Wetten up then talk to me!
Eat, Pray, Glove
I’ve spent so much of H2 2024 overseas that I keep getting asked “hOw Do YoU hAvE aNy AnNuAL LeAvE lEfT?!?” Could everybody shut it? I clearly now have none. Accruing leave then spending it ain’t exactly rocket surgery.
It’s so clear to see how other countries name their big cities or roads: in the UK, everything’s named after a monarch (see: ‘Brighton’) or a lazy string of slapstick syllables smashed together (see: ‘Sandyballs’). In the USA, everything’s named after the American hard-on for law and order (see: ‘Provincetown’) or a basic word that appeals to the lowest common denominator (see: ‘1st Avenue’).
Why is Sydney called Sydney? Turns out, Captain Arthur Phillip, who settled at Botany Bay in the 1800s, named the area after the British government’s Home Secretary, Baron Sydney. Yes, the Home Secretary, the powerful cabinet role responsible for immigration, law enforcement, and long-game culture wars.
Arthur my man, thanks for the cool-sounding city name but did you have to name it after your country’s greatest ACAB cuck? All praise the fearless border security vanguard! If Australians became the first to colonize the moon we’d follow suit and name the first Martian city ‘Duttonland’.
Enough chit-chat! Call me whatever the opposite of a vampire is, cos I’ve got reflections.
Eat!
Consumables that don’t perish.
If you like gritty crime noir TV from Europe, might I suggest Marcella? It ended in 2020 but enough time had passed for me to watch it again not remembering anything. I was pleasantly surprised by the copycat killers, pedophile rings, and plot holes that you look past because of how good Anna Friel is at acting. Ah, the good ol’ days when Netflix would renew their originals for more than one season.
I love reading books in bed. I reckon I do it once a year. I finally finished Big Magic, a book I borrowed off Lizzy Hoo in 2021 and never gave back. It’s from the mind vice of Elizabeth Gilbert, notable kook behind Eat Pray Love. Beyond inspiring the name of this newsletter, she also inspired me to behave curiously towards potential creative paths rather than be goal-oriented Type A about it. Has that been The Secret™️ to creativity all along?
A lot of gay people went through Drag Race Fatigue the last couple of years, and I get it. There’s only so many times we can hear “snatch the crown” rhymed with “shut it down” before a lobotomy naturally occurs. If you’re a Stan baddie, throw on the latest season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. It’s worth it to hear RuPaul mispronounce the name “Rileasa Slaves”.
Pray!
Wishful thinking with no follow-through. It’s called manifesting!
I truly loved New York. Gotta be in my top five Yorks.
It’s true that there’s no shortage of activities available in New York, ranging from Broadway experiences to simply inhaling through your nose and going “the FUCK is that?” Everything’s a conversation starter.
My friend Isaac and I were in the bosom of NYC for three weeks together. We come from very different backgrounds: him, a mincing theatre princess who grew up in military housing near the rich beach; and me, a nubile prince with no survival skills who thinks improvised theatre classes should be mandatory to get your high school certificate. We may look the same, but we are not the same.
Travelling makes you feel like you could reinvent yourself, if only you were psychologically a different person. You’re finally not weighed down by snooze-worthy events like work or therapy or someone’s wedding you were a +1 for. For three blissful weeks, I got to taste reinvention; I got to travel like Isaac, and Isaac got to travel like me.
I sang at karaoke, saw like eight musicals, did 500,000 steps per day, and got to see inside some iconic places like Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden.
If I were left to my own devices, I’d have skipped 90% of those Isaac-fuelled activities, opting to see only Big Gay Jamboree off-Broadway, which I loved so much I saw twice.
Conversely, Isaac got to experience life through my lens. Eating pizza on the train, seeing world-class stand-up or sketch comedy, and getting shitfaced in a Brooklyn nightclub throwing a Kim Petras-themed Halloween party.
Landing home again from America feels like being back in the womb. It’s safe, it’s familiar, and there’s no election happening.
