by Joel Creasey
Anyway, the ad was quite a hit and whenever it comes up in conversation, Dad pretends to be embarrassed for all of three seconds and then delights in the recognition.
But the one thing I’ve always known about my parents, the thing I’ve never questioned, is how in love they are. Whatever my family has been through, Mum and Dad’s love has never wavered. And I truly do hope to be just like them one day. Anyone who knows them will tell you they are kind, inspiring and loving people who only want the best for anyone around them. They truly are good guys, just like the Rebels they played in Star Wars. How they managed to give birth to me, I have no idea. I’ve got more of an Anakin Skywalker vibe going on.
My older sister Holly was born in 1986. She was obviously a practice baby. When Jenny gave birth to a little girl who looked like someone who might grow up to be a successful, gorgeous, independent marketing executive, Mum and Dad must’ve said, ‘Damn! We were hoping for a campy, nasal-voiced comedian,’ and tried again.
I was born in Baulkham Hills on the 11th of August, 1990. Mum was out at a dinner party celebrating my grandma’s birthday. Muriel decided that I simply must share her day of birth so I arrived at 11.55 pm, fashionably late for the party, of course. Nan and I have celebrated our birthday every year together and I’ve loved that we get to share the day each year. It normally involves us getting drunk at a restaurant, much to the horror of the other paying customers.
Apparently I was a great baby – loved sleeping and eating and looked super cute rocking a powder blue jumpsuit. ‘Not much has changed,’ you might say . . . Oh, stop it, you!
My feisty younger sister Alice arrived four years later and rounded out the Creasey clan – five blondes living in a brick two-storey house in a cul-de-sac. My parents built the house and, from memory, it was pretty fancy for the early 90s. But I think it may have been a case of the fanciest house on the worst street. Which is probably a pretty good metaphor for my career.
I don’t remember a lot about Sydney because we moved to Perth when I was five. Plus I was drinking and drugging pretty heavily in those first few years (mostly formula and Nurofen for Kids) so it was mostly a blur. I do remember having a best friend called Jamie, a yellow-walled bedroom (and unless you’re Michelle Williams’ dress at the 2006 Oscars, yellow is never necessary) and one birthday, Mum made me the train cake from the Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book, AKA the most difficult birthday cake of all!
I don’t think I particularly cared about moving to Perth. I probably subconsciously knew Sydney was the boss level for showbiz and I needed to hone my skills in a quieter part of the world. Off-Broadway, you might say.
Terry was working for the Swan Brewery and he’d been promoted to sales director over in Western Australia. I’m not sure what that kind of important role in a brewing company entails . . . ‘Man in charge of getting others drunk’? If so, I’ve had that role on every date I’ve ever been on. I’m not sure if my dad ever finished a day stumbling down Swanston Street yelling, ‘Why won’t you love meeeee?’ after a potential client, though. Which I have done, by the way: I was leaving a party after ingesting a few too many Negronis and asked a complete stranger that exact same question. I also once told a guy on a first date, ‘I feel like I’ve known you forever.’ Cringe.
So in 1995 our little blonde posse swanned our way to Perth. Gonna have to be honest, not a lot happening in 1995 Perth. Thank God I was five and hadn’t quite yet acquired a fake ID. I imagine the nightlife of Perth at the time wasn’t ‘hopping’ as the kids (never) say. But I’ve no doubt some of the crusty old gays who’ve grabbed my arse over the years at Connections Nightclub (Perth’s gay club and a favourite spot of mine) would’ve been there even back then: in their same seats, sipping on a whiskey soda and fiercely discussing whether Kylie has or hasn’t had work. (I don’t think she has, by the way.)
I actually had a Kylie moment a few years back. I was sitting in an airport lounge in Hong Kong Airport late one night awaiting a connection to London (other than the Spice Girls). The airport was dead quiet and the only other person in the lounge was the one and only Ms Minogue. Travelling solo, might I add – no bodyguards. Very brave. She was very lucky (lucky, lucky, lucky) I didn’t lunge for her. I have a few friends who would’ve crash-tackled her to the floor as she had a second helping of brie. (Hi Kylie, if you ever read this, yes, I saw you go up to that buffet table several times and, look, no judgement here. All power to you, sister. I was going to go for my third pass but was trying to impress you.) We were in the lounge for a couple of hours together. We never spoke but exchanged knowing ‘Oh, you’re an Australian entertainer too’ nods. I try to play it cool around other celebrities, I want to act like we’re ‘industry peers’. Yes, I did just call Kylie Minogue my peer.
