- Mars One has officially launched their astronaut applications. Timed to be . . . → Read More: Suddenly, a ravernous snorlox attacks…]]> Holy hoverboards Ginge fans, you’d be forgiven for thinking I was dead. Alas, it is not the case – I’m still here, but things have kicked off so massively that I’ve fallen well behind on the website upkeep. So here’s the big stuff…

- Mars One has officially launched their astronaut applications. Timed to be exactly 10 years before the planned landing of the first Martian colonists in April 2023, Mars One launched an updated website with it’s new applicant section where people of any nationality can apply to become the first Mars colonists, and where others can view and rate their application videos. Within a week there had been over 78,000 applicants, and that number is expected to grow to 500,000 before applications close on August 31, 2013.

- The press conference launching the application program confirmed some previously suspected details of the mission as well. After first round filtering and second round medical testing/regional selection, 20 men and 20 women will join the Mars One astronaut corp to begin training. From those 40 individuals, teams composed of two men and two women will be formed to test applicant compatibility and suitability. And over 8 years of training, these teams will be whittled down to a final team selected to become the first people to travel to and colonise another planet. Homo Sapiens will have become an inter-planetary species.

- My own application was submitted within 5 days of the launch, and has maintained a consistantly high rating thanks to the AMAZING outpouring of support from family, friends and fans. The encouragement through my facebook fanpage, the “Send Josh to Mars… Forever!” event , and messages through twitter have just been mindblowing. I’m deeply grateful to all of you so very much.

- In the same vein, Mars One has asked me to work as an “entertainment ambasador” for them here in Australia – spreading the word of Mars One’s incredible mission throughout the country. It’s an amazing honour to be asked to act as a representative of an organisation with such an inspiring objective, and I only hope I’m able to inspire others to the way Mars One has inspired me. To date I’ve had interviews for national radio and newspapers, as well as an hour long discussion as part of a major American stand-up’s podcast – I can’t wait to share them (and the many others currently being organised) with you all when they’re officially published!

***UPDATE*** The “major American stand-up” was Eddie Ifft, and he’s published his latest “Talkin Shit with Eddie” podcasts, and episode 233 is the 90 minute recording I did with the Pajama Men. The first 34 minutes are Eddie chatting to the guys, and then I join them to discuss my application to go to Mars for the final hour. You can download it through iTunes here or listen online.

And in some other (still pretty amazing) news,
- The Perth International Comedy Festival is into it’s final week, and I’ve been having a ball driving around all the wonderful comics who have made the long trip out here to put on such amazing shows. It’s been quite inspiring learning so much from folks who live their lives travelling the world to make others laugh, and it’s been truly heartwarming to hear their enthusiasm for Mars One (even if they all think I’m crazy). So now I’m looking forward to the Festival Finale on May 19th so I can get on with taking my Mars mission further!

- There won’t be much of a break after the festival finale though – the comedy festival’s director Jo Marsh has asked me to be a bridesmaid for her, so there will be PLENTY to do between the end of the festival and the wedding just three weeks later!

- AXE/Lynx deodorant have finally begun advertising their “Ticket to Space” competition here in Australia. In the meantime, AXE/Lynx’s ambassador Buzz Aldrin has released a new book “Mission To Mars”, outlining his vision to put people on the red planet. I’ve just finished reading it, and look forward to posting a review in the coming week.

- Dutch airline KLM ran an international competition to predict where a weather balloon in Nevada would burst, with the closest guess winning a sub-orbital flight aboard an XCOR “Lynx” to 103km up. I was close at 31.5 km, but didn’t win the ticket. Pedro in Brazil won the ticket.

Dammit Pedro.

- And finally, I’m currently waiting anxiously to hear if I’ve been approved for $2000 worth of funding for my National Science Week show. I won’t know if I’ve got the support until May 27th, but in the meantime I CAN tell you that it’s called “Martian Rock Band”, combines the human exploration of Mars with classic rock music on ukuleles & kazoos in a highly interactive stage show, and will rock the living shit out of everyone who sees it. Watch out for it in cities all around Australia in the coming months, and don’t miss it when it hits Perth for National Science Week August 10-18.

So stay tuned for more regular updates, and watch out for some major renovations to the Mighty Ginge website in the coming months to reflect the change in direction. Exciting times ahead.

Naturally like I suspect most subscribers had, I’d already come up with . . . → Read More: Mars Project – Why I’d Like To Go To Mars]]>

At the end of January subscribers to Mars One’s Astronaut Selection Newsletter received an email asking for feedback on “Why would you like to go to Mars?”, with the idea being Mars One could use quotes from applicants in response to media requests.

