Aw yeah - It's coming!

An Evening Of Unfettered Ben

Before shit gets real with the Melbourne Fringe Festival, hang out with me for an hour of frivolity and obscenity at the legendary Butterfly Club!

It's Over!

Yes, today is the last day of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. My own show, Let's Put On A Show, finished last weekend and won several major awards only for these results to be suppressed and hidden from the public due to certain dark government conspiracies. However, a good time was had by all, and some of the action from the run will be up on YouTube for you to watch soon, if you missed it live. The six shows which my audiences and I managed to put on were :

Vegemite in Your Ladyparts
How Seal Ate His Own Children (Featuring Colleen)
The Drunken Elephant's Triple Word Score
Captain Roderick van der Camp and the Domestic Violence Cat
The Despair of the Onion and the Happy Terrorist
Zombie Greg Ritchie Learns The Essential Futility Of The Modern Romantic Construct And Gets Shot


It was lots of fun and laughter was heard in Fitzroy. Read some reviews of the show if you'd like to know how it went:

What's On Comedy

Australian Stage

Five Frogs Blog

Herald Sun


That's done and dusted, then. Eyes peeled for my next show yeah?

A Giggle of Googs

"What are you doing, Ben?" I hear you whine nasally.

LET ME TELL YOU!

For TWO NIGHTS at the Adelaide Fringe this weekend, I'll be hosting Our Little Stories, a collection of masterful comics telling tales of various heights. Friday and Saturday, 10.45pm at Gluttony. That's right! I'm taking it ON THE ROAD. Interstate. Get into it, South Australian people, with all your eccentric half-hour time differencey ways. Tickets here.




THEN...Tuesday, February 26, I'm popping up at PUGGS IN SPACE, at Pugg Mahones, 106 Hardware St, Melbourne. The estimable Anne Edmonds is MCing, and besides me you'll see the legendary Geraldine Hickey, the radiant Adam Knox, and MORE. Kicks off at 8.30pm

And guys it's FREE! Say hello!




And oh my God it KEEPS ON COMING! March 5 I'll be getting distinctly wordy at BAR STANZA, at the Owl and the Pussycat, 34 Swan St, Richmond. I'll be getting back to my spoken-word roots as part of a killer line-up including Sean M. Whelan, Steve Smart, and host divine Anthony WP O' Sullivan! Can you even believe that? Doors open at 7.30pm, it's only $5, how can you lose?





You won't believe this, but there's STILL MORE. March 13! Comedy at 59! Station 59, at 59 Church St, Richmond! That's a lot of 59s! Stone-cold stand-up guys! It starts at 8! It's free! That means NO MONEY. Look it up, that's what it means!




And oh wow, the VERY NEXT NIGHT I am becoming extremely LITERARY and also CONVERSATIONAL, talking to the genius philosopher and author Damon Young about his book Philosophy in the Garden. This is ESSENTIAL for fans of THINKING and READING. It's at Readings Hawthorn - book here!



Oh no, we're not stopping yet you guys. Gonna be throwing some MORE POETRY at you, on April 6. Come down to the Dan O'Connell in Carlton at 2pm for an afternoon of words and raucous guffaws. Poetry at the Dan is a Melbourne institution, and I'll be your featured poet, leading you through the windmills of my mind. Get in there, sons and daughters!




But of course ALL of the above is a mere aperitif, for some VERY serious business - the business of the MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL. It's a festival full of brilliant people doing brilliant stuff, and I promise you some of that brilliant stuff will be happening in darkest Fitzroy, in the sweet, warm surrounds of Gertrude's Brown Couch, where I shall be reprising my splendid little Fringe show, Let's Put On A Show. FOR SIX NIGHTS ONLY, it's bigger, it's better, it changes EVERY SINGLE NIGHT as I take my cue from what YOU want me to talk about, and we create an award-winning show together! If you missed it at the Fringe, don't miss it again! If you saw it at the Fringe, no two nights are the same, so come see it once more! In fact, why not see it SIX times more? That's right - come along to every show and win a fabulous prize probably! Information and tickets HERE, I would sincerely love to see you all there. Even you, Anonymous.

