Members only area ahead!
For only $5 AU a month, you get EXCLUSIVE access to –
1. Poems, short stories, drawings and fragments, old and ongoing
2. Audio/video files, as they’re recorded, including audio chapters of Chicken Same Duck Talk.
3. Edited sections from Chicken Same Duck Talk (there’s a lot). And, most amazingly –
4. Chapters of my upcoming BIOGRAPHY,
one per month, as it gets written.
This book won’t be released until 2028, but by subscribing, you not only get to see the chapters first, but also to give feedback on a members-only blog (which I’ll be on).
SCROLL DOWN to read the CHAPTER TITLES OF MY BIOGRAPHY
(this biography will be ALPHABETICAL, not chronological!!!!)
followed by its COMPLETE INTRODUCTION CHAPTER to give you a taste of what’s to come
Let me give you four reasons to subscribe…
List of biography chapters
(as a subscriber, you can vote for which one I’ll write next!)
A
Animals, Alcohol and Art
B
Books, BBC and Bureaucracy
C
China, Cicadas and Collecting
D
Douglas Adams, Dinosaurs, and David Attenborough, Lynch and Cronenberg
E
Existentialism, Epilepsy and Editing
F
Fetishes, Fitzroy and Food
G
Gigs, Gigs and more Gigs
H
Heritage, History and Humans
I
Impermanence, Internet and Inventions
J
Jobs, Jobs and more Jobs
K
Kitchenhanding, Kids and Keys
L
Learning, Languages and Laughing
M
Multiculturalism, Mike Patton and Movies
N
Nature, Noodles and New
O
Octopuses, Op Shops and OK
P
Pink Floyd, Poetry and Politics
Q
Queen, Questioning and Quotes
R
Robert M. Pirsig, Repression and Rural Areas
S
Star Wars, Soundtracks and Spirituality/Religion
T
Teaching, Timor-Leste and Theatre
U
Universities, UFOs and Up
V
Vegetarianism/Veganism, Volunteering and Vegemite
W
Water, Writing and the Wizard of Oz
X
Xylophones, Xenomorph and Xuzhou
Y
Yoda, the Young Ones and Youtube
Z
Zoos, Zzap! and zzzzz
*********************************************
It’s a biography, after all, which is a literary form that explicitly deals in degraded memories.
Do you mean memories that have become less reliable over the years? Or even tainted somehow?
Yes.
- Nick Cave, interviewed by Seán O’Hagan, Faith Hope and Carnage, 2022
**********************************************
Memory is a gluggy, swampy, sludgy thing. I agree with Cave’s quote above — the idea that you can sit and accurately write about something that happened five, ten, or especially fifty years ago is patently absurd. In fact, in this regard, our strongest memories are probably the most guilty, as they’ve shifted, moulded and morphed themselves around our psyches, personalities and worldviews over the subsequent decades.
If you don’t believe me, sit down during any evening and write down what you did that day. I guarantee that the only parts you’ll remember are the parts that were personally important to you (therefore subjective), and the rest are cast aside, ending up in the Gargantuan Pit of Forgotten Moments that probably makes up the majority of most people’s lives. Humans are, by nature and necessity, subjective observers and even more subjective rememberers, including, of course, me. But I’ll give this a try.
I guess about now you’re wondering, Ash Brom, who’s this guy? Why is he writing a biography when he’s not famous? Why does he think anyone cares? My answer is, well, in my own way, for a great variety of reasons, circumstances and luck, I’ve had a pretty full and entertaining life thus far. I’ve only been to three countries, but I’ve taught people from nearly forty. In terms of jobs, including voluntary stints, one-off afternoons and comedies of errors, in Australia and China, I’ve had nearly 200 jobs in over fifty roles in over a dozen industries (almost all of my jobs have been casual, which kind of suits me).
Another reason for doing my biography is because of a common maxim in publishing which says “always write about what you know”. Well, I kind of know what I’ve done with my life. I think. I’m not sure, maybe you can be the judge of that.
My main “career” in my life thus far has been as an English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher to adults (teaching kids need a different qualification, at least in Australia), teaching students predominantly between around 18 to 30 years old. Teaching people this age, along with their stunningly wonderful cultural, personal, social, religious and other differences has made me genuinely love my job. Not all the time — I’ve had the occasional teaching job that horrendously sucked (looking at you Wyndham), not to mention needing to deal with the soulless, officious box-ticking bureaucracy and moralless capitalism of some universities and many private schools. But, within the classroom itself, with me, the students, the subject, and the dynamics between these three things, the vast majority of jobs have been excellent, and when it’s really good, it’s downright euphoric — when people ask me “what’s your dream job”, they seem surprised when I tell them that I’ve got it. I’ve done it, I’ve tasted it, I’ve gorged on it, and for that I’m eternally grateful. The pay sucks, but people don’t get into teaching to get rich.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. You’ll hear about the jobs later — the utopian, the brilliant, the ok, the tolerable, the barely tolerable, right down to the pungent dogshit. I’ve had the lot. When you need to pay the rent, you sometimes need to do some pretty strange things.
Very importantly, you may have already noticed that this biography isn’t chronological — it doesn’t start with my parents and childhood — but is instead alphabetical. I’ve stolen/adapted this format/idea from the biography of Matt Lucas, one of the duo that makes up BBC TV’s comedy show Little Britain. I’ve stolen it in that his bio is alphabetical; I’ve adapted it in that he had one word per letter, I’m using three. I’ve read a lot of bios, but not Mr Lucas’, well not yet anyway, because I didn’t want his writings to affect the tone or anything of this book. For the moment, I’ve just grabbed his alphabetical idea and ran.
