Author Archives: justin

(This first appeared as a writing exercise answering the above question in Frankie magazine.)

In 2000 I stood before a packed dining room, faces glistening in the candle light. I was MCing the graduation dinner of a youth organisation I volunteered for. As always, I was seen as the lovable comedian, set to dazzle with my wit and silliness. This time things were different. I was down and out. Starring in a sexually explicit play at uni and losing control of my will had crashed me through the barriers into depression and self-doubt. Getting out of the house was a stretch, and suddenly I had to be funny.

Organising and conducting the dinner was the final stage in our leadership training. We agreed on a nautical theme and were each assigned jobs. I was automatically selected to write and perform the entertainment. With my current mood, I felt more qualified to be in charge of gluing stars to the boat shaped placemats. My bones were devoid of humour. I had arrived with my shields up and a sophisticated auto-pilot running, but people still pointed out that I wasn’t my usual self.

The morning of the dinner I woke from a haunting dream and sat alone in my room, scrawling a ramshackle monologue I had no idea how to remember or execute. That afternoon I walked alongside a female leader, trying to tell her how I felt. She gave me a warm polar fleece hug and said I’d be fine. I felt like some corrupt gypsy who’d climbed aboard a luxury liner. I swallowed the urge to cry and ask to be taken home.

With an hour until the show I was up to the eyeballs in panic and adrenalin, robotically telling people where to stand. Mouths opened and words flew around me like arrows. The heads of the organisation beamed, saying how much they were looking forward to my star performance. I smiled guiltily. The wall clock was a countdown to imminent failure. I was a theatrical suicide bomber, about to coat the place in awkward.

Tables filled and my stomach emptied. My mouth ran dry and my heart cannoned against my lungs. My brain was swirling with paradoxes. I wanted to spell out ‘help’ in fireworks and fly a plane into the night. I stared out at the friends and dignitaries, eyes glaring with expectation. My thumb flicked on the microphone and a shaky breath soiled the room. “In the town where I was born. Lived a man who sailed to sea. And he told us of his life. In the land of submarines.” I opened with a spoken word version of Yellow Submarine, cloaking myself in an inappropriately droll English accent.

Nervous laughter flittered like butterflies. Middle aged men coughed and made-up women plastered on confused smiles. I had no idea what I was doing. I was failing, in real time, with no escape plan. I buried myself deeper into the ridiculous character and tried to incorporate the sea theme, reading out the number plate of someone who’d “left their sails up.” Running on the fumes of instinct I spluttered to the end of the first act.

Eating dinner in the break was torture. I’d been strategically placed next to a casting agent, so I could ‘network.’ I nodded and mumbled and moved my jaw around like an alien trying to fit in. In the next bracket, I had to narrate some perilous play involving chants and actions and “pirating video’s rated ‘arrrrr.’” My accent drooped. My hair hung limp. My polyester clotted. Silences replaced spontaneity and polite disappointment marinated the air. I was powerless. The best I could do was the worst that could happen.

At the end of the night everyone said what a great job I’d done. I was too exhausted to work out whether they meant it. My retina’s burned and my lone face collected shadows in the bathroom mirror. My soul was squeezed empty like toothpaste. The whole mess was thrown into the third drawer of my memories, and even now, I look back at myself like a bewildered older sibling and wonder how the hell I got there and back.

(This piece appeared as part of a writing exercise on the above topic in Frankie magazine.)

I decided to rid the earth of religion. The exact process was mysterious, involved a lot of forms and tickled a bit. I was led into a secret basement beneath Frankie HQ with multicoloured moss, posters of bands from 2034 and the faint smell of caramel popcorn. I was put through a ‘thought sorter’ which was like a personal Gravitron where I could see my mindscapes like fireworks. Some guys in hoodies came and stamped something onto my leg with a fluro typewriter. I was sat down at a desk and given a pen by a beautiful archangel in a petticoat. She had ruby eyes and an inbuilt theremin. I read the fine print and signed off on religion forever. The archangel smiled and we ate crumpets. She said I’d have to restart myself for the effects to take place. I took a lift back to land, caught a taxi home, and fell asleep in a beanbag.

