Pat Caslin: 'No fifties!', Romance @ Shilling Speakers - 2022

9 February 2022, Dublin, Ireland

Dublin isn’t a big city (about a million people) so when there’s something going on, there’s generally a bit of buzz about, and you hear about it. If you want to be part of that buzz, all you need is to get some fifties in your pocket to have a good time. At home, you know where to find it. You know where the sellers hang around beforehand. You kind of have an idea of the shape of what they look like and whether they've got what you need. They nod you off to a quiet corner where there's not too many people hanging around, so they're not that visible.

I say “Can I see it?”. It was the line I wanted. I said where did you get this anyway? He said my pal couldn't come so that's why I have it. I knew fine well that he had a lot more than what he had shown me in his pocket but there you go. The deal was done in a minute or less.

In the States though it's different. We were staying in Carmel, California. There was a bit of buzz about and we wanted to be part of it, but I didn’t know how to get what I needed. I went down to the lobby of the hotel and started drinking coffee for the afternoon, trying to figure out the cut of different blokes. Which of them was going to have what I needed. I finally settled on one particular bloke that I felt kinda had the swagger and the shape that I was looking for. I approached him. I was right. “I can't get this for you”, he said “give me a minute”. He came back with a phone number. “Call this number, but you're not going to get it'll 5:00 AM tomorrow because that's when he does business”. I thanked him.

I called the number. The guy on the phone didn’t sound too savoury. He said “turn up at this address at 5:00 AM. Wait inside. Don’t be late. And, no fifties.”

The following morning, I ended up on what looked like a Wharf. One side an old stone-looking buildings. On the other rusted fishing boats. I go up to this great big door, push it open with a big creaky sound. It’s about ten to five with “don’t be late” and “no fifties” ringing in my ears.

I step inside. The door closes. The street lights gone. I'm standing there thinking “Oh my God what happens now?” There's no light in here. Two minutes in, my eyes haven't adjusted to the dark. There's still no sound, and yet I have this foreboding feeling that somebody is watching me from somewhere. I look at my watch. Five to five. Still no sound. No light. Pitch black.

I'm cold now because its summer and I only have a T shirt. Then I hear the echo of very purposeful footsteps coming towards me. A big blinding light goes on behind the guy that's now standing in front of me. All I hear is “show me the money. No fifties. ”

I pulled out the $200. It’s 10s and 20s. “there you go” I said meekly. He puts an envelope on my hands “it's in there”. With that, the light goes off and he’s gone.

It takes ten minutes in the car for my knees to stop shaking before I can drive.
When I get back to the hotel, Sue says “How did you get on?”

I say: “Get yourself out of that bed my darling, the action starts in a couple of hours and, fifties or no fifties, we are going to be part of it.

“I tell you – only that I love you madly - I wouldn’t go through that again. My legs were like jelly for about 10 minutes afterwards. It was just scary. But, you know, I’d do anything for you whether that’s getting you a halfway line ticket for the Ireland-England rugby match at Lansdowne Road, or tickets for today for the US Open Golf at Pebble Beach. We’re on.”

Justine Sless: 'It felt like it was time to come out as a Jew', Newstead Short Story Tattoo - 2017

7 October, Butterlands Butter Factory., Newstead, Victoria, Australia

Jews, Jews, Jews.

Jews drink, four cups of wine, then pour a fifth for Elijah. Elijah’s cup is poured, but not drunk, every year during Seder, the celebration of Passover.

The cup is raised and the lament begins. L a shana habahh b’ Yerusalem.

Next year in Jerusalem. The statement reminds us that wehave survived again, and to commemorateanother feast awaits us. The statement  next Year in Jerusalem also serves as a reminder that no matter what, politics aside, there is always a safe place to go should things nasty again.

Say the word 'Jew' often enough in a range of places and you either laugh or cry.

Personally, I can’t say it enough, but I only started saying the word Jew on repeat recently, because I come late in life to a lot of things.

Like comedy I started when I was 38. The catalyst was my husband giving me a look when I went into labour with my second child that could only mean one thing: He was too pissed, so I would have to drive myself to hospital.

I took to comedy like others take to the drink. And when I would stumble out into the night searching for a stage in another dimly lit bar in Melbourne,  my husband’s words echoing in my ears as he gestured to the television, the couch and the kitchen sink: ‘Is this not enough for you any more?’ And it wasn’t, dry stoicism morphed into wry wit as I grappled with the beguiling beast that is comedy and my desire to fill that chasm of need with the laughter of strangers.

I came late to education. Having failed year 12 twice, I steered clear of classrooms till I was 30, thenI got a bachelor of Community Development which equipped me to quickly arrange a wide variety of chairs and tables into welcoming circles, the intellectual acumen to distinguish between a working party a subcommittee and steering group and a wardrobe filled with non-threatening footwear.

And at 50, I’ve just started my Masters by research in creative writing on gender and comedy – women in comedy – please don’t get me started.

And I came very late in life to coming out as a Jew.

8 years ago my mother was over here on her annual visit from UK.

She puts a piece of paper on the dining table and says I have something to show you. It’s a hand-written family tree. My mother looks at me and she says:

‘My father suicided when I was 12.'

My mother went to a Swiss finishing school; they came from wealthy families; they dealt in furs and diamonds.

They fled Germany and went to England, everything stolen from them.

My mother baked honey cakes when I was little.

My father loved me, he called me 'meine Liebchen'.

He was always running, though. He would hold my hand and make me run too. He said that if we didn’t keep running then the Gestapo would catch us.

He was born in Obernkerken.

His name was Ludwig, his brother was Fritz.

Next to their names are their uncle’s names 'Julius and Siegfried’

Below that is the date 1942 and beneath that two words

Died Auschwitz.

I looked at her and she looked at me and I said, ‘Well that explains a lot.’

I grew up in North East England, a lot of things had closed down: the ship building, the steel works and most of the coal mines. So when I asked my mum anything about her past and she shut down, too, it kind of went with the landscape and I never pushed the issue.

As kids, we knew that we were Jewish, but we didn’t celebrate it. It was just something that sat in that bucket, the bucket of shame, like not having a car, or a phone or not being smart at school or always having head lice – shameful. You just didn’t talk about it.

So, I saw this family tree and something in me shifted. Like the time I sneezed a bit of carrot onto a woman’s hand - I was working in a fruit and vegetable shop at the time. I looked at her she looked at me and I said we’ll not charge you for that there bit of carrot on your hand.

 A tree dating back to 1853 with branches burned off and we were still here..And it felt like it was time to come out as a Jew. My knee jerk reaction to everything in life to date had been to find the funny and this was the mother of all opportunities to do just that.

So, I created the inaugural Melbourne Jewish comedy festival because Jews and comedy, who knew that would work right?

But here’s the thing: there are 58,000 Jews living in Melbourne, and six of them live in a little shtetel called Preston. I am one of those six Jews. I’m what is known as a fabled Jew of the North. I am so far outside of the bagel belt I can’t even see the poppy seeds around the edges.

