Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / “Comedy, Self-Deprecation & Punching Down" with Comedian Sammy Petersen

Transcript

“Comedy, Self-Deprecation & Punching Down" with Comedian Sammy Petersen · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:03
  G'day humans!
• 0:04
  Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas.
• 0:06
  Happy 2026.
• 0:08
  I hope your holiday
• 0:09
  season was festive and delightful and you're looking forward to the new year.
• 0:14
  This is a
• 0:16
  little palate cleanser to kick the year off, something a little bit more entertaining and
• 0:20
  amusing.
• 0:21
  Sammy Peterson is a stand-up comic.
• 0:23
  He's the former host of the long-running podcast
• 0:26
  Confessions, which ran weekly for seven years.
• 0:29
  He's a fascinating person because as well as
• 0:31
  being funny, he suffered a heart attack on stage at the age of 26 due to what turned out to be a
• 0:39
  congenital heart condition.
• 0:41
  And he took a six year break from standup.
• 0:44
  And that challenge,
• 0:45
  along with the fact that he was born with facial palsy, which he often incorporates into his comedy
• 0:50
  as a way of disarming audiences, makes his experience of the creative process
• 0:54
  really interesting we talked about podcasting and comedy and addiction and disability self-deprecation
• 1:01
  and the ethics of comedy and punching down i hope you enjoy as much as i did the one and only sammy
• 1:10
  pips uh so your podcasts you do out of your house yes which is probably more convenient and also
• 1:19
  more annoying more annoying because it's a setup every single time which i have you don't have a
• 1:25
  room i don't have a room i used to have a room you don't have a room you don't have a room
• 1:29
  get this swine out of here you don't even have a room he has not even a room we i mean you have
• 1:35
  a room but like i would have thought that if you're gonna do it at home yeah to stay sane
• 1:40
  yeah maybe you've just gone don't need to stay sane i don't need to stay sane i did it i used
• 1:44
  to have a podcast room in a place that i used to live in recently i moved it's a one bedroom place
• 1:49
  and I had to do the, to make it a clean, nice place to live in,
• 1:52
  I didn't want to have podcast stuff around all the time.
• 1:56
  My house guests would probably sit down and try and record a podcast all the time.
• 2:01
  I once had a dog sitter that came and stayed for me and she said,
• 2:03
  if you ever want me to just record a podcast for you while I'm here.
• 2:07
  And I was like, no, you just look after my dog.
• 2:09
  No, that's fine.
• 2:09
  I'm pretty set on the podcast front.
• 2:11
  Thank you.
• 2:12
  I'm pretty good in the podcast.
• 2:12
  I definitely have dog walking needs.
• 2:14
  That's right.
• 2:15
  Dog sitting needs.
• 2:16
  They're different.
• 2:16
  Yeah, very different.
• 2:17
  I'm pretty good with my podcast.
• 2:19
  So after that, I packed it all down, and now it's like set up and packed down every single time.
• 2:24
  So every time I come to a place like this, Deep and Meaningful Podcast, I always just think,
• 2:29
  this is amazing to have a setup that's kind of ready to go.
• 2:31
  But I imagine you have to set this up every single time for you.
• 2:33
  Well, someone does.
• 2:34
  Someone does.
• 2:35
  I have many of them.
• 2:36
  I don't know their names.
• 2:37
  They bring me to work in a rickshaw, and they carry me in in a throne.
• 2:41
  You did say that you walk through a kitchen to get here sometimes,
• 2:46
  of a cafe downstairs.
• 2:48
  That's true.
• 2:48
  I feel bad about that.
• 2:50
  So this is an interesting question of etiquette
• 2:52
  and like cultural taboos, right?
• 2:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:54
  The studios here are above a cafe.
• 2:57
  Yeah.
• 2:57
  And in that cafe, you can either buzz the,
• 3:02
  I don't have a swipe card to get into these studios, right?
• 3:05
  So every time you have to buzz.
• 3:05
  Because you don't know anyone's names.
• 3:06
  I don't know anyone's names.
• 3:07
  I don't know where I am.
• 3:08
  I don't know who they are.
• 3:09
  I'm just blundered in here.
• 3:10
  Can't look these sunglasses on in your ritual.
• 3:12
  As long as, yeah, as long as they carry me inside
• 3:15
  and cool me with palm fronds, I'm happy.
• 3:17
  So you have to press a buzzer to get upstairs.
• 3:19
  A little bit of a hassle, okay?
• 3:21
  To press the buzzer.
• 3:23
  It's more the waiting.
• 3:24
  You are chauvinist.
• 3:25
  I didn't know you were like this.
• 3:27
  I have a dialing wand like Homer Simpson
• 3:29
  when he gets too fat to press the buttons of the telephone.
• 3:32
  My dialing wand, I press the buzzer.
• 3:34
  A solid gold dialing wand.
• 3:36
  Yeah.
• 3:36
  And then, so, but then it's more the waiting for the thing to buzz.
• 3:40
  Yeah.
• 3:41
  Who has 12 seconds in this busy life?
• 3:44
  Not in this biz.
• 3:45
  No, exactly.
• 3:46
  In this economy.
• 3:46
  That showbiz, baby.
• 3:47
  Who's got 12 seconds?
• 3:49
  That's right.
• 3:49
  Sometimes what you can do is if you pretend that you're going to the toilet of the cafe.
• 3:56
  Yes.
• 3:57
  You can pass through the back of the cafe, out through the kitchen, and that will take
• 4:03
  you both to the toilet, but also to the stairwell to get up to the studio.
• 4:07
  It's very sanitary to have the kitchen and the toilet right by each other.
• 4:11
  Because I walk through.
• 4:12
  Chef just shitting in the kitchen, which is...
• 4:15
  No, so the question becomes to me, if I buy a coffee,
• 4:19
  I think I'm probably entitled...
• 4:21
  You're allowed to walk through the kitchen.
• 4:21
  ...to walk through the kitchen, even if I don't need to go to the toilet.
• 4:24
  Yeah.
• 4:25
  If I don't, I'm certainly not.
• 4:26
  Level of privilege.
• 4:27
  But also, if I buy a coffee every day...
• 4:29
  Oh, yeah, sure.
• 4:30
  Do I need to be walking through their kitchen,
• 4:33
  taking a pretend shit just to get to the stairwell every day?
• 4:37
  My producer says yes.
• 4:39
  He's just, he's using his kitchen privileges with impunity.
• 4:44
  I think it's a bit taboo because there's always a staffer in the kitchen.
• 4:47
  Yeah.
• 4:48
  Flanderstinely eating.
