My mum used to host these ‘jams’ when I was a kid, where she and her friends who played in folk bands would sit around our house playing music together. Her two best friends were a married couple who, when they weren’t playing folk music, dressed like clowns and toured with the circus most of the year. I thought they were amazing. Jeff was tall and played the fiddle, and Maggie had long hair and played the mandolin, and they were both so nice to me, I felt so special whenever I was around them.
I loved ‘doing the rounds’ at these jams and being spoken to like an adult, but mostly I loved the fact that my mum would be in such a good mood that she would regularly let out peals of tinkling laughter. When her friends arrived at the front gate of our house, I knew that, for the next while, everything would be fun and nice. Sometimes I have the same feeling when there are people over at my house or when I’m at a party. I just want everyone to have a good time. And it’s not for my benefit – when people are having a good time, I don’t even want to be there really; I want to go somewhere private and relax, or ideally listen in on them having a good time from the next room.
When my parents’ friends came over, there was also the added bonus of a probable treat, which I think is a cornerstone of hope for most kids, even if it’s just something small like a cup of tea and a square of chocolate.
Mum and her friends would all sit around and get stoned, playing song after song, which for me was probably the worst part. I liked the bit where they stopped playing and there would be general chitchat and laughter; sometimes when they were singing, it was all too earnest for me. I felt uncomfortable at how emotional they all were mid-song. I still feel that way about some music to this day. I hate the thought of expressing how you feel so ardently and publicly – it is probably my greatest fear. This might sound strange coming from a stand-up comedian, but for me comedy is different. I am never required to actually express my true feelings; if anything, people prefer that I don’t.
Occasionally, during these jams, I would be handed a tambourine to bang along to if I promised to do it quietly but, as I got older, I started being entrusted with real instruments like fiddles or guitars. One time, Jeff handed me a mandolin and showed me how to pluck a few basic notes for the upcoming song. I was excited to be given this chance so, as the song began, I started plucking along softly. I saw a few of the adults look at me approvingly and, when the song finished, they all declared I had a great ear for music.
I loved how easy it was to get a compliment as a kid. I could be speaking for myself here, but I was always very aware at how little effort you were required to put in to get a compliment. That’s why the whole concept of show and tell appealed to me so much, because the basic premise was to bring in something that you already owned, or even an interesting stick you found on your way to school, and then the whole class would sit there hanging off your every word. It just seemed so easy. Do little to no work and receive praise and attention? Sign me up.
As I was plucking along to more songs and quickly gaining confidence, I got louder and louder. In my mind, I was now the star of this jam.
After a song where I had played particularly enthusiastically, while people were tuning their instruments and getting up to go to the toilet, Jeff leant over to me and said, in a very kind voice, ‘I think for now you should play a bit more quietly. Just until you learn how to do it properly.’
My whole face burnt with embarrassment. I wanted to cry, but instead I nodded really fast and pretended I wanted to go and play with my toys. It was the child’s equivalent of ‘No, I’m fine. I’m just tired. I might head home. You guys go ahead.’
As embarrassed as I was at the time, I now think what great advice that was. When you’re learning something new, watch and learn from others, and shut the fuck up. They should teach that in schools. It is such a gift for someone to tell you when you’re being annoying when you’re at an age that there’s still a chance you can change. Hearing you’re annoying as an adult, on the other hand, usually doesn’t achieve much except sending you into a manic-depressive episode.
I look back on that exchange as one of the small defining moments in my life that helped me become more aware of the people around me. In that moment, I was making it about myself and being a show-off, and Jeff, probably recognising that he himself had acted that way in the past, let me know where I was going wrong without being rude or hurting my feelings too much. Adults have so many things to teach children; there are so many little behaviours that can develop into more problematic ones if they’re not caught and corrected early. If you’re lucky, your network of friends and family are able to spot things that might need to be realigned and tell you about it in a kind way.
At age thirty, I went on a family trip. Prior to the trip, I had taken several years off from family events to be an entitled brat pursuing the arts down south. In an effort to prove how good a niece and daughter I really was, I took everyone out for lunch. Thinking the gesture had adequately made up for years of neglect, I relaxed and concentrated on enjoying the rest of the trip, occasionally lending a hand carrying groceries and setting the table.
One afternoon, Aunty Elizabeth, who had taught me how to make cutting remarks and has this way of mocking you while her face maintains plausible deniability, asked me if I could wash the dishes. I was sprawled out on the couch with my hand resting inside a bowl of chips, and I complained loudly over the noise of the TV that I’d done enough on the holiday.
When she asked me what I meant, I foolishly walked into her trap by listing my good deeds in detail.
In a perfect play, she allowed me to go on and on until I’d exhausted myself, then she said in a composed voice, ‘Becky, it’s been so lovely having you here. We’ve seen how good you’ve been with everyone—’
Then she delivered the final blow: ‘—and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.’
I felt so ashamed and grateful to her for that nip, which I needed.
I came back to Sydney and told everyone that story, probably as a way of diluting the embarrassment I had felt and trying to own the narrative. Whatever my reasons were for sharing it, that phrase has become something my friends and I say to each other whenever we feel that the other person is wanting too much praise for something they did, instead of being cool enough to know that the favour will be returned at some point down the track: ‘It hasn’t gone unnoticed.’
It’s a privilege to have people around me who care enough to keep my behaviour in check, because that means they care about me and how I fit in with other people.
I knew a guy who had grown up in foster care and was a social menace. He was the sort of guy who would smoke your last cigarette or drink your last beer. People didn’t like him a lot of the time, but I loved him and still do.
What was interesting was that the same people who didn’t like him would claim to be socially progressive, and would happily lecture for hours about ‘how important education is’ and ‘how the system creates criminals because of the lack of housing and mental health funding’. Yet faced with a man who had been shunted from house to house from the age of nine, a man without a mum or dad or any real network of people to monitor the type of man he was becoming, they were unable to extend the same sympathies.
I am guilty of being annoyed by people and the things they do – I’ve built an entire career on mocking such people. But I think that, deep down, the reason I make fun of people who do things that rub me the wrong way is because the idea that they didn’t have someone who loved them enough to gently teach them not to do what they’re doing makes me really sad.
So thanks to Jeff for reminding me to not be an annoying little twerp. I shudder to think what I would have been like if I hadn’t had that little tap on the shoulder; because, even now, I’m pretty unbearable.