Coming out as a Jew is one thing. Getting some Jews in a room to be funny under the banner of the newly formed Melbourne Jewish Comedy Festival as a completely unknown Jew in Melbourne is another thing all together.

But some things you just can’t push against, they are primal, they remind you that there is something bigger than you and your red lipstick wearing sarcasm. It’s a life force that made me realise that something came before me and there will be something after me and my glittering shing moment on earth is to add something and that thing is laughter. And I couldn’t fight against it – it was primal - Like when I had my first child when I was 30 and it was beyond me – because lord knows having children is an absolute pain in the butt, right? The urge to have them means the continuity of the human race; and they are born cute so you don’t reject them. But of course you spend the first few months covered in sate pooh and having let downs, During the kindergarten years and most of the primary years, you stink and have very greasy skin because of all the fundraising sausage sizzles you must run. And then they become teenagers: I gaffered up the bedroom window, nailed it and glue gunned it, but my teenager still escaped. And one night when I had picked her up from who knows where at who knows what time, she stated all the things she wanted::a t-shirt from jjays, a new phone and an overseas holiday, because it was an absolute embarrassment that we only went to Wilson’s Prom over the summer. My response was,‘Enough with the lists already.’

'Mum, she said in response – you should just begrateful that I’m still talking to you.'

Seeing the two words, “Died Auschwitz” on the family tree. And creating the festival was like that: primal, the continuation of the species, a compulsion and a statement that we are still here.

Don’t get me wrong I didn’t go as far as going Kosher, but I began to go from being a bit Jewish to being a bit Jewy. Even my kids were like suggested that I  should change your name to 'Jewstine Shlep.’

I became like the old Jew in the joke on the desert island.

His name is Heyme, he has been on the dessert island for years  when he is finally rescued

The old Jewish guy, Heyme, takes the sailors who rescue him around the island where he has been all these years.

He shows them the temple he’s built. It’s incredible, adorned with shells and seaweed.

The sailors are amazed.

Heymie takes them to the other side of the island. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘here is the other temple I built.' It is equally exquisite with architectural magnificence particularly in the bima area. The sailors are dumfounded. ‘Tthese are amazing,’ they say, ‘but why two temples?’ ‘This one –’ Heymie points to the first one on the other side of the island – ‘this is the one I go to. The other –’ he nods towards it – ‘that one I wouldn’t be seen dead in.’

I became that Jew, we have a perfectly good comedy festival in Melbourne, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Melbourne Jewish Comedy Festival, that is the one I go to.The other one – pah! – I wouldn’t be seen dead in it.

Being a Jew became a point of pride and a huge learning curve: Melbourne is the second largest population of holocaust survivors outside of Israel, and there are so many Jewish institutions: Jewish News, Jewish Film Festival, Bagel Appreciation Society, and a radio station. I had a radio show called the Morning Kvetch but that was nowhere near enough, we had to make it the whole day. The lines were jammed with people wanting to complain: about the weather, about their sons, about their grandchildren sitting in hipster cafes all day on milk crates. We should have just taken all the other shows off air and called the station Kvetch 87.8 FM.

I get so Jew’d up, in fact, I even decide, at 50, to go to Israel for the first time, taking with me a comedy show called ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’. And there I am wondering around a Tel Aviv night having done a gig in a bar, and I’m lost. So I ask a woman for directions back to my hotel. We get talking and I tell her I’m the creative director of Melbourne Jewish comedy festival. She gives me a withering glance.‘Oh,’ she says,‘We’re all Jewish here.’

After Israel, I take the comedy show to Krakow, because someone had to do it.

It’s a very strange thing to stand at the tourist booth in Krakow and have the choice of a day trip to Schindler’s factory, white water rafting,or a day trip to Auschwitz. Nine thousand people visit Auswitch every day. There’s no business-like Shoah business, it would seem. I took the tour bus, I laid the stone in remberance of my family who had perished there. Then I got lost in the car park trying to find the tour bus..

Doing comedy in Krakow was the most ironic thing I could do. Slightly mad, deeply meaningful and a very tough gig. The show I had performed in Melbourne in front of back slapping mates yelling ‘Mazeltov!’ at the end was greeted in Krakow with such earnest expressions that my face ached from laughing at their non-reaction to my comedy show. The 50-minute show got truncated to 23 minutes, and at the end when I asked by way of breaking the earnest ice, ‘Any questions?’ a guy stood up, wanting clarification on a line I glibly throw away ‘I’m one of seven sisters from five different marriages’. ‘Of those sisters,’ the guy had asked me, ‘can you just clarify of the seven sisters can you tell us are they all Halachically Jewish?’

Tough crowd, right? Not as tough as the gigs I get in Melbourne, the Jewish gigs I get asked to do – invited to events on the basis of being Jewish, to events, to gigs – and I’ve not even had a bat mitzvah.

When I came out I had no idea that there were so many ways to be Jewish. There’s orthodox, liberal, reform and everything in between. And there are the rabbis. Whatever you do just don’t shake a rabbi’s hand – its forbidden.

The tagline for the festival is a celebration of culture through comedy and, indeed, that’s what Jews do – we do comedy, we are known for it. That and the holy days every week to celebrate the fact that we didn’t die. We eat unleavened breadat Passover (we didn’t die); we light candles and eat greasy foods during Channukah (we didn’t die); We eat dairy foods and mainly cheesecake during another celebration – again  - because we didn’t die.

The odd thing about this, though, is that Jews aren’t known on the Melbourne cultural calendar for their food – for literature, for philanthorpy, for comedy, sure – but it amazes me that there aren’t chicken soup bars on every corner with blintz and bagel bars or festivals of unleavened bread, maybe there’s an opportunity there, we run out of jokes we can open up a kosher caravan.

I’m a Jew, I say it, all the time. I can see the stifled yawn of friends – ‘Bless, she’s a Jew, but she only just came out’. You can tell by my hair. I say I’m a Jewish woman of curls.

But if I you think I’m a late starter, I took my mum who is 74 to Germany for the first time in July this year. There was me, my kids and my mum, three generations of Jews. We stood at the door of her family homes, the summer house and the city house. I wanted to knock on the doors of these houses and say, ‘I think you’ll find that these houses don’t belong to you.’ But repatriation is not that easy and the Holocaust, no matter how you look at it, just isn’t funny.

But survival – now there’s a punchline.

Tom Sitter: 'Oh there's a Valentine's stuck at the bottom of the box, imagine that?', The Moth - 2017

13 February 2013,  The Moth StorySLAM, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

'Love Hurts' was the  theme of this High Noon Saloon in Madison. This is one of the most popular stories in The Moth's history. Tom's was the winning story that night.

Hi. This may come as a shock to many of you, but, I was not always this handsome. No really. In 1933 I was ten years old. I'll give you a chance to figure out the math there. I was a new kid St. Mathew's school in Milwaukee, south side, and I was in the 3rd grade probably for about a third of the year. No, anyways. It was St. Valentine's day at the school, and it was a Catholic school, and the nuns had ... see we were allowed to bring valentines ...  in those days the depth of the Depression, I was able to buy a five pack of valentines for two cents. So I had to choose my gals very carefully.

