by Becky Lucas
Now there are a bunch of people who have Michael Jackson’s music as a part of them, and we’re being told it’s wrong to listen to him and that we have to give that part back.
A lot of the time, these superstars and celebrities get away with acting in terrible ways because the people around them are making money. There are the record labels, the managers, the agents, and the promoters, all taking their cuts of millions of dollars. They don’t want their meal ticket to go away, so they turn a blind eye to some truly disgusting and damaging behaviour. Then, once it all comes out, they walk away with their bloated bank accounts and their hands up in the air, claiming they didn’t know.
Yet it’s the people who bought the albums who are told they can’t listen to the music anymore.
It’s always the way: the ones who have the most to gain are never the ones who wear the moral responsibility. Fossil fuel companies pump out millions of tonnes of emissions with impunity, but I’m the one who gets a dirty look from the barista when I forget my keep cup.
The whole time Michael Jackson was becoming one of the biggest pop stars in history and the music industry was making millions off his success, we were saving up our pocket money to buy his latest album, and listening to his songs at pivotal moments in our lives or using them to drown out the sounds of our parents fighting. People all over the world, from all different class structures and upbringings, found comfort in his music. It has become inextricably attached to our memories and emotions. He meant something to us. And now we’re being told that it’s no longer appropriate to listen to him.
Maybe it’s not. What he did is unforgivable and my heart breaks for the victims, who deserve eternal love and support. But flawed people will continue to make worthy art – we know this, and we aren’t able to stop that from happening. So do we never enjoy anything in case it turns out that the artist we like is bad or evil? Or do we accept that everything we like may be subject to change pending future allegations? I know that, for myself, my experience with Michael Jackson has stopped me from wholeheartedly engaging in anyone’s art ever since, and part of me finds that sad. I would hope that in the future there is more responsibility put on the people in power who have so much to gain in the peddling of toxic celebrity culture, and less of a backlash against people who just want to listen to a song from a time when they were happy and blissfully unaware.
So thanks, Michael Jackson. Your music allowed me to experience the religious devotion I craved when I was younger. And thank you for letting me down by turning out to be a paedophile – I can’t help but feel that’s the closest experience to being religious as I’ll ever get.
The gym
The other day I came up with the idea of a household happiness rating – a number in neon lights displayed just outside your house, visible to anyone walking by, that gives a numerical indication of how happy the people in your home are. Would this be good or bad for society? Would I feel better or worse knowing how everyone else was feeling compared to myself? I suppose it would depend. During periods of depression, I sometimes take solace in knowing other people are also feeling bad; I feel more secure being part of a collective. Though if I’m happy and people around me aren’t, I’d feel guilty for feeling happy, which might in turn make me feel a bit depressed. If we could suddenly know how happy or sad our neighbours were, would we make the effort to check in more, or would we distance ourselves even further so we didn’t have to deal with it?
I think maybe I’ve always been a bit depressed, and I don’t even mean to say that in a depressing way. I’m just saying I think I operate on a base level of depression, so I am very aware of the times when I’m experiencing happiness or joy, which, don’t get me wrong, definitely happens often enough for you to not have to worry about me.
It’s possible I could just be tired and I’ve mistaken my fatigue for depression, because I’m often able to rouse myself out of a depressive state by drinking a black coffee. I’m such a tired person. My mum phoned to tell me she thought I might have a thyroid disease, because she noticed that I’m often tired and irritable. I went to the doctor, who told me my thyroid was fine, which meant my mum’s phone call was, in retrospect, more just a list of my deficits.
I believe some people are just built with less energy, and I’m one of them. I’m so tired that even if I knew the world was ending tonight, I would still have a nap in the afternoon. I hear friends talking about how they get up at 6 am and I can’t understand it, because I know that I have conversations with them at 11 pm at night. The maths doesn’t add up for me. Even though seven hours is the recommended amount of sleep we’re supposed to have, the idea of that amount of sleep makes me tired.
I don’t even have restful sleeps – every time I fall asleep, I’m immediately thrust into intense dreams that involve someone trying to kill me, or me killing someone and needing to dispose of the body. Or I’ll dream that I am working a full-time job and, by the time I wake up, I’m exhausted and ready to clock off.
I don’t think anyone would consider me to be a typically depressed person, because I try not to show it lest it ruin someone else’s day. I deal with depression by making sure everyone is happy enough around me, and once I know everyone around me is okay, then I can have a little depression rest. There have been times when I haven’t been completely operational, but hasn’t everyone had days like that, and isn’t it all so boring to talk about?
My dad doesn’t believe in depression. He thinks it can be cured by clearing your throat before beginning a sentence, fussing around with a fishing rod or reading a big book about a man on a ship. It seems to work for him. I admire his mental fortitude. I don’t think he’s being dismissive of people with depression; he just thinks he’s worked out the cure and is only trying to help by sharing.