Naturally like I suspect most subscribers had, I’d already come up with a few reasons in my head as to why being part of Mars One’s mission to establish a permanent human colony on Mars is so important to me. But here was an opportunity to put it all down in writing in 100 to 1000 words (this came to 953), and as such I’d like to share my full response with you all here.

*Note: My original email used “desire” instead of “eagerness”. It has been changed to be less repetitive, as I use the phrase “deep-seated desire” later in the sentence.

EARTHLINGS! It is I, the Mighty Ginge, returning from my adventures in Europe with a shiny new (metaphoric) hat. In what has quickly become an annual tradition, I lost steam with my web presence toward the end of last year, leaving this page . . . → Read More: News – Let the Ginge-ocalypse Begin]]>

EARTHLINGS! It is I, the Mighty Ginge, returning from my adventures in Europe with a shiny new (metaphoric) hat. In what has quickly become an annual tradition, I lost steam with my web presence toward the end of last year, leaving this page and my Mars Project videos on YouTube in disarray as things in my personal life turned a little crazy. And things did get crazy.

But in another annual tradition, I’m back claiming not to let it happen again (Editor’s Note: it probably will). For those of you who don’t like the whole “reading” thing, the return of the Mars Project videos is below;

What I’ve come to realise is that most of my inspiration for writing comes from interacting with other people, and becoming some sort of anti-social hermit inhibits that. I’m not saying I’m about to become a socialite, attending all of the local sexy parties. Nor am I saying I have a tendency to turn a little “Jack Nicholson from The Shining” if it’s all work and no play. It’s just that this is supposed to be fun, and I should re-read what I’ve done and laugh. And staring at a laptop trying to force writing produces the opposite of that.

Wait, what was I talking about?

ANYWAY! I’m back in Perth! It’s hot enough to fry eggs outside, my pasty white thighs are a rosy red colour after slapping on sunscreen everywhere else yesterday before a bike ride, and now I’m inside with the air conditioning on at midday contemplating making a vegan quinoa chilli. That’s right - VEGAN! AND SOMETHING THAT LOOKS LIKE “QUINN-OAH” BUT IS ACTUALLY PRONOUNCED “KEEN-WAH”. ALSO, BOLDED CAPITALS!

Because until recently I hadn’t quite realised my standard breakfast of eggs, tinned spaghetti and half a pan-fried pig might not be a feasible diet to maintain when you’re locked in a spacecraft capsule hurtling towards Mars for 7 months. Nor am I aware of any break-through in technology that allows us to grow pigs hydroponically once we’ve landed on Mars.

As such, I am broadening my comfort zone and attempting to learn vegan recipes, the first of which I’ll be cooking & filming for YouTube this afternoon. Luckily there’s a heap of left-over curried sausages from last night’s dinner if it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Horribly wrong

In other news: Mars One’s Astronaut Application Newsletter has just sent out its first update, requesting feedback from subscribers on “Why Would You Like To Go To Mars?” in 100-1000 words. The idea is to pass on to the media what motivates people to leave Earth, risking life and limb on a 7 month journey to start a colony on another planet without any foreseeable chance to return. My response took about a week to formulate fully, and I’m hoping that what I submitted is worthy of a quote somewhere, or at least someone’s* attention.

But in the meantime, my full 953 word answer to “Why Would You Like To Go To Mars” will be up here mid-week. It’s big, wordy, and talks about being all inspirational and the like. Which I am – I’m downright majestic. I just like to play being sarcastic and flippant as a defence-mechanism from you lot.

And just to add to the excitement of 2013, Axe/Lynx Apollo has just launched a competition to give 22 ordinary (but very lucky) folks one of the greatest competitive prizes ever: a sub-orbital flight on an SXC “Lynx Mark 2″ to ~100km up.

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*ANYONE! PLEASE! LOOOOOOOVE MEEEEEEE!
**Sorry ladies – doesn’t look like feminism has taken a firm hold in the slightly sexualised world of male deodorant advertising just yet

Things have been pretty quiet . . . → Read More: News – I’ve Been Everywhere, Man]]> Quick Update: The “101 Things” list has just been significantly updated, so now clicking an entry on the list will take you to its corresponding post. The notes next to the “Incomplete” entries have now also been updated too

Things have been pretty quiet around here for the last few weeks, but in typical ginge fashion there has been mischief afoot during the radio silence. But it wasn’t till yesterday when I started to update a friend in Perth that I realised just how much mischief has gone down, and how things have changed since I started the Mars project 3 weeks ago. And saying that the last post announcing the Mars project was a bit of a shocker is like saying Jimmy Saville had a bit of a secret dark side. But while those of you watching the weekly “Mars Project” videos on Youtube will be fairly up to date already, it’s nice to put it to electronic paper too for everyone – myself included.

