A Brief History Of...

The greasy, smelly waterslide park lay on the northern bank of Hillarys Boat Harbour next to the greasy, smelly man-made beach. During the summer season the beach would become crowded and steamy; filled with paranoid parents all trying to keep track of their own spawn. On these days the stagnant water would take on a noticeable stench of child urine and boat oil. Teenagers would brave the threat of massive splinters to jump off the aging wooden Jetty, while other not so smarter ones would try their hand at sliding down the disused boat ramp, then try to claw their way up the algae covered cement. Meanwhile others blindly lined up the stairs of the waterslide tower for an hour to experience thirty seconds of mild fun.

There were three waterslides; their giant green tubes jutting out from the grass embankment like ugly fibre-glass tentacles. The “Hydro Tube” was the longest and generally the most popular, it was the least intimidating and it would generally take around two or three trips down it till it started to get uninteresting. A favourite activity for the staff after hours would be to limit the water to a trickle, add some detergent, grease up a matt with cooking oil from the cafe and hit the Hydro Tube to see how fast you could go down it, the way it was meant to be rode. The “Wild Rapids Tube Ride” was the next biggest and was neither wild nor rapid. The rider would take up a black rubber tube down the pitch black slide and wait to come out the steep end, the end of the ride was the best bit about it. Lastly and least there was the “Speed Twister Slides” which were two twisting smaller tubes, the idea being that you would race another to the end, however the ride generally ended in discomfort with water being pushed up every orifice. Accompanying the waterslides were some trampolines and the lamest mini golf course in the country as well as ever changing carnival rides.

My brother Nathan was the first to get a job there and I manage to get one through nepotism. First I worked up the top, sitting for hours at a time telling excited kids when to go down. The best part of the job was telling the bastards off by far, I won’t lie; I fucking loved it. Sometimes I would just be a jerk for something to do. My favourite thing to do if I saw a little goblin child spitting or throwing their tube off the side I would get them to go down and collect the tube and bring it up to me, then send them down to put it back and tell them to come back and see me, upon their return I would then tell them they were banned from my slide for ten minutes. I was such an asshole, but damn it was fun and they probably deserved it anyway. After doing that for a year or so I went to the dry rides section which was just as easy and allowed for more assholism on my part as well as some good old fashioned skiving. In the evenings we would play extreme Frisbee on the trampolines or bumper car polo, I still have the scars.

The great thing about the Waterslide Park was the staff, by far. Everyone was young and equally as irresponsible, but worked together and got a long, most all the staff drank their pay checks after work and it was common for all the senior staff to be horribly hung-over on Saturday mornings. I remember one morning in particular I had gone to Michael Davis’s 18th and proceeded to get my teenage arse drunk as a skunk, I rock up still inebriated only to find my co worker Millsy equally as fucked up and then confronting Eli the duty manager only to find him in the same state. It’s a wonder how nothing went horribly wrong, but nothing ever did, the crew worked together in harmony.
Now the staff parties, they were the thing of legends. While at this stage in my life I was had absolutely no idea how to do the whole “girl” thing. I focused mainly on having fun, getting drunk and embarrassing myself, which I managed to do right off the bat at my first staff party. Looking back on it now makes me smile and I’m sure if any one who worked at the place is reading this they too are smiling. I do remember throwing up outside my new place of work at the end of the night and making out with a girl twice my size on the Wacky Putt. The old Russell house in Sorrento hosted some successful parties during the course of my brother and I working there, they were great and debauched, but they were nothing compared to Courtney’s parties. Courtney’s parents lived abroad with their youngest son and had left both Courtney and his other not so younger brother Waz in charge. Courtney was a man of action and would put on a keg, barbeque and large Jacuzzi, which would be a putrid grey culture chamber for all never before seen bacteria in the morning, a truly disgusting sight.