The one gal of course that was everybody's choice was the beautiful Betty Jane Hayes, just gorgeous. Even the nuns were in awe of her, she was just crazy.

The second, of course, was the sultry Patricia Gilbert, and she was very nice but John Gordon had her cornered. So, anyways, I thought, "Well, I'll risk it."

So the third one was ... Thomasina Welch ...these are actually names, by the way, I hope they're not here. Thomasina Welch, was a flaming red head gal who during recess loved to play the games with the boys. All the girls were by themselves during recess, the boys had Thomasina Welch, and we used to play a game that was called 'Break the Camel’s Back.' What you'd do is you would line up and you'd grab a pole, and the person behind you does, and then what happened is you'd take a running jump and you'd jump on top and try to get the guy to collapse, that was breaking the camel’s back. And Thomasina Welch was part of that. That was thrilling.

My fourth choice was Delores Behowski. Now Delores was not plain, she was sort of pretty but the main attraction for most of us was that she was an early ... maturer ... of majestic proportions.

And ... I don't remember what the fifth one was, but anyway, we had to go up and we had this big box that the nun Sister Mary Judanna, very sweet lady, very devout ... not your stereotypical nun, this was a very sweet nun.

Anyway ... They had the box up there and you had to drop your valentines in there, and near the end of the day she would take them out and she would call out your name, and you had to come up and get your valentine. Well, Betty Jane Hayes, to nobody's surprise got ... first of all the class was about forty, and I think that-pretty much evenly divided boys and girls - and Betty Jane got more than twenty, which means that there were some girls that really gave her valentines as well.

And Patricia Gilbert came in very close second, and then at the end of the time for some reason ...  I don't know to this day why for some reason she would do this ... she said "Now who got the least amount?" This was Ricky Parkinson, who had adenoidal problems, and always carried a sodden handkerchief in her hand.

So anyways, then we started with the boys, and to nobody's surprise the boy that got the most was Billy Behot, that starred ... Who later become a really great football player, played for Creighton. He was tall and handsome, blonde, good looking guy. Donald Levelle was a close second. Levelle was kinda sly, he was my idol. I liked his style. Then later down the line, I don't remember who was third and fourth, but finally she said, "Now let's see who got the least." And somebody says, "Jimmy Sweeney." And Jimmy Sweeney got up and she says, "How many did you get Jim?" And he says, "Two." So it should have stopped right there but, Jimmy Sweeney - damn his soul - said, "Sister, Tom Sitter didn't get any."

Crowd: Awwww.

That's precisely. Anyway, now there's nothing worse than pity. You could hate me, you could detest me, you can ignore me, isolate me, but don't pity me. So anyways ... So after that mantle of pity was lifted, kind of forgotten about, during the end of the day Sister Judanna says, "Oh my goodness, what have we here?" She reached in the box. "Oh there's a valentines stuck at the bottom of the box, imagine that. Well well, let's see who its for. Oh it's for Tommy Sitter. Get up here Tommy."

So I had to go up, open it up, and it was signed, in very fine Spenserian script, "A friend." So twice, the mantle of pity descended upon me, a wet sodden blanket, and I was ready to deny, I was ready to kill, oh I was just so angry. So anyway, I knew that at that point, I mean like Catholics I believed sincerely that if you punched a priest or nun you'd go straight to hell, I mean it was a straight shot. Do not pass Go, do not collect a hundred dollars, do not even think about stopping at purgatory, you're going straight to hell. And at that time I thought about punching Sister Judanna, and I'm glad I didn't cause she's pretty strong. She'd have whipped me.

But then I thought about big mouth Jimmy Sweeney. Then I used to have dreams ... Did you ever wish that you could choose your own dream at night? I used to have this daydream about someday I'm gonna meet Jimmy ... Now Jimmy, if he's still alive today, he's gonna he's 92, 93 like I am, and he could be in a wheelchair but ... I'd like to find him and go down there and I'd like to take him out for a nice walk in his wheelchair, maybe go down a hill ... And then inexplicably my hands would slip and he would careen down the hill, which ended at a busy intersection, and into traffic. Anyway, if anybody knows where Jimmy Sweeney is, let me know.

Mohammed Qahtani: 'Words are power, words could be your power', Power of Words, Toastmasters International - 2015

2015, Los Vegas, Nevada, USA

[Pretending to light up a cigarette] What? Or you all think smoking kills? Let me tell you something. Do you know that the amount of people dying from diabetes are 3 times as many people dying from smoking? Yet, if I put a snicker bar, nobody would say anything. Do you know that the leading cause of lung cancer is not actually a cigarette, it’s your DNA? You could smoke for years and nothing would ever happen to you. This whole war against smoking is just to restrict the farming of tobacco.

Mr. Contest Chair, fellow Toastmasters and guests, I use these arguments — even though I just made them up — with a group of my friends and the results: five of them believed what I said, two of them started smoking. Words, when said and articulated in the right way, can change someone’s mind. They can alter someone’s belief. You have the power to bring someone from the slums of life and make a successful person out of them, or destroy someone’s happiness using only your words.

Does that seem a bit too good to be true? A simple choice of ‘word’ can make a difference between someone accepting or denying your message. You can have a very beautiful thing to say, but say it in the wrong words and [sssshhh] it’s gone. I have a son who is four, and he had this bad habit of writing on the walls with crayons. And one evening I walked into his room and he’s going at it, just writing and drawing and so on. And I said, “Hey, hey, hey! Are you stupid? Don’t you ever do that again?” And guess what happened. He did it again.

Nobody likes to be threatened. Nobody likes to be intimidated. His pride will not allow it. He did it again just to spite me. A week later, I walked into his room and again, he’s going at it and this time, he was even looking at me, just. I came down, I said “Sweetie, come here. Don’t do that, you’re a big boy now.” And he never did it again, because his pride wants him to be ‘the big boy’.

Have you ever wondered why nobody cares about ‘global warming’? Even though it’s a very serious issue, it could kill all of us, because when you go home and you flip on the TV and you see a scientist trying to talk about global warming, it goes something like this. [Imitating] “Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see from the graphs, that the statistics here – for 2014, it shows the water level is rising. This table shows that the mono-dioxide level and the third ozone layer, is at an alarming position.”

The message never gets across, but most importantly, if you are a person who is a role model – if you’re a person who has been admired, anything you say could be believed, anything you utter could be taken as truth. My friend Nasser, he loved his father, idealized his father, he would do anything to make him happy, but his father was the kind of person who was not easy to impress and year after year Nasser tried and his father’s like ‘no’. First year in college, Nasser had got straight A’s and he thought to himself this is it, this is what will finally make my dad proud. He picked up the phone, he called his dad, “Dad, I got straight A’s. Are you proud? Please tell me you are proud father.” “Yeah, listen son, I’ll have to call you back, I’m busy.”