I woke up and got on the Internet. It was strange. I looked up ‘bible’ and Wikipedia said it was the world’s best selling piece of fiction by ‘anonymous.’ The Pope was an ‘entertainer,’ and typing ‘Christian’ into Google got me a Christian Slater fansite. I stepped outside and went down the street to my local church. The stained glass windows had turned clear, and there was a beer garden outside. I rang my Mother and asked her who Jesus was and she sounded confused. ‘He led the roman’s I think.’ For days I dragged a methodical comb over society, trying to gauge the effects I’d induced. At first the signs were obvious – all the worship temples around the world had been transformed into marketplaces, pubs and libraries. All religious scriptures were now ‘Penguin Classics.’ On Sunday mornings people gathered in parks and had something between a town meeting and a counseling session. They weren’t so bad. There were sausages and a few laughs.

After five or so years I read a startling fact in the paper. Apparently depression rates and suicide had risen dramatically over the last five years. The experts blamed global warming and David Letterman being cancelled. My decision hadn’t done much to ease global tension, and civil wars were still bubbling away over oil, nuclear weapons and soccer.

The next morning God appeared. Actual God. Turns out he/she did exist. God didn’t make a huge entry. Just turned up in the corner of every living room on the planet simultaneously, and proceeded to introduce him/herself. God was like looking at the rainbow that appears when you’re watering the garden. Pure colours. The idea of a face. Not unlike Tilda Swinton. God was pretty cute. Strangely, people didn’t go berserk or faint or anything like that. God had a very calming, subduing presence, like a hug from a parent. At this time and place it seemed to make sense.

Truth is, no one really knew what to do as they’d never experienced a desire to worship before. God was quite modest and didn’t really want a fuss made, so he/she was just treated as another member of the family. God possessed divine knowledge, and was great for advice, but was diplomatic as well. For example: if you asked about your maths homework, God would often just give you the answer – but when quizzed about why Rwanda happened God gazed off in the distance and ate a banana. Hilarious, intelligent, heart breaking and a little bit nuts – God was the ultimate friend. Sometimes, people got militant about their relationship with God and abused others for failing to love him/her enough. When this got too heated God would zap them with a blue laser and they’d chill out. It was a pretty good system.

Australian’s please let us rejoin,
For it is one degree.
With oldies loyal and health in turmoil
Our shops are shut by three.
Our land is ground into nature’s chips
Forestry’s stripped us bare
It’s a mystery gays were allowed to stay
Advance Tasmania where?
With employment strained the young jump ship
Advance Tasmania where?

In the high school of Australia, Tasmania lurks down by the bins, watching beautiful Melbourne and Sydney laugh and frolic, hoping that even the weird kid Adelaide will sit next to it at lunchtime. As a Tasmanian, you can’t help but be aware of your lot in the geographical playground, as the cruel jibes and patronising remarks ring in your ears. I’ve been on the receiving end most of my life, even within the troubled ranks of Van Diemen’s Land. In the High School of Tasmania, it was my home town that sat alone in the grass waiting to be picked near-last for basketball by captains Launceston and Hobart? “Shit Burnie you cost us the game again!”

I left the coastal village of Burnie – a cross between Summer Bay and Chernobyl (with respect) – in 1999 to attend Uni in the A.C.T. Even in Canberra, described by Paul McDermott as “the place people go to die,” I was a constant source of side show amusement. One night on Ressies I was browning some mince when a girl wandered over.
“Where are you from?”
“Tasmania.”
(Cue tone usually reserved for a child with damp shorts.)
“Oh, you poor thing.”

This naïve arrogance matched an earlier image I had of mainlanders, occurring while walking the Overland Track with my Nan, a popular five day bushwalk near Cradle Mountain. It was day three and a Sydney family were staying in the same hut as us. To my amazement the Father, some kind of high flying exec had managed to smuggle a newspaper along and was headfirst into the financial section. When asked if he was looking forward to the day’s walking he shrugged. “Seen one mountain, seen them all.” I nibbled my trail mix, horrified. Who was this desensitised freak in chinos?

