Paul Bedford

Voice Over (00:09):
This show is sponsored by the Comics

Voice Over (00:12):
Shop. Welcome to Tuesday Chinwag with your host Lee Chalker, writer, artist, and creator of the Comic series Battle for Basel.

Leigh Chalker (00:33):
Righto. Well, I guess I don’t need to introduce myself as you just heard it twice there. I think

Leigh Chalker (00:40):
So. Anyway, yeah, I’m Lee, how you doing? And this is Tuesday. So this is the last Tuesday Chinwag of the Year. And for anyone that hasn’t seen Tuesday chinwag before, it’s a show based on who, what, where, when, why, and how. And look, it’s fluid and that’s how I like to roll is nothing wrong with a little bit of fluidity in conversation and stuff like that, but it is the last one for the year. And as much as I love all of and have had great pleasure, honour, and most grateful to all of the guests that have graced the Chinwag screen and have spent time with me over the last, well, 12 months and last year, so two years, there’s been about 65 episodes, about 150 hours worth of interviews of varying characters and creators and people involved in the Australian comic book community. And it’s been pretty awesome. And tonight for the last show of 2024 and who knows what Beyond holds, but as of right now, this is it. And I’ve got Mr. Paul Bedford with me tonight. And Gday mate. How are you? Good

Paul Bedford (02:01):
Mate. How are you going? I’m good, I’m good. I’m chuffed to be here again. It’s very nice. It’s very nice. Once was lovely. Twice is an absolute honour. Thanks for having it us, man.

Leigh Chalker (02:13):
That’s great. It’s my pleasure man. Before I get into Paul A. Little bit more in detail, tonight’s show is sponsored by the Comex Shop. Now across the ticker box, down the bottom is where you can find all of the shows that are recorded and like varying other entertaining elements of the Comex community. Don’t forget to like and subscribe ’em anywhere. You can find ’em. That is the most integral thing because the best thing to do about Australian comics is to enjoy the community that is around and the numbers grow. It helps these shows get out into the ether and hopefully it inspires some people of all ages to have a shot at creativity, not just in comics, but drawing, writing anything at all. And that’s the number one goal of comics and I’m very thankful to have been part of giving everyone a go at it and bringing to your attention.

(03:22)
So look, as I’ve said earlier, I’ve had a lot of people I’ve enjoyed everyone. There’s been a couple along the way that have been a little bit hit and miss. We won’t mention any names, but that’s just how it is with the fluidity of the live streaming. And a big thank you to everyone, and I certainly don’t want anyone to take this the wrong way, but at a particular time in my life when I was going through a lot of changes, I mean I’m still changing and learning every day and had my ups and downs. That’s just what life is, peaks and troughs. And the one guess that, I guess I will use the word resonate. And for anyone out there that doesn’t know what resonate means, it is to relate with harmoniously. Something strikes a chord, it echoes within you. It evokes images, memories, and emotions.

(04:21)
And that evening that Paul and I spoke, there were a lot of things that left a mark with me and it seemed apt. It seemed apt that Paul would be the person to take us out with me into the rest of the year. So for anyone that didn’t see Paul on the first one, that is a seminal piece of Australian comic book work. And Mr. Paul Bedford, Henry Pop and Tom Bowman created this and put it together. It’s 220 odd pages of magnificence, black and white beauty. And basically, if anyone knows me, I’m obsessive about the crow. And that was one of those ones up there with me. So not only is Paul welcome here as a gentleman, Paul’s also welcome here as a creator that I admire as well. And to everyone out there saying hello, this is a new system, I’ll be a little bit slow on the uptake, but I’ll keep my eye on some comments. So thank you for watching and let’s get this underway. Mr. Bedford, for the people that didn’t see the first time around, my friend, who are you mate?

Paul Bedford (05:37):
Let know. Okay, I think I gave you firstly. Thank you. That’s a lovely intro, man, that’s on both levels personally and artistically. That was, I dunno what to say and I think we should finish the show. That was lovely mate, I’m touched and I’m actually flushed a little bit. I’m a little bit flushed. Oh man, did I go red? I don’t know. Do have a red earth? There’s like a red planet on the top of my head. Take you mate. That was lovely. That was lovely. And of course thank you to once again Henry and Tom for bringing the list alive. That was an amazing time in my life.

(06:24)
Creatively, sort of professionally and mostly personally, most of all, not mostly most of all. Who am I? Okay, I think I gave you a big fat intro last time and I think we went deep off the bat last time and it was good day guys. Thanks. I see everyone down there absent Ryan, Kerry, Nick, kj, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it. Yeah, who am I? Look, it’s an ever evolving thing. There’s a few levels. One, I am a dad who lives in the suburbs. I’ve got two kids who I love with all my heart and a wife I love with all my heart. I work a pretty standard, normal job. And outside of that, I pursue my pursue as if I’ve got a choice. I indulge in my creative journey, I’ll say it that way. So most people, I’m creative, I just let myself enact that.

(07:43)
And I have spent, I think when I, good day Ray, I think I spent my entire life in one way or another in the creative sphere, whether I was conscious of that or not. And I was literally pondering that obviously because the show was coming up and I was pondering this evening and I thought, what does that mean when you look back over your life and you’ve sort of always enjoyed creation? And there’s two parts to that. First part is the heartbreaking part that a lot of people stop because they believe the words of others and the words of others are they aren’t creative or stop that shit or whatever, which is always heartbreaking because no one I know is, sorry, everyone I know is creative. Everyone’s done something creative whether it’s in the arts or not. So it’s always heartbreaking when people either give up on themselves and generally due to the opinions, quite often ignorant and fearful opinions of others. And then there’s the other side which led me to tonight’s opening question. So I thought with a banger is I was hit with the question, what is art? And I dunno where that came from. I was just pondering around as I was just knocking off the dishes and having a non-alcoholic IPA and finished my kombucha. I dunno how you do that. The nineties me is give me dark looks,

(09:50)
Future me, get your shit together, you pussy. Yeah. So literally the question that struck me was what is art or more Exactly. More exactly. What is the purpose? What is the purpose of art? I mean I have an answer and I suppose I’ll tell you or my answer unless you want to answer first, unless you want to have a crack or if you want to build on what I say. But this is just,

Leigh Chalker (10:23):
I’m going to let you go with the flow of your thought process

Paul Bedford (10:26):
Here mate. Cool, cool. Just throwing things out. I’m not saying this is the defining statement of art or this is my journey and where I’ve got to this point and we’re asking myself a big question at 53, 54 next month, what is the purpose of art? I can the only answer, not the only answer, but the answer I came up with for tonight or tonight, not for tonight, but tonight I keep on correcting myself. I is that it is and inner journey. And I think it is a statement of being true to yourself, not in the face of face of naysayers or not in spite or anything like that, because that energy will run out.

(11:33)
I think the purpose of art is to delve into yourself and see what you can do, see what comes out, essentially. Go Peter. It is strange because when you look at, I think things like, especially music, comics, movies, things that culturally everyone can relate to sort of have to wonder why does art come out in this particular way? When I look at the list, I look at that and I’m like, why did that come out that way? Why is it, why is it that particular way? What was in me that produced that work? And then I look at someone like Darren Close, why did he produce kroo? And what in him? Why did it take that form? You go over to Jason Franks and all his novels are very different and his comic are very different. Why do they take those different forms? Why does art, and I’m not talking about themes or the psychology that created those. I’m talking about look, why does it take that form? Why isn’t it just a philosophy? Where does that particular kind of story come from? So I think the purpose of art is to realise a vision is to bring what’s in out, but you’ve got to go in first, right? You’ve got to go in first.

(13:44)
Otherwise you are just doing, I dunno what you’re doing. I dunno what you’re drawing or you’re doodling. It’s very surface. Yeah. So that’s sort of fascinated me is why art as opposed to other things, takes a particular form. How did comics come into being? How did music come into being? How do movies come into being? And I’m even talking dramatically. I’m just talking. I mean, I know life is a story and we love stories and that’s likely where story comes from and that’s the correlation. But there’s just as much story in your standard day or your afternoon with your family or there’s many twists and turns in conversation and events hanging out with at my son’s birthday this afternoon, that could just make a great comic. And I suppose it is that to be slice of life stuff, but even that’s got given its own

(14:51)
Genre. So I’m fascinated by why it takes a particular form and why isn’t it just life reflected? Why do these things happen? How do they even come to be? How do they even manifest into that in the first place? What makes us get a story or a piece of music or a movie or anything? How did it initially take that form? I don’t have an answer for that one. I don’t really. But it’s strange that if you read the great philosophers or the great psychoanalysts and all that sort of stuff, that’s very real true to life stuff. And yet comics, novels, movies, songs are just as powerful psychologically, if not more so. They seem to tap into something like into a universal consciousness, something like

Leigh Chalker (15:53):
That.

Paul Bedford (15:54):
You try and sit down and read Jung or you listen to Pink Floyd, people are going to choose to listen to Pink Floyd because that opens up their mind in different ways. It’s not necessarily the lyrics. So it’s fascinating that things just take those particular forms. So I think the purpose of art is to find that thing and bring it out and then deal with it, then deal with it being out. Because it’s very intimate stuff. It’s intimate stuff. You make that book

(16:32)
And you’re like, okay, so when I wrote the list, right? And I can’t recall if I told the story before, but I lost a script. I didn’t lose it, I just put it away. And then I moved houses and I was unpacking and I found it and I read it. I’m like, I should do something with this. And I look back and I go like, why should I do something with this? What’s the reason I want to do something with this? If this was an intimate, dark psychological story about my journey and true catharsis all my demons onto the page, why do others have to know about it?

Paul Bedford (17:14):
And

Paul Bedford (17:15):
That takes me to the second part. Why, what’s the purpose of art and why do we feel compelled to share it? And we’ve got two lanes there. We’ve got the ego and then we’ve also got just sharing a universal consciousness, sharing an experience with other people like what you went through, will they relate?

Paul Bedford (17:43):
Keep away

Paul Bedford (17:43):
From the ego stuff as you’re keeping away from the ego stuff. That’s the ego stuff.

Leigh Chalker (17:50):
That’s the paradox, mate. I know, I know the para man. I love conversations. I love our conversations because I can write, for me, 100% agree with you, but I will talk from my art. Okay? I won’t talk about or I won’t compare with other people’s journeys. They’re all individual and what you choose is what you choose. But what I would say for me was musically, I will touch on briefly very quickly, was emotion, animalistic in nature, energy, get it out from a physical side of things, throw it out. I guess it used to be to me and almost a sport, you know what I mean? Just as much energy as I could put into it and then walk away from it. Leave everything there. When it comes to my artwork, that is the paradox for me. I’ve obviously, as you know man, I’ve been, I’m nearly three years sober and in the three years that I’ve been sober, I have probably had, while there have, I’m very grateful to still be here.

(19:18)
Oh, we’ll put it to you that way. Shit came close, alright, that we wouldn’t be having any of our conversations. But something other than a little act of God here or there pulled me out and it was up and I knew I couldn’t, I can talk to people in 20,000 words, but people will only listen to 1000 of them and then they’ll go off with what they took from that and it’ll never be the full story. But what I found with drawing in particular for me and other art that I do painting et cetera, was that in that moment what I could put on that page was exactly everything that I had to say. So every page that I’ve ever drawn is dated and I can look back on those dates and I can see that page. And I don’t necessarily remember every line that I drew, but I can remember the phase of my life that I was in.

(20:29)
And you can see it through the ebb and flow of battle for bustle. You can see the good parts, you can see the bad parts, you can see the other one thing that has predominantly in the last, because see this all, it’s strange you asked that man, because over the last I would say six weeks, I’ve obviously been off socials and I’ve made some decisions with myself personally because while I was on a journey through sobriety and to beat and to beat like addiction, you have to believe in something to a certain extent that’s bigger than yourself. I know it sounds cliched to other people, but that aren’t addicts. But you do have to have an element of is there more to this than me? Hence the questions like start beginning, start coming, man.

Paul Bedford (21:28):
Sorry.

Leigh Chalker (21:29):
You’re alright. You’re alright.

Paul Bedford (21:30):
I was losing you a bit on his headphones. Sorry mate. Yeah, I’m fine.

Leigh Chalker (21:34):
I just thought I’d wait for you. And yeah, when you start finding yourself echoing existential to a certain extent because addiction takes you internally, but in all different sorts of ways, it’s erratic is all held. You know what I mean? You’re here, there everywhere. You’re not quite sure what’s happening. You’re making decisions that are totally erratic. You’re fucking making some good decisions, which are basically just fluky. Like in hindsight, there’s lots of regrets, there’s lots of guilt, there’s lots of promises made that aren’t kept. You know what I mean? There’s lots of, I’m going to change, I’m going to change, I’m going to change. You never do. But the one consistency that allowed me to get all of those emotions out at that particular time was art. And I didn’t realise until the last couple of weeks that the paradox of love is loneliness. And with all of my artwork that I do, the essential theme is loneliness because it takes so much of yourself and your private time and time with yourself to create these things. But to be alone is to be full of love and to love fully and that I gave everything to my art. So I don’t know, it’s strange.