That's a LOT of gigs, guys, and a LOT of chance to see me, hear my mellifluous tones, and pry into the deeper recesses of my psyche. It's gonna be fun, my friends, I will see you there. And there. And there. And...

Women - what even are they?

This week we will be celebrating another International Women's Day, which raises some very profound and troubling questions about the world we live in.

Now, don't get me wrong - I love women. My mother is a woman. My wife is a woman. My grandfather was a woman, and he fought under the Australian flag at Gallipoli for the rights of women everywhere to disguise themselves as men and attack strangers at the Dawn Service.

My beef is not with women - indeed I would consider it the height of rudeness to even have my beef anywhere near women. "Keep your beef to yourself," was the advice my mother gave to me, and as I mentioned, she was totally a woman, so there you go.

No, I have no issue with women, but here's the thing: where is the International Men's Day? It's all very well to say that women deserve an international day, even though they've already got so many advantages like abortions and vajazzling and those bras on TV that fit really well. I freely admit that women have problems that need to be dealt with - I read Sam Brett and I'm fully aware that your average women not only has to negotiate the pitfalls of modern dating, but also the inevitable headaches that come with confusing feminism and also waxing - but shouldn't we also recognise that men have problems?

Because believe me, men have a LOT of problems. Men have so many problems that they shouldn't even call us men, they should call us "Problemistas". Or "Problembots". Or "Captain Problem". I could go on, but you'd probably get bored - that's one of the problems with being a man: people get bored by you.

Other problems of being a man include:

1. People always want you to reach high shelves for you, but sometimes you have a sore arm and it hurts.

2. Other men laugh at you because you don't know how to change tyres.

3. You have to have a penis which looks stupid.

4. Sometimes you want to have sex with a lady but she doesn't want to have sex with you, which leads to sadness.

5. Underpants can be uncomfortable.

6. People keep trying to make you go into sheds and make things with wood.

7. Women are always making you look at their breasts, even when you don't want to.

8. You are responsible for all the wars and genocides in history which is a bummer.

9. Sometimes you think you might be gay but you're not sure.

10. You have to shave all the time and sometimes you cut yourself which really hurts and makes blood come and then you faint and people think you're a girl.

11. Spiders.

And that's only a few of the problems: there are literally some more. Which goes to show that being a man in today's modern fast-paced supercharged globalised online modern world is not as easy as it seems from up in your ivory tower. When do men get their chance at a bit of happiness?

So, why no International Men's Day? Because it's a stupid idea? Perhaps, but then, who is the more foolish: the fool, or the fool who lives in the fool's granny flat? I think my point is well made. It is time that men were recognised for the enormous contribution they probably make to society and for the immense hardships they have to face particularly with regard to the prostate region. It is time for International Men's Day!

Follow me, my brothers, and we need never feel scared or uncomfortable or vaguely unnerved by social progress again!

This blog post is brought to you by Cherchez La Femme's International Women's Day 2012 Extravaganza. Cherchez La Femme mistress of ceremonies Karen Pickering explains:

Cherchez la Femme returns for 2012 with a one-off extravag-anza to celebrate International Women’s Day in true femmo style. We’ll save the serious panel business for next time because I’ve lined up my all-time dream-team of singers, dancers, actors, musicians, poets, comics, thinkers and performers to hit the Grace Darling bandroom, show us their love of the ladies and tell us why being a feminist matters to them. I can scarcely contain myself as I announce the line-up here:

KATE BOSTON SMITH (Cabaret Star, Kitty Bang, Show Off)
EMILIE ZOEY BAKER (Slam Champion, Endless Lover, Crack-Up)
ANDREW MARLTON (First Dog on the Moon, Poet, Oracle)
HELEN RAZER (Writer, Raconteur, Sexy Mama)
CLEM BASTOW (Femmo, Neo-Stoner, Cosplaya)
LOU SANZ (Comic, Screenwriter, Firecracker)
SEAN M WHELAN (The Boss - of Poetry, Dream Guy)
BRENNA GLAZEBROOK (Comic, Impro Star, Hottie)
CHRISTINA ARNOLD (Lead Signer of The Perfections, Bangin’ Broad)
BEN POBJIE (Poet, Writer, Comic, Spy)
EMILY JARRETT (Singer with Go-Go Sapien, Robobabe)
BEN McKENZIE (Professional Nerd-Wonder, Comic, Fox)
JANE DUST (Singer, Love Child of Burt Bacharach & Emmy-Lou Harris)
CLEMENTINE FORD (Boner-Killer, Abortion-Enthusiast, Got Swag)
SHAKIRA HUSSEIN (Thinker, Lawyer, Activist)
JESSICA ALICE (Poet, Broadcaster, Honey)
SERI VIDA (Singer, Musician, Rad Lady)
and DJ sets from LISA GREENAWAY (of DJ Lapkat fame, Beatmaster)

You'll See Things In A Different Way

You know Liner Notes. You love Liner Notes. But you wish it would come along more than once a year. And you wish there was an opportunity for you to see Liner Notes tackle their classic albums more than once, because you missed out on tickets last year.

OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS GOOD NEWS FOR YOU

Liner Notes: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours is BACK



Featuring ME, and also:

Cate Kennedy
Lawrence Leung
Carrie Rudzinski
Emilie Zoey Baker
Sean M. Whelan
Omar Musa
Josh Earl
Alicia Sometimes
George Dunford
Eva Johansen

Showing you Rumours as you've never been shown Rumours before!

You never did believe in the ways of magic? I've got a feeling it's time to try.

IT'S TOMORROW! WILL I SEE YOU THERE? I HOPE SO THAT'D BE LOVELY!!!!

Dog’s Bar Arts Hub In conjunction with Australian Poetry
Proudly Present
Australia’s First Ever
Climate Change Poetry Slam
Friday 7th October 7pm@St Kilda MeMo Theatre

Come join us as we raise a toast to spring (while we still have distinct seasons)! Feel free to laugh, boo, cheer and celebrate the poetic as we contemplate the demise of our planet! Rhyming optional.

MC’ed by The Age’s TV apostle, Superchef author and twitter-philosopher BEN POBJIE, with Guests Crikey cartoonist FIRST DOG ON THE MOON, HELEN RAZER, SHANE MALONEY, LOU SANZ, RRR'S BEN BIRCHALL, Queen of the Spoken Word, EMILIE ZOEY BAKER, professional wrestling superstar KRACKERJAK THE MADBASTARD with special guests , Q&A guest poet and hip hop legend OMAR MUSA, MIGHTY JOE and many more including a surprise guest AUSTRALIAN GREENS SENATOR SCOTT LUDLUM who will be reading the poetry of Bob Brown!

Yes the poetry will be fast, funny, sexy, sad, slow, scintillating, even possibly dreadful, but it will never be boring. Brace yourself for surprise cartoons, magic tricks, juggling and potential nudity.
The Slam will take place at the historic St Kilda MeMo theatre, a glorious throwback to the 1920’s with a rumoured resident ghost and two fully stocked bars.

When: Friday 7th October @7 pm

Where: St Kilda MeMo Theatre, 88 Acland St Kilda

Tickets: $15 Concession/Online Booking, $20 at the door

www.stkildamemo.com.au

All net proceeds will go to the Sacred Heart Mission who work closely with our homeless community.

Why Not Have A Night Out?

At, for example, this



Everybody's Talkin' at the Fringe Club, 25th September, with me, First Dog on the Moon, Clementine Ford, Sophie Black, Geoff Lemon and Ben Eltham.


Or perhaps at this?



"Sad" at the Wheeler Centre, 26th September, with me, Andrew Robb, Nicole Highet and Noni Hazlehurst.

NONI. HAZLEHURST.

So those two are coming up, and both of them are absolutely FREE! Come along Sunday night and see me shooting the breeze with noted wits, and/or on Monday see me discussing things in perhaps a more serious vein. Both should be fun. Keep checking this blog for news on upcoming performances, there's more looming next month!