The waterslide crew have all gone onto different things now, I walked through there a few months back and it was a completely new staff; no doubt a good thing for productivity and Doug the owner’s health. We all started to see a difference in Doug toward the end, he was getting older and feeling financial pressure and I’m sure he knew of our partying habits as well as our poor work ethic. I’d like to see them all again some time; it was a funny thing being a part of that world, while growing up. Being a teenager is hard and awkward enough but while I was there it all seemed easier, we were all going through similar things, we all shared the good and the bad and the tragic together and they are all a part of my life. I find it hard to remember and describe specific tales from my time there because they’re all so rich, I have never found anything like the staff at the waterslides and I don’t want to. I was a horrible employee there and am still amazed that I didn’t get fired. Everyone that worked there for that time shares a connection, no matter what we’re doing now I hope that if you got us all in the same room together it would still feel like old times, when the summer season came and the smell of chlorine, ice-cream cake and vinegar would fill air of our great escape.

To misquote Hunter S. Thompson “We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, more than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Hillarys and look north, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

Shine A Light On Me

Do you want to go on that overseas trip but never had the money? Have you wanted that new car but couldn’t save? Is your family desperately needing that new extension on the house but just don’t have enough for the deposit? Then you need a Pyramid Scheme! Ever heard of Amway? Well this is exactly like it, except re-branded to look to different so we can avoid the stigma of being attached to a company that encourages people to alienate their friends and take advantage of stupid poor people. We’re called New Wave and we use all the cheap tricks such as; boxes, arrows, graphs and diagrams, percentages and numbers that have absolutely no validity, DVDs and glossy pamphlets and asking you to a business meeting only to ambush you with a man in a suit with a briefcase. All you have to do is to sign up and give the $500 joining fee and we give you all the useless crap that we sell people. Plus, the more people you sign up, the more money I make because I get a percentage of everything you sell, plus a commission for signing you up, and the more people you sign up, the more commission I get so effectively I’m making more money than you and you can do all the work. How does that sound?

The year is 2003, I’ve just finished my first real theatre job out of school and recently gotten fired from a Christian Theatre in Education group. But Ben, you’re not Christian? Well back then I didn’t know what I was and I thought I’d give it a go, it turns out I like reason and sensibility. But I’m getting off the topic at hand; during the course of the production I got to know all involved, including the lighting guy. His name was Aaron; he was a lighting guy. In theatre; crew, much like in film, can be weird. I’m not entirely sure what it is, it may just be that as I am the type of person who prefers to be on stage or film rather than behind the scenes so I find it hard to relate. But normally there is always a slight gap in the relationship between actors and crew, there are exceptions of course. Aaron was a nice guy, an awkward theatre lighting nerd with a lazy eye but a nice and lovely guy who you could carry on a decent conversation with. One evening I got a call from Aaron, who informed me that he had a business idea and if we could catch up sometime and talk about it over coffee. Thinking that it was something to do with theatre, or lights, or magic theatre lightingness I agreed and was excited about it, after all I had no job. We were to meet at the Dome in Subiaco at about 7 o’clock.

I get to the Dome early and get myself a flat white and amuse myself by looking at the stupid hats that the staff has to wear. Aaron arrives, but he is not alone; a dowdy middle aged balding man in a grey suit and officious briefcase slides in and Aaron introduces him as his “Business Partner”. That is the last I hear of Aaron, except for the inevitable and awkward goodbye at the end, but we’ll get to that later. Business Partner launches into his spiel about New Wave and how I can make my money work for me and draws confusing and important looking diagrams and graphs, he adds, subtracts, multiplies, percentages are being thrown left and right; I can earn some money on the side and use that to buy a new car or go to the States, Business Partner Man is truly a word smith, and what my mother would refer to as “a Scheister”. Then I ask a question, it stops him in his tracks and makes him sweat “is this like Amway?” He pauses, no doubt trying to decide whether or not he can lie his way out “Actually New Wave is a part of Amway” Business Man can see the disappointment in my eyes, I thought this was going to be some kind of magical theatre lightingness business arrangement where I get to work in theatre and do stuff that’s cool, not sell shit nobody needs and alienate family and friends by trying to get them to sign up to a pyramid scheme. “Is this a pyramid scheme?” Business Partner Man clears his throat “No, it’s nothing like that, everything that we do is above board. This is a Dynamic Business opportunity for you to make some money, and we all like making money don’t we?” Now even as a stupid 20 year old I knew that this guy was trying to fuck me, I had seen the movies, I may have been stupid but if there is one thing the movie ‘Go’ taught me is that Scott Wolf is a douche and even he knows that Amway people will try to seduce you into their sweaty manfolds only to fuck the god fearing shit out of you. That may be an obscure movie reference but that’s what I was thinking at the time. “I have to be honest I don’t think I’m that interested” I tell the scheister. He pauses, no doubt sobbing inside from not having sealed the deal “Okay, well how about I give you a DVD telling you all about it?” “Sure” I reply apathetically, I have no intention of watching it.
“I only have one copy so I have to get this back from you. So how about we make an appointment so I can get it back off you?” Are you fucking serious? I just told you that I wasn’t interested and he comes back for more. I have to appreciate his enthusiasm and commitment, but you’d have to be a little down if a 20 year old saw through your bullshit. At this point I am so disappointed with mankind and annoyed I was made to sit through his bullshit I have no choice but to be rude “Keep it, because if you give it to me you’ll never see it again. Seeya’ later” I say and as I get the hell out of there, leaving Aaron and his Business Partner alone to no doubt discuss what went wrong, you’re an idiot, that’s what went wrong.