(23:02)
It’s been an inner journey for me. I’m fucking thankful that I’ve had artwork, man. Because artwork, I’ve said this before to people, it has saved my life. And I’ve found that I’ve never particularly had ego with my artwork. I’m quite happy to show people I love encouraging people to do creative stuff. You know what I mean? That’s part of Chinwag was allowing people that always had that imposter syndrome and things like that to come forward and tell their stories. Because these are all important things, man. Your artwork comes from your experiences, hence yours. Did I remember you telling me about the list where you were just physically sick one day? You know what I mean? When you’d finished the script and it was as though you didn’t know where that came from, but it was just as though you’d purged a whole heap of weight and stuff that had just come from you.

(23:56)
You know what I mean? And there was no other way possibly that got out other than to complete the script and give yourself some direction and this is what I want. So the battle is that for me, artwork is definitely inward. My artwork was, how shall I say, is still highly emotional for me. I’m finding a lot more peace with it now. It was very, people say my work is violent. Perhaps that’s part of in a Jungian way, the shadow work that one has to do is I possibly was working through issues through art, but the journey and being able to be part of something that the artwork gave me, because there’s so many things I could say. The art was never an ego side. What caused me the most concern recently within myself, because to veer off slightly, but we’ll come back our conversations, man, when I went off socials, people don’t realise some do and some are watching that know this, they helped me through it. Just recently I went into a real heavy dark place man. And it may not have been obvious to people that watch Chinwag and stuff like that. And I just couldn’t see.

(25:47)
I’d done so much work this year when I look back on it now that I’m out of the whole, I didn’t realise 34 chin wags, you know what I mean? Three comics I got published, man, I fucking did my first UK comic book man. You know what I mean? That I don’t tell anyone about because that was just one of those inner dreams to always do. And I’m super proud of that. And maintaining, I guess myself as a single dude who’s like 46 fucking I’d been a drug addict and an alcoholic for 25 plus years. And when you look at it from an emotional level, man, I’m 47 now. You take 25 years out of that, that’s 22. So essentially, I guess I’m emotionally a 22-year-old. So you’re up and down a little bit. You know what I mean? This is the first time I’ve ever been, it’s new.

(26:55)
It’s hard to deal with certain things once you could just get yourself fucking hammered, man, if something bothered you bookie and then a day or two later you don’t worry about that, you just move on. So it’s weird navigating certain things. And arts helped me with that because being off socials, because I fell into this ego trap, man. And when you do shows like this, and it’s not why I started this show, I started it to be soulful because I wanted to reach out and communicate and touch people that were like-minded as me. You know what I mean? Or find a community people that you could gravitate with and talk about art, talk about things on these levels as we both understand. I’m not really someone that’s going to sit there and shoot breeze about the fucking clouds mate. You know what I mean? I like getting into some stuff that’s just me, how I’ve always been. And then I was doing chinwag and because of the fluency of it, and it was every week and every week I started going down this fucking road of worrying about numbers and how do you make this better and how do you make that better? And then slowly you think you’ve stamped the fucking ego out, man. You know what I mean? I’m cool, man. I meditate twice a day. I’m fucking talking to spiritual advisors. I’m fucking doing my study

Leigh Chalker (28:21):
And stuff like that. I’m all over this shit. The arrogance, fuck. Seriously man. And then I hit a wall of what the fuck are you doing, man? This thing has just

Leigh Chalker (28:34):
Crept back up on you and just fully fucking got you by the balls man. Do you know what I mean? And you haven’t. I was trying to help

Leigh Chalker (28:42):
People and pushing energy everywhere, you know what I mean? And I didn’t even realise that I was the one that needed the fucking help. So I just fell off the fucking cliff. So I got off socials

Leigh Chalker (28:55):
And I was at an end where it was just like, fuck, I’m done with this. I’m sick of drawing. It doesn’t give me what I want anymore. It doesn’t give me the joy and shit. The sheer joy of passing a day of just drawing or writing that beautiful creative thing that when you’re in the zone, it’s the only magic man. And then I got off socials and it took me, because we’ll go down this road too, because this is a question you asked me before I fucking got off. And you were like, well, I’d like to know what your thoughts are on that. And it took me about a week and it was like I just didn’t realise how invested I was in it, advertising shows, communicating with people nonstop and my artwork and my drawing and all this stuff that was well enough that I was getting out.

(29:45)
I’d drawn every day for two years, man, I’m talking every day. And it was my thing to keep me balanced. And then I just realised that I am walking away from socials, man. I’m blowing this shit up and I’m going to go and fucking just be, just be. And I had five weeks off. And in that five weeks I swore at the first day, I’m not drawing, I ain’t drawing, I’m not doing anything. I’m just fucking nuts. I’m just smell the roses and just chill and fucking, I’m a water zodiac. I’m going to go and sit by the

Leigh Chalker (30:32):
Water and watch the egrets fucking get their fish and that. And that’s all cool. I still like doing. It’s all

Paul Bedford (30:38):
Cool. You’re telling yourself these things. This is what I’m going to do, doing these things because I think that’s the answer. And you’re like,

Leigh Chalker (30:51):
This is the fucking this still the ego man. Just yeah, man, do that. That’s what you should do.

Paul Bedford (31:01):
I’m on the

Leigh Chalker (31:04):
And

Paul Bedford (31:05):
The find. Well, the thing that I was doing, why am I denying the thing that actually brings me peace and happiness and visualising what I think will bring me peace and happiness?

Leigh Chalker (31:22):
And the funny part is, mate, after two days of it, and I was fucking seriously, I’m talking to people about fucking just crazy stuff. Have you seen how many birds there are out here today? And they’re walking past me and they’re like, oh yeah, no, good on you. That sort of stuff. And I thought I was all zen and shit. And then I came home one day and I had fucking two minutes where I was like, what will I do? I came straight down to the fucking granny, flat man, grabbed the page, bang, started a drawing. And you know what, Paul have the fucking stop in the last month, man. So just like, man, I’ve punted out 16 pages, man of stuff. I’ve just found a whole new, I don’t know, it was difficult. I didn’t understand it. I’ve had other friends telling me like, man, put it down. It’s like, no, I just needed to need to get shit out. Now,

Paul Bedford (32:24):
Put what down. Put what down. Put what down. I don’t understand. Put it down, stop breathing

(32:36)
What I touched on before. But at some point, or for some reason, people stop. And if you manage to get through that, and like I said, it breaks my heart when people don’t, could you see what happens to them? Especially if they want it and they’re denied it, that’s truly, truly something. Because they can go and convince themselves all they want that they don’t want to do something, but in their heart they do. Put it down. No putting it down. It’s part of you. It is intrinsically a part of you. And if you have just kept on the creative path, no matter what, it doesn’t have to be anything that others think. Artists typically are. You can knit, you can do it. Nothing. Nothing is not creative. If you feel that is joy and your pees, you try and stop doing that, you’re only going to hurt yourself.

Paul Bedford (33:41):
Oh man.

Paul Bedford (33:42):
And I cannot stop. And I love it. I love it. I have it literally. Yeah, that’s right. San sorry if I pronounce your name incorrectly. And it’s boundless like art, utterly balanced. And it’s balanced in yourself. There’s no limit. There’s no limit except if you try and stop it and you see people out there hurt because they stopped it. I came up with parents that weren’t artists, I’ll put it that way, but yet they could have been. But there was, I don’t know what was in me, but it couldn’t be stamped out. I’m not saying that my parents intended to, but I think they realised there was a seriousness there and a dedication there that wasn’t going to crumble. And the more that if they tried to stop it, the stronger it gets. So it was not going anywhere. So you were right. And you know, it just basically admitted that then in your actions are coming down and just madly drawing is like you were literally, which you resist persists.

(35:20)
You cannot change something like art. You can change a lot of things about yourself. You stop drinking. That’s a huge one. And I just wrote a note before because I want to touch on that. When you’re saying you think you’re a 47-year-old, 22-year-old, it’s not true. Most 22 year olds do not talk like that. So you’ve obviously been on a massive path of self-discovery and no one can know what you’ve been through and the way you speak and the way you talk to people. And I can tell the way you interview here is that this is going to fuck you with your ego.

(36:14)
And that’s why I’m saying it. I’m giving you an ego test is just, you can tell when you can say what you want, but you’ve been through massive catharsis, multiple and just you’ve probably had massive epiphanies about yourself all the way along. So you’re not the 22-year-old. There’s no way you could be, you couldn’t do this if you were and you couldn’t have those realisations about yourself. But then we slip back, you start doing things like you can think, you can deny your art, good luck. You want to destroy yourself. Fuck drugs and alcohol, you stop. If you want to really fuck yourself up, then stop your passion.

(37:03)
Drugs and drink. They can do a lot of things. They can impede you. And strangely enough, I had a mate come over yesterday, I haven’t seen him, haven’t really probably caught him about five years. And his husband of best mate I’ve known for 30 something years, she went to Japan. I went to Japan in the same time she met her husband, he came and lived over here and we used to go out and we get on it, right? He was much more a heavyweight than I was a fucking lightweight in the gear, take that much. But that’s fine with me.

(37:40)
I was more into the beers. Although once I took a bad pill and this dude, I reminded him yesterday we’re in Pran, and he stood next to me while I was having a bad trip and a lane weight for eight hours. That’s a good for eight hours while I flipped out, I knew I was there, but I was in a bit of a hole. Wasn’t a K hole, but I wasn’t in a bad place. I couldn’t fucking move eight hours. Yeah, that’s right. Exactly right, mate. Yeah, absolutely mate all. Yeah. So he was over yesterday and he still tries to take himself as far as he can on psychedelics. Okay? Now I’ve never had an attraction to them. I had one once and I enjoyed it and one the next time, and I really didn’t enjoy it. So I’m like, okay, that’s my experience, I’m done. And he’s like, well, you’ve stopped drinking for year. Why don’t you try something like the psychedelics or something? And I said, consider this. I am going down. When you speak a psychedelics, you speak a new mind opening experience or something like that, an unlocking of your mind or some sort of unimaginable experience, sight and sounds and maybe meeting mother or whatever I was, things like that.

Paul Bedford (39:28):
And

Paul Bedford (39:28):
Then I said to him, I said, well, I’m on my own psychedelic path. And it just touches on what you said before is that for years the drugs and drink was to deny yourself is to know is because you a certain you want to be a certain person or you have certain strengths or passions or you have something about yourself that you want to deny. It might be you don’t like your job. It might be you haven’t quite had the push to become an artist. It might be you want to be an extra writer, it doesn’t matter what it’s, but drugs and drink will literally influence your mind to stay at that place while you’re in denial. You’re denial, denial. And it allows you to deny your true self.

(40:27)
Same fucking element. Holy shit than you because I’m older than you. So I’m nearly a year sober now. And so my point to was I’m on my own psychedelic trip without of sobriety. And I said, I have not experienced an unlocking of my mind like this in any time in my life. Exactly. Spot on that. Steal your time and you tell yourself when you’re on, I’m all creative, I need it to relax. I need to get the buzz to bullshit. And I’m constantly being amazed by the unlocking of my mind as a result of sobriety. And it’s not something I anticipated. I didn’t know that happened. So I wasn’t aware that you experienced that when you stopped because your brain has been literally shut down for 30 years. You’ve been, you have a few beers, fine. Those chemicals will stay in your system for three to four days, right? Keep you a little bit low, keep your thinking low. And you might be a bit snappy, you might be happy drunk, who knows? But if you do that, if you are constantly doing that, if you are bonging every day or two or three beers every day or whatever, now I’m not anti alcohol and all that. I’m just saying this is my experience and if people are looking for a reason to stop, it truly is an inspiring one because I didn’t know this occurred. So when you are free of that constant barrage of chemicals that are influencing your thinking and Australian drink with such frequency that there’s no break,

(42:43)
They have a break and they feel great and a later they’re back because when you’re sober, you’ve got to face life raw. There’s no getting away from it, man.

Paul Bedford (42:55):
Yeah, man,

Paul Bedford (42:57):
You’re going raw. And it’s not an ego thing, it’s an act of courage because you are not looking to escape. You know that this is it. You are dealing with your demons and the stresses of life and whatever else, and there’s no way out of it. And that maybe leads to the unlocking and in turn that inspires your art for two days. You can do it on the gear of course, and you’re like, oh, I’m tapping into something. You’ve been sober for three years and you can do that. It’s all garbage. It’s all shit that you need. I wish I knew that something years ago.

Leigh Chalker (43:44):
Oh man, I wish I would’ve known that too. But one thing I do want to say straight up man is fucking proud of you for nearly getting to 12 months, man. We’ve spoken and I think one thing we both share is a lot of shit we’ve been through, and I’m not looking for excuses or anyone to come and Molly coddle me or anything and say, no, it’s all right love. But when you get to a point of where you are at and to hear what you are saying to me, and I’m a little bit further down the track than you are on the sobriety journey, it’s fucking brilliant man. And to see what you are doing with your game and things like that, I checked up on things and to see that you’re still going and pushing through and your passion’s increasing.

