Lisa-Skye is Melbourne’s sparkle puppy muppet dominatrix comedian. Her uniquely positive and inclusive humor and her glitter-bomb high-energy delivery have made her a favorite on the International arts festival circuit. She is not for the close-minded…
Listen to Episode #12 here
Sparkle Puppy Muppet Dominatrix Comedian Lisa-Skye
Our guest is Melbourne comedian Lisa Skye. As you will quickly find out, describing Lisa Skye as a comedian does a disservice to her unique persona. A regular on the Australian art circuit, Lisa Skye is currently performing Spiders Wearing Party Hats. Welcome, Lisa. Is it okay to say Lisa or is it always Lisa Skye?
Hi there. Lisa is good. I have partial face blindness. It’s part of my AHD, so when people greet me as Lisa Skye, I think, “It’s a fan.” When people say, “Lisa,” I’m like “I know this person.” That’s how I almost accidentally accepted a lift from a stranger once.
I have an ex-girlfriend who had that and I have another friend who has it.
I was watching the Sopranos. It took me easy a full season because they’re all round brunette Italian gentlemen and it’s ridiculous. They all look exactly the same except for Paul who looks like a muppet, and so I’d be like, “Why is he killing his daughter?” That’s not him, it’s a different guy.
A lot of people don’t know this exists. My recollection of this, this is an ex-girlfriend from several years back, first of all, I was like, “Of course, that’s why you’re dating me.” She said that she uses shape, movement and color.
Yes. Hair is a big one for me. Not really shape because I don’t know if anyone is fat or thin or tall or short until they tell me, and also, for lack of a less hippy-esque term, general energy or vibe of someone. I would have a friend come to my door and be like, “Hello,” and they’ve dyed their hair and I would’ve been like, “Hello. How are?” She was like, “Are you kidding? It’s Kaye.” I’m like, “Really? Are you kidding? God, I’m so sorry. Enter my house.”
You’re already getting in the way of my first question. My first question is always if you weren’t working as an artist, what would you be doing?
University admin.
This came up before we were chatting in the building that we’re in. You were doing university admin.
That was my day job. I loved it because I look like a clown show. I look like Zach Galifianakis banged a pixie. That’s the look I’m going for like a drag queen or a pot plant having sex on a broken disco ball and birthing a fluid pill. Do you guys have fluid pills in America? Don’t worry. I worked in university admin and it was amazing. I loved it because I have a very type A personality. I’m very administrative, very organized. A lot of that is to do with late diagnosis of ADHD, so I have all these coping mechanisms that I didn’t realize were coping mechanisms.
Like creating structures?
Being so organized, being amazing at project management and stuff because I have to rely on electronic brains or even analog brains because mine doesn’t hold things in it.
This is interesting because we have a mutual friend Ross Floate who I interviewed and I asked him, “Who do I need to speak to in Melbourne?” His first answer was, “You have to talk to Lisa Skye.” You’re off to a good start and then he emailed you because I also said, “Besides Lisa Skye, who should I talk to?” He said that within five minutes, you sent him an email that he forwarded onto me, which is no joke, 30 comedians, a lot of comedic talent.
All Melbourne-based varying in demographics and established or emerging mid-career-wise.
He said literally within five minutes, it came in, so that’s consistent. That’s not an unusual feat for you.
No. I am very good. That’s why I was so good at university admin. I worked at the uni for five years. I went up four full pay grades in thirteen months. I was like, “This is the business.” It was like an alcoholic working in a pub because I was able to do a million little tasks at once and drop everything and do this. Also I have that thing a lot of very busy people have, which is “This is B or C task, but it’s going to take 30 seconds,” so I can do that and not think about it. I also have that stuff on record because one of my favorite things is connecting good people to good projects. I love it, so I’m very protective. I’m a daddy, so I’m like “This is my people. You enjoy them. They’re going to enjoy you,” so I have a list of comics that I refer to. It was a quick thing of, “Who’s in town in the next month?” Copy-paste.
When we set up this appointment, you said I’m available from 3:45 to 4:45.
Yes, it is important to give people parameters.
That’s unusual, 3:45.
I’ve got a wedding in Cremorne at 5:30.
I will have you out of here on time. I have similar traits.
