Justin Heazlewood – A life

1980:

  • Born in Burnie Hospital on the north-west coast of Tasmania on June 12 at 7:33am.
  • I meet my Mum, Nan, Pop and Uncle’s.

1983:

  • Insist that my name is Carl, to our neighbour, for some reason.

1984:

  • Write my first ever creative piece. A poem:
    ‘Going up hill is hard to do,
    not unless you just say ‘q’
    then someone will come up and say ‘hi you’
    then you’ll think of something better to do.

1985:

  • In kindergarten I write in my book: “My name is: Justin and I like: writing.”
  • First listen to Popcorn on a tape – it blows my little mind.

1986:

  • Get lost at Devonport country music festival until a man in a big hat takes me up on stage and makes the whole crowd wave at me.

1987:

  • After being given a choice between the Scouts and the Surf Club, I begin a seven year career with the Burnie Surf Life Saving Club nippers. I can’t tie a knot but I look good in Speedos.

1988:

  • Stop wetting the bed.
  • Queen comes to Burnie. The lady, not the band.
  • Have first major tantrum as an artist when I am unhappy with my efforts to draw a Lamborghini in the story I am writing about a talking car. Spelling it is hard too.

1990:

  • First become seriously interested in music, in particular the Rage top 50. Each week I take note of the positions of songs and how much they’ve moved since last week.
  • First hear Guru Josh’s ‘Infinity’ - “1990’s: Time For The Guru.” For most of my life this will become my favourite song of all time.

1991:

  • Under the influence of my Uncle Ken, who has forged his own music career, I start playing guitar. ‘ Song Of Joy’ is the first thing I learn.
  • Gain first acting role, I play Dick Whittington in our class presentation of Dick Whittington.

1992:

  • Somehow, go out with my first ever girlfriend, Tenille Alford. She breaks up with me after getting a lift in my Mum’s yellow Volkswagen beetle. We never kiss.
  • Have first taste of live music performance. An instrumental duet with my best friend Nick Muir and ‘Way Out West’ with our music class outside Kmart.
  • Buy first ever album. Def Leppard’s ‘Adrenalize’ on cassette. Mrs French won’t let me put it on at a sock dance as the lyrics are too suggestive.
  • Finish my time at Montello Primary School.

1993:

  • Start high school at Parklands High. I have the wrong jeans, the wrong shoes, the wrong haircut, but have not learnt to be self conscious yet.
  • First hear ‘Loser’ by Beck. It blows my bowl cut.
  • Become a Christian during a religious based youth camp when Matt, our twenty-something cabin leader suggests he prays for us and asks for god to enter our hearts. It seems fair enough.
  • Discover some old 70’s porn mags in my Uncle’s collection of things at Nan & Pop’s. While looking at the pictures is okay, one day I read one of the erotic stories. The descriptions of sex disturbs me for weeks.
  • Keep a diary that I will later use to comic effect.

1994:

  • Drift away from my primary school friends and manage to dwell on the fringes of the cool group. Being a wise-cracking nerd with coke-bottle glasses, gives me loads of novelty value. Girls are not attracted to this novelty value. I learn to be self-conscious.
  • Finish my time in the Burnie Surf Club. In my senior year I am voted club captain.
  • After wearing too much hair gel and sitting next to Elvis Connely on the school bus, Grade ten Matthew Rolls says the immortal words “Hey look, there’s Elvis and the Fonz.” Earning me the Tasmanian nickname that will stay with me the rest of my life. I spell it ‘Phonze,’ to break away from the traditional Happy Days character.

1995:

  • Start wearing contact lenses.
  • First hear ‘Here’s Johnny’ by Hocus Pocus. When everyone else is listening to ‘Dookie’ by Green Day, I become obsessed with the trashy hardcore techno of the time like Tokyo Ghetto Pussy and ‘Forever Young’ by Interactive. Whenever ‘Here’s Johnny’ comes on at a school social, everyone turns to me accusingly
  • Write my first serious and comedy songs. ‘I Will Never Leave You’ is a six minute ballad about a father going away to war. ‘Home And Away Song’ is a one minute ditty satirising the recent events on Home and Away. I play the song at the school talent quest, along with ‘Don’t’ with my best mate Josh Earl, which we steal off a Lano and Woodley performance I saw on the Today Show. We win the audience vote but get no prizes from the judges.
  • Record first ever tape of my music ‘Justin’s Guitar Songs.’ It is a mixture of originals and covers including ‘Way Out West’ and ‘Day In The Life Of A School Kid’. It is recorded sitting on the toilet, with my walkman mircophone blu-takked to an indoor clothesline.

1996:

  • Have my first proper kiss with a girl, Chantel, on a Christian camp. We bump teeth.
  • Take up regular 6am swimming training at the Burnie Swimming Club, though I don’t compete in meets and none of the private school kids ever talk to me. I win all my races at the school swimming carnival, but miss out on the record for the 50M freestyle by .1 of a second as Josh was teasing me about my bathers and I missed the start. Later, a grade nine girl says “when you were on the blocks, we could see your penis.” I go on to be the Division B Inter-High swimming champion in my age group.
  • Become vice-president of the SRC.
  • Girls finally notice me – a bit.
  • Record first proper collection of my songs ‘Ad-Liberation.’ Includes ‘End Of The World’ and ‘Thought She Loved Me,’ a ballad about breaking up with a girl, even though I’d never had a proper girlfriend – I just figure that’s what you write songs about.
  • Have first ever drug experience. Smoke a joint for the first time with my friend Billy, freak out, think I am going to die, get driven to hospital. My heart continues to beat irregularly for most of the year.
  • Perform again in the high school talent contest. We do a bunch of sketches I steal off a local uni revue, as well as writing a parody of ‘Gangsta’s Paradise,’ called ‘Parklands Paradise.’
  • Begin first vaguely proper relationship. It ends the week later because the girl cheats on me. She apologises by sticking the lyrics to Roxette’s ‘It Must Have Been Love’ to my locker.
  • Take up smoking, after having eight Peter Jackson super-mild’s in a row with Danny Flight behind the Parklands High School gym.
  • Finish up High School. The end of year party is at Jamie Upson’s house. I am hugging my male friends, pashing Jennifer Leeson, swinging on a clothesline, sculling Hahn Ice to TISM’s ‘He’ll Never Be (an old man river)’ from the Triple J’s Hottest 100 with the ice cream on it.
  • Begin first major relationship, via letter, with a girl called Erin, a grade below me whom I’ve had a crush on all year.