During the Edinburgh Fringe I caught up with the exceedingly talented Cameron Davis, who’d virtually disappeared for about 2 years. Turns out he’d gone off to “find himself”, which apparently is a sophisticated way of saying he worked in a French cafe for 18 months but didn’t care enough to learn French. I’m guessing he also spent a lot of his time “reading” French porn buried in books about existentialism while occasionally staring off into the middle distance, because he’s written a book about “The Human Condition” and it’s hilarious.

I mention this because in the process Cam introduced me to self-publishing; served as a sounding board about doing a show on Mars; proved once you have a comedy book, turning it into a comedy show is relatively straight-forward; and inspired me to turn my ongoing show research into a book – a “Mars Bible” if you will. The idea of turning “Apocalypse Meow” into a book was thrown around for months after I wrote the show, but the research had already been done – half the fun of writing the show was researching all the crazy apocalyptic theories, but it becomes less amusing when you have to re-research them because you dumped all you old notes.

So if you missed it through all my inane rambling – I’m writing a book on Mars.

Which is great, but isn’t really news – every half-assed pseudo-intellectual is “working on their novel”, which will only get worse when all the wannabe Stephanie Meyer’s emerge during Nanowrimo next month to write 237 of their 50,000 word target. What IS news however is that all my research on preparing people for Mars keeps pointing in one direction – Antarctica. So hazard a guess where I’m headed?

Antarctica – Come for the Adventure,
Stay for the Rest of Your Life

The idea of going to Antarctica was kicked around as a bit of an adventure while I was still in uni, but shelved because I was studying and didn’t have the technical qualifications or experience. That’s no longer the case, so when I looked into what I could actually do down there and found I could now fill at least 5 different roles on any of Australia’s 7 Antarctic bases – gaining amazing experience, proving my suitability for isolated long-range work supporting scientific research, and getting paid damn well to it – the decision was easy.

But the biggest news (for my now justifiably terrified parents) is that I’m coming back to Perth do it – applications for the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) open in January, and I’m coming back when they do to apply. It’ll mean I can’t apply for UK residency when my visa is up, but I can just reapply for the exact same visa I have for another 5 years when I want to return to the UK. And because I don’t need to work between now & when I go, I can spend the next 3 months writing, sorting a job in Perth before I get there, and working out how I’m going to move back to Perth on a semi-permanent basis without having a full-blown nervous breakdown when I’m there.

There’s a chance I could be picked up & sent to Antarctica within a few months of getting home – they may need someone with my skill set through the winter. But the greatest probability is that I’ll be interviewed & accepted in June, deploy to Tasmania for pre-training in September, then on to Antarctica in October – giving me a solid 8 months in Perth to work my ass off, write & re-adjust to life in sunny metropolitan Perth.

No Boromir – they most certainly do not

So the cliff notes for those of you who struggle with “big words” (ref: Martin Hughes)

• I’m writing a semi-serious, semi-funny book on Mars
• I’m back in Perth in January, most probably for at least 6 months
• The return is so I can work for the Australian Antarctic Division later in the year
• I’m going to Antarctica because it’s the closest thing we have to Mars here on Earth
• Stop listening to shitty music and read a damn book

I also need to get back in the habit of writing here on the Mighty Ginge – things have been chaotic for the last 3 weeks in particular, but now there’s a plan laid out I can start writing here regularly again. Plus I know between all your cats, whatever the hell gangnam-style is, and this guy - you’ve all been dying for more sardonic posts from me.

So keep watching the videos, keep reading the posts, and keep telling me how amazing this all is – my ego won’t feed itself folks.

Just a bit of background – this was written way back in April, but it somehow slipped through the scheduling process. As such the “most recent employer” comment toward the end actually refers to another previous employer.

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This week’s 101 Things . . . → Read More: COA – 101 Things: School Stupidity (#10, #21, #83 & #95)]]>

Just a bit of background – this was written way back in April, but it somehow slipped through the scheduling process. As such the “most recent employer” comment toward the end actually refers to another previous employer.