(44:45)
And even from talking to you six months ago when you were last on chinwag and you were really precise, articulate, deep, soulful, you’re even more so now man, which I would suggest you are starting to move into that you’re comfortable within yourself now in the sobriety state as you said, and you’re realising that there are things that I ran from a lot of shit man, and there’s no doubt you did too. And art helped me through that. Creativity’s helped you through that man. And so without those things, I’d say both of us would be in a far worse position than what we are now

Paul Bedford (45:37):
For one second is that the irony is that society sees artists as people who are trying to escape reality opposed to just confronting it. They see a nice picture or they hear a nice song and they don’t realise that’s that artist’s guts being put onto the paper. It’s not escaping by any means. Oh my God. And that’s maybe why a lot of artists do indulge is because the reality of creating art, as you were saying before, is an emotional rollercoaster and it’s a lot to deal with. And like Ryan said before, Ryan said down here, it steals your time. All that sort of stuff steals your time. But you do it because that’s not a consideration. It doesn’t matter if it’s still my time. I’m getting away from

Leigh Chalker (46:32):
What man, you waste a lot of time being a drunk. I can definitely tell you that. I look back on things man and fucking hell, there’s years in my life I don’t remember, man. You know how you meet some people and they’ll be sitting there and they’ll be talking to you and they’ll go, oh, when I was like 31, I did this and this and that, man, I look at them and go, fuck, I don’t remember what I was doing at 31. I’ve got no idea. I don’t remember birthdays, I don’t remember poignant moments in my family’s history or just so many things disappear on you with it. One thing I found though with when I was probably, I was having a hard time dealing with things on an emotional level because emotions are hard to deal with. There’s such a nuance between excitement, passion, anger, and varying as you get up the tear that I find that most people are like, if you’re loud people, what are you getting angry about?

(47:46)
What are you doing? That sort of thing. Tone it down. And I think this adds to the confusion too of people, man. Do you know what I mean? So artists are silent and they put it out on the page and things, but I tend to find that there’s a lot of miscommunications between people as well because they don’t understand the nuances of what those people are suggesting. And I was in a weird way too, man, fucking, I had this thought the other day because I was out walking and shit like that and I was walking around and I thought like, man, how many arguments have you had with people? You get these random fucking thoughts in your head and you’re out walking around and shit. And I started because some dude, I had headphones on and he’s on a pushbike behind me and the song had stopped and you feel someone’s behind you. And I turned around and he’s on a pushbike man, and he’s like,

Leigh Chalker (48:40):
Get the fuck out of the way. And I’m like, you got a fucking bell man. And anyway,

Leigh Chalker (48:50):
I had a moment and I pulled myself back in and I thought like, okay, how many arguments, arguments he had with people. So I went, as I’m chatting in my mind, probably overthinking things, but I thought most of the in the last, and I’ll use Chin Wags for an example, I’ve done 150 odd hours of talking to people in front of other people. They’re all recorded, they’re all you’ve seen. People have seen me up and down and all over the shop, but I’ve not argued with anyone or act up with anyone or anything in general conversation. But man, text messages like

Leigh Chalker (49:37):
Sarcasm doesn’t come across in the written word via a text message. Man, I had a whole

Leigh Chalker (49:43):
Heap of other shit and it just triggers you. That’s another reason I had to give socials away, man, because going insane instead of I get a lot of text messages, man from people just because likes to do with chin waxs to do with friends, it’s to do with a lot of things. There’s a lot of information overload going on. As much as you think you’ve got under control, you don’t, it’s fucking things which is important like we were saying, which is your creativity and your artwork. And I started like, no, I’m not texting anyone anymore. I’m fucking putting a flag, but this is it. Texting is small what you’re doing, meet me in five, coming over that sort of shit. You want to have a deeper meaningful

Leigh Chalker (50:33):
With me or you want to have a yarn pick up the phone and speak a normal person so there’s no dramas.

Leigh Chalker (50:42):
Oh man. Now anyone here, I’ve got one for you too man. Look Paul, I’m letting it all out, man, tonight because having fun. I’m having fun man. Because if someone said to you with all due respect, what’s the initial emotion you get from that,

Paul Bedford (51:12):
From what you just said

Leigh Chalker (51:15):
With all due respect and then they follow up?

Paul Bedford (51:22):
Are you talking about the guy on the bike?

Leigh Chalker (51:25):
I’m just talking about if you got a fucking text message or something and asked a question and someone says, with all due respect. Now if I was to say that to you like this,

Paul Bedford (51:37):
Those particular words,

Leigh Chalker (51:38):
Yeah,

Paul Bedford (51:40):
With all due respect,

Paul Bedford (51:48):
Look, I generally, my wife and I, we always text. Yeah, that’s right.

Leigh Chalker (52:01):
I agree. I believe it also means that you don’t deserve much respect. It’s flippant. It’s like dismissive in nature. That’s how I’ve been brought up to understand that. And that was actually the last disagreement I had with someone was that they said that, I never really

Paul Bedford (52:19):
Thought of that. I guess what it means is instead of saying with all due respect, what they should say is, now I’m really going to say what I think instead of saying with all due respect, what you should say is, I’m about to tell the truth. I’m about to be honest. And what I should be able to reply to that is if you are going to be honest, watch out because I’m not allowed to be honest. And if you want to go there, this is a threat. But if you want to go there, we can go there and then we’ll get into the deeper reasons why you think you need to say with all due respect. Because then you’re putting yourself in a plateau.

Paul Bedford (53:08):
When

Paul Bedford (53:08):
You put yourself in a plateau, then you need to be pulled down

Paul Bedford (53:15):
So

Paul Bedford (53:15):
We can talk eye to eye. So with or due respect is a power play. Agreed. The other handshake. Yeah man, I agree generally to answer your question, sorry about the confusion a little bit there, I actually meet that with amusement because

Leigh Chalker (53:38):
You know what it is?

Paul Bedford (53:39):
They are good in their loins or they’re mustering their power for an ego-driven statement and they’re like, this is a power step. I’m about to tell you something, which should put me in a superior position to you and hopefully dig into a weakness that you’ve got. Okay. Actually, with all due respect, I’m like, thank you for the warning. You should have just said what you’re going to say. You would’ve had the surprise.

Leigh Chalker (54:15):
Yeah. Well I’m glad you think that way man, because that was the last disagreement that I had with someone via texting. And the next day I thought about my response over about 18 hours because I like to think about things not dwell or I like to question these things. See this is the bullshit that goes into socials. You’ve got to spend

Leigh Chalker (54:38):
18 hours. There’s a point to the story viewers, the point is that 18 hours should have been put into artwork or something creative, whether it was mowing the yard or cooking or doing something that did not require energy.

Leigh Chalker (54:56):
But this was on bullshit like that. And that’s what I found with social support.

Paul Bedford (55:06):
You try and take the ego out and it’s very easy to do because you can play straight into it. But you played into it for 18 analyst.

Leigh Chalker (55:16):
I know. And that’s what made me angrier. And then I realised a day later, you fool

Paul Bedford (55:26):
Did say anything due.

Leigh Chalker (55:34):
I didn’t like it. As you can tell, that was it for me, dude. That was one of the big ones where I just went, you know what? I’ve had a whole heap of bullshit going on. I’m fucking dying here. You know what I mean? In myself, I’m losing my track. I’m completely off path. My meditations were shit. You know what I’m talking about when you’re not feeling like you’re following me. And I just hit that point as I was saying earlier where drawing and stuff wasn’t all Steven, you did mate. You can watch the rerun.

Paul Bedford (56:17):
Alright Steve, if you’ve run back a bit, you’ll see that’s a bit of an end joke. Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (56:22):
It’s man, it’s,

(56:25)
It’s just things like that dude that in the last four weeks it’s just little things that I don’t, the other thing, there’s just so much stuff that we could unpack here that I think that in a societal sense too, that taking energy away from me stopped me from putting energy into something that I loved. Do you know what I mean? There’s just so many little things that in that spec of a moment, and that was an ego thing, man. Because if on my behalf, because if I was on a level balanced phase, I have been majority of the time, I just would’ve looked and seen that for what it was and gone like, oh, and taken it as I’m not getting into that. And that was the end of that little segue of that journey for me was when I real and I went into a one week funk because everything was coming down.

(57:27)
I wasn’t happy within myself. I’d really lost a lot of self-worth because my artwork and stuff didn’t feel like it was vibe and with me, I didn’t feel like I was getting it right because I was worrying about all this exterior noise. It was like I was drowning in too much information man. Do you know what I mean? It’s just a constant battery of people like fucking and things happening all the time. And one of the things that made me realise is that that’s not me. I don’t go that. I do like peace, man. I like things. I like the world. Don’t get me wrong. You know what I mean? But if it affects my artwork, it affects me. And that’s in a strange way, I guess what you were saying is the inner work and the inner buildings of art is that it does come from those sorts of places and slowly but surely you have to realise things like don’t listen to other people. This bullshit of like you’re an artist, you’re the lowest rung of society. It’s like man, fuck you. You know what I mean? It gives me pleasure. Do you know what I mean? Fucking and when you can be as basic when you talk about creativity as well as creating every day, this is another thought I had

Leigh Chalker (58:45):
Every day. And you don’t have to be painting, you don’t have to be drawing, you know what I mean? But you can create every day by just feeling good, feeling appreciating something whether it’s your dog or it’s your mom or it’s your Mrs or your husband or your kid or whatever. But starting things, as you said earlier, there’s

Leigh Chalker (59:06):
A story in everything. It is just how you perceive it, Matt, you know what I mean? And the silence for me in the last five weeks, man has been fucking golden. I’ve really found it’s not going to change now, man. Do you know what I mean? It was a really weird sort of awakening in myself to nah, while things like chinwag are fantastic and as I’ve always said and everyone knows this man, it’s been one of the greatest things in my life is to meet so many people and talk to heroes and stuff and have friends that I never dreamed of man and connect with so many people, but the overload of information, mate. I was walking in the bush the other day just fucking because I like it and there’s some dude walking along, bless him as you do and he’s walking

Leigh Chalker (01:00:06):
Along and he’s reading his phone and I’m sitting there and that pretty much sort

Leigh Chalker (01:00:10):
Of just, it’s like,

Leigh Chalker (01:00:11):
Mate,

Paul Bedford (01:00:15):
What?

(01:00:17)
I was taking my kids to school the other day and my son was talking about having a phone again for his 11th birthday and we did not submit. We did concede. And I said to her, said, I grew up in a different time mate, and we don’t do this thing to deny you and all your mates don’t have phones and if they did have phones, who are they going to ring because you only see each other at school. And I said, I, it’s sad. It literally hurts. It’s heartbreaking when you drive past bus stops and there’s kids there and it used to be mucking around and wrestling and whatever else and now they’re all on their phones and you go on a break at work and everyone’s on their phones and I said, dude, there’s no stories being created mate. I said, no, remember when Rob did this silly stupid thing and blah blah, the bus stop and blah blah. And I’m like, the things you looking on the phone, they’re not going to stick with you mate. You won’t know what they’re from any other time you look at the phone in life, these are other people’s experiences that you are having that will not register, that will not stay with you and that’s why I’m not getting your phone because don’t want to take that away from you again.

Paul Bedford (01:01:52):
Yeah, man,

Paul Bedford (01:01:54):
There is something that you’ll lose when you get a phone buddy, I tell you and I’ve seen it because I’ve been before and after the internet renaissance. Absolutely Steve. Yeah, absolutely. We touched on that before. Thank you Steve,

Leigh Chalker (01:02:19):
Your son, you’re not given missing stories.

Paul Bedford (01:02:23):
Yeah, there’s no story being created and I’m not talking about artwork and novel stuff. I’m talking about your experiences in your life which go towards that. They act as ingredients in the recipes of storage or creativity

(01:02:42)
Saying before, the creativity isn’t everything. It’s literally I say these things but I fuck up all the time and I’m a rational, I get angry and I get wife and all that. Of course, of course. Because we’re talking an overarching thing here about overarching, you were saying before something where you can choose a create day, so I choose to, when I run in and see my kids and give a big hug and just all the things that light up my life, I try and do those things and put water out for the animals because I love seeing the birds when I’m writing. I love to see the birds come down and drink out of it. It just gives me a buzz and there was something someone said a while ago and I can’t remember who it was, and I said, every moment that comes to you, you can choose how to experience it and which way you want to take it. Every single moment that comes to you, there’s a choice right there and it hits you right there and it hits you and you can choose, I fuck up all the time, I’ll be fucking cranky. And they’re like, you trick this doesn’t overly bad, but that is not how I would’ve if I’d taken a second to consider how I really want to react

(01:04:08)
Then. So that’s how I go through these. How do I choose to react in this second, how can I make because there’s a positive and negative in that second, it’s like a battery, there’s a positive negative and which one do you want to choose? Which way do you want to swipe, which end the battery? Well,

Leigh Chalker (01:04:29):
That’s the humanity of it, man. That’s the humanity of the decision is the other thing to add to what you are saying there, so I do apologise to interrupt, but this whole notion of perfection that I’ve noticed that is going on amongst people, you know what I mean? If you look at the news or if you look at socials and shit like that, if you don’t wear this brand of clothing or you don’t look like this particular person or if you don’t spend this much money on yourself to look like someone, fuck that, be you like a one in 10 billion fucking gift to be in the world

Paul Bedford (01:05:07):
They unhappy

Leigh Chalker (01:05:11):
On, you’re never

Paul Bedford (01:05:17):
Madness. Absolutely. I think they’re unhappy because I haven’t reached that ideal yet, and so they try harder and they get unhappy and that relates to art too. Creation of anything, comparison is a of joy is a beautiful one and comparison is like an ingredient of ego, an ingredient of jealousy, an ingredient of superiority or inferiority. All those things go into comparison and it works from the other side too when people are viewing your work or critiquing it and that’s why people’s striving to be like someone or have that brand or have whatever, all that empty sort of stuff, it’s nice to have nice stuff, but if you’re doing it just for the reason to have those things, that’s completely wrong and it’ll make unhappy. It’s like with art, if you try and emulate an artist or emulate a particular style or story or creator or something, you’re only going to make yourself miserable and you’re only going to have that come back on you because people are going to be just double like, well, you’re just trying to be this dude. Let yourself down like that. No one can tell you what you need to create. You just need to stay on your vision. If you’ve got a vision, you create it and whether people like it or not, oh look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, of course, of course, of course, of course. Yeah. You guys

Leigh Chalker (01:06:59):
Sis, can you bring that up for me please? If that’s okay bud, that comment, I can’t quite read that, but I’d love to. Someone’s saying you guys are talking like our generation didn’t chase after material goods. People were unli here for their Jordans back in the day. Paul, if it’s okay for someone saying, I dunno who you are, someone saying I appreciate, appreciate someone saying’s opinion,

Paul Bedford (01:07:28):
It’s cool, and I did validate that by saying it’s okay to have nice things, but look at the reason why you want them.