1997:

  • Get to Hellyer College. Become extremely intimidated by all the Year 12’s and end up lurking at the TAFE cafeteria eating chips and gravy with close male friends for the entire year.
  • Record second collection of songs on cassette ‘Rhetorical Verses.’ Includes ‘Dreams of Infinity’ and ‘Time’ which are almost good enough to play now.
  • Perform in the College musical ‘Godspell.’ I am a member of the chorus, and also part of the ‘warm up entertainment’ as people walk in. I write one of the first songs for future album ‘Birthmark’ called ‘Gospel’ all about how God would be a cool guy.
  • Lose virginity, in a hotel room, after a Silverchair concert, in Hobart.
  • Find out from Billy that the joint he’d been given a year ago had been laced with L.S.D.
  • In relative secrecy from my friends, I continue to pursue Christianity. I pray every night and attend church with my Mother most Sundays, a new experience for both of us.

1998:

  • Hit year 12. Get confident.
  • Become president of the SRC. My most successful campaign pitch is a poster with a piece of toast stuck to it that reads: “This is a piece of toast. Vote for Phonze.”
  • Find a new gang of crazy arty friends.
  • Begin my involvement with ‘Youth Insearch Australia’ an organisation that holds camps to help teenagers deal with issues in their lives.
  • Turn 18 - Have an unauthorised party at Hiclare Hall which 200 people turn up to and trash to the value of $300. Hold a benefit in school cafeteria, raise $80.
  • Begin playing music regularly at school concerts. Write comedy songs ‘Vee-Dub,’ ‘The Environment Song,’ ‘Disco Chicken’ and a very on the money parody of Denis Leary’s ‘Asshole’ called ‘I’m an Aussie,’ which I swear would have done well if released at the time.
  • Break up with Erin in our 19th month. I do the breaking. I begin a long distance relationship almost straight away with a co Youth Insearch leader from deloraine. I ‘discover’ op shopping after wandering into a second hand store there and finding to this day my favourite brown press stud shirt.
  • Mum starts recieving regular visits from travelling Mormons. I sit in on the lessons. While I find them friendly, I can’t get over how pushy they are about being baptised in their church.
  • Write ‘Smells Like Hellyer Spirit’ which becomes the unofficial Year 12 leavers anthem.
  • Win school prize for creative writing and theatre performance subject award.
  • Decide to do BA in Professional Writing at the University of Canberra after picking up a pamphlet in the career advisor’s room. I apply without even bothering to check if it’s offered at any other uni’s. Canberra seems fine as my Uncle Ken lives in Michaelago just an hour outside. Up until that point I’d been firmly set on the concept of staying in Burnie and training to be a cadet journalist at The Advocate.

1999:

  • Record my first CD, ‘Birthmark,’ in Marcus Wynwood’s bedroom in Penguin in the January holidays. It is a mix of comedy and straight songs with dodgy singing but some eclectic uses of backings and harmonies. Includes a mock tribute for my hypothetical school band ‘Community Scooter.’
  • Move to Canberra.
  • Move into University Ressies, the largest in Australia. Befriend Tammy Nicholson, Adam Forbes, Matt Kelly and the gang through Three Dice, the student theatre company. The society runs theatresports, plays and alcohol based theatre camps down at Bateman’s Bay.
  • Audition for my first play ‘Psycho Beach Party.’ I’m given the role of gay surfer ‘Provoloney,’ and told I have to pash a boy on stage. I don’t tell Mum.
  • Star in second semester play Baby With The Bathwater as ‘Daisy,’ a bisexual boy who’s been brought up as a girl his whole life.
  • Form the band ‘Urban Turban’ with The Forbes and Matt. We play our first gig at 9am the morning after an all-night dance party. The limited audience are hung over, crotchety and throw rubbish at us. At the end of one song Matt says, very slowly and very precisely, ‘Fuck you all.’
  • The Forbes and I win the Uni ressies talent night ‘Ressies Revue’ with ‘I’m an Aussie’ and a new song ‘Spankees Lunch.’ For our efforts we win a mystery flight. This is to Brisbane. As we have never been there before we wander about aimlessly before deciding to go watch the latest James Bond film at the cinemas.
  • Toby, the president of Three Dice, persuades me that I shouldn’t call myself ‘Phonze’ because it isn’t very cool. Based on a 3 a.m. rendition of ‘Spankees Lunch’ he gives me the nickname ‘Spankees.’
  • Make a vow not to get my hair cut for a year.