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This week’s 101 Things entry is all about some of the stupid shit I did during my education. It is far from a comprehensive list of my school stupidity as I’m sure “Abducting your Year 9 English teacher’s teletubby and blowing it up on camera” isn’t on the 101 list. But these are the stupid things I did (mostly) at school that relate directly to the list…

10 – Leave Your Mark in Graffiti

I’ve never had any interest in graffiti at all. But I did go through a stage in year 8 where I inexplicably started calling my myself “Isbu” and running around with saying (in a mock Indian accent) “I AM ISBU!” for months, driving my parents to despair. Which is weird and seemingly unrelated – until I wrote “ISBU WAZ ERE” on a wall at a holiday camp with a marker pen.

And my Dad saw it about 15 minutes later.

And I was made to clean it off with a scourer while I cried tears of guilt.

And let us never speak of this dark and bizarre period of my life ever again…

21 – Be a Human Guinea Pig

For most, university is about experimenting and experiencing new things. For me in the Curtin Physics department, it was about trying new things while messing with people and unsuccessfully chasing girls. And I do mean unsuccessfully – one afternoon in first year three of us went exploring the other common rooms on campus, eventually meeting three girls in the Chemistry common room (we didn’t venture far). And over the next 6 months we all seemed to pair off – one pair went on to date for about a year, the other for over 2.

Not me though: I got turned down by my Chemistry girl pairing because the fourth season premiere of The Amazing Race was on…

So it’s probably no surprise that when Keel’s – the only remotely attractive, under 30 and female member of the Physics faculty – mentioned that her equally attractive younger sister (making her our age) was running a research study in the Public Health building, about 6 of us immediately run across campus to take part…

…to find out it was a double-blind study tasting cheese and the only person we actually dealt with was mid-50′s tutor who looked at us in disapproval when we walked in the door. Although in fairness, we were probably looking at him with considerably more disappointment than he was sending at us.

83 – Skinny Dip at Midnight

Ahhh, the wonders of year 9… or not. I have no idea how I wind up in these situations, but the facts are these:

• It was I was at a chick friend’s place with another guy and girl
• It was about 11:30pm
• I had nil interest being there, and was frankly bored
• The other guy was trying to convince the two girls to nude up, so I did it myself – partly to spite him, partly because at least it made the night remotely memorable.

95 – Get Revenge

Before people start jumping to conclusions here, I’d like to make something very, very clear – I don’t believe in revenge.

I do however believe in assisting the universe at fucking over shitty people when the opportunity presents. And besides one fairly nasty ex-girlfriend – who’s cosmic punishment is to wake every single day being her – I’ve really only been forced to deal with two people who’ve seriously pushed my limits. People who, just by being there, turned an otherwise fun and healthy learning/work environment into something I dreaded going to each day. One of them was my most recent Line Manager, the other was my Year 6 teacher.

The Year 6 teacher is an easy one – she hated me because I’d just come back from living overseas and she’d been teaching in the same classroom for 15 years. And her way of dealing with the stress of teaching was to be sweet as pie to everyone except the one kid she singled out each year to direct her frustrations at and bull – foolishly she picked me. She told my parents I might be mentally handicapped (she actually used the word “retarded”), and that I was an attention-seeking troublemaker (well, atleast that wasn’t a lie).

Only unlike the kids from previous years she’d picked on I fought back – told her she was a bully, and that I wanted to discuss all the abuse she’d been directing at me with the Principal. So the bitch had a nervous breakdown. And I do mean a nervous breakdown – when she left the principal’s office she’d been balling her eyes out for an hour and immediately went on 3 months psych leave.

“Retarded” you say?

Now unfortunately I signed a confidentiality agreement regarding the specifics on working for my last employer, but lets just say I did some pretty gruesome pyrotechnic work when I first started, and then got switched from burning critters to breeding them. Again details, but the long of the short of it is that I was handed a massive project by my line manager because he didn’t know where to start, I worked bloody hard on it without any kind of assistance for months, and researched/implemented everything from humidity & airflow rates to hand-rearing butterflies. And when my boss’s boss was around, I was sent off the back of the warehouse to stack boxes while he showed his boss what he’d supposedly been doing…

What everyone with a degree in Applied Physics and 6 years engineering experience dreams of doing

Most of my colleagues were furious for me, but I just shrugged – I knew I was doing good work and if my boss needed to justify himself through taking credit, so be it. I wasn’t worried. The poor bastard looked exactly like the comic book guy from the Simpsons, so I had to cut him some slack. But when he started to worry that I wasn’t complaining, my boss decided to tell HR my performance was dropping – that I was coming into work late and tired from doing overnight gigs in London (I’d stopped doing weekday gigs in London the week I moved out here for the job), and that I didn’t seem focussed at work. Then ambushed me with a HR performance review he’d said 5 minutes before was a “Meeting about the Butterflies”.