I AM AT THIS THING ON SATURDAY

Why not come on down and laugh your emissions off?

COME ALONG

Are you a geek? I certainly am not, and yet I will be lending weight to the noble geek cause this week, at Trades Hall. The Dungeon Crawl, to raise funds for the good people at Vignette Press to publish their Geek Mook, will be at the Bella Union Bar, this Thursday, July 21, doors open from 7pm. I'll be one of those brave souls engaging in...something. Role-playing? Sword-fights? Honey wrestling? Something like that. Should be HI-larious, anyway.

Fuller details here, do come along.

Check out the sidebar for other upcoming gigs, as always.

It's A Living

Alas it is true that from time to time I must use this blog not for higher purposes, but for grubby utilitarian self-promotion. And thus I'm just letting you know a few things I've been up to lately:

Firstly, please do not forget that my first book, Surveying The Wreckage, remains available for everyone to pay money for and laugh till their cheeks crack and bleed. Available at sophisticated bookshops, and also here.

Surveying the Wreckage of course is a collection of columns from New Matilda covering the years 2008-2010. For more recent satirical spewings, check out the site itself. In particular, my latest, about sluts and feminism and stuff. It made people angry!

Also my SECOND book (yes I know) is just about everywhere a book could want to be. This is just one place you could get it, but seriously there are HUNDREDS of places to buy it from. Also, I will soon elaborate on a competition I mentioned recently. A special Superchef competition for people who like Superchef, with a proper prize and everything! Stay tuned chefpions!

Also, if you like scholarly examinations of social mores and the role of comedy in our community, you probably didn't expect to find anything like that round here. But amazingly, I did one of those! For the latest edition of Meanjin magazine. You can subscribe online, or buy a hard copy from any of these fine establishments. I'm quite chuffed with this article, actually, it being unusual inasmuch as it is serious and makes me seem sort of clever and stuff.

Also! You can see me LIVE and UNCUT at The Bedroom Philosopher's High School Assembly at the Thornbury Theatre on June 24. I will be playing Principal to a motley assortment of juvenile delinquents including the BP himself, Tripod, Josh Earl, Damien Lawlor, Emilie Zoey Baker, the DC3, Anna Krien, and Sex On Toast. It will be HUGE! Get in quick, or you may MISS OUT probably.

Lastly, fans of Masterchef may or may not have noticed I've been writing the occasional recap of episodes. The first couple I did are below:

Here.


And here.

There'll be more of these, so watch out for them.

And that's all the plugging I'll be doing for today, I think. Lots going on, lots of fun! Thanks for reading, you're just wonderful. Here is a picture of a kitty.



UPDATE: The Meanjin article is now online for FREE here: http://meanjin.com.au/editions/volume-70-number-2-2011/article/offensive-comedy/

But still buy the magazine, it has other good stuff in it!

Gracious

Goodness me, I can be a bit lax with blogging at times. It is, sadly, a function of the necessity to write great whacking reams of stuff all over everywhere else, that blogging can be neglected. Hopefully you're still following my adventures at The Drum, where my thrice-weekly election analyses will come to an end on Friday, but my weekly wraps on all things current will continue post-election.

And hopefully, you will at least mull over the idea, if in Melbourne for the Writers' Festival, of heading in to the salubrious surrounds of the Toff in Town for Liner Notes on September 4, featuring the songs of Fleetwood Mac, Charlie Pickering, Clare Bowditch, Hannie Rayson, Emilie Zoey Baker, Sean M. Whelan, Alicia Sometimes, Michael Nolan und mich - gunna go off guys, for serious. If I recall rightly, details are in the events listings to the right.

But ah, the election. Just three more sleeps till the AEC comes down our chimneys and leaves a new prime minister in our stocking! Aren't you EXCITED? It really is thrilling, the whole country is consumed by punditry, commentary, anticipation and generalised disgust.

