Are You Garbage? Comedy Podcast - James McCann!
Episode Date: August 25, 2025Are You Garbage presents stand up comedian and podcast host James McCann! We're talking communism, coming to America and chasing your dreams! You know James McCann from Stand Up Comedy, Matt and Shane...'s Secret Podcast w/ Shane Gillis, the Joe Rogan Experience, Kill Tony, James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan, Soder Podcast, Stuff Island, and so much more! Thanks for watching AYG Comedy Podcast. Love youse guys. Come to a live show! AYG 2025 Live Shows: https://punchup.live/areyougarbage/tickets Best of AYG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL8bt-D-ZN4&list=PLCJp1IfokN9Cy1Hi79LSGAykCKfRDM_y9 Live Shows: https://punchup.live/areyougarbage/tickets PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/AreYouGarbage MERCH: https://areyougarbage.com/ Sponsored By: Tushy: Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off TUSHY with the code GARBAGE at https://hellotushy.com/GARBAGE Factor: Eat smart at https://FactorMeals.com/garbage50off and use code garbage50off to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year. Comedians H. Foley and Kevin Ryan are self proclaimed GARBAGE. Each week a new stand up comedian gets put to the test. Steal shampoo from hotels? Own a George Foreman Grill? Ever worn JNCO Jeans? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Calling all homies and bozos, you're cordially invited to come hang out with the boys on that back on the block tour.
Grab the squad and come see us.
It's going to be a good time.
Little stand-up comedy, plus we play RU Garbage with the crowd.
Yeah, we're starting September.
We're doing San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Brea, California, Burlington, Vermont, Boston, Massachusetts,
Atlanta, Georgia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the Met, Rochester, New York, Toronto.
Get your tickets at RUGarbage.com.
you.
Welcome to another exciting edition of
Are You Garbage, the show where
you find out if your favorite comedians are classy
individuals or absolute trash.
Now, here are your hosts, Kevin Ryan
and H. Foley.
Hey, everybody out there, and welcome back to everybody's
favorite podcast. This is R.U. Garbage.
Oh, yeah. It's a little show we sit down
with your favorite comedians, and we find that at the
You're going to be classy.
Yeah.
It's just a big old piece of trash.
Trash, trash.
I'm your host, Dave, Trulley, coming at you on a beautiful day.
We're out back here at Tootty's in the new edition.
She just got back from the pet store.
Okay.
Bought a bunch of tics.
Okay, good for her.
So watch out.
I better know they sold those at the pet store.
He gave me a little more on that.
My coves is coming at you from right next to me.
That's two hours down to drain.
He is the CEO of RU Garbage.
He is an international businessman.
That's a tough critic.
I'll tell you that right now.
Give it up a bikini.
It's a good guy.
a hard laugh on a Monday.
Give it up for KJ.
Kevin James Ryan, everybody.
What up, gang, shout out to you.
Thanks for tuning in.
As always, please make sure you review,
subscribe on iTunes, full video available on YouTube,
full video available over there on Spotify.
And the boys, I've got to be honest with you.
Climbing the charts over there.
One of the charts over there.
Look out.
Charts.
Sure, it's the bottom half of the charts,
but we're on the charts.
Still.
And then obviously the greatest website of all time,
www.
www. patreon.com slash are you garbage.
A lot of that money, gang.
Yes, sir.
Gang, we couldn't be more excited to ever incredibly.
And I mean, incredible.
special guest here with us today for the first time he is a very funny very successful stand-up comedian
podcaster and author he just put he just put out his fourth book of poems disquieting levels of
egg look at that he's got a brand new special out september 1st on his youtube page and you can hear him
every week on his amazing podcast james donald forbes mccan catamaran plan ladies and gentlemen
give it up for james donald forbs mccan the thunder from down under as they call him the best
podcast professionally that I've ever
Usually you're in a corner
And there's a guy smoking a joint
And there's eight guys doing mushrooms
In minute quantities in the corner
This is a tough point
He'll leave Lamar out of this
He's a good kid
He's only one guy
He played for keeps baby
But this is also
I mean this is very garbage
Set like to have the good set
The rich guy thing is to go
I don't care I'm a slob
No we care too much
New money
Upwardly mobile working class
Whoa upwardly mobile working
That's my audience.
It's my favorite group of people in the world.
Upwardly mobile.
Upwardly mobile working class.
No, you don't want downwardly mobile working class.
No.
That's the opioid people.
Sure.
Well, we don't discover.
You know, I'll take those two.
Whatever you want to do.
I want people to have at least enough money to buy the tickets.
Listenings for free, though.
Don't forget that game.
Or have to sell them for sex later on.
Buddy, give us the backstory.
Give us the origin story of James Donald Forbes McCann.
Very prestigious name for a collar that frayed.
This is a good
At some point I thought that was fancy
To do four names
Like a very fairy
You know like Madonna she goes to the one name
And Prince one name
They go look how fame
You know I'm so famous
I just need one name
You could say you're so weak
That you only think you can get one name across to people
If you have real star power
You should be able to get four names to fly
And it also cuts out a lot of the weak fans
You've got to really be committed
To type in all four names
A lot of characters.
On the street, you go by James McCann.
Yeah, James is.
Literary.
James Donald Forbes.
Man, that's a number one bestselling book of poems.
And here's the secret to having a number one bestselling book of poems.
Yeah?
Just release it.
Sure.
Because, man, there are so few sales for books of poems that to win the poem category on Amazon,
you sell three books in a day.
You're a number one bestselling poem.
It's not bad.
It's killing it.
I like that.
I'm not making enough money out of it, but I feel.
Very successful.
I love it.
What's my story?
I'm from Australian.
I'm from Adelaide.
Would you say, if you can believe it?
I thought Detroit.
It is like Pittsburgh and it's like a post-industrial town that's trying to recast itself as an arts hub.
Say the name of it again?
Adelaide.
Sweet Adelaide.
Man, we're in trouble this week.
The best football player going into finals has just dropped, I don't know what words.
I'm like, a strong F anti-homosexual slur.
Oh, no.
And he might be out for the full final.
season and we're trying to finagle something to let him back in get him back in it's hard where did he
drop this slur on field yikes yeah the other team reported him which it seems to me a breach of some
sort of code sure i can see that obviously you shouldn't be doing it right isaac but what a great
player we'd really like him to play now when you say football what are we talking about rugby
osie rules football this is uh looks like gaelic football he has died so that the game they live
Man, I did a road trip through New Mexico
Anyway, I went to California
But pistachio land was on the way
It was like a theme park to the pistachio
But they had big thing on their website
And they hadn't taken it down
Was that Ozzy Osbourne had once visited
Pistachio Lane
That's all right
Now it's number one seller James Ford McCann
James Donald Ford McCann
We've got the new special ad now
Black Israelite
We've got the new book of poems
Wait is that the name of a special
Black Israelite?
Yeah
I love it
It's all about Israel and Black
American people so we'll see if that's allowed up on the YouTube you are a you are a niche
kind of guy it's a loose canon I like it's hard to search that's a big problem I'm trying to
get the number one of these people the number one stand-up comedy special about back
blue is it relates by Australian guy it's mostly about Sammy Davis Jr.