‘I’m busy’, was the single sentence that broke the Camel’s back. And he started drinking, doing drugs, hanging out with the wrong crowd. Nasser why? Why are you throwing your life away? If the one person in the world that I care about the most doesn’t care then, then why should I. And one evening I got the phone call, Nasser is in the emergency room, drug overdose. I rushed to that hospital. I saw him on that bed and I saw that machine go beep, beeep, beeeeeeeep. And I saw doctors try to bring him back to life. Clear, [ssphhh] clear [sssphhh], clear [sssphhh] — it’s clear that a single word could have saved his life.

Words have power, words are power, words could be your power. You can change a life, inspire your nation and make up this world a beautiful place. Isn’t that what we all want it? Isn’t that why we are all in this hall? Your mouth can spit venom or it can mend a broken soul.

Ladies and gentlemen, let that be our goal. Contest Chair. Contest Chair: All right, then shortly, we’ll hear from our winner at this year. Please welcome to the stage first place in our Championship Mohammed Qahtani. And just one moment, we’ll hear from Mohammed. All right, let’s hear from the first place winner Mohammed. Mohammed Qahtani: I did not know, it’s this big. Ladies and gentlemen, when we did the semifinals and I won — they asked me to say something. And I said, honestly, I didn’t prepare anything because I did not expect to win.

And I’m coming here today and again, I did not expect to win. But I want you to think about what are your challenges and what are the things that you think is impossible, because this was impossible. Not just for me, but for almost everybody who knows me. And yet here it is, I don’t want to say it again, but if I can do this, think about that thing that you thought you could never do. Or you just gave up on because, maybe it’s way up ahead and I cannot do it. And when you do, I want you to remember that Mohammed Qahtani got this. I sure — and also you can do the same. Thank you.

Jess McGuire: 'I’m the founder, graduate, and now Head Goddess of the Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy', Nailed it! - 2017

3 July 2017, Toff in Town, Melbourne, Australia

Jess McGuire's original title for this talk was "Being A Woman In Your Thirties Can Be Hard, But These Tips And Tricks Will Help Unleash Your Inner Power Goddess This BOFY!!!!" Nailed it was a Wheeler Centre event, devised by James Colley showcasing writers and comedians, and asking them to argue polemics different from their own.

For most women I know, the end of the financial year can mean only one thing - time to take a long, hard look at your lifestyle choices and see what changes (preferably tax deductible!) you can make to ensure you’re living your best life from now until June 30th next year. It really all comes down to what I like to call the three Fs - fitness, fertility, and finances. And as luck would have it, ‘Advice On FFF’ is one of my five skills on LinkedIn, endorsed by over a dozen people at time of writing.

You might be wondering, much like the lady who accosted me in the bathrooms shortly before I came on stage, hey, what qualifies THIS woman to give me life advice? Haha, great question Sally *glares*. I’m the founder, graduate, and now Head Goddess of the Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy, a virtual un-university that combines affirming Skype sessions with challenging multiple choice personality tests in order to help the upper middle class find their passion - and attempt to make a living from it! I’m proud to say that in the 2016 edition of Mamamia’s 100 Most Powerful Aussie Mumtrepreneurs list, you can find 15 Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy graduates, which I think we can all agree is a yummy result!

As an emotionally qualified business and life coach, I think it’s important to connect with as many people as possible, and while normally I prefer that to be via $300 half hour Skype sessions, here we are. So without further ado, here are some insights and viewpoints many women might not have considered before to improve their life, but once you hear them, you’ll never look back.

Firstly, let’s talk about physical health. Ladies, your body is a temple, and you need to treat it as such. No, not one of those monkey riddled Balinese temples where they charge people to enter and it’s essential to carry a large stick to protect yourself from a rabies bite, but just a super nice temple like the one in the Wonder Woman movie - the Temple of Themyscira. Clean, airy, peaceful, fortified, minimalist, hair free, and toned beyond belief thanks to alternating days of cardio and pilates. I can’t tell if I’m still in trapped in that temple metaphor or not, but let’s continue.

It doesn’t matter what size you are, EVERYONE is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! But as a rule of thumb - if you can’t fit into anything at Lorna Jane, which runs up to a full figured size 16, it might be worth hitting a few extra seshes at the gym - mostly cardio, be a bit wary when it comes to weights as you don’t want to do anything that will bulk you up too much and cause you to lose your precious feminine energy.

As far as diet is concerned, here’s a little tip that’ll keep you slim: when you’re feeling like you’re carrying a little too much extra weight, why not sign up to an online rations challenge and pressure all your family and friends into sponsoring you? Not only will adopting the diet of a Syrian refugee ensure you don’t end up overindulging, but you’ll be raising HEAPS of awareness and it’ll serve as great content for your personal brand on the major social media channels!

Remember though: just because you keep your rig tight, that doesn’t mean every woman has the time, money, or even just enough self love to truly care about herself and maintain a healthy weight range. Be sensitive about this. If you know in advance you’re going to spend time with a larger person, I recommend going the extra mile and arranging special sturdy chairs, or maybe even sticking a post it note over the little metal plate in your building’s lift that could potentially display an offensive weight limit - perhaps scrawled with the message “This lift, like my heart, doesn’t really care about your weight”… It’s no use keeping this kindness a secret though - how else will your chunky buddy know how much you care? Before they come over, it’s a great idea to let your super morbidly obese friends know how much you support them by writing out a list of all the things you’ve done to cater for their body choice, so they know you’re in their corner! It’ll make them feel great!

Now, one of the biggest challenges facing many of the students I have at the Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy is the issue of fertility. Many of our female enrollments are in their late twenties and early thirties, and while they’re looking to nail the lucrative mumtrepreneur market once they graduate, there’s just one problem: no kids yet.

One thing I like to suggest is looking into foster care - it’s a great way for someone starting a small mumtreprenaur business to gain some extra income via the regular government payments, and you can use this quick start to parenthood as a way of connecting to potential clients online. No more just quietly ‘liking’ a post you see where some parent has shared an adorable anecdote about their little Arlo, now you’ll have some stories to share too!

But if you’re happy to play the long game, then perhaps it’s worth mentioning that a recent scientific study in Switzerland noted a huge increase in successful pregnancies amongst women aged 35 - 40 years old… if the father of the child was significantly younger. There’s never been a better time to cougar, and here’s a hot tip for anyone financially stable enough to go it alone in the parenting stakes but still keen to trawl for free seed to keep initial costs down: I have one word for you. Schoolies! Get yourself a tasteful Air BNB on the Gold Coast during the last two weeks in November and then hit the bars! Be sure to double check ID before taking anyone home - a fun little saying I like to remember when I’m knocking back Skinny Bitch cocktails at the bar is ‘Overage is the ONLY age’ - but once you do, you’re never more likely to find a male partner keen on avoiding both commitment and condom use than when hooking up with an eighteen year old recent high school graduate buzzing from the six pack of Bundy and rum cans he sank down before leaving the hostel.

