August was poetry month, folks. My piece 13 Ways to Drink Chocolate Milk premiered in the Guardian. and featured in Red Room Poetry’s 30in30. (There’s a video of me reciting it.) In July I dropped a set at MONA as part of a Tasmanian Poetry Showcase.
In my final year of uni I had a column in the University of Canberra mag Curio called Being Justin Heazlewood. I wrote this leavers poem:
Design by Anthony Calvert.
Thinking is Drilling is lifted from my 2018 book Get Up Mum. It was published in the 2022 anthology Admissions: Voices Within Mental Health.
Thinking is drilling
I’m drilling through the walls of silence and confusion looking for clues looking for answers looking for Mum.
I have a lot of work to do.
So I sit and I stare and I think so hard I can cut through the moon because I’m the sun.
Thinking is drilling.
I’m drilling up and out of the rubble. Thinking is making air for myself. A space to survive.
I can think into space into outer space into inner space. I can drill inside deep down and hide. I can drill around in circles so fast that everything’s a blur and I have rings like Saturn.
A drill is a weapon with a pointy tip. I leave it running to rip the black pillows when they come to smother me.
Thinking is drilling.
My mind is always moving. There’s work to be done a maze to be dug a tunnel of fun somewhere deep to bury my time capsule.
My latest book Dream Burnie has an original poem called Truganini Street. I performed it on ABC Hobart breakfast in July.
In grade 12 at Hellyer College I was published in a schools poetry anthology edited by Don College’s Shane Wolfe.
Shane wrote in his forward:
“Now that the idea of assessing specific criteria has come to stalk the halls of education, I’ve always thought it rather a shame that there isn’t a criterion eleven anywhere that states ‘Is able to pull off a decent poem that makes you wonder what the person who wrote it looks like and whether that really did happen to them and whether you’d like them if you met them.’”
I was chuffed to get pole position in the gazette. It would be interesting to revisit the headspace that synthesised Journey to the Six Fold Chamber. It’s a psychedelic time. I would be honoured to have a Boags with my eighteen-year-old self.
Last year I happened upon a notebook belonging to my Pop. It contained my first poem Going Up Hill complete in his handwriting. It has quickly become one of my favourite possessions. I’m intrigued by the events that led to Pop writing the piece down. Perhaps I was coming up with it for the first time and sharing it with him. It makes me think of the excellent movie The Kindergarten Teacher starring Maggie Gyllenhaal where she becomes obsessed with a five-year-old who spouts genius poetry.
The rest of Pop’s notebook is made up of shopping lists and Tattslotto numbers. I carbon dated it by putting “Tattslotto Draw 531” into a search engine. Sure enough, it provided the date of late 1985.
I would love nothing more than to share a chocolate milk with my five-year-old self. (And dear Pop.)
Poetry is an excellent emotional time capsule. Why not bury yours today ; )
I have a new book out! It’s called Dream Burnie. This book is for everyone. From my home, to yours.
Justin Heazlewood’s funny, heart-felt and beautifully designed and illustrated book Dream Burnie is for anyone born or raised in Burnie (or any small town), and every young creative thinking of risking their all.
…everyone, it seems, is at least a little scarred by their hometown. There are many positives though, and a common factor in the stories in Dream Burnie are of memorable teachers, who saw young creatives for who they were – and encouraged them to go forth and risk failure in the pursuit of their passions.
NEWS: I was recently a guest on Julian Morrow’s Sunday Extra show on RN. He beamed in directly from Burnie! In fact – it was a themed episode. You can hear my segment or play the whole shebang (including Jim Migonie of Midnight Oil talking about their song Burnie!)
Perhaps Dream Burnie 2 has already been written. It will mainly consist of comments from Hobart bookshop Cracked & Spineless’s farcebook post. I dropped in while on tour and may have forgotten to return their pen. Thanks Richard for the support!
Dream Burnie got a run in the Notable Books section of the Weekend Australian’s Review.
I caressed the airwaves for the duration of February’s East Coast / Tasmanian tour. Most interviews were uploaded to the Dream Burnie YouTube.
Here I am signing books in Burnie. We did a launch at Not Just Books and the Mayor was there and Mum and a few former teachers. I was moved. I’ve been signing books all along the east coast. People are excited to be hearing about Burnie. They dig seeing the Chick-Inn chicken once again.
Dream Burnie is (like) 300 colour pages featuring stories of some of the North-West Coast’s most successful artists. Also, my nostalgic bus-trip and humorous dalliances on life in a small town. An art book, time capsule, memoir. It’s niche. It’s now. It’s 1995.
DREAM BURNIE LAUNCH TOUR (Feb – Mar 2025)
FEB 6 | LAUNCESTON | ASSEMBLY 197 | 5:30PM FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST HEADLINER: TWINKLE DIGITZ
FEB 8 | HOBART | MOONAH ARTS CENTRE | 4PM (Bookings HERE) FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST HEADLINER: TWINKLE DIGITZ
FEB 11 | CANBERRA | SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE | 5PM
FEB 13 | SYDNEY | BETTER READ THAN DEAD | 6:30PM (Bookings HERE)
DREAM BURNIE IS AVAILABLE FROM THESE RATHER NICE BOOKSTORES:
Not Just Books (Burnie)
Devonport Bookshop
Petrarch’s (Launceston)
Fullers (Hobart)
Cracked and Spineless Bookstore (Hobart)
The Hobart Bookshop
Metropolis (Melbourne)
Brunswick Bound (Melbourne)
Avenue Books (Melbourne)
Sun Bookshop (Yarraville)
Stoneman’s Bookroom (Castlemaine)
Gleebooks (Sydney)
Good Earth Bookshop (Wentworth Falls)
Imprints Booksellers (Adelaide)
Matilda Bookshop (Stirling)
Dream Burnie is presented by the Burnie Arts Council. Photos by Tara Palmer.
Lorrae Desmond’s meditation pyramid and why Bowie was such a fan. Explore these topics plus intimate details of my impending tour by reading the current increment of f uz z y l o g i c “bob hawkeye“
It’s Schizophrenia Awareness Week – again! I know, right. Where does a year go? May 18 – 24. The theme is “Rethink the Label: Reclaim the Story.” I’ve updated this post to create a fairly decent resource for those curious to know more about the galaxy’s most misunderstood everyday condition.
