the horizon

hello hello hello,

once again it's been too long, but once again not much has been happening.
christmas passed without any major dramas, and new years eve... well i don't really remember, but i think that's rather the point.


drunken youth!

2005 was an ace year, some highlights were:
-doing my first ever comedy festival show.
-first interstate trips to do stand up.
-performing in front of 1500 people in the raw national final, and coming runner up.
-selling out 'i heart racism' in the fringe, and getting a special commendation.

the challenge for 2006 is to up the stakes, and make even cooler things happen, starting with my first ever trip to the adelaide fringe festival in just over a weeks time. i'm performing in two completely different shows, details of which are below:


FABLES, CHUCKLES AND A BOHEMIAN DRAGON



Three of comedy’s emerging talents have hit the road! Hailing from Melbourne and Sydney, the fresh and offbeat comic minds of Justin Lodge, Tommy Dassalo (Raw Comedy Finalists, 2005) and Daniel Moore (contributing writer for ABC TV's 'The Glass House') bring you an hour of comedy and diversity.

7pm, February 28 - March 19, Club 199, 199 North Terrace.

Tickets can be purchased here: clicky!

I HEART RACISM



Cameron Broadbent is so left-wing that even John Butler is passé. So when he moves in with his bigoted, gun toting grandfather, the result is an eye-opening fusion of cartoons, theatre & Supa Fly comedy! Highly commended, sell-out hit of the 2005 Melbourne Fringe Festival! It’s the new black!

10pm, March 6 - 11, Queens Arms Theatre, 88 Wright st. Adelaide.

Tickets can be purchased here: clicky!

i'm gonna do my best to update this thing regularly with updates and photos of debauchery whilst over there.

in other news, i'm on at the local this week (feb 20) and i may or may not be bringing hilarious monster truck dvd footage with me! don't miss it!



a better update real soon, honest!

-tom

one plus one is one

hello bloglings,

I just noticed I haven't put anything here for a little while. Actually, that's a lie. I noticed quite some time ago, but I haven't had anything worthwhile to put here. Truth is, I've had wicked writers block for the last couple months, which has creeped it's way into everything. and i do mean everything. when you can't even get your head together enough to scribble out a half-arsed blog entry to throw out to the internet so that it can be read by 6 people, then you know you're in trouble.

but I think I'm very nearly getting over it, and starting to be able to function with a pen again.

we're currently delving into the rewriting phase of 'I Heart Racism.' we also had a photoshoot with snaptastic wunderperson Wombat the other day. the photos came out awesomely (as was expected) and our poster looks like it's gonna be shit hot.

below is one of my favorite photos ever, from the Fringe festival afterparty:



in gig news, stuff is slow over the summer. the only things i have booked at the moment are Wednesday December 28 at Cue Bar in Brunswick, and January 9 at the Local, with Judith Lucy and Danny Bhoy. oh yeah - kiss my face!

today I had pasta for lunch.

OH i nearly forgot the most important part of news of the last few months. I was lucky enough to have a chance encounter with one of my idols, and the main influence of my stand up comedy, H.P Baxxter!



yeah! for the three people that don't know, H.P Baxxter is the frontman of German techno outfit 'Scooter.' probably best known for their inspired reworking of Supertramp's "The Logical Song" and seen below misrepresented on Google Image Search:



You might also know them from smash hit (in underground germany) albums such as 'Mind the gap', which contains one studio disc, and one live disc. The somewhat overlooked genius of this album is that the two discs are completely indistinguishable, due to the fact that Scooter tend to dub crowd noises over all their studio tracks, therefore making the live disc quite redundant, as it sounds just like the studio disc, but with shitter production, and a less robotic crowd. awesome!

Anyway, I happened to bump into Sir H. P. Baxxter (enigmatic German techno troubadour and responsible for the purpose giving quote: "All we want is for you to take off your bra and panties, and throw them onto the stage.") down at a market (he asked me not to specify where exactly the market was, as he quite likes it there, and doesn't want to find himself routinely swamped by Scooter's massive and loyal fanbase)

When I first saw him, he was at a fishmonger's stall, questioning "How much is this fish?" a cunning reference to one of Scooter's better known tracks that seemed to be somewhat wasted on the fishmonger, but which immediately alerted me to the fact that i was indeed staring at The Baxx. I nervously approached him, broke the ice with some small talk about the price of fish (he appreciated the reference) and before long we were drinking pineapple juice in a nearby cafe (again, he asked that I not specify which one)

We had a great old chat, Baxxtarino and I. I thrilled him with the tale of the German backpackers I met in a hostel in Sydney who met in an online Scooter forum and got married to what many feel is the most romantic of Scooter songs 'Always Hardcore.'