If you’ve already got kids then - sorry for mentioning trawling nightclubs, I know it’s probably been a while! If you’re like most mums I know, you’re probably constantly under the pump and find it hard to get some all important me time when you need it most. Here’s a great tip I actually read from Gwyneth Paltrow’s newsletter GOOP, in an edition where she asked some ordinary working mums like venture capitalist Juliet de Baubigny and incredibly wealthy fashion designer Stella McCartney about how they handled work\life balance, and found time to honour their inner goddess: if you find it hard to get space and time to exercise before work and get in the right frame of mind to start your day, why not ask the nanny to come 45 minutes earlier than normal, and treat yourself to an extra yoga class before work? Smart!

And now, some financial advice. I’m not ashamed to admit that at one point I was $200,000 in debt due to my thirst for travel, five star living, and good old Colombian marching dust, until a few years ago I realised I was going to have to make some pretty swift changes to how I viewed money if I wanted the universe to start providing!!!!

One way I found was the quickest way to save on paying those annoying regular bills that really add up before too long like water, electricity, and gas is to simply to stop opening your mail. You may have heard the saying “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" That same science applies to debt!

If an envelope arrives marked Energy Australia but no one opens the envelope, is there actually a bill inside? Or just some pamphlets full of stock photos justifying a new usage rate rise? Who knows!!! After a couple of months you’ll find the bills just fade away from your mind, allowing you to spend your newly available extra cash on more important things that make you feel good, and the mental space you might have taken up with thoughts of budgets and impending disconnections have instead been filled with more positive affirmations and life goals. Sure, after about six months go past the electricity is likely to be switched off, but in my questionably qualified experience, if you’ve been redirecting those funds towards empowering things such as remedial massage, exotic facials, or perhaps an online un-university course at Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy that will result in you finally getting your crocheted cupcake holder business up and running - well then, surely the universe will have seen you’re ready for better things and a veritable money storm will already be heading your way!!!

I know as soon as I stopped opening my mail and and instead opened myself to all the possibilities the universe had to offer when it came to making money, I began finding extra income all over the place - unwatched handbags, my elderly mother’s savings account, and through the purchase of the domain name joyfulbizonlinelifecoachingandetsymanagementacademy.com and the associated PayPal account!!! Yes, it seems the very same energy that had demanded I ignore angry creditors had become the energy that guided my hand to both metaphorical and literal wads of cash in all sorts of exciting locations!!!! The fact is - and no one knows exactly why - but money and success just tends to follow fun, carefree people who don’t pay their bills. Don't bother doing the sums and trying to figure out how this works, it's not computable. Just know it WORKS. And if you’re interested in finding out more, why not take my online money management course which you can sign up for at joyfulbizonlinelifecoachingandetsymanagementacademy.com/paypal?

Another financial tip: once you’ve got that extra income rolling in, you may also like to start buying things of intrinsic value as a way to enjoy having money while also gaining liquid items (an industry term for things that can be reduced to liquid with enough heat or boiling). Silver cutlery is a good start, as are NBA collector cards which, I was assured as a 12 year old, only accumulate in value (I consider my 1992-93 season Michael Jordan card to be my superannuation nest egg!). But don’t restrict yourself by just considering investing in inanimate objects - small pedigree dogs like Chihuahuas and Bichon Frises are also a great investment as they are a statement item that the universe can't ignore, and if you get hard up at any point you can always sell them on Gumtree - in fact, it's not a bad idea to mark them up and sell them on before they hit five years of age, just because that's usually the age in-bred dogs start to go south.

As for home ownership, while some like to make out that the real estate market is almost impossible to navigate these days, I know of one particularly savvy 23 year old who owns not one, not two, but THREE investment properties - and all it took to enter the property market aged just 19 years old was pluck, a little elbow grease, having the strength to say no to brunches at cafes with friends, and a small $150,000 gift to get started from his mum and dad. If your mum and dad aren’t inclined to provide you with money for a deposit, and let’s face it, not all parents love their children, then you can always angle to become executor of their will and once a desirable outcome is in order… *conspiratorial wink* Well, you’ll think of something.

As we step out into the sparkling new terrain that is the 2017/2018 financial year, I hope my wisdom and insights help inspire a whole new group of women to become powerful female life warrior goddesses, and also maybe sign up to my online un-university Joyful Biz Online Life Coaching and Etsy Management Academy. Thank you.

This was written for the first ever Melbourne edition of Nailed It!, an event which sees writers/comedians/journalists presenting shit think pieces in front of a live audience. Thanks to The Toff In Town for hosting, the Wheeler Centre and James Colley for organising, and the delightful audience who left the house on a freezing Monday night in Melbourne’s winter to listen to a bullshit filled diatribe read by yours truly plus a heap of talented writers and performers such as First Dog On The Moon, Dee Fidge, Lucy Valentine, and Nayuka Gorrie.

Cal Wilson: 'My grandmother had a stare that could pin you to the spot like a nail gun', Show and Tell for Grown Ups - 2016

Cal Wilson is a Melbourne based comedian who hailed from New Zealand. She participated in a Show and Tell for Grown Ups night at the Toff in Town organised and conceived by author Tony Wilson, who MC'd the event. In this story she shows and tells her grandmother's cookie jar. Heartfelt and moving, about family dynamics. It appears on the speakola.com website - for all speeches great and small.

11 July 2016, Toff in Town, Melbourne, Australia

Hello. This is my grandmother's cookie jar. It is not terribly attractive, and it's not something that I would choose to buy new, but it is very precious to me. When I look at, it fixes me in a time and a place. That is on the counter of her tiny kitchen in her tiny flat in Christchurch in the late 70s, early 80s. I was fascinated by this cookie jar. Firstly, because it had "cookies" written on it. We didn't have cookies in New Zealand, so it seemed impossibly exotic. Secondly, because in the 45 years that I have known of this jar's existence, it has never held cookies or biscuits. It has never held a comestible at all. I didn't know what it had inside it at my grandmother's house because her biscuits were homemade, and they always came swathed in baking paper, and enshrined in Tupperware.

She was an amazing baker, my grandmother. She would come to visit us, and it was called, "Gran's coming to fill the tins." She would come over with her shortbread, and her caramel slice, and her tan square, and her pink square, and her forcer biscuits and her ladybird biscuits, and these are all terms that I don't know if any other family had. But she was an incredible baker, and I always wanted to know what was inside the cookie jar, but I was too scared to ask, because my grandmother was a formidable woman. Right up until just about the day that she died, I was terrified of her.

She was pretty amazing, she was pretty funny, she was very articulate, she was a great storyteller, and my family all used to joke that we didn't have conversations, we had tag-team monologue. We used to say that we'd learn to do it tag-team, so that one person would talk and talk and talk and talk and talk until they'd run out of breath, and then the next person would jump in and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk until they'd run out of breath, and I said that my grandmother had developed a technique of circular breathing, so no else would get a word in.