I have twenty minutes wiggle room on everything. I would rather my mom was late for everything or we’re going to get a lot of mother and dad talking to comedians. She was pathologically late, so I’d rather be two hours early for everything for the rest of my life than three minutes late. It makes me feel like I’m being buried alive.
This is uncomic-like trait that you have.
[Tweet “Trying to organize comics is like nailing a cloud to a wall.”]
Trying to organize comics is like nailing a cloud to a wall. I love them and it’s a great opportunity for me to challenge my hang-ups. A lot of creative people’s brains tend to work differently and we’re a bit broken because that’s why we do this. There’s too much going on in one’s brain. My husband is a sound engineer, so the faders on for creativity are up to ten, so the faders for something else need to go down. A lot of the time that’s organization and all things like that. I’m very used to wrangling people.
Give me some tips. What works if I’m scheduling comedians to do this stuff, how do I get them here on time?
My administrative background helps, so smart goals, specific, measurable, achievable, so giving them time parameters. Also reminding them on the day, which you did, was great. Having said that, one of my friends have said in New York, if you’re fifteen minutes early, you’re on time; if you’re on time, you’re late; if you’re late, you’re fired. I had like 1/13 of a climax, I was like, “Oh.” Comics will try. Is that patronizing? Am I being patronizing?
You’re being honest.
It’s good though because I go the other way. I obsess over little things a lot like the fact that I have to be early. If I was ten minutes late for this, it’s okay because it’s only going to go for 45 minutes. I’ve already built twenty minutes in, so it’s not going to be the end of the world except for the fact that it is disrespectful to be late to something. I need to come, my tips have been about that, so it helps having comics because then I know if I say call time of 7:30 PM, they going to get there at 8 PM and that’s going to have to be fine.
Admin pay the bills, I assume?
Yes.
You were good at it and it checked a lot of boxes.
It was great. I struggled a bit in the corporate environment because look at me, I’m like a drag queen. Also I’m not good at managing people, which I learned quite late. I tend to hold them up to the same standards I hold myself, which is unfair. I loved it, but I ended up working two full-time jobs because comedy was becoming a full-time job and the university admin peak times are the same as festival peak times. At the start of the year, enrollments, orientation, all of that, it’s the Australian summer festival season. Then April is exams, special consideration. European festival time, July to August, is mid-year enrollment. There was only so many years I could be like, “I’m okay. I can leave for five weeks at your busiest time. Where? I can do that,” and so I had to make a decision.
It seems like an obvious decision.
It’s such a cliché. I’m lucky enough that I can do this full time. We’re a family of pretty much three because my husband and I and my boyfriend lives with us. He’s unemployed for mental health reasons. We were pretty much on two artist wages because husband is in film and I’m in this.
You have dogs too.
Yes, I have Dr. Shudder. She’s a 52-kilo Mastweiler, that’s a Rottweiler-Mastiff cross. She’s quite the gentleman. She’s six.
She seems like a sweet dog from the videos I’ve seen.
She is the most perfect gentlemen. We’ve had her for a year and she hasn’t wrecked any of our stuff.
That’s expensive to feed that animal.
Yeah, because she’s the size of a lot of my friends, so it’s brutal. I don’t do scatological humor, but picking up her leavings is brutal. It’s a nightmare every time, I will never get used to it.
I love different words for things, leavings.
Her eliminate. My husband and I and my boyfriend and I are very waspy about it. We’re like, “Did she eliminate today?” We also have a bearded dragon, but Chris handles that, my husband. A bearded dragon is a big lizard. We inherited him.
About a foot long, 30 centimeters?
He is probably more about nine inches in the body, but I’m one of the few Australians that speak in inches and centimeters. It drives my friends crazy because I’m like, “I need a box that is about five inches by eight centimeters,” and that to me is so clear, and they are like, “No.” Centimeters for people doesn’t work because it’s like, “I’m 151 centimeters,” but I’m 5’1”. That’s easy, you can tell, that’s that whereas centimeters, there are too many centimeters.
I have to convert. I’m 195, 6’5”.
That’s so many centimeters to remember. It’s exhausting.
What about pounds and kilos?