2000:

  • After being best friends for a year, I start going out with Tammy.
  • Continue my pursuit of Christianity by making contact with the youthful Catholic priests on campus.
  • Via Youth Insearch, I attend a three-day workshop of popular American motivational coach, Tony Robbins. This includes a session where I walk on hot coals. (It does hurt.) While I actually find a lot of good things in the workshops, I am amazed that Tony doesn’t turn up on the third day and instead gets his ‘helpers’ to run the sessions.
  • Star in Skin, a comedy about the porn industry written by Toby. I play ‘Jack Hammer,’ a pornstar who ends up being gay. I start to wonder if I’m being typecast. In the play the actors are asked to simulate sex scenes, wear strap ons, and watch porn on the theatre camp. Many of us, me included, are not very comfortable with this. We are made to feel silly and I end up keeping quiet, much to my personal detriment. Jack Hammer has a secret identity as an Aussie bogan. I take the role so seriously that I have my hair, not trimmed for a full year, cut into a mullet. I return home to Tasmania with this mullet, and one night I am out in a Burnie pub wearing a West Indies cricket shirt and I still get called poof.
  • The Uni film society makes a short film based on my short story ‘Noisy Skin’ which I wrote in Year 12. It’s about a boy who goes to school naked. I play the lead.
  • Move out of Uni ressies into ‘The TAJ’ with Tammy and The Forbes. It is called this due to the first initials of our names.
  • The Forbes and I start the ‘Harmonics Lewinski’s Muso’s Club’ on campus, as a way to create our own folk gigs. We just end up spending all the club money on sausages and haircuts.
  • Complete my leadership training with Youth Insearch.
  • Enter the ACT campus band competition with ‘Urban Turban’ and ‘The Harmonica Lewinski’s,’ so we can separate our serious and comedy songs. Stuart Duncan drums for us. ‘The Harmonica Lewinski’s’ make it into the ACT finals. One of the judges writes “guitar playing seemed to be out of time, but couldn’t tell if this was on purpose as some kind of musical protest.” It isn’t.
  • Adam and I win ‘Ressies Revue’ again, with a ridiculously self-indulgent 40 minute comedy blowout we knock up the night before. Set includes ‘Home Brand Man,’ an acoustic rendition of ‘Rockafella Skank,’ Adam’s song ‘Rainbow Honey Eater,’ and me taping the 500+ audience saying an answering machine greeting for me to use on my phone.
  • Record two debut albums for both bands in three days in November at my Uncle Ken’s studio in Michaelago. Highlight’s include ‘I’m the one who loves you (I’m the one that needs you)’ which is written while we wait for Ken’s computer to work. While ‘Songs By The Bushfire’ captures the spontaneous, mad cap energy of the Harmonica’s, there are mixed feelings about the rushed nature of ‘Meet…Urban Turban.’
  • Win ABC radio’s ‘Heywire’ competition for Canberra, with a three minute radio documentary done in the style of a Triple J ‘J-file’ about how ‘Urban Turban’ struggled to find a scene because everyone was into dance music.
  • Secretly, I am still haunted by my Skin experience and spend most of the year feeling very depressed.

2001:

  • Walk the overland track, a five day bushwalk from Lake St. Clair to Cradle Mountain with my Nan, aged 75. (my Nan, not me). This includes a near-death experience, after getting caught on a particularly precarious rock face on Barn’s Bluff.
  • Return home to Canberra. Attend a five day national Heywire camp, which includes an all expenses paid trip to…Canberra.
  • Start writing full-time for the Uni magazine, ‘Curio,’ and regularly for streetpress ‘BMA.’
  • After having a complete fallout in confidence, I go out to my Uncle Ken’s farm, and write my first ‘Being Justin Heazlewood’ column, an autobiographical conversation about myself to myself…it is heavily inspired by the memoir, ‘A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius’ by Dave Eggers.
  • Become co-president of ‘Three Dice.’
  • ‘Urban Turban’ play at ‘Indyfest,’ Canberra’s showcase of indie bands. A girl in the audience describes the set as ‘nice.’
  • Enter Triple J’s Raw Comedy – I make it into the ACT finals, but find it all a bit mucky. I am beaten by a guy telling pot jokes.
  • ‘The Harmonica Lewinski’s’ rerecord ‘Spankees Lunch’ at a studio in Wollongong. They continue to do ultra sporadic gigs at the Pot Belly and Shooters. Late in the year, almost a year after recording them, they launch the two albums at the University of Canberra bar with a ‘CD Lunch.’ This wordplay joke backfires, as even though it’s advertised as 6pm, most of the punters turn up at lunch time. ‘Urban Turban’ play their first and last gig at key Canberra establishment Tilleys. Infamously, Matt pays out the now deceased David Branson who did a very strange poem about eating his own face.
  • After growing unrest, ‘Urban Turban’ disbands.
  • Some of my Tasmanian friends are concerned that the nickname ‘Phonze’ isn’t surviving on the mainland. They take it very personally that I’m calling myself something else.
  • As a 21st present to myself, with the help of Uncle Ken, I make ‘The Conception Album,’ a collection of about 30 little musical snippets and demos I’d recorded on my walkman over the last three years. It includes the main riff for ‘I’m So Over Girls’ which was written in 2000.
  • Continue my pursuit of Christianity. I find myself growing increasingly alienated from the hip young world broadcast around me.
  • Have first solo comedy gig, supporting Rash Rider and Pommy Johnson in the UC Bar. It goes well.
  • For my major writing project, I write a feature length play,’ Cyclone Beryl,’ a comedy about the Australian Music Industry.
  • Somehow, I graduate, and get a High Distinction for my play.