It would be so easy to let the routine settle back in. However, I’m determined to carve off a slither of a lesson and say ‘yes’ to trying some different activities. It’s often not a poor choice of activity that bores you, it’s the company. Escape rooms aren’t inherently shit, we all just hate them because you also happen to be doing it during a corporate offsite.
I could see a new musical that sounds bad, I could go to a wedding of someone I hardly know, I could go bouldering. As long as I’m doing it with someone I really enjoy, I’ll never be bored.
Glove!
A personal reality from a real person.
If I’m descendent from British colonial trash, why didn’t I get the good white devil genes?
Everyone in Australia will trip over their own dicks in a mad panic to tell you how much they LOVE the sun here. “I actually love da sun :)” says the average Queenslander who’s never researched Stockholm Syndrome.
My 30+ years of wearing SPF 30+ have been merely a salve to keep the sunburnt-red knight at bay. It hasn’t been enough to make my body adapt to the heat, not like every other anglo homo I know in this brazenly sunny isle. For every 10mL your body sweats out, mine sweats 1L.
I brought a British person back from the UK with me. Turns out you can put whatever in your luggage as long as it’s not sharp or explosive.
Nothing has made me feel less connected to my British ancestry than outcome of this empirical test observing an Australian and a British person co-habiting the same climate. I am the acid, Sam is the base. I sweat white vinegar, and he sweats baking soda. We were born the same yet we are not the same.
It’s only the start of summer here, yet my survival mode kicked in when spring did. I’ve started taking a small handtowel with me whenever I carry a bag, for dabbing and wiping purposes. I wear 2-3 pairs of underwear per day and have been taking cold showers exclusively.
You might be reading this thinking, “lol, John, I’m just like you!” NO, you are NOT. Firstly, you don’t spend nearly enough on Uber Eats to be me, and secondly, you do NOT sweat as much as I do. I promise you this. Fall on your sword. I won’t be falling on mine. I’d simply slip off it, the wet sword bypassing my innards completely.
Every small talk chat I have about the weather features, 100% of the time, a response from someone saying “ugh, I know! I’m sweating so much!”
This week I walked the 7-minute, flat, normal-paced walk to the train station and by the time I sat down I had a carwash volume of water emitting from my hairline and down the back of my neck. Nearby finance bros looked on with disgust. Transport workers began steam cleaning the chair I was on. A family of bridge trolls suffering through a drought came and wrung out my t-shirt so their village could live another week without dying of dehydration.
And where was British Sam while I was sweating my tits off? Adapting. Normalling. Taking what his body learned in a UK winter and applying it here. Meanwhile, I carried a not-aesthetic gym towel with me to the Heaps Gay rave party we attended, at which I wore a singlet and shorts, to a venue that was largely alfresco, shaded and well ventilated.
Barely a drop from of the non-Johns in these pictures. Next time you try to tell me you’re “so sweaty today”, stop and think: am I actually sweaty? Or is my competitive nature and tall poppy syndrome stopping me from accessing my sympathy for someone whose whiteness has betrayed them?
You’re not sweaty. I’M sweaty. You’re dry. Wetten up then talk to me.
Before you go…
I’ve got two MAJOR announcements coming up! Comedy stuff! Online stuff! God I wish I had links to put here so just trust me that it’s worth visiting back here or my Instagram in a few weeks!!
Free tonight (Monday December 9)? I’m opening for Sit & Com at The Old Fitz in Kings Cross, an improvised TV sitcom. I’ve seen this show before and it is bonkers funny, a total love letter for all the TV savants like me. I’ll be doing stand-up at the start aka. queening out over my own favourite sitcoms.
Do you want my annual Christmas letter in the mail? I will physically mail you a letter! Catch up on ye olde 2024 that was, from the household of John & Josie (my gorj roomie). If nuclear families can do it, why can’t we? Fill out this form and await your gift!
Yours in Christ,
Your favourite gay comedian’s favourite gay comedian.
How Glovelly to read. Your wetness makes you glisten
I actually love da sun :)