Chubby Behemoth - White-Rice Supreme

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Level up your shaving routine & support the podcast with Manscaped. Visit https://www.Manscaped.com & use code CHUBBY for 20% off & free shipping.   The Thing About Crystal Meth. Righteous Butt. This Is Your Last Chance. Jez Watts   Nathan Lund and Sam Tallent are Chubby Behemoth

Hey everybody, it's me, Sam Talent. I'm coming to you from a bathroom in Adelaide, Australia. This episode is not a traditional thing. It's just me and another guy being funny. Because Lund, after the success of his special, has refused to answer any texts or calls from us. Because he's busy on just a bed of mozzarella cheese right now. Just a bed of mozzarella cheese right now. So I did this episode with my tour manager, Jez Watts, a very funny comedian here in Australia who I've been on the road with for two weeks. And he has an infinitely fascinating story,

and I want to share it with you guys. So please enjoy this episode with me and Jez Watts. You can find him online. And we'll be back next week with our regularly scheduled two-on-one where me and Lunn just bully Becker into submission and then use his awkward pauses to get our shit in. Hey, you can see me if you're in Australia. I'm still coming to Brisbane.

I'm coming to Gold Coast, coming to Cairns. Then I'll be in Paris. But I'll be back in the States, everyone. I'm coming back home. I'll be in Paris. But I'll be back in the States, everyone. I'm coming back home. I'll be in Boston the second weekend, the 8th and 9th of September. Then I'll be in Austin, Texas. SamTalent.com has all the stuff you need. And please join our Patreon because we've got so much great shit over there.

Now, please enjoy this episode with me and the Jez Man. Love you guys. Peace. All right, so this is Sam, and I'm here with Jez Watt. Hello. And we're driving from Sydney to Canberra right now. And Canberra is the kind of just like where Parliament is? Yeah, it's like Washington, D.C.

Russell's. Oh, the tiny place. Yeah. So there's nothing there for us. There's a lot of roundabouts. Okay. It's a Monday. It's August 7th.

It's Monday. We have 32 tickets sold. We think that's, maybe 40 is achievable. I hope it's going to be 40. Now, I wanted to have Jez. Jez is going to be with me for the next, he's been with me for the first week

in Sydney, and then we're going to be doing this week in Melbourne together, right? Yep. And then you're done. Do you go to Perth and Adelaide? No, I go to Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane. Oh, okay. And then you're done. Do you go to Perth and Adelaide? No, I go to Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane. Oh, okay.

And then Richo the Wild Man's with you for the last couple days. Yeah, Richo the reformed methamphetamine-using tradesman. Who's paid for this whole tour. Yes, who had his... Honestly, lovely. I thought when my first... Because he said colored, like, right away, and I was like, all right, this is probably going to be difficult.

But Emily and I were with him on the way to Newcastle and the way back from Newcastle, and he uses all the speech. He uses the vocabulary of someone who's in deep cognitive therapy, who's trying to address the wrongs of his upbringing and get out of the patterns that were provided to him. But Jez is a normal guy hello yeah and uh so jez tell us tell us about the man that is jez watts tell you about the man yeah because you have a insane weird backstory that you give hints at here and there um well i'm a yeah all right so i'm a former neuroscientist. I used to be in the Australian Army.

You were in the Army? Yeah, I used to. I didn't know that. I also used to be a meth head. Were these concurrent? So you're from where? What's that? Start at the beginning.

Alright, so I'm from Perth in Western Australia, the worst place in the world. Yes. Which the world's richest woman lives there, right? Oh, that's true. She owns the mines or whatever? Oh, that's true. She owns the mines or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She rapes the earth and civilization.

That's really what WA is all about. It's just like really destroying as much of the planet as you can from the most remote place in it. Yeah, they just extract all the nutrients from Mother Earth, from Mother Gaia. Yes, absolutely. And then they sell them to China. Right, that's right. Yeah, and then also become racist at Chinese people. Oh, yeah. Which is, like, it's a cognitive dissonance that is, I think, hard to square.

Yeah, Perth is... And Crystal Mouth is big there. That's why I got into it. It was just, I just wanted to keep up with my friends. Yeah, you wanted to look like a loser. Yeah. So there's, like... You gotta break out the gloss, Bobby. Is Western Australia where, like a loser. Yeah. So there's like... You got to break out the glass barbie.

