Blake Everett started off in the world of comedy at 14 years old – now he's a comedian, and a freak.
Blake is stopping in at Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival – the former is a place where he's already nabbed an Adelaide Fringe Weekly Award for Best Comedy, for his duo show 'Blake Everett And Oliver Coleman: Dig Their Own Graves'. Now he's back in familiar territory, set to unleash the laughs once more – this time, in a solo gig.
In 'Freak Behaviour', Blake invites his audiences to come laugh, point and gawk at the freak. It's a show about being laughed at, as Blake brings his uniquely absurd sketches and musical comedy and squeezes them nicely into an hour about procrastination, laziness, and wishful thinking.
Did someone say procrastination? In line with one of the main themes of his show 'Freak Behaviour', Blake has listed five ways to procrastinate. . . But somehow, still make it over the line with your deadlines.
One
Spend your day contemplating the simple task that lies ahead. This is crucial. There needs to be a task you’re actively delaying the progress of. If you don’t have a task to avoid, then you’re not procrastinating, you’re probably just chilling out. However, if you do have a task, start thinking about it. . . Don’t do anything though, not yet, just set out to accumulate an excessive amount of ideas without delving too deep or fleshing any of them out. The purpose here is to completely overwhelm yourself with so many ideas that settling on just one becomes an impossible task. In the case of this 'Five', I vaguely thought about exploring the following; ‘Five Best Ways To Eat Potato’, ‘Five Genies, Where To Find Them And Harvest Their Wishes’, and ‘Top Ten Funniest Things I Have Ever Seen (On The Internet)’ – which I actually made a list for, then realised that’s a series done by The Guardian and they haven’t actually asked me to do that, but if they do, I’m on top of it.Two
Take a break. You haven’t earnt it, and the deadline is looming, but all that thinking you’ve been doing is exhausting. Switch your brain off for a bit and do something completely unrelated, but equally unproductive. This is a great opportunity to go for a scroll through all of your social media platforms, even the ones that no one uses anymore. You could watch some Reels, maybe do a story, unfollow and re-follow people who don’t follow you back in the hopes that this time they’ll follow you, and of course, be sure to look at profiles of your contemporaries and become annoyed that they’re further along in their careers despite getting their start years after you. It’s super important to get into that negative headspace before moving on.Three
Think about every single thing that’s gone wrong recently, or if you have the time, ever. It doesn’t matter if you found resolution on these things already, you should definitely rethink, rehash and reintegrate these problems into your life. This isn’t about finding solutions, that would be healthy and a good use of your time, that’s not what we’re doing here. It’s imperative that you dwell on these problems for an extended period of time. If you’re struggling to think of any wrongs, that is a wrong in and of itself. Why is your life so without wrongs? Sounds like you’re living a life absent of any backbone and/or self-destructive tendencies, so now is obviously a chance to change that. To speed up the process; send a message to a friend or a colleague (or an ex!) saying “we need to talk”. After that, be vague and backtrack a bit, and ideally, they’ll tell you what needs to be spoken about. Take it personally. Hopefully this disrupts any solid foundation of friendship and stays on your mind for the rest of the day.Four
Okay, you should probably actually do some work now, but OH NO, there’s a huge spider hovering over your desk where you left your laptop! And guess what? You’re terrified of spiders. Seems like a golden opportunity to freak out and allow yourself to spiral. What are you going to do? You could quickly grab your laptop and move to another room, but then you’d be taking your eyes off the spider and giving it a chance to hide, only to reappear at a later point and continue ruining your life. Remember, you are a six-foot-three man and spiders are your biggest fear (other than loneliness, but loneliness doesn’t have eight legs and a hairy back). You’ve gotta get rid of this thing! Paper and cup removal isn’t an option, it’s too close range, so you turn to obliteration. Bug spray can work nicely, but then you have to watch them slowly die and as much as you despise their very existence, you’re not a sadist. It needs to be quick and from a distance. I’d recommend extending your mic stand as long as it can go and jousting for your life. You’ll probably scuff up the wall in the process, leaving long black smudges from the rubber foot caps on the end of the mic stand, but you can clean that up later (though you won’t, because it’s a reminder that a spider was there, and you’d prefer to forget).Five
Hate yourself. Realise that this is your biggest flaw and that if you didn’t procrastinate so much you would most likely be closer to where you want to be, instead of constantly just scraping by. The only thing in your way is you. This is a heavy realisation, and you’ll want to mull it over for a while, but through that thought process you just might find the motivation you’ve been looking for. Then, after all that, get it done. Rinse, recycle, rethink, rehash, reintegrate, repeat.Blake Everett plays Drama Llama at Rhino Room (Adelaide Fringe) 12-16 March and Tasma Terrace (Melbourne International Comedy Festival) 8-21 April.