So that’s my story about how a mild mannered lighting guy tried to recruit me into his cult. I’d like to think that the process I went through is similar to being recruited into Scientology, all graphs, numbers and power of the word type shit. The moral is, is that if a 20 year old, unemployed loser could see through your bullshit, it’s time to throw in the towel and kill yourself. My only solace is that Business Partner Man probably went back home to his shitty fibro house in Clarkson and had all his will and sense of self sucked out of him by his five little spawns of unholy darkness and chain smoking, hard drinking, housewife. I hope that Aaron has either done very well for himself in the pyramid scheme business or realized that like Scott Wolf’s career it’s all a horrible lie.

I Have Wisdom Teeth Deciding to Come in Sideway: The Movie

So you may have noticed that I’ve already broken my promise and missed out a whole month. But I have to admit it was a lot harder than I thought to write an article each week during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. There was so very much going on during that month, I had some of the most fun I have ever had. I had many adventures, from loitering outside the beautiful state library at 2 o’clock in the morning, to performing to a packed room at Trades Hall, to being in a different city with my ladyfriend(for some reason that makes it sound icky) Skye. Nothing can truly describe the feeling, the magic; being in a beautiful city with all your friends, doing what you love and seeing some of the funniest people on the planet. I have returned from it a better comedian, with more focus and drive than ever before. Unlike some, my goal is not to get famous from what I do. I see fame as a by – product of what we do, something that people aspire to without knowing why. Me, I just want to be good, I want to be really good at what I do.

My Dad told me once that there will always be somebody out there that is better than you. I only truly understand that now. It’s not meant to be mean or negative or to discourage, but to ground and strengthen. Ego is something that will always be an issue in my job, ego is helpful, it gives confidence and strength. But an ego that is too large can breed laziness. I will be the first to admit I have a healthy ego and I try to control it as best I can. I know I’m only starting out in this business and that I have a long way to go, but I have to believe that what I am doing is good, that I have something to offer to the world of comedy, otherwise I have no path, no reason. There are some comedians that are for lack of a better word ego maniacs; some deserve it, but most often don’t. One thing that helps me keep grounded is the truth; that we are what we are. We don’t save lives or put out fires, we make people laugh; we entertain. Work is more like play for me, everything about it is so fun, I feel like I have gotten better because that fun has doubled since Melbourne.

Anyway, this is just a quick one because I’ve been home doing nothing on account of my wisdom tooth deciding now would be the time it came in sideways. Thanks teeth, theeth.

Like a Sack of Potatos.