Is Western Australia where like all the young men go there, they work in the mines, they make a shit load of money, they buy the utes, right? They buy ski boats,

like jet skis and shit. Jet skis and yeah, they squander everything they earn. They just piss it away. Yeah. Because they don't know what to do.

They're like 20 years old and they're pulling in like 120k. Oh, more than, I mean 120k American probably, yeah. probably 200 000 australians whoa um but they do fly in fly out right so they're like they go and they they live in the holes for like four four days or literally underground right literally underground yeah they're bald people that's right they're bald people um then they come back to the city and like, they're not friends with anyone because they're away all the time.

So then they just have all this money and they do... That's, I think, a big reason crystal meth is big over there. It's because it's out of your system quick. Yeah, so they get the drug tests are passed. And also they can work, like, 48-hour shifts. That's also true. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing like meth to make you feel like you're

on top of things so that's the thing about crystal meth like uh there's a great uh non-fiction book called meth land about the states oh yeah and that was really big where i grew up but it's like yes it makes working long hours easier but like also if you're living like a bleak lonely life like methamphetamine does a good job of making you feel happy you know like it makes life it makes like a sad time feel a little bit brighter yet for a period of time I think you're right you're stealing happiness from future you yeah yeah use now for sure I don't think anyone who's working like as a mole person too concerned about building a retirement plan for the future yeah I suppose not I mean the true irony I think that's a lot of people like shoot for like a lot of people who get into that are like oh great i'll do this for a

year or two and then i'll buy a house right and then i'll have property yeah and then i'll have my life together prove i'm not a homosexual well you have to do that yeah that was part of my army time as well um but uh yeah but then very few of them were able to follow through on that you know and like the ones who did like they sort of don't even talk about it it's like they went to war oh they never like mentioned that they worked in the mines for two years and they and just at some point you realize oh you're 27 and you own two houses yeah it's like oh yeah did a couple years in the mines two houses eight teeth sure um yeah and it's like, oh, yeah, I did a couple years in the mines. Two houses, eight teeth. Sure. Yeah, and it's like, also, you get addicted not just to, obviously, the money, but the lifestyle.

Yeah, being able to do whatever you want, whatever you want to do. And you're surrounded by other mental youths. Yes. You're just with other, like, kids who have a shitload of cash. Is it the kind of situation, because in the States, like in North Dakota, when they find oil, they'll have these boom towns still. Right. And they'll build like tough sheds, like aluminum sheds that are hotels, like overnight, so people can live there. Right. And then there'll be a bar that opens up and a tent across the street.

And in that tent, like a bottle of beer is like $20 because these guys have so much cash on hand. Right. That they can then suit the economy to the amount of expendable income Well, that's yeah That's like a I think a big part of the reason like the cost of living in Perth is actually quite high Especially to live in the middle of a desert because they can get away with and a cultural wasteland and it's because it has All that mining money sure Even the like the Perth fringe which is like the major arts festival that happens there every year

like what their major sponsor is a company called woodside who like are just like absolute earth rapers and loads of artists have like complained about that and i think at some point like woodside like pulled some level of their sponsorship and the whole festival didn't fold but it like it basically halved inside it's inside because they have so much money so much in the economy in every way is that it'd be like if shell oil brought you the high plains comedy festival exactly yeah think how great that festival would be oh it'd be amazing yeah yeah we'd be staying in helicopters that would be the accommodations yeah they're just arts washing their stuff you know like um when i was still like when i was doing my, um, my honours thesis, when I was, uh, like,

I was researching for, like, the Telethon, like, Kids Institute. Like, it's like a, like, a research institute to, like, uh, look into, like, kid, child health benefits stuff. Sure. And, um, I got a grant of, like, 10 grand, or, like, $20,000, I think, from, um, a company called Serco, who, they're the people who administer the refugee island that australia keeps and keep them in like horrible like concentration camp adjacent kind of vague stuff yeah so when people come over here they put them on that island and they lock them up

forever until they die you know it's like horrible what was that movie rabbit proof fence there i remember america was uh we saw we were given some film about that, where like some white girl somehow winds up on the island, and she makes friends with Syrians and Kuala Lumpurians, and she realizes, these are people too! Yes, they are human beings that the government has decided are inconvenient. But yeah, so Serco gave me 20 grand and they go oh look we're looking

we're helping kids right yeah and it's like that is 100% what Woodside's doing with giving money to the arts festival and they just gave