Like my dad, most people who give advice to people with depression mean well. But it’s annoying to be told what to do, and you never believe someone else’s advice might work for you. If you’re anything like me, you believe your depression is the special incurable kind that only presents itself in people who are secretly geniuses. I can’t tell you how many times I was told that exercise might help me to feel better. I’d just roll my eyes and think, Please, the only thing that can cure this chemical imbalance would be if I had the power to turn people’s pets against them whenever I pleased or to ruin someone’s life by making them go through an inexplicable rockabilly phase at age thirty-seven. I wasn’t the sort of person who could just start exercising and miraculously turn into the type of girl who listens to the podcast Serial and remembers to take her clothes out of the washing machine before they start to smell.
I resisted exercising for years until one day, walking past my local gym, I decided out of nowhere to go in and just see what it was like. The owner showed me around and acted like I was the most important person on earth, so I signed up for a year, and assumed he and I would be friends for life.
I had no idea what to do the first day I went, and the owner who had been so nice to me now seemed a little distant, as though he didn’t remember me. Surely I had meant something to him? So I went off on my own and just copied this girl who looked like she knew what she was doing, but it seemed to piss her off. I can completely understand why it would be annoying to have a stranger doing exactly the same thing as you just moments after, but when it’s you doing the annoying thing you feel completely justified.
I eventually asked a young girl who worked at the gym if she could show me how to use some of the equipment. The gym is hilarious, you see, because there it’s the dumb people who have the power. It’s actually wonderful; I find it so relaxing. The girl showed me around with the air of someone who felt sorry for me and all the while I’m thinking, Don’t worry about me. I have a wonderful brain, that’s why I’m only just now discovering the gym. I’ve been able to dine out on my personality this whole time, so please stop cocking your beautiful head to the side in pity every time you look at me.
She took me over to a m
achine. To use it, she said, I was supposed to lie on the bench on my belly and pull the heavy part of the machine upwards using my legs.
‘It’s to avoid getting thutt, you know, thigh butt. Where your thighs turn into your butt. Nobody wants thutt.’
Nobody wants thutt? I thought to myself, How funny that people don’t want this thing I only just learnt about two seconds ago. I tried to make a quip about how, at the end of the day, we’re all there trying to stave off the inevitable march of death. (God, I turn into a complete loser around hot people.)
She stared at me. ‘Well, yeah, it’s important to keep strengthening your body as you get older, so . . . let’s finish up on this machine over here, then I have to go.’ As she said this, she eyed a nearby hunk like, ‘Godddd, get me out of here.’
‘Yep, cool!’ I replied, hating the gym.
Over time, however, I became more confident. I started doing classes and learnt a few basic exercises that helped me at least appear like I knew what I was doing. Plus I did what I always do when I feel insecure, and that’s look for other people who are weirder and more annoying than me.
It was then I realised that, due to being blinded by my own insecurity at the gym, I’d failed to notice there were several others who clearly felt the same. Sometimes the secret to feeling better is finding someone a little bit more insecure than yourself, and for me that was a man in his forties who had only just started working out and refused to take off his jeans.
I’m not sure if going to the gym has cured my depression, but I’d be lying if I said I have not found solace inside the big room packed with heavy machines being pushed and pulled by all different bodies. There is a simplicity of walking into a space where there is no other objective except to exercise. It’s a great equaliser. No one cares if you’re a tortured genius at the gym. Popinjays come in all puffed up from having their egos stroked at work, but, at the gym, no one gives a shit – we just want to know how much longer you’re going to be using the machine or if you’d mind moving your towel, thanks. Nobody expects you to be funny; in fact, it would be deeply upsetting if someone tried to make me laugh. It’s a place for earnestness and honesty, because we all know why we’re there. You can’t go to the gym ironically and you can’t lift weights as a joke.
I like that about the gym. Yes, it’s full of vain people, but at least they’re open about their vanity. No one is trying to obscure who they are or what their intentions are, and, to be honest, when it comes to displays of vanity, I’d rather see a man flexing his muscles in the mirror than watch another terrible short film made by a man who insists he’s an artist.
Thank you to the gym for raising my serotonin levels to an acceptable level at least two or three times every week – a cherished reminder that sometimes the most basic advice actually works.
Opals
I’ve always been very defensive of opals. They’ve come into fashion recently, but, for most of my life, I had people around me saying that they didn’t like them – that they were tacky and carried bad luck. I used to storm off and find the opal my dad had given me when I was younger that I kept on my dresser. I’d hold it up to their face, demanding that they explain to me just what was so tacky about it.