• 4:49
  Ask me who you are.
• 4:50
  Well, no.
• 4:50
  Get your rickshaw out of here.
• 4:52
  Yeah.
• 4:53
  Also, my rickshaw is very large.
• 4:54
  It occupies the entire kitchen.
• 4:56
  No, but they're always trying to scoff down a toasted ham and cheese sandwich.
• 5:00
  Sure.
• 5:00
  In their three minutes.
• 5:01
  They're sitting on a crate.
• 5:02
  Yes, exactly.
• 5:03
  Yeah.
• 5:04
  They don't want me seeing this.
• 5:05
  I don't want to be seeing this.
• 5:07
  Yeah.
• 5:07
  It's like a loyalty card.
• 5:09
  Exactly.
• 5:09
  After a while, it's your own loyalty card.
• 5:11
  Keep the free coffee.
• 5:12
  I want to go through the kitchen.
• 5:13
  That's right.
• 5:13
  Exactly.
• 5:14
  I'll pay you for the coffee without getting a coffee if you'll just let me not have to wait the 12 seconds.
• 5:17
  I think it's fair.
• 5:18
  So I do the 12 seconds.
• 5:19
  Yeah.
• 5:20
  I just wait.
• 5:20
  The 12 second rule.
• 5:20
  I just wait for the 12 seconds at the door.
• 5:23
  You've changed.
• 5:24
  Now you're waiting for the 12 seconds.
• 5:25
  At the start, you were saying, I can't wait 12 seconds.
• 5:28
  What do you reckon?
• 5:28
  What is appropriate?
• 5:30
  I think waiting the 12 seconds makes sense, but also if you know and you've spoken to the staff at the cafe.
• 5:35
  We haven't.
• 5:36
  No.
• 5:37
  Or I think it maybe needs a bit of a conversation.
• 5:40
  Right.
• 5:40
  To say, I work here.
• 5:42
  Is it okay if I go through sometimes?
• 5:44
  I'm buying coffees all the time.
• 5:46
  And then you can just walk straight through and they'll know you.
• 5:48
  They'll know your face.
• 5:49
  And I think it's less weird than you just barging through with your coffee to the bathroom.
• 5:54
  See, this is the kind of common sense advice for which people come to Sammy Peterson.
• 5:59
  In fact, you had a podcast.
• 6:01
  Yes.
• 6:01
  Which is all about analyzing people's requests for advice.
• 6:05
  That's right.
• 6:06
  on Reddit.
• 6:07
  How did that come about?
• 6:08
  Tell people about that.
• 6:09
  So it's called Confessions.
• 6:09
  And why doesn't it exist anymore?
• 6:11
  So I did it for seven years, and it was every week for seven years.
• 6:14
  You say that like that everyone knows that seven years is the limit at which a person
• 6:18
  gives up a podcast.
• 6:19
  You have to.
• 6:19
  I reached seven years.
• 6:20
  What do you mean?
• 6:20
  Sadly, Daryl Summers did not.
• 6:22
  But it was seven years, so I did it for, I never had a week off in the seven years of
• 6:27
  doing it.
• 6:28
  And that meant, which is wild by itself.
• 6:30
  I once in lockdown in Melbourne, I ended up doing about four episodes a week, and then
• 6:35
  it was five episodes a week and a friend actually called me and said, are you okay?
• 6:39
  And I think that was the ultimate test of he's putting out way too many podcasts.
• 6:42
  I mean, it does seem like poor management and self-care to not take a week off in seven years.
• 6:48
  Absolutely.
• 6:49
  And I could have done best of episodes, but I kept going.
• 6:51
  And basically the podcast works is that I deep dived, read it and I would find confessions
• 6:57
  and I bring it to two people every single week.
• 7:01
  And every single week that was so much fun.
• 7:03
  I love sitting down with two different people every week.
• 7:05
  but after deep diving reddit i don't know how much you've done it josh after deep diving reddit for
• 7:11
  seven years it was coming up pretty dry and i was bottom of the barrels just because i was doing
• 7:16
  four confessions a week right and you went through a lot of stuff i became i think quite hardened to
• 7:23
  things that i would never bring because on the podcast i never wanted to bring an incest
• 7:27
  confession i never wanted to bring boring yeah oh yawn fest i'm on snooze control over here i'm
• 7:33
  going to start a podcast called Confessions colon Incest Edition.
• 7:37
  Up late.
• 7:38
  Incest.
• 7:38
  It's like your big brother up late.
• 7:39
  It's the NCIS spinoff of your podcast.
• 7:43
  Called Incest.
• 7:44
  Is that the sex crime version?
• 7:46
  No, SVU.
• 7:47
  SVU.
• 7:47
  Yeah.
• 7:48
  Special Victims Unit.
• 7:49
  Yeah.
• 7:49
  So you could do that.
• 7:50
  You could do that.
• 7:51
  Confessions SVU.
• 7:52
  But mine doesn't exist anymore, but yours is still going.
• 7:54
  The spinoff is way better.
• 7:56
  But yeah, so I didn't want to bring the really awful things because I realized very quickly
• 8:01
  And I made the mistake early, not of doing incest ones only, but I made the mistake very early on, on bringing a confession.
• 8:07
  That was, there was a lot of gray area on what was happening around consent.
• 8:11
  And I brought that to a guest and I did it in a way that was like, this is funny.
• 8:16
  And then they went, actually, I don't think that is that funny because of this, this, and I went, oh shit.
• 8:22
  And so I had to be a lot more careful.
• 8:24
  You got work shamed.
• 8:25
  I got work shamed.
• 8:26
  Yeah.
• 8:26
  In my own home.
• 8:27
  Yeah, exactly.
• 8:28
  You got me too'd on your own podcast.
• 8:30
  In my own home.
• 8:31
  Disgusting.
• 8:32
  Right.
• 8:32
  But yeah, so I had to kind of find-
• 8:34
  Was the guest basically saying like-
• 8:37
  They were like, oh, maybe just take that one out of the episode.
• 8:40
  Because they were like, oh, that could look pretty bad.
• 8:42
  Because no one's ever allowed to be uncertain about consent.
• 8:45
  Yes.
• 8:45
  Because it should be an aggressive, the woman should aggressively yell, I want it, I want
• 8:52
  it, stick it in me.
• 8:54
  That's right.
• 8:54
  And if she doesn't do that-
• 8:55
  As people often do.
• 8:56
  Then we all know that it was right.
• 8:58
  That's right.
• 8:58
  That's right.
• 8:59
  But it was really, it was hard to find the confessions.
