Sitting Under A Tree with Aidan Jones

I've started keeping an autograph book as a bit of fun between now and when I leave for the UK. Had a lot of fun riffing about that and looking up some stupid shit online to do with autograph books. Also detailed how and why I lost the best part of $1000 this week on the Gold Coast. We're learning!!

I'm flying to the Gold Coast in the morning, can't wait to do the show on Saturday night. I've been running ads on Facebook/Insta and Google all week and I have no way of knowing whether they're working, but hey we'll find out on Saturday! I need to go to sleep.

Went down to Rose Chong in Fitzroy this morning to get fitted with a 19th century costume ahead of the photo shoot on Friday. I can't wait to get these photos and have a bunch of cool shit to post on social media to promote the tour! I have a show on the Gold Coast next weekend which is effectively the last chance to tune up before Perth Fringe in January. Cannot fucking wait to get out there and...

I called it The Beatles because that's what I spent the last while talking about. I've been watching that Beatles documentary from a few years ago and god I love it. I also started watching a Harvard Lecture from Leonard Bernstein about the origins of music and language and that was really good too. I'm all over the place mentally - I've been in bed, sick, for the last few days. A literal nightmar...

I spent this weekend in Adelaide and as much as I felt the trip would be an unwelcome interruption to my life, it was actually fantastic. I think I have a tendency to see anything that isn't work as annoying because I feel like there are so many things I need to do and I need all the available time to do them. But that's exactly why I should be forcing myself to do something like going back to Ade...

This week I spent a couple afternoons working on four variations of a Russian folk tune called Korobeiniki, better known as the music for the game 'Tetris'. I wrote variations in four styles, baroque, classical, romantic and latin dance, then recorded them. It was heaps of fun, but also very frustrating trying to record each one with no mistakes. Also the baby birds left. Life just keeps on going...

The three baby birds outside in the nest our kitchen window are growing so quickly! Last week they were barely big enough to cover the bottom of the nest, now they are almost spilling over the top. Yesterday I heard them tweeting for the first time. Google says they usually leave the nest 14 days after hatching, so we have one more week left with them before they leave us.

It's my friend's funeral tomorrow, I'm flying to Adelaide in the morning for it and I'm really looking forward to seeing a bunch of old friends again and remembering what a wonderful, funny person we all knew. Then I'm hoping we can see fit to get a shisha on Hindley St.

Still feeling a bit of grief this week, but also looking forward to the next few months of working on the show and keeping ye olde head down! I watched the movie 'Pretty Woman' and really loved it, and during the pod I found a very prescient parallel between the main character and a story from my life which I had a great chuckle about. Good stuff, I reckon.

I did a gig last night, then another one, then had a really nice chat with a friend who works behind the bar. Read a bit of poetry, some short stories when I got home, then today I went and got a sandwich.

This podcast is three days late, which is annoying to me and I'm somehow letting that ruin my mood right now hahahaha... I landed back in Melbourne yesterday afternoon and don't have much work for the next week so I'm going to use this time to quite literally get my house in order. I've got one year left in Melbourne and I want to enjoy it, and that starts with a good environment at home.

I'm still having the time of my life in New York. I didn't even talk about my own comedy or creative ideas once in this podcast, I was just too busy recounting all of the wonderful experiences I've been having. God, this is the best!

I'm here.

The Edinburgh Fringe is over for another year. It really is the most beautiful thing in the world, and to celebrate the last night I went up Arthur's Seat with some friends to watch the sunrise. It's a huge Fringe tradition but for one reason or another I've never gotten around to it. When the sun came up over the horizon, the several hundred people who had made the climb after performing every da...

The podcast is quite late! The fringe continues to be an all-encompassing beast, and my piano show continues to be delightful and well-received. Went to Furiozo last night and it was, once again, incredible. Five days left. Come on.

I'm so tired man. I didn't realise until I turned the mic on, but yeah. Uhff.

My show has been full the last three days and it's really exciting! Each one has been great, and it feels like people are talking about it. I've seen a few things as well, but the one part of the Fringe experience I feel like I've neglected so far is the hang! So I reckon tonight and the next few days, that's the focus. Let's hang, baby!

Today is the first day of the Edinburgh Fringe! I'm a couple days late to record the podcast this week because I landed in London on Monday afternoon, got the overnight train up to Edinburgh, and then have been racing around getting everything ready for the first shows ever since. My first show is in under 5 hours, I'm excited, scared, happy, grateful, nervous... but I'm here! We are DOING IT!!!!...

By the time the next podcast is out, I'll be in Edinburgh! Or maybe not, maybe I'll decide to record in the airport or something, but the point is, I'm heading to the Fringe very soon! And I'm so excited about comedy, and about playing the piano, and about life generally! What a blessing to be able to do this, and how funny that despite all of it, I still spend an inordinate amount of time yelling...

Last night I went out for dinner with my beautiful boys and after a fantastic bit of Indonesian food we thought we'd go get some baklava. We went to a place called International Cakes and the food sucked so bad. Also when we got in there, the first thing the guy behind the counter said to us was, "Don't get too comfortable.", which we laughed about for ages afterwards, so I've made it the title of...

In the last few weeks something has shifted for me about the way I think about Melbourne and my future here. I don't think there's any way for me to have the career I want as a comedian in this country, so I'm doing the only sensible thing, next year I'm going to apply the visa that I was supposed to apply for last year, and I'm moving to London. I'm excited, scared, hopeful, sad. Also I'm off to...

Four weeks until I am off to the Edinburgh Fringe and freed from this PRISON!! Nah only joking. I mean I am working a lot and it is tiring, but also it's fine and I'm having a nice time. Lots of ideas, lots of thoughts, I mean at this stage I'm not really a comedian with a podcast, I'm a bus driver with a podcast. Honestly, isn't that so much more interesting!

Five weeks until I'm off to Edinburgh for the Fringe! It's not long at all, and as much as it feels like I'm just repeating myself every week about how I'm working and I'm making progress and blah blah, it struck me last week while talking to a friend that it is actually true. In October I said that the next year or so would be mostly hard work and head-down kinda shit for me as I prepare to put t...

I just recorded this while sitting next to a campfire I built at a little spot near Beechworth. I'm going to get up tomorrow morning and drive just up the road to this lookout nearby and watch the sunrise. It's been such an incredible few days in the Alpine region of Victoria. I feel perfectly happy and at peace.

Last week I did the podcast after a long day of work and I regret to admit that the quality of the pod reflected my energy levels at the time. This week I've waited until waking up the day after a long work day, and boy did I have way more fun! Lots of laughing here.