backstage to find our rider had been completely emptied by the act following us, who proceeded to swagger like morons onto the stage clutching the freshly pilfered bottles of bourbon, drinking them straight up like they thought they were the main characters from an R Kelly video.

As we walked back into our room, they pushed past us with an audible “Sorry Fellas”, before bursting into laughter like football jocks playing pranks on the nerds on Saved by the Bell.

Drinking an entire bottle of bourbon straight was too much for one of them, who during Xzibit’s set proceeded to stand on the side of stage and dance like a dickhead, occasionally wandering on to throw up a westside symbol with his hands or something equally as stereotypical.

An infuriated ageing tour manager spotted the drunken side-stage performance, grabbed the young man by his hoodie, and dragged him into the backstage area.

At this point in time you would think the protagonist would be berated with obscenities and all manner of dressing downs.

Instead, the drugged up tour manager turned to me and shouted at my face.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You want to me to confiscate your backstage passes? Is that what you want? You’ve had your turn, don’t fuck up the performance”.

I was shocked.

With crazy eyes he stared me down, occasionally throwing in another obscenity while he told me I need to make sure that my ‘mates’ don’t ruin everything.

Mate? He thought the drunken idiot was one of our party.

After another threat to take away my pass and “Never work in this town again”, he stormed off, presumably to smoke some more ice and scream at children riding skateboards on the footpath like the cantankerous old fool he seemed to be.

It’s not often you get screamed at by a tour manager from a major Australian touring company, but to make matters worse he was stopped by the other group members of the ‘jocks’, where upon they had a delightful conversation and exchanged pleasantries.

I wanted to interject and say, “You see this drunken fuckwit over here? He’s with them, not with us” but in the end it seemed like too much effort trying to argue with an old man who seemed like he was in desperate need to call talkback radio and have an in-depth discussion about migrants or the flag.

Besides, I had every intention of working ‘in this town again’.

It seems like flies drawn towards the illuminating smell of shit, negative dispositional people follow me around.

One guy sat next to me on the train and proceeded to tell me about how much weed he smoked.

“Farkin heaps aye”, he then asked me if I “like to choof?”

No.

To compile the awkwardness, he was sitting beside his mother, who seemingly encouraged her son’s smoking, but then again I’m not surprised, she looked like a female version of Jed Clampett.

I sat expecting her to poke the ground with an umbrella, discover oil, and dance around the train carriage in circles rejoicing for having discovered a ‘bubbling crude’.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

She bellowed at him, “Shut up you little poofter, you talk too much”.

I don’t know what it is, perhaps my facial features paint me to a much warmer and approachable human being than I feel that I actually am; more often than not I get drawn into awkward situations by others, never from the positions I put myself into.

On one such occasion while travelling on a bus, I simply pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and began to listen to music. To most, something as simple and mundane as putting in a pair of headphones warrants very little opportunity to strike up conversation, but you are forgetting that this is me we’re talking about.

Apparently putting in a pair of headphones is an invitation to tell me that my phone is shit.

“Give us a look” I heard from behind me.

“Pardon?” I sheepishly responded.

“Giz a look at your phone”, and with that, the phone was ripped from my hands and into the claws of a rat faced sniveling crack head with a pony tail. If I was to describe his appearance and make an accurate description, one would need to imagine Snape from Hogwart’s if he had left his job, put on a suit and tie, lost 25kg, tied his hair in a ponytail, and gave himself the personality of a disgruntled IT technician.

“Hey” I snapped.

He studied the phone before handing it back to me and telling me that it was ‘Shithouse’.

“My Nokia is more reliable than that piece of shit” he stuttered, before retrieving from his pocket a phone that looked like it had been used by Jesus at the last supper.

He steadied the brick in his hands and began texting; I half expected to see a tiny door from the back of the phone open, and a carrier pigeon emerge clutching a hand written scroll.

He ultimately reminded me of those self assured overweight female bogans that TV producers throw into the Big Brother house to ‘stir the pot’. The kind of person that says whatever is on their mind, even if it’s harmful and discouraging, suffixing their statement with “I’m just being me, I say what I feel” to thunderous audience applause.

No, sometimes you SHOULDN’T say what’s on your mind, that’s what social decency is for you fuckwit.

Back to snape.

Annoyed, I tried to turn around and ignore the terrible conversation, but again my likeable face presented an opportunity for Snape to begin barraging me with questions again.

“So where do you work?” he slithered.

“Huh? Oh, um, in Surfers, for a graphic design company” I bleated.

Snape’s eyes widened and a smile began to form on his face. It seems the words ‘graphic design’ greatly excited him, and before I knew it I was being asked technical questions and being told that my choice of programs were ‘shithouse’.

I looked the guy over and I was amazed that he even knew how to turn a computer on; he struck me as the kind of person who would prefer to spend his day being the annoying bloke in the pub that strolled from table to table asking for free smokes.

His excitement soon faded however when a young Indian man got on the bus and sat in the seat in front of us.

“Woo-woo-woo-woo-woooo” he snapped, like a man in full gallop bringing a horse to slow canter and then eventually a stop. It appears the sudden appearance of the young Indian man forced him to bring his train of thought to an end.

He licked his lips, sat back in his seat and studied the situation.

“Don’t say another word” he whispered.

“About what? Graphic design?”

“Yeah, we don’t want bollywood to find out about this stuff” he uttered with a crazy look in his eye that is most often reserved for characters from the movie Romper Stomper.

“What?”

“Yeah, there’s what, over a billion of them now eh? That kind of knowledge in their hands would become dangerous”.

“Eh?”

“Yeah, he tells his cousin, he in turn tells his cousin, so on and so on”.

Suddenly it dawned on me.

I was talking to a racist.

It was reminiscent to a scene from a movie, where upon having a conversation with a stranger, the main character suddenly realises that they person they are talking to is in fact the person that murdered their father and embezzled 10 million dollars from his company.

My head slowly panned across the camera and the close up caught every inch of my awe struck face.

What did he mean? ‘That’ kind of information? What?

In the end it didn’t matter, arguing with somebody who thought as erratically as this would only lead me down a path I had no intention of pursuing.

“This is my stop” I snapped, and quickly rose out of my seat and pushed the button. I looked around the bus and gave the young Indian man a knowing smile, I suddenly felt as awkward as a priest who parachuted out of a plane and landed in a child care centre.

Of course, it wasn’t my stop at all, and as I looked at my bus stop looming in the distance, I began my trek with the knowledge that I would probably be late for work.

I can’t watch Harry Potter anymore without feeling awkward.