Which I took a little personally. I’d busted my ass to help this guy out, and he’d stabbed me in the back without any kind of real justification. But still, I let it go – he was obviously scared I’d rat him out so he was trying to discredit me first. Low, but in a way understandable. So I went back to working on the project. And a month later – a few weeks before last year’s Edinburgh Fringe festival – I had a room running with about 350 healthy butterflies flapping around. The 500 I’d reared from pupae were expected to all be dead two weeks after hatching, but I had the room running so well we’d only lost 150 of them after 3 weeks.

Then that weekend my old boss came into work and turned all the humidifiers off and the heaters up full, and baked my 350 butterflies alive. And then he used “all the sudden deaths” as a way of removing me from the project entirely.

The more I thought about everything over the next few days, the angrier I got. But rather than lashing out I kept waiting… And sure enough by October the universe gave him enough rope to hang himself with it – I just needed to tie the knot and give him a nudge off the stool.

Now I’m not saying I’m responsible for him no longer working at the company – he did that himself. But if you’ve just fucked up a major overseas art installation, have to call in a butterfly expert because you’ve somehow suddenly lost all the butterfly expertise you seemed to have for the last 6 months, have a dismal quarterly review where a raft of employee complaints are raised against you, and then have a guy (who was the source of your butterfly knowledge that you told HR was being unfocused & slack) file a formal written grievance against you for workplace bullying, all in the same week…

…well I guess I probably would have gotten myself signed off with stress-leave and then resigned too.

As most of you are aware, I had my 10 year high school reunion in May. And a month ago today I turned 27. There’s been lot of smart ass comments since my birthday about the . . . → Read More: Mars Project – Do. Or Do Not. There Is No Try]]>

As most of you are aware, I had my 10 year high school reunion in May. And a month ago today I turned 27. There’s been lot of smart ass comments since my birthday about the 27 Club, and how this year I need to take care of myself because things could change quicker than I could handle them. I don’t really mind the comments, but I have realised just how different I am from the people I grew up with. How different I am from the people I’ve spent most of the last 2 years around.

It’s been a strange 6 weeks here in Gingeland. First I finished work in Stroud, packed everything I needed into a backpack, gave away everything else, and jumped on the train to the Edinburgh for my fourth consecutive year at the fringe festival. This was the year that I was going to break through – I had an amazing show concept (even if I was still writing parts of Keith the Koala’s show the day before my first fringe performance), I had my gig camera ready to make fringe video diaries, and I had my bike for racing around the streets of Edinburgh to shove my sociopathic koala alter-ego onto any stage I could find.

Doing my parents proud

A week later I’d cancelled the remaining 18 performances. A week after that (and three days before my birthday) my laptop was stolen from a crowded office where I was running a podcast for a major fringe publication – my only real side-project after I pulled the plug on Keith’s show. I managed to get a 5-star review from “Cream of the Fringe” for Keith’s show, but the show remained cancelled. Why I pulled the show seems irrelevant now – what’s more important was how good it felt deciding to cancel a show I’d put all of my spare time into for 8 months.

After the fringe ended I headed south to Brighton – I had a lot of friends living here already or headed this way soon, and truth be told I didn’t have or know anywhere better to be. I thought moving down here would be a chance to settle into an easy day job, develop my comedy and regularly perform in Brighton or up in London. I’d even try to get a job working in radio: practicing my performance skills in my “day job” then performing at night. And moving down here went fairly smoothly – a friend moving here needed a second driver to get her stuff from Glasgow, I needed somewhere to stay until I sorted a job & a flat.

I was only here 24 hours before I was on a train over to the Netherlands for International Redhead Day, which I’ll write about in more detail soon. For now lets just say I met some wonderful people who I know I’ll have plenty to do with in the future, and bumped into an old friend from the Perth stand-up scene who I hadn’t seen in years shooting a comedy documentary for SBS alongside one of my all-time comedy heroes. The trip was an amazing success, and I felt a sense of purpose and camaraderie I’ve only felt a few times before.