I’ll read it once I’ve finished this one. I’m sure it’s fantastic, because I’m a big fan of his stuff. In the meantime, I’ll say thanks Matt. I owe you a pint or ten.
Once I’d decided to steal/adapt Mr Lucas’ idea, I spent a few months brainstorming the three words per letter I’d be writing about. 26 letters in the alphabet, so a total of 78 words to think of. The big picture idea of this book is to have around 3,000 words per letter, so, generally, I write about 1,000 words for each word. So, for instance, if the K chapter is about Kangaroos, Kiwis and Krakens, that’s 1,000 words per K word, totalling a 3,000-word K chapter. With all 26 letters, this would eventually total 78,000 words, so I’d end up with a full-length book. Woohoo!
Because I need to write around 1,000 words for each word I’ve chosen, these words need to be something that I can talk about, something that has influenced or impacted my life somehow. Something that has somehow shaped what I am, or at least something that I think readers will find entertaining, enlivening, engrossing, engaging, exciting, extraordinary, exhilarating and other positive adjectives starting with e.
A lot of these words came to me surprisingly easy, especially the ones you’d think would be hard, like X, Z and Q. It took ages to think of three B words. The last ones were U words. U of all bloody letters.
So that’s the structure of the book you’re holding/about to buy/have already bought/have read many times and love/waiting for the audio version of to come out/got halfway through and got bored/bought just because you know me but will probably never read. It’s the bio of me, a sort-of well read, sort-of well educated, vicariously well travelled (through my students) second-generation Australian, who’s done many, many different things in his life, many times out of love, many times out of necessity, many times just because I could.
I spent nearly ten years in China and travelled extensively there, and wrote about that in my previous book, but since I spent nearly a fifth of my life in that country — and had probably the best job I’ll ever have there, not to mention met some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met there — I’ll be mentioning that country again in this book. Don’t worry, I’ll try not to repeat myself.
Something to note here, probably because it’ll be conspicuous, is that there’ll be little to no mention of my parents, family, hometown or school friends. The reason is that they’re for another book, another time, another therapy couch. I love my family, and I dearly miss the ones who’ve passed, and while I’m writing this sentence I’m thinking that maybe I should write about them…but they’re their own story. My upbringing is its own tale, its own idiosyncracy-thick, bewilderment-laden, quirk-dripping alternate universe. A book unto itself, unto its own multi-volume collection of psychological evaluations and sub-sub-theories. Its own microcosm, one which invents and obeys its own rules, rules visible only to those who live within it. To this day I’ve never heard of anyone whose house was organised and run like that of me and my siblings. Probably never will.
The reason for this is, well, lets just say that Mum was one in a quintillion — proudly eccentric and relentlessly creative, but circumstances cut both her education and career short, and although both my parents should have seen councillors, in their generation that was seen as a sign of weakness and so they never did. These things, among many others, affected Mum and, in turn, they manifested themselves in the house. The psychological became domestic; the house itself became an extension of her psyche, probably both conscious and subconscious. How this happened is, like I said, for another time, because believe me it’s a long story.
I miss both my parents immensely, but I got on with Mum more, perhaps simply because she talked a lot. Dad was unfailingly huge-hearted, and had a giant moral compass, but he said very little. I kept trying to get to know him, especially in the later years, but he just kept saying that there was nothing to get to know. In all honesty, words came out of Mum and Dad’s mouths at a ratio of around 30,000 to one. I mean it.
So my parents, family, my parent’s house and my upbringing are for another book. Trust me on that one.
Instead, this book is about two main things — firstly, what has influenced me, my worldviews, beliefs, lifestyle and, if I can call it as such, my writing, and, secondly, all the things I’ve done in my life, all the tales that I think are worth sharing, and how they all combine and continue to shape what I am. Life has shown me that influences can come from strange places, and, inversely, seemingly productive things can turn out to be useless (sin, cos and tan? WTF?). Over the years I think I’ve done, met, seen, read, written, eaten, drunk, heard and experienced some pretty amazing people and things, and I think I’ll be able to tell you about them in pretty entertaining ways.
This paragraph here will be different in the final book, because the book will be finished. But this paragraph, as it is now, is to tell you that this book will be written, one letter/three words/3,000 words at a time, and these chapters will be put on the members-only section of www.ashbrom.com each month. I’m hoping these chapters, as they’re written and posted monthly, will attract subscribers to my site, and any major donors to it will be mentioned in the thanks list of the finished bio. If things go to plan, this book (drum roll here) will be released for Christmas 2028…two years and two months (26 months) for writing, and ten months for editing. Let’s see if I can meet that deadline.
Note also that I won’t strictly write 1,000 words per word — for instance, if the words for the letter M are Melbourne, Mannequins and Marshmallows, I might write 1,600 about Melbourne, 1,000 about Mannequins and 400 about Marshmallows. The reason is simply that I can write more about some things than others. So long as the chapter totals around 3,000 words, that’s ok.
Those are the parameters I’ve given myself, and I think they’re reasonably clear to you, the reader, and doable for me, the wanker, oh sorry, writer.
On that note (or maybe a G minor 7 (another Nick Cave reference — did you get it?)), I will finish this introduction, and ask you to open your heart, and wallet, by subscribing to this website. There’ll be lots of cool stuff, including, hopefully, rough, raw audio versions of the chapters as they get written. Maybe a few videos too. Oh, and as a subscriber, you can vote for which letter you want me to write next (perhaps ironically, I won’t be writing them alphabetically).
Peace, love and giraffes
Ash