Ever since the Creaseys moved to Perth we have always lived in Applecross, a beautiful suburb just south of the river. I’ve always loved Applecross. It’s quite an affluent suburb with a cute coffee strip called the Applecross Village, where you can buy a burnt, over-priced coffee and watch women in Lululemon workout gear try to force some expression into their freshly botoxed faces. Helen and Nyssa will share a $72 bowl of ancient grain salad opposite their friend Tania, who peers over her dinner-plate-sized Gucci sunnies while recounting her recent trip to Bordeaux. She apparently had a fabulous time, sampling wines and olives while simultaneously pretending to still be in love with her banker husband, Craig. She doesn’t even mind that he’s having a secret affair with his personal trainer, Nadine. Tania’s just waiting for him to die so she can sell their holiday house on the coast and move to the Maldives.
For about six months we rented in the dodgy end of Applecross. We’re talking Audis, not BMWs, up that end – can you imagine? From memory, the house was pretty crappy and always damp. Terry and Jenny then bought a house up the better end (thank God). This time it was a case of the worst house in the best street. It was an old one-storey house on the corner about a block away from my primary school. It had stained-glass windows, wooden floorboards and a garage that had definitely seen some illegal shit.
Terry and Jenny are the type of people who are never content: they will renovate, clean, tweak and plump all day long if they can (their homes and themselves). Over the twelve or so years we lived in that house it took on many different looks. They added a pool, bedrooms, a movie room, an outdoor kitchen. No matter the day or time of year there was always a tradesman somewhere in the house adding or refining something. I swear I’ve even seen an electrician installing downlights on Christmas Day as the rest of us ate lunch and pulled our crackers. Mum and Dad always had, and still have, their finger on the pulse of fashion. And living in Applecross, you can’t fall behind or you just know Helen and Nyssa will be talking about you over their next soy chai latte. It was never gaudy though – Terry and Jenny have great taste.
This isn’t going to be one of these books where I lie and say home life was terrible, or we had to scrape money together for dinner. We didn’t have cabbage soup every night, excepting those on-purpose times when we were all doing the Atkins Diet before bikini season. All four of my grandparents weren’t sleeping in the same bed à la Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was very lucky to grow up with a great home life. I can confidently say for all us kids, that none of us ever grew up feeling unloved or unsupported. And never once did our parents dissuade us from pursuing our dreams.
So they are to blame for this strange career I’ve carved out for myself in the Australian entertainment industry. And they are probably to blame for the fucked-up stories you are about to read.
Because, trust me, it ain’t all Solo Man commercials, glamorous intergalactic wars and romantic proposals!
2
Scooters, Witches and Air Humping . . . Oh My!
My sisters and I all attended primary school at Applecross Primary School. It was a relatively small school with quaint, old-fashioned classrooms – so quaint, in fact, they often used them to film the 90s kids’ TV show
Ship to Shore. I’m such a star-fucker that even back then I demanded the primary school I attended was famous!
The school was a block away from our house, so of course we were in the catchment area. It’s a weird term, ‘catchment area’, isn’t it? Sounds like a sustainable seafood reference. Well, fish are in school, I suppose. (Boom! I’m here all week!)
From about Grade 5, I was allowed to scoot down to school with my best friend Ashleigh Bell. Remember when scooters were a thing in the mid-90s? I don’t mean motorised scooters – although they were doing a roaring trade in the over-eighties demographic too – I mean scooters you’d kick along yourself, Flintstone-style. Everybody had one. On the news they showed even businessmen in cities like Sydney scooting to work and folding them up and storing them under their desks. I vividly remember thinking at the time: Well, that’s a bit sad, get a car.