‘Show me, here, what’s so tacky about this bright, multicoloured gem with flecks of sparkle? It looks like the goddamn universe. It’s fucking incredible,’ I’d say, perhaps a little too aggressively.
And often upon seeing the rock thrust in front of their eyes, they’d fail to explain just what it was that they didn’t like about them.
I believe most people have at least one thing in their life they are strangely passionate about and will defend to the death. For example, I have a friend who, three wines to the wind, will without fail bring up the real story behind the myth that each year, you eat eight full-size spiders while you’re asleep. As my friend will tell you at length, this is not true. The myth was made up by a university professor as a way of demonstrating to his students how quickly false information can spread.
My strange passion, though, is opals. They are seen by many as common, ugly stones that are easily accessible, when in reality they’re much rarer than diamonds. We only believe diamonds are rare because of a widespread marketing campaign that was initiated by the diamond industry, convincing the world that diamonds are the only gemstone that should ever be used for engagement rings. The campaign included ads featuring Hollywood actresses adorned with diamonds. Plus it didn’t hurt that De Beers, the largest owner of diamond mines in the world, had a death grip on the market, which meant they could control the availability of diamonds. In fact, diamonds are one of the most common gems in nature. Despite that, the diamond industry continues to be one of the most lucrative in the world.
During the height of diamonds’ popularity, the diamond industry started noticing people fawning over this beautiful gem called an ‘opal’ and, upon hearing about their rarity, they panicked and bought as many as they could. They started giving them to local merchants with the instruction to sell them cheaply and tell stories about how they bring bad luck for some people. Over time, this tactic succeeded in ruining the reputation of an incredibly rare and beautiful gem. People saw them as worthless stones and believed the rumours that they were cursed, which in turn meant they were never revered enough to be put in the same sort of stylish settings as diamonds. Due to their perceived worthlessness, opals were seen by people as ugly. So persistent is this idea that, to this day, my friends, for no reason they could ever articulate to me, don’t think much of them.
I’ll admit, my own love of opals can be directly linked to how much opals meant to my dad growing up. He used to go fossicking for them in the outback, near Coober Pedy, for weeks at a time, with his dad and an assortment of old men, hoping to strike it rich.
I have a fascination with people who mine for things under the ground. It seems like there’s two ways people try to attain beauty in this world: some people are above ground trying to create it from things in front of them, but others are below ground looking to the past to find beauty from what already exists. Mining also seems like such a clash of two different worlds – you’ve got these gruff manly men looking for these precious stones, which would eventually hang on the necks and ears of women as a way to enhance their femininity.
My dad continued to dabble in the world of opals and, throughout my childhood, strange men would come by the house in their run-down utes with boxes of what looked like regular old rocks in the tray. They’d always be wearing singlets with holes in them – one man’s shirt was so threadbare, it had holes all over the front, including right over his nipple. The whole time he and my dad were fondling rocks, turning them over in their rough, calloused hands and spitting on them to reveal the streaks of brilliant colour, all I could do was stare at this man’s nipple as it stared defiantly back at me.
It was one of these old blokes who explained to me how opals are made; how, over thousands of years, minerals formed deposits inside the cracks and natural imperfections in rocks. I always felt some kind of comfort in how long it took for beauty to emerge in what was otherwise such a nonevent in nature. I used to think the process was so much more dignified and enlightened than the way diamonds are made. Diamonds are made under pressure. That’s all. I always felt the process brutish and not interesting, but of course that was my own prejudice.
Now, what I’m about to say may sound corny, but during harder times of my life I have tried to think of myself as an opal. There have been many times when I’ve felt that there were parts of me that were broken, when situations seemed out of control and spiralled into directions I couldn’t foresee. I had times where I believed, and sometimes I still do, that the cracks in my personality went so deep to my core that they were irreparable.
In these moments of self-hatred, I would remind myself of opals. I would tell myself that perhaps these cracks might eventually produce something as beautiful as an opal, something that contains the whole goddamn universe.
So thank you to opals for being undeniably beautiful, no matter how people perceive your worth.
(Book) Acknowledgments
Thank you to my publisher, Helen; my editor, Rachel; and the rest of the team at HarperCollins.
Thanks also to my beautiful manager, Bec, who makes everything happen somehow.
About the Author
BECKY LUCAS is a comedian who has spent years writing on TV shows and performing stand-up comedy. She has hosted the 2021 Oxfam Gala for the opening night of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, appeared on Last One Laughing on Amazon Prime, performed at the prestigious Just for Laughs festival in Montreal and made her US TV debut on Conan – the first Australian woman to perform stand-up comedy on the show. She was a writer on Josh Thomas’s Emmy-nominated show Please Like Me and has also written sketches for Comedy Central and ABC. And now, if it’s okay with everyone, she’s decided to write a book.
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Australia in 2021
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