Kilo is easy. I never did pounds. Kilos and grams as my proclivities lay. That’s easy. Kilometers and meters are easy, but when you get to anything smaller than three meters, which is maybe four yards, more or less, then I’m all feet and inches.
Do they have stones in Australia?
No, that’s a UK thing.
That’s just only in the UK. That didn’t make it over here.
We have rocks. We don’t have stones.
When someone is X stones, I don’t know how many stones that might be. Is it twenty pounds or something or 40 pounds?
It’s a big bit, so people don’t weigh many stones, unless they put them in their pockets and marching to the sea, which a lot of comedians do.
It’s a small number, someone might be four stones?
It’s like twelve.
Twelve stones, so it must be twenty pounds or something like that. Twenty pounds is eight kilos.
A little human is 90 pounds because I’m a 90-pound weakling. That’s what I love about America. We are so different. We think because we’re so socialized with American TV and things that we’re the same, and then whenever I go there I’m like, “Gee, wow,” and I love it because you are all so enthusiastic about everything. I love that because I don’t know if you could tell that about me.
That’s an American quality, your enthusiasm.
I love it. My favorite American versus UK and Australian thing is that I have friends. I haven’t done comedy in America yet, but I have friends who go there and they’re hour long show they have to cut about twenty minutes out of it.
Things just done translate?
No, it’s the exact same show. They do like a local pass when you’re a comedian. Like in Edinburgh, I had to do a local pass and there was one almost absolute disaster with something I didn’t even realize was a local thing. The amazing thing is out accent has gotten a lot less. I was watching a video from my primary school in the late 1980s and it was a video about Charlie, the mad boy. I went to a regular suburban primary school. We all spoke like that. It was like “Nay. Charlie’s is gone. Where is Charlie?”
It’s smoothed a little bit? The whole country?
It has, mostly the whole country. The further up you get, they get broader, but I do a lot of traveling overseas. One year I went for a month in Helsinki, about three weeks in Berlin, full run in Edinburgh, and then went back to Berlin and met someone and fell in love. We were very busy so we couldn’t Skype for about a month before I got back and my accent had come back because if I’m performing, especially for an audience where English may be their second, third, fourth, fifth language, I tend to enunciate more, get more clear. If you’re performing every day, you do tend to get better at enunciation, and I was like “It’s so great to see you. I miss you so much,” and he was like, “I can’t understand you. Did you always speak like this? I don’t know what you’re saying.” I go, “Because that’s what Australians do.” They like mumbling. We talk fast, but we don’t remember what we’re asked. People have to cut or expand.
Americans come here and they’re hour-long show goes for 42 minutes because an Australian or UK comic, once you notice this, you can’t unnotice it. Australian or UK comic will say, “My wife and I got married last year and we’re expecting our first child,” and then launch into the joke. American comics will say, “My wife and I got married last year, and we’re expecting our first child,” and Americans applaud. The funniest thing in the world is if you see an American and the audience in Australia or the UK, they are with them, but the American is visibly thrown because he goes, “My wife and I got married last year,” pause, and everyone has a very pleasant open face going, “Go on,” and “We’re about to have our first child,” “Yep, we’ve all got stuff going on. Go on,” and they get so thrown by the applause, whereas the Australians in the UK get frustrated because they’re like, “No, wait. You’re wrecking the rhythm. I’ve got it, that’s exposition.” It’s an amazing thing to watch across cultures.
I’ve never heard of that. Obviously there are lots of audience differences.
In Berlin, they very rarely heckle.
I can see that. It’s against the rules.
I’ve gigged with comics and there’s a comic who’s amazing. I wouldn’t say the name because it seems like I’m insulting them. He is very seasoned. He was from the UK, has been living in Berlin for over a decade, but he’s starting comedy in Berlin. He does comedy many times a week, a very seasoned performer. He had a heckler who was Australian and got thrown. They’ve had hecklers before but not as many. It’s an interesting cultural thing. I guess hecklers have so many different shades of them.
What are the top three types of hecklers over there?
