Clown Artist Philosopher

Fearless and searching moral inventory.

Year 4 Teacher

My year four teacher was a complete monster. I couldn’t memorise times tables or spelling. I was always the last to write things off the black board. I couldn’t catch a basketball if it was thrown to me in a gentle arc. This teacher figured torture and humiliation were the best way to improve spelling, a rap on the knuckles in front of the class for every spelling mistake. At least I could read, but my teacher didn’t believe I could. At home I would read children’s novels from the library. At school I had to read these stupid “Look at spot run” books and my teacher thought they were too advanced for me. The following year she had me put in a class for the illiterate. In retrospect what I find most disturbing about this is my parents never gave me any help with this problem I was having at school.
The early days at school were not much fun for me I had buckteeth, bad coordination and didn’t do well in class. I coped a lot of teasing and bullying leaving me paranoid and bad tempered.

California

We moved from Whella to California just before my tenth birthday. It was a huge change in our standard of living. Much better schools and much better teachers. They put me in special classes to fix my hand eye coordination and I could juggle with scarves by the end. I got braces for my teeth to fix my over bite. But just short of four years later we had to move back to Australia. I was broken hearted, Alice Springs and Darwin didn’t measure up to where we lived in California and it took a lot of getting over.

The Nerd Thing

After getting to Darwin I was looking for friends. Someone in my class introduced me to where he thought I would fit in. A small group of timid faces met me in a back room of the library.
“I think he is one of yours.”
They all nodded and I was in with the nerds. I didn’t know this yet, I asked one of my new found friends
“What’s with this nerd thing”?
“Were the nerds”?
“What’s that mean”?
“You’ll find out”.
Nerd meant you were going to cop constant abuse, scorn and derision, mostly verbal but occasionally physical. In retrospect I realise this is because the stupid kids found us smart kids weird and creepy. We were made to feel inferior for being smart. I didn’t know this until I did the steps. At the time I took it all to heart and thought there was something wrong with me. Paranoia, depression and low self-esteem were being built up in me. I blamed all my problems on being in Australia and desperately wanted to get back to America. 

Teasing at School

I coped more than my fair share of teasing and bullying at School. I remember school as a miserable time. Half way threw year ten my parents convinced me it was a misery I didn’t have to endure. As soon as I had a handle on trades, the sooner I would be free of the Class System.

Dungeons and Dragons is evil devil worshipping.

I got into D&D while at school, it was getting around the churches at the time that this was evil devil worshipping. I found this highly offensive at the time and it added more hurt to the nerd thing. A friend I plaid D&D with was also a serious churchgoer. I asked him how he could do both. His answer was that he knew they were wrong and if he was wrong he would be forgiven. He then went on to explain that Christians weren’t perfect they were forgiven. I was intrigued by this, at first this seemed like the most outrageous hypocrisy, but thinking about I realised I could understand what this meant with out some time given to learning the bible. I attended a few Christian sing along nights but that’s as far as I took it.

The Apprenticeship Thing

Mum and Dad talked me into dropping out of school at the end of year 10 to get a chefs apprenticeship. I got fired from about eight cook jobs in two years, the gentle push led to constant hounding and bullying. I started to push I wanted to go back to school but Mum and Dad were instant that I didn’t have the time to waist at school because I had to get an apprenticeship before I turned twenty.
I settled on a baking apprenticeship, I didn’t like it and resolved to go back to school. Dad found me an apprenticeship in another bakery and they talked me into giving that a go. They put me in a position of having to work with Crazy Carlos or leave home and sign up on the dole. I decided I was better off working to save up to go overseas.

Madam Vita’s Drama Class

While trying and failing to find a chefs apprenticeship I managed to get my self to some of year 11. One class I found particularly inspiring was Madam Vita’s drama class. Many of my teachers were enthused by my work in this field and believed I should peruse it further.

8TOP FM

A friend of mine from drama invited me to come and help him out with a community radio production he was involved with. We produced comedic radio plays inspired by Monty Python, the Goons and Douglas Adams. It eventually fell threw at the level of the organisers. But the management of the radio station liked our work and wanted to take us on independently. I told them what was going on for me and they changed their mind.

Billabong Bare

While doing what little I did of year 11 if found my self employed as a mascot for a family restaurant. This involved getting dressed up in a koala bare costume to entertain the kids. I remember asking them if I could get a chefs apprenticeship with them. They said no, you should stick with art and drama.