Get enough gingers together and shit is always going to go down. Also, check out that sexy, ukulele-carrying bastard left of screen next to the dude in blue… BLUE STEEL BABY!

I got back to Brighton and started applying for jobs – aged-care, royal mail jobs, camping stores, anything. Then I waited to hear back from them. Which I’m sure you’re all aware is something I don’t do well. So rather than sitting in coffee shops, discussing the latest fashions in Milan, and generally being a prick like 95% of the people who populate the streets of Brighton during business hours; I hit the library to research my next comedy show. This would be a return to an “Apocalypse Meow” style show: researching a serious topic and presenting it in an informative but hilarious manner.

Because everyone knows any serious show about the apocalypse needs a reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I’d been researching for about 10 minutes before I found it. And I read it, went and researched something else, and came back. I tried researching something else, and came back. Went and had a coffee, and came back. For the last week, I keep coming back to it. And every waking moment since (and a lot of my non-waking moments too) I keep coming back to it.

All through the fringe and in the weeks since, I’ve been re-assessing what I really want to be doing with my life. I thought it was comedy, and that’s partly true. I used to think it was the military – turns out that’s true in a way too. Before that, I was sure it was science. And through a series of bizarre coincidences – particularly over the last three weeks trying to decide where to live and what to do since the fringe finished – I found a solution that brings my experience in science, comedy & the military together to achieve something I’ve secretly dreamed of since I could talk.

The closest anything had ever come to consuming me like this was the way re-joining the military did in the months before leaving Perth for the UK to apply for the commandos. But the circumstances are radically different, I’ve grown up A LOT (regardless of what you may think of me and my koala alter-ego), and even joining the marines didn’t permeate everything I do like this has. I also know even with the commandos I’ve never had a clear plan for my future that reached beyond a year, much less the 10-year plan this gives me.

So rather than drag this out any further, here’s the story.

On May 31st, “Mars One” – a privately held Dutch company – announced their plan to launch a rocket in September 2022 that would put people on Mars by 2023. They intend to use currently available technology to send a manned mission to Mars, and they intend to fund it by broadcasting the Mars settler selection process through a “Big Brother” style media event. And I say “Mars Settler” for a very good reason – it’s a one way trip. Like the Pilgrims leaving the Old World to settle the New, these folks are going to Mars to stay. They’ll be the vanguard, with the 4-person team landing on Mars in 2023 to be followed every 2 years afterwards by another team of 4 intrepid souls.

These will be the people who take the first steps beyond our planet without planning to come “home” again. And I’m going to be one of them.

Each team brings a new living module

The comedy show I’d started researching was on the simple fact that if we want to send a manned mission to Mars, the return trip is the most expensive and technologically challenging aspect – so what if the people who went were willing to stay for good? The plan was to write a show about the challenges a Martian settler would face on the way there and once they’d arrived, then tell the audience why I am both willing and an excellent candidate to go – now I have a chance to prove just that.

I don’t need to justify here why I’d be an excellent candidate for the Mission Engineer position in the initial 4-person settlement team – people who know me well know exactly why, and anyone who doesn’t will see soon enough. But the simple fact is that in exactly 10 years a rocket is going to launch to another planet, and I want to be one of the first people to step out of it at the other end. I know why I want to do it, and I know I will.

Things are already falling into place on this, but it’s going to take time. Rather than announce things I’m trying to achieve, I’m going to announce them as they happen. But I will say I doubt I’ll be staying in Brighton, and if I have my way then my new friends from Redhead Day will be teaching me Dutch pretty soon.

Things may be a little quiet here initially, but rest assured this is happening. I guess all I can say now is “Watch this space”

Always end on a bad space pun, so they’re confused as to whether you’re serious…

Well, we’ve come to the end of the 101 things I’m planning on writing up at this stage – it’s been a ridiculous effort, and something I should have done 12 months ago. There are a few I’ve not written up entries for yet, but . . . → Read More: COA – 101 Things: Attention Whore (#15, #35 & #96)]]>

Well, we’ve come to the end of the 101 things I’m planning on writing up at this stage – it’s been a ridiculous effort, and something I should have done 12 months ago. There are a few I’ve not written up entries for yet, but a) I very much doubt many of you want to read about me completing #18, #41 and #71 – because I don’t over share enough already, and b) it’ll take a long time before I ever write about #68, but I might try to slyly slip it into Keith’s show if it works.

But as we all know, I’m enough of an attention whore as it is without bringing in grim shit like that too. ONWARDS!