A happy heckler. I get them a lot because I’m very warm and inclusive and I also talk about quite niche things. For example, I’m polyamorous and I’m kinky and I’m queer and I’m non-binary, so if I’m talking about one of those things, they are like, “Me, too” and they get excited. It’s a sweet thing, but it’s bloody annoying because they get puppy, they want to get involved. I’ll say something like, “It’s not like I live in Mitcham or anything. I live in,” and I got, “My aunt lives in Mitcham,” and so you can’t go “I will drive over and make you a ghost,” because that betrays the trust of the audience, too, because they’re just being annoying, God bless them. Happy hecklers take a long time to work out how to go and shush.
Then there’s attitude that points out again a very Australian UK thing, we’ve got a lot of toxic masculinity stuff. The straight guy who basically come in and sit with his arms crossed and go like, “I bet myself $25 I’m not going to laugh at you. Go on then.” It’s less of a heckler, more of, “Go on,” which again I don’t think is a default in America. People are just like, “Alright, we’ve chosen to go this.”
I want to have fun. I want to enjoy myself.
Exactly, whereas we’re like, “What? Go on. We’ve all got stuff going on,” that type of thing.
When you have that guy with his arms crossed, what do you do? Do you ignore or you engage?
Yes and no. Sometimes if I’m about to talk about something weird, I get excited because I giggle and I’m like, “You’re not going to enjoy this,” and that usually breaks them.
You say that to them?
I don’t tend to engage. I’m a hyper extrovert. I don’t know if you’ve known that about me.
I’m picking that up.
My husband is an introvert, a lot of my friends are introverts. I have no idea what they think, so I am hyper respectful. Like any sexual people, it’s like “I see you, I honor you and I’m going to do what you need me to do.” I hate audience participation, and so if me as an extrovert hates it, what are these introverts going to say? I tend to not do crowd work unless it’s an audience who wants to play. I do shows at a music festival at the end of the year every year and they are very high crowd. It’s hacked out nineteen-year-olds who have had a disco and Vicky, look it up and they want to play. They don’t want to hear whimsical stories for 30 minutes. They want to run around.
You feel comfortable engaging with them?
Exactly, and that’s pretty much the only time. There’s the happy heckler. There’s the dalamond and sometimes I’ll look at him and I’m like, “Hmmm,” and that gets him on board, too, because he realizes like, “I’m being a dickhead.” We’ve also got that tall puppy syndrome, which is, “You think you’re better than me.” The other one is like a nerdy boy who thinks he’s good at comedy and doesn’t realize he’s a submissive yet, which is fun because I can break him in half and ask for another in 30 seconds.
He doesn’t know he’s a submissive yet?
People who socialize as male tend to be dominant by default and if they feel like they are into kink stuff, they will tend to go towards dominance, whereas women, people who socialize as female, tend to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so “I don’t know about this.” There’ve been studies in this like women don’t go for jobs until they’re overqualified. It’s the same in the kink world, which is fascinating.
It’s their level of confidence and comfort.
It’s like, “I’m into this weird stuff but I don’t know enough about it, so maybe I’ll be the submissive because I don’t know how to flog a person.” They don’t have that bravado, so taking them down is fun because it changes them. It sets them on the right path. They love it, Peter.
I’m amazed. You just haven’t mentioned the stereotype heckler, which is the drunk person who can’t help themselves.
They don’t matter to me, so I didn’t even see.
They are cliché.
I tend to dazzle them too much because of my look and things. I tend to get a mistressy voice at them and they clam up, which is an act. It’s a fun thing to do, especially in an audience that’s quite mainstream because I have a very masculine presence on stage even though I’m hyper feminine look, which is why I identify as a drag queen. They’re not like, “Show us your tits” because it’d be like, “You first, my guts, go on then.” I encompass those sparkle puppy muppet dominatrix things and it glitches them out. It confuses them too much.
Let’s unpack this sparkle puppy muppet dominatrix. The audience will be most familiar with dominatrix.
Muppet. Don’t take away my childhood joy.
Why muppet?
Look at me. Follow me on Instagram @TheLisaSkye. I’m very optimistic. I love people. I love connection. I love providing an environment for people to have a good time and creating that is so special.
What muppet would you be or are you?
I feel like animal. I strive to be chaotic good. I’m chaotic neutral, but I strive to be chaotic good. It’d be probably an animal with Ms. Piggy Rising, because I’m not a diva. I have a pathological fear of being a bother. I figure since I’m already asking so much of people to deal with all of this extrovert energy.
You put people off balance.