There’s just so much stigma around schizophrenia. It’s a life’s work humanising the 30, 000 adults in Australia with the condition. It feels sub-impossible, but utterly worthwhile.
It’s seven years since my book Get Up Mum was released. Today Mum is experiencing the best mental health of her life. Schizophrenia doesn’t have to be a life sentence, but it is hard to spell.
I recently gave an interview for ABC’s Conversations. The producer sent me a link to a previous story concerning Glenn Jarvis who worked for Enron and developed schizophrenia. There are some very insightful links at the bottom of the story. (One of the articles is behind a paywall, so I’ve placed it at the bottom of this post.)
May 24 is WORLD S A D (as it happens.)
(Schizophrenia Awareness Day)
Last year I wrote a piece for Satellite Foundation (of which I am an ambassador). So feel free to have a look at that!
Meanwhile, check out this zine vending machine! Such convenience. 📚
It premiered at Melbourne Art Book Fair / Melbourne Design Week dispensing Satellite Foundation’s zine All the Coloured Glasses – filled with writing and art from young people sharing their experiences of mental health and things.
You can contribute to the zine! Y’know, if you’re a… what are they called – young person. More info at Satellite Foundation.
And now … a megamix of previous Awareness Week thoughts on the thirteen letter word…
Sometimes I wonder if schizophrenia should not abandon its branding and relaunch as Thoughtism.
It’s rather hard to explain schizophrenia without disturbing people too much. We all know what people are like if they are a bit disturbed. They switch off. Unless it’s a true crime podcast – in which case it doesn’t matter how dark the content is – audiences can’t wait to snuggle down before bed.
I don’t know what the difference is.
But anyway – food for thought.
let’s do lunch.
Previously on World Schizophrenia Awareness Day….
It’s the time of year where you deposit some thought to the gentle complexity of one of existences most cryptic yet vulnerable conditions. Why don’t we talk about schizophrenia more? Ever wondered that? I do, quite a bit. It seems to go under the radar quite effectively. There’s a whole stack of destigmatising to be done – or – to conjure a more handsome phrase – rehumanising.
I mean, I’ve been up close to someone with schizophrenia and honestly, my heart still weeps. I reckon my Mum is brave as all fuck for withstanding the atomic martian wildness of her own mind warping itself to fit through the eye of the needle of life.
These are real people. On the ground. Suffering. Trying to be good parents. They are gobsmacked by confusion. Their personality has secret mirrors growing like gills. They are x-men and women, able to see through time. Heaven and hell are storybook wonders compared to the cheek-scolding heartbreak of disappearing in plain sight from the people who love you more than anything.
Anyway, big hugs and NDIS support to anyone who is experiencing hard times.
We can be superheroes, just for one day.
g r o u n d h o g __ d a y ?
AT A GLANCE (STAT!):
Schizophrenia effects 1 in 100 people. The same ratio as autism.
It comes from the Greek word meaning ‘split mind.’ It’s not multiple personality disorder, it’s about the schizophrenic person having a fractured perception of reality. There is the real world and then there is their world. This results in them convincing themselves that they are not sick. Therein lies the paradox of trying to care for someone with this condition. You’re yelling via cup and string to a rogue astronaut on opposites day.
“I’ll be alright after a sleep tomorrow, I promise.”
In response to the comments beneath my Sky News soundbite. No, it’s NOTHING like Trump voters thinking their world view is right and everyone else’s is wrong. That is an extreme political ideology. At least Trump exists in our reality (I never thought I’d say that.) People with schizophrenia have psychosis. They experience auditory and visual hallucinations. This is why using ‘schizophrenic’ as an adjective is problematic. Voting for Trump isn’t a medical condition, it’s a personality trait – as much as the ‘hilarious’ jokes to be made would hint at the former.
Statistically they are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. The cliché of the unhinged guy on the bus or (you know, recent events in Sydney) – it’s a worst case scenario and statistically rare. Even at her worst, when we went to the bank, Mum would be quite composed. People with a mental illness generally work twice as hard as the rest of the community just to be themselves. Australians love a hard worker, don’t they?
They are likely to be conduits of bizarre behaviour. According to a SANE spokesperson, symptoms can include “hallucinations, delusions, unusual or disrupted speech, disorganised behaviour, low energy, low motivation, or lack of emotional expression.” One friend said his Mum used to communicate with Jupiter. (Jennifer Jupiter?) Another said his Mum would see a little man and woman walking around her flat, an inch tall, shining lights in her face and shapeshifting into animals. This level of psychosis is creative and makes for a fascinating story if you regard it from a neuro-nonnormative perspective.
Schizophrenia is a lot less threatening when you spend some time up close.
There is love in curiosity.
Schizophrenia is not full-time. Mum was well half the time and sick the other. She was still a wonderful individual with autonomy, functioning as best she could and getting me breakfast while navigating the extremities of humanity. Mum used to be ‘Mother’s help’ and visit my primary school and help kids in my class type their stories up on the computer. She worked hard, in many ways.
As a listener to the radio version of my memoir Get Up Mum emailed to me: “I remember a Mum who would take me to sporting activities, cook dinner, have afternoon tea ready for me after school, and take us for swimming lessons at the beach. I also remember a Mum who would sleep all day, yell and scream, and a Mum who spent months at a time locked up in a high security psychiatric hospital.”
It’s a split world for everyone.
The Church performing The Unguarded Moment on Countdown, 1981.
Caring is full-time. Two words: hyper-vigilance. Part of Schizophrenia Awareness Day can be devoted to carers who are most likely family members and in the most urgent cases – kids. If someone you know has a mental illness and they also have children – I’m telling you – that child, by default, IS a carer. They are most definitely in need of support. If you are unsure about what to do, Satellite Foundation is a great place to start.
Hearing voices is more common than you think. Apparently 10-25% of people will hear voices at some point in their lives. Amazingly, it’s not always linked to schizophrenia. This was news to me when I watched the SBS Insight episode. iView currently has the full You Can’t Ask That schizophrenia episode. It’s also a terrific resource.
Schizophrenia is devastating. Especially when used in Scrabble. You drop that thing on a triple word score and it’s WALK AWAY RENE!
A FEW LINKS TO PAST THINGS I HAVE CONTRIBUTED:
In 2022 I wrote a letter to schizophrenia. You can find it on the Satellite Foundation website.
