I met a man one day, he face was similar to mine, his hands off of regret and hair was beginning to turn grey.

When I was younger, my mother and father broke up, I was maybe 3 or 4 years old. I didn’t understand much of what was happening at the time but I knew I missed my brother Shane, we all did. My dad, had taken my brother and we never saw him, or my dad for the 12 years that followed.

My mother would cry on his (Shane’s) birthday or I’d ask her what she was thinking about and her response would be ‘I miss Shane, or it’s Shane’s birthday today’. I didn’t know why my dad had decided to take Shane, why him and not me? Sure that question past my mind more than once, more than anything I just wanted ‘my dad’, at all the ages I was, and with the chaos I grew up in, my mind would slip into a deafening want to ‘see my dad’ to have a dad, for all the ‘dad’ like qualities I knew to be true, protection from my brothers, control for my mum and overall normality for myself.

It was easy to blame him for leaving me with what seemed like the responsibility of taken care of my mum and looking after my brothers and sister. One day, my mum found where my dad was and I phoned him, I spoke to my bother Shane and had a few words shared, my dad later changed the phone number.

After this I phoned my brothers high school and stayed in contact with him that way, my dad, he didn’t want anything to do with me, I was some sort of burden, an unkindly reminder of the mistakes he made and lies that he tried to cover up for his son.

I made the way to see my brother I was 16 at the time, some advice given to me was that no matter what happens I would always be who I was with or without ‘my dad’. I got to Ulladulla, 4hrs out of Sydney, my brother did he’s very best to cover up the fact that our father wanted nothing to do with me, once I realised that he was avoiding me (about 2 days into the trip) I cried, how could ‘my dad’ not want to meet, how could he not be excited to see me? I couldn’t help but blame myself as all kids do. I wish someone would have told me that he was the one with the issues, I wasn’t looking for anything from him, I simply wanted, or felt it only right to meet the man who fathered me, my brothers and sisters didn’t have that opportunity so I felt as though it was important.

I will admit it was a strange feeling at mums place around this time, our family didn’t see ‘half sisters or half brothers’ we were all just brothers and sisters, seeing my dad somehow made me feel like the odd one out. ‘Oh, Jasmine has a dad, how is this going to go? ‘ Never mind that my older brothers knew and remembered Sean for being a less than nice person, he had left my mother numerous times and they themselves had a turbulent relationship. My elder brother Ben remembered Sean for being violent and quick to anger, so the fact I was going to meet him wasn’t something we as a family unit were looking forward to, but it was something I secretly was.

The meeting took place on my last day and when I met my dad, he introduced himself and then proceeded to bad mouth my mother, saying that she wasn’t able to take care of us and that he had to take Shane as he was the sickest, at the time he had asthma. There’s no excuse for being a coward or for trying to run away from the mother of your child not once but twice, not to mention your responsibility to your daughter these were the feelings that I had for the man standing in front of 16 year old me.

I felt that weekend, with seeing a side of myself that I hadn’t seen in such brightness, the direct and to the point attitude I that had gotten me into so much trouble with my mum was something I could see was also in my dad. There were elements of who he is that I can relate to. I stayed in contact with my brother and spent more time in Ulladulla.

My brother Shane had a totally different up bringing to us and even though I felt like I couldn’t always relate to him it was nice to have my brother back, and for us to have our whole family together. That missing piece back home.

The times I spent in the south coast I would ask my dad why he left us, he said things like ‘well there was a lot of you guys, so I thought you’d look after each other’, I told him that we weren’t ok and asked if he ever looked for me or for my mum, he said ‘no’ . I meant nothing to this person, I could have died and lived again, him never knowing my name and it seemed not to phase him, the pain, the absolute torture of it all.

I choose to get to know my dad, then one year, I told him that everything I have become and the person that I am, or will be has nothing to do with him. I wanted to hurt his feelings, I wanted him to understand that pain I felt that night 6 years ago before when he told me that he never looked for me not once.