Scuba Diving

The one nice this about the baking apprenticeship was having money. This enabled me to take up scuba diving. I was thinking of doing the courses to get work doing it once I had completed the all important apprenticeship.  

Night Clubbing

While working in the bakery I discovered nightclubbing in Darwin. For two and a half years I would go out once a week and drink till I vomited. I hated it but there didn’t seem to be anything else happening. I can remember the cool ones there. They were cool, they knew they were cool, everyone knew they were cool, they knew every one knew they were cool and they could let you know how inferior you were with a glance. “What have you done to be so dam smug about”? I would think to my self while sulkingly sipping my bourbon and coke. I have found out since this was the by scene, I shouldn’t have been in the by scene, I should have been in the arts scene. 

Coulda, wooder, shudda.

Thinking back to that time I don’t think I could have done year 11&12 without my parents support. But I didn’t have too work in that bakery. I could have signed up on the Doll and plaid Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. Stuck with 8TOP FM, got involved with Corrugated Iron and Cavenagh Theatre. I wouldn’t have been able to save as much money, but I would have learned more.

First trip to Europe

With money I saved from work I went over to Europe. I pined a lot of hope on Europe, maybe I could make sense of things over there. I wasn’t making much sense of it in Australia. I had a ball of a time but couldn’t sort out a job. When money ran out and it was time to come home. I spoke to my Dad on the phone who said there was a job waiting for me with him when I got home. I was hoping to get my self back to school. But I had had a taste of poverty in the last few months of Europe and didn’t think it would be much fun in the long term.   

Adroit

When I got back from Europe I got to work with Dad installing TV antennas. It was ten hours a day six, seven days a week working on and in roves in tropical heat. I kept it up for 18 months before quitting in exhaustion. Dad wouldn’t talk about it, I tried to get him to sit down and talk about it but he just shouted at me “there’s nothing to talk about just get in the van and work”. Mum started on and on at me to go overseas. I went back to Europe and got my self to school, while I was away they sold Adroit to my sister and her husband to be. They gave me no say in the matter.

Coulda, wooda, shudda

It seems to me Adroit should have been a great opportunity to me. It could have been a great source of casual work while I worked my own thing out. With an arts education and the practical side Adroit could cover I would have been well placed to find a spot in Darwin’s variety entertainment scene.

Study and Madness

I quit with my Dad and started to think about how I was going to get my self back to school. It was over six months before the start of the school year so I headed back over to Europe to think about it for a while. I got my self to St Ives a beautiful little fishing village with a big art scene. Found a girl friend who worked at the Tate gallery of modern art. It was a brilliant summer of sex and modern art. Toward the end of summer when it was getting close to time to head back to Australia Serena came back from a trip to Bristol having enrolled in a course in philosophy. Sex and philosophy, it took little to convince me to go to Bristol.
Dope came into it and we would sit around smoking dope and discussing our studies. It didn’t take long for me to work out not to smoke dope and write my essays. It would all seem to make sense at the time, I would be convinced I had written something brilliant. Only to have it come back with a bad grade and when I read it straight realised it was rubbish. 
Come exam time I went psychotic, I didn’t know what was happening. It was freighting and confusing and I didn’t make it to the second set of exams. I went home instead, deciding I was going to steer well clear of dope in future.
From there I headed a friends place in Melbourne to continue my studies. I got into some yr12 courses at TAFE and struggled on what little money I got from the doll. After my friend left Melbourne I had to move into a backpackers hostel and lived on five dollars a day. Come exams I went psychotic again, this time no drugs. I made it to exams any way and after found I could not manage to get my self on a bus back to Darwin. It took a lot of working through some strange confusing terror before getting my self back to my parents place.

Juggling

While attending Madam Vita’s drama class I learned to juggle with three balls. While on the second trip to Europe I bought a set of juggling clubs and started to meet other jugglers. Then in Melbourne I found the Juggle Art juggle jam and learned all the basics of putting together a Juggling routine and how to ride a uni-cycle.

All Weather Audio

I had hoped to return from Melbourne to continue my studies only getting a little extra cash in hand from the various family businesses. Instead I returned confused and scared to find my parents were planing to leave to Queensland. They sternly told me the stuff that was happening to me was because I was messing around at school when at my age I had to be a worker, you have to get a job. I argued it was very hard to find work, they told me I had to start an installations business. For two years I tried and failed to run an installation business I was neither capable of nor wanted to do. I would phone up Mum to try to make some sense of it, to be told over and over again I had to keep it up for two years. It got to two years before I really had it out with Mum. I went psychotic again and this time Mum got me into hospital. There I was told there was no supernatural power forcing me to work in trades.