At the aforementioned Drum you can see how I handle the issues, and how a whole bunch of other people do too - like Crabb (be still my beating heart), Uhlmann, Berg, Eltham, Hardy (be still again), Milne, Ellis (wacky!), et al.

But you can see more all over the shop. The journos, the bloggers, the analysts and the nutbags are out in force and the commentariat is full to bursting. I recommend Crikey (specially the blogs of Possum and Pure Poison), Larvatus Prodeo, A Nonymous Lefty, and of course Antony Green, the thinking woman's irrepressibly unnerving sexual fantasy.

(the unthinking woman's irrepressibly unnerving sexual fantasy is me)

ALSO! Check out http://gatheraround.me for podcasts re: the election. Better yet, join the Gather Around Me Facebook group, and subscribe on iTunes so you never miss an instalment! It's so easy, with the power of interconnected tubes!

I guess what exercises ME about the election is the terrible uncertainty of it all. In 2007, everyone knew Rudd was going to win, and by 7.30 the night of the election it was all over. In 2004, Latham threatened a few months before the poll, but by the big day we realised Howard was going to romp it in. Same in 2001 - 9/11 made it a clear cakewalk. Maybe 1998 was different, but that's ancient history. This year feels, if boring and appallingly predictable in every other detail, at least fresh and original in its closeness and difficulty to tip. It looks like counting will go all night, and we might not even know who won by Sunday morning.

And if we do, if somehow one side somehow crushes the other beneath its boot, that will only be all the more surprising for defying the predictions of squeaking tightness.

So I cannot wait till election night, when I shall rug up nice and warm, channel-surf like a madman, and twitter like the obsessive-compulsive attention-junkie that I am. Hope I'll see you passing by.

And we shall finally find the answer to the question that has bugged us so long: Will people REALLY vote for Tony Abbott? Like, really? Seriously, dude? Tony ABBOTT? Really?

Hooray for democracy!

News Of All Colours

Well well, things just keep happening, don't they? Can you believe it's July already? It only feels like late May! Just think, by September it'll feel like early August, and by next Easter we'll think it's still Christmas. That'll be nice.

Anyway, unless you've been sensibly drinking yourself to death, you might have noticed that an election was called on the weekend, and on August 21 we shall once again drag ourselves through the farcical charade called democracy.

What will make this election more bearable, I hear you ask?

I WILL.

Here is Election 101, by me, myself. And throughout the election campaign, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, you can see me tackling the issues that matter and informing the ignorant public about their civic duties in a similar manner.

THREE TIMES A WEEK. More Pobjie than you ever thought you'd be blessed enough to receive! At ABC's The Drum. Stay informed, join the cool kids.


That's not all I'm up to, though. If you'd like to see me in person, and you're in Melbourne on August 5, you should drop in to Dog's Bar in St Kilda for Storytelling with me and Chrissy Keighery. I will tell you some stories. And it's FREE!

Even further ahead, you can catch me at the Melbourne Writer's Festival, doing Liner Notes: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours at the Toff in Town. This is huge - last year's Liner Notes, taking on Michael Jackson's Thriller, blew the lid off the place. It also sold out fast, so get your tickets NOW if you want to see not only me, but also Alicia Sometimes, Clare Bowditch, Charlie Pickering, Hannie Rayson, Emilie Zoey Baker, Omar Musa, Josh Earl, Sean M. Whelan and MC Michael Nolan.

That is one freaking sweet line-up - you don't want to miss it.

And incidentally, my song will be You Make Loving Fun. It'll rock.

So, read The Drum, come to Dog's Bar, bowl up to the Toff in Town, and you'll be replete with me. See you round!

Weekly Inspiration

Last week I performed at Wordstock as part of the Emerging Writers' Festival. It was a celebration of the music of AC/DC, and a wonderful time was had by all.