I was interviewed on Sky News during Schizophrenia Awareness Week in 2018, days after releasing Get Up Mum. I don’t get to go on TV much. (Spicks & Specks in 2010 featuring myself and Marcia Hynes together at last and me covering Spiderbait’s ‘Calypso’ on Adam Hills Gordon Street Tonight in 2011).
An interview (with fellow only child Elizabeth Flux) in the Guardian from 2018 which is all about my book and lived experience.
I wrote a column about schizophrenia for The Big Issue in 2019.
There aren’t that many movies about schizophrenia. I didn’t watch The Joker but can only imagine it set the empathy cause back miles. Sally Hawkins did a wonderful job in 2020’s Eternal Beauty where she portrayed a colourful character. (Is it interesting how when Sia cast a non-autistic actor in her movie Music everyone went hyper-nuclear but the fact that an actor without schizophrenia represented this community didn’t ruffle a spacebar. It’s almost as if that particular aspect of the mental health spectrum is i n v i s i b l e .
Do-gooders be like – we’re championing this cause because it’s SO COOL right now, but that one over there is FAAAREAKING US OUT.)
There’s an article about how schizophrenia is represented in cinema here.
Other fine movies about mental illness include Angel Baby (AU 1995), An Angel At My Table (NZ 1990), Sweetie (AU 1989 – probably my favourite Australian movie), Benny & Joon (US 1993), Birdman (US 2014) & Donnie Darko (US 2001). I really enjoyed Girl, Interrupted (US 1999) the other day, even though the reviews are subpar – (who doesn’t love Winona?) I recommendThe Sunnyboy (2013 Australian documentary about Jeremy Oxley, lead singer of The Sunnyboys who emerges from a 30 year battle with the illness).
I’m not sure if I enjoyed The Fischer King but as my psychologist pointed out it does do a good job of visualising the vivid dynamics of the schizophrenic persons worldview. You may be interested in The 5 Most Accurate Depictions of Schizophrenia in Hollywood.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a way out film from the 1970s. The book was always sitting on the bookshelf at Nan & Pop’s. (The girl on the cover gave me my biggest ethereal crush since The Childlike Empress from Never Ending Story.) Anyway, I read it as an adult and it’s an artistic deep-dive into the psychedelic secret world that I touched on previously. Greenberg writes in the voice of the ‘voices’ which I found thrilling.
I know you’ve got to be in the right headspace for these subjects. Or perhaps you don’t. Maybe there is never a convenient time. Goose step out of your comfort zone, throw some paint around in the studio of understanding and fan your aura to the experimental frequencies of the meek and neurologically diverse.
Schizophrenia is a cause that needs everyone to come together with education, patience and some emotional heavy lifting.
That’s about it. I’ll add links to some of the soft hitting articles I’ve unpacked about my own mental health philosophies. I know you’ve got a toasted sandwich on the go and about six kids and animals to pick up from the mall so I’ll save you time and let you jump straight into:
pps if you are still feeling overwhelmed or frustrated that you simply have no tangible emotional construct of what the heck anyone is talking about when it comes to this specific topic with the word which is even complicated to spell… Well, there happens to be a real easy fix to that one (for a change):
📖 buy my book 📖 ( No wait, it’s sold out I think )
carers: empathy through determination
And now the Schizophrenia Awareness Week dancers 💃💃💃👻 … oh no they disappeared.
Encore encore! More More!
Schizophrenia – the lone wolf of mental illnesses
By Gabrielle Carey and Dr Julia Brown
There is someone in Parliament House with schizophrenia.
At least, statistically speaking.
One in every 100 people suffer from schizophrenia. Of the 5000 people working on the hill when parliament sits, it is very likely that at least one has the diagnosis nobody wants to talk about, even in Schizophrenia Awareness Week.
Why has schizophrenia been called the scariest word in the English language? And why – after years of mental health awareness-raising – are we still unable to talk about it? When the word schizophrenia is mentioned the go-to image is usually violence – often first designated as terrorism. In these rare incidents, the focus is seldom on how proper treatment for the illness might have prevented an attack. Instead, it is on how others should have been protected.
Perhaps it’s time to invite schizophrenia in from the cold.
Recovery is possible
What most people don’t know, is anyone diagnosed with schizophrenia, like other mental illnesses, can recover if given the opportunity. Individuals with the diagnosis can be ordinary and high functioning, have families, and go to work every day. We just never get to hear about them. Because while bipolar and autism are household words, schizophrenia is still the disease that dare not speak its name.
Not being able to speak about schizophrenia compounds the condition. Treating people as social lepers makes them sicker. In Australia, up to 70 per cent of people who have a first episode of psychosis will have another episode within two years. More worryingly, the life expectancy of Australians diagnosed with schizophrenia is reduced by 32 years.
The threat to our youth
If any other illness resulted in such a bleak outlook for our young people, there would be a call to arms. That we are letting this continue is the real madness.
Schizophrenia is a young person’s illness: a diagnosis is generally made between the ages of 18 and 30. This is a crucial time in any person’s life – they are just finishing school, just starting university or just going into the workforce. But if you are diagnosed with schizophrenia in this country, within a short time you will not be participating in work or education; you will have a high risk of homelessness; you will be much more likely to end up in jail, and your anti-psychotic drugs will cause physical twitches, weight gain, drooling, loss of libido and loss of memory. As well as that, you will be five times more likely to be the victim of assault.
Headspace can’t help you if you are a young person with schizophrenia because they do not deal with people who are diagnosed with a chronic psychotic illness. The National Disability Insurance Scheme won’t help either. As reported by The Guardian, people with schizophrenia are regularly refused NDIS packages.
One Door Mental Health, formerly the Schizophrenia Fellowship which offers support to sufferers and their families, has had to cut services in some regional locations. Hospital emergency departments are useful if you are mid-psychosis but once stabilised you will be discharged without any after-care or discharge plan. In all, our healthcare system is not designed to instil hope for recovery in people diagnosed with schizophrenia. But neither is our social system.
Social disconnect
The worst loss of all for people diagnosed with schizophrenia is the loss of friends. The fear and avoidance of people with the condition is so damaging that sufferers retreat into what anthropologists call “social defeat”.
People with schizophrenia often appear to isolate themselves from family and friends. This gives the impression that they do not care about others, but their real difficulties began and continue precisely because of their acute sensitivity to judgments and criticisms – because they care too much about what other people think of them. And of course, in almost any situation, what frightens them most is revealing their condition.