Once in a while you get into a situation that you just can’t get out of. You know you’ve fucked up, you know you’re going to get into trouble and you know there just isn’t any way out. You’re going to have to go through it and by doing so you’re going to have to take a big bite out of the shit sandwich of life. One of these times that immediately spring to mind for me is the time I broke my wrist. It’s also the reason why after eight years I am just barely getting able to drink vodka again. I was sixteen and a rare opportunity had occurred; both my mother and father were out of the city at one time. To some, this may not seem too extraordinary, however in my instance this was a first. Coming from divorced parents does have its advantages as a teenager, you can go over to the other one’s house if one is annoying you, you can wring both of them for money and you can use them as an excuse for some good old fashioned angst. The disadvantage to this is that the chances that both your parental units are out of town at the same time are slim; let’s just say that they don’t go holidaying in the Whitsundays together. So in all this time, this was the first time I had been left alone in the city for a weekend. I had heard stories of this happening to other kids and the gooey delicious mischief that flowed forth, so I was eager to impose my own brand of mayhem on the fine tradition of teenaged misadventure. Would my sweet treats turn out to be sour? Would my venture forth into the rainbow coloured candy land of irresponsibility and chocolate devil may care mud cakes be as wondrous and magical as I heard? Or would I get my just desserts?

I had conveyed my excitement to friend and neighbourhood ally Jayden Elphick and we began to set in motion a grand plan. We got some cheap vodka a bottle of fizzy lemony sweet water, discarding half of the contents of the squash we poured in the vodka and set forth. Where did we go? Where do all teenagers go for pre drinks for the night of their lives? The park. We met up with a few more of Jayden’s friends and to cut a long story short; we got drunk. We got drunk and high on sugary fermented treats. After which time we decided that it was time to take full advantage of the current situation and adjourn to my mum’s house and carve the night in twain with our lust of life and exuberance for rebellion.

I lived on 14a Millimumul way in Mullaloo; a little beach side suburb in the heart of the Northern suburbs. The house was small but more or less comfortable and had a lovely little back yard with a retaining wall and a shade cloth over it to keep prying eyes from looking down from 14b Millimumul way in Mullaloo. Why do I tell you this? Because it is the crux of the story. In amongst the din of loud music and four sixteen year old running around full of sugar and fermented potatoes I decided that it would be cool if I could some how jump from the retaining wall and swing on the wooden shade cloth. With my judgement clouded in adrenaline and sweet fizzy booze I went for it. I’d like to tell you that I did it, I’d like to tell you that I swung on that fucker and did a double somersault and landed perfectly on the roof and we all cheered and applauded and went on cheering and applauding till the wee hours of the night, that my high school crush came over and we made long passionate love on the soft green lawn while the sun rose. But I can’t, because I didn’t, I didn’t and wouldn’t make love to another person for another two years, there was no cheering and applause, I did not swung on that fucker and I certainly did not land perfectly.

A drunk virgin Ben awoke on the cool green grass; the wind knocked out of me, dazed, confused and in pain. I remember a weird sensation in my right hand, as if there was something caught on it, attached to my arm but not a part of my body. There was a large lump on the top of my wrist and an even large thing protruding from the bottom of my wrist, it had broken right through. In an attempt to keep me calm, both Jayden agreed that it was not in fact broken but badly sprained and we would wrap it in ice and go to sleep. The other two friends leaving for fear of getting caught up amongst the trouble we went to bed and passed out. I awoke about three in the morning in a bitch face amount of pain, proceeded to lie in the bathtub and call for help. Great family friend Jasmin Lyford came to rescue and after spewing in the front garden from what I imagine was a result of both shock and drinking cheap vodka I got into the car and went to hospital. The moment I looked at that mangled wrist I knew what I had done, yet I tried to fight it, tried to deny what had happened by thinking it was only sprained. I’ve sprained my wrist a few times before that and I knew that this was a completely different feeling, for one I could still move my hand afterwards and I couldn’t see bone where there shouldn’t have been.

I had to go into surgery to reset the bone and wore a cast on my arm for a few months during which my school grades went downhill as a result of me not being able to write with my right hand. I didn’t touch vodka for a longtime and still have a slight aversion to the vile drink. But more importantly I learnt that just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean you should, that I was not as indestructible as I was led to believe and that I can’t jump as far as I thought. My Mum had to come back from Rottnest early and see her youngest son drugged out of his mind on morphine with a broken wrist. Hubris is an ugly thing.