(01:07:35)
For sure. If you are chasing those things for status or for the brain dump of dopamine or for recognition, then that’s not the incorrect reason to have things. You get people who like Porsches because they look cool on a Porsche. They wanted a Porsche, they always want a Porsche. Why do you want a Porsche? Okay, I want a Porsche. Let’s go into why you want a Porsche. These are false reasons. You are idealising yourself and you are putting yourself through an immense amount of suffering, maybe hating a job you want because you want fucking carve with a certain badge

(01:08:11)
And then you’ve got people on the other side who want to PORs because the engineer is superb and those guys have been honing a particular type of car every single generation to come to. They’re striving for perfection for a certain type of engineering. They have two completely reasons, different reasons why you may strive for something. There’s perfection in your art and then there’s the ego driven. I want recognition and people who go after the recognition or the label or whatever, it isn’t a label, it’s the dopamine. They want the hit of the recognition of the brand of theism, and they’re completely

Leigh Chalker (01:08:49):
Exactly, which is exactly what I faced with alcoholism and drugs, man was the dopamine hit. Bring that one up for me. Toos, if that’s cool. That comment from the gentleman, I’m assuming I don’t disagree with the fact that was ridiculous, just pointing out that it’s not a problem that developed in this day and age. Of course, oh man, it’s been going on forever

Paul Bedford (01:09:15):
Day. I don’t think we specified. We’ll talk about human nature, go right back through history and people kill each other for gold and for whatever the fucking, and it never does stop status and that is the ultimate psychosis. Psychotic representation of the ego is when you kill someone for material good or for some sort of status, I hope you’re happy with what you got. I you glad that you achieved. You got that thing you had to kill someone to get that thing, enjoy it. Good luck. That’s going to come back tenfold. You are going to,

Leigh Chalker (01:10:00):
I think it also stems back to a word that’s not often used, man. This is just in my thinking, so desire because desire to me, you could use that in a multitude of ways. Desire to be better within yourself through doing inner work and as we said earlier from a psychological sense going into shadow play and stuff like that, you have desire for material goods, you have desire to, some people have desire to create, to win awards, that sort of thing. There’s absolutely, for me personally, as long as you are doing those things and they bring you joy and they are not hurting anyone and they’re not stamping on anyone and you’re not destroying some of person’s dreams or feelings to get those things, then that’s okay. In terms of a spiritualistic sense, they suggest does not exist in any fashion at all. It is just a case of doing and those rewards seem to come to you, but I’m with you dude. I’m with you.

Paul Bedford (01:11:42):
Thanks Steve.

Leigh Chalker (01:11:42):
Good day, Danny. Good on you bud. And thank you for everyone that’s commented tonight. I apologise, Paul and I just go into conversations and things like that, but it will all come back to it. We’re all on a creative journey, man. These are just observations that we both make. You know what I mean? You can all just do as you wish. No judging and what’s this? Artists that have toiled away. Bring that one up. Dude, I have the great admiration of those

Paul Bedford (01:12:14):
Artists that have, we actually touched on that before, touched on that at the start. People either giving up or being told to give up their art and how heartbreaking is Absolutely. Absolutely.

Leigh Chalker (01:12:28):
One of the things as well, if you wanted to go down that path too, is there’s a lot of people when I was in school,

Paul Bedford (01:12:35):
Can we just go back to what you were saying? Just wanted to touch on something you said before that if you’re seeking awards or seeking accolades or whatever, and that is a desire for your art and you’re not hurting anyone, that is okay on one level that is okay, but you are ultimately hurting yourself because that’s the ego in full play. Again, if you are seeking accolades, there’s only two bad ends. One is you get it and the other is you don’t because, and it will serve you better if you don’t get it. It will be the better result if you don’t get it because if you do, then you’ll find out that you’ll learn a greater lesson from not getting it. Oh, maybe you’ll learn an equal lesson if you do get it and find out, unless your ego is in full throttle, if it only means something to you to have recognition of others, it’s got to come back in some stay in some way, in some form that isn’t empty award for the creation of art because you do not, in my view, and I think we touched on this before, okay, I’ve got my game coming out this year or when I was writing the list or when I write whatever, and you’ll be the same, right?

Leigh Chalker (01:14:23):
I’m not Sean, you Sam. People have believed through human history that happiness comes from getting the thing, but there’s always a new thing to chase. It’s hard to accept that happiness comes from being in the moment. That’s exactly it.

Paul Bedford (01:14:37):
What I talking about before is the addiction to the domine hit. It doesn’t matter what form it takes, it’s the recognition, the accolade, this or that where, and what I was trying to get to before is if you get the thing, you get the accolade, you get the award, that’s a chemical hit and that will pass and then you’ll be left desolate again

(01:14:58)
And that despair will start to grow because your attention, then the attention goes on somewhere else, on some else, somewhere else. No, no, me, I’m the guy who won that thing. And so you strive harder and you struggle more and you may bring out works that aren’t true to yourself because you are seeking that thing. Whereas the true realisation of art, which I was going to touch on before or the true experience of art, is you don’t, and new experiences, well, especially when you went through your days of madness back on the pen, right, is when I’m sitting there writing a work on my game or whatever, you go where that thing can go or what that thing is, the extrapolation of where that might take your life that’s all blocked out. It just doesn’t occur to you. While you were doing that thing,

(01:15:47)
The list, I touched on the list, I think I said something when we had the first chinwag and I said that the list is pure and not perfect, but pure. And I made that distinction as by no means perfect, many, many faults. I can’t read it without seeing the faults, but pure as in that was a pure pursuit of a vision and when I was writing it and all the stuff I was going through, I knew that that’s how that story, that’s that form that story had to take. And with my game when I’m sitting there going, oh, that could deal with a plus one, I’m that warrior. I don’t realise that when that game is released and now I’ve got chance, the big chance of I won’t get too much, but it could go international, that plus one that I put on in my study in my suburban house do is going to be experienced by a lot of people. But those things they don, it’s like the world is dark outside. That sphere of creation, outside that little bubble where I sit in. And so if what you are are seeking is outside that bubble, that sphere of creation that you’ve made for yourself, that pure fucking delight of making things and getting that rush and getting that, I feel like I’m being true to myself in this creation. If the reason you are doing that is outside of it, that’s going to come back on you

(01:17:38)
Because that runs out. It’s not up. I can’t call it up. I cannot call it up. It’s like people who want to be famous, why do you want to be famous? Let’s get to the bottom of that. Why do you want to be famous? Why? Let’s talk to that because you are thinking that you are in desperate need of love. You’re in desperate need of recognition that you wanted from PU I’ve never met won’t think of you tomorrow. You only when they encount you in that famous visage that you take and then that will parks and then what? Yeah, accolades are seeking recognition, seeking a fame, all look great and all look glitzy. But I think they would be hell on earth, especially for those who did not achieve them organically and even people who, and we talked about this before, how intimate the creation of art is. I think a lot of artists don’t necessarily want that recognition, but they want people to experience that up because they feel I’ve got shared experience and I think when they produce a work, it is to hopefully have people identify with that and get something out of it for themselves. It it’s like a bouncing not my experience better than your experience and the reading of this particular list of this comics about comics, maybe that will open your mind a little, that whole experience I think I talked about this last time was I had people write to me incredibly personal letters with the list and I could not understand that coming. Try aiming for that. Good luck.

Paul Bedford (01:19:53):
Luck

Paul Bedford (01:19:55):
If you want to talk accolades or recognition, that’s the sort of things and that’s not the right word, you know what I mean? Touch someone. You can write letter, letter, fuck your awards man. That’s the gold. That’s the award.

(01:20:15)
People come along and see at the store and say thanks for writing it. I was in a bit of a shit time and it made, I didn’t feel like I had to put a happy face on when I read your book or I felt like the shit I was going through. I felt like I matched that energy and it just put me in a place where I could be that I could fucking put my misery into reading it and I put my fucking misery writing it. It has to be that pure, more creative drive to reach people not because of who you are but because of what you want them to experience or hopefully bring to them.

Leigh Chalker (01:21:04):
I think that’s the shared connection man of it sort of comes down to a lot of things. I mean, I’m not going to sit here and judge things, judge people going about their ways and stuff like that. That’s just, I’ve tried that road myself and it just, I’m going my way and you’ve got a similar process of thought to me when I have received, when I first brought out Battle for Bustle, that was a 25 year at that stage that was about a 20 year battle through alcoholism, drugs, like fucking terrible life, not terrible, lots of good times in that, but struggle with lots of things that I’m starting to get on top of now and a heavy story because there’s a lot of stuff in it still is deeply personal and I wanted to put it for myself in a science fiction setting because I didn’t have the courage at the time to do a slice of life, I guess comic book or a semi autobiographical comic.

(01:22:31)
So I put it science fiction because I love science fiction that there’s so much room to move and you can add things to it and you can bring fan scopes and shit, but with it, the one thing that blew me out and to agree with you was it was the completion and seeing it in my hands, that was the greatest reward for the journey that got me to it. The other thing that really just totally blew my mind is that I started on my Facebook page getting people sending me photos that had ordered the book and showing that here’s the book. And I remember one specifically was a dude reached out to me and said his son just grabbed the book at a shop back in the day and loved it so much that his dad took a photo of his kid who was about seven, eight at the time I guess, and was going to school that day as a show and tell and wanted to one day work on this comic book that I’d done. And I remember sitting there and just going like, fuck, okay, that’s a hundred percent cool for me and that’s what I’m getting at. If you genuinely,

Paul Bedford (01:24:01):
I mean that’s not an accolade you can seek for. That’s not an ego thing. You could not have seen that coming.

Leigh Chalker (01:24:08):
That’s part of the joy of the creation is that it touched people of different ages, man. And there’s a lot of people of different ages read the book and reached out to me since then and I appreciate people’s time and energy and enjoyment of it for the work I’ve done. So I don’t don’t hold against anyone having their own drives and things like that for wanting to get their works out there. I mean even just to touch on previously, even with the materialistic stuff, if you do want those sorts of things, but it’s what you as a human being within yourself, being true to yourself genuinely want and that is something that you gives you joy, you pleasure and stuff like that. You go ahead and do it. But the trick is not, I think from being where I am now and having gone down that road is not falling into the path of wanting to take someone else’s path.

(01:25:07)
I’m not looking next door and seeing they’ve got something flash, so I’ve got to match ’em and match them with the pair of shoes and match ’em with this and match ’em with that. And that’s the difficult thing that I got stuck into previously before I dropped off the socials and had some time to myself man, and realise I’m getting a little bit too influenced by other people. I can say that I’m not, but realistically, let’s just be fucking honest with yourself Lee. You know what I mean? I am. And those other people that do whatever they want, man, God bless, like whatever they want. But for me, I’m a little bit more along your lines, Paul is artwork is a catharsis of many things, particularly emotion, particularly experience, and however you choose to get that out, it sure beats taken it out on someone. You know what I mean? Getting angry and beating that crap out of someone.

Paul Bedford (01:26:11):
Absolutely. And I was pretty forthright what I was saying before, I don’t look down those people. I don’t. It’s sort of like a more, how do you put it? You don’t want them, you sort of see the hurt that’s going to happen to them because they may not have the awareness to realise that what they’re aim for is eventually going to hurt them. It disappears or when it can’t be replicated, that experience can’t be replicated. I’ve gone blurry again. I’ve been blurry for a while. S like, I’ve got to put him on the days of our lives. Vaseline on the camera

Paul Bedford (01:26:58):
Out.

Leigh Chalker (01:27:00):
I dunno man, look at that. It’s fantastic

Paul Bedford (01:27:11):
Man. It’s always fine line of balance of I actually got two hands, there we go. I dunno where to sit of why you want things and why you want to achieve things. And I’m sorry, I think I sent you a name seven different times, seven different ways. I’ve been messed it up each time. But you said it’s true. It’s nice when people like my work, but it’s an incredible feeling of holding it and thinking, wow, I did that. Which goes right back to the start of the conversation where I said, what is the purpose of art? And the purpose of art is to go in and then come back out again and the coming back out again is the way I did that. The physical thing is like am holding nothing. I go in, I come out, I hold the physical thing

Paul Bedford (01:28:14):
And

Paul Bedford (01:28:14):
That’s why the physical thing I believe has so much power over digital comics and all because yes, this is the end of my journey. This is my journey right here. When you, your comic and I produced mine,

(01:28:33)
It literally is the physical manifestation of what was in you and you had to fucking go in deep, bring that out no matter what form it took is not easy. Nothing, nothing. Knitting a jumper. I could need a jumper, save myself. If I had knit a jumper, that’d be harder to write a list. I’d cry more knit a jumper. I’m never, never going to attempt it. No way. It is strange that all the answers are inside. They’re literally inside. And that’s when I was getting on about the external things. You start aiming for the external things, you’re looking outwards. Art isn’t out there. Eventually it’s out there when you hold it and say, well, I did that. That’s your external, that’s the external thing you should be aiming for, not for this, for that, that great.

