Storyteller, influencer, non-combative vegan
“I became a vegan at the beginning of 2017, after 13 years of being a vegetarian. The transition to vegan was easier as it’s the easier thing to do. I’m not an antagonist or combative-vegan; I purely did it out of vanity. Dairy made me fat. Being vegan is clearly going well, as I have a Dad bod that looks amazing. I feel happy and relaxed, and it’s become a way of life. I don’t eat any added sugar and haven’t had any for five years.
In 2006, I moved to outback Australia from South Africa. I lived in Kalgoorlie for a few years with my ex-husband. The beauty of living in small-town Australia was the community would never let you fail. The people of Kalgoorlie were incredible; a town with a highly transient community, all in the middle of nowhere that is hot as fuck.
I was head-hunted as a mining engineer and worked as an academic at Curtin University for awhile in Kalgoorlie. It was similar to what I was doing in Johannesburg. No one willingly makes a decision to have fewer networks and connections, but I’ve always had a sense of adventure and wanting to experience another culture. So Kalgoorlie was going to be as big an adventure as any!
Growing up in apartheid South Africa, it was one of the most exciting times of my life. I was a 20-year-old in 1994, and the first democratic elections really fascinated me. I was a young adult with huge opportunities staring at my face, and I had this real sense that anything was possible.
I moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg to attend uni in 1992 and was suddenly in a place where there were lots of discussions and political demonstrations leading up to 1994. For one-and-a-half years, I got involved in student politics and got a sense of what it was being a non-white in apartheid South Africa. That’s why it was so exciting; there was general inclusion.
I’d always wanted to do something with my hands, and wanted to be a geologist. I wrote to a few companies, and they replied ‘If you like geology, you’d like mining’. They pay well too! My scholarship was paid for, including my summer jobs. For four years, I had gainful employment. As a young person, and to have this kind of career mapped out in front of you, it was really exciting.
Reconnecting with family is something everyone has to work on. I’m the only one living outside of South Africa, and I return every three years, particularly to connect with my teenage niece and nephew. I’m the eldest child and grandchild on both sides. Whenever I return, my parents never fail to let me know they think my life is enigmatic.
Being the only gays in the Kalgoorlie, we made the decision to move to Melbourne. Why Melbourne? I grew up in Cape Town, and the weather is a lot like Melbourne. When I arrived in Melbourne, I moved in with my ex-husband into a house we built in Kath and Kim Land. It was an area we could afford, and we thought it was nice. But as time went by, I missed the cultural connections, and it was a bit removed from everything else. I realized it was a bit of a cultural wasteland, and I didn’t feel connected to the place.
At some point, a friend of ours said ‘Let’s go to Williamstown for ice cream.’
I felt the vibe and connection on this side of town. We decided to move to Williamstown and built a house in Stevedore Street. While it was being built, a delay meant we had to find an alternative place to live. We ended up finding our current place in Stephen Street. We still have Stevedore Street as a rental.
I had never been to Yarraville until six months after I had moved into Williamstown. Compared to Yarraville, Williamstown has a very suburban feel to it. The restaurants are spread out and close early. Yarraville is more intimate. You feel like there’s always something happening and the community supports the village.
Williamstown feels more like a destination, where day-trippers leave at the end of the day. Yarraville doesn’t have that feeling.
For the last eight-and-a-half years, I’ve worked for the Minerals Council of Australia. I do a lot of policy and advocacy work. I wouldn’t have done it for this long if it wasn’t dynamic and interesting. I get to enjoy the resource and mining sector in a different way. Living in Australia means we’re all partners and beneficiaries of mining.
We all reach a point in life where we have a niggling feeling that we want to do something creative and different. We see other people doing it, and ask whether we could do it.
Stand-up comedy is my mid-life crisis. My creative process started the day I moved to Yarraville. I had booked in a weekend writing course, and it went into a completely different direction than what I had thought. I realized I’m an engineer, to begin with, but it was similar to writing as it has a structure.