The best birthday present I ever got was a Lazer scooter on my tenth birthday. It’s still the best birthday present I’ve ever been given. Last year I got a slow cooker. What am I? Ninety? It had pink wheels (the scooter, not the slow cooker) that I would insist were burgundy . . . Even back then I was all about the alcohol references. I used to say, ‘The wheels are definitely burgundy. They probably look pink because I’ve been scooting so much. I scoot really fast, actually.’ I’ve always been able to talk myself out of pretty much any situation, even in primary school. But I mean, the wheels were definitely pink. I actually loved, and still love, the colour pink. But as all the dead-shit guys in my year would repeatedly tell me, ‘Pink is gay!’ I was like ‘Um, no she’s not . . . She’s just made some dodgy hair choices!’
One of the most exciting days of the entire year was actually two days before school would commence. That’s the day all the classrooms would post their class lists for the year on the door and you’d find out which teacher you’d have. I would get extreme anxiety in the weeks leading up to this day because naturally I had already decided which teacher I wanted months in advance. Always female. And always fabulous. I didn’t care about their academic abilities as a teacher, I just wanted them to wear a lot of chunky jewellery and have fun hair.
It was also very important for me to have my best friend Ashleigh in my class. Ashleigh and I met in primary school. I can’t remember how or why we became best friends but it was destined to be. She was always a great athlete, a total tomboy and a complete hard-arse. In fact, she is one of those annoying people who is good at everything. Even more annoying is that she doesn’t even brag about it. I knew I could always count on Ashleigh for anything, and still do. Ashleigh also happened to be my neighbour, which made the friendship extremely easy. A few years ago, Ashleigh worked for me as my tour manager on one of my stand-up tours and we laughed about how convenient it was that I started hiring staff at such a young age.
In Grades 2 and 3, I had Mrs Wills. Great teacher. Ashleigh and I were in the same class and it was awesome. I can’t remember why. Perhaps because we just sat around and ate Clag glue all day. Oh my God, I ate so much Clag in primary school, just to make people laugh. What a prop comic! It came in an opaque tomato-sauce-looking bottle and I worked out pretty early on it was just flour and water (fuck, at least I hope so . . . although if it wasn’t, it would explain a lot) and I knew I could make people laugh by eating it. We honestly never used it. I don’t think we ever used anything on our stationery list outside of pens and pencils. Has anybody? I’m not sure where or when you went to school, but in Perth in the 90s, your stationery list always included coloured moulding clay. Which we never used. Ever. Every student in the class would get their own ‘big drawer’ up the back of the room and the coloured moulding clay would just sit there doing nothing. Much like the basketball I got for my 11th birthday. About halfway through the year I couldn’t resist any more and I’d have to put finger marks in every piece of clay in the class. I should have tried eating it for my end-of-year performance.
I was always a good speller in primary school. I wish The Great Australian Spelling Bee had been around back then, I could have embarked upon my quest for fame much earlier. In fact – and I hate to boast as you know – but I was in the advanced spelling group in Grade 3. Yes, you’d better believe it. The first word we learned in the elite spelling team was ‘chlorine’. Silent ‘h’ . . . tricky. (Remember that 90s band Steps with the singer called H? I wish he’d stayed fucking silent.) Once the spelling of chlorine had been imparted to me I felt ready to run the country, or at the very least the local swimming pool. I mean, what else was there for me to learn? Ten bucks says Trump can’t spell ‘chlorine’. Although I get the feeling he’s ingested a fair bit.
By the end of Grade 3 I was starting to worry. Grade 4 was proper school. You had to learn stuff in Grade 4. You couldn’t just eat Clag and stress over the untouched moulding clay all day. Not only that, there were two teachers up for grabs in Grade 4. One was a fairly normal, female teacher. I think. I can’t remember, to be honest. Could’ve been male. I wasn’t paying attention. Because I was terrified.
The other teacher on the menu in Grade 4 was Mrs Smirke. Yes. That Mrs Smirke. Have you ever met someone whose very name defines the attitude you expect them to have? (I hope I don’t ever meet Mr and Mrs Kuntz.) Mrs Smirke, the older kids told me, was a witch. Checks out, I thought, she does have long white hair, pale skin and wears a lot of black. This was pre-Harry Potter, before witches received their long overdue renaissance. Witches are cool now. They also live in a fabulous house in New Orleans and Jessica Lange is in charge, if American Horror Story is to be believed.