One day, years after having met my dad and after the night where I told him that he meant nothing to me.. he was caught trying to shoot someone.

My brother phoned me and told me the news, ‘its dad, he’s in jail, he tried to shoot someone, and was having a seizure when the cops were arresting him”. My feelings on the subject where so misplaced. I wasn’t shocked, I was almost upset, but for a man and the choices that led him to that day not in a family, or in genuine way, not in a way that would reflect ‘my dad’ just tried shooting someone and now is in jail. Apart of me had to realise that somewhere along the line, just as he forgotten about me, I had chosen to forget about him or unburden myself of the first man who chose not care or want me, my own dad.

Then one day, I was in Sydney playing a some shows and as is tradition I spent the first night at my mums place. She off handedly said ‘Oh, well, your dad, you know I had heard that he’s mum was a found dead in the squats’

My heart broke for the man. It broke for the man, who didn’t know how to be a father, at least not to me, it broke for the unspoken pain that led him from place to place with and without me. It broke for the years I spent blaming him and not having the hindsight to understand him.

Not having a dad made me a hard person in the start of my life than I built bridges, I paved lines in and out of my own head and heart to make sure I wouldn’t continue and unfair cycle, all along, not thinking about how someone could become so damn cold, so damn painful – only that night at mums place coming to understand, broken people break people who aren’t whole.

I’d like to consider all the people out there who don’t know their fathers, and haven’t had or might not get the chance as I did to meet the person who is suppose to my dad, I went for what seemed like a life time not knowing him, then come realise that the part of you who needs to find that man, is better off growing, to understand of what he represents to you. For me a dad was a protection, and strong suite that I had grown up with but than blamed him for, all the while not being thankful that I had ‘that part’ inside of me all along and that I didn’t need him or anyone else’s advice, love or respect, I had my own and at the end of the day that was the most important thing.

The belief that we should only eat free food. 

I notice my housemate Dallen looking dapper in his grey pin strip suite jacket and matching jean shorts,“ You look nice”  I say to him. 

“Thanks, this is my cheese stealing jacket”  he replies with an eggier smile that only a free-gan could own. 

After he returns we head to my car, and Dallen directs me to Woolworths at Preston, we see another human attempting to rummage through the food bins. 

“Hey, that’s our food, I say half joking!’ turing to Dallen. He retorts, “it doesn’t work that way here, you make friends with the other people diving,  say hello to them catch up, we see each other regularly” he reminds me the new world I’m entering into has rules and respect for one another right to bin dive, there isn’t a first in best dressed policy. 

 “I stand corrected” I think to myself and I’m both happy to be corrected and impressed Dallen moved swiftly to protect he’s own integrity. 

Dallen notices the man has gloves on and is “only having a look, he’s not going all the way in” 

he turns to me “ Lets just give him a minute” as if suggesting he wont be long and that he’s not going to fins much on top of the bin. 

‘Dallen and I were checking out the other tidbits near the clothing bins, whilst waiting, “I found a Mac Book Pro here once”, I am shocked, “ what the one you have at home?”, he responds “Yeah, that black one I own, I found it here, it’s actually better than the old I have, I need to sell the old one, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet” he pauses “Noone needs two Mac Books” I look away from the lap shade we’ve been admiring and agree with him “ Yeah, no, definitely not, unless you want to send yourself emails from across the kitchen table”, we both laugh and notice the man has left us the bin. 

“I call this freegan fishing’ as he jumps into the dumpster another loyal free-gan approaches us,

“Hey man, what’s the deal?”  he says to Dallen.

“There isn’t really much here today man, pretty much dead if I’m being honest, he points to the other bin and say’s that one is just rubbish, like broken shopping carts and shit”

– “Yeah, fair enough, well I’ll see you around” he replies.

They both nod their heads and our new friend found walks off. 

We go home and start to unload the shopping, like most share houses we have allocated dinner dates, ours is Sunday. It turned out that our house mates were either busy or were too sick to join us. 