Paul Bedford (01:29:35):
Go

Paul Bedford (01:29:36):
And find out. And you’ll keep looking for the happiness if you are driving your Porsche around. And if you are looking who’s looking at you, that’s not internal. The Porsche hasn’t made you happy because you constantly looking for validation. Everyone, you like it, right? You like it. Sure,

Paul Bedford (01:29:59):
Please look at my, I lost my family

Leigh Chalker (01:30:05):
Man. They do. Buddhist and stuff like that suggests that journey begins within nothing external will bring you the happiness and peace that that’s getting your own inner turmoil under control.

Paul Bedford (01:30:20):
Just to end off, if you can drive the Porsche and not have to look for the people you get, then you’re driving the Porsche for the right reason. You appreciate the engineering, you appreciate the beauty of the car, the experience

Leigh Chalker (01:30:33):
Indeed mate. And that’s where I think to come back to and like, man, I love our conversations. We can cover so much different territory. If people only catch come in halfway, they go, no, we wind this stuff down and around and stuff. We always bring it home. And that’s exactly what you said there is where I felt myself trapped five weeks ago is that I fell into that thing of, hey, how many numbers does this show got? Why isn’t this doing that? Why don’t that many people like that piece of artwork on my Facebook page? You know what I mean? And that is something personal line of development personally, I just went, this has to stop because that is not the person that I want to be.

Leigh Chalker (01:31:27):
It’s like when you go deep man

Paul Bedford (01:31:31):
Say Budh said that the basis for all suffering is desire.

Leigh Chalker (01:31:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leigh Chalker (01:31:38):
Hence we come back to the desire. I mean when you go deep into the shadow work sort of stuff, everyone’s scared of it, you know what I mean? And I was terrified of because I was like, holy shit man, I got some stuff going on, but luckily enough I don’t have as much stuff going on as other people do. So that was okay, but man, the old famous quote, there’s gold in the shadow. It’s not something to be scared of. You just have to accept the fact that that’s not what you are. Sometimes you’re be pure and face it and it’s pretty fucking cool when you get to it. I had just with that, I mean look, I’ll be quite honest with you, dude, about five weeks ago I had a total fucking breakdown. I’ve always been honest with people on this show. I guess that’s why I like doing it and talking honestly with you and that absolute breakdown, man, I wanted to die.

(01:32:34)
And I cannot tell you that any more truthfully than that. I did not want to fucking live. And I don’t know why, because I felt in my mind that I had shattered because I was so busy trying to please other people and so low in self-worth through trying to please the wrong people with what I was doing, that I completely fucking found myself void of what I was doing and what I needed to do and to fucking allow myself to be me. And I started questioning my artwork. I started questioning myself as a person. I started making fuckups in personal friendships and fucking just, and it was really, really, it wasn’t good. And I was feeling it because believe it or not, I’m not like rock fucking hard diamond man. I’m a pretty emotional dude. And anyone that knows me well knows that like, fuck man.

(01:33:42)
I tell everyone I know when I see him, I fucking love him. Like fucking, I’m not like some dude that’s just walking down the street fucking cracking a coconut on my head. You know what I mean? I’m fucking busting my biceps out. But I did. I just felt like, fuck, what am I doing? And then the thing that blew me out is when I just had space, I had total space and there were so few people that the thing that made me realise as well is that when you don’t have socials and you are not on socials and you are not constantly available to people, things like anxiety, stress, all of those things change their levels lower. I also found that people that I believed were friends and I spent a lot of energy on, proved to not be friends at all, man. You know what I mean?

(01:34:45)
And just left me see you later. There were others that reached out to say, is everything okay? Which were completely unexpected? Which made me realise that when you sort of let go of those things that you don’t need those attachments, it opens up space to let love in for the people and the things that I guess resonate and gravitate towards you. You know what I mean? So you sort of got to let go of some stuff to attract things in. And that’s the whole change in the cycle and the pattern of things, man. And I don’t know, Paul, I just had a really fucking, I questioned everything again, absolutely everything. And I spent a lot of time in this room drawing and I sat with myself and it wasn’t easy to look at certain things, you know what I mean? But I recognised things that I needed to improve, things that I needed to.

(01:35:56)
That person said that about me. And yes, they were right. I need to work on that. Be self-aware, see things like that through slowly through spending time with myself and being more creative, the ideas have begun to flow. I was at the point where I haven’t got any ideas. I’m all dried up, man. But then I realised that was because I was just getting bombarded by things, too much information flow. But as I sat by myself and I realised that I wasn’t seeking ideas, suddenly I was having conversations with people that were like, oh, one sentence. And I noticed just little things like that starting to come back. And then I was like, hang on a minute, and I could do

Leigh Chalker (01:36:41):
This and this and that. And then I’d sit with myself and I’d be drawing and I’d be thinking about, and I’ve got a notepad here and I’m writing things

Leigh Chalker (01:36:47):
Down, and then just over the course of the four weeks, and it was that quicker time. Do you know what I mean? I realised, fuck, it is noise. There’s noise. And if you want to do, and for me, creativity is anything and everything that you are passionate about, man, like you said, whether that’s knitting a sweater, whether that’s making a beautiful garden, it’s sword fighting, it’s cooking. You know what I mean? Whatever it is that fucking opens up your fucking heart and fucking gets that dark out and opens up the light and makes you feel good. And then what’s weird is when you

Leigh Chalker (01:37:28):
Start feeling good about what you are doing, it doesn’t have to be fucking Picasso, it just has to be you and honest and pure and fun and fucking for the right reasons. And then you start feeling good, and then you start going out into the world, man, and you are shining a fucking light out there. You don’t have to say anything. You are cruising around, not in an arrogant way, but you are just like, I feel good. How

Leigh Chalker (01:37:54):
You doing? What’s going on? And it’s a cycle of fucking joy, man. And part of the whole thing that I did realise is I guess this is just how I want to live now. So that’s why I guess I’ve come to the decision as I spoke to you about five weeks ago, about fucking not knowing what the fuck I was going to do, where I was, who I was. I’ve been so grateful to have fucking two friends right here on the show other than yourself, Paul, that have sent messages out that have been there to walk me through it and things like that, and just be there. You start noticing that and with that support and with that to realise that from jetting, that negativity, to allow that positivity to come in and that support, man, the last 16 pages I’ve drawn have been the fucking best pages I’ve drawn in since I started two years ago, drawing every day, man, just because I was fucking free. And that’s what I want fucking from. And that’s what I’ve always wanted from chinwag, is to sit here with people. And just because I know what creatives are like, you do doubt yourself. You do feel like no one cares or is listening,

(01:39:30)
Sorry,

Paul Bedford (01:39:31):
You were told to were doubt yourself. Whatcha doing? Whatcha doing? Thinking you can write or be an artist or be a successful, what? Are you going to be a rockstar? Are you going to be your bestseller? Are you going to do that? You can’t do that. Why are you fooling yourself? Why are you doing that? And you’re like, well, because I love it and you have as much idea as anyone else or me of whether it’s going to succeed or not. And that’s not the goalpost by which I measure how much art means to me and what you went through. There was a recreation or to rebirth a lot of people. Firstly, you recognise you had to get off socials and that can be anything that can be, you can translate into drugs, drinking, fucking gambling, socials, porn, battlefield sticks. So firstly, you got to have the awareness to, and a lot of people double down. They’ll double down cycle saying, with people seeking accolades, if the attention starts to go off them, they won’t realise, oh, maybe that’s not the way they’ll double down and try and get that rush again

(01:41:09)
Only to lead themselves and more hurt. So to firstly knock on socials because that’s much, much bigger than it sounds, especially in this day and age, especially when you’re new and creative stuff. And then to realise that you’re in a fucking bad place was the next sort of phase. And obviously I think you were so overwhelmed that you didn’t. Suicide is the ultimate act of narcissism. It’s when the ego is taken complete control and you’re in a psychotic state. You don’t want to die, don’t want to live. It’s more you don’t want to live. It’s the ultimate state of the dark ego because what you’re telling us of isn’t true. And there is only you thinking that. You only have your own opinion going on your own head and bouncing and none of it’s good. So I think you tapped into the realisation that you’re mentally overwhelmed, psychically overwhelmed. It’s a good thing obviously to question yourself. But then you’ve got to, like I was saying before, how much nuance is involved in questioning yourself and the ego telling you shit that isn’t true? How much is self-awareness and how much is just complete and nons about myself that the ego is beating the fuck out of me?

(01:43:09)
But eventually you broke through that, which gets back to what was saying before is like moment to moment, you choose which side of the battery you want. The negative look positive and the negative was overwhelming you for a while, and that maybe wasn’t a choice because you were exhausted and done. And when you’re down at that place, it’s very, very difficult to see that what’s happening isn’t the truth. It’s not the truth. That’s the saddest thing about suicide and that it began to alleviate great friends reached out, you realise that what you were thinking isn’t true and your positive self started to come through and you started to go on that path again. So that stuff, all that stuff, you were thinking that it wasn’t true, it wasn’t true, or if it was, it was a small part of it. It didn’t totally define who you were.

Leigh Chalker (01:44:20):
No, it didn’t. The wild part pork is that it was about two weeks worth of constant conversation and check-in from particularly two people. And then when I recognised, recognised like, hey, there’s some things here need to fucking change. You know what I mean? And I think half of the battle was, man, I had this idea in my head that this is the thing that your ego or my ego played, and everyone’s different. But this is just for me. And I, again, just talk on one hand as I was saying to you about the numbers, and I’ve got to get the next issue out and people need to think I’m busy and I need to do this and I need to do that fucking man. I have so many responsibilities, man. Do you know what I mean? Outside of comic books and chin wags and things like that, and everyone does. Okay? So again, not comparing myself to other people of course, but recognising just my sort of balance and load were way out. I was helping too many people that I had the arrogance to think that I could help them and I should not. I didn’t realise the engine light was flashing, you know what I mean? I should have been aware enough. Instead, I was looking out at all of the things that feel good. You could help that person feel

Leigh Chalker (01:46:08):
Good, do 40 fuck doing 20 you wanted to do at the start of the year. Let’s do 40 man, 40 chin. Yeah, alright, you want to do three comic books this year? Fuck that. You can do five. Oh fuck yeah. And you start going through and these cycles, man, and then you’re not

Leigh Chalker (01:46:30):
Sleeping. You get up at fucking 4:00 AM in the morning, you come down, you’re working on your thing, and then I work all day. I’ll just sit in this fucking room. It became like a Stockholm syndrome, man. Do you know what I mean? The cage was my home. I didn’t feel fucking comfortable anywhere else but here. And I had no idea that I was racing towards this total fucking nervous, emotional breakdown man. And that’s exactly what I had. And when I recognised all of this shit and I just let it go, and I just, instead of being angry and instead of being fucking just let it go with the help of these two people, what did turn me was that my mate that I’ve known for 25 years sat in this room on the other side of that computer with me for about six or seven hours, man, one Sunday morning about five weeks ago.

(01:47:28)
And he’s a mate that we’ve been in every mindset that you could possibly imagine, man. And we’ve been there with each other through a lot of shit. And we’ve done the trenches together, man, this isn’t just someone, I’m your friend for life. You know what I mean? This is someone who fucking, you’re in the shit. That dude is with you right there, man. And he sat here with me for about six, probably seven hours, man. And he looked at me and he said, dude, I’ve never fucking seen you like this. What the fuck, man? And he just sat there and he listened to me talk, man.

(01:48:08)
And it was in that moment, man that I just had, I dunno, it was just, and he didn’t say much. That was the beauty of some people. They don’t need to. It’s the fact that they’re there with you and that care. And after that conversation, I realised seeing my friend who knew me go through so many battles and we both had be so distraught that he didn’t want to leave, but he had to because he had other obligations and shit. And that’s one of the things that I thought like, fuck man, you need to take, you stop this shit. You know what I mean? You need to start taking some self-love into yourself and self-care and self-worth and shit and not worry so much about other people. And as I jettisoned that load and had that realisation of can’t help anyone unless you fucking help yourself.

(01:49:12)
You know what I mean? When you’ve got yourself together and then you can reach out little by little, little by little. And I fucking came out one morning, man, after obviously early in the morning. I’ve meditate twice a day, all that sort of stuff. And I like to do it just on just a little bit before dawn and shit like that because it’s nicer and stuff in the dark, beautiful time of day. Yeah, man. And I came out and I was running a little bit later than usual and I was, oh fuck. And I came out the back, the house is up there and I come in here, I meditate in here and I walked out and the sun, the hill behind the house, the sun had just come up man. And there were fucking rainbow ric heats in the Gs and there were fucking butterflies flying around everywhere.