No I was yeah Adelaide I went to my what you get the whole what the whole thing baby
all right mom's dad's brother sisters all right dad's side
It's odd
They lived in a very rough part of town
And they refused to move
Because my
My dad's dad was scared
That he would have a heart attack
He'd had friends who'd moved off the neighborhood street
And they'd all died
And so he said, I'm staying here
So even though he worked his way up to be like
He was a bureaucratory
He was a deputy head of telecom
It was like AT&T in the state
Your grandfather
Yes
And so he would have a afraid to move
He was afraid to move
And so like a limousine would pick him up
From a very rough part of town every day
Anyway
That's awesome
It was very
I like that kind of superstition
But it was
It was in the 70s
So working for like a power company
Or a phone company
Did not have
Now you'd be on
Huge
You know
CFO
Weird money
But at the time
You're a civil servant
Gotcha
You know
They gave you a fancy carb
You didn't have heaps of cash
But he you know
He went to a
That was a civil servant job
Back then
Yes
The government
Owned the telecommunication
Damn
I don't know Australia
He was like that
We
If only we could return to it
And gets, now we're getting ripped up now, the bloody Chinese on the phone companies.
And they're not doing a great job.
Let me tell you that.
You've got Chinese phone companies down there?
My mom came from, the hell's going on.
Oh, it's a lot.
My mom came from the worst place in Adelaide, which was Elizabeth.
And my grandparents kept living there, and we would go up there.
It was a, it was a, suburbs are usually bad.
The further out you go in Australia, the worse it is.
We didn't have white flight.
We didn't have some of the dynamics happening in the 1970s in America.
So fancy people live close
And the further out you go
The poorer it gets
But they were both
They're like the first people in their schools
To, sorry, and their families
To go to like uni and no one
They went to public schools
Like Brough and Tumble public schools
Okay, how'd your mom and dad meet?
They were teachers
They both became English teachers
No kidding
And they went out to, I think it was Wayala
Which is, oh man
That's a
That's a rough
We don't think someone just turned them on
No it was like an iron
It was an iron town
that shut down a steel town
and you go back there now
people say why Allah
why bother
and then the next town
is Port Augusta
Portugata
it's called the Iron Triangle
the third town is
riddled with cancer
and it's genuinely
Chinese phone companies
yeah
oh they year
they yearn to have a
Chinese phone company
moving there
and just give some
semblance
and something's going on
but they
like it was really important
they were rapidly mobile
people
they went to university
right
they got to become
English teachers
were they English teachers
in Adelaide
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
Although dad wanted to be a lawyer, and he got to go.
He was a communist in college, in university.
Really?
And then he went to China just after the cultural revolution.
You're joking.
No.
Your father was a communist.
He was a communist.
He was studying history.
He went to China as all the sort of mass death was starting to wind down, but he really,
the West didn't know what was happening in China.
Is this after the, what was the call where the guy ran over in the tank?
Before.
Before.
So this was the great leap forward, where Mao,
decides we're going to have people are going to smelt iron in their
backyards and then what do you know
it's not good iron and you can't really
sell it and then there's a lot of famine
because Albania is giving them all their food
it's a beautiful part of history
that was a communist that's
crazy but then that's some comie bullshit
came back from China
very much not a communist and is now
but a hanker in for mushoe pork
he gets into
he gets intrigued by communism
in his studies and his readings.
He wanted to be a revolutionary.
He wanted to...
Let me ask you this.
You mentioned that the...
Take over Australia, I think.
You mentioned that your grandfather was...
Oding, or working for a telecommunications company was a civil servant job.
Yes.
Australia was never borderline communist, socialist.
Were they?
Man.
Don't sound democratic if you ask me.
God damn, they own a phone company.
His dad's going to China.
What the fuck?
Don't sound like black rock.
I'll tell you that.
How many, how many your uncle's ever went to China?
I got two words for you, Vanguard.
Let's go.
We had a go becoming a little independent from U.S. power in the 70s.
I'm out.
And then spontaneously, a prime minister was not the prime minister anymore,
and we've been friendly ever since.
Right.
He said, we might close down some of these military bases and sell our own oil.
And he had to go away.
So we've never tried again.
And nor should we.
He was exhausted.
He could do a couple weekends up.
He went for a swim in the reef, if you know what I mean.
That was a previous prime minister.
He went through it.
That was Harold Holt, who disappeared.
People say a Chinese submarine got him.
What?
What do you mean got him?
I'm like, picked him up?
Yes, that he was a Chinese spy, and they came for him.
They came to take him away.
He'd fulfilled his mission.
I tell you what, that's opening up.
I feel like I'm talking to a beautiful mind here.
I'm sorry.
Start writing on the windows.
You're out of here.
My story, and it starts with Harold Holt going, you'll enjoy this.
The prime minister, I'm not sure I will.
Listen, the prime minister goes swimming, disappeared, probably drowned, maybe a Chinese submarine.
Maybe, who knows?
Or got whacked out.
Who can say?
He took his mistress to the beach.
He went into the water.
He never came back.
What about her?
Was she gone to?
No, she was alive.
She said, Harold just went away.
But then what the government does in Victoria,
they have the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Center.
It's the big swimming center.
In China?
No, in Adelaide.
No, in Melbourne.
Sorry, Melbourne.
They named the swimming pool after the Prime Minister who drowned.
That's a little ironic.
That's a little weird.
Isn't that a tender?
I mean, no, not if he died.
Don't give him a swimming pool.
do you do like if he died if he died i don't believe he did now the wife said he couldn't have been
a chinese spy didn't like chinese food that's the strong argument against it that's genuinely
i tell you what though that's pretty good the prime minister was a spy
that's pretty good man great to be sharing this listen if that's the move and you get to you get
to get picked up by the sub that's the way to go that's tight so generous of the chinese to risk their
a international reputation by rescuing one of their...
I think they would have plugged him.
Yeah, that's what he killed him.
My mom's side.
My mom's dad was an orphan in Scotland.
This kid moves quick.
He was an orphan from Abelauer in Scotland.
And he came to Australia.
He was part of the military.
Okay.
This is your mom's dad?
I'm sorry?
Mom's dad.
And he was at a place called Maralinga.
So the British government gets nuclear weapons.
And they want to test them out and see, how bad are these for people, really?
So they go to the Australian outback and they detonate nuclear.
clear weapons and then they say to the soldiers, go for a walk through that and we'll see where
your health is at in 20, 30 years.
Damn.
Go through the radiation.
It doesn't work out well.
For any of them, I think they're all dead.
Your grandfather was one of the...
Yeah, he died in his, I think, you know, mid-60s, mid-late 60s.
It was terrible and genuinely, yeah, he was, but he was in Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was that suburb to the north of Adela?
It was meant to be like British, the best of Britain coming over after the war and setting up
their own town there.
Gotcha.
And it turned into a slum quicker than you can say
Fuck, man, that's a rough place to walk around
Oh, Chinese, again, Chinese restaurant would be a real step up
There were factories there
We stopped, we used, the only way we're going to have manufacturing
Is if the government was like pumping it up and giving them a lot of money
So when we liberalize and we go
Yeah, but then we go, we're going to be a free market
Then they all close and all the manufacturing jobs go away
Now we don't make anything
America has learned this lesson as well
I mean I've
When I first came here
I was in the Rust Belt
I was in the Ohio River Valley
for several months
And thinking the action was still going on
Yeah just isn't that the place to be
Almost heaven West Virginia
Where's all the locomotives are at
Man
Some of the
Some of the poverty
What did you how'd you end up there
So I came to America
Because I got offered a job on a podcast
It was a
Anyway they looked up my comment
and they said I was too dirty and they fired me
but I'd already moved my whole family
Wait, what?