• 9:02
  And as seven years finding four every week, I kind of started to be a bit desensitized to the things that I was looking at on Reddit.
• 9:09
  Yes.
• 9:10
  And then also having to spend three hours a week on Reddit to find those four became even more taxing when I went, I could just probably have a nice conversation with a friend every week.
• 9:20
  Yeah.
• 9:21
  And do a podcast like that.
• 9:23
  I don't need to be wading through all this.
• 9:25
  You should do a podcast where you have to look at 8chan all day, every day to get-
• 9:30
  My God.
• 9:31
  That'd be interesting.
• 9:32
  Because 4chan kind of took over from, what was it?
• 9:35
  Was it 4chan, then Reddit kind of came out of that?
• 9:38
  I don't think Reddit's ever been nearly as bad as those things.
• 9:41
  No.
• 9:41
  But I think 8chan is even worse than 4chan was.
• 9:44
  Yeah.
• 9:44
  It's basically just neo-Nazis and pedophiles.
• 9:47
  What was the frog that they made a neo-Nazi in the-
• 9:50
  Pepe.
• 9:50
  They made the frog.
• 9:51
  Was he right-wing or was he a full Nazi?
• 9:53
  Yeah.
• 9:54
  Nazi frog.
• 9:54
  No, he was tame in comparison to your Nick Fuentes today.
• 9:59
  But yeah, I loved doing it.
• 10:01
  But after a while, I really, I kind of found that it was a little bit repetitive after a while as well, because it was someone shitting in a pool every single week.
• 10:10
  I hate to break it to you, but it's not only podcasts about Reddit that are repetitive.
• 10:15
  Indeed, all podcasts, including this one, I'm sorry to say, can be somewhat repetitive.
• 10:21
  I mean it's just old Zepsy with somebody
• 10:24
  every single show
• 10:26
  old Zepsy
• 10:27
  on his rickshaw
• 10:29
  exactly
• 10:31
  after a while I was just like
• 10:33
  I'm taking a break right now from it
• 10:35
  but I also had a huge year this year
• 10:37
  where I came back and started doing stand-up again
• 10:39
  so it was a full year of like
• 10:41
  of travelling around
• 10:42
  it was a full year of doing two other podcasts
• 10:45
  and so it was just a full year of going
• 10:47
  people have too many podcasts as well
• 10:48
  pick one
• 10:50
  Yeah, and crying out loud.
• 10:51
  Crying out loud.
• 10:52
  So I needed to stop.
• 10:53
  I needed to take some time off.
• 10:54
  And this tour is your first full-length one-man show, essentially,
• 10:58
  rather than just doing your 15 minutes or your set or whatever.
• 11:01
  Or doing like a split show where you stand back-to-back
• 11:04
  with someone in a poster.
• 11:06
  As always.
• 11:07
  As is tradition.
• 11:08
  Yeah, right.
• 11:09
  An unlikely match or you come up with some cute name for the two of you.
• 11:13
  Something fun like that.
• 11:14
  Pretty Goodfellas was one of the names.
• 11:16
  Pretty Goodfellas.
• 11:16
  Yeah, that was one of the names.
• 11:17
  Nice.
• 11:18
  One of my split shows.
• 11:19
  Three little gigs.
• 11:20
  Three little gigs.
• 11:21
  Oh, three little gigs instead of three little pigs.
• 11:23
  It's great when I have to explain it.
• 11:25
  It makes everything better.
• 11:26
  They're all right.
• 11:27
  They're all right.
• 11:28
  I'll give them a B+.
• 11:30
  I mean.
• 11:31
  A soft B+.
• 11:32
  A soft B+.
• 11:32
  Nothing uproarious there.
• 11:35
  And so how has it gone?
• 11:37
  What is it like doing it long?
• 11:39
  Because I know I'm interested in how when you were like 26,
• 11:42
  you just keeled over and had a heart attack on stage.
• 11:45
  I'm not joking.
• 11:46
  That actually literally happened.
• 11:47
  Yeah.
• 11:48
  You just fell over and almost died.
• 11:50
  Yes.
• 11:50
  Literally.
• 11:51
  Yeah.
• 11:52
  On stage.
• 11:54
  Doing what you love.
• 11:55
  Exactly.
• 11:55
  To a room of eight people.
• 11:57
  That's showbiz, baby.
• 11:59
  I used to have a joke, which I would occasionally do when I was doing stand-up in New York when I first got there.
• 12:05
  Yeah.
• 12:05
  Stand-up just to sort of try to hone my crowd sensitivity.
• 12:09
  Yeah.
• 12:09
  I think it's always helpful.
• 12:11
  And it was about a guy who got eaten by a shark in Australia.
• 12:14
  Right.
• 12:15
  And his surfer friend.
• 12:16
  we were surfing obviously and his surfer friend was being interviewed on the news
• 12:20
  who said at least he died doing what he loved the most and i would say it's lucky that what
• 12:26
  he loved doing the most was having his limbs ripped off by a vicious sea beast because it was
• 12:33
  otherwise he would have been pretty pissed off about the holy being eaten by a shark i used to
• 12:37
  have a joke about uh because i talk about uh born with facial pools you know i talk about
• 12:42
  well just explain that to people who are in the video yeah so i have facial
• 12:47
  I lost a few of the nerves in the left side of my face when I was being delivered.
• 12:50
  So the doctors pressed the forceps.
• 12:51
  Well, you didn't lose it.
• 12:52
  The doctors lost it for you.
• 12:53
  The doctors lost it.
• 12:54
  They just can't find it.
• 12:54
  It's somewhere out there.
• 12:56
  Just retrace yourself.
• 12:56
  So you squeezed the forceps too hard.
• 12:58
  Too hard, and it damaged half the nerves in my face.
• 13:01
  So I can't smile on both sides.
• 13:04
  I can only smile on one side.
• 13:05
  And I used to have these jokes about doing, like just talking about people saying basically that I was disabled.
• 13:11
  Like there was one person that just said to me, where did you have the stroke?
• 13:14
  so that there's like you know just as a serious question as a serious question a doctor that said
• 13:18
  that to me and so i after a while i had this joke that i used to do and it was a long time ago when
• 13:24
  i used to do it and people just started going you got to stop doing this joke and it was basically
• 13:28
  that i um watched a documentary about a man that was born without any arms or any legs
• 13:34
  and he said i do exactly what i need to do i'm not disabled i do exactly what i do and i said
• 13:41
  yes that's great you do everything you need to do you just don't want to do very fucking much and
• 13:47
  oh my god that was a joke that i used to do like when i was like 18 years old and you look back at
• 13:52
  that and go that's a horrible that's a terrible joke i mean it's funny but it's horrible it's
• 14:00
  incredibly mean incredibly mean incredibly mean and that was the thing that i was like oh the
• 14:05
  punching down aspect and everything is such a big thing in comedy where i avoid that now even though
• 14:10
  I just told that joke that I said when I was 18 years old.