(01:50:02)
And the light and the bird, the sun and the bird bath, bird bath had hit the water in a particular sense and it was like a fucking shine. And there were flowers blooming and shit everywhere. And the grass was like fucking green. And this is the second time this has happened to me, man. You know what I mean? And I just stood there and I just went, yeah, man, it’s good to be. And I came down the back man and I fucking had the best meditation I’ve had in 12 months. And that was what fucking turned me. And that’s when I started, I came back in here and I started thinking, okay, we cool man. We all right. What does art, what does this mean to me? And as we touched on earlier, there is no difference between my creativity and me because I have the ability to create every day, every moment, every page, every interaction with people, every conversation, not always perfectly, always lessons the fuck up. Isn’t the mistake the fuck up is making the same mistake?

(01:51:18)
And these were just all fucking realisations that I had. I realised that everyone puts themselves under too much pressure. If it’s not pressure, like societal standings, financial pressure, social standings, like fucking belongings and things like that. There’s just so much who you should vote for, what shirt you should wear. There’s just such a degree of pressure on everyone that when just take a minute and just chill, fuck out and just breathe, man. And then slowly as you think everything is getting away from you, you realise you are fucking standing right in it. It’s right there. Everything you need is fucking here. And it’s just a fucking really trippy thing. And since then, man, I’m feeling, I’m feeling pretty good about things as I’ve realised when I did a previous Chinwag, SPIE asked me, he was hosting that night, I was the guest. He said that I seem to be two people, a larrikin and someone that takes his artwork very seriously.

(01:52:31)
And at that stage I was like, yeah, he’s right. You know what I mean? I am two people. But then I also had the self-realization of coming out in that particular moment is I’m not two people. I’m one fucking person. I’m the larrick and Andy artist. You know what I mean? And that’s just how it is. And I can’t stop. That’s my take on art. It’s deeply personal. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I know there’s, people don’t like my artwork, but that’s not going to stop me. I know there’s, people don’t like me as a human being, but that’s cool. I do not require them to, in order for me to continue on my journey and stuff, man, it’s just, it’s like peace, love and harmony and shit, you know what I mean? But man, that’s what I love about conversing with people like you as well, mate, is because open-mindedness and things like that.

(01:53:29)
Just because you have a conversation with someone and you may have a different opinion than somebody else, doesn’t mean you’re an enemy. It just means you have an opinion and that’s that’s the way you want to live and things like that. And there’s nothing wrong with any of what anyone’s doing as long as you’re not hurting anyone true to yourself and letting people be people, man. And it comes across that way because like I said to you, creativity is in life. We live it. Whether you choose to paint, draw, garden, whatever you do, man, be free. Love, joy, happiness. If you are fucking banging your head against the wall trying to get more and more and more, you’ll end up like I did, man. Do you know what I mean? Literally sitting there wanting to fucking

Paul Bedford (01:54:15):
Is what they’re selling. That is what they’re selling. And I’m not anti material. I like having a home. I like having a car that works. I like providing great things for my kids.

Leigh Chalker (01:54:28):
That’s basic requirements though, mate, in today’s day and age, same as you would’ve had a horse and a fucking stable back in the Williams can’t. That’s just what it is. It’s like, I like having electricity. I don’t want to fucking sit down by the fire every night, man. You know what I mean?

Paul Bedford (01:54:51):
You’re not going to look. It is difficult. And it all comes back again to the reason behind things. The reason why you do things, you should go out and get your mansion. If you’ve got your mansion because you can afford your mansion. You like mansions, that’s great. If you’re doing it because you want your mates to come over and say, Hey, you’ve got a mansion, then that’s not the right reasons. That’s what I touched on art being pure before is that’s that is the impetus and the goal is to create with purity to not free of feedback. You can’t just assume that you’re going to bring something out.

(01:55:52)
What am I trying to say here? There’s a few things like in creation. I’m not saying you don’t know this, I’m just saying this is just what I find for the creative experience is that purity will get you so far. And honing your craft is also another thing, and that’s another removal of the ego. And so people get confused between following their vision and being true to the vision and not compromising or placating or pandering. But then there’s the other side of things. Where is, well then if that’s true, then what’s the role of feedback and mentors?

(01:56:48)
And to that, I say that there are people out there who identify what you’re doing. The best mentor will always be the person who identifies what you’re doing with your work and enhances it. They don’t try and push their vision of how it should be, or the best critics are the ones who see your vision and can comment on it negatively, positively. They understood your vision. Some of the critics who wrote about the list, a few of got it and things like, maybe this could spot on. That’s great. They can recognise the faults that I recognise in it. And even more so even more incisive faults like, okay, I didn’t see that one at all. That theme or that sort of petered out a little bit or that wasn’t as strongly addressed as it could have been. So what I see right through the purpose of art, aside from the inner journey, is to have an egoless experience and be open to everything. The thing about advice is you can listen to it but not necessarily take it. And that’s two different things because generally when people are giving advice is that they have noticed a fault. And generally what they say as a solution is most often not correct, because like I said before, they not align.

(01:58:38)
But if there’s enough people who present an issue with a creation of yours, then there’s every chance there’s a weakness there. And then that’s worth addressing with your line, your vision of the project. Look, with my game, I tested it 80 a hundred times with different people and it’ll always be like the people like, oh, what about this? And I’ll take a note and then three guys like, oh, what about this? And then what about this? Okay, they’ve all picked up on the same thing. They’ve all given different solutions. I’m not necessarily interested in the solutions unless they click and they will click if they’re in line with my vision, but I’ll see that there is an issue, there is an underlying issue and I need to address that. And that’s the same with art. You have to be open to having your vision challenged. As long as that’s in line with your vision, you cannot expect. And it’s not about, I want to create a work that gets great recognition and if it gets the right recognition of the right people, great, but let that off you just as much as people who don’t like it. Let it all fucking off you.

(02:00:02)
The game of everything that someone said about the holy shit, I was still very vulnerable out before the last one. I’d never written, I’d never gone into the comics world before. The list was my first comic script, my first comic, and so fucking raw as sushi when I bought it out. And so all the criticism, Jesus Christ, I just bought out a book and I had to learn the list of don’t buy back. I bought a bit back and that was a complete, that’s where I’ve come to now. The best thing is mate leave, you go out, step into that. I step into my moratorium. The ego stays at the door.

Leigh Chalker (02:00:58):
Well, the best thing is about art as well is great art makes you think great art still sits in the back of your mind days later, years later. And there’s a little, you’ll go back and you’ll pick it up and I’m just talking, let’s talk about just comics in general for this particular point. You’ll come back 12 months later and you’ll reread something and you’ll go, oh, I didn’t think about that. And you see things in it. And whether the creator at the time meant that particular message to get across or that creator at the time didn’t really understand the message they were trying to get across. But at the particular time that the individual has read, the reader is in the reading of the book, they have gotten a message that has stuck with them, touched on them and led them off into some other areas like have thought and appreciation of things or appreciation or that sort of thing to inspire anyone to be able to think whether it’s positively. When I say negatively, obviously not in a destructive sense, that’s no good for anyone, even person being destructive, but negative feedback. Even if you think of something negatively, I don’t like it. It didn’t hit the spot for me. You know what I mean? But you’re still thinking of it. That’s good art. I reckon that’s good.

(02:02:42)
You’re going on the journey.

Paul Bedford (02:02:43):
The artist is taking you on the journey that they went on. And sometimes if something doesn’t resonate with you either they haven’t strongly enough conveyed their journey or you are not in the right place to go on it with them. You can do the same thing with songs. You can hear a song a million times and then one day a lyric like, oh fuck, okay, got it. And you’re right, whether they intended that or not, you just happen to be in that particular phase in your life or even just a frame of mind in a day. It’ll hit home. Both are right. Both are fine.

Leigh Chalker (02:03:25):
Yeah, man, that’s what I think the one thing in hindsight, because obviously for me in terms of my artwork as well, I’m not intending, I’ll never say never, right? So don’t ever anyone take this as me. I’ll never say never to anything. But where I’m at with myself right now is that I’m just going to continue doing artwork to feel very happy in the last couple of weeks and such that what I’m doing is creatively pleasing for me. So I have no real intentions of going down the road of producing more comic books at this stage. That’s just where I’m at. Alright?

(02:04:12)
But certainly not, I don’t want that to shy other people away from producing comics because before I make this next statement, I want everyone to understand one of the greatest moments in my life was getting that comic book, every fucking comic book I’ve ever been part of and I’ve received a copy of. I have loved every minute of it. It’s been something I’ve always wanted to do as a kid. Whether it’s taken you 20 years, it’s taken you six months, it’s taken you whatever your lifetime is or your dream and you’ve trudged through people telling you it’s a bullshit,

Paul Bedford (02:04:50):
It was a bad time to drop out. Are people still watching? They’re just sitting here

Paul Bedford (02:05:08):
Looking at my bald head. I can’t sing, I can’t dance. I can do this. I don’t know if people are still watching or not, but if you are and you want to learn how to do this, just message me on Facebook. I mean, it’s pretty good. I’ll do it further over here. What you’ve got to do is you’ve got to keep your fingers like at a mall cap. One hand does this and then what’s the other hand do? The other does this?

Paul Bedford (02:05:39):
I can’t do them separately. I can do them together. That’s all I’ve got. I do. My kids love those. I wonder if they dropped that completely. What’s happened, mate? I did work.

Paul Bedford (02:06:15):
I was still on whether I was or not. I can give you some lessons, sis. You just got to keep the fingers apart and just feel the role. All right? Just feel the role, mate. I can’t hear you. Hang on. Yeah, you are muted.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:06:37):
Okay. Sorry. It’s Lee’s gone.

Paul Bedford (02:06:41):
He dropped out completely. Did he?

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:06:43):
Yeah. He’s not there at all. I don’t know.

Paul Bedford (02:06:47):
Oh man. He was wrapping up some beautiful words too.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:06:50):
Yeah, I’ll just see if I can, hello? Everyone sis here.

Paul Bedford (02:06:57):
Bilbo just vanished halfway through a speech.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:07:02):
Maybe you can’t find the link again. I’ll give him the link again.

Paul Bedford (02:07:08):
I’ve only got the one trick sis. That’s it.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:07:12):
I’ve got none. I can’t help you out.

Paul Bedford (02:07:14):
Keep people going. I could do a step by step tutorial. There’s only so much you can do in a limited scope here.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:07:26):
Yeah, that’s true.

Paul Bedford (02:07:28):
Are there

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:07:28):
Any other physical, he might have lost power or something

Paul Bedford (02:07:34):
Is completely gone.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:07:36):
Yeah, he’s not even answering messenger. Well, folks, we’ll give Lee a little bit more time to see if he can come back. I don’t know what else to do that’s had to contact

Paul Bedford (02:07:51):
Him. I think he was on the verge of wrapping up too and staying, saying a nice parting piece.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:08:00):
Oh, he’s lost internet. That’s why not. That’s why he’s not answering to that either.

Paul Bedford (02:08:11):
Graham’s a tech. Indeed.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:08:13):
Yeah, big time. Hopefully he knows how to connect his laptop to his phone. I don’t know if

Paul Bedford (02:08:23):
He does. I thought it was a very en departure, a speech and then suddenly I’m going to throw him. I’m just going to go.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:08:35):
Well, you said he’s got it. I dunno what that means. Hopefully that means he’s coming back. But I can’t take over his cell. I can only come underneath you.

Paul Bedford (02:08:52):
Yeah,

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:08:53):
I hear he is here. He is

Paul Bedford (02:08:55):
Back. Is he? Well, I’ve got it gone, so I know I’ll stick around.

Shane ‘Sizzle’ Syddall (02:08:59):
For some reason it’s putting him in the other box. Hang on. New technology. You got to love it. We can hear you. I dunno if the audience can hear you, but I can definitely hear you.

Paul Bedford (02:09:14):
You’re pretty light on pretty low.

Leigh Chalker (02:09:21):
That whole thing just dropped out here. But it’s okay. I am on stage. Look at me.

Paul Bedford (02:09:25):
You’re not on video. Oh, there, he’s he’s back

Leigh Chalker (02:09:29):
All I will leave. Thank you. Thank you very much for saving the day. Fucking technical things. See what I mean? Look at that shit. But what I was saying

Paul Bedford (02:09:39):
To you, you were in the middle of a beautiful sort of what sounded like a parting piece and that was you bloody dropped it. Well,

Leigh Chalker (02:09:46):
Man, it doesn’t matter. I remember where I was saying, I don’t panic about these things, man. It’s like, God, I’ve done 65 of them, dude. It’s like I’ve

Paul Bedford (02:09:54):
Dropped into the crowd panic. The crowd panic because I had to entertain them with my,

Leigh Chalker (02:09:58):
Oh, that’s, you know what you’re doing, man. Come

Paul Bedford (02:10:02):
Break moves.

Leigh Chalker (02:10:04):
Yeah, spinning around on that shiny head. Hey, like a bath. Just see feet. But the point is, man, what I was trying to say is don’t be discouraged from those little moments because like I’ve said previously in Chin Wags for me, I always guess success comes in different terms. Some people successful to be successful in some people’s eyes is to have those big things. Otherwise, some people just want to own a dog. So whatever is whatever you want and what brings you the joy. But the one thing that I would suggest is that you have to have a steely skin when you come into being in creatives and stuff because outside of this safe haven of a community and comics and stuff that Shane and Carrie have set up and the members of the community and the networks and the team and the shows and then the comic books that are published and stuff and everyone is in communities, sometimes you have differences of opinions in communities.