My song was "Ride On". My interpretation is below:

I want to tell you a story.
A story about freedom

I remember when I was a boy
Sitting on Santa’s lap
And he asked me, “What do you want?”
And I didn’t ask for a Transformer
And I didn’t ask for a football
And I didn’t ask for my parents to stop using me as a pawn in their increasingly violent passive-aggressive power struggles
I asked for FREEDOM
Freedom, and nothing more

And Santa smiled at me in wonder
For never before had he seen a two-metre tall four-year-old
And it was that day, sitting on Santa’s lap, in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the Flinders Street toilets in peak hour
That I realised that Santa truly was real
As real as hope
And as real as love
As real as that jolly old homeless man who every Christmas dressed in a red suit for our amusement
And offered me a shiny new coin if I would only accompany him to his secret bone palace deep in a nearby cornfield, where he had a special surprise for me

And though I never got to see that palace, because I was late for my weekly parental shame session, I still saw what he was getting at
That strange, cheerful old man, with his gummy smile, his twinkling eyes, and his voluminous trousers
He taught me a lesson that to this day pounds in my head incessantly like a great, wise, intrusive drum

That lesson is
Freedom
The freedom to follow your own path, to chase your dreams
To walk blissfully and unsuspectingly into a cornfield if that truly is what you want from life
The freedom to lay on a riverbank, looking up at the stars, counting them, night after night, continously losing count and starting over again in a frenzy of self-destructively obsessive behaviour, gradually eating away at your own mental health until inevitably you begin cutting yourself and become convinced that your wife is the reincarnation of the Egyptian god of death
Because freedom cannot come with conditions
If you want to defend my freedom to pluck tulips from a field and arrange them attractively on a piece of corkboard
Surely I must likewise defend your freedom to hack mercilessly at your wife with a Phillips-head screwdriver and throw her into the river, all the while gazing up at the stars and bellowing “Stop looking at me” at the top of your lungs
That’s freedom. It is non-negotiable.

Not non-negotiable like Israel’s policy on new settlements
Not non-negotiable like an ultimatum from a lover who tells you, it’s me or the zebra
Not non-negotiable like a cheque you wrote to the Church of Scientology while under the influence of powerful muscle relaxants

No, freedom is non-negotiable like…the dew on a newborn baby’s face
And sure, you can say, what does that mean?
You can say, how does one negotiate dew?
You can say, why are you rubbing that baby’s face on the grass
But you’re MISSING THE POINT
The point is that freedom is like a baby’s face: innocent, and unscarred
And yet it can be ugly, and objectionable, and sometimes you want to punch it
But you can’t defeat freedom by punching it
Which is how it differs from a baby’s face
Because you can definitely defeat a baby’s face by punching it
It’s really, really, easy.

But I’m not here to talk about babies
Or the myriad practical benefits of punching them
I’m here to talk about freedom
And a wise man – I think it was Daryl Braithwaite- once said, if you love something, set it free

And I knew what he meant

For I loved someone once
She was a beautiful, mad, wild thing
When we made love it was like…two crazed bison trying to get out of a hedge maze:
Intense, and violent, and easier with a map
And I loved her as I have loved only 4 or 5 other women, tops

But I let her go
I said, I must let you have your freedom, for I love you. Go. Be happy.
And she said no. I will stay
And I said, I cannot live with myself knowing I am keeping such a free spirit caged in a prison of expectation and routine. Go. Live your life.
And she said no. I want to stay.
And I said, I am NOT a jailer! Go now, for both our sakes, and with my blessing
And she said please, let me stay by your side, for I have a crippling gambling addiction and am unemployable
And I said, honestly I would be more comfortable if you just left. Frankly if I’d known you were living in my garage for the last six months I would have done this much much earlier.