A public service
Everyone knows somebody with schizophrenia. If you include the families and friends of those with the illness, there are one million people in Australia affected by the disorder – and almost every one of them is too frightened to say the word. One thing that might help is if high-functioning individuals with the condition were to “come out.”
As Law Professor of the University of Southern California, Elyn Saks, says “we who struggle with these disorders can lead full, happy, productive lives, if we have the right resources.” The first and most important resource might be social acceptance. And social acceptance begins with being seen.
Those like Professor Saks are in recovery because of the social status and purpose they have. Most Australians with schizophrenia, for now, don’t have this. If you are that person in Parliament House hiding your diagnosis, maybe now is the time to offer your greatest gift of public service. Stand up and dare to say the word. Tell us your story. There are a million Australians who could do with hearing it.
This article was originally published in 2019.
Dr. Julia Brown is a Visiting Fellow at the ANU who has conducted ethnographic research on lived experiences of antipsychotic treatment for chronic schizophrenia in the UK and Australia.
Gabrielle Carey was an Australian author who co-wrote the teen novel, Puberty Blues with Kathy Lette. She died in 2023. At the time of writing this article she was the H.C. Coombs Fellow at ANU and working on a book about the family experience of mental illness.
In 2014 I wrote a book about what it was like to be an artist in Australia. It was my first book, written from scratch, with a publisher. It was a big deal. Since I was a kid I wanted to be a writer. In my teenage years, the thought of writing a book felt epic. Penning a tome seemed like an intellectual Titanic. I had fear-streaked visions of sinking to the bottom of my subconscious.
In my early thirties, I felt strong enough to sail through the icebergs. I wanted to test the mettle of my artistic work ethic by sitting down at a desk at ten in the morning every day for four days in a row, weeks on end. This wasn’t aspiration camp – it was showtime. I went hard AND I went home. I wasn’t writing a fantasy novel – I was sweating personal stuff about awkward topics like the heartache of my career not turning out how I’d dreamed.
At the end of a days writing, I would sometimes curl up on the lounge room floor, aware of a sensation like the top of my head fizzing. I was using muscles I didn’t know I had.
The year before, I’d made a ‘training book’ made up of tour diaries from my long-running ezine ‘LapTopping.’ I sent this (very blue) book around to various publishers. Only one seemed to show any interest. I pursued the relationship until it led to the pitching of Funemployed. (I just happened to be having a shit-time as an artist. I’d lost a lot of money on my self-produced musical at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and hadn’t had a holiday since I was twelve.)
‘Someone should write about what it’s really like,’ I sighed at Northern Soul Café in Thornbury.
‘Sure,’ replied the publisher. ‘You just don’t want it to seem like you’re whingeing.’ (Australians hate artists, I later learned.)
Initially, I wrote a two page pitch document, followed by a chapter breakdown. The next step was to flesh out three test chapters. The first time round, I only passed one out of three.
Writing is not for the faint of ego. I was under pressure to prove myself while held over the barrel of criticism – all before the project had even begun. Yikes on a biscuit. I sat on the tram, scrolling through a hefty email, heart stinging. At least being uncomfortable is familiar. I accepted the challenge to improve.
After a second pass at the chapters, I got the green light.
The publisher asked how much I might like for an advance. I didn’t have a clue. I guessed a figure. They accepted it. (It had a 4 in it and was under $5k.) The deal was I’d get three-quarters upfront and the rest upon delivery of the manuscript. Woo-bloody-hoo. I signed on a dotted line. I think the real headline was that someone was gonna publish my book. It was a thrilling day. Most of the advance went on paying off debts.
It took me about seven months to write the first draft of Funemployed: Life as an Artist in Australia. Two months were spent conducting interviews and researching, while the next five were spent writing, (conducting interviews all the while).
Here’s me mooching by the pinnies with Patience from The Grates. I launched Funemployed with a show as ‘Justin Heazlewood’ in her cafe Southside Tea Rooms in 2014. They made good milkshakes.
While money poor, I was time rich. At the time I was subsisting on my usual cocktail of Bedroom Philosopher gigs and Centrelink.
(I still paid taxes, Brad.)
It allowed me to work on the book in almost full-time hours. I didn’t know how long it would take, but set myself a January deadline. I was so obsessed with finishing on time that I spent Christmas Day and New Years Eve home alone.
The first draft was hole-punched to confetti. It wasn’t holding together as a book – there wasn’t enough narrative structure, or point. As a reader, the publisher was asking ‘why am I reading this?’ I was devastated. For someone who was used to being their own boss in the recording studio, this was an ego smackdown. I swore into the swimming pool, paced around the block a few times and started on the second draft. This took around two months, from February through April 2013. Although I had more than enough interviews, I disappeared down a rabbit hole of ‘you should interview this person’ and always had a potential subject on the go.
In April, my publisher delivered the news that the book still wasn’t cutting it. As they no longer had time to edit the manuscript, it was hand-balled to a freelance editor. If the first draft was ripped to shreds, the second was melted down for parts. The freelance editor delivered seventeen pages of notes, outlining in compelling detail what was working, but mostly what wasn’t.
The book was too insular, too snarky, too much about me (they made it sound like a bad thing) – I needed to open it up, address the reader, provide solutions (get a haircut and get a real job). Reading my own private criticism file for the first time was like having my soul graded. Here I thought I was being cutting-edge and maverick – recreating the wheel. I was more like the Melbourne Star.
I needed help.
(At least I got a new Boards of Canada album in June. Appropriately apocalypse themed, ominous, crisp, moody and dense.)
In mid-2013 I won a Hot Desk Fellowship at the Wheeler Centre. From July-September I could leave my gloomy apartment (not to mention din from some bloke buzz-sawing over the fence) and commute into the city to write. This boosted my confidence and gave me fresh wind (pardon – sushi and coffee don’t mix). Armed with seventeen pages of notes, I literally had an instruction manual on how to finish the book.
Until this point I’d written mostly 650 word columns. This was 70, 000 words.
I was learning on the job.
The third draft was where it gelled (pardon – new hairdresser). After a year thinking heavily about the subject, I had found my own voice (other than the one doing a Bert Newton impression reading my eulogy at four am). I could now make my own claims and draw my own conclusions rather than relying on outside voices (such as Ben Eltham and Bony from Trapdoor).
The third draft took four months and was delivered in October 2013. During this time I was still gigging heavily – a traumatising challenge as I jammed my gears from introversion to extroversion, like performing during my own operation. (Comedy is actually easy. I make it look hard.)