We start making our potato bake. “What are your plans for tomorrow?” Dallen asks.

“I have to get Tash from the airport tomorrow, let me know if you want to come to Breakfast Club because I’ll be around here 10am”. 

this is a page with my own poems and others as well, enjoy.

This is dedicated to an ex boyfriend

Written November 2017.

I remember when I first listened to this poem, it was about a friends ex boyfriend, they seem to be the on again off again couple that we all know and love, who knows why it seems to be so hard sometimes to just be happy be happy together.

This is about you ..enjoy

This poem was started at the beginning of a break up and finished when i found out he had cheated on me..

this feeling although not my own, needs to be dealt with all alone.  feeling that it’s ‘gone’ the questing of what I did so damn wrong. Blaming me for telling you how I felt, when your love is like driving without a seatbelt. 

Take responsibility for your own actions, stop using your state of being to facilitate another anchor of pain.

Do you hear my words or are they lost? 

Do you feel like making another person carrying your self loathing cross, I can tell you that I loved you, you can tell me you loved me to, but in the end it’s pain and resentment that you will surely continue. 

I wonder what exactly the future holds for someone that has no self value. I wonder what would happen if you lost the art of making people fall so hopelessly in love with you. 

the closing of doors the, the holding out for applause, the knowing something isn’t quite right, and not letting us talk it out but instead starting another bullshit fight.

The high expectation you have but don’t seek, the strength you hold but always seem grow weak. 

I hope you find out why you can’t convince yourself or anyone that you have truth, finding yourself is not getting lost in someone else, and baby you are wasting your youth. hurting other isn’t what life is supposed to be about. We were talking it over but now it’s nothing shouts. 

Every message and send, is yet another way for you find fault – instead of dealing with the fact you aren’t can’t pretend anymore and have to drop the act, because your own life is something you can’t unpack. 

 

I’m Not letting myself be your excuse for more pain, yet another reason and person to blame,  one more sleepless night, trying to forget you once held onto me so tight.  You did this to us – you will do it again.What is it with me and falling for broken men. 

 Lose yourself – inside another, and another, wrapping yourself inside their lives, buying time and lying about making them your ‘wife’ using your words like a knife. 

Stop creating more victims of  your ‘love’  your true passion is in creation an expectation that it can exist, but in reality your broken and don’t know what love really is. Stop burdening me with your fake wants to get better, and blaming me for your shitty behaviour. 

I’m sorry you can’t commit to fixing what happened to you, I’m sorry your pain must still be such torture, but making people fall in love with you, is like leading lambs into the slaughter. 

The worst part of this is you might actually believe your own bullshit- It must be a very dark place where you live – I wanted to save you, I wanted to take care of you and build and create – but now I know this wasn’t our fate.

 This time i thought i knew, this time i thought it was true , the excusses the blame, the past you can’t deal with and all of your own pain. 

Knowing that you aren’t really there, blaming me for loving you and forgetting that this is simply what you always do, can’t you stop the cycle the pretend, the fulfilling of love you keep keeping chasing, committed to an ‘enteral fate’  you keep reapplying the same quick fix, reliving the same pain, to no one else’s gain, but your own in a momentary state of bliss,

reliving of a past trauma that’s so traumatic you couldn’t carve it out with words, so it becomes static, having to leave you before you make me feel, helpless, unloved, or told off for being ‘dramatic’ needing and wanting you but knowing that your cycle is something your more committed to. 

 The fact you pretend it’s true loves words you have spoken, but knowing now i was nothing but a small token.

  Stop causing the pain and making us burden that scare.  ultimately giving away your sense of self, being too scared to accept help, 

knowing I tried and cared soo damn much, wanting all of the things that are aren’t in a touch, nurturing the burden, the understanding that you had an end date,  the forgetting you told me you’ve done this all before. 

letting you, ‘do you’ the misery, the moments and momentary bliss forgetting that it wasn’t you i fall in love with, the wondering why you can’t be a real person, because for you sharing the pain is certain.