So she left. Not without tears, and not without regrets, and not without a tense police sieges, but she left

And yes, it can be heard, being alone, when I pass her on the street, warming herself by a burning stack of unsold Big Issues
But I know I gave her her freedom, because I loved her that much

And nobody ever said freedom would be easy
Freedom isn’t like putting on a pair of pants, or swallowing a bee
It’s not that simple
Freedom is more like losing your virginity to Bert Newton: it hurts like hell and you may need carpet shampoo afterwards

But we don’t WANT freedom to be easy!
We chase freedom because it is hard!
Because we know we must fight
We know we must struggle
And we know it will be worth it
When we stand up strong and proud and throw off our chains!
When we clench our trembling fingers into the fist of freedom
And punch the baby of tyranny square in its adorable face
When we cry to the heavens, we are FREE

We don’t need your rules, or your conformity, or your manners, or your social mores, or your basic level of human respect

We’re heading for a better world, a world of liberty and choice, a world of magic and wonder, a world of mysterious cornfields and terrifying flashbacks

We’re riding on to the new world, riding on to freedom
FREEDOM
When I say free, you say dom, FREE!
OK, that didn’t really work, but that’s OK, because you’re FREE to respond in any way you see fit

The time has come people!
Jump on board the freedom train, and let me drive you to Happiness Station
Hold on tight, because we’re making no stops, and the driver is dangerously unqualified!

Toot toot!

And the original:

Coming Soon!

I bet you're thinking to yourself, "Sure, Ben's a prolific and incredbly talented and unconventionally handsome writer, but why can't I get along to a high-class venue and, from a comfortable seat, watch him IN THE FLESH saying funny and insightful things?"

Your day of gazing winsomely at the moon are over, my best beloveds. Check out two upcoming appearances I'll be making at the Emerging Writers' Festival:

In The Pub: Freelance Writing: Joanne Brookfield will host a panel wherein myself and fellow pens-for-hire Chris Flynn and Claire Halliday discuss the ins and outs of a freelancing life. We'll be reading our first paid piece as well. Come along, hear whatever we have to say, and have a drink with me. It's at The Workers Club, 51 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, from 7.30pm on Wednesday, May 26. Tickets $20 and $10 concession. Head here for details and tickets.

Wordstock: AC/DC. Last year Wordstock was on the subject of Nick Cave; this year I and a group of other sweet-smelling performers will be devising our own interpretations of the songs of AC/DC. Last year's was fantastic, and sold out. So do hurry up to get a spot at this year's which will no doubt be even better. It's hosted, incidentally, by the luminous Clem Bastow, and takes place on Thursday, May 27 at BMW Edge at Federation Square. Tickets $20 and $10 concession. Hit 'em up here for details and tickets.

And of course check out the entire EWF for lots of writerly spectacle and marvels. It's an excellent event that grows ever bigger and more special each year. Do pop along to something and get literary.

I'll see you there, sweets.

Audiences, or I am the King In Black

After performing at Dante's as part of "Takin' It To The Streets" at the Overload Poetry Festival Launch, a poet approached me with the most surprising compliment I have ever received.

"You're like a cross between Elvis and Johnny Cash," she exclaimed.

I honestly did not see that coming. I could understand using one or the other in a "cross between" comparison - as long as the other half of the equation was something like "Peewee Herman" or "Ted Bundy". But the two combined? Astounding.

And reassuring, because to be honest I wasn't quite sure how I'd gone over at that gig. Oh yes, there were laughs, but there also...not-laughs, if you get my drift. Audience pockets of quietude that made the insecure part of me suspect they were sitting stony-faced and not amused in the least, and the slightly less insecure part of me suspecting they were just confused - a state, I admit, which is not unnatural for anyone listening to my work, especially for the first time. There could, of course, be a horrid mixture of the two - confusion and non-amusedness both stemming from a deep sense of disgust. In any event, it makes one a little uneasy. The laughs I did get salved the unease, obviously, but the feeling I was alienating half the audience persisted.

This is where a comedian has it hard compared to a dramatic performer or "serious" poet. Because when you're not supposed to get an audible reaction, you can convince yourself that they're loving it. The more silent they are, the more engrossed they are, the line will run. But when you're doing comedy, the judgment is instant and brutal. Either they will laugh or they won't, and if they're not laughing, there is no way to kid yourself that you're winning them over. Instant feedback. Instant euphoria, or instant devastation. It's the great attraction and the great horror of comedy at once.