Yes, it was rough
Hold on, wait, put a pin in that
We'll get to that
All right
Get back to the communist
Well, he left his communism behind
We've moved past, he became a teacher
And an author
So your dad became a teacher
And now he's an outspoken friend of Israel
Nice
He's gone full
Full circle
No, sorry, the other side
Whichever one is more respectful
than my father
That's the one that I meant
Brother and Sisters
One brother
Older, younger
He's younger
Your parents
Stayed together
They're still married
Oh brother
Late career
Like I moved to America
And they broke up
Just before them
Is that true
Separate?
Yes
In their 60s
They've split up
Really
And I don't talk about it very often
Because I don't know
What the do with that
Sure
When you're a kid
I mean I
Ah it's very
I think
Oh
I'm
We lost him
I'm sorry
Well he looks like
completely different guy
without his glasses on.
I have this is the cold, small
North Irish sociopath eyes
that I try and
chug up with there.
Man, adult of divorce
is a weird category to be in.
The marriage lasts
all through the childhood,
all through into the 30s,
have some kids of your own.
I gotta be honest,
it's the most,
that's not the craziest thing
I've heard about you so far.
Isn't it?
If we're being honest
that's the one I wrestle with all the time,
you told me your dad was a commie,
this is shocking to the point
where you have to take your glasses.
Now listen,
different to be a communist in.
Australia. Sure.
Not better.
Still bad. But like whenever people go,
like in America they go, they were communists in the
Democrat Party and
or like they were lying that there were communists there
and the whole McCarthy thing. We just genuinely
had communists. We had the labor
our center left party was riddled
with communists. Gotcha. It was like
just a normal cash
thing to do.
People didn't know it was that bad at the time.
We didn't know which way we were going to go as a country.
We came down on, I think, the right side in the end.
I believe.
I love freedom.
I love America.
He was going to say that.
This is beautiful.
I love...
To the Victor go, the spoils.
Have you seen the James Brown's CNN interview?
What?
No.
Don't worry about it.
It's the greatest interview of all time.
They make you watch that naturalization class?
No, I just...
I just pro bono went and did some James Brown...
Dave six Chuck Berry songs.
Go.
Look at you in the toilet.
Is that Chuck Berry was doing that?
He was doing that?
He's referenced a lot on the show.
Check where he's at.
You know where he's at.
He's in the bedroom.
Come, let's talk about Tushy.
Shout out to the good folks out there, Tush.
Let's talk about keeping a clean beehole.
Tushy is where you want to be.
What do you do?
What do you wipe?
Like a bozo.
Like a Neanderthal?
Like a guy in a cave, scratching your girl's name on the wall.
No, you do Tushy.
You get that bidet system going.
Nice warm water shooting up the bee hole, keeping you fresh, keeping you clean all day.
all day. Absolutely fantastic.
Listen, gang, you're not too old to learn
out there. And that's what I've learned as I've gotten
older. There's things that I went, that's not for me.
That's not for my kind of guy.
My people aren't into that.
And I got to be honest with you, I was
wrong. Tushy, Tushy, Tushy. They have the everyday
luxury bidet. Call me a Frenchman.
It instantly transforms
your bathroom habits and bottom health
for life. There's a bidet for every
biohacking personality type. Whether
you got ORA, Cloud Plus, whatever you're
doing, Tushy's elevated
Biday collection nurtures your bottom with instant warm water that never runs cold, a soothing
heated seat, and UV sterilization for the next level hygiene.
All Toshi Bidase easily attached to your existing toilet without the need for additional plumbing.
You set it and you go and you change your butthole, baby.
Be one of those guys that changes their butthole.
Don't be like your dad.
Change your butthole.
Keep the swampiest body parts fresh and cool for a limited time.
Our listeners get 10% off their first bidet order.
When you use the code garbage at checkout, that's 10% off your first bidet.
order at hellotushy.com with the promo code garbage. Do it clean your butt.
Yeah.
Kip, what do you know about Factor?
You never had Factor before.
I know everything about Factor. You know nothing about Factor. I know everything about Factor.
We all know about Factor over here because we're an absolute big, big, big, big, big fans.
Gang, do yourself a favor.
Schools getting ready to start. All right, things are going to start getting busy.
Next thing you know, you got the holidays and you're bulking up.
Get yourself some delicious, nutritious, nutritious meals, ready to go in two minutes, fresh, never-frozen factor.
You got a million different options over there, not to mention they're getting in a
At a breakfast game, you got the snacks.
Everything you need, covered, the factor.
Choose from a wider selection of weekly meal options, including premium seafood choices like salmon and shrimp.
Really?
At no extra cost.
Surf and surf.
You can support your wellness goals.
You can enjoy even more GLP1 friendly meals and new Mediterranean diet options packed with protein and good for you fat.
Savor the global flavors.
Try the Asian-inspired meals with bold flavors influenced by China, Thailand, and more.
Hello.
For more choices and better nutrition, that's why 97% of customers say Factor,
help them live a healthier life, feel the difference no matter your routine.
I was a fan of, listen, I've been a fan of Factor for years that's well documented here.
I feel like I'm a broken record here.
Shreda chicken taco bowl, change my life.
It's fantastic.
Go get involved with Factor.
It takes that, because I'm the kind of guy, I'll get home and I'm on my way home.
I'll get pizza.
Don't get a sandwich.
Don't get a sandwich.
And I go, you know what?
Chicken Taco Bowl.
I got Factor at home, baby.
Throw that.
I do it on a stove because I'm a gentleman.
Two minutes on a skillet.
I like it in a microwave.
Eat smart at factormeals.com
slash garbage 50 off and use the code garbage 50 off to get 50% off your first box plus a free breakfast for one year.
What?
I might have to sign back up.
That's code.
Code garbage 50 off at factor meals.com for 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for one year.
That's crazy.
Nuts.
Get delicious.
Ready to eat meals delivered with Factor.
Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto renewings.
subscription purchase do it yeah well you a good student growing up and how was the household
growing up you your mom your dad and your brother quiet so uh what you would mean by
suburban neighborhood right i think i was i was a good i was not a good student until i got put in
the they put me in the school that my dad was a teacher and then he was so sometimes your dad's
a teacher and the kids get away with everything because their parents can pull some levers
and now i got spat on by one boy whose mother was not even a teacher she was
He was like an assistant teacher.
And I couldn't, I couldn't do anything.
I got in trouble for punching on with him.
Probably like,
I heard of your dad to comedy.
There was some of that.
There was some of that.
I was, I was, I was giving him a bit of the chat.
I was, I was, I was, sip it with daikami.
I got into too many fights.
I got into two.
Really?
Well, I started out with some fist fights and wasn't very good.
And I went to wits.
No, I'm ashamed to say I, I kicked the boy in the testicles.
First time was an accident, but people were afraid of me after that.
That became your.
I did it twice.
I did it three times.
I literally in six months I kicked three boys in it.
I like you.
Hey,
if it ain't broke,
don't fix it.
And then people were afraid of me.
Not in a good way.
Not like,
he's so tough.
It's like,
stay away.
He's got a problem.
He kicked a boy in the test.
I kicked the boy in the test.
Yes, he's a good friend now.
Hey, Nick.
Sorry,
you can't have kids.
No.
Call Nicky Sopranos.
I believe he's brought children into this world.
There you go.