2002:

  • Come to terms with not having school on after 18 years.
  • Start working at the Canberra Labor Club – as I am the only employee with mid-length hair and glasses, I pick up the nickname’s: Shaggy, Shags, Shagadelic, Shagster, Harry Potter, Austin Powers, the guy from Oasis, the guy from Weezer, the guy from The Lovin’ Spoonful, the guy from The Seekers, the guy out of Pulp, Keith Richards, John Lennon, George Harrison and the security guard out of A Clockwork Orange.
  • Take up training with Lifeline to be a telephone counsellor.
  • The Harmonica’s enter Raw Comedy with ‘I’m an Aussie.’ We are well received but get nowhere. Around this time ‘Bloke’ is released by Chris Franklin, and I realise how much better my parody is, albeit ten years out of date.
  • After being asked to present at the Heywire Youth Forum, I write ‘Radio Edit Of My Soul,’ with the express notion that Triple J’s Morning Show will be doing a live broadcast the next day, will be in the audience, like it, and want me to play it live on air.
  • This happens.
  • After nearly leaving, I double back and vaguely ask Vicki Kerrigan if there’s any way I can be further involved. She suggests hooking up with Jim Trail and recording some stuff. I do. Vicki and Frances describe my song writing as ‘Bedroom Philosophy.’ They play my songs almost every Tuesday morning. They pay me $70 per song.
  • After hearing ‘My Nan Really Likes Radiohead,’ Gaby Brown starts replaying them on Saturday mornings. She pays me $30 per song.
  • Become songwriting obsessed. I am often found hiding near the poker machines at work, writing lyrics on the back of a Keno ticket.
  • Film two pilot episodes for ‘The Bedroom Philosopher Show’ for ABC’s ‘Fly TV.’ This involves regular trips to Sydney.
  • Begin writing my own humorous opinion column ‘Struth Be Told’ for Canberra streetpress BMA – a continuation of ‘Being Justin Heazlewood.’
  • Begin the routine of writing a blog style diary on my laptop. I write about 2000 words every two or three days. This routine coincides with an increased distance between Tammy and I.
  • There is growing tension between The Forbes and I. Due to dissatisfaction with its quality, the ‘Urban Turban’ album is deleted. I take my songs and turn it into my own lightly distributed solo album.
  • After two and a half years Tammy and I break-up.
  • ‘The Harmonica Lewinski’s’ break-up. They play their last gig at the Pot Belly in late June.
  • Do strange, solo guest spot at Ressies Revue as ‘Urban Turban.’
  • We all move out of the TAJ, under a hail of stress, resentment and curtain linings that our landlord says we have to wash and iron. The Forbes and I don’t speak for three months, the first real fight I’ve ever had with someone that isn’t a girlfriend.
  • In August, I do my first solo spots as The Bedroom Philosopher at the Street Theatre, The Lighthouse and the Phoenix Bar. I decide to wear my Nan’s 1970’s blue ski-suit. I’m rather panicked, bumbling, nervous and awkward. Decide this can be my character.
  • Record ‘Ian Thorpe Was Bored,’ the last song for my Morning Show segment. They are going on holidays, and I can sense the wind-down of my own song writing blitz. I have written and aired 25 new songs in the six month period.
  • Do my first gig in Sydney, MCing a CD Launch. The crowd seems to like me but all the bands seem to hate me. I meet the girl I will eventually move to Sydney for.
  • Controversially, I go out with this girl ten years my elder, say goodbye to Canberra and move to Sydney.