He said if the band are ever in town, they'll be sure to come check out one of my gigs.

We didn't rule out the possibilty of working together on some comedy/techno fusion projects in the future.

I'm legally bound to point out that some/most of the above may NOT be true. (i didn't really have pasta for lunch, i had a parma and chips)

keep it real, you.

love tommy.

hip hop a lula + saving wood now online

the second most interesting piece of news i have is that a sandwhich press recently turned up in my house. since i can remember, i have yearned for one of these miracle devices, and now i have one. it's amazing how being placed between two heated pieces of metal can totally change a sandwhich. i now look through the fridge every day, wondering if the ingredients available to me can be toasted. sometimes, i get lucky, and i find sundried tomatoes, salami, chicken, cheese, pesto and turkish bread. other times i'm not so lucky, and the only things available to me are pasta, cereal and various sauces. there are few things as saddening as seeing a perfectly good, new sandwhich press sitting unused on a bench, whilst pasta is being boiled next to it in a pot.



thrilling food anecdotes aside, our initial fringe festival run has all wrapped up, after exploding forth from the modest confines of upstairs at the Lithuanian Club over three nights.



dave with gene, techie wunderkid.

we packed out all three shows, and feedback has all been very nice so far, which is exactly what we dreamt of happening, whilst lying awake fearing that we were crossing a line that no-one should ever cross.



us with adrian: director, and unrivalled in his milo making abilities.

to everyone who came, we sincerely thank you. even if you just came to witness what could have been a somewhat inevitable car wreck, thank you still. maybe you still got the car wreck, maybe you were pleasantly surprised. either way, you gave us brilliant responses, so thank you. if you didn't get to see it, don't worry, you'd better believe this bitch is coming back as soon as we can get it back out there. at the moment, expect adelaide fringe festival and melbourne comedy festival 06, but maybe it'll pop up in a few other places between now and then, and maybe even after. we'll see.

the other big news is that my student film from last year is now online, thanks to dave cleeve (who, if you came to 'i heart racism' was also responsible for all the video stuff we had, although we never properly thanked him in the show, so thanks dave. this crappy mention hardly makes up for it, but we really appreciate all the work you put in)

but anyway...

VIEW 'SAVING WOOD' (right click and 'save as')

i hope you enjoy it.

tomorrow i'm off to sydney. thursday night at the mic in hand has me MCing, the renegades of folk (josh earl & the bedroom philosopher) headlining, as well as wil anderson doing a guest spot. its at the friend in hand in glebe and it's six dollars.

off to pack, thanks for stopping by
tommy.

let's do this, yah?

fringe is alive and kicking, which means it's time to smack this madness into gear and flick the hype machine into overdrive.



the show is a story about impressionable young hippy, Cameron Broadbent, who in trying to impress a girl from his uni, finds himself thrown into jail. his parents bail him out, on the condition that he goes to live with his crazy, right-wing, gun toting Grandpa, in a small country town, to gain some perspective. Upon arriving, he soon realises that the whole town is just as xenophobic as his Grandpa, and so he sets out to re-educate the townsfolk, and make the town a more tolerant place. will this affect Grandpa's chances of winning the local election for mayor? will Cameron survive in the town, or will his smartly knitted beanie get him beaten up? And will he ever be able to learn the riff from 'zebra' on guitar, or will he have to persue other avenues of girl woo-ing?

it is a mixture of theatre, with some multimedia bits thrown in, a bit of powerpoint presentation, a bit of pseudo stand up, and a healthy dose of WWII-era banned cartoons.

it was written by dave bushell and myself over the last few months, and has both of us as the main characters, plus a few extra townspeople here and there.

it is directed by adrian calear, who has also done stuff with rachel berger and danny mcginlay, as well as last year's 'super happy robot hour' which won the fringe award for best comedy show.

our warm little electronic corner of the fringe website can be found by clicking HERE

that's also the place to buy tickets from. or you can call 'em up on: 8412 8777

just to reiterate: we are doing THREE SHOWS ONLY! - september 23, 24 and 25 at the lithuanian club, 44 errol street north melbourne, at 10pm (sunday the 25th - 9pm)

don't miss out. this shit will be bananas!

