Enter Searleman
Gripping your pillow tight
If you want to ever feel like you’ll never root again, I can only suggest rocking the full Bane face mask kit just to get a decent sleep; in the last month I got diagnosed with sleep apnea and started using a CPAP machine. My late 30’s are coming at me thick and fast. The upside however is I want to live again, my whole world feels brighter, and love has returned to my heart.
It’s annoying sorting out an obvious health issue and looking after yourself, annoying how much it works. For the previous six months, I’ve had fleeting moments of feeling alright, but overall I felt slow and dull. Jan and Feb of this year was the worst of it, it was in a sleepless, dreamless fog. Conversations with any weight feeling like a pneumatic press crushing down upon the head. Doing stand up, I felt sluggish, slow off the mark. With my friends, I felt like I wasn’t there for half the conversations I had.
When I stopped drinking at the start of 2025, I was waiting for the burst of energy that never came. After the 2025 comedy festival into Winter, I found myself in a particularly rough patch and just couldn’t seem to get any momentum. I knew something was up with my sleep, but I was complacent, I thought I was just being lazy and I should push through. In Jan of 2026 I finally did a sleep test that let me know I wasn’t getting a quality sleep. The results showed I was barely going into REM sleep. No wonder my capacity was at an all time low.
It felt like a miracle that I was able to put together a comedy festival show I was proud of for this year, but in hindsight, that meant I dropped the ball with so much else around me. I started using the machine the week before comedy fest started, within 3 days I was already starting to feel better; relief at last. It’s not going to fix everything around me, but it at least feels like I’m not starting each day at zero, which is what I had been feeling for a few months. Everything else feels manageable now, I can think again.
I’ve been wondering why I put off dealing with it for so long, I think it’s down to a struggle to admit that I’m getting older and some life choices are having an effect. Dealing with it has made me realise, while I might be stuck with some choices, currently for me everything is plastic and capacity can be built. I’m thankful for my health and don’t take it for granted, for the first time in a while I feel optimistic.
I’ve just announced an extra show for MICF for my solo Shelter in the Age of Loneliness as part of my run. It’s this Saturday April 18th at 4:30pm. I’m excited to perform the show again as part of the festival, The response has been amazing so far. All tickets are $20, I’d love to see you there.
I, along with a lot of other people, woke up to the news Bo Lueders from Harms Way and HardLore had passed away the other week. It was a shock and didn’t seem real. I only met Bo very briefly when Harms Way was last in Aus. We weren’t super close, but through our friend Aaron we got to know each other a bit online. Bo was very close with Aaron and a big supporter of him and our podcast. I was a big fan of Harms Way and the work him and Colin were doing with HardLore.
It’s a gut wrenching feeling when someone from your community decides their time is up, if only they could see the outpouring of love now. Suicide is not exclusive to the punk and hardcore community, but it does feel like there is a disproportionate amount of people who are susceptible to being affected by it, or are at least honest about it within the broader heavy music scene. It feels like we are never too far away from finding out about someone deciding it’s their time.
I’d been struggling to find the words to articulate it, but Norman Brannon put out a newsletter that came at the right time the other week when I thinking about Bo, and other people we’ve lost over the years. The newsletter is a timely reminder, not only for mental health, but building your capacity to deal with all types of systemic issues within punk, hardcore, and broader society.
Because we all need to be doing and saying more, especially in the hardcore community. I need for you to understand that none of us came to this scene because we were normal or well-adjusted or even happy. We came to this scene because we felt marginalized by the outside world, ill-equipped for a conventional life, and most likely, very pissed off. We settled into this community because it was a relief to find other fucked-up people who wanted to be good to each other and do great things together. The hardcore scene is, in fact, a lifeline. But it’s not therapy. It’s not professional help when you need it. It’s just not enough.
There are things we can and should do. The simple things still hold true: Check in on your friends. Create truly inclusive spaces. Foster personal and public dialogues that allow for vulnerability without shame. Normalize conversations about mental health and therapy. Be prepared to provide resources for anyone who acknowledges that they need more help but don’t know where to go.
Chat to you soon x
nice
❤️