• 14:13
  But you avoid that sort of stuff because it's like, which is so hard because as comedy goes on, you're like, oh, there's some really funny stuff that I have thought of or could say.
• 14:23
  But then, you know, there's that buffer where you go, oh, no, that's probably.
• 14:26
  It's funny, isn't it?
• 14:27
  Because is it just the punching down or is it the tone?
• 14:30
  I'm just trying to think of whether there's a way to do that joke.
• 14:33
  Yeah.
• 14:33
  That would not be, would not land us.
• 14:36
  Would not be so mean.
• 14:37
  Um, like, yeah.
• 14:38
  Could you, could the punchline be instead of like, what is the punchline?
• 14:42
  You don't want to do very fucking much.
• 14:43
  You don't want to do very fucking much.
• 14:45
  It's probably the fucking, isn't it?
• 14:46
  Yeah.
• 14:47
  Oh yeah.
• 14:47
  A little bit.
• 14:48
  It was like, um, uh, has anyone ever talked to you about setting goals in life or like,
• 14:55
  you know, like.
• 14:55
  Yeah.
• 14:55
  Yeah.
• 14:56
  I thought you were going to start that one.
• 14:57
  Have you ever noticed?
• 14:57
  Have you ever noticed?
• 14:59
  No, like to the guy, you know, it's like, yeah, you're doing everything you ever wanted
• 15:03
  to do.
• 15:04
  Yes.
• 15:04
  Um, you could set your sights a little higher or, you know, like, you know what I mean?
• 15:09
  Like you could do fake lifting him up.
• 15:12
  Yes.
• 15:12
  Kind of thing.
• 15:13
  Have you ever thought about paragliding?
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:15
  You know, you could, you could bring it back that, that 18 year old joke.
• 15:20
  But, but also like the, the thing was that I realized, which you probably realized in
• 15:24
  when you talk about actual people, it sometimes makes comedy a lot worse.
• 15:29
  Oh, definitely.
• 15:30
  In a way, yeah.
• 15:31
  I've heard, you know, when people have mean thoughts and everything sometimes, they pretend
• 15:35
  it was someone else.
• 15:36
  And I've always found that so fascinating to watch that in comedy and go, oh, that was
• 15:40
  actually them that did that, but they've just made it another person.
• 15:43
  Yes.
• 15:43
  We've never met that we can hate.
• 15:44
  Yes.
• 15:45
  And that's always been a really interesting thing where you go, well, you don't have to
• 15:47
  confess everything you've ever done.
• 15:49
  Yeah.
• 15:50
  You can kind of say, and then this happened to this guy.
• 15:51
  Can you believe that?
• 15:52
  Yeah.
• 15:53
  And everyone doesn't even know who they're looking at.
• 15:54
  They're like, I hate that guy.
• 15:55
  That guy's the worst.
• 15:56
  That's right.
• 15:56
  You mean you make up a fictitious person who's the target of the joke.
• 15:59
  That's right.
• 15:59
  Because it's actually you.
• 16:00
  Yes.
• 16:00
  Yeah.
• 16:01
  Yeah.
• 16:01
  Yeah.
• 16:01
  Which is, you know, I guess a good thing to do in terms of you can pretend it's someone
• 16:06
  else completely and go, oh, that's, they've done a bad thing.
• 16:09
  They're the bad person.
• 16:09
  I know, but isn't it more humanizing if it's you?
• 16:12
  I think so.
• 16:12
  I, yeah, I really love comedy that's like a bit more, I don't know, confessional or
• 16:18
  a bit more self-reflective or people can have, and that's the thing as well.
• 16:22
  We're all deeply flawed, apart from you, of course, but, but, but, you know, we all are
• 16:26
  deeply flawed and I find it really interesting when people want to have a clean cut image about
• 16:32
  themselves because my favorite thing about a comedian is them walking around you know touching
• 16:37
  their head because they're so stressed like you know the old Richard Lewis like yes he was always
• 16:41
  pacing back and forth on the stage you don't have to be as manic as Richard Lewis but it was I kind
• 16:47
  of like those sorts of comedians like when you were doing stand-up was it like you know were
• 16:52
  you going up, you said to get a sensibility of New York, but were you doing it to understand
• 16:57
  the culture better or were you kind of just going?
• 16:59
  No, I was doing it to understand better what the relationship was between things I thought
• 17:04
  were funny and people's actual sense of humor.
• 17:07
  Yeah.
• 17:07
  Yeah.
• 17:07
  Like I just wanted to understand, I just thought it would be useful to have a sense of live
• 17:12
  crowds and how they operate and what this big, dark giant that is the crowd is.
• 17:17
  Yeah.
• 17:17
  Yeah.
• 17:18
  Like how you push it and pull it around.
• 17:20
  How long did you do it for?
• 17:22
  probably 18 months yeah okay you know not as a full-time thing but yeah yeah once or twice a week
• 17:27
  yeah well everyone always says it's the most terrifying thing that you could you could do
• 17:31
  like people always like to put that on you to say i could never do that i mean i think it is
• 17:35
  terrifying and i ended up doing much more improv uh at ucb theater which was my kind of aspirational
• 17:40
  thing and i've always liked you know i always liked the late night guys and you know conan
• 17:45
  and letterman and john stewart so for me it was less about being a stand-up comic which was never
• 17:49
  a passion of mine and more about just being in front of a crowd.
• 17:53
  And an improv crowd is a very welcoming crowd.
• 17:55
  They don't want you to fuck up.
• 17:57
  Yes.
• 17:57
  Whereas a stand-up crowd can be like, all right, you know, make me laugh.
• 18:01
  Yeah.
• 18:01
  Funny man.
• 18:02
  Yeah.
• 18:02
  It's a bit of arms crossed.
• 18:04
  A little bit.
• 18:04
  A little bit.
• 18:05
  And gee, it can be tricky to get them on your wagon, as you know.
• 18:09
  It really can.
• 18:10
  Yeah.
• 18:10
  But also, like, the other thing is I find, you know, improvisation the scariest thing
• 18:15
  in the world.
• 18:15
  Like I find getting up in front of a crowd and doing a character or going from scene to scene the most terrifying thing in the world.
• 18:22
  And I think most stand-ups think that improv is the scariest thing that you could do.