But she was an amazing woman, she was a widow for 30 years, she was an incredible sewer, she was a great knitter. She lived on her own, she supplemented her pension by working in a market garden and she worked at the Gryphons Biscuit Factory. We were never allowed to buy my favourite animal biscuits because she'd seen what they did in the factory. Animal biscuits are not made from real animals. They're just in the shape of animals or amorphous blobs. But as children, we loved them. But we were forbidden because she'd seen them fall on the floor and be swept up and put in packets. She was an incredible woman. I lived in fear of incurring her wrath, which is why I never asked what was in the jar, because I didn't want to get pinned with a stare. My grandmother had a stare that could pin you to the spot like a nail gun. When you got in trouble, it was never a raised voice or anything like that, it was just this withering glare that was like you could cut a new door in the wall with the hate from her glare.

I was absolutely terrified of her. She was the sort of grandmother... I had two grandmothers, clearly, because I have two parents. Weirdly to me as a child, they both had the same first name and I thought it was such an incredible coincidence that two women called "Gran" had ended up in the same family. My mother's mother, Gran Fraser was all about greeting you at the door first, and kind of shoving your parents aside and giving you a cuddle and presents and things like that. Whereas Gran Wilson, my dad's mum, was "children should be seen and not heard," and that was quite convenient because I was always under the bed when she came over, 'cause I was just scared I was gonna get in trouble. She had very high standards in all things, especially hygiene. She grew up on a farm and she hated animals, and she had a thing where if a cat had the temerity to sit on her fence she would hose it off. The conversations would usually be like "I've just gotta go and hose a cat off the fence." She was quite dedicated to the removal of cats from fences, and she was very insistent on hygiene.

When she died, we remember discussing as a family what we should put on her headstone, and I suggested "Now go and wash your hands." Because that was one of her things. I was so afraid of I remember being made to have a sleepover at her house, doesn't that sound terrible? You should be like "Yay, we're going to Gran's!" But I was terrified, because I knew we would have meatloaf, and it was very good meatloaf apparently but I do not like meatloaf. But I had to eat it. But I was having my lunch in the garden, and I accidentally flipped the plate into the lawn and I freaked out because she would know that I had been mucking around with my lunch and so I remember eating the grass-covered food quickly so that she wouldn't discover what I had done but mostly I was terrified because I'd got potato in her lawn. It was a very good lawn.

She had very high standards in all things. She had such high standards that until I was a teenager I was quite convinced that she was somehow part of the royal family. That side of the family, they spoke a bit posh, they sounded English even though we had not been to England, well, we come originally, but not for a long time. Whenever you told her that you'd achieved something she'd say... If I said "I've got an A!" She'd go "Well, no grandchild of mine would get a B." You're like "Alright! Okay! Woo! Glad I got an A, won't tell you about the B." Or she would tell me that one of my other cousins had achieved that earlier, and I had two other cousins who were the same age as me and I found out years later as an adult she would sort of play us off against each other.

None of us realised, but she would tell me that I was too loud, I was too messy, I was too clumsy, I was told off for being too short, which I'm not entirely sure what I could have done about that, I think I wasn't eating enough, probably because It was covered in grass. But I was terrified of her. The thing that we found so hard was that to adults she was this hilarious, witty, sharp, fiery woman who could hold court and was just a... Friends would come and meet her, and "What a character your grandmother is!" And when she eventually moved into a retirement village, she was the cover girl on the brochure for the retirement village. It was Doris giving a bit of [pose]. And she was beautiful, she was a beautiful elderly woman. She had this beautiful pure white hair and it was always beautifully set.

But I seemed to be the only person aware of how mean she was to me as a kid, and I'd tell my parents, they'd be like "Aw, that's just Gran. That's just Gran!" I was like "Yeah, and I'm just me, and it's not working out very well!" As I grew older, I became less terrified of her, but I also didn't want to spend time with her, because whenever I would spend time with her, I knew that there would be something that I would be pulled up on. Even to the point where I was 26 and I was living in Auckland and I came home to visit her, and I'd dyed my hair platinum blonde, and I thought I looked fantastic. I looked a bit like the girl version of Tin-Tin. Platinum blonde hair, and I get out of the car, and I go inside to greet her, and the first thing that she said to me was "Ah! They told me your hair was the same colour as mine! But it's not, it's dirty white."

The other thing that I recall her saying to me very clearly was after my career had started to take off and I was doing a bit of stand-up comedy and I was getting work on TV. She said to me on the phone one day, "I think it's so wonderful, the way your parents can still be proud of you." We can laugh about it now. Eventually as an adult my family started to realise that she was quite hard on me, and they started to become more protective of me. Then when I was 30, she was very old, and she was reaching the end of her life. She'd been very ill, and I went to visit her in hospital. It was a moment of Hollywood closure. It was really strange, it was like if I was gonna write it in a book you'd kind of go "Well, that's a bit trite." So I'd been to see her, and she burst into tears and he held my hand and she said "I'm so sorry that I never told you I was proud of you." She said, "I haven't been a good grandmother," and I started crying, of course.

I said "Of course, you've been a wonderful grandmother. I love you so much." I went home and I was like "Fuck!", like "Fucking hell!" It was crazy. I said to my mother, "Gran said that she was sorry that she never said she was proud of me," and I was expecting my mum to be really moved by it. She said "Well, she could have said that years ago." I was like "It's a good point, Barbara, it's a good point." But it was still an amazing moment for me, and I'm so glad that we got to have that conversation while she was still alive. We're not gonna have that conversation after she's dead, I'm not into that psychic shit. It's not gonna happen. So I'm glad that we had that moment.

 At her funeral, it was very sad. I was quite sort of spaced out at her funeral, because obviously I had very mixed feelings about things. Then a friend of my father's got up and spoke. And he talked about how when he'd gone to university, my grandmother had taken him under her wing and she'd given him wonderful advice, and been a beautiful friend to him, and had stayed his friend for the rest of his life. I just remember weeping and feeling so grateful that she had that relationship with someone, even though it wasn't me. But I was like "She could be that to someone else, and someone else has loved her wholeheartedly in a way that I couldn't quite manage."

I found out eventually what was in the cookie jar, and it was just receipts and rubber bands and bread tags and stuff. All the detritus that you can't find a home for. When my dad asked me what I wanted from Gran's things, it was like "All I want is the cookie jar," because that's just... When I see it, I picture that it's Gran's flat, and amongst the kind of mixed feelings about her, that was the heart of her house for me was the kitchen where she cooked for us and she made us food. Now it sits on our sideboard and I keep business cards and coins and keys and other detritus in it. I'm so aware as I'm standing here it feels like I'm holding an urn. A pretty shit urn, but I love having it, and I love having it in my everyday life. It's been very lovely for me to think about this cookie jar and to realise and remember that I really did love my grandmother, and that she loved me.

And that is my show and tell.

Related speeches, Damian Callinan at same event, loquat jam.

Damian Callinan: 'In my family, we rarely went down the spreads aisle in the supermarket', Show & Tell for Grown-Ups - 2016

Damian Callinan beautiful, hilarious moving story about a jar of jam, performed for the Wheeler Centre's 'Show and Tell for Grown Ups event at Toff in Town on 7th July 2016. Quality story telling in the style of The Moth, by one of Australia's best comeidans.