(02:11:24)
Sometimes you have people like nattering away when they should be coming forward and communicating about certain things that are going on because you’d rather hear about things. You can sort things out when you’re talking to each other as a person, as opposed from hearing things around the backyard in finding it out later. And then there’s a whole, you’ll know it Paul, do you know what I mean? Nothing is 100% smooth. It depends on how far you want to go. You are always going to get critics. You are just going to have to accept it. You are always going to get people who like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Absolutely. You’re going to have to accept that. But don’t let it fucking discourage it. If it is something that you want to do, then go ahead and get it out and have a go at it, whether it’s an independent thing or you want to go for any path you want to take, don’t let it stop you.

(02:12:28)
Because the one thing, and this is the other thing, Paul, I know this will sound weird, but I wrote this to my fucking self when I wrote the script of the last issue of Battle for Bustle. But I didn’t realise that I was writing this to myself at the time. This is another thing that happened, so I don’t, spoiler alert, whatever the last lines of this comic book that I wrote is this, you can live in fear or live with love. The path you choose to walk is yours. And at the time I wrote that, I didn’t realise that I actually wrote that for my fucking self.

(02:13:08)
And I fucking looked at that the other day and what I would say, it’s my path. And choose your path fucking love, man. Do what you love. Do what you got to do and fuck anyone that tells you you shouldn’t. Because if we listened to everyone that told us we shouldn’t do anything, we wouldn’t get anything fucking done. So let misery be with misery and go and achieve your dreams and your goals and chip away at them slowly. They won’t happen overnight. Fuck, it took me 25 years to get five comic books out. You know what I mean? It took Paul a lot. It’s fucking brutal. It’s brutal. It’s fucking every page you bleed on it. Every word means so much.

Paul Bedford (02:13:55):
That’s not in the creation of it. That’s only bring

Leigh Chalker (02:13:58):
The product. Oh man.

Paul Bedford (02:14:05):
Yeah, bring it out. Can be confronting. Like I said, I was raw when the list came out because it was my first comic. And so I wasn’t prepared. I just thought everyone just read comics and liked stories. I read comics and novels and watched movies like, oh cool, that was nice. There’s 90% of people are fucking, and then 10% of people will hate your guts and 5% of those will try and act like your best mate and work to undermine you. But like you said, just push on. Don’t let that 5%. I had the most amazing experiences, met the greatest people, had mind blowing conversations, mind blowing.

(02:14:56)
I never thought that just writing this thing would bring me the experiences I had and the amazing time that I had. And I think we touched on this last time, and I’m going to try and make this not sound like an ego statement. I think I prefaced this similarly last time because it was my first comic and because it did relatively well for what it’s, and there was a lot of people there who had written a lot of comics and still did things like that when they saw me being invited as a guest for at the Big bonds and all that sort of stuff and getting great recognition of the work and whatever else, and at the time. So I’m just saying, yeah, like you said, you do go through as much as you can without the ego and that will protect you, that will give you a steely skin because the ego won’t let you listen to those who are ultimately envious or hurt, butt hurt by any success that you may find. And if you found it and you found organically and if you found it through the creation of a was pure, then you have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be scared of. And you only need to be proud of yourself and grateful for those who enjoy your work.

Leigh Chalker (02:16:45):
I think you said it really well there, man. And it was incredibly ballsy though dude, when you did the list. I mean, it certainly isn’t for the faint of heart for people that are out there but the best. It’s a beautiful piece of work. And I think what I like most about it too, man, and from meeting you the last time and meeting you today and talking to you again today, it’s just like things are to be explored. I think that’s part of your artwork as well, man is like you make yourself available to talk about a myriad of different topics. Some of them being pleasant, some of them being unpleasant. And I think that’s also something that people, as difficult as it is sometimes you need to be comfortable with talking about unpleasantness as well as pleasantness. There’s healing to it.

(02:17:42)
There’s just many things that come with it. And art can provide that. If you’re not verbal, if you’re not a communicator, as I was getting to before I write, I’m a writer, but when I’m writing text messages, I can get misconstrued with terms and qu and little differentiations between things. But when I’m speaking to people, I find that I don’t really often have many problems getting what I’m trying to say across. So everyone’s different in that regard. I would just let it heal you. There’s so many things that it can do for you, man, artwork. And I love that question at the start of the show, man, because people that are listening to this show may be sitting there going, but I don’t see artwork as either of those two ways of seeing artwork. And that’s one of those beautiful questions. You know what I mean? Is it allows thought, man, it allows people to sit there and ponder what their processes are and things like that. I’m sitting here looking at and just to randomly just pull the list up again, it’s just that I recommend anyone getting it. Have a look at it, don’t let your kids read it. Probably don’t let come in and your 10-year-old sitting there reading the list, that might be a little bit how you go on

Paul Bedford (02:19:21):
My son quite, I had the opposite experience to what you had when the young dude picked up battle from Bustle. I think it was Mel from Impact Comics who one of his staff sold copied the list to a 10-year-old. And that resulted in a highly furious father returning with the comment and slamming it back on the counter saying, whatcha doing, selling this to kids? And I’m like, yeah, fair enough. Because I had kids come up to me at Cons. I’m like, mate, no way. I don’t want your dad coming back and punch me in the face.

Leigh Chalker (02:20:10):
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. But target market and what you wanted to say as well, man,

Paul Bedford (02:20:19):
Kids, I say to my son, you’ve probably seen worse on YouTube or will you be okay? Whatever. It’s not the surface stuff that I’m concerned about. It’s the feelings that might bring up on you because of what it says underneath. And that’s so, yeah, no, you’re right. So essentially you are saying that you’re moving out of common creation. Is that

Leigh Chalker (02:20:51):
At this point? Yeah, I’ve sort of much like we were touching on before and I was giving you as much pleasure as I’ve got out of it, I’ve actually personally got more pleasure out of being part of Comic X and seeing people create their comic books for the first time. There’s a gentleman, Steven McLeod, who was commenting earlier, he’s been an avid reader of comic books since he’s similar age to us and loves comic books, man, going back from when we were kids and teenagers and stuff. And I remember him doing an eight page comic book in a comics Presents Noir, which is a comic produced comic book. And it was the first comic book he’d done because some people aren’t as lucky as me that can sit here for 10 hours a day drawing. You know what I mean? Because work allows it and my lifestyle allows it.

(02:21:52)
He’s got kids and home. It’s a certain elements of lifestyle come into it. So you’ve got to that as well as a balance of certain things. And I remember having a conversation, you think eight pages, having a conversation with him, and he was so over the moon with things like, I’ve got a comic book done and that fucking blew my mind. And then just other people that I’ve touched base with and things and to see their happiness and joy and stuff like that. Andrew Law is another one that’s wanted to do slay for such a long time.

Paul Bedford (02:22:25):
I backs slam. I can’t wait to get it.

Leigh Chalker (02:22:27):
Yeah. And to hear his journey on Kickstarter, I mean, there’re just a couple of names that I’ve come across in my time amongst the community. I mean, I’ll still eventually be around and I’ll be drawing myself and that probably, as I said, I’ll never say never, but I got overwhelmed with noise. I lost myself because at a vulnerable state, I needed something that connected me with like-minded people like to give me an element of connection because I’d lost a lot. I was newly fucking sober and stuff. And going through things and your lifestyle changes, friends leave you, they’re just, oh bye. You’re not drinking anymore. So you’re like, hang on a minute. I’ve known you 15 years. They’re fucking gone. So made it battling man. It was battling for years, you know what I mean? And I think five weeks ago when all of this shit happened, and oddly enough, it started with the whole fucking that quote before we saying with all due respect, that was, I know it’s a little thing, but it’s the little straw that fucking twists you out.

(02:23:46)
And then just having those little moments to myself and just, man, sometimes it’s just that break and time with myself and I just realise that I enjoy time with myself and doing what I’m doing and I don’t have to be everything to everyone. You know what I mean? And getting to that point, man, where I guess I’m really healing after a three year journey, so I’m not sort of escaping people, you know what I mean? And I’m not like leaving people hanging. There’s a certain element of Comex gives open opportunities to people to have shows, talk about ideas, do all of those sorts of things. Perhaps it’s time for me to move aside and continue my art path and allow others to come through. I mean, there’s a whole heap of things that are going through my mind at the moment, but I’m just going to continue to have space away from everything.

(02:24:50)
Then I’m back off. I go on holidays tomorrow morning heading off down to Brizzy to see a few people and go on a Pearl Jam next week and just having some time away and shit and do some rocking out and just basically see some people I haven’t seen do some things I haven’t done in a long time, man. So I’m just, as we was talking about earlier, just in a change of lifestyle, I think man, with a different change of vision and a different taste in what I want to achieve in things, man. Some different part of it, mate. It’s all part of

Paul Bedford (02:25:24):
It. I walked away from, I said what I had to say and didn’t feel like the list was the darker side of me coming out and had to come out. And there was a book I mentioned which I to send you the day I stopped, which is the more philosophical side of things. And that was only mini comic, sorry, only please strike that word out because there was much effort going into 16 pages as it does. 200, absolutely. So I only produced the works that I had to say. I was working on a larger fantasy project, which was also a deeply personal story that had knight and dragons and armies and stuff like with you, the sci-fi or fantasy skin on it. And then people enjoy it, but they get the message at the same time. And then I just sort of stepped away and there was no real, was no decision. There was as in I’m sick of this shit or it was more like I’m just, okay, what you’re going through is like, okay, that part’s over

Paul Bedford (02:27:00):
And

Paul Bedford (02:27:00):
Next part comes. And then I move back into the game design and I’m getting a whole new level of joy from that because it’s, I think it’s more immediate cycle of feedback is more immediate. So that’s nice. I get things done quicker at 53 because something like, it’s all, it sounds cliche, but it is all part of the journey and all part of learning and creating art is all getting back to what we open with is learning about yourself and bringing what’s in out. And sometimes I look at, and this might sound irrelevant, but it’s not, say you get a band that produces one song, there’s a one hit wonder, or not even a one hit wonder, but that is done pretty well, right? Or you get one guy who’s written one half decent book and then the eventuality is that the public turns on them. Are you one? You only got one in. You’ve only got that. And there’s two things at play there. Firstly, it got made, they did it. They did

Paul Bedford (02:28:38):
It.

Paul Bedford (02:28:40):
Secondly is that’s one experience in their life. They didn’t necessarily have to be writers or earth through their life.

(02:28:52)
They didn’t have to be artists, musicians or earth through their life. It’s one part of their entire journey. And so they shouldn’t be criticised for achieving that and then going, okay, obviously some of them want to repeat that they can’t. And others I think, oh well they had their shot, they had three, four singles out there, alright. And then they finish off. You wouldn’t be able to think of the amount of bands that aren’t around anymore and they would’ve moved on with their lives. It’s like that was part of their life. That was it. And that’s all part of it is recognising when that part you had your say. And even if the thing you wish to pursue isn’t immediately apparent, if you are open-minded or if you were in that creative space initially, it’s going to come to you because you just in creative space, you’re open to come together. You won’t be able to help it. And when it hits you, it’s lovely. It’s beautiful,

Leigh Chalker (02:30:00):
Man. That’s fine. As you said and we’re talking about before is sometimes the tricky part that I’ve noticed is that if I’m constantly looking for something, I never find it. It’s when I stop looking that you realise it’s right there because sometimes you’re looking over something instead of looking at it. It has been the whole theme of tonight, man, with the art and the creative stuff. I mean you do. I think for me also to add to what you’re saying about life changes is when it comes to battle for bustle, it was about my dad and it was a story about him that changed into this huge epic. I’m now on Saturday, I’m now two years older than what my dad was. So I don’t know why I’m writing this story anymore about him. And with the last issue that I brought out, I tried him twisting it and turning it into, it’s about me now.

(02:31:06)
This is my path and I wanted to finish it, but we get back to the ego side of things and I questioned that. Am I finishing it for the right reasons? Am I finishing, is there a point to it? I’m wondering if I have said everything I’ve needed to say with it because I could never, again, it’s going to be nine issues and it turns into 12 issues. Then it’s like, and these things get bigger and bigger and bigger and you’re forever chasing a tail. And I’ve sacrificed, man, I’ve said this on the show too, sacrifice two relationships because of this comic. Because I was drawing so much obsessing over constantly thinking about it that with drinking and being on this one track mind for fucking years at a time, you know what I mean? People that I deeply loved, you know what I mean?

(02:32:04)
Just fuck this, I’ve had enough of this, man, you aren’t present because fucking you are living in this other world. And just from, as I said that five weeks ago, man, it’s been such a long fucking journey and I’m trying to change things around and look at the perspective of things, what I’ve learned, what I’ve fucked up along the way, what I can improve. And you battle along, you battle along and you fight and you survive and you grind through the churn in the artwork. And the really strange part is, Paul is if I never produce another comic book, but I’m still drawing, as long as I’m still drawing the same satisfaction is there for me. And that’s what I have realised in this short space of time is that’s just whether I produce a comic book or I’m just drawing for myself, this is it.