• 18:28
  Because in stand-up, you're so controlled and you know exactly where you're going.
• 18:31
  You've done it.
• 18:32
  You've honed it, hopefully.
• 18:34
  You've worked it out.
• 18:35
  But in improv, it feels like you're just going up without a net.
• 18:39
  That you are.
• 18:40
  But as a result, it's more forgiving as well.
• 18:42
  Yeah, right.
• 18:43
  Okay, so I fucked up and I didn't get a laugh.
• 18:45
  well guess what
• 18:45
  I'm fucking improvising people
• 18:47
  you know
• 18:47
  like give me a break
• 18:49
  whereas sometimes
• 18:49
  I'd be doing stand up
• 18:50
  and I'd be in a new room
• 18:52
  with a new crowd
• 18:53
  and I'd do a gag that kills
• 18:54
  and it'd be crickets
• 18:55
  and I'd be like
• 18:56
  it's like you're stepping off
• 18:57
  at the bottom of a flight of stairs
• 18:59
  and you think
• 18:59
  you don't know
• 19:00
  that there's another stair
• 19:01
  and like you know
• 19:02
  you're in the dark or something
• 19:03
  and when your foot
• 19:04
  does that weird thing
• 19:05
  and you kind of stumble
• 19:06
  it's like
• 19:06
  well hang on
• 19:07
  I thought the ground was there
• 19:08
  and now there's nothing there
• 19:09
  and like
• 19:10
  they're not enjoying themselves
• 19:12
  and I'm not enjoying myself
• 19:12
  no one's having a good time
• 19:14
  And I can't blame the fact that it was made up on the spot.
• 19:16
  Yeah, yeah.
• 19:17
  Because I came with this joke in my back pocket and they know it.
• 19:20
  I literally fell over on one of the steps the other night on stage.
• 19:23
  Well, you died also on stage, which we can get back to.
• 19:27
  Yeah, okay.
• 19:27
  So, yeah, you fell over.
• 19:28
  You're like, you're not going to believe what happened, Josh.
• 19:31
  I tripped.
• 19:32
  Was it worse than you nearly died?
• 19:34
  No.
• 19:35
  Probably not.
• 19:35
  So, yes, all right, you tripped.
• 19:37
  Yeah.
• 19:37
  To start with the tripping story.
• 19:38
  Oh, okay, the tripping story.
• 19:39
  This is great.
• 19:39
  One of my great sin time towards cardiac arrest.
• 19:42
  So I didn't see there was another step there when I was walking down.
• 19:46
  I was emceeing, and I tripped and fell and knocked over two lights
• 19:51
  on the back of the stage that were facing upwards
• 19:55
  to be some nice curtain lighting.
• 19:58
  And then I tried to fix it on stage while the comedian had started,
• 20:02
  but then I put the lights directly in a woman's face,
• 20:05
  and she went, oh, like that.
• 20:06
  And I thought, I know, I just looked at her and said,
• 20:08
  I thought I was helping, and she went, you weren't.
• 20:11
  and then a stage person had to come and do it.
• 20:13
  Someone was qualified to actually help.
• 20:15
  Oh, my God.
• 20:15
  But it's a nice heckle to get you weren't.
• 20:17
  Yes, and I also bet the comic loved you for causing such a ruckus.
• 20:22
  Sorry, I'm just trying to fix the light that I knocked over.
• 20:25
  They've got their well-honed gear and they're really excited
• 20:28
  to be in front of the crowd and I'm going,
• 20:30
  oh, that's okay.
• 20:31
  Don't mind me.
• 20:32
  Do you mind if I shine it in your face?
• 20:34
  You won't even know I'm here.
• 20:35
  So how did you have a heart attack on stage?
• 20:38
  So I had been, I started doing stand-up when I was about 18 years old,
• 20:43
  moved up from Phillip Island to Melbourne, which is only two hours away.
• 20:46
  Like it's a very short trip to Melbourne.
• 20:48
  Yeah, but you just swallowed the words Phillip Island,
• 20:51
  which some people might not know, unless you clarify,
• 20:54
  is actually an island.
• 20:55
  So it may be only two hours from Melbourne,
• 20:57
  but it's not like you just pop up the road to Melbourne.
• 20:59
  You don't pop up the road.
• 20:59
  You have to get on a hardy ferry.
• 21:02
  No, it's got a big bridge.
• 21:03
  Oh, it has a bridge.
• 21:04
  Yeah, yeah.
• 21:04
  So it's pretty much connected.
• 21:06
  My apologies to all Phillip Islanders.
• 21:09
  You'll get some calls.
• 21:10
  Yeah, exactly.
• 21:11
  Just my mum.
• 21:12
  But yeah, so Phillip Island, it feels rural, but it's not.
• 21:17
  It's a seaside town.
• 21:18
  It's known for penguins.
• 21:21
  They've got a penguin parade there.
• 21:22
  It's got a racetrack.
• 21:23
  But you can't really do a whole lot.
• 21:25
  The penguin parade probably also requires explanation to non-Australians.
• 21:29
  It's just a parade.
• 21:29
  Because it sounds like the penguins are marching down the street.
• 21:32
  Well, it's pretty much.
• 21:33
  With a drum.
• 21:35
  And floats.
• 21:35
  And floats and things.
• 21:37
  The fairy penguins come to nest.
• 21:39
  It started out as a cute thing where people would go down and watch them.
• 21:42
  Yeah.
• 21:43
  It became such a huge tourist thing that now they've built what seems to be a NASA facility.
• 21:47
  It's huge.
• 21:48
  Down there.
• 21:48
  It's enormous.
• 21:49
  Which has walkways.
• 21:51
  And if you pay more, then you can go in a little bunker with a little glass window.
• 21:56
  So you're at the penguins.
• 21:57
  They call it a hut, it's not a bunker.
• 21:58
  It's a bunker.
• 21:59
  It's a nuclear bunker.
• 21:59
  You're rebranding bunker.
• 22:01
  And you can be at the penguins' eyeline level as they go trotting past.
• 22:05
  and huge floodlights and it's a big hullabaloo.
• 22:09
  It is.
• 22:09
  That's what it's really known for now.
• 22:10
  And it's huge.
• 22:11
  It's so much money to get in and it's a big thing.
• 22:14
  And you can actually watch the penguins come up in other parts of Melbourne as well.
• 22:18
  You can go and watch them come up St Kilda Pier down in Melbourne.
• 22:22
  But, you know, Phillip Island people go down in droves.
• 22:25
  Like there's full bus loads.
• 22:27
  People go every day.