But I do remember he vomited it up.
the stairs as he was walking away
trail I feel very bad about it
why did you kick him
what was the argument isn't that always the what
who can remember that's the move
no I shouldn't have done it
I had a late puberty I was the smallest boy
by a lot
how late's late I was the oldest soprano
the boys choir over there
it was late
it was like what would say I was
I would have been 16 when my voice broke
okay yes
were you in the choir for real
or no?
Yeah.
What were the extracurricular activities?
I did them all.
Did you play nut stompin?
No, I squeezed in the nuts stumping between, I did debating.
I did chess.
I tried all the normal sports and was shit at him, so I started doing the ones that.
The obscure things.
Did squash.
He played squash.
Squash.
What is squash exactly?
It's tennis, but really dull and the Saudis love it.
Okay.
He always goes to another country.
I'm sorry.
Every time he asks himself, he always ends with a problematic country.
I just got on a plane.
geopolitical. I just got it on a plane. It was
Korean Airlines, everybody.
Did they have a test over there?
Because you seem like a pretty
sharp guy. Is this going well? It's going
great. Please. Do they have a test?
We're going to turn you in as soon as you get out of here. They do have a test.
Do they have like a, do you know what the SATs are?
Yes. Do they have a similar test in Australia?
They, you just, they don't have a standardized one.
They have, uh, sort of, yes. It's state by state.
How did you do on that?
I would assume you, I would assume you're extremely,
intelligent but I feel you're intelligent
I could be wrong I was showing up and paying attention I did
okay but it was really my dad
was like he was he was a teacher
there and he would be so ashamed that was it
that was the only reason I was taking a break from
video games and kicking boys in the testicles
is he would go what the fuck are you doing
what video game system did you have
I man I was thinking about I had the
Xbox there wasn't like different ones over there right
no we had them all but I had the PlayStation before
then but I never got the PlayStation 2
and I wish I'd
the PlayStation 2 instead of the Xbox.
I had a lot of good Halo memories.
Gotcha.
But I think the PS2, we were.
So it's a fancy school, and they got a discount, but my mom, my mom didn't work, and my dad
was on a teacher's wage.
So your mom didn't work, so the neighborhood you grew up in was upper middle class.
It was nice.
Yes.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Your dad did well.
We were in the fancy area, and we were the poorest people by a lot.
Understandable.
Gotcha.
Because they bought at the right time.
They bought at the right time.
and he had a job at the good school.
He got a job at a good school.
Gotcha.
So I got brought in on, you know, you don't have to pay the same amount of money as everybody else.
Understandable.
And so everyone else comes back from holidays going like, oh, we've been to Paris.
Oh, it was beautiful.
The lights.
And what would a vacation be for you?
My dad took me to China.
We would get cable television just for the holidays, and I'd get to watch Smackdown and Rural.
You would get it just for the holidays and then cancel it?
And they'd cancel it, yeah.
Because they don't want to be paying for it.
And they don't want to be watching it.
but during the, just during the summer holiday.
Like summer off?
Yeah, we'd get like two months of, we'd call it Fox Till.
So you'd get cable TV for two months.
That's crazy.
That's awesome.
Just a huge amount of television and then back to school.
And what was the school year for you?
Because I, not to say, I can't tell what's winter, what's summer.
It's like January to start of December.
What is?
That's the school year?
That's the school year.
So summer is.
January to the start of December?
So maybe early February.
But then we do it.
different. We have four terms with a two-week break. You do one big kids go off to summer camp.
We have like 10 weeks, two weeks off, 10 weeks, two weeks off.
Wait, hold on a second. You've got to explain this to me.
Okay. I don't know how else you can explain it to you, but that was pretty clear.
When do you, okay. I'm doing my best.
You're going into eighth grade. When does school start?
Like start of February.
The start of February. Yes. That's wild.
Wait a minute. Hold on.
That's on American.
Wait, what? That's when school starts?
End of January, start of February. Yeah.
Okay, and then
You're just when it's starting to get a little less hot
Where to win?
You're going through to the start of December
You're going the whole year straight through?
You just said you go 10 weeks on, two weeks off.
So it would be like how we had marking periods or, you know, whatever.
So you're going to school in the summer months.
In your summer months, they're our winter months.
The toilets, the other ones are going to get a way down there.
December is hot.
Let me tell you, cutting down a Christmas tree in Australia is a slog.
it's a hundred degrees
you go out into a field
there's Christmas trees
that we would never do this as a kid
My mom would get the plastic tree
But that was my like
I believe in the real tree
I love heaven
Sure
I love it
It's a waste of money
The whole house is filled with pine needles
It's a bitch to get in
And get it sucks
But here
I imagine it's very nice to go out
And cut down a tree
Not that you
I mean you just people sell it
In a parking lot
And they do for you
But there you've got to crawl in long grass
And there's snakes everywhere
What the fuck in a way
Imagine getting bit by a rattler
when you're trying to celebrate Christmas
That's crazy
I got a half a pint eggnog in me
I'm not watching where I stand
Slap a kangaroo
Eggnog not as popular
because it's a hundred degree day
So it's
You want to be having the beers
Very early on Christmas
barbecue
You're telling me that you're basically going to school
All year round
10 weeks on two weeks off
10 weeks on two weeks off
Yes I kill myself
Wait so you're going to school
Your entire childhood it never stops
I would freak out
Our summer holidays like a month and a half
So you get a slightly longer...
But it's not like this beautiful three-month American summer running around.
We start in September.
You're done in May.
You go down the shore.
Yeah.
You get a summer job.
Find a girlfriend, do a little smooching.
You're saying you, but this is definitely first-person stuff.
I wasn't getting any later.
I had one girlfriend in high school briefly.
And then she broke up with me.
Kick her in the nuts.
I think she did become a non-binary.
Yeah, I'm sure, mate, who can say?
No kidding.
Who can say?
Devastated all through my last year at high school.
Huh.
At this.
How long was the relationship?
Weeks.
Summer break.
Holy shit.
All right.
Okay.
So what would you guys do?
So you're telling me that your parents would get cable, by the way.
Yeah.
Your parents would get cable for like two weeks or that month and a half.
half they get the month and a half and then sometimes if you know if the iraq war was really kicking
off and dad wanted to watch fox because by this point he's a fox republican then really
man this guy's a flip-flopper if you ask me he has one is a huge pivot i mean really the right
would tilt is uh it was before my time here's a shocker james how old are you by the way 30
i want to say 33 33 i'd be shocked at young guy he thought i thought he'd be older yeah we've got
I figured he was a communist.
I have never been, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party.
That's said.
They have some good idea.
I've hung out with communists at parties.
I do enjoy Chinese food.
We just have communists in Australia.
They sell newspapers.
Man, I kind of miss them because there's a certain kind of person when you see a English-speaking communist.
You know, you see the Russian commie and they're like big.
It throws you off a little bit.
Communists are skinny, pale in a strait.
They're selling badges nobody wants.
Badges?
You know, like buy a little bad, buy a little...
To support communism.
Yes.
But they never, you know, it's never just like a hammer sickle.
Straighten somebody's guys down.
They are the communists, but it'll be like the rainbow stuff, the aboriginal stuff, the
no nuclear stuff.
Gotcha.
Very angry with their newspapers, which are very thin and poorly researched.
Spelling's horrible.
All right.
Anytime you ever guys, would you guys...
Would you guys ever go away?
Would you go to, like, how far away were you from the beach, first of all?
So everywhere in Australia is near the beach.
It's around the edge.
So everywhere's near the beach.
The difficult thing is everywhere worth going to is eight hours drive away minimum.