2003

  • Hate Sydney.
  • Go on the dole.
  • Discover that the girl I am in love with lives in a cockroach infested inner city office space directly next to her father’s office who’s secretary happens is her jealous ex boyfriend.
  • Move in with my cousin’s family in Blacktown. They are three generation of women. The grandma doesn’t let me watch The Simpsons or use the phone after nine.
  • Discover the girl I moved to Sydney for is a neurotic monster who isn’t convinced I love her because I’m so ‘young and naive’ even though I moved to Sydney to be with her. For the first time in my life I have my entire existence and belief system questioned to the core. I develop an urge to prove myself.
  • After finding a mysterious $600 in my bank, from the ABC, with no explanation, and with key encouragement from Matt Kelly - two days before the deadline - I enter my debut show ‘Living On The Edge…Of My Bed’ in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
  • After borrowing $1000 off Nan and Pop, I produce 500 copies of the Bedroom Philosopher album of the same name, featuring 20 tracks from the segment. It’s a fairly modest, unmastered affair. Having already decided on a tracklist, at the last minute I get the Sydney girl to pick them, so that whoever will own the CD, will find that the CD track listing is different to the album listing. I think this is funny. Friends and radio DJ’s do not.
  • To promote my Melbourne show, I set the world record for continuous performance of John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ outside Flinders Street Station. (9 hours). While I appear as the odd spot on Channel Seven news that night, they say I am promoting the comedy festival and don’t mention my show.
  • Under Matt’s advice, I stop shampooing my hair, deciding that the shampoo and conditioner routine is a scam, and that I’m sick of my hair being too fluffy to manage every second day. It’s not as bad as you’d think. Hair self oils.
  • Perform two sets at the National Folk Festival, in Canberra - during one impassioned version of ‘Disco Chicken’ I roll on my guitar lead so that is pushes through the wood of my guitar. I borrow Soursob Bob’s guitar and almost do the same thing with his.
  • Discover Tug Dumbly and Bennito Di Fonzo’s regular poetry/music night ‘Bardfly’s.’ It’s my saving grace in Sydney.
  • Move house, and live with the girl that will inspire the song ‘Megan the Vegan.’
  • Tammy and I remain terrific friends. The Sydney girl is extremely jealous and threatened by this.
  • Play a gig at the Cat and Fiddle pub which no-one turns up to, and where I have to contribute my own money to pay for the sound guy, and then walk home in light rain.
  • Complete my first and last two weeks of full-time work, at a call centre as a Vodaphone consultant. I’m on ‘Team Schumacher.’
  • After nine months I break up with the Sydney girl. It is the most emotionally damaging relationship of my life. After remaining friends for a while I discover she still has my email password auto saved on her laptop and has been reading and deleting my mail.
  • In both my personal and professional life, I consider myself to be in a rut.
  • After an intensive ten year journey, I decide that I am no longer Christian. I still believe in God.
  • Play my first gig at an established comedy venue, the ‘Mic in Hand’ in Glebe. Until this point I have considered myself a musician who happens to be funny, rather than a comedian who happens to play music. I do a ten minute support slot before Wil Anderson. I play ‘My Nan Really Likes Radiohead’ first up. People go crazy. It’s the best reaction I’ve ever had to my stuff - ever. During a version of ‘Here’s Johnny’ the microphone stand droops down due to the vibrations from the guitar, I go with it and end up on my knees - the place erupts. It is a sublime, magical moment.
  • Chris Macdonald, who will go on to be my manager, praises me after the show. My confidence is restored.
  • After being driven to near-madness by the extreme exploits and clickiness of the ‘Megan the Vegan,’ house, I move out and live with Jim, a 60 year old retired Canadian school teacher, and Huong, A Vietnemese Uni student. We live directly next to a train line and underneath a flight path. One day there is a plane and train going by at the same time and the phone rings and I scream.
  • Find myself unable to create a follow up segment on Triple J, but do some work experience with the Morning Show. I produce four segments combining voxpops, music and poetry called ‘The Heart Of The Bollocks,’ which are put to air.
  • Decide to start sending out a fortnightly Ezine called “LapTopping.’ Soon after, I meet Beverly Cleary at a gig and gain her administrational skills.
  • Hold a CD Launch in Canberra. To promote it, I set the world record for continuous performance of Daryl Braithwaite’s ‘The Horses’ while riding on a horse carousel, on Melbourne Cup day. (30 minutes). I want to go for longer but the owner of ride reckons that is enough.
  • About a year after filming the pilot for ‘The Bedroom Philosopher Show,’ ‘Fly TV’ goes bust and sends me two un-aired videos. It is only about a quarter of what I filmed with them. While I am sitting on my bed staring at them, I receive a one-off anonymous text from a Struth Be Told reader telling me to keep it up.
  • Decide to leave Sydney.

2004

  • Perform a spot at the Falls Festival in Marion Bay, Tasmania, alongside my best mate from school, Josh Earl, who is now also doing musical comedy.
  • Perform at the Hobart Comedy Festival. I do 10-45 minute spots over 16 nights. (the 45 minute spot was supposed to be 15) It is during this time that I truly find my voice and confidence as The Bedroom Philosopher. (Confidence to be awkward).
  • Perform at the Hobart Comedy Gala, supporting the likes of Lano and Woodley in front of 1600 people. I get to tell Frank Woodley how Josh and I used to rip off their stuff. He is pleased.
  • To promote the festival I set the world record for ‘Boon Rapping’ (Reading David Boon’s autobiography in a hip-hop style. (12.5 minutes). I want to go for longer but the Comedy Festival promotor reckons that is enough.
  • After a couple of years of passionate suggestions from friends, I move to Melbourne.
  • Love Melbourne.
  • Move into a terrific share house in Clifton Hill with four others and a troubled cat named Squirty.
  • Participate in three shows for the Big Laugh Comedy Festival in Parramatta.
  • With a lot of help from Chris, I put my second show ‘In Bed With My Doona’ in the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It is a runaway success. (It runs away with a lot of our money.) During this phase I am donning short green pyjamas, and often make the joke that I look like Harry Potter working at a gay Irish Macdonalds in the 1970’s. I also spend a lot of time talking to Kerry The Metaphysical Drummer. The show gets some good reviews, and one Saturday night I have a killer opening, manage to blow it half way through. This night is full of important industry types and an Age reviewer. I demand never to know when important people are in the audience.
  • To promote the show, my publicity stunt is a ‘bed-in’ protest, as I say I’m being deported back to Tasmania for not having the right passport. I lie down on a mattress outside town hall. Conveniently, Triple J breakfast are doing a live broadcast anyway, so there’s a lot of girls running around in their pyjamas and it appears as though they could have come out for me. The ‘difficult fourth stunt’ confuses all and amuses few, especially Adam Spencer.
  • After a moment of insanity my attempts to trim the back of my hair ends up with me completely shaving the back of my head, but leaving my fringe as normal. (See: Artist Loses His Head But Not His Style)
  • After a couple of years of being published, I join the editorial committee of national youth literary magazine ‘Voiceworks.’
  • My Uncle Nigel dies tragically in Lithgow on the 24th of April. It is my first experience of real death.
  • Josh Earl and I form a comedy supergroup ‘The Renegades of Folk.’ Specialising in folk covers of electronic songs.
  • Record my debut studio album ‘In Bed With My Doona’ with my Uncle Ken Heazlewood in Emu Plains, NSW between July-October. The entire recording, mixing and mastering process takes 140 hours, about 70 of these are spent on one track ‘Folkstar.’ The album is my life’s work.
  • Embark on my first ever tour, taking in Melbourne, Canberra, Albury, Woolongong, Sydney and Perth.
  • Become the Victorian State Coordinator of the Australian Songwriter’s Association.
  • Am shortlisted for a Moosehead award. The Melbourne Comedy Festival’s grant for innovative and fresh show ideas. The potential show is called ‘The Bedroom Philosopher’s Super Fun Happy Sleepover Camp of Yay!’.
  • At a time when I am about to produce 500 copies of my album, I win ‘Ploveridol’ a take-off of Australian idol at the This is Not Art Festival in Newcastle. The prize is $1000 of CD reproduction. During the set, I play ‘Megan The Vegan’ and ‘Megan’s’ actual ex boyfriend is one of the judges. He is interested. During the song I mention ‘System’s Corrupt’ a underground posse of which Megan was a member. Many members are in the audience and go wild at being mentioned. I end my set with a truly unhinged acoustic version of Aphex Twin’s ‘Come To Daddy’ complete with primary school singalong verses erupting into institutionalised primal screaming. For my encore, I stand on a table in the middle of the room and play ‘Everybody’s Got The Same Insecurities As You’ unplugged. On my walk back to to the stage some indie-goth girl’s start tugging at my pants, so I lie on my back and scream ‘Tear me apart! I hate myself!’ It’s a personal victory.
  • First unofficial album single ‘I’m So Post Modern’ is placed on light rotation on Triple J. It is particularly popular on ‘Super Requests.’
  • My poetic alter-super-ego ‘Super Poet’ makes his debut at an Overload Poetry Festival gig.
  • Finish the year with a set at the Falls Festival, playing after ‘Butterfingers’ to about 2000 people. A young girl approaches me and offers to have my baby. My response is: ‘What’s your bloodtype?’