 July 2016, Toff In Town, Melbourne, Australia

'Show and Tell for Grown Ups' is a live storytelling initative presented by Tony Wilson at The Wheeler Centre. Guests bring along a signifricant show and tell, and tell a story about it. Damian Callinan is an acclaimed Australian comedian. 

This is going to podcast, so I'll need to talk this through...

There's a bit of a reveal about to happen... I'm holding a rather lurid tartany type bag, and inside is some more kind of tartany stuff ...t he suspense...

Inside that, is... another scarf, ...and

A jar of loquat jam in the middle. Wow... what a, what a build up. An ultimately pedestrian item. We're all familiar with loquats, are we? Aereo Bodrio Japonica, I think is the botanical term for the loquat.

It's a flowering fruit tree, originated from Japan, popular in south China as well. It's grown commercially as a fruit tree and also an ornamental tree.

I never trust fruit trees that have to say they are ornamental as well, usually means the fruit’s a bit shit, if you've got to describe yourself as both things, then you need to have a good hard look at your fruit. Loquats.

Ah, has anyone here tasted a loquat?

Yeah. For those of you haven't, they taste like the fruit of an ornamental tree ...essentially.

This is visual, but they, they're one of those fruits, you go ehm ahm ehmm mmm nice, thank you...

Even birds, have you ever seen a bird eating a loquat? It pulls exactly the same face. It's just nyomn-yaaaeh ehr, They just haven't got the intellect to not go to the next one, just, eh nyehnyeh that’s a bit tart, it's probably better for jam augh-orh, but they just keep going.

Humans usually have one and go, ‘thank you... ‘, and somewhat like their cousin, the cumquat, if you put enough sugar in and cook the shit out if it, it's probably ok jam. That's about it.

I'm from a home-made-jam family ― who are home-made-jam people? Who grew up with home made jam in the house?

Make some noise home-made-jam people!

Make some noise mainly-bought-jam people!

About fifty, fifty.

In fact in my family, we rarely went down the spreads isle, in the supermarket. But if we did it was just to kind of like have a quick raid on the Vegemite, or to scoff at the people with bought jam in their trolley ―’Oh Mum, the McAdam's have got bought-jam *laughs *, oh it's low joule, oh God! Poor things.’

But, we were a home-made jam family, and there were rules of consumption in our house. Mum was very strict on it. Rule number one, spread thin, ok, so it lasted, so the home made jam lasted for most of the year, spread it thin and even, of course.

And number two, Mum's rule was, you could have jam, or jam and cream. But, no butter and jam. Has anyone else had that rule? Mum just went, 'No, it just goes round and round in your mouth and just comes straight back out again, it's rubbish.' That was her rule.

Although the rules of engagement used to get thrown out when Uncle Lawrie came round on a Sunday afternoon, for scones. And Mum would have to secret herself from the room as Uncle Lawrie put on a fairly generous layer of butter, followed by a very generous layer of jam, sometimes two different varieties... and then he put cream on top of that!

Butter, two jams and cream!

Fuck off Uncle Lawrie!

We love you, but Mum would just be pale and wan after that.

Our family had a tradition; it was called Operation Apricot Jam Day, every January. For those of you who had a stone fruit tree in your family, you'll be aware of it, this was – no one was allowed out – that was it, everyone was on board for Operation Apricot Jam Day.

And I was the youngest, smallest, lightest and most agile of the family, so where the ladders and my other siblings couldn't get, I would be forced up higher and higher.

Now ordinarily on a normal day, my mum would – if she'd seen me in a tree, she would order me down, but no, not on Operation Apricot Jam Day.

On OAJD, Mum would send me up, through the canopy, higher and higher into rarefied air. And Dad wasn't a great pruner, so there would be branches growing on weird angles, sticking me in the back,

I'd be covered in sap, it's like I’d come out of some sort of birth-sac. Just writhing, trying to get further. Once I came across the body, the skeleton of a World War II parachutist ― higher and higher into the top of the tree.

And every now and again I'd just catch a glimpse of Mum through the mottled leaves, and she'd be down there, looking up with her apricot bulging apron, just looking at me, ‘Further!'

I'd be holding onto a bough that was just – she'd go ' No, you can't get down, no. There's more over there, near the electric fence... I don't care if there's a bird of prey eating it, get them!'

Now, the skill then, was to make the apricot jam last for the rest of the year, and unfortunately, my brother Paul, who's actually here tonight, he had a voracious teenage appetite, we used to drop short, around September or October, by which time, we'd move on to the plum jam, from Auntie Dot's plum tree, from Reservoir.

That'd get us to about mid November, and then, the shame on Mum's face, we're in Safeway, Greensborough, and I’d just see the trolley turn down the spreads isle. The gingham topped jars had dwindled, and Mum had to *whispers * buy bought jam. You could see people looking at her, whispering, 'Kathleen's got bought jam in her trolley!'

But, it was never as good. It was never as good as Mum's jam, 'cause my Mum could cook. Mum could cook.

In fact, our families were really kept together by Mum's cooking. Like, at Christmas we used to play a cricket game against my cousins the Andersons, in the driveway. And they usually turned into open revolt and the only thing that kept them coming back every year – 'cause we destroyed them - was Mum's pavlova at the end of it.

Now Mum was an old fashioned cook. Anyone remember the Simplicity Cookbook? The Women's Weekly? We used to call it ‘The Simple City Cookbook’. It had a gingham pattern on the front. It was classic old CWA style cooking, but Mum started to become a real exotic as she got older, she started to, you know, move from mixed grills to Kai Si Ming.

She started moving from Shepherd's Pie to Apricot Chicken! Hooooah!

Until one fateful day, Mum over-reached her ambition. That was the day my mum made ‘The Brazilian Casserole’.

The Brazilian Casserole, I'm not exactly sure what it was, but we were all reasonably sure it meant it was devoid of hair. Those who were there that fateful night can only remember two of the ingredients. The two main ingredients were beef and instant coffee. I'll say those again, so's they can sink in. Beef, cubed, and instant coffee. We tried everything, salt, pepper, ice cream ―that shit just wouldn't stay down!

It was the only time I ever saw my father actively wish we had a dog so he could give it to it.

So Mum's tastes had become quite exotic as she got older. Now Mum was also, and this is a thing, a bit of a tradition in our family. We're gift givers, particularly on holidays. We love to come back with souvenirs.

Now often when you get souvenirs on holidays, they're a bit shit. And you just go, oh thank you, and then just don't know what to do with them.

Mum was pretty good, she'd always find something that you could either consume or it had good sentimental value, and she – well, her strike rate wasn't perfect, the monkey arm back-scratcher, from her first cruise, not one of her finer moments.

Nor was the Cornish fisherman's mug. She’d managed to find one in jade, yeah, a jade Cornish fisherman's mug. It's not a colour you'd associate with a scrumpy drinking smugglers in the southwest of England, but Mum found it.

And we began to reciprocate this. When I became an adult, once I started going on tours, I'd always find things for her, and Mum used to absolutely crave, and relish the stories associated with each. Oh look, it's an iron-ore necklace from Broken Hill, or some Belgian lace from Bruges, or the monkey arm back scratcher that she'd forgotten she'd given me and I gave back to her.

