I’m headlining the Store this week, HUUUUGE line-up featuring:
Mike Goldtstein (USA)
Rhys Nicholson (Fri & Sat Only)
El Jaguar (MEXICO)
Clint Paddison
Dilruk Jayasinha
Tommy Dassalo
Karl Chandler
Simon Taylor
Hot dang. You can book tickets to this chuckle bonanza here.
Comedian, writer and activist Aamer Rahman jokes about race and detention centres and terrorism and hip-hop and comic books and cultural appropriation. Formerly of the comedy duo Fear Of A Brown Planet (with previous guest Nazeem Hussain), he now tours his stand-up internationally being very funny and very on-point.
Here Aamer articulates how the Adam Goodes controversy sums up the issues of Australia’s race problem, how he views the impact of his work, cultural appropriation, Iggy Azalea, ethnic faces on TV, Bill Maher, Cornel West and political correctness in comedy.
My gigs at the Comics’ Lounge this week
MyTunes with me and Darren Hanlon at Giant Dwarf Theatre
The A to Z of LGBT: my piece for SBS Sexuality
Article: What Adam Goodes’ Invisible Spear Shows Us by Aamer Rahman
Aamer’s Reverse Racism routine
Buzzfeed article on Aamer and the Bollywood Industry Party
Cause of the Week: Refugees, Survivors & Ex-Detainees (riserefugee.org)
Proud to sign this statement from Amnesty International demanding an end to the secrecy surrounding the way our government is treating people in immigration detention.
You can join Amnesty in demanding a royal commission into ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ here.
You can donate to Amnesty here.
I wrote a piece for SBS Sexuality on the LGBT alphabet soup.
…the slightly-less-exhilarating option that emerged around the same time is the acronym “LGBT” (“Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender”), or its now slightly unwieldy descendent, “LGBTQQIPAA” (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Questioning Intersex Pansexual Asexual Ally).
Heck, if you’re feeling particularly inclusive, why not whack a “2S” (“Two Spirits”) in there to acknowledge the tradition of some indigenous peoples that considers sexual minorities to possess both male and female spirits?
But then what about the Kink community? And Swingers? And Polyamorous People? And Bears? And Twinks? And Rice Queens? And Butches? And Femmes? And Nudists?
And Parents, who should really be in a completely different sexual class of their own so we don’t have to think about them touching each other?
I normally love a mouthful, but “LGBTQQIPAA2SKSPPBTRQBFNP” might be bordering on excessive.
I’m headlining at the Comic’s Lounge in North Melbourne for four nights with the super-dooper Anne Edmonds, Demi Lardner and Bart Freebairn.
It’s happening Wednesday November 11th to Saturday 14th and you can grab tickets here.
Here’s a live panel on where the jolly hell Australian politics is heading at the moment, recorded at This Is Not Art 2015 in Newcastle, as part of Critical Animals. The panel featured myself, Labor Senator Sam Dastyari and academic Professor James Arvanitakis and was moderated by Alice Workman from triple j‘s Hack program.
We discussed political leadership, immigration, marriage equality and titles.
Critical Animals is a creative research symposium held annually as a part of tINA; find out more at criticalanimals.com.
My episode of Q&A in Toowoomba
The National Young Writers’ Festival
In this great new series from Giant Dwarf theatre, music nerdlings get to sit down with their musical heroes and gush their love for them and request them to play their favourite songs and gush some more, all in front of a live audience.
On Wednesday November 18th, I’ll be sitting down with the master of twee wordplay himself, Darren “Dazza Hazza” Hanlon.
I’m so excited for this and hope that if you’re a Hanlonian like me, you’ll be able to make it. Tickets are on sale here and do get in quick: the first instalment with Zan Rowe and Paul Dempsey completely sold out.
BEGIN THE SMUGNESS #qanda pic.twitter.com/Bquo9Z2I5d
— Tom Ballard (@TomCBallard) October 26, 2015
On Monday night I hosted Q&A live from Toowoomba in Queensland. I was joined on the panel by Rural Health Minister Fiona Nash, Shadow Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southern Queensland Jan Thomas, Mayor of Toowomba Paul Antonio and singer-songwriter Katie Noonan.
Things got pretty PASSIONATE as we covered everything from CSG extraction, resettling refugees in rural areas, medical marijuana, obesity and daylight savings.
You can watch back the whole thing here if you like.
I believe in all of those things and am happy to be saying welcome at the Melbourne Walk Together on Saturday October 31st.
There are walks happening all over the country; find out if there’s one near you here.