Why?
What do you mean?
Like a beach?
We got, the country is the same size of America.
We've got five big cities.
Right.
And that's it.
Because in the middle, there's a lot of hot sand, a lot of poverty.
Does anybody live in, like, the middle of the country?
Yes.
It's called Alice Springs.
I think.
I think it's the stabbing capital of something.
But, yeah, they had to bring in a curfew in Ellis Spring.
Jesus.
There's a lot of problems.
There's a lot of problems.
So, how long would I think did you get to the beach from your house?
Not long.
40 minutes.
40 minutes.
It's a beautiful, nice.
And would you drive there and go swimming and stuff like that?
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Oh, it's one of the only, I mean, there's not, sometimes.
Adelaide is, for a long time, it was known as a place where there was nothing to do.
Mm-hmm.
So you would just have to.
Oh, we've got a beach, we've got mountains.
It's a beautiful.
Too many people are moving there now,
and the house prices have gone up to like a million dollars.
So if you would stay the fuck out of Adelaide.
You live here now.
I know, but one day I'd like to have a beautiful home.
No, if you live here now, you have to not care about Australia.
That's what that's the...
You can never forget.
That's what a disgusting thing to forget your roots.
Later.
We're not letting you go back.
You're a Jets fan now?
You forgot where you're from?
Nope.
Forgot who raised you?
Go birds.
Go bird ticket.
What was the first job growing up?
McDonald's.
Really?
Yes, I was a fry cooking McDonald's.
I wanted to be customer facing, but they didn't think I had the personality for it.
Trying to convert everybody a communist.
I was a very bad.
I'm not a communist.
My father was, before being very right wing, a good, staunch, loves America.
How was the gig of McDonald's?
And how old were you?
I would have been 14, 15.
Okay.
I was not great.
When can you work there?
Could you work during a school?
Can you work during?
Yeah, I'd work after school and then weekends.
No kidding.
And then just on a terrible.
You get a, I don't know if they have children's wages here, but like they can pay you less than minimum wage if you're a kid.
No kidding.
Yes, you get like 60% of minimum wage.
Holy shit.
Australia is won.
And no work, I think.
What was the big seller at the time at Australia McDonald's?
They would.
What was like the menu item?
Yes.
I mean, we have many of the quarter.
The counter's great.
Sure.
I was always a big, big Mac fan.
My man.
But the family was all vegetarian throughout my teen years.
Man.
Yeah, my brother's held on to it.
I eat meat.
When I left home, I started, I was like, oh, let's try ham.
Ham is good.
Yeah, sure is good.
Because I was poor.
So when I left home, I went to university and then dropped out twice and just bummed around in, like, the arts scene, doing comedy and not having any money for eight years.
Ten years?
15 years
Where was that
Where was college
Where was university
So we go
We always
We go in the same town
That you're from
We don't have this
You don't try
Yeah
No
So you were just around town
You didn't go to like
Melbourne or
You lived at home
I tried moving out of Adelaide
A bunch of times
I tried moving to Melbourne
At another breakup
Had to get the fuck
Out of Melbourne
I was dating a comedian
You can't
Boy a comedy breakup is ugly
Man
It's all your friends
Are also your colleagues
And she was much more
successful than me
And rightly so, because I was doing the, my act was bad.
I was just, anyway.
I'd get lost in the past.
Excuse me.
I wasn't ready to talk about.
I love this.
I have so many closed doors in my mind.
He's staring off in the no man.
Yeah.
I tried to move away a couple times, but I always came back.
You always came back?
Yeah.
And then, okay.
Because that's all right.
I mean, it's, in many ways.
Were you doing comedy there?
Yeah.
That's what he said, yeah.
Living at home.
We've got a big fringe festival
So you do like the festival every year
Okay
That's for like a month
You're doing like an hour
It's a good way to get early stage time
Right
To four people who don't want to see it
And family members who are going
About what year? When did you start?
What year?
2008 I was 17
17 you started comedy
2009 I was 17 yeah
And you didn't move here until
Until last year right?
Yeah I mean
You guys don't make it easy to come
Sure
Across the border
Getting here legally is almost no commitment
Jim Jeffries made it
Who else?
It's a small list of Aussie
They all go to the UK
You have to go to the UK, yeah
But there's a couple more now
Who are Aaron Chen is here, Blake Freeman is here
Amos Gill
The great Amos Gil is here
But it's like six guys
Scott Do you know Scott Dooley?
No
I think he's in New York
Think he does
You're there
It's so funny
You could be naming like people
Who could sell out Madison Square Garden
Or Open Micers
And you're like Scott Dooley
It's all sounds like people
Who died in high school
It was a radio presenter
in Australia he was great
and now he's here
I think he writes captions
for the New Yorker now
we all are on a different journey
So you started in 2008
Started in 2008
Yeah
And then moved here in 2024
Yes
Right
Yeah
So yeah we've been doing comedy
About the same time
I started in 2008
I was 32
You were 17
I mean but I would
You might have been better faster
No
No
I stink
I was I started out
I think my first gig was good
Okay
And I was like, I can do this.
And then, wow, it dropped off.
The audience is, I read Steve Martin's autobiography, and I was like,
I thought you had it?
We got to do some weird.
We've got to challenge people.
We've got to invent something brand new.
And it was 10 years.
Wow, you did it for 10 years.
I did 10 bad years.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I was dressed up like a nun.
I was writing musicals.
I had a piano accordion.
I was doing everything that I would now really do.
disapprove of people
do it.
Sacrilegious.
But also,
we got five clubs.
Like in the country.
So if you're a club comic,
that means you're going to get to do a lot of cruise ships.
I remember James Brown,
watching an interview of him where he talks about,
if they don't want you,
you have to be so good that it doesn't fucking matter.
Right.
It's like, all right,
I guess we have to drive very hard.
I don't think I got there.
I don't think I got the James Brown.
I don't have any sequence.
I don't have big hair.
I don't have a man.
come out and put a robe over me at the end of the show and bring me back to life he's up there dancing
look at me now james brammy dance on the street for like four or five hours you guys have club
you can become a club comic here that means something you can be an open we don't have openers
at big comics they show up in a theater they say ladies and gentlemen so and so and they come
out and they do their hour and then they walk off and that's it they're not there's no ladder
for like finding a mentor unless it's the business holds every
card.
Damn.
What I love about,
one of the many things
I love about this country,
I love America.
Fuck communism.
I've said that many times.
Take that,
Dad, Dad.
But he's not a communist anymore.
He's not a communist anywhere.
I should reiterate.
But like,
you guys have a,
people get success as a comic,
then they get a couple of openers,
and they drag people up through the bit.
And the comics have a big say on who's getting opportunities.
Comics have all the say,
now I would argue,
over the opportunities.
Podcasts have really put the sword through
the late night
thing.
Sure.
Do you know how many shows
Fox is producing
in America right now?
How many?
How many comedy shows?
This is what I heard.
What?
Zero.
Yeah.
They just have Fox Studios
where they used to do TV shows
in L.A.
Sampty, get the pods in there.
Get bad friends
to move into Fox Studios.
Fox Sunday night.
Let's go.
That could be,
that could really save at this point.
Television.
Throw us on there.
Man, wouldn't that be nice?