And so one day I was on holidays in Bateman's Bay and I found loquat jam. Now, my only previous experience with loquats, apart from my first anghh nyehnyeh moment was – Terri Psiakis is a comedian friend of ours, and writer ― she was having a party in her share house in Fitzroy. And they had a loquat tree and we all tasted them together.

It was like a share house with only one organically grown fruit and they were all starving artists, but that's the reputation the loquat has, they hadn't tried them.

So we all tried them together, and loquats became kind of a symbol of my friendship with Terri. So when I saw these I bought two jars, one for Mum and one for Terri Psiakis.

So I went home, and ah, well I hadn't worked out when I was going to see Mum next, and I'd been asked to perform at the Yarra Valley Grape Grazing Festival at my cousin's winery. I was doing one of my solo shows, a show called ‘Sportsman's Night’. Some of you may remember the sequel was a show called ‘The Merger’, more recently. It's about a country town Footy club.

Anyway, I was performing ‘Sportsman's Night’. It was a dinner and show affair, so cabaret seating, and all my family decided to come. It was kind of last minute, not all of them, but a lot of them, my cousins, and Mum and Dad were there and just before I left, I found out they were coming, so I put the loquat jam in the console of the car, and turned up ―

And while I was doing the show was one of the times I really realised how unconditionally loving my mother is, 'cause they were very supportive, they'd come to see all of my shows, but ― and not that my stuff is particularly offensive, but I never used to edit it because Mum and Dad were there. I'd just tell the show as it was, and there was a bit, it was a very lit room, unlike this, and I moved across, I was doing a routine. Troy Carrington, the Coach of the Bodgie Creek Football Club -  and I'll just do a bit of the routine, so you can get the context, he was telling a footy trip story ― his footy trips were to things like the Mozart trail from Prague to Vienna, just to give you a bit of an idea.

So Troy's telling his story:

[as Troy] “Yeah, ah, we were on the footy trip in twenty-oh-two, we done the Mary McKillop Pilgrimage, and all the boys were dressed up in the brown habits of the Josephite order, with the white wimple and the ABC symbol on the front, the blue thing for the Catholics in the room, who have got a eye for detail. Anyway, what we done, right, we went to each of the um, the famous sites, like we stopped, the bus stopped off first at the hospital, then her first school ... where she had her last root before she took her vows,”

And as I said that last line, 'where she took her last root before she took her vows', without meaning to, my eyeline completely moves and, I'm sorry to stare at you madam, who is looking at me – not like my mother, she’s smiling at least, but Mum was looking at me, there was no judgement, there was no appalled, maybe she didn't get it, I'm not sure? But she was staring, holding my father’s hand, looking at me like I'd just told her I'd been canonised myself.

Damien Callinen, patron saint of blaspheming about other saints.

Anyway, it was just a beautiful moment on stage, I had this moment I just looked at her and went, ‘my God, I love you.’ She had just completely not judged me and I realised that I could say anything and it'd be fine.

Anyway, the next day, I went for a run, I came home and the phone rang, it was my brother Paul, and he told me the news.

And the news was that Dad had run Mum over. In the driveway of their retirement village, and Mum was still alive, she'd been rushed to hospital – I can remember where I was, you know those moments, in your life you can remember exactly where you were, I can remember I was standing, and I was just staring out the window of my faux-warehouse dwelling in Maribyrnong, probably wondering why I was living in a faux-warehouse dwelling in Maribyrnong, to be honest.

And I went to the hospital and the first thing I saw when I got there was Mum going past on a gurney. And I'd seen this about two years before, maybe eighteen months before ― Christmas Eve, Mum had had a cocktail of drugs and I kind of arrived at exactly the same moment, seen her go across, and we all thought she wasn't going to make it that time, and she pulled through. So I had this moment of seeing exactly the same thing and went, oh Mum's going to be right, it's gonna be fine. 

Anyway, about two days later, we kind of heard the news that we expected ― that it was non survivable, and we had to turn off life support. Now, when we turned off life support, the whole family were around, like a tableaux, kind of holding hands, and scarves. There was a Collingwood scarf around Mum's neck – only thing ruining the picture, to be honest –

And they tell you, when life support gets turned off, it can happen immediately or it can take a while. So there was that moment when the machine got turned off and then... Mum snored, pretty much, there was a really guttural kind of *makes sound *, and we were trying not to laugh, and then time kicked on and it got to about half an hour, to three quarters of an hour... people started like, moving positions, and eventually one of my brother-in-laws, just went, 'I might go to the pub'. Which was fine, it wasn't exactly the right thing, it was for me at the moment, so gradually the tableaux broke up. I managed to stay with her most of the time and went home for a couple of hours, and I was there when she passed away.

We went back to Mum and Dad's house later in the day, and because I was the one, me and my partner Jo at the time, we were the only ones there when it happened, so I was having a kind of a different process, I think for some of my siblings and family she was already gone, but for me it was the moment when she actually passed away. So we went back to the house, and I kind of didn't want to be with other people, so I went into Mum's walk-in robe.

And I was just like touching her stuff ― and it's stuff, the stuff here, ‘oh that's mum's scarf’. Being near her stuff actually helped me connect to her a bit.

And then, about five minute later I came out wearing Mum's kimono. 'Too soon?'

So anyway I got asked to do the eulogy, which Tony talked about, and the end, it was a great honour to be asked to do it, but obviously a difficult task. And I wanted to make it celebratory, 'cause I think the thing with a situation like a death as tragic as that, where my father had been so, a man that had been with his wife for sixty one years, and for it to end in such a awful way, I didn't want their story to be hijacked by that event.

At the same time, that meant lots of people came to the funeral who didn't know, who came to support me and my family. So I wanted to make it funny, I wanted to make it celebratory and tell that stuff ― like about her cooking, and apricot jam, and all that sort of stuff.

Anyway as I got to the church, I realised this was still sitting in the console of the car, I hadn't got to give it to her, so just so I could pull the heartstrings of the audience a little bit more as I finished the speech, I put that on her coffin as I walked off.

I took it back afterwards; she wasn't gonna fucken use it.

So, I found this recently, I was moving house recently, and I found it, still in my pantry, and I was de-cluttering, 'cause I was moving into a much smaller place. And I was really being quite ruthless, and getting rid of things, and I almost threw it out then I thought, no, I don't want to ever run out of Mum's jam.

So all the stuff here, is other stuff, this was the scarf Mum made me when I started Uni. My first overseas trip, Mum made me an undie bag... I've still got it, and I take it everywhere I go.

So I think, just to finish off with, I think it might be good for us all just to get through this moment together. Let’s all pretend to taste a loquat. Count of three, one two three...

Nye nyenyeh

Thanks very much.

Kathleen, wearing the kimono featured in this story, with Adrian.

Damian's beuatiful eulogy for his mother Kathleen was the first speech ever posted to Speakola.

Rob Carlton's beautiful show and tell about a stick is also a Speakola favourite.

Adrian and Kathleen