Growing up in Tasmania meant you couldn’t take anything for granted. It was the little things in life that brought the most joy, like a spectacular sunset, or a third TV channel. I remember when Silverchair bothered to make the trip over the bass strait in 1996. I was so excited I lost my virginity.

I think being Tasmanian gives you an innate ability to laugh at yourself. There’s a kind of bemused ruffian pride among adults, a quiet air of ‘we know we’ve got problems, but we wouldn’t trade it for anything and plus, Australia loves an underdog.’ This is expressed less wittily by teenagers who are more likely to spray paint ‘HOLE’ on the surf club.
(Think of the ‘Landcare’ logo, with the cupped hands forming Australia. They can’t do Tasmania so it’s literally a hole.)

By the same token, sometimes the Tasmanian apple can fall far from the tree. There are those who escape to the mainland only to either deny their former heritage, or form a loner superiority. “Yeah there’s a time difference on the mainland, Tassie’s ten years behind.” These are the kind of ex-pats most likely to make a two headed or incest joke, the two faced motherfuckers!

The twist is that the isolation of Tasmania is a trait that unites us all. Ever had a look around at our place in the high school of the world? Hey, check out the cool kids hanging behind the gym – London, New York, Berlin. And where’s Australia? With New Zealand playing squatter in the library…again.

In conclusion, in the words of my Nan: “you can take the man out of Tasmania, and then it’s just ‘Tasia,’ which sounds like a small Asian electronics company.”

Ever had the feeling that someone, somewhere is having a much better life than you? Ever trawled through a magazine, much like this fine one, and taken the whole thing personally? E Gad! Look at these hotter, wiser, better dressed, more experienced young things. Ever stared at that touchy cutesy couple at the gig and assumed they must have regular, effortless, mind blowing sex while listening to a cutting edge compilation of bands you’ve never even heard of? Well…you’re a bit weird.

Or perfectly normal and wonderful. Probably the latter. It’s a common phenomena I like to call “the jeans are always blacker on the other side of the stage.” It stems from our own insecurities that we are somehow inferior to everyone else. These neuroses are placed in our ears by the aloof fairy on our thirteenth birthday! (I know, I only found that out the other day.) They flourish in high school, which is considered a ninja training ground for low self-esteem. Then, in your early twenties, you hit a second wave of inner confidence and generally figure out that you’re pretty ace, but still find yourself regularly undone by the pop culture pixel grenades thrown in your face by an ideals driven, glamour obsessed media. (Not Frankie of course I mean, like.…ah…Vice magazine…would it hurt them to be friendlier?)

Take me for example – as a musician, I rely on street press to act as an up to date and concise form guide for my industry – a white pages of creativity. Why then do I see it as a brown pages of failure, existing solely to remind me who’s getting better gigs. Just yesterday, my friend excitedly played me a Jeffrey Lewis song. For a brief flash I was inspired that someone else was being playful and witty with their lyrics, but within seconds I couldn’t help but dwell on the fact he’s from New York, has hung out in Greenwich village, and probably lives in a commune of hyper productive hilarious visionaries all strumming killer bohemian tunes, having genius Charlie Kaufmanesque conversations with second helpings of consequence free sex with the DNA cocktails of Maggie Gyllenhaal, Miranda July, Clare Bowdich…

(writer takes short break.)

Clarity starts at home. At International High School, Australia is the quirky loner kid, while Berlin, Tokyo and Paris are the jocks. As a creative lad who’s never left the country but taken an avid interest in the fruitjuices of mod-art, I cannot help but fuel the illusion that my life would be improved if I were hanging with the cool cities – that the rest of the world is one big trend-setting disco while we’re all here watching Burgo’s catchphrase eating nutri-grain. The truth is, like gamblers – you never hear about the losses. You never read articles on the depressive designer getting evicted from her squalid Manhattan bed-sit, or the out of work actor leaving his iRiver on a train on his way to collect benefits on a rainy day in Soho.

