I went back a couple of times to the creative director at the advertising agency where I had done work experience, but he wasn't very dazzled by my ideas, so I threw in advertising and just amused myself by writing kids' stories and reading War and Peace. Then I wrote my best man speech for my brother Al's wedding and threw in a few jokes, including some prop comedy - for example I spoke about how I used to wear earmuffs while sleeping to combat Al's snoring, then I presented the bride, Rebecca, with a pair of earmuffs and said, "I'm passing them on." My speech got some good laughs, and afterwards Rebecca's uncle said something to me that would change my life forever. He said I should be a stand-up comedian. I forgot neither what he said that night, nor the way I felt from connecting with the audience, so a few months later I phoned the comedy club to ask if I could go on stage. They accepted me for a six-minute spot in Raw Comedy on a Monday night at the Classic. I had already written a little bit of material, but having that deadline made me write a whole lot more. On the night of my first ever comedy show (and, incidentally, the first time I had ever been to a live stand up comedy show) I had a lot of support from friends and family, and I had a great gig - enough to make me want to come back. As I walked out the door the manager, Scott, grabbed me and asked if I would like to come back to do another show, to which I said yes. My next gig was on a Monday night two weeks later.

Laughing uncontrollably is a beautiful thing. It's often set off by the most unexpected, surprising things. What is laughter? It's such a bizarre, luxurious response. Do animals laugh? Laughter sets us apart from animals; makes us more than just a living machine. I once had a crazy idea for a business, and the fact that I was half serious about doing it reflects my obscure, one-of-a-kind sense of humor. My idea was to approach people living in really flash houses and ask them if I could spray paint my ideas about life on their interior walls. I was in stitches just explaining the idea to my brother while riding in the back seat of my parents' car. I'm having a bit of a chuckle about it right now as I recall it! Not surprisingly, my brother just stared at me with a blank expression, and God only knows what my poor parents thought. My business never made it off the ground, but I did go on to have a career as a stand-up comedian. The great thing about being a comedian and having comedic thoughts is that, to make them work you only have to present them and get a laugh - you don't have to set up a company and look for premises.

I guess I showed signs of being a comedian very early on - just before I was to get up off my haystack that I was sitting on on stage dressed as a donkey to sing my solo I said to my mate who was sitting next to me, "nice knowing you." I thought I was going to die, but I nailed that solo - I don't know if being dressed as a donkey added or subtracted from the performance. At that same school I had a voice that I would put on to get laughs where I did this weird thing with my mouth, and word got around until one day the coolest, meanest, toughest kids in the school heard about my voice and asked me to put it on for them in the playground which I did and I appeased them - may have even got a laugh. That was my first private function. In the third form I was part of a tricycle threesome who dressed up in yellow raincoats and rode around on the stage to the soundtrack 'leader of the pack' during the light relief part of the weekly school assembly. Later that day in the playground I was recognised and gained minor notoriety. Then I fell deathly quiet and shy as a teenager, but as a 17 year old I was mesmerised by the humor of Wired World of Sports.

I could have started a diploma in advertising at Auckland Institute of Technology one year earlier than I did, but I turned it down, such was the extent of my fear of getting up in front of the class to do group presentations. I had decided I wanted to write ads for a living, but not before embarking on a three year course about everything to do with business and advertising except copywriting. Well, almost everything except, because it was at AIT that I met Jim Falconer, my copywriting tutor. I've heard it said that university is where you go to learn how to think. Jim Falconer's copywriting class opened my eyes to the world and possibilities of language. He kickstarted my creativity. I remember him saying, "it's all in there." He helped unlock my creative potential by showing me great ads, exposing me to great poetry (Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken) and speeches (Marianne Williamson, by Nelson Mandela) and getting me to write ads and do copywriting exercises.

Adventures in Writing

The first story I remember writing was also my first published story. It was a short short humorous story about how, one night, I fooled my parents into thinking I was in bed by stuffing pillows under the blankets while I hid under the bed. The final line was, "It worked, they kissed the doll!" I not only wrote the story but also set the type and printed it on a rudimentary printing press in my classroom. My teacher was a very clever man whose unconventional teaching methods helped make me as good with words and numbers as I am today. When I was about 12 I tried writing my first feature-length book but didn't get past the first page. In my early high school years I excelled in science, tho in my last two years of high school, despite still fancying myself a scientist, I was getting better marks in English. I left school and followed the herd to university, where I started a science degree. My head was in it, but not my heart, and after one year I dropped out. I wrote some great letters home describing my adventures aboard a yacht sailing for three months around the Pacific Ocean. From hammerhead to hammerhand (I wasn't paid to think). When I was working on a building site out in Little Huia I would park my car on the water's edge and write poetry about the coastline there.