No, I’m just scared I do. I’m constantly not wanting to be a bother, so I’m constantly checking in. Again, because I’m dominant in my sexuality and stuff, I also want to check in and make sure that everyone’s okay and everyone’s having a good time.
[Tweet “Poor is the man whose pledges depend on the permissions of another.”]
Dominatrix is the next one. Dominatrix is about permission, isn’t it?
Very much, yeah. As the great poet Madonna said, “Poor is the man whose pledges depend on the permissions of another,” from Justify My Love. Are you a Madonna boy?
I do like Madonna.
What genre? What field of Madonna?
All of it up until very recently.
That’s fair.
What was that song with time something? What is it called? I know Madonna from when she was part of the big three in the ‘80s.
Madonna, Boy George, and Michael Jackson? Are you saying Prince and Michael Jackson?
Prince and Michael Jackson.
That’s fair. When Doves Cry, I reckon is the perfect piece of minimalist pop. Don’t hate me.
That’s interesting. As an aside, I saw Boy George a couple New Years ago.
Was he wearing his discrete fat jacket?
He was wearing a big hat.
Yes. No one can tell that I’m bulging with big accessories. I love it.
He was great. His voice was fantastic. It was a good show.
The first time I saw him was when I was two, and my mother dressed me like him. Any further questions?
You were destined. Obviously ‘80s stuff. Hung Up, is that the song?
That’s a good one. There is this mashup. You’re going into my tragic queen thing. There is a mashup of Hung Up and what’s the Kylie Minogue song? There is Hung Up on Blue Monday, which is fine. There is a big Kylie Minogue song. I know you don’t super get her in America, but still mashup of Hung Up and another big club hit from Kylie and it’s bloody banger.
With these, I’m going to do exhibit so your Insta will be on there and I’ll do one or both of these mashups, so Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince. Those are the big three from the ‘80s. Madonna has got to feel like, “I won.”
No, because she has to fight so hard for everything, so she’s living. Think of what she does. She does like 78 hours of yoga a day. I don’t even think she would feel like she’s won because she’s had to work so hard. Meanwhile, Michael Jackson’s got a tolerance that I’m impressed with. He was having a little bit of shush-push. He was having surgery, like anesthetist, coming in.
That’s true. Obviously all their stories ended up a little sad. If you’re a big star, eventually it gets sad in some way.
Not Brenda Springer, she’s never looked better.
Why did we talk about permission?
It’s all about checking in with the audience.
It’s similar. As a performer, in some ways you are a dominatrix.
Very much, yes, because I’m creating a sane. I’m creating a mood.
You’re flogging your audience with their approval, flogging them with your words.
I get weird. If you think of what happens in Rihanna film clip, think again, it gets real weird. I shouldn’t say that. I’m more about creating the mood that the person wants, even if in the moment they don’t want it. It’s a cathartic mood and comedy is a catharsis as well. Laughing is a catharsis.
You had puppy?
Yes, because again, look at me.
You do have puppy-like qualities.
You find me a particular pleasing shade of teal, I’m happy for days.
I didn’t know there was a pleasing shade of teal.
How dare? One, rude. Two, get me my good linen shirt. It’s not teal. It’s good ones.
What were the other ones?
Sparkle, puppy, muppet, dominatrix. Sparkle because I am glitter.
You already are on glitter.
This is biodegradable. I’m very proud of this.
You’re headed to do a wedding after this?
Yes.
You’re costuming for the wedding or do you do clothes like this normally?
This is my day look. I just wear a hat for a wedding.
That’s the costume.
It is an offbeat wedding. I did ask the couple, “Do you want me at 5/5 Lisa or 1/5 Lisa?” because I tend to dress down for weddings.
What is 1/5 Lisa? What would she be wearing?
Probably like leggings, booty shorts, a plain black shirt and a tie, still drag queen eye makeup, but a little bit more toned down, and maybe one color of lipstick rather than this camouflage effect.
Your 1/5 is like my 9/5.
Pretty much. I wish more people would do this because it means that I don’t have to turn myself down because this isn’t even my final form. I could dress as a club kid. I’ve got two speeds basically, like ridiculous drag queen and actual potato, so big T-shirt, leggings as pants, singing along to Shakespeare’s Sister at the supermarket.