Which got me thinking, what kind of audience do I really want? Comedic spoken word of my type is tricky - the great appeal of the poetry scene is that audiences are mostly up for anything and pretty welcoming of weirdness, but that doesn't mean they're going to like everything, or necessarily get on board with strangeness, even if they're terribly polite about it.

And the trouble with a real poetry audience such as I had the other night is that they really are expecting poetry. They're not expecting bizarre rambling monologues full of rape jokes and 1980s sitcom non sequiturs. They may well say, "what the hell? This isn't poetry", and they'd probably be right; most of what I do isn't. But luckily a great number of them usually end up disregarding such questions and simply reacting based on whether it's funny or not. As I said, the appeal of the poetry scene is that you don't feel locked in to formats or structures of performance.

BUT there are definitely many poetry folk who feel that it's not quite...correct to do something that has no purpose beyond entertainment.

Although the funny thing is that if you get a bunch of people along to a poetry gig, it's often the non-poets who have the most preconceived ideas. I've noticed this at slams; if a non-poet is made a judge, they seem to be more likely than a poet to mark someone down for not conforming to a narrow definition of poetry.

So I want an open-minded audience. I don't want an audience who's thinking "poetry or bust". I don't really want an audience who's thinking "stand-up", though - a stand-up audience is usually the most narrow-minded of all. Do a tight five in a stand-up venue and it'll be three minutes before they even start listening to the jokes, so confused will they be that you're doing the observation-conversation-Dave Hughes thing they've been expecting. Not that they can't be won over, but it's an effort to get them to go along with something a bit different from what they usually see.

So what we're looking for is an audience of some intelligence, without preconceived notions, and a willingness to laugh. The last is pretty important - get an viewer without a sense of humour and you get the girl last year who made an official complaint about me after I said that reverse racism was the practice of backing your car over Aborigines.

That was fairly typical though - go near any even remotely touchy subject and you can guarantee there will be someone uniquely sensitive to the topic in the audience. When I first did my quadriplegia joke, there was a guy in a wheelchair. At the Overload launch I did a pretty new piece that featured the line "Hating Dutch people, that's human nature". Naturally afterwards I was told there were about six Dutch people in the audience. At last night's gig I did a piece with a line about killing Germans - I fully expected a battalion of lederhosen to march up to me at the end. It's the way it is.

Last night's gig - See What I'm Talking About with Sean Whelan, Briohny Doyle, Angela Meyer and Barry Dickins - demonstrated something else curious about "my" audience. It seems that I am always a big hit with women of a certain age, to put it delicately. "The best belly laugh I've had in years," said one lovely lady after my set, which was very gratifying, but it can sometimes seem a tad counter-intuitive that, given my (inadvertent) reputation for bad taste and offensiveness, it's the over-50 set that shows such enthusiasm...and it's often the Generation Yers who are po-faced and earnest and...well, eager to complain about my Aborigine jokes.

I suppose that's why I'm a cross between Elvis and Johnny Cash - I'm the poet who appeals to anyone who remembers the 1950s. Although the whole Jesus-necrophilia thing probably would have been ahead of its time back then.

Comin' Atcha

Friday night the Overload Poetry Festival launches with "Takin' It To The Streets", a poetry pub crawl that will wend its way through Melbourne and feature numerous talented performers and much frivolity and fun.

Most importantly, if you are at Dante's on Gertrude Street from 8:30pm, you'll see me doing and saying certain things the nature of which will remain unclear until well after the event.

See you there!

Check It

A new article by me on newmatilda, exploring the fall of Peter Costello and why it's so unimportant to everyone.

Also, done some refreshing of the links at the side, updating the visible articles and upcoming performances etc.

And on that note, do mark down July 23 in your diaries, because that's when I'll be on for ONE NIGHT ONLY at Blue Velvet in Collingwood.

If that's what turns you on

Apart from the explicit racism and violent pornography, the worst thing about reading this blog is that you can only read it with your eyes, not your ears.

To read me with your ears, go here, where you can hear me podcasting away with Cam Smith, well-known scruffy disreputable communist.

It's audio-tastic!

A little late

But still, here's an article that is in small part about me.

The evening went very well in the end.