(02:33:05)
It’s still it. And again, I’m not sure I like talking. I like conversing. Chinwag became as I guess popular amongst the community for whatever particular reason. And I thank people for constantly watching it and encouraging me and stuff like that. But the other thing is I’m not an entertainer. I never sort of have been. I played in bands when I was younger and I did things like that, but I’m someone that prefers to stay private and I know this is weird saying how open I am and stuff with things now, but that was because essentially I have to be because my lack of communication skills that I put into the comic book and spent so much time invested into that also played a part in fucking things up. And that’s why I talk so much and I tell people about, as they say in the 12 step programme, don’t give advice, talk about experiences.

(02:34:15)
So I’m just trying to communicate my experiences to people. Maybe it helps me. Maybe this is, I definitely think Chin wags have helped me along the lines to sort of in a strange way come to this conclusion. So in a strange way, Paul, there’s like 150 hours of me talking to people, but you can also see a dude having some weird fucking, I dunno, awakening along the line or something like that. It’s weird, man. It’s so strange. And that’s not lost on me. But I don’t know, I’ll never say never. But for me, Susan, me do some talking about different things and doing a show here or there next year and different ideas and things. But for now those ideas are in my head. I know they’re there. I don’t have to rush anything or push anything. Like my plan is after Wednesday, Thursday, man, back off socials. I’ll contact everyone I need to when I’m away. You know what I mean? For the rest of the year, I’m just going to enjoy my dogs and my cats and my mom and the house and a drawer and just the real simple little things that I just lost touch with because of the complex.

Paul Bedford (02:35:40):
I know the obsessive personality with art because it’s so rewarding and just feels so bright and natural and who you’re, it’s easy to become, it’s easy to become obsessed with it. It’s easy to let it overwhelm you and consume your every thought and all you want to do is this part be over. I just want to get home. I want to be done so I can get home and I can go, I have two hours. Yeah, it’s tough man, because it’s so rejuvenating. As difficult as it’s, but yeah, I know from my obsession with the game, I’ve appreciated it. It got to unhealthy levels.

(02:36:36)
It’s who I’m, it’s always I’m the same. I’m the person who enjoys being alone. Just I love nothing more than hanging out with my family, mucking around with my kids. I just want to go for a walk with my daughter for four hours. I’m not again in this game for if it makes money, that’s a bonus. But touching on what you’re saying before about drawing and not necessarily reducing a comic, bringing its own satisfaction is true because there’s a lot of game designers out there and writers who literally just enjoy. They get as much satisfaction out of the experience of just sitting down and creating this stuff and then putting it in a drawer. And that touches back to what I said before when I wrote the script for the list and then lost it and then pulled it out and then thought I should do something with this and questions, why do I have to do something with this? We’ve touched on that as well. That’s one of the powerful things about creativity is that to put yourself in a creative space, demands and then that open-minded invites self-realization and epiphanies along the way. So the simple act of seemingly simple act of drawing or writing a line or whatever is immeasurably powerful and therapeutic and rewarding. You don’t have to bring anything out. And if you want to then do it for the right reasons. We’ve gone a lot of that tonight.

Paul Bedford (02:38:44):
Yeah,

Leigh Chalker (02:38:44):
I agree. I agree. And I think I, for anyone that’s out there and they want, there may be some, I won’t go into too much detail, but there may be some news on that in the new year and a few different things. But I’m sure Paul has said previously that if you’re chasing any copies, just message him. And he may have a few floating around that.

Paul Bedford (02:39:11):
One of the blokes did send God’s, I was after copy, I send one and I never got around because I was looking for the newer copies and I couldn’t find it. I knew there was some, like every comic had copies in the garage and I’ve got a few boxes and I looked for, I only had the older version, so a bit obsessive. I didn’t want to send the older version. I want to send the newer updated version. And then I think I got distracted by something and then a few weeks later, prick

Leigh Chalker (02:39:56):
Not one of those mate,

Paul Bedford (02:40:02):
Last one I said, if you want copy just to me, if you cover a, I’ll send it to you. And then someone wrote to me and said, I like a copy. I said, no problem. I’ll go find a new one. I couldn’t find new one. And then because I’m as minded as I’m passionate, I completely fucking forgot. So I look over the message with that person’s watching, I’m deeply apologetic. If things happen as next year, let’s do something to solve that situation because these things I carry, believe me, I carry them. I felt really awful.

Leigh Chalker (02:40:40):
Well, you’re an empathic dude, man. You don’t write something and create something like the list mate if you’re a stone. Do you know what I mean? That’s the beauty of that comic book is that not just you being the writer and the creator of it, but like Henry and Tom doing the artwork and stuff, there was a chemistry between the three of you guys that really does work in that book as a whole. And the one thing that my love of the Crow is that you may look at it and go, oh, some of it’s not the best artwork. And some, I can see a mistake here. I can see a mistake there, but as a fucking hole, it is magnificent. And I classed the list in that category as in if you were to get a page here or there, you’d have no idea what was going on and you’d like it. But when you see it together and you see it from page one to the end and fucking and you read it and you get it, it is a beautiful thing, man. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Paul Bedford (02:41:51):
Yeah, man,

(02:41:52)
Thank you. You’re right. I was incredibly grateful to have Henry and Tom eternally. They just knew what it had to be. Even when I didn’t, I didn’t know the look of it. Like I said, I’d never written a comic before and I’d never really read many of them. I’d watched movies and read novels. So to land with those two guys who could produce more importantly than anything, the feel, because like I said with the Chrome, the list, of course there’s faults. There’s faults in the writing, there’s faults in the art, absolutely. No work can be perfect by any means, but the overall feel and tone comes across and that’s what they managed. They managed to do that with my words and that was amazing.

Leigh Chalker (02:42:48):
Yeah, man, I agree a hundred percent and no work’s perfect. So mines, you know how I get around my imperfections, man, I just put smoke in it. Fuck, if I fuck something up, I just put a big smoke, there’s a chimney there or something like that. That’s how I get around it. That’s true. That’s no lie. I’m like, fuck that up out of that, they’re great. You know what I mean? A little trick there, man. Yeah, there’s lots of things that I’ve learned along the way to find more imperfections and little tricks and shit like that. But Paul, mate, you feel uncomfortable with how we’ve covered our ideologies of what we think art is this evening, mate, and how we envision what it is for ourselves. I think we have given, I think one of the things that I always enjoy about our conversations are we do just speak.

(02:43:56)
Sometimes people agree, sometimes people don’t. We’re not attacking anyone, but that’s what chin wags are, chin wags, the chin wags are fluent. Chin wags are about freedom of expression and speaking about art and creativity and all of the little areas in between. And that’s been joys of chin wags for me. It’s been one of the joys of meeting everyone along the lines. So I’m going to, mate, before I go into the outro, I’m going to ask you as who I believe as you are my friend and someone that I enjoy conversing with and someone that I have great respect for their creative work. And I do wish you every success with your game and in your future endeavours and stuff like that. Thank you. What’s the one piece of advice that you would give to anyone out there right now after we’ve spoken about all this along their creative paths, man, because we’ve seen comments tonight about people trying to do their first comic books and wanting to get their projects done. And we know that people have a time limit in their minds. They always want to get it out sooner than later, that sort of thing. But it’s ready when it’s ready. That’s the other thing about creativity we didn’t talk about tonight.

(02:45:32)
It’s ready when it’s ready and you can bust yourself up, but got to let it fucking flow.

Paul Bedford (02:45:40):
Give, okay, so when people get a question and they answer it with, that’s a really good question because they pause. I don’t know what to say, so I can only say this and this coming from a guy who’s written one comic, so don’t take too, I think it’s probably more than the statement, it’s probably more a summary of what we’ve said tonight is that follow your passion with that ego, right? Detach yourself from expectation. Listen to those who are in line with your vision, hone your craft and enjoy the journey. That’s all I got.

Leigh Chalker (02:46:48):
Fair words, man, because it’s a journey and there’s no doubt about that. And much of what we’ve spoken on, tonight’s been based on some principles about, as Shay said tonight, it’s about the moment and the moment makes up the journey. I know everyone’s got to, they’re always aiming for the future and stuff, but if you ain’t too far into, it’s good to set yourself up and have little goals and shit in the future. You’re looking too far in the past, man, you miss what’s happening around you right there. And then in that moment, that little moment where all that work, each of those little moments make up to that, make up to that. And that’s what it’s all about in the end is moment by moment, step by step, one day at a time according to Alcoholics Anonymous. And really the, well, the principles man are the same.

(02:47:38)
You can break. The other funny thing too, before we rock and roll, is everything’s patterns. Everything is basic principles, everything is discipline. Everything is faith. Hope, believing in yourself, positivity, even in the fucking times where you can’t, you know what I mean? Just if it’s something you got to do, you got to do it, man, because you regret it. If you don’t, man, as Paul said tonight, and I know a lot of people that regret things that they didn’t try to, and that’s just one of those things. I don’t want to be that person. So I hope no one else does either, but everyone’s path is different.

(02:48:21)
Mr. Paul Bedford, love you mate. I’m really proud of you coming up to the 12 month sobriety mark. Thank you. I think three years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it’s all part of the journey, man. But I guess as you said, when you come free of substances and addiction and stuff, never free of addiction, that little suckers like the ego. It’s always there. You let the guard down, man, it’ll bite you. But you do, I guess see things clearly and you have a little bit of, I guess there is a little bit of transcendence there isn’t there, man? You know what I mean? When you start doing things that are in the universal, I guess the flow and things like that, and life is good, you start noticing things, you start taking more notice of people, relationships. My relationships with people are very good when I’m talking to them. It’s just the text message, relationships that hit a bump as we talked about earlier. But lessons, lessons. But mate, thank you very much. Thank you for tonight with me to take her home. And yeah, very grateful for you man, and your time and your support to everyone else out there,

Paul Bedford (02:49:51):
Thank you for having me on again. I’m deeply, it was very, very cool. So to you, and thanks to everyone who listened tonight, and whether you agree or not, that’s the beauty of it. That’s

Leigh Chalker (02:50:09):
Fluidity conversations,

Paul Bedford (02:50:11):
Man. Yeah, it was lovely. It was really nice. And I drive around thinking these things, but I really get to speak them. So this is a really nice opportunity to go deep. And sometimes you just find yourself having your own epiphanies while you’re having a conversation. I could have stopped you at pretty much any sentence you said and had an hour’s conversation on each of those sentences.

Leigh Chalker (02:50:34):
Well

Leigh Chalker (02:50:34):
Mate,

Leigh Chalker (02:50:35):
After the show, when you hang around or before I go off socials, you’ll get your opportunity because you’ll be getting my phone number. So we’ll have many more conversations and stuff along these levels, man. So don’t you stress about that. That’s good. While I’m off social, so I won’t be losing you, mate. So you’ll be there. Alright, so mate, thank you and look to everyone out there. I don’t really know where I stand with anything at the moment. I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m enjoying some freedom. I’m enjoying finding myself and just being at the moment. It’s been a long journey. I didn’t really realise how long a journey it has been. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, I’ve had a lot of breakthroughs. I’ve had a lot of backwards steps I’ve kept trucking on. But I guess I just got to the end of the point where I wasn’t quite sure what my values were and certain things that probably trying to be push myself too far and I burned out against.

(02:51:33)
So I didn’t recognise the engine light that’s on me. That’s not any of you. But thank you for all the support from people out there, Mr. David Bird in particular for reaching out and sending me a beautiful book and double checking to see that I was okay. I’ve fucking greatly appreciate that, man. That really touched me and that was just very unexpected and meant a lot. So I just wanted to put that on the public record. I’d also just like to say thank you to Ciz and Carrie who have always been there with me and stuff over the year or two and the years past that to Kylie. Absent-Minded, who’s a great old mate of mine, that was one of the people that helped me through over the last five or six weeks. And to Peter Gas coin, who’s possibly listening. He was my mate that sat across me from me here that night too.

(02:52:35)
And I’m very grateful for them as always, very grateful for Chinwag. Very grateful for Comex. Never say never. We’ll see what happens after a break. Can’t give you a timeframe back or a date or what I’m doing with myself, but it is what it is and I’m just going to go and do what I’ve got to do. So that’s just how it rolls. I wish you all the best. Be safe. Take care of yourselves. Look after your brothers and your sisters. All right, reach out. Check if someone’s okay. You can tell from me. Sometimes I sit here in front of you all with a smile and a laugh and stuff like that, and I’m dying inside. So if it hadn’t have been for a handful of people reaching out to me, who knows where I’d be mate. So don’t forget about your people like and subscribe comics anywhere you can find them.

(02:53:29)
Alright? Grow the community, build everyone up, build spirits. Stay away from Gie ies. No one wants to go. No one wants to hang out with negative people. And don’t forget to go to the shop, which has got over a hundred Australian comic books creators, helps keep these shows afloat and it’s an awesome community to be part of. I’d also like to say on closing, congratulations to Mr. Rob O’Connor and Death Ship, Jenny issue five just coming out. That’s one of my favourite comic book series as well. And it’s beautiful to see you up and doing your thing, brother. So keep going. All right, and for one last time this evening, and for however long, Mr. Bedford, thank you, sir. Talk to you very shortly. Thank you for everyone out there. And don’t forget, chinwag is and always was made with love and community is unity. Be good. Take care.

Paul Bedford (02:54:27):
Merry Christmas.

Voice Over (02:54:38):
This show is sponsored by the Comex Shop. Check out CONVER to come to comics shop to

Voice Over (02:54:43):
Pick up a variety of Australian comics from multiple.