I did my first gig at the age of 12. It went better than the gig I did at age 21 in Amsterdam on the "All Dutch Speaking Night".
I've done this for about 3 years in a way that you could consider serious, and started off screaming into a microphone about how I was going to tear the world down and everyone barring myself was a twat. Met up with a bloke called Tommy, we did 5 festivals together, wrote a play called "I Heart Racism" that a bunch of people liked and then went our separate ways. He owes me $50. The comedy is calmer now, and the jokes are funnier...I think...
Influences
Stewart Lee, Bill Hicks (he's to my generation of comics what the Beatles are to EVERYONE...do you ever get the sense he was a cunt?), Ricky Gervais, Shaun Micallef, Doug Stanhope, Charlie Pickering, Michael Chamberlin, Adrian Calear, Patton Oswald, Dave Chappelle, funk, sitting in a room, not washing my hair, Tommy Dassalo, me me me, The Bedroom Philsopher, Josh Earl, Sammy J, travelling to Barcelona, almost getting lost in Prague, Amy, the Australian World Cup Team, hip-hop, indie shit, Stephen K Amos, Glenn Wool, that gig in Amsterdam, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, The Corporation, lazy weekend mornings, pills, Tom Taylor, Katie Dirks, Craig Annis, this fucking cough...
TV Shows
Some Channel 31 stuff in Melbourne on a fake game show I invented called "Rock In The Head"...god, it was funny, and fully about 2.6 people saw it!
And Channel 31 means...Champagne Comedy! The class!
And I regularly got fucked in the arse on a weekly basis in order to have my name appear at the very bottom of the list of credits for a bunch of Channel 7 TV shows (Deal Or No Deal, The Weakest Link, Good Friday Appeal).
And I may or may not have a massive novelty cheque sitting on my mantle-piece for $1,600.00 because I went onto a game show once and bared my soul perhaps a little more than I wanted to...
Dave's Interests
General
Right now, those ultra-slow-mo replays on the cricket and the music that goes with them - am I the only one who gets emotional?
Your ideas, but the ones you stole will be better.
Love.
A slightly older woman.
ZOO TV.
People crying in public...so awkward for everyone but the crier. Imagine if that applied to everything.
Writing.
Performing.
Jumping up and down.
Treating my beautiful girl to nights in expensive hotels just for the sake of it and then acting like Macaulay Culkin in 'Home Alone 2: Lost in New York'.
Wearing shorts.
Going for long drives down the freeway at night time by myself.
Sitting on my couch.
Plotting to quite my job.
Daydreaming.
The ladies.
Pancakes at my cafe.
Sitting up late reading interviews with Christopher Hitchens in one window, and internet porn in the other.
Berating my phone company.
Music
Sleepy Jackson, Muse, Gnarls Barkly, Augie March, You Am I, True Live, U2, radiohead, Richard Hawley, Spoon, REM, Calexico, Massive Attack (pre-kiddie porn scandal), Bob Dylan, can't remember what I like, Mighty Ging, Gorillaz, blur, Jurassic 5, Manic Street Preachers, TV On The Radio, sonicanimation, Cody Chestnutt, Sons & Daughters, DJ Shadow, Wolfmother, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Portishead, Tears For Fears, Fleetwood Mac, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Tex Perkins, The Cruel Sea, Mercury Rev, Basement Jaxx, Grinspoon, The Velvet Underground, The Beatles, the Stones, Cut Chemist, Arrested Development, Beck, Anthony & The Johnsons, Kanye West, The Roots, Cut Copy, Cold Cut, Mick Thomas, LCD Soundsystem, Tom Waits, anything by Damon Albarn, Sparklehorse, Lupe Fiasco, Tool, what am I talking about - I hate TV On The Radio - I don't need the indie cred, old man singer-songwriters, Eliott Smith (pre-knife-stab-in-the-chest), Flaming Lips, Bob Evans, Dave Graney
Movies
All the right ones.
Television
The Office, 60 Minutes, rage, The Simpsons...all the SBS docos that I miss...what have you done for me lately, TV? Sweet. Fuck. All.
Books
On The Road, Lennon by Ray Coleman, anything by Martin Amis, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, Manufacturing Consent, Great Expectations, the writings of Dave Eggers and that of those he pimps, Junky, Howl, Naked Lunch, the novels of Andrew McGahan, James Ellroy, I have this big bookshelf that is NOT anywhere near this computer, and it's laden with publications and words printed on tree pulp that I lie awake at night and run my eyes across...essentially, I've forgotten what I've been reading.
Heroes
My Parents. Happy people. People who argue. Those people who everyone avoids on the tram (I'm too scared to talk to you too). People who calm me down.
About me: I'm a little comedy man. My Dad was a little computer man, and my Mum was a little Mum lady...so they met up one day in Germany and then later on, in Melbourne, out came a little comedy man with rolls of fat on his arm.
But I'm not fat now. In fact, I think I have the same amount of fat on my body as I did when I was about 2. I'm 23 now.
It keeps me KINDA warm at night.
NOMINATED: Best Newcomer, 2006 Melbourne International Comedy Festival - 'I Heart Racism'
SPECIAL COMMENDATION: Best Comedy, 2005 Melbourne Fringe Festival - 'I Heart Racism'
"Gasp-inducing, heart-in-mouth stuff" - The Age
"Supremely talented" - Beat Magazine Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
Who I'd like to meet: Raconteurs, in the true sense of the word. Liars, thieves, lovers and Oliver Twist.
Hello! I just thought I'd pop by to say hi coz I've not done that for agggeesssssss. I'm still waiting for you to come and hang out at Edinburgh Fest one year. Hope life's treating you at least moderately well, if not very well indeed :) x
Well hey, lookie here it's a Gemini birthday. The best kind. On behalf of myself and the rest of the Muslim community we wish you a hap-hap-happy birthday.