I'd be so funny
I'll do it for five grand
Seth Myers
Is to say that
Seth Myers is like
Coming up next
Are you garbage
They've got
You get
You get wow
Incredible guests
Yeah
It's the same
booking people
You get to ask
If Sidney
What was it like
Being in
Idaho
With the big bozzies
I love Sydney
Sweetie
She is a gem
Kids got a little
Hound dog
I don't like it
She's a real talent
Let's go back
Let's go back
actress.
Kaby, let's talk about true diagnostics.
Shout out to true diagnostics.
Did you know your calendar age doesn't always match how old your body truly is?
I'm 750 year old, ladies and gentlemen.
Cut them open, see the rings.
That's right.
I recently took the true age test from true diagnosis and discovered my biological age
and I got news for you again.
It ain't great.
I got to start doing something.
I'm jammed up.
Uh-huh.
The results completely changed the way that I think about my health.
It's starting to.
Let's put it that way.
biological age is a powerful indicator of how fast your body is aging internally which directly
predicts your risk of serious disease i am screwed yeah and that matters because research shows
if your biological age is even just five years older than your actual age your risk of developing
disease like cancer or heart disease can jump as much as 30 to 50 percent that's a big deal
and completely avoidable good news is nearly 90 percent of biological aging is in your hands yes
it's driven by things like your lifestyle your habits which we're all
trying to fix the environment you're in, which means you have a lot of control over it.
Here's the turkey.
If you care about protecting your health and just want to find out what your real age is,
head over to truediagnostic.com.
Use our code garbage to get 20% off your entire order or subscription.
That's true diagnostic.com and use the code garbage and check out to get 20% off, baby.
Your future self will thank you do it.
Who did the cooking in your house?
Mom?
Yes.
How was she?
At cooking?
Yes.
What kind of things would you have?
My brother was a fussy eater, and everyone was vegetarian.
So it was like Paul Newman's pasta sauce.
Okay.
Every...
Makes a good sauce.
It's a good sauce.
It's a great sauce.
But she would get that one because it's a very moral buying.
You know, it's never the cage eggs.
So we would always have, you know, people would complain.
The school fees are very expensive, all these things, but the eggs have to be from the most immaculate chicken.
Okay.
Is that sort of...
And Newman took care of the chicken.
No, Newman
They made the sauce
They did the sauce
Oh
You ever have the Paul Newman's pasta sauce
Yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
I think you meant eggs in the sauce
Of some kind
Oh no, I just mean in general
Like all the ingredients
Like the cows have to be treated nicely
Gotcha
And the
But the food
Brother was a fussy eater
So I remember they're having the same pizza
The same
Fish and chips
That's a big Australian
Fish and chips
I love fish and chips
I love fish and chips
I very hard to find good
Fish and chips
Here
Yeah
Sure, I'll give you that
But then they'll be weird
They'll be weird.
They'll just be like a Greek man.
When I was living in Ohio, it was just like, one weird Greek man was there.
He's like, have the soup.
It's like, I've never had soup at a fish and ship shop.
I didn't know they did the Italian wedding soup.
Yeah.
You like that?
What a soup.
That's a great soup.
That's a soup that could travel.
I can see why it broke out of just the Italian weddings and he's taken over the whole comment.
That is a very specific event soup.
You've got so few Greek guys in this country that they stayed Greek sounding.
Yes.
They're like, oh, well, like, you're all Greek food.
Come over to us.
story of you. Take you out. I saw it.
Take you to Kate Cletus. That was the first
place in New York I got to see it. Tommy and I never took you
over there? To Dipmars?
I stayed in that house for one week, and I
remember there was a loud,
as a week I met both of you, it was the Phillies.
That's when our binge drinking between, with me, him,
O'Connor, Pope, and Shane started.
Well, I didn't know it had, I didn't know it. It looked
like it had been going for a while. Yeah, I mean, that
whole playoff run. You caught us at the town.
That was a beautiful. I mean, I'm sorry
you didn't get the win in the end, but.
What a
I was there for a game
that he did win
Yeah
And I remember
It was Kate Upton
Was dating the pitcher
Yeah
And there was a lot of
I didn't question
Ian Finan's sexuality at all
That evening
Because everyone was so happy
About the big bozzies
Sure
The pussies
The tits
She had mammary glands on it
And we get you
That's the gap between big tits
Famous women
It goes Kate Upton
Nothing for a generation
Sidney
Sweeney.
You're not wrong.
She's the first set of big mams that have come out in a long time.
What was your first concert that you went to?
I think it was Weird Al Yankovic.
Oh my God.
It's so telling.
It was great.
This kid's worse by the second.
I mean, the Wiggles, if we're going very early.
Whoa.
They were Australia.
They're Australian.
They're always being.
Whoa.
You guys don't love Weird Al Yankovic?
No, I do.
But what age did you go?
Oh, man.
14, 15.
When did you see the Wiggles?
Four.
Okay.
Trying to think of any other...
We had big...
So to get the Americans and the British out,
we'd have like a big music festival once a year.
It was called The Big Day Out.
To get them out?
Well, it's like it's hard to...
To get them over there?
Yeah, just to have enough money to get some big names.
Because if you have to tour on your own...
The American bands. Oh, okay, I got you.
Like, if you're a mid-level American band,
I got to see Death Grips at the Big Day Out.
They remember that was...
But it's like they wouldn't tour on their own outside of that.
I got it.
Okay, I got you.
So, you know, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers come out
and they're headlining.
And then there's a bunch of bands that you actually...
Not that I didn't want to see the Red Hot Chilk.
No, I understand what you mean.
I do love the Chili's.
Bands from America and Britain that were bubbling up but weren't quite that big yet.
Then they pepper it in with Australian hip-hop to support the base.
We've got...
There's a couple.
Hilltop hoods.
They had the nosebleeds section.
You'll know that song.
I know.
It's a big one.
Shout out all day.
Shout out Cursor.
I think he was looking at Luke.
It's going to start spinning it.
I'm trying to look at the camera.
I'm trying to look at the camera.
He's in his mark.
I try and do the hip-hop beats,
and these people won't jump on for a feature.
Danny Brown wouldn't jump on one.
Wait, you make your hip-hop?
You make hip-hop beats?
On my phone, on the garage band on the phone,
I make the hip-hop beats.
Danny Brown.
He's a Renaissance, man.
What do you want?
He's something.
Listen, there was no money in comedy.
Everyone over here is a comedian.
You're millionaires.
Look at this.
You've got a penthouse studio in Manhattan.
Sure.
What a third floor.
No, you've got a scrap for what you can get.
You've got to make a beats.
So once you start making beats over there or here?
I mean, I've, largely, I'm working now, so I don't get as much time.
You don't mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Were you selling them over there at all?
Never.
Not one person has agreed to buy any of my music ever.
You're making them on your phone.
Yeah.
You want to listen to some?
I kind of do, but I don't want, I don't want Universal Music Group to pull me into their ongoing lawsuit today.
If you can believe it, I don't have a label.
So were you over here?
Well, let's fast forward.
I think I would say we have a picture of the childhood.
No, but we can move on.
I know about the prime ministers of Australia.
Yeah, we could jump forward to now.
When was the first time you came here?
Would you ever make a trip?
Yep.
I came over for two weeks.
So I met Shane Gillis in Australia like three years ago.
Okay.
So that was when we met you was your first time here.
Yes, yes.
No shit.
And I had a...
I was not...
A friend of mine was opening for him
and I sort of stopped following comedy
because everything in Australia was not turned on my brain.
My brother loved podcasts and he kept up with it.
And we'd had a child.
So when podcast started to boom, I was out of the culture.
I was like...