From a fashion standpoint, anytime that I’ve ever done something that I felt a little out of my comfort zone with, obviously curated, vetted by someone else, not my own decisions, but like someone else saying, “You should try. This will be fashion forward,” that’s when the compliments come. It’s interesting how the thing that seems uncomfortable, I allow myself to do it and then I get positive feedback. These are very minor in your world, but in my world they feel much more.
That’s the thing. People want to see people making an effort. The interesting thing is I do get aggression for this look. A lot of women tend to very furtively compliment me like, “I love your hair,” and then leave or like “Your make up is sweating” and then leave like they don’t want to be a bother. If I don’t like my look, if they’re bitching about it with their friends, I don’t hear it. It’s very furtive. Men feel the need to editorialize my look to me. Once, I was at a festival and a guy said, “You’re very colorful,” but he didn’t say, “You’re very colorful.” It was “You’re very colorful,” and without missing a beat, my husband said, “You’re a fourth best,” and it was amazing. This tends to be an Australian and UK thing. It’s that, “Look at you. You reckon you’re grass,” because I am so bright, so I’m going to tell you what I think of you and put you back in your place because me editorializing you means that I get the highest status on this interaction that doesn’t even need to be an interaction.
It’s not solicited.
I get a lot of guys feigning shock like, “What are you meant to be?” It is a good one. I tend to go mess them and I’m like, “Goodness, what an interesting thing to say to another person, isn’t it?” to them and it glitches them. I’m like, “That is such a strange thing to say to someone.”
If you choose something about your life that’s different than the majority of people do and you’re asked about that, an interesting response to it is, “I’m happy to answer your question. However, I want you to answer the opposite question, which is, ‘Why are you not doing this?’”
Being very friendly and open and pointing out. It used to be, “What are you meant to be?” I’m like, “A hot chick? How about you?” It’s much more effective to engage people in a dialogue. Also, you can be quite rude for your own amusement and they don’t pick up if you’re talking like this because I’m like, “What a strange thing to say to someone?” It always seems like an undeveloped social anxiety thing. Maybe you’re hiding something or someone hurt you. “Are you okay? Do you need some water or something? We can talk, but are you okay?” and they tend to apologize real quick. I’m like, “No, that’s fine. Do you like how I look?” and they always say, “Yes.” I’m like, “Some other people who might be a bit shy or trying this for the first time, they might get self-conscious if you say stuff like that and then they won’t look like this and you won’t see this. That wouldn’t be good, would it?”
It sounds like when you move through life, you have to work harder.
It annoys me. Edinburgh is so hard because you’re working twelve to eighteen-hour days. If you’re not sleeping, you have to be working because it’s such a huge expense to go over there.
I’ve heard this from other comics.
You need to suck the marrow out of it. At any point in the day, at any hour, there are five things you should be doing. Everyone gets festival flu because, for example, I don’t drink alcohol. I tend to live in festivals like I’m running a marathon. I have my shake, I have my nutrients, I’m like “Let’s do this,” but others get drunk and do all this and they get sick and then they infect the rest of us. There were times where I’m tired and I don’t want to go out and deal with guys going, “You must like green,” “You must like noticing things,” but then that makes me do more of the thing because I figure that they in a way win. This look brings a lot of people joy and that’s why I do it because people are like, “Sparkly bright, nice. I like it.”
I talked about this in my class about polarizing people and this idea of living in a world where people are going to either love you or hate you. That’s an interesting world versus the world where everybody thinks you’re three on a five-point scale, you just sit in the middle. A world where you have people who think you’re a one and you have who think you’re a five, that’s an interesting world to be in. It causes more headaches, too. It’s an exciting world, it’s a rewarding world. In the world of entertainment obviously, we were debating among Madonna and Michael Jackson and Prince, all three musical geniuses, which one is best? Already, it’s the idea of being at the top.
I’m very comfortable in that because I grew up in ones and tens household. I’m getting therapy for it. Everyone was either hysterically laughing or screaming and crying. There was no middle ground. My husband for example, his family is fours to sixes out of ten.
They sit in little comfortable spots.
