I Grew Up in the Most Isolated City on Earth and Somehow Ended Up in Manhattan
Thoughts on coming home for Christmas
I’m writing this from Perth, Western Australia. My hometown. The place I was born, raised, allegedly educated, mildly traumatised, and eventually fled from with a suitcase I still haven’t unpacked.
It took over 24 hours on a plane to get here, and my eyes are about to fall out onto my keyboard, but I’m glad to be back. I’m not gonna lie, it’s a weird time to be in Australia. It’s only been a week since we’ve been reeling from the worst terrorism attack in decades, and it’s been blanket coverage in every newspaper, every radio and TV story, every podcast. Inescapable grief and grim blame-gaming. It’s what happens. But things do change here when bad things occur, which is a refreshing contrast to the fallout after a mass shooting in the US…
Anyway, back to Perth.
If you drill a hole straight down from Manhattan, past the subway rats and the lost MetroCards, through the molten centre of the Earth, you will come out somewhere near my high school. Possibly the footy oval. Definitely within walking distance of the tuckshop that sold meat pies with tomato sauce capable of stripping paint.
I said recently on Josh Szeps’ show that Perth felt like a prison when I was a precocious teenager who thought he knew everything. I should be clear; It was a very nice prison. Clean. Safe. Organised. Excellent weather. A prison with beaches. A prison where your parents knew where you were because there were only three places you could realistically be. In retrospect, I realised it was an enormous gift. I was very lucky to grow up here.
Related:
Perth is the most isolated capital city on the planet. The nearest city is Adelaide, which is several hours away by plane and functionally theoretical. Growing up here meant there were fewer distractions. No ceaseless cultural buffet; No sense that something better was happening ten blocks away. I stick my head out of my apartment window now, and I get a mouthful of snow and an earful of Alecia Keys blaring from the Times Square pedicabs. I put my head out the window in Perth, and I get the vacuum of space silence. It’s an adjustment.
I was lucky starting out in Perth. If you wanted to do a thing, you really had to commit to it: Acting. Music. Comedy. Drawing. Writing. Business. Science. You sat with it. You obsessed over it. You “got good while nobody* was watching.”
*Not ‘nobodies’. Just fewer eyes than in a ridiculously overpopulated metropolis.
I started doing comedy here in 2007. I jumped up nearly every night, often to rooms with more chairs than people, but I shared stages with hilarious comics who are still at it today (which I can’t decide is inspiring or alarming.) I got lucky. I started right as there was a bit of a comedy boom, and I learned how to fail quietly. Repeatedly. In rooms where the audience knew my parents’ friends and felt comfortable telling me so, mid-set. My sister was my biggest fan heckler.
The community of comics I had here when I was starting out have become some of the most enduring friendships of my life. Forged in the crucible of shitty bar shows and comedy clubs, and late-night greasy food at overpriced diners.
I was very fortunate growing up here. I have a great family. I went to a good school, where I got in by the skin of my teeth. It had a strong arts focus, which meant I got to do drama, music, and art without having to sign on to any religious doctrine. (Ok, I did have to pretend to be Anglican every Friday, but that’s it.) That arts focus mattered more than I realised at the time.
In fact, the very first cartooning commission I got was from my History teacher, Mr Cook — I got detention for drawing a mean caricature of him in my textbook. When he sauntered up to my desk after school, while I was writing 200 lines of “I will not draw mean caricatures of my teacher”, he quietly muttered under his breath, “Listen… The school gardener, Mr. Keeling is retiring next week… If I give you 20 bucks, could you draw a mean caricature of him?”
Something tweaked in my brain, and I never looked back. A cartoonist was born.
Perth was a small pond, and I needed it. I learned how to use a pen to skewer local politicians, how to hold a microphone (or rather, how not to pull it out of the socket). How to bomb. How to recover badly. How to recover slightly less badly. How to write jokes that sounded like me, not like someone I’d watched on Letterman the night before. That pond prepared me to move to Melbourne, and eventually New York, where the pond is the size of the Pacific and filled with sharks who can write.
There’s an old saying that ‘Perth is a great place to be a baby and have a baby, and not a lot in between.’ That’s not entirely fair, but I understand the gist. It’s a fantastic place to grow up. You’re outdoors a lot. You’re surrounded by nature. You learn independence early. Yes, every creature here can kill you, but you don’t really clock that until you move to America and mention a deadly animal casually, only to watch people react like you’ve described a scene from Jurassic Park.
When I moved to America 11 years ago, I somehow became an ambassador for Australian fauna. I didn’t realise how insane it sounded to say things like, “Oh yeah, we had a yellow-bellied brown snake in the backyard when I was ten— it lunged at my calf and missed me by that much!” until I saw people’s faces drain of colour.
What’s struck me most coming back this time, my first proper Christmas back in a long while, is how alive Perth actually is. This is not a dead town. It’s not a cultural backwater. There’s a thriving arts scene, plenty of comedy shows. There are theatres, galleries, musicians, writers, comedians, and yes, still a few cartoonists. There’s ambition and momentum. There’s a weird hum. A quieter one than Manhattan, sure, but it’s there if you listen.
I live in Manhattan now (because I love cooking dinner in my bedroom). You only notice that hum when you leave. Or rather, you notice its absence. Perth has a different rhythm. A slower one. It gives you space to think, which is both a blessing and a threat. Like leaving your apartment without your headphones.
I’m doing some shows while I’m back, which feels both exciting and slightly unhinged. I started here nineteen years ago. Some of the people I came up with are still doing it. Most have quit. Some have pivoted into very respectable careers where nobody yells “Your head looks fucked!” at them from the front row. (Yep- My first time on stage at Werzel’s Comedy Lounge. And for once it wasn’t my sister.) I’m curious to see how it feels to stand on stage here now, with a few more miles on the clock, a lot more grey hairs and a slightly worse back pain.
Being back this Christmas, for the first time without my dad here, has brought up a feeling I wasn’t quite prepared for. You never really come home. Things stay the same, especially in Perth, but they also move on without you. The place you carry around in your head is a relic. A romanticised reconstruction that no longer exists. That doesn’t make it sad. It just makes it real.
I love this place. I’m grateful I grew up here. I’m glad I left. I’m glad I’m back. Both things can be true at the same time, even if it takes a while to let them coexist. I’ll be here for the next few weeks. If you’re around and want to catch up, I’m doing shows on the 20th and 27th at the Comedy Lounge, 7 & 9pm.
See you there!
‘til next time
Your pal
“A prison with beaches!” “Sharks who can write!” So many great lines in here Jason!
You must miss your dad… I miss mine. I’m from manhattan and traveled all continents but yours, NZ and Antarctica. I loved reading your piece! Let me know when you’re performing in manhattan. I love humor…