Sitting Under A Tree with Aidan Jones

Ep 385 - Return To The Flower Festival

Going to the Melbourne Flower Festival last year was what originally inspired me to host my Melbourne Comedy Festival show in a beautiful, bespoke space this year. I went back on Sunday and it was just as beautiful as I remembered, but I didn't enjoy it as much because I was busy worrying about ticket sales and money and comparing myself to my peers.
 
I'm having an objectively great festival. It's only been one weekend, but I've already sold more tickets across the run than I did in the whole of Perth Fringe World. I sold 251 in the first five shows alone. That's great! Those are great numbers. And I'm still not happy.
 
Last year when I didn't do a show at any festivals, and instead just worked a normal job and paid my bills - that was one of the happiest years of my life. It'd be easy to romanticise it and conclude that actually comedy is the thing that's making me upset here, but I know that isn't the full story. I know that the only reason I was able to let go of the grinding and striving for a year and be happy was that for that whole year I was dreaming of this time I'm living in right now.
 
Every day I drove the bus down the Great Ocean Road, when I was done talking about the stuff out the window, I would put the music on and drift off into fantasies of this run. The first show. The last show. The night I finally film it. The ending. New jokes... those fantasies got me through the year, and made it a very happy one, and now I'm here in that imagined future, and I'm struggling to enjoy it because I'm always wanting more! The irony is not lost on me... but I am having a nice time, I promise.

Ep 384 - Here We Are

This week has been intense, gratifying, exhausting, terrifying, humbling, exciting, overwhelming, and over in the blink of an eye. The gallery is ready for opening night tomorrow, which is sold out by the way! And so is the night after.
 
I can't believe how many different people have stepped up out of nowhere in the last week to offer their help in whatever way they can to make this project happen. I had a moment yesterday while I was eating dinner by myself when I realised that all of this work - this beautiful, tiring, exhilarating work - is because of me! This whole thing exists because of an idea that I had and then started telling people about and working on, and now it's a venue in the Melbourne Comedy Festival. I'm so excited for the next month, and I'm so happy in this moment right now.

Ep 383 - Meditative Podcasting

I've had the best month in Adelaide doing my show to great audiences, winning an award in the first week and getting five star reviews! Then on Monday, my last day in town, I accidentally crushed the door of my Mum's partner's car in the carwash. It was really scary actually, and it's going to cost me $2000.
 
I find myself here yet again, in a moment where I could have maybe slowed down a little, but felt like I had everything under control, and then realised too late that I didn't. It was a mistake, whatever, we move on, but it'd be good to learn from it too, eh?
 
For the next week I'm back in Melbourne and working on the setup of the gallery. There's lot's to do, and I feel really stressed about it, but I'm going to find time every day to stop and take stock of everything that's around me. Have fun. Slow down. Be in the moment. Have fun.

Ep 382 - Just Imagine You're A Cow Floating Through Space

I had the best day yesterday at WOMAD with a wonderful bunch of friends. Khruangbin were incredible, I was soaring through the trees for the entire 90 minutes that they played. And I'm still having the best time at the Adelaide Fringe in what has turned from a two-week, eight-show run, into a month-long season of 17 performances.
 
I feel like I'm getting better at choosing not to engage with things and people that don't make me feel good. There's so much of that out there, especially if you spend even a bit of time on the internet. Comment sections are full of angry, hurt people taking their feelings out on the world. It's their choice to do that, and we really can't do anything to stop them, but we all have the power to choose how we react to that stuff, and I choose to disengage.
 
Today I tried to wash my Mum's partner's car at the car wash and after downloading their stupid app, giving them my details, confirming my phone number, and then paying for a $12 wash with my card, they told me that the machine was broken and I couldn't use the thing I'd just paid for. It's in infuriating situations like that when the use of those reserves of energy is warranted - I sent them an email, and you better believe I will be calling them tomorrow, and reporting them to consumer affairs if I don't get my money back and some vouchers on top of it. 'Happy Wash' indeed.
 
And this is my point man!! If I was letting myself get angry at every lunatic I saw on the internet, maybe I wouldn't have enough left of myself to pursue these motherfuckers when I actually need to. And yes I DO need to, by the way. Oh I will have my twelve dollars. And then I'll go back to enjoying good times with wonderful friends, which is where the energy comes from in the first place.

Ep 381 - Five Stars

This week I got five stars in The List and The Advertiser, and I won a weekly award at the Adelaide Fringe for best comedy! This kind of week is really as much as I could have dreamed of when I started working on the show a couple years ago, but still on Sunday I felt tired and sad.
 
I took a walk this morning down to the Torrens near my Mum's place in Thebarton, there's a beautiful trail there with signs telling the story of the Bunyip as written by a children's author. On the signs there are prompts encouraging you to ask questions about the bush around you, the animals, the plants, and the river - why are they the way they are? What can you see? Can you see these particular things? Etc.
 
The thing that made me realise on Sunday that I was feeling tired was that I had started going to my phone more frequently, looking for the next dopamine hit from ticket sales, Instagram interactions, messages, or whatever. It took me most of the day before I realised the increased frequency of my desperate search for the next hit was a symptom of my tiredness - I hadn't had much sleep the two previous nights, and my body needed a rest.
 
Going for a walk in the bush (I mean it's Thebarton, so not really, but you know) this morning was a great reminder to be grateful for the success that I'm enjoying right now, but also to remember that that success doesn't actually mean all that much anyway! Like, yes take a look around and enjoy the five star reviews and the award and the ticket sales and the money and all that, but also, there's plenty of beautiful trees and birds out there just waiting for you any time you want. I could have gone for a walk two years ago and never even written this show, and the bush would have been there waiting for me all the same. But I didn't, i wrote a show about Chopin.

