In early 2004 I was an assistant to a kangaroo shooter in the Australian Outback. Pretty much the only experience more bizarre and terrifying would be if I were to have worked with a kangaroo shooter at the National Zoo.

Before you go getting all fired up, remember that kangaroos are pests in Australia, and people eat their meat all the time. And meat does not just cheerfully lie itself down on the burger bun, either. Kangaroo meat is as free-range and organic as it gets, but you’ve still got to do a fair bit of old-fashioned killing to make it happen — and the process is disturbing, gory, and pretty hideous. Not unlike the rest of nature, the parts they don’t show you on the television programs.

But not a day goes by that I don’t think of that experience in some way or another. It taught me a lot. I learned to get tough, how to do some hard, hard work, and how to put aside all my pussified city liberal ideas and face the realities of the food chain.

I told this story at The Moth on October 22, 2009. I’d told it at the Moth last year, as well as at The Liar Show, Risk!, and Seth Lind’s Told. I’ve also told parts of this story to pretty much anyone that will sit still in my presence since early 2004. I think D.Billy, my co-blogger here, has seen me tell the thing each time, too.

I’ve pitched it to This American Life twice now, and had Ira Glass personally tell me to my face, that while he really likes the story as long as he is a broadcaster in the United States of America, it will not appear on his show. He was actually really nice about it – and he’s right. The story, in its original and best incarnation, has tons of appalling gore in it, the killing of defenseless baby kangaroos and uses the word “cunt” more times in ten minutes than most Americans have heard in their entire lives. And cutting that stuff out kinda neuters the whole enterprise.

If I’m this sick of telling this story, I can only imagine how tired my friends are of hearing it. And I’ve sure made a lot of hay off the experience on this blog.

Unless something tremendous happens, I feel like I can safely say that this story’s been done to death and put to bed here in New York City. It feels good to be all the way through this one and kinda wipe the slate clean for a batch of new stuff.

On the other hand, I’m about to go to Australia again for two weeks starting Saturday. And if I can claw my way in front of a microphone after a couple or six VBs, this thing might rise again. If any of you know of storytelling shows or reading series or something similar in Adelaide or Melbourne, please let me know. I’d love to try this or other stories in front of an Aussie audience.

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Jef Aérosol 2008 – "Post No Bill" (Woody Allen)

Originally uploaded by Jef Aerosol

I’m not a colossal Woody Allen fan by a long shot but most mornings I’ll click on any damn thing to avoid starting work. This passage from an interview with Woody Allen really hit home for me, though:

One of the things that’s so fascinating about an art form is that it may be good, mediocre or terrible but it’s not perfect, so when it’s over you’re constantly impelled to try another one because you suffer from the delusion that you can get perfection. Intellectually, I’ve given up and I’m happy that the picture is not an embarrassment. I start out thinking it’s going to be the greatest thing ever made and when I see what I’ve done I’m always saying, ‘I’ll do anything to save this from being an embarrassment.’

There’s some delusions you don’t want to get over. And maybe that’s why creative people are all kind of nuts. Because you have these delusions, and some of them really, really work for you and others hold you back. And the problem is, you have NO idea which ones to keep and which ones to get over.

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So, it’s as official as it gets. I just heard from the producers today who confirmed it as a “go,” with the caveat “anything can happen, but we’re looking good.” I’m going to have a story on this week’s episode of “This American Life,” and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

It’s a new version of a story I performed at The Moth’s GrandSlam a few months ago. I pitched it to This American Life with that video, and they brought me into the studio for an interview a few weeks ago.

And here’s the REAL dirt on Ira Glass:
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Luna Moth

Originally uploaded by thahawk

On Saturday night I lovingly sauteed a pile of mushrooms with garlic and half of an onion. Then I chopped up some carrots, rubbed about 5 pounds of beef with sea salt (after browning it in a hot iron skillet) and put the whole thing in the oven to roast.