15 – Stage Dive or Crowd Surf

Once upon a time, I used to listen to these guys a lot.

But back in 2004, The Living End were my musical heroes. So it would only make sense that when they were touring that year I’d go and see them. And being about the same size as Samwise Gamgee it only made sense someone would throw me up on top of the crowd and make me surf it. Yes – I lost my phone, wallet and got molested. But it didn’t stop me doing it another 3 times.

Nowadays - unless I’m with a group keen to get into the thick of it and the music suits it - I tend to stick to the back and enjoy listening to the music. I can jump around like a dickhead at a house party with the stereo pumped up if I really want to, and avoid losing my phone/identity.

35 – Play a Part In Your Favourite TV Show

Countless koalas died to make that shirt

Now if we’re going to be picky, I’d technically have to do a guest voice on Futurama to complete this. Probably screaming “FOR THE LOVE OF MONKEY JESUS STOP HITTING ME BENDER!”. But while I was back in Perth for a few months in late 2010 I managed to convince some unknowing media students at my old university that I’d make a great co-host on a panel/interview show. And thus began the epic journey that was CreatifTV.

Also, I don’t recognise this guy, but if he’s getting this excited he must have been involved…

It was a lot of fun, and to be honest I was pretty good at the interview/panel discussion side of things. Dan, the other male presenter was definitely much more polished on camera, but where I really shone was back in the comedy side of things – playing Dr Victor Goodwell.

This is exactly as dodgy as you suspect it is

Dr Goodwell was supposed to be Austrian, Swiss, or some other pseudo-Bavarian sex pest teaching everyone about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s 10 traits of creative people. Dr Goodwell was also supposed to teach people how to pronounce Csikszentmihalyi’s ridiculous name (pronounced “Schick-sent-me-hail” or “Why-couldn’t-you-just-be-called-Steve”). We filmed all of the Victor pieces in the same afternoon so there wouldn’t be any weird costume variations, but they spread the 10 traits out over the four episodes of the show. So every Tuesday for a month my parents had to endure me putting on a border-line racist accent and overly-sexualising a fake Bavarian psychologist on local television.

Luckily for you, I can’t get the videos of the DVD copy I have. Lets just say watching it adds a whole new dimension of horror to the above still image of Victor hip-thrusting at a photo of Marilyn Manson.

96 – Be An Extra In a Film

No – I cannot play the sax. In a minute you’ll discover that’s the whole point

Around the same time, a Perth-based comic and script writer I know put out an all-arms call for extras to take part in a short mockumentary called “Not Art” that he’d written with a local short-film maker. And since I had nothing better to do (and had “Be an Extra In a Film” on my 101 things list), I got involved.

“Not Art” was outrageously simple in comparison to doing CreatifTV – primarily because I didn’t have to do anything. The whole premise of the mockumentary was that an artist was pushing the boundaries of what wasn’t art. So for my little scene there with the sax? I had to stand there and not play it. It’s not like the three of us couldn’t move – it’s just that we had to look like we were about to play the instruments, without ever actually playing the instruments.

So the three of us stood around for two hours while they set up all the cameras and stuffed about with lighting. A bunch of other Perth comics were involved too, but it was hardly a funny experience – just a whole lot of waiting to do nothing. We did get fed an amazing buffet though, and there was SOME amusement for me at least: in the final scenes of the film we got to “play” the instruments (silently miming) while marching out of the “gallery” in a line. And I got so into miming playing the sax I ended up smacking the girl – in the foreground of the above photo – in the ass with the saxophone while I swung it around wildly with my eyes closed.

She was not amused.

As you’d expect, Keith has been running around causing furry chaos – terrifying ukulele players at Tricity Vogue’s ukulele cabaret in London, upsetting families at a 50th birthday party, printing posters & flyers for Edinburgh, and writing two new songs (one on why the . . . → Read More: News – Martin Hughes: Video Camera Extraordinaire]]>

As you’d expect, Keith has been running around causing furry chaos – terrifying ukulele players at Tricity Vogue’s ukulele cabaret in London, upsetting families at a 50th birthday party, printing posters & flyers for Edinburgh, and writing two new songs (one on why the Army is shit, the other on why you shouldn’t teach kids to make explosives).

But between all of that, he’s still managed to put out another Agony Koala video for you all. Although I fear it may be the last…

And along a similar vein, we have some evidence why you shouldn’t ever leave Martin alone with a video camera.