If someone wins $10 million, “How are you?” “Pretty good.” Everyone douses a fire, “A bit of bad luck.” Whereas if someone stubs their toe in my family, “Whoa.” Someone finds a penny, “Yes. We don’t even have them here.” He gets justifiably extremely tense around my folks and then I get very tense around his family because they are so lovely. I’m like, “When does the tension break? When is it going to happen?”
It never does, bad luck.
It never does. We’ve been together for fourteen years.
It’s not changing.
It’s not changing, but I need him to be like that, too, because when I get hysterical, he’s like, “Calm down, mate. Come on. What are you doing?” He talks to me like a disappointed cricket coach, like “What are doing? Come on.”
[Tweet “The word “comrade” is an interesting word because it cuts across friendships”]
This term “mate,” I’m very fond of. I don’t feel like I can use it.
It sounds weird in the American mouth because it’s like pal.
Americans don’t have a good equivalent for mate.
Pal, buddy. Dude?
That’s not good. None of those are good.
Mate can be like, “What do you reckon, mate?”
Can you use mate with strangers?
Yes.
Can you use mate with women?
Yeah.
You can’t use pal, dude, buddy, any of those things in the United States broadly. The word “comrade” is an interesting word because it cuts across friendships and so on. It’s a uniting idea. I’m not suggesting anyone use comrade, but there’s something about the term comrade that feels like mate to me. The US doesn’t have an equivalent of that. I like it. It’s so affectionate. It’s such an affectionate term in my view when you said that your husband says mate.
It’s gender neutral. You can say it badly, like “Well, mate. Come on now.” It can be negative.
It can be negative, but in general it feels quite affectionate. We’re going to run out time. I have to ask you two things.
Should we do lightning round? Let’s do it.
I only do two questions that I always end with.
I’ll be succinct.
What are you reading, watching or listening to that stands out?
The thing that I’m watching was Sense8. I finished watching that.
What is that?
Sense8 is the Wachowski siblings. It’s on Netflix. It’s a TV show. I do a lot of activism with my comedy, so a lot of creating space for the other and being as good and as visible as on other as I can. I was saying to my husband, “I just want to watch something with no agenda,” and he was like, “What about this? It’s got all of agendas.” It’s beautiful. I very rarely see representations of me on screen, and so I enjoyed Sense8. A hot tip if you’re going to watch it, you’re not going to understand the first two to three episodes and that’s fine. Just let it wash over you. It gets easier. Reading Smudgy in Monsterland by Paul Rasche. It’s the darkest thing I have ever read. It’s set in an alternate history where it’s in the deep future. Paul Rasche is a visual artist, so he paints these landscapes that are dazzling and horrific. It’s about a boy orphan who goes to an orphanage in the hyperfuture. I’m not a sci-fi guy usually, but it’s magnificent.
It’s about a person in a land of monsters named Smudgy.
It went out of print and I loved it so much that I contacted him and said, “Do you have any more of them? Can I sell them in my merch store?” Now I sell them in my merch store. I’m like, “Please, people need to know.” Listening to, I have a voracious taste as far as music goes. Unfortunately my favorite genre is irredeemably awful. It’s bad 90s skater punk, like Lagwagon, NOFX. They’re not good.
I know NOFX.
They’re not good. I love them. They’re not good. People try and point out that they’re not good like I don’t know that. I know that. I’m 36. I’ve been going to concerts since I was two. I know that.
Do you know The Pietasters? It is like some ska band of a buddy of mine.
No. I’m more into the skater punk than ska. I do enjoy some ska. It’s more about Lagwagon and NOFX. Also I love podcasts. Tea with Alice is a very good podcast.
What makes it good?
It’s a space for people to safely discuss controversial opinions in a very philosophical way like, “I’m wrestling with this idea. Let’s discuss it without emotion.”
Is Alice from the UK?
She’s based in the UK, Alice Fraser. I did put her on the list because I’m hoping she’s going to come to Melbourne. She is originally from Melbourne.
The way you talked about her, it just seems so UK, tea, emotionless.
She grew up Buddhist, so she didn’t have an alcohol Australia background, so tea. Also watching, Peter, I’m so into vaporwave. Do you know what vaporwave is?
I have no idea.
I’m so into vaporwave. I wish I was kidding. Vaporwave is an art movement that I am super into. It’s basically you get kids that were born in the ‘90s reimagining what the ‘80s was like, and they’ve also done a bunch of ketamine.