One massive advantage of my ten years of being a share-household name was that I had a warm, generous fan base to draw from. The idea of typing up 100 odd recorded interviews was comatosing. I was amazed at the volume of keen beans who came to my aid with secretarial assistance. Without the help of these volunteers, there is no way Funemployed would be any kind of book to stand out from the pack (of three) today.
In November 2013 the verdict came – I’d nailed it! (As in, nailed myself to a cross, in a good way.) I’d built a strong narrative structure, warmed up my tone and hung my quotes appropriately (like beads on a necklace). I was thrilled. The hard work had paid off.
Upon its release Funemployed was being described as ‘easy to read’ and a ‘page turner’ and ‘what did you say about my mum?’ (enough about Ballarat.) This is due, no doubt, to the rigorous drafting process, long-leash I was given to write and edit the book and years of casual bullying from Sam Simmons.
The greatest things in life are often the hardest work – but well worth the journey.
Now, where’s my house and wife at? I’m lookin’ at you Castlemaine.
Funemployed helped a lot of people. I received a bouquet of messages, like the one from Brisbane poet Zenobia Frost:
The whole sharehousehold (we’re all creatives, usually in creative debt) is passing it around like a joint.
I even got to befriend one of my indie idols (Ross McLennan from Snout) after his partner noticed I’d namechecked him and bought a copy.
When Josh Pyke sends you an email it is usually a good day.
Marketing wise, there were some setbacks. Half of all people insisted on calling it ‘Funemployment.’ A board game with the same name launched in America the year before. It was a book about the arts so the ABC dubbed it controversial.
The critical reviews were mostly positive. Newtown Review of Books had cool things to say and it currently has a rating of one million on Goodreads (give or take 999, 996.2). The only person to lay some All-Stars into it was a bloke from The Lifted Brow. I was pretty sensitive about it. It sort of reads like a compliment today.
One of Oliver’s gripes was that I didn’t break down the numbers of music touring and be more specific about how hard it is to make money. So, I ended up doing exactly that for my chapter ‘Justin Heazlewood’s bouncing reality check’ in the 2015 book Copyfight.
I launched Funemployed at Howler in Melbourne June 1, 2014. I billed the event as ‘Art Day!’ and read the book in its entirety over 13 hours. I rounded up thirty of the artists included to read their quotes live. It was a long day, but successfully executed (as much as anything with your ex dressed as an onion can be.) Frente’s Angie Hart dug it. Bob Franklin wowed the crowd with his comedy short film. 2018 Archibald prize winner Yvette Coppersmith was on hand painting all day.
I was proud, but beyond exhausted. I took the next three years off.
Funemployed was included on a couple of art school curriculums (like Collarts for anyone doing their ‘Industry placement’ course and Melbourne Uni psych students studying the mindset of a depressed person). I wanted it to be something people could read other than ‘The Artists Way’ which was very Americanised and mentioned God a lot. In 2015 I was nominated for the Most Underrated Book which feels like the only award where your career goes backwards by winning.
At risk of tooting my own kazoo, I can only imagine Funemployed has dated well. During the pandemic, vulnerability went mainstream. It was all the rage to talk about the precarious position artists were in. In 2015, such emotional soul-bearing was confronting for some. Australia was like ‘these be peace-times, reign in your victimised pontificating ya hipster pill.’ And I was all like ‘I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.’
But, a thousand bone-dry articles can’t be wrong – the arts are still on life support. Creative people are glorified clown peasants. It’s like, impossible to make money from a career in writing (damn you to hell, showbiz.) Even Iggy Pop can’t make a living off his art. Amy Shark reckons being a musician isn’t worth it for the social media grind. Respect and context are stripped for parts with titles like ‘content creators.’ No-one wants to pay for anything. The older you get, the more sense it makes to pack up your tent and disappear into the night.
Still, we try. Hard.
To be discontinued.
Funemployed is out of print. You can buy very limited copies from me at the moment HERE.
Check out my interview in Broadsheet as well as a spoken interview with ABC Books & Arts. Here is an excerpt from the book about failure.
See more about Funemployed including the full Lifted Brow review, links to the 2015 RN radio series and promotional video ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing With My Life.’
Any questions (for Brad?) Blow it out your artshub.
People are wonderfully, disastrously incomplete. Art fills in the blanks with colour. It renovates your soul. In a country that has outsourced all of its manufacturing. Artists are spiritual nation builders, manufacturing truth and beauty. Going down the emotional coal mine of their own pain and turning the shitrocks into electricity with more heart than Don Bradman riding phar lap onto the shores of Gallipoli. Australia needs her artists. Whether she knows it or not. Have you been outside. It’s a capitalist Orwellian neoliberal nightmare. No offence Sydney. Buy this, tweet that – girl dies from status anxiety after being stabbed with newspaper. *
* Quote taken from my tensely received talk at ‘Art After Hours’ at the Art Gallery of NSW, 2014. I had no idea there was a recording of this until just now.
In the documentary Life in Movement, choreographer Tanja Liedtke spoke about the moment she became a dancer. ‘People used to ask me, “What do you want to be when you’re older?” I was three at the time and I used to say, “I want to be a flower.”
I didn’t understand that it wasn’t possible. Then I went to see my neighbour in a school concert. They had tutus and things on their heads and they were flowers and they were dancing. I thought, Oh, all these adults telling me that I can’t be a flower, but I can, I’ve seen it happen.’
I have a piece in The Monthly. It is about Julian Lennon and the ozone layer. It is also about Burnie and sometimes Captain Planet. It is about male emotions and men crying. It is for the ‘Life Sentences’ column in which writers riff on a catchphrase, lyric or quote that has loomed large in their life. John Safran has done it also. Check out the March edition with Kim Williams on the cover.
FUN FACTS:
My piece contains research from a forthcoming book I’m writing about Burnie.
I always assumed George Harrison played the solo on Saltwater. Not true! It’s actually Steve Hunter. George played a demo, which Steve replicated. George was busy consoling Eric Clapton whose son had just died.
Saltwater debuted on the Australian charts in late 1991 and went to number one in March 1992, (knocking off Euphoria’s Love You Right.) It was a slow-climb, eleven weeks in all. (It peaked at #6 in the UK and barely charted in America.) Saltwater held the top spot in Oz for four weeks (impressive!) before being ursurped by….wait for it…
The 12th Man (featuring MCG Hammer) with Marvellous. Super effort that.