Enter Klutz the Clown 

While I was in the psych ward I remember shouting out “I’m a clown, not a worker, I’m a clown.” Then they declared me cured and kicked me out. A sight foreman shouted that at me a few weeks earlier, “Your a clown not a worker.” . I remember driving home thinking to me self, “yea, too right, I can juggle, ride a uni-cycle, I’ve been involved in theatre for years. I’m a clown not a worker, why am I having to do this stuff”? I love telling people I’m a clown the reaction it gets is priceless. I checked with mental Health if wanting to be a clown was insane, it wasn’t. I checked if being insane stopped  me from being able to be a clown, it didn’t.
My parents arranged for my van and all my belongings to be sent to there place and it was back to Queensland with me, despite my protests. One evening I came home from something to be told there had been a phone call from the council. They wanted me in a parade, they couldn’t afford to pay me but it was a great opportunity for exposure. “Stuff them then” thinking they were being sarcastic. And it was on…
“You can’t take that attitude…Just you listen here…You can’t run a business like that…You’ve got to take this seriously…You’ve got to…You’ve got to…You’ve got to”. I spat the dummy and told them off big time, about fifteen years too late I would say.

East Timor

I had got some more credit so I headed off to Darwin without a plan. I got in with some buskers and busked the mall with some success. But as it got closer to Christmas things started to get tighter. I was living in “The Shed” a rat infested jam space for musician. One evening a group came in excited about going to East Timor to do a concert. I asked if I could get on the boat and they got me on. 
The concert was a great success and seeing all the work to be done I decided to stay on to see if I could get involved. I organised food and accommodation and waved the rest of the crew good by. I looked around for work but was unsuccessful until I went to the United Nations. They wanted me to do some clowning for the Millennium Party.

The Millennium Party was a great success, but after that things went all wrong. For some mysterious reason I was unable to work out how to get back to Darwin. I got stuck in there for another two months, I lost a lot of weight and went psychotic before the end.
I now realise the same mysterious block in East Timor, was the same mystery force in Melbourne four years earlier. I was more scared of my parents than of the Javanese. What was I going to have to do next?

Mental Health

Dealing with Mental Health can be very frustrating at times. Particularly in regards to drinking. If you go to them with a drinking problem they simply push for a detailed account of how much you drink. “Had a few at the pub” doesn’t cut it, they need to know the precise number. And they need to know precisely what, beer doesn’t cut it, they need to know the brand. They will push for these details going back weeks, months even years. A perfectly sensible conversation can grind to a halt if you mention drink as they insist you tell them exactly how much. Eventually when they feel they have enough information they tell you your drinking too much and refer you to ATODS. 
ATODS dose a similar thing using a card with pictures of different drinks and they speak very slowly so you don’t get confused. Eventually once they are satisfied you understand the standard drink scale and know you are drinking too much they ask what is driving you to drink. When they get the answer you are driven by a psychiatric condition they refer you to Mental Health. 

Chicken or the Egg

This often comes up when dealing with professionals in regards to drink and psychiatric conditions. When I say I drink to deal with a psychiatric condition the “chicken or the egg” argument comes up. To me there is no enigma, first came the abuse then came the madness then came the drinking. 
It is of corse difficult for a professional dealing with an unknown patent. Some people would rather admit to being crazy than being an addict. In other cases some would rather be an addict than be a mental case or victim of abuse. I most cases it is a question of what is easer for the ego to admit.
The question of which came first is something every dual diagnosis case has to ask him self. In the end it is something he has to work out for himself. The professional can’t work that one out for him. Nor can he believe the patients diagnosis. The professional will always come back to the chicken or the egg.

Crazy Carlos

Carlos has to be about the worst employer you could imagine. But my parents thought he would be a good influence on me. He would shout and yell at me from first thing in the morning. Until he left me to the pastries and decorated cakes. Lunging at me with hot bread trays. Wishing he would follow threw so I could dump hot buns on his arms.
So why do I have a sleeping disorder? Why do I have too much adrenalin?

Wards

This family is very close to my heart and soul. While at my sisters wedding I asked my uncle Pat for some help with making sense of God, Jesus and the Bible. Shortly after I got my first modern bible and found a spiritual mentor in my aunt. This family has been so patient with me, accepting me for what I am. They are everything I would want to be. Dealing with them is as much inspiring as heart breaking. I’ve been to my cousins wedding seeing virgins getting married, knowing it’s too late for me to do that. I’ve been asked to pray for cousins struggling to get through yr 12 exams. Wanting the best for them while stewing in jealousy. 