There’s no way that people should be romanticizing the ‘80s as much as they should. I’ve lived through it. It was not great.
They’ve taken the good, but it’s not weird. It’s this uncanny valley thing. I’m 36, I was born in ‘81, but I do tend to skew a lot older as far as my memories go because my parents showed me a lot.
You were watching Boy George at age two.
I never had to discover music because it was always there. It’s such an uncanny valley thing because you look at this stuff and it is ‘80s-ish.
Nowadays I will hear songs and I was like, “There’s the ‘80s right there.” The synth and that stuff have made a comeback.
Vaporwave is also a musical movement that I haven’t got into.
What’s the secret to success that everybody knows but can’t seem to do?
Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it. Work hard, live weird.
Let’s unpack this. Bite off more than you can chew and then chew it.
Ostensibly not only take risks but agree to things and then do them.
Say yes. I’ve heard this a number of times where people are just like, “Can you do this?” and they’re like, “Of course I can,” and then they figure out how to do it.
It’s artistic predisposition to overcommit because every project is amazing. Also you don’t know which ones are going to take off, which ones are going to be fun, so you agree to everything, and then it’s following through on that.
I talked to Gillian Cosgriff and that came up with her. She’s doing 100 things.
You’ve got her. Many people will say like, “I always wanted to do the little comedy thing, little sketches,” and I’m like “You didn’t do it. Just do it,” which is a very privileged thing. There are two types of comics. There are comics that genuinely can get started and play video games all day. It is indicative of how busy I am. It was a video game that was released many years ago.
I was around when Atari landed.
I had Amiga 500, that was the best with Shinobi Mission 3.
Nintendo, Playstation was getting going.
It would have been like in Nintendo 64, the fake Nintendo.
For me that was a good choice to leave that world behind.
I do need some pastimes because I’m self-employed as an artist. I work seven days a week. If I’m not sleeping, I’m working. My psychologist has genuinely asked me to play more video games. I’m like, “I can’t. There’s too much work to be done.”
That’s already very active. I’m not entirely surprised to hear that. Your form of entertainment is active, not passive.
A lot of my forms of entertainment are dissociative, which is interesting.
What do you mean by that?
When I need a break, the things I tend to do are dissociative rather than active.
I nap. That’s how I take a break.
I wish I could nap. When I’m very stressed at the moment, my body takes away sleep because I’m such a bloody type A. It’s like, “You’ve got some problems. What I will do is remove sleep, so you’ve got more time to focus,” which is not the case.
The second thing you said after taking a big bite and then chewing it, what was the second thing you said?
Shake my baby to death, bite off more than you can chew, and then chew it. Take quite a large mouthful and then consume it and that it’s part of you and then you digest it.
Fill up your plate and you eat it all.
Like a buffet situation.
What was the second thing you said?
Work hard, live weird. I am genuinely shocked that people don’t do things that make them happy people. Maybe they will go to the default life. It’s lessening with things like polyamory becoming more prevalent, like ethically having multiple partners.
There has been no licensing. If you’re on a dating app, you’ll come across people who are living a different lifestyle. There’s more conversation about it, so it’s opening it up to people who have it in them.
And either wouldn’t realize or feel like they can. People tend to call me hedonism muse, either that or joy succubus because I love happiness. Hedonism muse in the way of like, “Yes. Let me safely, morally, and ethically take you through what will bring you pleasure that you may not have considered or you might’ve been too scared to do because you don’t have the ideal circumstances or a guardian to help you with that,” which is emotionally taxing but good.
Work hard, live weird.
That’s a Skye original.
Lisa Skye, this is good.
Thank you.
I appreciate you doing it. Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Resources mentioned:
- Lisa Skye
- Spiders Wearing Party Hats
- Instagram @TheLisaSkye
- Smudgy in Monsterland
- Tea with Alice
- Alice Fraser
- Gillian Cosgriff
About Lisa-Skye Goodes
Lisa-Skye is Melbourne’s sparkle puppy muppet dominatrix comedian. Her uniquely positive and inclusive humor and her glitter-bomb high-energy delivery have made her a favorite on the International arts festival circuit. She is not for the close-minded…