This is my Monthly debut. My previous appearance in Schwartz media was when Get Up Mum was reviewed by The Saturday Paper.
Water divining is also known as ‘water dowsing.’ It’s making a comeback according to this ABC story.
I bought the Saltwater cassingle in 2020 as research for the Get Up Mum theatre show. (If you leave me in a room and give me an arts grant I will go online and purchase cassettes.) The tape is good value as it acts as a ‘Greatest Hits EP’ – mirroring a gag from Northcote (So Hungover).
The Monthly doesn’t allow single quote marks, as a rule. I originally intended for the word ‘blue‘ to appear as so.
If you would like more information about the status of the ozone (courtesy of Tas. artist Sarah Howell), this article talks about the 2018 CFC emissions from Chinese factories. This article acknowledges the effects of the Hunga Tonga eruption from January 2022. Finally, this 2019 ABC story speaks specifically about the hole in the ozone myth and the sun’s vibes in Tasmania.
Illustration by Leigh Rigozzi
Why should one baby feel so hungry she cries? Fair point. Babies do tend to cry when hungry, as a rule, but pedantics over songlyrics is a fraught exercise in long-bow drawing and goal-post shifting.
I know what Julian means. How is that huge famine going in Yemen anyway? In 2024, over 18 million people (half the population) will need humanitarian assistance. Much of the food insecurity was caused by war. So – to site Julian’s Dad – all we are saying / is give peace a chance is still a valid mantra.
Anyway, I’ll stay in my lane. Hyper-local non-fiction with witty puns from the nineties. Please follow this wordpress site (bottom right-hand corner) and subscribe to my mailing list HERE.
Julian Lennon update: Having lived for love (and a rockstar career), he’s known as more of a photographer these days. He received so much grief about aping his Dad’s upper register that he didn’t pick up the guitar for seven years. (Tame Impala gets away with it, but has the advantage of biological independence.) Unfortunately, Our Julian went through a bit of an ‘anti-vaxx’ phase along with Eric Clapton. *sigh* Never meet your heroes (online).
He released a new version of Saltwater in 2016 called Saltwater 25. He said things like ‘it’s still relevant, now more than ever’ which, as you know, is ‘true.’
Burnie had a mini oil-spill in the sea only a few days ago! As per the Burnie Council’s FB post: “The polluted water advisory from Council follows an incident involving a delivery truck at Target, resulting in diesel fuel entering the Council’s stormwater network. In consultation with the EPA and TasFire, to ensure the public’s safety, the affected drain was flushed, resulting in the discharge of contaminated water at West Beach – just on the Western side of the playground.” Yikes. There just happens to be a major Little Penguins rookery there. Saltwater wells in my….well, you get the picture.
Actually, I haven’t cried since I watched All of Us Strangers at Westgarth Cinemas – but that was only because I was a on a date going nowhere slow (much like the film).
I have a piece published in Cordite Poetry Review. It’s a Get Up Mum spin-off yarn about the blessed-hectic adventures of Edna & Len Heazlewood.
If you are a completist who wants to suss out all the Get Up Mum side-hustles around the ‘net – there’s a piece about Roxy Music’s ‘More Than This’ drifting on Double J I believe.
I wrote about Pop for Frankie magazine once. You can find the column at the top of the Masculinity section.
I’m not always reading. I wrote a piece for Meanjin about this. I also gave anecdotes to the ABC about self-doubt recently. I answered these questions for Hobart’s Weekend of Reading festival last year. Dig.
Q: What is a book that everyone should read?
Maus by Art Spiegalman. It’s a graphic novel about the holocaust by the cartoonist who used to do the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards from the 1980s. It teaches you about everything that is relevant in our modern world – in case you need some perspective – which you probably do (no offence).
Q: If you could save one book in a fire, what would it be?
My original pressing of Grug and the Rainbow. Ted Prior made only five copies with an actual rainbow inside. That guy is next level.
Q: What are you currently reading?
The blurbs of several books in my friends’ bookcase including Extinction. Seriously, who would read a book that’s all internal monologue and no paragraphs (sorry Tom Doig x). Gee you ‘readers’ are suckers for punishment. I got the Karl Ove Knausgaard cookbook and it was 1000 pages of his memories of soup. I don’t read so many books these days but I do like settling into middle age by enjoying the weekend papers.
Want more fun? I delivered further witted insights about my bookish behaviour to Brunswick Bound here. I read out my grade seven diary in the seventh episode of the Get Up Mum radio series. What have you!
“On my bed is a new pillow case and matching doona cover which has lots of crazy padded squares in green and white and pink paisley. I have a dark brown wood veneer bedhead with bedside table and three drawers attached. On the bedside table is an old style silver reading lamp and my ‘P’Jammer’ clock radio that used to be Mum’s. There’s also my new Korg guitar tuner and the book Michael and the Secret War which I have to finish and return to the library by next week. I’m really enjoying it.
It’s about a boy whose mirror cracks and from then on his life is in turmoil. Strange creatures come and visit him and he unintentionally gives them his help. He gets messages from the ‘enemy’ asking him to stop helping. In the end he helps the friends to win the secret war. I reckon I’ll give it nine out of ten.”
Taken from the first draft of Get Up Mum.
MY REVIEW FOR ONE OF THE LAST THINGS I READ: KENNETH COOK’S WAKE IN FRIGHT
204 pages – feels like a short read.
School teacher goes on a dark bender in an Australian desert town.
Mood: Hot, dark and claustrophobic. The hazy mash of inebriation. Trapped in a car with foul men. Face to face with a stabbed kangaroo.
Best sentence: Things half remembered and terribly feared, shrieked at him; tears of mystic terror rimmed his eyes.
Original review: “A classic novel which became a classic film. The Outback without the sentimental bulldust. Australia without the sugar coating.” Robert Drewe
Funfact: A keen amateur lepidopterist, Cook established the first butterfly farm in Australia on the banks of Sydney’s Hawkesbury River in the 1970s.
Best Australianism: “What the blazes…”
Suggested food pairings: Overdone steak from a hot bonnet. Lashing of cold beer.
SOME OF THE BEST BOOKS I CAN REMEMBER READING
A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius // Dave Eggers
Came through the uni magazine pigeon hole when I was twenty and basically influenced how I write.
Space Demons // Gillian Rubinstein
Came through the primary school library pigeon hole and took me inside an Amstrad and influenced how I problem solve.