2005

  • Perform regularly at the Hobart Comedy Festival. This year, I am promoted to being allowed to do one of my solo shows. It is a success.
  • Perform in ‘Laughapoolooza’ at the Kaleide theatre - a prototype musical comedy gala that my manager Chris has devised.
  • Participate in the Big Laugh Comedy Festival, playing five shows with Nick Sun and Sam Bowring.
  • Perform third Melbourne International Comedy Festival show ‘Pyjamarama.’ It is a success, although once again I manage to do my worst show infront of an Age reviewer. A reviewer from Chortle, a UK comedy website, gives me the best review of my life, stating that I am the ‘Jarvis Cocker of stand-up.’ Also perform in all six ‘Laughapoolooza’s’ during the festival, including one filmed for a DVD release. It is not a particularly pleasant experience for me. I am terribly nervous, and break a string and knock the microphone over during ‘McRock.’ I go overtime and am vilafied backstage. It is one of my lowest performance moments. Despite more onstage confidence, I am finding the comedy ‘industry’ increasingly intimidating, and find myself falling silent when around peers.
  • After the awards night, I perform ‘Anarchy In The UK’ for the Scared Weird Little Guys Superband. At the end, it seems like a good idea to take all my clothes off. This is also filmed for an upcoming DVD. After requesting for my special features to be pixilated, they aren’t.
  • Secure national distribution for ‘In Bed With My Doona’ through MGM.
  • ‘I’m So Post Modern’ is in the top five most requested songs on ‘Super Requests,’ during two days in April, and two days in June. It is still being frequently requested over six months after its radio debut.
  • ‘I’m So Post Modern’ is featured on Triple J Super Request compilation ‘Dog’s Breakfast,’ alongside the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Marilyn Manson and such novelty favourites as King Missile’s ‘Detachable Penis’ and Dana Lyon’s ‘Cow’s With Guns.’
  • In July, I begin some preliminary writing for a new sketch show being planned for Channel 10 called ‘The Ronnie Johns Half Hour.’ The show is based on a uni revue stage show created by my manager Chris. This is the first time I’ve ever written a sketch, but I quickly get the hang of it.
  • During a gig in Hobart, I meet the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, Anna Knight. We have some nice conversations, but she is in a relationship.
  • Am asked to open for long time musical comedy heroes Tripod on a fourteen day regional tour of W.A. This includes Broome, Port Hedland down to Kalgoorlie. It is arguably the best two weeks of my life. (See: Tripod Tour Diary Part One & Part Two)
  • In October, I temporarily move to Sydney to write for the Ronnie Johns Half Hour full-time for three months. I live in Alexandria with a friend of a friend and his three dogs. I have never lived with dogs before, nor particuarly liked them. This time round, I don’t hate Sydney nearly as much. It is the first time I’ve been able to live off my creativity. I am paid well. I save no money. I find writing for television more demanding than I had imagined, although many of my sketches get through.
  • Try my hand as the warm up guy at the Ronnie Johns live nights. This involves walking out in a cold, sterile television studio and geeing up a crowd of young, middle class trendabogans. On top of being funny, I must also wear an ear piece and constantly be aware of what the director is saying. I am challenged. During one stint of handing out merchandise to the crowd I hit a lady in the face with an Australian Idol notebook. The director decides that is enough.
  • Perform at the Falls Festival for the third year in a row. This year I am up against Sarah Blasko. A good crowd turns out to witness me. At one point I stop, listen to Sarah on the big stage for a while and scream ‘Damn it Sarah - you know I love you, but there’s no need to rub it in!’ For the third year in a row I spend my Fall Festival time wandering around in a depressive stupor. (See: New Year’s Grieve)

