To whom it may concern.
(Pending a better title)
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Get me the fuck out of this self indulgent pseudo philosophical hell hole.
So you clicked on the tiny little pencil icon at the extreme bottom of the dustyrich.com website. Well done you found my secret. What a useless treasure.
Like a serial killer who leaves clues at the scene of the crime, hoping to be caught but trying to make it difficult enough for the authorities to catch him so the responsibility for his crimes fall at least in part to his pursues.
So are these what can only be described as the near secret ramblings of a securely insecure agent of existence in the form of Dusty Richardson. Read at you own peril. Oh it's the correct use of grammar you seek? Seek elsewhere.
18 August 2021
This is a copy paste altered version of a text message I sent an old friend who innocently asked "How are you". I puked this message back at him. I've added a few things here and there but you get the gist.
"Hey dude , sorry brother. If I’m honest. Which I shall be. Much to my own disgust.
I've been going through some heavy shit mentally lately. I’d call them metal breakdowns but at this stage the metaphorical mental car is a write off on the side of the road.
But you know how it goes, we wallow in our damp dark holes and forget or rather overlook messages from friends because it’s hard to hear things down here.
In saying all that, a little context is important. I don't want to seem like I'm feeling down or anything.
The career I’ve been toiling at for over a decade like a farmer planting corn on a sand dune diligently working for a good harvest, just didn’t seem to be going anywhere even before a global pandemic wiped out any meagre plans I had.
It’s not the loss of income that’s the big problem, although definitely a symptom, it’s the loss of identity that is the true struggle of the comedian in the time when laughter is not the best medicine.
It’s difficult to explain to a 9to5 about leaping blindly and full of faith into ones dreams.
Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life OR love what you do and every single day will be a struggle for literal and philosophical survival.
A silly thing to do.
So my “career” lays in tatters which has got me questioning my decisions past, present and future.
For what could be fear, lack of self belief, toxic positivity or even conditioned pessimism the future seems fraught with instability.
And this all on quite literally the eve of the birth of my innocent pure little girl.
An unwitting new player in the game, unaware of the world we have chosen for her.
She turns in my wife’s womb slowly finishing up her safe inexistence ready to exist in less than two months.
But daddy’s got to get his ass out of this hole, on a tight deadline.
Daddy’s got to figure out what he wants to be as an example for his little impressionable girl.
A bitter failure who let a global health crisis be the incredibly large straw that broke the camels back on his dreams.
An obsessed mad man who chased a delusion right past her childhood or maybe a house-husband who was adept at laundry while he grumbled about what he could have been if it weren’t for this or that. Who knows what daddy will be, daddy doesn't know.
Apologies for this self indulgent essay, a comedy of errors if you will. A Greek tragedy with a dash of comedy. And believe me I know it’s painful to read but imagine writing it haha.
I’m also very aware that there are those far worse off than I am. I am reminded quite often by this pesky empathy, you cant spell empathetic without pathetic. The feelings internalizes the frustration but first a coat of guilt to slide smoothly into your selfish gut. Like a donut of “don’t do’s”. Yummy!
It’s just gone midnight here after a long tough ass day, after a long ass month, after a long ass decade. Hence the looong ass dripping in metaphors poetic babbling. But I needed this and besides you did asked "How are you?"
I'm good and you?"
Now some context for you, you deserve this punishment for clicking the clearly secret fairly well hidden pencil icon.
This message was texted after a long day that started out with me working out in our terrible garden. I'm renovating a sloped, rocky, sandy, dog shit infested 6m by 9m patch of suburban heaven.
I've got 7 weeks before my first child arrives to complete the work.
What's a new born going to do with a freshly grown patch of grass you ask? Fuck if I know, it's my first new born.
But it's not for the infant it's for the two dogs we have, rather it's to ensure the two dogs we have not to tread in dirt and or faeces E. coli.
More than that it's a promise. A promise I made to my wife, who was carrying my zygote at the time so technically a promise to both of them that I would have the garden ready in time for her birth.
I made this promise during a time when I was sacrificing any and all relationship time with her due to my attempts at creating a "new" idea in my dwindling comedy career, oh if I only knew how dwindled it would become. This at the start of the thing we've come to know as the "pandemic".
I was spending 18hr days on the wonderful failure I called "The Dusty Rich Comedy Circus". What I thought was a brilliant idea (aren't they all). Combining the intimacies of a live stand up comedy gig with the grandeur of the circus. a task I would achieve by using an innovative approach to stage design with projectors, animated backdrops and projection mapping.
I created the sketches, the costumes, the artwork, marketing, online content, branding, the animation, the tech, I sowed the curtains, a fucking top hat, 3 cockroach costumes, many many other spread way too thin creations. Oh and I spent around 40min on stage hosting the show.
To summarize I promised my wife and unborn child that I would make time before the unborn became born to finish the garden while starting a production company in October of 2020. The pandemic year 1.
So today started off with me busy fulfilling the promise of a garden that didn't look like a gang of builders didn't just leave in a hurry.
My wife informed me the baby was not moving or barely moving.
Now with all the marvelous medical improvements we've made as humanity one of the best way's to know if your fetus is feeling good is regular recorded movement.
As the useless Dad knee deep in the mud and dog shit that's fairly heresay medical evidence. Being that the child is not gestating in my womb, being that the useless male form is only good for carrying fence palings and maybe doing a successful cum.
Immediately I'm sick to my womb-less stomach. But with a cheerful smile I say...
"Well you know what the Mater Hospital Brisbane told us, the pregnancy assessment center is open 24/7 so if you're worried at any time just pop in to make sure. Don't wait just pop in. remember the only way to tell if the most important thing in your entire life is doing alright is to judge by the regular recorded movements inside the womb which is beneath your skin and you can neither see nor hear for any confirmation."
A sentiment regurgitated by the many "different" "care-givers"(a self titled name midwifes are rolling with now days) that we have met via brief impersonal meet's in the labyrinth that is the Mater hospital or even more impersonal zoom meets we've all become begrudgingly accustomed to in these impersonal times.
Obviously I didn't say all that. I just said let's go when you're ready, give me a 15 min warning so i can clean the dog shit from under my nails and out of my hair. Not sure how it got in there.
She hobbled back up stairs to our dinning room table, which is now a home office. You might think I'm typing that with a bit of stank but I'm truly grateful she's able to work from home because old hunter gatherer over here cant do shit for deer skins from the cave.
At 2:30pm after she paid a portion of the mortgage she warned me we'd be leaving soon. I downed tools and treaded dirt and E.Coli through the house to hit the shower.
Got stuck in end of day school traffic on the way to the hospital as I cursed every 4 foot something mother trying to peer over the dashboard of a land cruiser, picking up there spawn from the 483 schools between us and the hospital. Cursing myself knowing I'd be in the same traffic soon and then for the rest of my life, cursing those who were not suffering the same fate as me.
Finally arrived at the hospital at 3:15pm.
Now it's 1:28am the next day of this wonderful adventure and I have to go sleep, why? You're an 18hr day kind of guy.
Well what happened at that hospital from 3:15pm until now drained me emotionally and mentally like I can imagine only the day of my wife going into labor will. It makes sense to get some rest before I type out the rest of this nonsense. not to mention the sleep will obviously be invaluable to me when I don't get to have it anymore.
until next time.