A Confederacy Of Dunces // John Kennedy Toole
Gotta be the funniest book I’ve ever read. Cannot look at a hotdog the same again.
Lolly Scramble // Tony Martin
Followed closely by Sir Tone. Fab book cover!
On Chesil Beach // Ian McEwan
Freedom // Jonathan Franzen
He was like the new Eggers for me. Who knew Twitter had Tall Poppy Syndrome.
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden // Hannah Green
A brill book about schizophrenia which was always sitting mysteriously on the bookshelf at Nan & Pop’s. The girl on the cover gave me my biggest ethereal crush since The Childlike Empress.
Life After God // Douglas Coupland
Catherine Duniam recommended this. I cried massively at one point. One of those big ones that taps into your locked up late 20s melancholy.
Maus // Art Spiegelman
Similarly. That last page panel reduced me to liquid form. It didn’t help that the girl in it was called Anja.
The Sense Of An Ending // Julian Barnes
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time // Mark Haddon
1984 // George Orwell
A documentary, non?
Lolita // Vladimir Nabokov
I did think at the time it was the best written book I’d ever read.
Bridge To Terebithia // Katherine Paterson
Also one of the last books I had read to me. There was much talk at Parklands High School about how much Miss Stones cried when she got up to that bit.
The Journey // John Mardsen
Read to us by Ms Moore in Grade Nine. She refused to vocalise the infamous ‘barn scene’ and said we had to read pages 57-59 ourselves. (A young man gets in touch with himself.) Incidentally, I absolutely dug the Tomorrow When The War Began series but forgot to read the last one and now I can’t remember what happened. Shit. (Sorry John, who signed my first edition ‘The Journey’ in 2018 and said it was probably his favourite of his own books.)
Chronicles, Volume One // Bob Dylan
The Big Sleep // Raymond Chandler A lovely gift! I really dig the writing style. Probably my favourite book cover.
Tess of the d’Urbevilles // Thomas Hardy
Did I enjoy it? They made us read it in high school. Essay hint: The weather reflects her outlook.
To Kill a Mockingbird // Harper Lee
It’s a yessum from me.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close // Jonathan Safran Foer
Grug and the Rainbow // Ted Prior
A metaphor for…everything. I used to read this at the end of gigs during the mid 2010’s.
Strawberry Hills Forever // Vanessa Berry My favourite Australian author and retro-genius. Seek out her recent output Mirror Sydney!
The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories // Etgar Keret
A very funny, clever dude. Recommended to me by Vanessa.
Honourable mentions to Christopher Pike, Anna Krien, J.D. Salinger, Enid Blyton, Nicole Krauss, the Fighting Fantasy series & David Foster Wallace (Mainly for his essay Ticket To The Fair in which the greatest writer of our time reviews the US equivalent of the Burnie Show.)
Last book I technically read? Maybe The Circle by Dave Eggers. I thought it was fine. Or Follyfoot Farm by Monica Dickens as part of my Get Up Mum research (Mum always had it lying around). Research also included Where’s Morning Goneby Barney Roberts, the only other memoir I know set in the north-west coast of Tasmania. I remember it was a big deal for Nan and Pop in the late 1980s. Someone had come along and painted their childhood.
Hey, I’m not the only one not reading!
(Taken from Guardian interview with Etgar Keret 2019):
What’s the last really great book that you read?
I’m usually honest in my writing and less honest in interviews, but I can tell you that for the past year, I didn’t read any book, which is the first time since I went to first grade.
Why was that?
My wife and I were working on a very demanding TV series, a project that demanded relocation and that we direct in French, when we don’t speak French, so all in all it was a very overwhelming experience. It took a lot of my inner space.
This year, I’ve been doing something that – if we talk about changes in humanity – all humanity’s been doing, but I guess I gave myself a very good alibi. Whenever I wanted to delve into a book, I would go and watch a Netflix series instead; I must say for pure laziness, because I think the big difference between a TV or film and reading a book is that reading a book demands creativity from you, because you need to imagine things and you need to create them in your mind. And I felt so drained at the end of the day that I wanted somebody else to think out how the characters look.
As a child, were you a keen reader?
From the moment I started writing, I read less. I think reading was a way of widening the world in which I lived, and that the moment I started writing I found a different way to widen it. So I would alternate between writing such a reality or reading such a reality.
Ducks are my new favourite animal. (Soz cats.) I love them waddling about with their handsome metallic green necks and feathery brown pelts. It turns out Burnie has a large, healthy population at Romaine Park. I adore how they travel in pairs and huddle in groups. They are not afraid of people and snooze out in the open. It’s so trusting and meek, my heart melts.
Apparently ducks rest in groups for safety. The outside duck has one eye open to keep guard.
The quack community.
Little duck bums.
They generate happiness in me.
Well, it was a year. Chalk it up to experience. Downgrade my heart from spectacular. Surprise my mind. Beautiful reluctance. Transcendental views. Average dates – (I’m looking at you October 7).
Dogs barked, muesli was eaten. Spotify playlisted and rage guest programmed.
Joy. Content. Heartbeats.
Dreams about…wriggly jigsaws and friendly abandonment. How am I here? Where am I there? State hopping, spoken word performing, mental health monologuing, man about house.
I’ve had it all – a lifetime of moments. Set to the soundtrack of an infotainment hotshot cathedral.
Dress right. Knuckle down. Buckle up. Take off.
REFRESH refresh, INFINITE scroll. Poker machine high school reunion. Get up close to what troubles you. Keep clawing at the glass. Go handheld. I’m certain there’s a foothold on the
h o r i z o n .
WHAT I CHOSE TO WRITE ABOUT:
Mental health mainly. My opening gambit i is the loneliest letter was partly inspired by trawling through my musical archive. I found a stripped back version of my song I’m So Lonely, written in 2008. Just another patented Saturn Returns soundtrack to a suddenly bottomless life. I was impressed. If nothing else, it’s comforting to be reminded that you aren’t some alien version of yourself, just a boat rockin’ riff on previous themes.
Asking someone about their mental health is a confronting and private matter. It needs to be given the gentle, conscientious forethought of an orienteering operation. There’s strategy, tact, respect and craft. Instead, we get r u ok – (a high brow advancement on whatr u lookin at?) – the grammatical nature of which is enough to pummel my inner harmony.
Never fear, my well-meaning diatribes are here.