2006

  • ‘I’m So Post Modern’ is voted #72 in Triple J’s Hottest 100. I make a film clip for it. A lo-fi animated karaoke affair, it’s climax made up of a montage of photos sent to me by LapTopping subscribers. The song is chosen to appear on the Hottest 100 DVD.
  • Finish work on a new remix of ‘Folkstar’ entitled Folkstar (Pooglet 78″ Mix). It includes altered lyrics and dramatically reperformed vocals, delivered in more of a Beastie Boys hip-hop style. The new remix is added to the latest batch of ‘In Bed With My Doona’ albums.
  • Am asked to be the guest speaker at University of Canberra’s official commencement ceremony. My advice includes consider lectures like gigs you’ve already bought tickets for, as when you work it out each one costs about $50.
  • Go on JJJ’s ‘Like A Version’ segment. I perform one original, which is a version of ‘I’m So Post Modern’ with 26 new lines, and a chorus. For my cover, I take friend Matt’s advice and write an acoustic megamix of 30 songs from the Hottest 100. It proves hugely popular on radio for a while and at gigs. I consider releasing it, but the copyright implications are laughable.
  • Wind up Sydney operations in March and return to Melbourne. Ronnie Johns has rated fairly well during the year and a second season appear likely. The Chopper character is particularly popular.
  • The Renegades of Folk perform their debut show in the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It is a financial success with our strongest audiences to date, however we find it mysteriously impossible to get reviewed by anyone.
  • After some serious match making from comedian Sam Simmons, I begin a wonderful relationship with Anna Knight. We figured we were out of each other’s league.
  • During an outdoor performance in the Comedy Festival, I am disturbed by the presence of a man in a purple Comedy Channel Star suit. I make up a song with the chorus ‘let’s all push over the Comedy Channel star.’ Suddenly two young punks run from nowhere and crash tackle him to the ground. (See: Bedroom Philosopher or Bedroom Terrorist?)
  • Finish work on yet another upgrade of ‘Folkstar.’ This time, adding the genius double bass exploits of John Maddox. This version ‘Folkstar (Pooglet With Strings Mix) is deemed the official second single from ‘In Bed With My Doona’ and is sent out backed with a remix by Pomomofo. A limited edition maxi-single is produced, featuring other remixes of Folkstar and I’m So Post Modern, plus some live recordings from a drunken session in Albury for a forthcoming national tour.
  • Completely organise my own first proper national tour, playing Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane. I play music venues, with mainly straight up musical supports. While an enormous job to organise, it is an unprecedented joy to perform, with especially healthy turnouts in my home bases of Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart. (See: Nationalish Tour Diary)
  • Change management. I begin working with Saskia Moore, after a 2am discussion over a chicken schnitzel sandwhich at famed Melbourne establishment ‘Golden Towers.’
  • Folkstar, while never nearing the popularity of ‘I’m So Post Modern’ gets a fair work out on Triple J, mainly on Super Requests.
  • Ronnie Johns is commissioned for a second series. In conjunction with this, I am offered the lead role in a local Sydney play to be performed at the New York Fringe Festival. In a decision that will heavily effect my relationship, I decline. To my joy, Ronnie Johns allows me to write from Melbourne.
  • In September I begin work on a new album ‘Brown & Orange.’ I again work with my uncle Ken Heazlewood, in Emu Plains. This album is planned to be a more ambitous affair, and already the Magical Mystery Tour comments are bandied about.
  • Support comedy icon Flacco for three shows in Melbourne.
  • Perform a two week season in the Melbourne Fringe Festival with the show ‘Living on the edge…of my bed.’ It’s a combination of new and old material, which is moderately successful. I am peturbed after industry bookers state they enjoyed my show but wouldn’t book it as it was a ‘gig show’ not a ’show show.’ I also notice a sense of anxiety about whether some of my songs are funny enough for a comedy audience.
  • Saskia puts me in touch with musician and producer Martin Lubran, who agrees to act as producer and engineer. Martin has a strong music and comedy background, having written music for The Late Show, The Panel and The Castle. In November, I wind up work with Ken and begin the more sonically intensive side with Marty. This includes the use of many talented session musician, playing drums, violin, trumpet, piano, slide, banjo and sitar. ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ taunts increase.
  • After being days away from the Melbourne Comedy Festival deadline, I have a sudden realisation that I don’t want to perform in comedy rooms anymore, but would rather focus on music venues.
  • Perform for the fourth year at The Falls Festival. This year I am given a proper 20 minute comedy bracket, and perform alongside Charlie Pickering at Hobart and Lorne. I inadvertantly start a verbal war between Tim Rogers and Charlie Pickering when a brief impression of Tim Rogers is mis-reported as being Charlie’s work. Tim proceeds to offer an on-stage warning to Charlie, who then spends most of his Lorne set bagging Tim out.
  • Take stock of life and realise, for the first time, I am in a particularly joyous and cherished position.

