Begin.

November 29, 2018 • write

It is Tuesday 16th October 2018. I am sitting at a desk on the third floor of the State Library, Perth, Western Australia. Through the window, which is a leant forward arm stretch in front of me, I gaze out over the cityscape. I have just put down my phone after killing at least two hours staring at that little screen, avoiding this big one. My laptop. On which I write this. I justify staring at the little screen as it is my portal to a world left behind but not let go. I still excitedly scrabble my opinions over Whatsapp, seven hours too late, then eagerly await my friends’ awakening the other side of the world, as if they are all as anxious to see what is written. When really, they are all just getting on with their lives. Why am I not?

I just flicked from my other google docs tab, the one that shows the other saved documents, all works in progress. What progress? I hide from these documents. They are remnants of brief windows of productivity, now fogged over with the condensation of procrastination, and maybe this is just me finger drawing a smiley face into that, so later I can pat myself on the back when I meet Lauren and say, “Oh yeah, super productive day, I even made it to the library.” I’ll probably send a picture of the vista in front of me, as if that is some certificate of achievement. I’m already considering which route home to take, where I might get my third coffee of the day and walk, listening to podcasts of interesting people talking about interesting things - because that makes me also interesting... Right?

I have had three days off, and this is the fourth. My previous days “productivity” has been marked with the standard domestic tidying up, throwing out old clothes and buying new ones (socks), arousing that self satisfied feeling of accomplishment. “Yeah, well done Ray, really got shit done today, you deserve to sit there and watch a movie you've seen ten times already.”

Chris put on The Departed as we ate dinner. Great movie. I already know that. I don't need to see it again. As I watch, I imagine a face looking in at me through misted glass, shaking his head disapprovingly, disappointed. He points out how young the actors are, Damon, Wahlberg, DiCaprio. I once watched this movie as a youth watching adult actors. Now I watch as an adult watching young actors and consider how much shit those guys have got done since this movie. Time is running out.

Little moment of panic. What is it I should be getting on with? It is indecision that has me spread too thin. Amongst these documents, these works in “progress”, is a next action list, fruit of a previous moment of clarity. A window cleaner's squeegee across my perspective. There I particularise a multitude of projects, all far too ambitious, a fact I pretend to be unaware of; my wilful blind optimism. There are website ideas, trying to sell shit I don’t care about, tacky clothing and novelty cups. But printed t-shirts and mugs will not fill the void. I had an idea for an app or game, “Urinal Rules,” which I have already debugged into non-existence. Delete. I did consider making a podcast. Though it needed me to dive head first into police life, chasing colleagues for their best stories, the more gruesome and violent the better. However this ignored a fundamental: a successful podcast does not only require great stories. It requires engaging story-tellers. For this to succeed I would need everyone I approach to be fully on board, there is too much external requirement, I am not in control. It is easy to talk yourself out of an idea you are not passionate about.

I have incomplete work that some part of me wants closure on, or revival perhaps. It sporadically rings a bell, for attention, somewhere in the back of my mind. I have gigabytes of video, unedited footage of travels and life, days or possibly weeks of viewing. Rio, Medellin, Cape Town, Shanghai. Recordings with (I thought) incredible ideas in mind, all stored under, “I’ll do it later.” Now it is all sat there, on pause, in a digital waiting room, toes tapping. My hip-hop tunes are sitting right next to them, in suspense. Albums, concepts, unfinished beats and rhymes, sighing and reaching for that Women’s Weekly they resisted reading when they arrived. Every so often they all check their tickets and glance around, wondering who is next. I wish I knew.

The hip hop I enjoyed so much was just me being me. Us being us. Word Association. A group of mates who wired up tape recorders, one feeding into to the next, tangled cables on a living room floor. We played our instrumentals and passed the mic around, hoping we could get through a whole tune without fudging a verse, all four of us, in one take. I remember KFC runs in my battered old Citroen BX, us bouncing to our cobbled-together music. That grew to recording in a studio, putting out an EP on vinyl, then an album on CD, and shows all over the country. I remember us supporting Black Twang in Bristol, and people buying our record, asking for autographs, and me thinking, “Should I sign my name? Or my MC name?” I remember us supporting Ice-T, and backstage we had so much nervous energy we all literally jumped around like maniacs, high-fiving each other, smiling uncontrollable grins. I remember performing on stage and looking out at strangers’ faces and seeing them mouthing my lyrics. Words that I had written and recorded and they had listened to and knew. I’d made it. We’d made it.

I recently experienced pure jealousy. Dirty Dike is a hip-hop artist who I don’t know as such, but we were both in the music scene in Cambridge in the early 2000’s, before YouTube, Spotify and social media. I met him a few times. He is a capable rapper, disciplined with his rhyming patterns and he makes some astoundingly good beats. I just never enjoyed his subject matter, it was all ketamine, piss and puke. Not for me, thanks. He recently toured Australia and I went to his show in Perth. It was amazing; the crowd were out of control. He stood on stage between tunes and asked, “Why do you like me?” genuine modest confusion in his voice. I was jealous of his success. He just committed to being himself, ketamine, piss and puke, and now people pay to see him being himself. Including me.

After the Word Association days I recorded another album. Boudoir Star, Enter the Boudoir¹. It was mainly me on the vocals, with Paul C, also known as Mr Constant, making the beats; and they were incredible beats. After we finished recording we had a disagreement over I don't remember what, and the music took it’s seat in the waiting room. Mr Constant went on to make tunes for ketamine, piss and puke, and as I stood in the crowd, irresistibly nodding my head, to beats I had been offered, everything in that waiting room jumped the desk, pushed past the receptionist and burst through the door shouting at me, “What are you doing?! Do something! DO SOMETHING!”

Lately I have been trying my hand at stand up comedy, and loving it (unlike my audience). The genuine terror experienced before you go up on stage is unlike anything I have known before. But it's release is almost euphoric, and it’s not necessarily because you were good. It's realising you can fail, utterly bomb, and it just does not matter. The same set can bore one crowd and confuse the other; but have the next in stitches. I have felt pathetic and immortal. Fear and power. The one common thread of all the advice I have had from the other more experienced comedians on the circuit is: just be yourself.² Dirty Dike knew it. Now I’m off to write my best ketamine, piss and puke joke, wish me luck.

¹Enter the Boudoir is available here: www.youtube.com/rayridge and www.soundcloud.com/rayridge. And all over this site.

²Ironic how my biggest laughs have come from looking like someone else - shout out to Tim Cahill.