You had a kid.
Yeah, we got six years ago.
You had gotten married.
We got married?
Yes.
We got married.
We got three kids.
We were six, four and two.
So you got married?
What did your wife do?
She is assaulted by a six-year-old, the four-year-old, and the two-year-old all the time.
She can't work on a visa.
Okay.
But also, I wouldn't make her work anyway.
That's repulsive.
But what was she doing?
Making your woman works.
If she wants to work, let her work if she wants to work.
You can't stop that anymore.
What were you doing over there to make a living to get married and have kids?
Oh.
And where were you guys living?
I lived, so we lived, we had a housemate when we were first married.
And then when she got pregnant, yeah, we moved in with my parents.
Because I was
Man, I had
Nothing
I was working in a call center
For a while
Okay
For actually the company
That my grandpa used to run
And then I was working
Oh man if you want to go through bad
I mean bad jobs
That's probably where I can really connect
Those are the poor
Those are the difficult garbagey years
I was a door to door cable
television salesman
Where I would
I would knock on people's door
This was after Netflix
It's not actual televisions
No no I would say
Do you want you know
You want to pay $30
dollars a month and you get a fox sell.
They would just drive you out to the worst parts of town
because that's where you make your bread as a door-to-door sales.
You've got to a rich part of town.
Nobody wants to come.
Sure.
But you got housing commission.
I don't know what you call it, Section 8.
Uh-huh.
And just knock on 50 Section 8 doors and try and sell them cable television.
Would you want to work sometimes?
I mean, yes.
When I needed the money, I could be good at it and I could put a hard sell on.
But when I, then you'd get commission.
It was all on commission.
And then all of a sudden I'd have like two or three thousand.
dollars for the week and I was like I don't have to
I'll just get in the bus with the rest of this is not
a job anyone wants to do and it's it's a bad
door to door to sales I'd get on
a bus there was an Indian man named Raguvia
who drove the bus as me
as an African guy who'd love
talking about cheating on his wife and everyone was
very uncomfortable he'd be like
don't touch my phone busy is this a public bus
no it's just like a big he owned a big van
a Sienna he owned like uh who did
sorry the guy driving the uh
that would take you to work the manager would drive us
out to an area
Sounds a little human trafficy if you catch my drift.
You'd only have to work.
They'd only do it in the afternoon because it's when people are home.
But for four or five hours, you'd knock doors in the worst parts of town
trying to get people to get cable television.
I did that for about six months.
I made all the money in the first month and a half.
And then I just kept doing it to show up.
But like sad, Irish people coming over to Australia who need a job
and then, you know, they're too dumb to work in hospitality or something.
Like too slow.
They just don't have bartender energy.
They're doing door-to-door stuff.
and regional.
We'd do week-long trips into the outback.
I went back to those places,
Wayala and Port Augusta.
Wait, why would you do week-long trips out there to sell?
Move the product.
And where would you stay?
It would stay at like the worst.
Sometimes it would be like a house that they'd managed to rent from somebody.
I had to share a room with a man from the Philippines who snored terribly.
And one night, I rocked him.
I said, please, stop.
And I remember he sat bolt upright.
He woke up and he's like, okay.
I'll stab you
And it was
Nowadays you go to an HR company
But or whatever
But I just had to absorb
I told the bus
I was like he threatened to kill me last night
Did you wake him up?
Yeah he'll do that
The boss was like he sells well
So don't don't rock this bike
Number one of the calls you
I was in a call center
After that
When people had
People had our version of AT&T
And a loved one died
They'd call up to disconnect the service
And my job was to
While they were disconnecting that service
you know, get an iPad.
Upsil them.
Upsil them.
Upsil the people who are trying to leave.
Specifically when people died?
You'd get deaths.
Man, Australia is fucking weird.
They'd lumped them in together.
So people who just wanted to disconnect, you'd get them,
and then one in four, randomly.
You'd get like an old guy going,
my sweet wife is gone.
Oh, it's in here, pops.
You get my pad,
keep your company through the night.
But the best markup was on, like, the cheapest Samsung pad,
was like that big
and didn't do anything
I moved a lot of them
my mom had one of those
for a long time
and then
I thought I could be a copy
I worked as a music
journalist briefly
I got like six months
in a good job
doing like music reviews
and watching bands
and the company
the magazine folded shortly
after about a year
they went out of business
it was owned by a Spanish billionaire
who said this isn't going anywhere
the newspaper
the Rupert Murdoch of Spain
for some reason on this publication
and he shut that down
and then I had to go to the call center
and that was rough
and then I thought
I'll become a copywriter
I've got some like
I'll write ads
but I didn't have an in
I've been doing comedy
I'd you know
did you have a degree
from a university right
I did but it was in like
classical antiquity
it was in like Roman history
okay
but still a degree's a degree
like over there right
you gotta have a degree
to get a job
a good job
yeah
But so many people have them.
Okay.
That it's, I could have, I've never had a job that's used the degree.
I could have done any of these jobs without it.
Okay.
But then I, man, I, this is before AI.
And I'm glad I moved to America just as AI was starting to take over this industry.
Gotcha.
But I would, you know, I would do $4 an hour jobs to get experience that were meant to be done by, like, Indians.
You're meant to be in a third world country not writing very well.
But I applied for one of those jobs and I got it.
And they're like, okay.
You've got to write 15,000 words a day about garage doors.
And I would just sit and this is, I only did this because I'd gotten married.
I got married.
We got all the wedding money.
You get, you know, we invited a lot of people with the wedding.
We had a very cheap wedding.
What did you make?
Oh, I would have made like 10 grand off of the wedding.
Pretty good.
And the wedding, I don't think I had to pay, I had to pay $400 for the priest.
No, like for the, you know, the church rental.
We did the reception in my parents' backyard.
and we just lived off that money while she was pregnant
and she had the bad morning sickness with the first baby
and as we're going through that money I'm selling
I had two guitars that I'd had for years I sold there
I sold everything I loved
and then I got this job writing Indian copy
and I found I could really fucking do that
I could power through I could write
10, 15, 20,000 words of slop about like
why should you, it was all these out
you know like why should you start a coffee business
reason number and like they use these words over and over again
Jesus
and then you have three two more kids
yeah
because I'm a devout Catholic man
and condoms are evil
and so you're stripping and scraping
this whole way yes
and then okay the rent was always
a problem and then
did you live at your moms all the way through it too
no I couldn't know we had to move out so we
we moved out to
the western service so I
I grew up in the eastern suburbs because my parents were up with, you know, they're doing well.
They went to go over there.
That's the nice part of town.
We moved into the western suburbs where there's a little more.
Oh, I remember one time we went on a road trip because I could work remote.
I could sit.
What I would do is I would help with the kids during the day.
And then at night when she'd go to bed, I was like.
It's the copywriting job.
Yes.
So you're sticking with this.
Yes.
Okay.
So I could work remote because it was all meant for Indians overseas at this point.
So what I would do is, so one night we're in this rough neighborhood.