• 22:28
  And so for the economy, it's great because that's kind of what Phillip Island kind of survives on,
• 22:33
  that and the racetrack.
• 22:34
  but God, they hate tourists.
• 22:36
  They always talk about the economy.
• 22:38
  Just while they count their money.
• 22:39
  While they count their money, they don't like the tourists.
• 22:42
  So yeah, so I grew up down there
• 22:43
  and then would always get the bus up when I was growing up, like maybe 15.
• 22:48
  I would get the bus
• 22:48
  up to Melbourne and film for a local community TV station in Melbourne.
• 22:52
  And I'd go and interview my
• 22:54
  heroes like Glenn Robbins and Will Anderson and all these people.
• 22:58
  And I'd do like little interviews
• 22:59
  with them, go home, edit it, and then send it off on a little mini DV tape, the old little
• 23:06
  tapes you used to film on, and send it off.
• 23:09
  And that was what I did and wanted to do stand-up comedy, but didn't know how.
• 23:14
  Loved Judith Lucy and Will Anderson and Fiona Lachlan, all these great Australian comedians,
• 23:19
  but didn't know how to do it.
• 23:20
  Like I didn't have, my parents never really liked, they didn't really watch American TV
• 23:25
  or British TV.
• 23:26
  It was all Australian for me.
• 23:27
  So I only really knew Australian comedians and there was a lot of carnage in my home because my brother started using, like he started smoking marijuana when he was maybe like 15.
• 23:37
  He's a year older than me.
• 23:39
  And so about 15, he started smoking marijuana that led to mushrooms, to ice.
• 23:44
  He became a schizophrenic, had drug psychosis.
• 23:49
  Oh shit.
• 23:49
  And so my home was quite disruptive.
• 23:51
  I had a lot of restraining orders on my brother.
• 23:53
  The house was always a mess.
• 23:55
  And my distraction was my parents would just go,
• 23:58
  go to Melbourne if you want.
• 23:59
  Like, I'd just get the bus up by myself as a 15-year-old kid
• 24:02
  and find my way around Melbourne and find my way to John Clark,
• 24:06
  you know, who's an incredible New Zealand originally,
• 24:11
  then was this amazing person in Australia who made a TV show
• 24:15
  called The Games about the, I'm getting better at explaining references.
• 24:18
  This is good.
• 24:19
  This is good, yes.
• 24:20
  I mean, I would just say he's probably the most respected satirist, satirical comedian in Australia.
• 24:27
  Absolutely, yeah.
• 24:28
  No longer with us.
• 24:29
  No longer with us.
• 24:30
  And there's a great documentary about him at the moment.
• 24:33
  He died hiking.
• 24:34
  Yeah.
• 24:34
  He also had a massive heart attack.
• 24:36
  He did.
• 24:36
  Just unexpectedly.
• 24:37
  And he was only like 50 or something.
• 24:38
  I know, yeah.
• 24:39
  And so I just went up to Melbourne on the bus, which would take a little bit longer.
• 24:44
  It would take about three hours because they stop every single stop.
• 24:47
  In my brain, you still get the ferry.
• 24:48
  I'm sorry.
• 24:49
  Yeah, that's okay.
• 24:49
  Yeah, the train is Phillip Island, windswept little island.
• 24:53
  You know, you have to either get a ferry or like a sort of helicopter,
• 24:56
  which resembles one of those early Leonardo da Vinci designs.
• 24:59
  It's made of canvas.
• 25:01
  One guy that can do it.
• 25:03
  The local.
• 25:04
  Yeah, exactly.
• 25:05
  That's right.
• 25:05
  Back and forth.
• 25:06
  A lot of crashes.
• 25:07
  A lot of crashes.
• 25:08
  Constantly.
• 25:09
  They've got a whole new fleet every day.
• 25:12
  No, I thought I would just go up and wanted to do stand-up
• 25:15
  but didn't know how you do that.
• 25:17
  I didn't understand how you would just get up and do comedy,
• 25:21
  probably because I had jokes, like I said before, probably.
• 25:24
  You know, that my sensibilities when you first start,
• 25:28
  I think most guys talk about masturbation and things.
• 25:31
  Like, you know, you talk about what you know
• 25:33
  and you talk about things that you would never say now,
• 25:36
  like just things.
• 25:37
  And when I see stand-up comedians starting out now,
• 25:39
  I go, yeah, you just talk about what you know.
• 25:41
  And did you know at the time that stand-up is basically scripted ultimately?
• 25:48
  No, no, I didn't know that.
• 25:49
  Because most people don't really know what stand-up is.
• 25:52
  No.
• 25:52
  I mean, a lot of, to the layperson, it just seems like funny person gets on stage with a couple of ideas and spitballs.
• 26:00
  Yeah.
• 26:00
  Which, of course, is the way that many stand-ups start their comedy.
• 26:04
  Not all stand-ups, not Jerry Seinfeld and people who have a much more writerly approach.
• 26:09
  But a lot of stand-ups will go up with an idea and workshop it.
• 26:12
  But ultimately, the stand-up that anyone ever ends up seeing, if they go to a professional gig on a Friday or a Saturday night or if they watch a special, is almost always, almost word for word, verbatim, a scripted show with the exception of crowd work.
• 26:27
  Yeah, and they've been working on it for a year or two.
• 26:30
  I had no idea about that.
• 26:31
  I thought you just have a few ideas of things and then you just go up and start talking.
• 26:36
  It didn't go so well the first time.
• 26:38
  There are comedians that do that, like, you know, Ross Noble or someone like that.
• 26:42
  Yes.
• 26:42
  Who is an English comedian that just improvises his entire set.
• 26:47
  Will Anderson, who you had on recently, he is now doing improvised shows.
• 26:50
  Yes.
• 26:51
  But they are marketed as this thing.
• 26:54
  And, you know, Ross is, even Ross, I'm skeptical about how much.
• 26:59
  How much?
• 26:59
  Yeah, yeah.
• 27:00
  Same with, like, Eddie Izzard, who, like, when you see a few times, there are all these kind of tangential looping sidetracks that appear to be spontaneous.
• 27:12
  Yeah.
• 27:13
  But they just happen to happen every time, you know.
• 27:15
  Well, Eddie Izzard had a lawsuit.
• 27:16
  Or Billy Connolly as well.
• 27:18
  Yeah.
• 27:18
  Great storytellers who have intentional.
• 27:20
  Yeah.
• 27:21
  What was the lawsuit?
• 27:21
  The lawsuit was that Eddie Izzard, everyone thought, was making up the material and then had two different DVDs that featured similar material on both.