John McDonnell

When all seemed hopeless, John came in on the scene. A circus came into town, playing at the hall at the end of my street. I went into town to get an iced coffee or something. There was a man with a monkey; he asked me “are you this clown I’ve heard about”. Circus has been my escape from Hervey Bay ever since. John has been a good friend, giving me a place to escape too, while realising I have my limitations.

Rob

Rob is another performer in the circus. He is a classic alcoholic in denial and he can’t stand alcoholics. He is brilliant and can do much better than Eden Bros. He turns up any way and spoils it for me.

Driving

I have lost my licence to drink driving on two occasions. I have been drinking all hours of the day since 2005. I’ve been counting my drinks and hoping I am under the limit. The first time I lost my licence I was a little over the limit. The second time I was way pissed and lost all sense of reason when I got in the car. I ended up in a ditch beside the road. I went without a car for five years. I have only just gone back to having a car and don’t want to drink drive again.

Dad

One of the great mysteries of my life is why my parents treated me the way they did. Part of the explanation seems to lie in the fact that the bullying started when I Dad started to drink. When my Dad gets drunk he becomes a delusional psychopath. He starts to believe in crazy things that aren’t real, develops an exaggerated sense of the harm others have done to him and a diminished understanding of the effects of his actions on others. Basically my Dad can’t handle his drink. When he started drinking on a daily basis he went permanently insane.

Propranolol

I was going into hospital for ten years with anxiety that becomes so intense I become delusional and my heart beating twice as fast as it should. Despite the fact they took my pulse at least once a day they never picked up on it. When some one finally noticed it was a huge fuss to get on to the medication to fix it. They don’t have to guess this one, pulse is an easy test. Adrenalin only requires a little effort to test. It shouldn’t have taken so long to get on this medication. It shouldn’t have been such a drama to find the right dose. And it shouldn’t cause such anxiety now that I am on it.

Sara and Darren

Why did my parents bully me and not Sara? Sara got to do year eleven and twelve then first year law. When she changed her mind about law and went looking for something else she was free to do so. I never got that chance at education and having decided on chef, I had to stick to it. I got worked into the ground with Adroit, Sara got the whole business to do with as she wished. 
When I was working for them they didn’t send me enough work to pay the bills. And would take months to pay me for what little work they sent my way. They had a new car and a new house and went on holidays over seas. Then claimed they were really struggling and couldn’t pay me for the work I did.
I remember crying to my sister “I don’t have money to put fuel in the car”, she responded “Just put it on your credit card”. Like the bank was going to give me unlimited credit. I repeatedly asked her “Do you want me to be doing this?”, “Yes” she would answer. “Then give me what I need to do the job”. Then came the excuses, generally blaming Darren.
These days she tells people I would beat her up every day and Mum and Dad wouldn’t do any thing about it. Also that she was a victim of favouritism, that I got every thing my way and she got nothing. 

Darwin

I often find my self missing Darwin. When I first got there it seemed like the end of the world. I longed to be back in California. While I was going threw the bakery and nightclubbing stage I blamed all my woes on being in Darwin. Today Darwin has the most vibrant variety entertainment scene, plenty of exciting work for a professional clown. The market scene is excellent and so are the cycle tracks. There are a lot of people I have known who are still up there. I would love to be able to settle there. But Darwin seems to have bought out the worst in me and I have done some pretty crazy stuff up there. There are a lot of people who would not be happy to see me back there. I certainly could not go back there to set up a clown business.

My Diagnosis

My flight or flight mode is permanently switched on, I have excessive adrenalin pumping through my system. This causes my heart to beat twice as fast as it should and causes me to be over anxious. The chronic anxiety can become so intense I start to develope psychotic symptoms. This makes my life unmanageable and this becomes depressing. The depression is exasperated by haunting memories of the past. I drink to deal with this. I drink because it is effective. This is not uncommon for sufferers of post traumatic stress disorder.

Im Just a Crazy Bum

I can easily fall into this line of thinking, I get the poor mes real bad. I look at the flee bag circus I work for and wonder what I may have been capable of if I hadn’t gone insane. I find my self thinking that AA is for sane alcoholics and doubt the steps can bring sobriety to a crazy guy like me. I look at my life and find my self thinking it is not worth getting sober for. I look at my self and  think I am not worth it. When I showed this list of resentments to my psychologist I was given the homework of putting together a list of strengths. It may help to look at my self this way.