And the house across the street
When you're doing an outsourced fucking job
It was a rough time
The comedy is starting to grow in Australia at this point
But even if you're like a good cult act
A $20,000 year is a
That's a good year
That's a good year
That's on Australian money too
So I'd say $12,000 year is a good year
There was a meth lab
Across the street
And the sense would come in at night
And we were going
This can't be good for the children's brains
The chemicals wafting in
And it's like
Don't have air conditioning
so you've got the window has to be open so we can but then the fucking meth smell is coming in then one
night the gunshots went off across the street because it had been some sort of dispute and i was
like everybody get in the car we're going on a road trip and i just drove the family to camber it was
like a it's like a three-day drive i just put that it was like a real snap mentally i'd also
i'd had covered not long before this this is like the last thing that happened before i made good
in america i didn't know i was going to make good in america but this is sort of where i was
that I just drive the family across the country and I remember I would go off like at night because I could do the work whenever but I would you know be in a cheap Airbnb and I'd go off to McDonald's and I'd sit and I'd write like 8,000 words of copy for like a mattress company and like just write you know eight pieces a thousand words each try and use queen size mattress over and over again and I remember it's just they want queen size they want those words in so I tried to work in size queen as many times as I could I thought.
I thought that was fun.
You've got to make it interesting for yourself.
It's a comic.
But I worked my way up to a better copywriting job.
Okay.
A year and a half before we got it.
And then financially it was starting to go.
It was a little better.
And then give me the night that you met Shane.
My brother said you've got to come and see this guy.
You're still in this kind of situation?
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Yes.
I think we might have had third child on the way by that point.
Okay.
Are you still in the meth house?
We'd managed to move to a house
that was in a better neighborhood
but was not a good fit.
You got kids running around
and there's two bedrooms.
Also, the parents have split by that point,
so dad's also living with us.
This is fucking brutal.
Kind of like the pursuit of happiness.
I was thinking through the start.
My dog got ran over by a car.
This doesn't sound poor enough.
I kept thinking at the start,
But in my heart, I know, no, we're going to get to the good, poor stuff.
Yeah, you guys, it's got to be, you know, it's the hustle.
You've only ever held jobs that are exclusively in India.
I respect.
But you're doing them in your home.
You grew up.
Your dad moves in with you.
Yes.
Your mom stays in the house.
Yeah.
She'd have left him at that apartment and moved in with your mom.
He had the house.
She was living with us first.
Oh, my God.
Anyway, it was a lot.
And he also, he ran for, Paul.
politics for a right wing party and didn't win and that was and he was living with us and
what in the fuck and he ran a good campaign and frankly i believe he should run again he's a good
man my mother is a good woman they're good people which they could sort it out the uh
okay so your dad's living with you and then your buddies some of the timelines here are difficult
it was a bit of a it was a bit of a hectic time but my brother my brother goes come and watch this guy
perform, he's the guy who got cancelled
and I'd been vaguely aware that
that had happened. But I hadn't seen any of that.
I'd watched the blind guy
at the wedding sketch.
Do you know this?
Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I loved, I like that. That was the only one I'd seen.
And I went and it was like, oh, stand-up
is, I didn't know he was the best
to do it. I just at that point
I thought, ah, fuck, you can do stand-up again.
Like stand-up can be great.
And people will come. It was, there were like
300 people at the Norwood Town Hall
and it was all men.
at this point
and I remember they sold out of beer
because they didn't know
what the audience was going to be
and so all these like
Shane Gillis fans in Australia
had to buy white wines
and sit with two enormous white wines
in the front row
and it was like
there'd been no
I mean to this day in Australia
there's nothing really
that's tapping into that
might have just like men who want to laugh
and some ladies too
but it's like it's all been like
very feminized and old
like it's all for the old
TV generation
there's not a lot of big pop car
got you
And I went to that
And I didn't get to open
My buddy opened
But my brother really wanted to meet Shane
So I texted the open
I said can we come
Can I come back and say hello
And we got to go in
And we hit it off
And it's the only time I
It was like
I don't know why I did it
But I said can I open for you
On the next one
Because I was
He was doing more shows in Australia
That was like halfway through the run
I was like can I go to
Are you doing comedy at the time?
Yes
Yeah
So I said the podcast
And the podcast was
And the podcast was very
James Donald Forbes became Catamaran plan was not the behemoth that it is now.
You had already started the podcast over there.
Yes.
All right.
I had thought at that point that because then Patreon stuff.
I mean, Patreon was like a couple hundred bucks a month.
But I was like, there's actually a future in that.
Maybe the comedy is never going to.
I'd keep trying.
I keep putting things up.
I got a couple clips that went good on Instagram, but you can't feed your family with a viral clip on Instagram.
TikTok maybe.
I don't know what their model is, but I don't believe in it.
So I said, can I open for you in Melbourne?
And he said, sure.
He said, is it close?
And I said, yes, which is not true.
And it was the next night.
And I think I borrowed the money because the only ticket I could get was like a down the front of the plane, $600 ticket.
You have to fly.
You have to fly.
And so I paid a big lump of money to fly to, more than all the money I had to fly to fly to Melbourne and do the show opening for him in Melbourne the next time.
And it was great.
He was a wonderful man.
we got talking and I
I thought that was going to be it
but I had a friend who was at the show and they said
ask if you can go to America and stay with him
I was like that's gross you can't ask people that
she said do it what do you have to lose
and I didn't he said yeah if you're ever in America
you can come and stay with me and I
booked a trip to America and then I met you all
Jesus Christ that's fucking quick
that was like two three months later
and then when I got back
that was in like September
and the third baby came at the start of December
and the parents broke
Cup in October.
Okay.
It was a big run.
But I thought that was it.
And the Phillies lost.
Jesus Christ.
But I thought that would be, I thought I just had like a nice week and a half in America.
Man, I had a big layover in LAX.
I'd never been to America before.
I had a big suitcase and I thought I'll walk around Los Angeles.
Oh, my God.
Just Amelia turns into a homeless guy.
Why, is that the way you came in?
You came in the other way?
Yes.
No, not the Europe way.
You come in.
So I came into L.A.
Okay.
And I thought, well, I've got a day.
I can spend a day.
And I hadn't slept on the flight because there was this fucking woman yammering the whole.
I didn't get to sleep at all in the flight.
And someone said, go to Venice Beach.
It's close to the airport.
It's beautiful.
So I was at 8 a.m. at Venice Beach with my suitcase, just watching,
that's the first thing I saw in America was just like psychotic guys shouting into the ocean.
And also the fanciest hotels I'd ever seen in my life.
And I went to the hotels because I tried to, we have a thing called like a, a.
a day rate where you can pay to like take a nap somewhere and I go in there I was asking
everybody have you got a day rate and they were looking at me weirdly I realized it sounded like
I might have been saying date rape I don't know I'd like to take a nap here if that's okay yeah that was
what I was I didn't realize it was the homelessness care I was going can I have a nap somewhere I'm very
tired I don't want to see anything what's your shit shower shave rate huh it was like some
guys it's like 700 dollars if you want to stay yeah there's a there's a there's a bomb out there
so we gotta wrap it up though I mean we're gonna get you I hate to cut you off what
well it's been great
I really had a nice time
we had a great time
thank you for having me
you're here you're coming back
I'll have you for part two
yeah yeah of course
you're welcome to come on the James Donald Forbes
McCann Catamaran plan anytime
thank you thank you
gang
do yourself a favor
check out the brand new special
on September 1st it comes out
all right of course pick up the book
disquieting levels of egg
his fourth book of poems
and of course listen to the James Donald Forbes
Bacan Catamaran Plan
and we'll be
back for part two with James Donald Forbes
McCann and this tale of absolute
whoa that we have heard
which is unbelievable tickets on sound now
I'm going all over the place look at them we love you
go check I really appreciate this this is really nice buddy you're coming back to
hear the rest of this tale we love you so much gang we love you we'll see you next
week please