• 27:31
  And for some reason went through this lawsuit.
• 27:33
  On what basis could someone sue for that?
• 27:35
  You're more professional than you claim.
• 27:38
  That it said it wasn't a brand new show.
• 27:40
  Right.
• 27:40
  And people got up in arms about it.
• 27:41
  There's a great documentary about Eddie Izzard called Believe.
• 27:44
  It's really fantastic.
• 27:45
  But it's like, yeah, it was just that they repeated material in two different DVDs.
• 27:50
  Right, so people wanted their £12.99 back for their second DVD.
• 27:53
  They got very upset about it.
• 27:55
  Right.
• 27:55
  So it was a lawsuit.
• 27:56
  Yeah, this is really important things that people care about.
• 27:59
  Very important.
• 28:00
  But yeah, I just didn't know how to do stand-up.
• 28:02
  I met a comedian in Australia called Greg Fleet,
• 28:05
  who was known in Australia as kind of being the pioneer of comedy,
• 28:11
  at least in Melbourne.
• 28:12
  Like Greg Fleet in the 90s was huge.
• 28:16
  Every voice that kind of came out of that generation was inspired by Fleety.
• 28:20
  He had that iconic voice.
• 28:22
  He was incredible, but he also had a 30 plus year heroin addiction.
• 28:26
  And I didn't know that when I met him and I would just kind of, he'd kind of helped me in workshops.
• 28:32
  That was, I met him through a friend.
• 28:34
  He just helped me in workshops and I'd give him 50 bucks every single time.
• 28:37
  And then that turned into more money, more money, more money.
• 28:40
  And it was just kind of fueling his addiction.
• 28:43
  And I kind of worked with him for years.
• 28:46
  We had a podcast together, another podcast.
• 28:48
  We had, uh, we, we worked together for a very long time and he helped me in my early days in coming up with a five minute routine, uh, coming up with a six minute routine.
• 29:01
  And that doesn't sound like much, but God, like in the early days, like you would know that that took a long, that took six months to work out a six minute routine, which I always think is very similar to like claymation.
• 29:11
  You know, those people that just move slightly every time.
• 29:14
  And I feel like standups a lot like that in a way, because you have so many bad experiences
• 29:20
  where it's not scary after you've done it for a long time.
• 29:24
  I think, I think when I came back to do standup, a lot of people had that idea of this is a
• 29:28
  guy that had the heart attack.
• 29:29
  Yeah.
• 29:29
  So, you know, and that was also terrifying when someone goes to you, oh, that happened
• 29:33
  to you, that thing happened to you.
• 29:34
  Yes.
• 29:35
  And you go, I know, I know.
• 29:36
  Yeah.
• 29:36
  Is it going to happen again?
• 29:37
  Why are you saying it's going to happen again?
• 29:39
  But I mean, the funny thing about five or six minutes being a long time is that it's one of those crafts where you really want to be concise.
• 29:47
  Yes.
• 29:47
  Because you need to squeeze as many gags into the five minutes as you can.
• 29:51
  Absolutely.
• 29:52
  And any time you're taking 30 seconds to set up an idea that you've done in 10 seconds, it's actually really hard to get.
• 29:59
  Really hard.
• 29:59
  To think, all right, what is the most parsimonious way that I can set this up and then pay it off?
• 30:06
  Absolutely.
• 30:07
  And be remembered because like a lot of, a lot of the time, if you don't go and see,
• 30:10
  if you're not a regular consumer of comedy nights, a comedy night that you go to in,
• 30:16
  you know, same in America as here in Australia, UK, you go to a comedy night and there's about,
• 30:22
  you know, six acts on.
• 30:23
  Maybe if it's a really bad one, there's 12, you know, like it can be a really long night
• 30:27
  sometimes.
• 30:28
  But yeah, you want to be remembered.
• 30:31
  You're doing a five minute bit.
• 30:32
  You're doing a 10 minute bit.
• 30:33
  If you're lucky, as you go on, you get to do 15 minutes or something, a longer set.
• 30:37
  But when you keep going, you want to be remembered.
• 30:40
  You want someone to go after, when they walk away having a drink or something, they're like, oh, do you remember that person?
• 30:45
  That was really good.
• 30:45
  I want to find out more about them.
• 30:47
  I want to check them out.
• 30:48
  So you decided to have a heart attack to be remembered.
• 30:49
  Yeah.
• 30:50
  Everyone walked away going, do you remember that guy?
• 30:53
  Which one?
• 30:53
  The one who was doing the bit about, yeah.
• 30:56
  Oh, you mean the one who had a heart attack on stage and fell over and almost died?
• 31:00
  Yes, yes, that one.
• 31:01
  I didn't want to mention that because it would have been a bit awkward.
• 31:04
  Yeah.
• 31:05
  So I kept doing stand up.
• 31:07
  I kept doing it for a long time.
• 31:09
  I was dealing with things from my brother that I think was trauma that I hadn't really
• 31:13
  dealt with in a way.
• 31:14
  My parents were still going through this, like getting more and more restraining orders
• 31:17
  on him.
• 31:18
  It was pretty horrible for them.
• 31:20
  And I was there.
• 31:21
  Why was he just robbing them for his meth or something?
• 31:23
  Yeah.
• 31:23
  And he was, you know, smashing up the house and coming around and it was really aggressive
• 31:26
  and, and he would just smash up the house every time.
• 31:29
  and then they'd get another restraining order on him.
• 31:31
  But then, you know, as a parent, their heart would break.
• 31:34
  And he'd measure out, I remember he used to measure out,
• 31:38
  he'd get a restraining order for like 400 metres
• 31:40
  and he'd measure out 400 metres from their home
• 31:43
  and he'd just sit there.
• 31:44
  Oh, my God.
• 31:44
  And, you know, so he was quite terrifying in a way
• 31:47
  and we had a lot of, there was just a lot of blow-ups
• 31:49
  and everything and they had to still experience that
• 31:52
  while I was off in Melbourne doing, you know,
• 31:57
  living a life that I think my parents were kind of like,
• 32:01
  this isn't going to work out.
• 32:02
  You know,
• 32:03
  like paying Greg fleet.
• 32:05
  He's got him on his payroll.
• 32:08
  That's right.
• 32:09
  And so they saw me with,
• 32:10
  you know,
• 32:10
  fleety and they saw me with a later Fiona Lachlan,
• 32:13
  who's also an incredible pioneer in,
• 32:16
  in comedy,
• 32:16
  but also an alcoholic who went,
• 32:19
  went in a coma with a 13% chance of living.
• 32:22
  I was hanging out.
• 32:22
  Really?