This year was marked by the premiere of my one man show Get Up Mum in March. It was epic. It was profound. (It was quite long, to be fair). I hope to perform it again mid next year in Burnie and Melbourne. I was interviewed by my new friend Helen Shield. If you were wondering, one of the most uncomfortable aspects of broadcasting such personal work is seeing the inappropriate tags and disclaimers clogging up the footer. It’s bemusingly ironic that mental health is either cloaked in euphemism or clownishly signposted in bureaucratic overreach.
I had surgery. An ulnar nerve transposition on my right arm (as you do). I’m past 40 and abstractly vulnerable. Well, to be fair, I was once described as ‘intensely vulnerable’ by Fiona Scott-Norman in an article about stand-up comedy in 2007. So, artistically, I’ve worn my brain on a chain. Only now is my physical self catching up to the costume. What could go right.
I wrote an article titledLiquid Mental. It was sparked after walking along Romaine Park and seeing a teenage boy wandering along the fields. His head was lowered, having mastered the art of walking and scrolling. I was haunted. I had to write something and incorporate Terminator 2 and the music of SBS Chill regular Eric Hilton. It was fun.
I packed up my place in Melbourne to return to Tasmania. As I was sorting everything it occurred to me that it was twenty years since I became “The Bedroom Philosopher.” Oh well, said the diligently private person to themself, I guess we could use this as motivation to launch a light to moderate assault of content – I mean – art, on the unsuspecting consumers – I mean fanbase. I rekindled pleasure in reimagining my first album of light-hearted folk songs, cultivated during my accidental dream job of being the weekly songwriter for Triple J’s Morning Show in 2002.
It was a nice time in the archives. I liked who I was at 22. In a not dissimilar creative time travel to the way I hung out with my 12 year old self in Get Up Mum – I had a beer or two with my 22 year old self in the Living On The Edge…Of My Bed release and subsequent memory lane / cassette digitising sessions. I even cut together my own radio documentary on the origin story of how I went from winning ABCs Heywire to scoring the gig of a lifetime, without having performed a single comedy spot.
Beauty.
It wasn’t all beer and skittles in that career. Sometimes it was sarsaparilla and quoits. I love nothing more than bemoaning the clusterfluff of riding success while being a share-household name in Australia. I feel like I’ve had so many backward compliments and subtle cracks at me over the years I wear a technicolour raincoat in a fickle bid to thicken my skin. Anyway, blow off steam I must – it felt fitting to hold my own Depress Conference.
And so on and so forth. I had two pieces published in the mental health themed poetry anthology Admissions. I wrote a letter to schizophrenia, gave a talk at a mental health conference and rereleased / reimagined my first ‘proper’ album recorded on a four track at the end of Hellyer College, 1998. (Peppered with lil’ somethings recorded on my cassette walkman).
I was nominated for the most underrated book award in 2015. It was a relief to lose.
It was nice to receive a kind letter towards the end of the year. Thanks Lucy.
Thanks to like, anyone who has read my self-published dalliances and gained any insight into the cosmic beauty of our abstract depressions. Power to thee.
The key is to….keep going (apparently). And try hard not to ask anyone if they are okay. And if you’re talking to me, try and avoid the sentence “I found some of your posts worrying.” It’s sort of patronising, sorry.
Bonding on that private channel requires you to have prepared an application with a backpack full of context. Put thought into what you say – as opposed to the industry standard of little. Do your interpersonal homework. Like a good essay, support your statements with evidence.
If you are truly, lastingly concerned about them / me, just be brave and ring them up. Have a friendly chat. Talk about the price of weather. Remind them they are cared about. It’s far too easy to forget. (If you are a bloke and can drop the ‘L’ bomb – well, good luck with that.)
Why the human heart is designed with affirmation amnesia I am uncertain. Perhaps we are animals after all; fitfully aware of the perilousness of our circumstances – the energy reserves required to survive in this befuddled bio-matrix claptrap of a bush doof. The casino of soft knocks and hard streams. It could not be more unnatural if it tried. One puts ones blinkers on. One runs ones own race. 🏇
Get human. Stay wobbly. subscribe/unsubscribe in/out/in/out
Love from planet Justin. 🪐
The best way to stay tuned to anything I do is via my beloved mailing list Justin Heazlewood’s Fuzzy Logic. (The latest one of these can be witnessed hither.)
I’ve just signed up and wanted to let you know how I’m enjoying all of this. Your writing is so entertaining – love the fast-paced, psychedelic imagery and invented words (autobiocracy!) I also dislike of the question “are you okay?” – not just because it’s a bit patronising but it is also such a non- question, it lacks real curiosity and just leaves you to reassure rather than reveal. I think if the asker really wanted to know, it wouldn’t be a closed question.
I also wanted to let you know how much I loved ‘Get Up Mum.’ I cried many tears for 12-year-old Justin, but found myself equally in awe of the creative, intelligent, sensitive and resilient kid he was too. I work with therapeutically with children and have on occasion with child carers and so this resonated strongly for me. Thank for for undertaking such creatively courageous work. Digging up and reworking childhood trauma can be therapeutic but it’s also painful and can’t go back to being unseen, which comes with its own complexities.
Your stuff on loneliness has been so inspiring and helpful for me at this particular time in my life, so thank you! When is your next book!?
Forgot to say before, the free-associative flow of your work is really enjoyable to read. I’m not sure how you feel about Helen Garner, but I love her autobiographical stuff for the same reason. The way she layers little snippets and details from daily life that sometimes almost seem random, but in accumulation hint towards an unbearable/unknowable emotional truth lying dormant in the background.
Looking forward to reading more Justin.”
FROM LUCY, BY EMAIL
If this article has concerned you then please sit back and tinker with that tickly feeling of being emotionally stimulated. Cultivate a sleep routine, turn off your phone by 9pm and seek out the help of a good psychologist.
This is an album I made when I was eighteen and my nickname was Phonze! I’ve reimagined / remixed it with never released tracks and field recordings from the era.
Kurt Cobain, Shane Warne, stoners and skaters – girlfriends and god references – it’s a rough and tumble time capsule from the late 90s by a dude right into Beck and Radiohead exploring his own internal cosmos while honouring friends and Volkswagens with whatever means necessary. Brought to you by Sony Walkmans, Washburn guitars & Windows 95.
Q: What is a book that everyone should read?
f u z z y ⚡ l o g i c 