2007

  • My Pop falls ill, making it a very stressful Christmas period.
  • One of my childhood cats Misty must be put down due to liver failure.
  • Continue work on ‘Brown & Orange.’ The album doesn’t have a specific timeline, and so I’m given a lot of space to explore my artistic whims. This is a very pleasant process, and I’m often at my happiest when I’m in the studio.
  • Perform three shows in the Adelaide Fringe Festival in February. They are my first since putting myself in the music category. I am still quite nervous about what the reaction will be. I find the banter in between songs the hardest to gauge. The shows go well, and the new songs seem to work.
  • Centrelink pins me with its worst requirement yet. Three weeks of daily intensive job search training at Preston. I find it enormously demoralising.
  • After five years I stop writing my column ‘Struth Be Told’ for Canberra streetpress BMA. I am so frustrated financially that I demand nicely to start getting paid, and proceed to shop my column around nationally.
  • Decide that I need to gather a backing band to recreate the new material on stage. After a callout I select new friend and fellow Tasmanian Andy Hazel on bass and first year VCA student Hugh Rabinovici on percussion. We begin a rigorous weekly rehearsal schedule. I find the two boys an absolute pleasure to work with, which is a relief, as I am still quite insecure about my ability to musically ‘mix well with the other children.’
  • Play our first gig at the Espy in St Kilda. It actually goes quite well. A medium but appreciative audience seem to like us. Unlike the support band. One of them swears at me for touching water that was in his rider. It seems to say ‘welcome to music.’
  • My Pop passes away in May. It is heartbreaking to see him in his final moments, paralysed.
  • Anna and I celebrate one year together. We are like two peas in a sensitive, witty, loving pod.
  • Play a solo residency at Wesley Anne. I am still struggling to find my feet in a musical environment. I have no trouble playing the songs, but tend to overanalyse how much humour I should be expressing.
  • Turn 27. It feels like a big age.
  • Hit the first of several mental walls. The internal arguments about what The Bedroom Philosopher should be unsettles other parts of my personality. I find myself for the first time sweeping an angry comb through all elements of my life such as my friends. My Facebook inventory plummets.
  • Perform solo gig at the Stagedoor Cafe in Burnie. It is my first gig in Burnie since I played ‘Pooljam’ at the Burnie Olympic Pool in 1998. My Nan, Mum and Uncle Ken are present, along with some joyously rowdy old high school mates, creating a special atmosphere.
  • Perform second gig with the band at The Tote. This is highly attended by all my friends, and big acts like The Basics share the stage. I hate my performance and feel under prepared.
  • Write my first column for national magazine Frankie. I have been admiring their work for a while and it feels like an important victory for my writing.
  • Play with the band at The Annandale in Sydney. It’s a huge crowd but we are mixed like a rock band, and no-one can really hear the words. I am genuinely bamboozled about whether I’m doing the right thing. Some fans down the front request ‘Megan The Vegan’ but I refuse, and later wonder if I’ve lost the plot. A friend suggests I could play electric guitar in some songs. Based on this survey of one I rush out and buy one as soon as I get home.
  • Quit smoking. This is the biggest attempt in a few years. I vow to the heavens and all before me that no longer will my health and singing voice fall pray to this vile, pathetic, pointless vice.
  • Start smoking again.
  • Play a residency with the band at The Empress. I am still far from comfortable on stage, and am struggling to make sense of the electric. I continue to be berated for not playing ‘Megan The Vegan.’ There are many who dig the band and new material as well.
  • ’The Happiest Boy,’ the first single from ‘Brown & Orange’ is released in October. This seems fitting as it’s a song I’d reluctantly scratch from my comedy sets for not being funny enough. The film clip for it is astoundingly good. My friend David Blumenstein AKA Nakedfella has worked on it on and off for nine months. It is well received.
  • Frankie once again publish my columns. I also get my first piece in JJJ’s magazine ‘JMag.’
  • Support 80’s iconic children’s performer Peter Combe on a ten show renaissance tour in music venues. The crowds are huge and amazingly enthusiastic. I find these gigs a breeze to play and build my set around my many songs featuring nostalgia and pop culture references. (See: Peter Combe Tour Diary)
  • Continue to have enormous internal battles about my new direction, and countless email conversations with my manager. I feel like a leaf in the ocean, constantly swayed by the different opinions around me about what I should do. (See: Infrequently Asked Questions)
  • My oldest childhood cat, Blossum, passes away at the grand age of twenty.
  • After some negotiations I resume writing ‘Struth Be Told’ for BMA Magazine.
  • The process of recording ‘Brown & Orange’ deteriorates. A lot of time is devoted to attempting to record songs that aren’t working out. In a panic about time, I decide to drop them. Mixing begins on the demanding second single, which features over 40 tracks.
  • Embark on national ‘The Happiest Boy’ tour. Unfortunately, overall it is an unpleasant experience. Numbers are well down on the ‘I’m So Post Modern’ tour, and I rarely enjoy myself on stage. Radio has barely touched the single, mainly due to its length of 4:36. I can’t help but compare it to the tour of the previous year when I had less worries and more punters.
  • Frustrated about money, I take on a bar job. My first proper job in two years.
  • After submitting short comedy pieces to ‘The Big Issue,’ they start publishing me in their ‘Ointment’ section.
  • The second single ‘Wow Wow’s Song (La La La)’ is taken to a professional studio to give it the extra polish it needs. I am not present in the final mixes and can only monitor its development by emails, listening on my own. I find this process incredibly stressful.
  • Have a genuine sense of losing my way, and of having too many pressures in my life, and begin counselling for the first time in years.
  • Support Tripod on their Christmas Show tour of Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne. I am elated yet strangely bemused to find myself still so effortless and entertaining infront of a comedy crowd, and I acknowledge my addiction to laughter. It’s a joy hang out with Tripod again and they lend valuable ears to my thoughts on music and comedy.
  • Return home to Tasmania for a holiday only to find my Nan violently ill with gastro.
  • Anna comes over and we have a lovely New Year’s Eve in my home town of Burnie. It’s the first time I haven’t been playing at Falls Festival in five years and I’m relieved for a change. We are stared at by the public and hide out in a beer garden watching the fireworks. In an up and down year riddled with frustration and personal bitterness, I look forward to the metaphorical slate being wiped clean, and vow to focus on the positives in my life.
  • Website designed by Tammy Nicholson, coding and Wordpress hacks by Paul ‘Kilbot’ Kilmurray. Thanks for reading. This biography is an abbreviation of a life with the focus and tone subject to the mood of the author. It shouldn’t be regarded as the author’s definitive record of the experiences or judged as a journalistic article. You can go to the toilet now.