• 32:22
  I didn't know that about Fiona.
• 32:24
  I made a documentary about Fiona with Fiona and she was an amazing
• 32:27
  comedian, like amazing, but she had a lot of struggles and she's been very open about that.
• 32:32
  And so is Fleety, but I was working with them and I was opening for them and I was rescuing them
• 32:37
  from anywhere.
• 32:39
  Like Fiona would be, you know, collapsed on a tram somewhere or a random fan's
• 32:44
  house and I would go and pick her up and I would help her and I would be that person that was
• 32:49
  always on call or, and I wasn't taking, I was exercising, but I wasn't kind of taking care of
• 32:54
  myself in terms of maybe have a night off, maybe don't do that, maybe don't run and help.
• 33:00
  And it
• 33:00
  was kind of like I was trying to fix my brother, which is, you know, a very broad, any psychologist
• 33:05
  would say that, you know, any, and I certainly had a lot of, you know, therapists over the time
• 33:09
  tell me that.
• 33:11
  And I was addicted to addicts.
• 33:13
  I got this reputation in the comedy industry,
• 33:15
  I think, as the addict's addict.
• 33:17
  I say in my show that I just filmed, I say in it that I,
• 33:21
  I'm not an addict myself, but I think I might be a carrier because of all the addicts I met in my time.
• 33:27
  And one night I had a huge day of helping and I was feeling really nervous that day.
• 33:35
  And I don't know why I was feeling nervous.
• 33:37
  And I got up on stage and got my first joke out, which was about me having a stroke.
• 33:43
  And I could just feel my hands getting really sweaty.
• 33:47
  My knees started to buckle.
• 33:48
  My heart was just going crazy.
• 33:51
  And I woke up and I looked up at a crowd that were just horrified and staring at me.
• 33:58
  And the only thing I heard was a woman up the back say, is this still part of the act?
• 34:02
  Because no one knew if it was actually part of the show or not.
• 34:06
  And that was the hard thing.
• 34:08
  A comedian had to come and help me and take me off stage, take me to hospital.
• 34:12
  And I kept trying to do stand-up after that, but no one will book me because it was like, yeah.
• 34:17
  Fair enough.
• 34:18
  Got a lousy ticker.
• 34:19
  Ticker.
• 34:20
  Lousy ticker.
• 34:21
  Do they know why a 26-year-old had it?
• 34:23
  Because normally I would have thought, well, he's had a panic attack or an anxiety attack.
• 34:27
  He's way too stressed and his body has just shut down.
• 34:30
  But was it actually cardiac arrest?
• 34:32
  It's got a heart condition called SVT.
• 34:35
  And basically it's like my two nodes don't talk to each other in my heart.
• 34:42
  And the communication between these, they weren't talking for some reason.
• 34:44
  They had a falling out.
• 34:46
  And so it's, it's a constant thing where it, I do see a cardiologist, um, not sexually, just, but we do have, I had to have this relationship with a cardiologist that I check in with and, and I stopped doing standup for six years after that.
• 35:02
  I mean, I, I, I kept trying to do it, but you know, I didn't want to terrify my family anymore.
• 35:07
  Fair enough.
• 35:07
  And I found out that the, the, the question that they asked me when I was in hospital was, have you taken anything tonight?
• 35:15
  um i've never touched a drug in my life um uh so i was like no i've never i've never done a drug
• 35:22
  i've never i thought you sounded a bit lame when you were like my brother started smoking marijuana
• 35:27
  at that i was like has this guy ever no he's never he started doing marijuana what person
• 35:34
  under the age of 40 yeah you said he started doing marijuana smoking the marijuana uh cigarettes um
• 35:41
  Yeah, that's interesting.
• 35:42
  When you say that you were helping addicts, like, were you, do you still think of it as helping or were you like enabling them?
• 35:50
  Were you the patsy?
• 35:52
  Oh, yeah, I think so.
• 35:53
  I would never buy alcohol for Fiona.
• 35:55
  I'd never help Fleety, but I was paying Fleety, you know, for, I'd give him money to, I think at the time I thought it was being a good friend.
• 36:05
  And then as you get older, you realize, no, you're enabling a drug habit.
• 36:09
  But I was not equipped with the proper vocabulary to say stop.
• 36:14
  Yeah.
• 36:14
  And I think because I was so young, I did not feel like I was able to say, don't spend it on drugs.
• 36:21
  Like, you know, it feels very patronizing to say.
• 36:24
  And someone, you know, who uses the term do marijuana, I don't think I was ever in the right state to say, sorry, Fleety, I don't want you to use this on drugs.
• 36:33
  I don't want you to do this.
• 36:35
  I think.
• 36:36
  Well, you can't say that anyway.
• 36:37
  I mean, either you don't pay them or you.
• 36:38
  Exactly.
• 36:39
  Because they're going to do with the money whatever they want to.
• 36:41
  Yeah, exactly.
• 36:41
  Yeah.
• 36:42
  So I'm going to be like, make sure you don't spend this on the thing you love more than anything in the world.
• 36:48
  Make sure you spend it on something much, much, much, much less desirable than the best feeling you've ever had.
• 36:53
  The best feeling in the world.
• 36:54
  Which will fix all of the terrible feelings that you have when you don't have it.
• 36:58
  Okay?
• 36:59
  You promised.
• 37:00
  Promise.
• 37:01
  I swear.
• 37:02
  But yeah, so I didn't have the right language to do that.
• 37:06
  And I knew that now that I look back on it, I go, I was absolutely enabling that behavior.
• 37:11
  And I did it for a really long time as well.
• 37:13
  Like this was years.
• 37:16
  I had, I got sat down by two comedians, Justin Hamilton and Adam Richard, who are two great comedians in Australia.
• 37:22
  And they sat me down at one point and they were just like, what are you doing?
• 37:26
  Like, we think maybe we didn't do enough in the industry when we saw Fleety, you know, like when we were kind of being raised by Fleety in the comedy world.
• 37:36
  and we feel like you need help
• 37:39
  and you need to kind of step back from these people.
• 37:42
  G'day, humans.
• 37:43
  Well, if you've listened to this much of the episode,
• 37:46
  then you must enjoy it, presumably,
• 37:48
  unless you're just listening for masochistic reasons.
• 37:50
  So you should listen to the rest of it.
• 37:52
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• 37:55
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• 37:58
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• 38:01
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• 38:04
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• 38:10
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• 38:15
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• 38:24
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• 38:29
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• 38:35
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• 38:39
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• 38:44
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• 38:58
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• 38:59
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• 39:01
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• 39:03
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