After that, I made a huge pile of chard — again with garlic and onions — and washed up all the dishes and swept the floor. I took a long shower during which I performed my weekly head-shaving ritual.

Then I yawned and started freaking out for real.Those yawns were the voice of God intoning through my body, using my skeleton like a tuning fork to say “YOU HAVE DICKED AROUND LONG ENOUGH.”

All that cooking and showering and shaving was just the elaborate and stylized Kabuki ritual that I perform whenever I’m supposed to be working on a story. They’re all a big deal for me, but this particular show is a bigger deal than most. I’ve worked for about a year to be in it.

I’m performing in The Moth’s Grand Slam this Wednesday at the Highline Ballroom along with Adam Wade, Peter Aguero, Laura Leu, Cyndi Freeman, Andy Christie, Courtney Fenner, Matt Mercier, Boris Timanovsky and Steve Zimmer. Dan Kennedy, author of the book Rock On will be hosting.

I wrote the story a month ago, tested it out with the BTK band, then let it marinate.

Marinating is important. You’ve got to let the details settle, let the over-explanation filter out. I tested the thing on Jim and Juliet (my two close friends and storytelling superheroes) and they helped me sandblast it a little more.

But Saturday was when the real polishing had to happen, and it almost happened too late. Which is the way these things always happen. I can’t do a damn thing unless the deadline is dangling right between my eyes.

So I had a couple belts of Scotch-laced espresso (wakes you up but calms the nerves) and stayed up until 5 AM writing, editing, fretting, obsessing. I copied the whole thing out on a legal pad with a magic marker just to learn it a little better, lips moving like a slow-witted sixth grader just to burn it into the synapses more.

And I’m still worried it’s not enough.

Last time I told a story onstage I forgot the critical part, the two sentences that made the whole thing hang together and make sense. It got some laughs, got a few compliments, but you can tell immediately if something hits or not. If it doesn’t, that walk back to the chair is a fricking DEATH MARCH.

So now I’m antsy. If I can think of something to do to prepare, I have to do it. Immediately.

I jumped out of bed at 3 AM to make some edits that came to me in a dream last night. I’m rubbing my script on the subway with my fingertips. I fingered its yellow pages gently this afternoon while I walked on the stage at the Highline Ballroom this afternoon, just getting the feel for the place. I’m testing the thing out at Stories at the Creek tomorrow night — Tuesday, March 23rd.

If I seem nervous, it’s because I am. I’m tense and a little gassy and I can’t think about anything else.

But my God, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Living at the edge of your own ability, half-sick and terrified because something beautiful’s about to happen … that’s how to do it. Screw all that Buddhist bullshit about eliminating desire. I want to make art and bash myself against the bulb until I’m burning up and then start all over again. Feeling nervous is a sign that I’m on the right track.

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I was at the O’Reilly Media-sponsored Web 2.0 Expo here in New York last week. While I wouldn’t exactly call it fun, I learned a lot. Here’s a few observations:

*** The term “Google-juice” sounds really, really gross

*** The word “leverage” is vastly overused. It’s not a verb, people. Every time you say it, an IQ point dies.

*** People love to talk about the “Wild West” mentality on the Internet. Meaning, I think, that there are no rules or ethics online. The real Wild West was about gunfights, cattle theft, drinking whiskey in filthy saloons and dying during childbirth. Making baseless claims anonymously in your underpants is the opposite of tough. There’s a big, big difference.

*** Being articulate, intelligent and well-read and being a Top Digger are not the same thing by a damn sight. I’m not going to name names, but a certain social media expert should be aware that they speak Portuguese  in Brazil — not Brazilian.

*** There were a lot of people asking “how can I leverage the power of Web 2.0 community to ‘go viral’ and drive traffic to my market share, incentivizing revenue generation through targeted content promotion?”

Nobody asked “how can I make content that’s actually good?”

I’d like to focus on that a little bit.