Edinburgh looms! My first show is just 10 DAYS AWAY, and there is still 3 songs to write/finish – nothing like leaving it to the last-minute.

EXCELSIOR!*

*Yes, I’ve had way too much coffee and Toblerone

This week’s 101 things entry is all about going global and learning other languages. So whether you need to ask how to use a computerised toilet in Tokyo, tell your Kenyan tour guide they’re about to sodomised by a baboon, or where the nearest . . . → Read More: COA – 101 Things: Languages (#51 & #69)]]>

This week’s 101 things entry is all about going global and learning other languages. So whether you need to ask how to use a computerised toilet in Tokyo, tell your Kenyan tour guide they’re about to sodomised by a baboon, or where the nearest ping-pong show is in Bangkok – the Mighty Ginge has you covered.

51 – Learn Another Language

When I was 9, my Dad took a job working for the Jordanian royal family as a “water-sport instructor”; basically teaching royals/foreign dignitaries/celebrities to scuba dive and water-ski. Not bad work if you can get it, and Dad loved it. But it also meant moving the whole family to Aqaba, and as you’ve probably guessed living in a place that’s all sun and beach isn’t exactly my idea of heaven – I hated it. I kicked off at the Arabic local school I was sent to – one lunch, after I’d locked myself in the classroom to escape the kids who then started yelling stuff at me through a window, I snapped and threw my schoolbag through a window, showering the kids who’d been giving me shit with glass. I’d mix vinegar and baking soda in a 2L soft drink bottle, jam a cork in the top & a wait for the pressure to build up, then aim it at the kids in the street. I was the ginger Edward Scissorhands…

Only less gothic, more violent, and a lot less successful than Johnny Depp…
But just as pasty white

But living in Jordan did mean learning the language – Levantine Arabic. So for 2 years I learnt to speak Levantine Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic and part of the local Jordanian dialect. Being a few years younger, my little sister picked it up much quicker than I did, but I learnt it none-the-less.

Don’t expect me to start-up a conversation with you though – I basically remember how to abuse/swear at people and to order coffee. Same goes for the two years of French I did in primary school and the two years of Indonesian I studied in high school. When I went back to Aqaba on a trip in December 2007 and saw where I’d grown up, my Arabic was so bad the police at the checkpoints along the Dead Sea started radioing each other to just wave us through rather than listen to me mangle their language.

But it did make for a pretty funny way of escaping a terrifying job a few years later, and for a rather amusing conversation with my old troop commander when he looked over my personnel file when I was leaving the army:

Troop commander: “Oh! You speak Arabic? We could put you on a military language course and have you deployed to Iraq before the end of the month if you’re interested!”

Me: “No sir…just… no…”

69 –  In Various Languages Learn To…

Before I start this, before any language nerds start kicking off: I can barely speak English, so if I stuff something up I don’t want to hear about it. Save you’re self-righteous “I’m embracing diversity” bullshit for someone who cares (eg. not me)

Say Hello, Goodbye, Please & Thank You in…

Arabic – Marhaba, Ma’a as-salaama, Min fadlek, Shokran

Indonesian – Selamat pagi, Selamat jalan, minta tolong, Terima kasih

French – Bonjour, Au revoir, S’il vous plait, merci

Order a Beer in…

Arabic - Waheed beera, min fadlek

Indonesian - Tolong, satu bir

French - Une bière, s’il vous plaît

Insult in…

Arabic - Elif air ab dinikh (A thousand dicks in your religion)

Indonesian – Isep kontol gua (Suck my dick)

French - Ta mere suce des ours dans la foret (You’re mother sucks bears in the forest)

Swear in…

Arabic – Ebn el jamal (Son of a camel)

Indonesian – Bencog (Ladyboy)

French – Merde* (Shit)

*This is often pronounced Mur-dah. So Martin, every time you try to be creepy by going “There will be an awful MUUUUUUUUUUUR-DAH!” in my ear, you’re actually saying “There will be an awful shit”. And I don’t really know which is worse.

Aaaaaaand, we have the first two weeks of Keith’s new “Agony Koala” series! Keith will be answering all your relationship & anger management issues every . . . → Read More: News – IT’S A KEITH-A-CYLSM!]]> Many Keith updates this week. First things first, we have the poster for Edinburgh (first show is 32 days away!)

Aaaaaaand, we have the first two weeks of Keith’s new “Agony Koala” series! Keith will be answering all your relationship & anger management issues every week until the festival in August!

Week 1 – June 25th