tommy day + much delayed photos

hey rad person. how's your life? mine's fine, but busy. at night i lie awake, too tired to sleep, tying everything in my head together into a big messy bundle, my brain scratches at it like some kind of braincat. sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't. i convince myself that maybe if i work hard enough i can link every event, person, and place in my life into one gigantic ball of string, but at the same time, i'm aprehensive towards trying this as such a ball would probably crush me, or at least hurt my braincat, and although he does scratch me every now and then, i quite like having him around.

but in a month or so i won't be as busy, and will probably be able to start getting more sleep, and that makes me happy.

anyway, i finally got the photos from the second day of timetable filming, so here they are!

cast and crew, from left: justin kennedy, dave cleeve, drew thornton, dave bushell, tommy dassalo, andy mcclelland.

andy mcclelland doing his best david brent.

the single most incompetent director to ever touch a camera.

checkin the footage

hanging out at the watercooler, dave's weekends begin to resemble his week.

the man, the myth, the legend: dave cleeve.

there's some stuff we need to reshoot, and as justin k's in sydney for a little bit, it's gonna take a tad longer than i was expecting. as soon as it's done, it'll be online.

speaking of short films - my student film 'saving wood' is a finalist in the ATOM film awards! the film was a documentary about two guys from frankston who carved a wooden penis out of a tree stump in their front yard, which the council promptly made them take down. for the film, i interviewed the guys who made it, and started a petition to get it put back up. its got alot of cool comedians in it, too - tripod, janet mcleod, dave hughes, dave o'neil, and fiona scott norman are all in there. i think my main man Cleeve is gonna try and upload it somewhere, so you can check it out if you so wish. alternately, just ask me for a copy. the awards are on friday october 7 at acmi in fed square. it should be swell, like drinking a slurpee in a park on a 30 degree day with a really pretty girl.

so it was my birthday on thursday and it was weird. first birthday post high school and i don't know if i liked it. i'd gotten so used to the high school birthday that this year it felt somewhat lonely and weird. still, it was a good day, and the weather was nice, and i got nice messages so that made me happy. later on i went to this nightclub in albert park with my mate godenzi, which i used to hate (the club, not the friend) but actually quite enjoyed myself.
the frenzy of birthday drinks bestowed upon me by friends i hadn't seen in a long time left me cold, sick, alone and still in bed come friday afternoon. as i lay there with my crispy chicken fillet burger from the little hours of the morning air guitar-ing around in my stomach, i dreamt of the simpler times, long before the acquisition and consumpion of alcohol was legal, and expected of me.

fringe kicks off on thursday, so i'll hold out on the big 'i heart racism' info post until then, when the program has come out.

i've never been more terrified and excited.

mama wouldn't be proud

when the e-mail says you'll be spending 16 hours in a Tarago with 5 other comics, there's less and less chance you're going to enjoy this.

thankfully, you were wrong.

this was the trip up to canberra for a-lists green faces competition, but at times it was easy enough to kid ourselves that we were on some kind of tour.

i liked canberra. i don't really think canberra liked me that much though.

still, a great time was had by all. you couldn't get a cooler group of people into a tarago than sammy, tom, dave, sally and alison. and you couldn't wish for better luck than having a guy who used to live in canberra in the group, meaning the fun didn't have to end when the irish club kicked us out into the night, cold but not so alone.

if i ever go back to canberra, i'll be sure to hunt out the phoenix bar, providing i can find it. if not, i'll follow the smell of chicken burgers from across the road.

after having to wake up criminally early and leave the state two days in a row, it was oddly comforting to wake up on saturday and not have any real place to be.

so for now, we're getting way stuck into writing the fringe festival show. so much so that i'm constantly hating myself by forgetting gigs left, right and center. plus i'm starting to get sick, so the ones that i do remember, i can hardly pull myself to.

i am definately going to be at the local on monday though, even if i'm in a wheelchair. i've got too much new shit on the page to let that one slip by.

and because it's starting to creep up, i guess it's time to whack up the poster for the fringe show:



plot details, etc will follow.

right now i've gotta get dressed and eat.

enjoy yourselves.

tommy.

'splendour in the laughs' cominatcha

g'day,

noosa was great, thanks for asking.

we've planned a benefit gig to raise money for our fringe festival show, on Sunday July 24th, 4pm at Bar Open. it costs a measly 10 bucks. more info on the handy printable flyer above (click to make it bigger)

i have to rush this cos i fly to sydney in a couple hours. i'm doing the sydney comedy store on tuesday and wednesday, and the friend in hand on thursday.

more when i get back.

t