This was the Mrs Smirke who apparently tortured students in her class. The Mrs Smirke who apparently lived under the stage of the primary school auditorium. To be honest, I always found that last one a bit weird. Why was she living under the stage? Couldn’t she afford a house? If she was a witch, couldn’t she just magic herself a house? Perhaps she just loved theatre? If I saw an apartment up for rent underneath a theatre I’d live there in a heartbeat. But it would depend on what show the theatre had on. I don’t think I could deal with Jersey Boys every night – no sassy female lead or big belting torch song. No. Thank you. Not. Interested.
So two days before Grade 4 in 1998, Mum and I went to the school to see if I had ‘the witch’. We headed over to Mrs Smirke’s classroom to look for my name. Mrs Smirke’s classroom wasn’t even part of the main building, it was its own demountable building on the other side of the school. Ah, of course! Witches love demountable classrooms. Frog spawn, eye of newt and asbestos are key ingredients in most witch recipes! What more proof did I need?
Ashleigh was already there. When I saw her face I knew we were in trouble.
‘We’re in Mrs Smirke’s class, Joel. You know she’s meant to be a witch.’
‘Yes, thank you, Ashleigh. I am aware. I just wrote an entire paragraph about it. Ugh. Read my book in twenty years’ time, won’t you?’
I was terrified. I was admittedly always a little obsessed with witches growing up. I watched The Wizard of Oz and The Witches on high rotation. My grandma and I used to always play ‘witches’ in her caravan/coven in the backyard. But I was always shit-scared of them too. They were fine to watch from the safety of the couch, but in real life? Absolutely not. A witch teaching me maths? Nah, I’m good. A witch teaching me English? Well, that should be all right. I could spell ‘chlorine’ so she couldn’t catch me out there.
I’m an incredibly judgemental person. Disgustingly so. If I pass you on the street, I’ve judged you. Within two seconds I’ll have convinced myself I know exactly who you are, what you’re about and where you’re going. And I definitely don’t think those shoes go with that skirt. But on many (read: most) occasions, I’ve been wrong. And Grade 4 was the first time I really learned that time-honoured lesson: ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. Or, as my friends call it, ‘Don’t be an arsehole, Joel.’
I fell in love with Mrs Smirke. So in love. Turned out everybody loved Mrs Smirke. She was sweet, caring and found m
e really funny. I can definitely credit her as being one of the people who planted the seed in my mind that I might be a funny person.
Mrs Smirke was the teacher who introduced us to the concept of the oral presentation. (I know you’re expecting a cheap gag here but I am far too mature and classy and will save that kind of smut for later in the book.) Whenever we had to give oral presentations to the class she would clap and praise us from the back of the room. I gave a presentation on Africa one day which possibly (definitely!) involved me wearing a loincloth fashioned from one of Nan’s old faux-fur stoles and singing ‘Circle of Life’ from Disney’s The Lion King. I received my first standing ovation that day. It was from a beaming Mrs Smirke at the back of the room who yelled, ‘Bravo! Encore!’
At the end of the year we did Secret Santa and I rigged it so she would receive my present. I just wanted to buy her gifts and let her know how much I loved her. It was all terrible jewellery but she happily wore it like it was the Hope Diamond. I cried when Grade 4 ended.
Grade 5 was an important year for me. It was a coming of age of sorts, in that I heard my first serious swear word. Why does my first swear word ‘experience’ even require a mention in my book, you might ask? Because I’m a stand-up comedian. This is a big moment! If I were a pilot, this would be the story about my first experience on a plane. Or if I were a hooker it would be my first blow job in a carpark . . . that I got paid for, obvs.
I love swearing. Love it. I think it’s funny, fun and fucking highbrow. I feel liberated when I swear and sometimes nothing but a perfectly placed ‘fuck this’, ‘fuck that’, ‘fuck you’ or ‘fucking fuckedy fuck’ will do.