Cheating on me, makes me sad, whats worse is your actually becoming your dad, his disrespect, his neglect, the way you treated me and the women you slept with while we were together, we know about you and have enough smarts to warn the rest of the world stay away from this man, he isnt not who he pretends to be, he doesn’t love you or want anything serious, he’ll feed you full of hope and just as soon as you fall, leaves you, without a real or genuine answer, then he’ll repeat the patten because up until just now we didnt know anybetter. dont you see playing the victim isn’t for free, you have no respect for women, you don’t call us back or tell us the truth, you are a lying, cunning, sluth.  

Just another page in the book, another reason you have to get cooked. 

this will be a play by play account of how to move on from said person or persons as the case maybe 

I was 18 when I first started researching the human brain, the reason being I couldn’t shake this guy, he clearly wasn’t into me but, there’s a long history here as to why I had high hopes, most of them not were not misplaced either.  I remember acting like a really silly or highly ’emotional’ person at this age Everything seemed tough when it came to romance, with loads of reading life got, less complex. I hope these videos and books help others in similar situations. 

The human paradox is a great book, it pretty much will help you understand when things go ‘astray’ you mightn’t always behave the way you ..ahh ‘should’. This book allows you to understand how emotional reactions to logical (rational) situation aren’t always the best ones.

When we gather facts and use human sides / more developed parts of the brian we are able to make better reactions. 

You can tell if the ‘chimp’ is in control by how many times you are feeling ways that you don’t want to, situations such as feeling anxiety when your at a party or have to do a speech, this is non logical emotion and is a good indicator that your ‘chimp’ at the wheel. 

This guy, if I’m honest wasn’t amazing or super smart, he was basically just not into me (anymore) and due to the fact we had to work together I was still in contact with him. 

I still remember emailing him about a guest list issue that we had to sort out, where he had someone else respond for him… ouch right? 

Anyway flash forward 2 months and I am pining over this same dude. Here I was all-of-18-years-of-age me being consumed by him, he’s facebook was my newest ‘hotspot’ and I am telling you now, I was an avid patron.. It was sad and I was bleek, this man wanted nothing to do with me, so than why couldn’t I let it ‘go’.

• 

I researched why we want what we can’t have an as it turns out there is a perfectly reasonable explanation it also involves cocaine, have you ever noticed how cocaine and receptors in the brain are always paired together, it’s the chicken of brain world.  

Here is the first link to the mass of information I am about to unleash upon you, http://love and cocaine

I was not in love with Jack at all – I knew that I wasn’t, but I also couldn’t get over this. So, I read and watched Ted Talks until I knew what to do about it. 

Firstly, I time limited how long I thought about him 15 minutes in the morning was all I gave myself

Secondly, I did other stuff – spent some more time at the gym and started not being where he was (Friday nights SoHo were no longer for me) 

Thirdly, I stopped talking about him, when my friends brought him up I changed the subject and got over him. 

This experience taught me that not everyone can give you the advice you need I needed a “he will never want you ever again’, type of dealio, but no one was able to tell me this. I asked him to tell me if we ‘could ever be together’ he said no, and you know what..  I can’t blame him, I was a hard work! I will say this much though using the high lighted steps are always good, if you can get over anyone. 

Why I moved to Melbourne from Sydney / the ups and downs 

In 2015 I had returned from living in London, I had been there for almost 2 years and wanted desperately to pursue music.  I was actually lucky enough to meet Mike Picket on my first weekend there at Peacha event.  

He was really nice and even invited me to play on a boat party that he was running that month, I was also going to be helping him with promo work something which came easy to me and I had been doing in Sydney.

On the day I had the 200 tickets on my person and was going to take them around to the locals hostels, I popped them down to make a coffee and within about 15 minutes they were gone (FYI don’t ever leave boat party tickets in hostel kitchens). 