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“Culture Shock” was the theme for last night’s Moth, and man, was I ever ready. I’d written, edited, rewritten, and I felt like I had a fairly solid story — unless someone else had also worked as a kangaroo shooter in Western Australia, I had the topic pretty well locked up. So yeah, I was psyched, that combination of anxiety and jittery and *pow* that usually makes something happen.

I was pretty tough to be around, I’d imagine, especially to a good friend who came out to support me. I couldn’t help myself, I was a rubber band ball made out of thrashing fire ants — couldn’t focus on sentences, couldn’t relax into his jokes or anything.

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You’ve noticed a bit of a posting drought here lately, I’m sure. It happens to the best of us, and also to me, all the time. I get tired, or cranky, or things just don’t seem worth posting.

Or, I get involved in other projects. Projects like The Moth.

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My friend Steve forwarded me an incredible found letter the other day. Here’s a clip, click here or on the photo for a link to the entire thing:

This letter’s writer has a life so far removed from my own that I can’t believe we both speak English. I am not sure that I ever wrote love letters like this to girls when I was this young Crip’s age, and I’m sure that if I had, I wouldn’t have threatened an other “niggas.”

Underneath the smitten Crip’s bravado and posturing, and not far underneath it, either, he is lonely, desperate, wanting someone who is in all likelihood out of his grasp. His looks won’t catch his girl’s eye, so he’s turned to the creative arts, the romantic refuge for everyone whose physical charms are exceeded by their creativity.

However, if that’s the case here, my man must have a JACKED up face — his prose clinks like bullet casings on wet concrete. With nerve and bravery like this, though, he’s sure to have found someone to share his corner of the Crip kingdom with by now, as long as he hasn’t been shot yet.

It saddens me to think that love letters are a dying art form — that e-mail sent the penned missive the way of the dodo bird and now e-mail’s heading out, too. Soon lovelorn Crips and geeky kids will have to confess their passion in strage gluts of emoticons and beeping sounds, leaving me and Cyrano and this ugly little Crip to sit around in the museum case of the mind, slowly collecting dust.

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A good friend of mine sent me this writing gig post from Craigslist in L.A. As if dating, online and off, weren’t hard and strange enough:

ghost writer

Very busy executive would like to hire a writer to send emails on his behalf on personal dating websites. And do a few enails back and forth to get the ball rolling..

This person needs to know how to write in a masculine, but romantic way and at the same time create a challenge for the reader of the email

I’m from the South and I live in New York, so I’m not sure how y’all work it out there in Los Angeles. On the one hand, it seems like this dude runs the risk of getting his ass found out as soon as he does some ill-advised Blackberry thumb-stumbling of his own. But on the other hand, I’m not sure that this guy’s target audience would be smart enough to notice or deep enough to care.

I’m wondering here – what’s the real goal? Is it to meet someone of quality? Or just get laid? What’s the backup plan when this guy gets found out? I mean, if the ghostwriter succeeds, then they’re able to do something that the poster himself cannot do. This just won’t last.

I’m curious, too: what kind of responses did he get? How does one land this job, and what’s the time commitment?

One thing’s for sure though: whoever takes this job and takes it seriously is a putz, big-time. It sucks needing work and it sucks needing money, but I’d imagine what really sucks is looking in the mirror and knowing that you’re Cyrano de Bergerac with a dick for a nose.

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Sushmita’s been a fan of my blog for a year or two, which is an Ice Age in Internet time. We’ve never met in person and probably aren’t likely to anytime soon. She lives in Bombay, and my days of flying across the planet to meet online friends are D-U-N DONE.

But the fact that Sushmita reads regularly and is not in my life means a lot to me … I figure my friends check in on this from time to time because they know and like me, but her comments and continued reading mean to me that this frustrating labor of love is good enough for complete strangers, too. And to someone that’s as vain and insecure as I can be, the Sushmitas of the world mean a whole, whole lot.

She sent me a really nice note about the blog’s new incarnation … after the jump:

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