By the same token, movies rarely get inside the head of the zanily dressed retro-queen buying a beer – her inner monologue pounding her into dust over the money she’s spending. Nor can they reveal the electro-punk front man, backstage, lowering his eyes over a band dispute that’s been unresolved for months because of the hapless communication skills bestowed on him by a distant Father. Nor will you see depicted his average, nervous sex with a friend of a friend. (Honestly, my debut feature film – nothing but awkward sex scenes.)

No-one can be having that gooder time, because it would mean matching the ferociously perfect caricatures of your imagination. Imagine if your small corner of the globe was actually the charming lo-fi cultural epicentre. Imagine if all this time, it’s actually been you setting off the laser eye alarms of criss-crossing competitiveness. You can’t know someone until you’ve walked a mile in their jeans, only then will you realise how faded they really are.

I was first diagnosed with depression when I was sixteen. Clumsily, by a doctor who may as well have been doing a sudoku during the consultation. I went in to complain about not sleeping, which I had already self-diagnosed was caused by the medical anomalies of thinking too much and having complex sexual fantasies set in the speech & drama costume room. Next thing I know I’m being threatened with questions like “Have you ever felt sad?” and “Do you worry all the time?’ I said I had and did, but denied any suicidal thoughts. According to Super-Scientific-Checklist-Beard that was enough to be charged with depression. I slumped in the musty beige seat, pale, acne annoyed and flat-haired as Dr Grumps sneezed out a prescription for anti-depressants and reached for the pamphlet ‘Buck Up Dickhead.’

I remember wandering out into the small town main street as a marked man. “YOU HAVE DEPRESSION!” The filthy neon billboard loomed down from above. I stared at a girl in the distance walking away – a girl from my class. I was different now. Separated. An invisible grey shroud kept me encased in glass. I sighed and thought about my after school routine of frozen coke and CD shopping. The cold spring wind barged past my halfway legs. A reflection turned clockwise in my glasses as a car gruffed past. I was alone.

I threw the tablets in the bin. I was cranky at Dr Pillock’s emotionally careless handling of my precious self and got Dr Reality to give me a second opinion. I probably didn’t have depression, but the thought that I could was enough to evoke all the symptoms. I wasn’t exactly high-fiving with schoolmates over this truth nugget, but quietly self-checking as I passed off this viscous circle with the lunchtime basketball.

A decade later I would escort myself into my local G.P and ask to go on mood enhancing medication. After my relationship’s two year anniversary was brutally marred by an inexplicably ferocious beating of the doldrums, I was treating it like a spiritual emergency. Something was clearly wrong. After ten years of writing my ups and downs off as ‘sensitive me’ I had to bite the carob bullet and admit that there was a distinctly alien presence behind my eyes. A black substance creeping through my veins. A first degree soul deficiency. This shit was chemical, and with my girlfriend weeping on her bed, oh-so fucking personal. (cue Alien montage with Justin in pharmaceutically sponsored robot suit.)

Nobody really wants to talk about mental illness, let’s face it. It scares everyone, and well it should. A broken leg is kind of cute and you can write your name on the cast. A broken mind is mysterious and bottomless and the thing of disturbing art and newspaper tragedies. We’re conditioned to hear the words ‘anti-depressants’ and assume the taker is some white eyed zombie pinned to the bed and talking backwards, or radiating twisted suicide frequencies and eying off your house as a site for a potential freak-out. Young people taking anti-depressants is very, very common. Despite repeated advertising campaigns, nobody’s very willing to name check mental illness with the same matter-of-factness as migraines or PMS.

After three months I’m planning to go off mine (correctly, tapering dosage) as quite frankly I miss crying and am unnerved by the numbing of my ‘sad reflexes.’ But I find the more I talk about the whole thing, and the more people thank me for bringing it up, the more connected to the world I feel and along with laughter, acceptance is damn good medicine.