Not only did I have to phone Mike and let him know what had happened I also had to let him know that I wasn’t able to play for the boat cruise due to the fact I had a been robbed 350 euros the night before from a bar job I was supposed to be taking. London really wasn’t the best place for me at this time I was basically ready to call it quits but something about living through such a nightmare really had me going so, I stayed. 

I found a new job, got sacked for not showing (bar job long story) or was hired randomly only to be told the company didn’t have the money to be hiring more staff (ALDO Shoes)

London was weird, heaps of people love living there but basically I only liked it because I made some amazing friends. My friends were a Swedish redhead name Kim, 2 irish men one named Ciran the other Riyan. We partied together lived on eachothers couches and did all sorts of crazy travelling things. 

I guess the main difference between London and Melbourne was that before moving to London I wasn’t getting really playing many places at all so it wasn’t a big deal when I jumped on the plane my chances of making it big there was much better than in Australia at the time.

The time when I got back to Sydney my mind was set on music and really learning how to mix properly and learn how to produce. 

From there I brought decks and entered into a DJ competition. 

After YS2016 I still needed a lot of work and pracacted everyday, yes, everyday for 6 months. At this stage I was playing in Ulladulla and at UTS. My style was everything from Trap to house, it didn’t flow and mad no sense half of the time. 

After being locked away with a boyfriend who didn’t listen to the music I played and a bunch of wanna be teenager ‘punks’ I finally freed myself from them and started my new life. 

I was travelling 6hrs round trip for a 4 hour boat party set, but I never complained, because for someone who at that point had lost a great deal of ‘friends’ I had gained something much much more valuable, my own self esteem and genuinely knew that all I ever wanted to do with my was create music and touch peoples souls with vibrations that would help them get through battles of life. 

I met a lot of new music people, heaps of men and women, all of them passionate about music and more amazing had time for me, lil’ol me! Who’d had thought someone living 3hrs from Sydney could have started to make their way into the music world – I suppose I have to admit, I kinda knew that there was light on the other side of what seemed at times like a hopeless situation. Within 6 months I knew everyone and had started to run my own parties. 

TBC

Yep, this was my first new city living experience.. 

DJ 101 

As someone who runs parties as well as plays at them this my best advice to anyone new or old DJ.

1. Make a Dj page 
2. Make a Mix (1hr at least) 
3. Be genuine, try use content that is ‘truly you
4. Go to a party that has similar taste in music that you have 
5. Check the parties socials and message them, tell them that you’re coming that weekend
6. Go to the party
7. Meet the team 
8. Have some fun 
9. Offer to help out – pack up the party, set up for the next on, whatever they might need 
10. Post about the party, tag their page, the other people there etc 
11. Message the same person, tell them how much enjoyed being at the last party 
12. Send them a mix 
13. Remind the person who you sent the mix a week later about your interest – they are busy.. a reminder will go a long way trust me. 

It’s important to also keep a positive mindset, in these situations sometimes you have you to the little bits extra to get noticed, it might seem tough at first, but if music truly is your passion then heading to those parties and helping pack down should be a walk in the park

I’ve gone to plenty of parties on my own in new towns / places where I hadn’t met anyone yet and I’d be lying to say it was ‘the most fun’ but I slowly made more friends and those first parties really proved to me how much I must love music to be able to get out of my own comfort zone.

I have played for Sunday Service loads, and I have been there a bunch of times.

I’d also suggest always asking to be booked in person, trust me it’s the best way to get noticed and makes for a great way to break through any sensitivities you might have about approaching people who run events. Asking to play at someone’s party might not be a great conversation starter, however, seeing how your both into music, there are plenty of topics you can start with, such as, how did your gig at Good Bar go?

I went to Sunday Service religiously, but it wasn’t until I asked to play that I was able to be booked regularly, this means even when you are going to a party every week, it doesn’t mean you will be invited to play, you should ask. 

Also, be grateful and always, always thank them for having you on. 

Much Love, 

Jassy xx