Ep 380 - I See The Moon

The other day my Mum reminded me of an old nursery rhyme she used to sing to me when I was a baby called 'I See The Moon' and it's been stuck in my head the last few days. It's got a really beautiful melody and I'm looking forward to playing around with it on the piano.
 
I've been reflecting on the one-year cycle that a lot of the live comedy touring industry operates on in Australia. I tried for a few years there to write a new hour of stand-up every year as a way to build a career in this industry. The reason I started doing that is because that was what I saw other people doing, and I assumed that that was the only way to do it.
 
What I realise now is that when comics who have a profile - from doing TV work, radio, or social media stuff - tour a new hour every year, they are playing to audiences who already know them and just want to come out and support the person they know from other media. I don't have a profile like any of those people, so when I write an hour of stand-up in a year, even if it's as good or thereabouts as what anyone else is coming out with, when faced with the choice between me, and someone they know from TV/radio/Instagram, audiences are going with the other people every time. The only way for me to compete and draw an audience without a profile is to create a show that is different and unique enough to sell on its own merits.
 
I've been thinking around ideas for the next show I might write as the one I've been working on for the last two years slowly finds its feet. I'm definitely going to stay with the piano, and I'd like to incorporate a certain story that has been told a lot recently in my family. And now, after my Mum reminded me of that nursery rhyme tune the other day, I'm thinking I might try and incorporate that as well.

Ep 379 - Countless Summer Mornings

I'm all over the shop on the podcast today... I got a tattoo on my butt on Thursday night... I'm $12k in debt... I saw the new Captain America movie on Sunday night and I absolutely hated it... my money from Perth hasn't come through yet... tickets for Adelaide are still selling well... I'm leaving Australia in 5 months. I can't seem to relax and just settle.
 
I've been watching this Australian show 'Mr Inbetween' on the recommendation of a friend and it is absolutely fantastic! Not only is it funny and dark, it is also recognisably Australian, set in Australia with Australian people as it's characters. Also the guy who created has worked for like twenty years to get this thing made, and he stars in it and is absolutely incredible. What a triumph of artistic vision! This stands in such stark contrast to the utter contempt in which 'Captain America' holds its audience. I sat through two hours of explosions and violent thudding and was bored the entire time - a truly pathetic offering.
 
I'm reading 'Odyssey' by Stephen Fry, and there's a poem at the start called 'Ithaca' by C. P. Cavafy that has really resonated with me this week. It begins, "When you start on your way to Ithaca // pray that the journey be long", and goes on to describe a life full of "countless summer mornings"; full of adventure and discovery. He says "Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind ... Yet do not hurry the journey at all".
 
I take inspiration from the story of Scott Ryan who created 'Mr Inbetween' - he has Ithaca fixed in his mind. I also take inspiration from everyone who worked on 'Captain America', these poor souls lost at sea. I try to remember not to hurry my journey:
 
"... better that it lasts for many yearsand you arrive an old man on the island,rich from all that you have gained on the way,not counting on Ithaca for riches.For Ithaca gave you the splendid voyage:without her you would never have embarked.She has nothing more to give you now."

Ep 378 - I Don't Know How To Read The Ocean

I recorded this podcast last night in the back of a hire car parked in the carpark at Point Addis near Anglesea. I love coming down the coast and getting out into the ocean in the morning, how lucky are we in Australia that this is something we can just go and do whenever we want!
 
I'm stressing about getting an offer from a venue for the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Whatever happens, I'm going and I'll get the show somewhere, but right now not knowing where that will be, and knowing that it's out of my control, is very frustrating. Having said that though, tickets are moving for Adelaide, and Melbourne has started to tick over as well.
 
With all the time/money/emotional investment I've put into this show, I guess it is inevitable that I will continue to stress about the future and worry that things won't work out, even as the very same things I worried about three months ago are falling into place before me. Getting out in the ocean for a couple of hours this morning was a great way of taking my mind off all of that.

Ep 377 - Birthday Week

It's my birthday on Wednesday! I haven't planned a party or anything, I figure I'm moving away in July so I'll have a going-away party then, but now I'm still kind of in the midst of doing all this stuff with the show and it just doesn't feel like the right time for a party. And it's my birthday, so I should get to choose when the party is, right? RIGHT?!!
 
On the day I'm going to go to South Melbourne Markets for breakfast, then go with my mate to the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the NGV, then in the evening I'm having dinner with another friend. That sounds perfect to be honest.

Ep 376 - Advance Australia Fair

Australia Day this week, always high emotion on both sides. When I was doing my bus tours, I would always explain the situation in Australia with regards to indigenous people by saying that it's a very emotional issue for everyone. Some people think we should talk about it more, and that we need to move towards greater recognition for indigenous people. Some people think we talk about it too much and we should stop spending time and money on it.
 
Personally I think the ideal future for our country is one where every person who is born here or chooses to come here and make it their home, should feel equally as though they have a stake in our society. I don't think that will ever be possible until we address this thing that sits at the heart of our country. The shameful harm that was done to the people who lived here for tens of thousands of years before the British established a colony here in 1788.
 
There are countless stories that serve as examples of this shameful secret, and the more of them we tell, the more we, as a society, can familiarise ourselves with what happened, and maybe work up the collective courage to confront it together. One of those stories was told to me by my grandpa in an email recently, and so I plan to tell it in a video, with a piano version of Advance Australia Fair that I just worked out as the backing track. I'm excited to make the video tomorrow, I think it's going to be great.