A couple of months later, I had a desire to write a show and bring it to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. I took one step back, and decided to just visit the festival in 2015, and learn. At that point, I had never performed stand-up comedy before. I saw and spoke with a lot of people, including the organisers. Someone was organizing a stand-up masterclass, so I thought ‘Fuck it, I’m in Edinburgh so why don’t I see what it’s all about?’
I met some of the most amazing people, many who are still my close friends. On the night of the second day of the class, we had to perform in front of 150 people, and I was shit scared. It was frightening, but also amazing, due to two things.
One, I didn’t forget my material and two, people laughed.
In 2016, I took my debut show back to Edinburgh and was booked in for 26 nights. When I reflect on that now, that’s my biggest achievement hands down. To perform a show 26 days in Edinburgh, it really was like going from novice to pro in that timeframe.
I had to conceptualise a title, and only had 15 minutes of material for a 50 minutes show. In a moment of genius, I came up with ‘Committed to Mediocrity’. People came to see my show because of the name, and they wanted to interview me. It was the most bizarre thing. I did my first five nights in Melbourne, and on my sixth night, I was booked in for 26 shows. It’s boot camp for comedians, and what you learn in Edinburgh, you spend a lifetime in Melbourne trying to learn.
In my early days of comedy writing, I had a lot of stuff that I thought was funny about the world, and I was able to extract that and put it on paper. I write long hand in a notepad, that’s how my brain works. Stand-up comedy is excruciating. I basically conceive, self-direct, self-produce and never stop rewriting.
Comedy is tough, and not everyone likes my material. One audience member wanted to punch me once! I never apologise for my material. If I’m eliciting some kind of reaction from the show, I’m doing something right. Just because you don’t like it, it says more about you than about me.
I can say I like telling jokes and making people laugh, but the truth is, I like the attention stand-up comedy brings to me. In Edinburgh, the one thing you crave and hope happens is to have your show reviewed. It helps with promotion, and you’d want a good review. On my fifth night, I didn’t know the reviewer was there, and I got a four-star review with The Independent the next day. That was a huge thing for me. It fulfilled something and gave me a signal that this is going in the right direction.
One day, a member of the audience said to me ‘I really enjoy your show. It’s dark philosophical humour and it’s current and well observed.’ That resonated with me. Performers like myself, I spend years crafting so I can find my comedy voice. I get to take on the world, and I offer new insights to other people.
I was exhausted after my first season. I fell ill and had to find the energy I never knew I had. There were nights where I had three people or 60 people, but I’d still give it my best. I have to honour the audience; the person has given up their time and chose me for an hour. That’s why I take comedy so seriously.
In 2017, my show was called ‘Mediocre as Fuck’, and that show went to Brighton in the UK, Prague, Cape Town and Melbourne Comedy Festival. I finally got into a place where I called it ‘Perfectly Mediocre’ in 2018. This time the show took me to Iceland, Perth and Melbourne.
In 2019, my new show is called ‘Shattered’. It’s all about my delusions about mediocrity. It will debut at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in March 2019.
My goals in 2019 are to take the show back to Edinburgh for a full run, followed by a tour in Sweden. My comedy does really well in Europe. Europeans like it dark and confronting, whereas Australians have an expectation to laugh.
I have two West Highland white terriers, and also enjoy cycling. Whenever I tour in Europe, I would get some cycling into my itinerary.
Comedy for me is a like a second full-time job. I like to see my material work in a different culture, especially if English isn’t the first language. It helps refine my writing.
Looking back at my younger self, whenever I look at myself in the mirror, I always wonder ‘Does he know he’d be gay, vegan and have a killer dad bod?’
You can find me in Cornershop, HealThy Self Co or Woven. I write a lot of my material in Cornershop as I feel inspired when I come here. I’m also at Goje a lot. That’s a fucking obsession for me. On Mondays, I’m in such a shit mood as they close on Mondays!”