20 grand to a reformed math addict that's true to like investigate like that's interesting you have two

reformed math addicts on your tour I think that most I mean I think Andrew Wolfe has dabbled you know oh he hasn't no yeah that's that has to be the case every australian i've met likes a bit

wee bit of the glass you know i like to spin the dick i mean cocaine's so expensive and bad here yeah and also like australia's finest homemade coke is uh is methamphetamine. Yeah. And you guys do it at a high level here. It's a DIY culture. So, yeah, I wonder, like... Okay. So you start in Perth. You live in Perth. You're a child in Perth. I was a child, yes. Okay.

And then when do you join the Army? I joined the Army, like, pretty much out of high school. And what age is that when you're done with high school? You're 18? Oh, like, I think 18. Well, like, 18 is probably when you graduate. Like, I think I joined 19. Okay.

I was only in for, like, a few years, and I didn't, like, go to war or anything. The biggest thing I did was... Well, yeah, you're Australian. What did you do? Oh, we sent people... You clubbed some seals somewhere? We sent people to Iraq to commit war crimes.

Well, thank you for backing us up. Yeah, man, you gotta do some war crime. You had to. Yeah, we do have to for economic reasons we would accept shit no more sugar for you guys but uh yeah the biggest thing i did is i i got deployed to malaysia for something called rifle company butterworth but it's just to do like three months of jungle warfare training or whatever and it was the first time i left perth and i realized there was like a universe outside of the most isolated city on

the planet yeah and so then I started traveling the world and stuff so I lived um yeah I lived like all over the world for like next five or six years and that's when I like I got married for what is gonna be I guess technically now gonna be my first wife but was my only wife at the time sure uh and so we got married in Las Vegas with like, while tripping on LSD with like Elvis impersonator, which is not a good way to do it. It was scary. It was very frightening.

Some people get married in their like childhood homes backyard. I think yours is totally fine. No, we, I mean, we should never, we were like drug buddies. We smoked a lot of crystal meth together.

So, so you go from jungle warfare training, which is what, you with a machete, like just hacking down trees? Yeah, sure. Figuring out how to dig like punji pits? Yeah, sure, that kind of stuff. Okay, and then you go... Avoiding malaria. That's huge. Having leeches suck your blood.

That's fun. And that was when you were... When you get malaria, then they put the leeches on you. I guess so. That's probably the old school move. Yeah, because all medicine here until like the 80s was just like pretty much medieval, like shaman and, I guess shaman's probably not a word you guys use, right? Oh, I mean, I had a shaman take me on an ayahuasca ceremony.

Doesn't surprise me at all. So where was your first stop when you left Australia after you get out of the army? Were you booted out of the army? Uh, I sort of, I little bit, I sort of ran away. Are you AWOL right now?

I ran away a little bit. Yeah. And, um, I actually thought when I left the country, I was not a hundred percent sure. Cause I definitely left under, I went,

listen, it wasn't like I got a proper formal discharge. And I sort of ran away a bit. And then they were trying to get me to come back for a while. So you can be the treason. You're a deserter. Well, yeah, I mean, a little bit. We can put a bow on it.

But yeah, it was something when I left the country for the first time. I was like flying to Germany. And when I was sitting on the plane, I wasn't sure if like MPs were going to like... Be waiting? Like, we'll just come and get onto the plane. Yeah. When they didn't, I was like, oh, I guess it was okay that I sort of left. Yeah.

But I think they sort of just went, well, he was such a terrible soldier. Like, what's the greater crime against the country? Letting him leave or having him continue to defend our freedom? Right, you would have just been like a landmine detector. I was such a bad soldier. I was a real bad fit. I wasn't whimsical enough for you. Wasn't enough song and animation. Yeah, I like a bit of fun.

And you being very analytic probably didn't help with you being a soldier. No, yeah, the autism didn't help. Yeah, I remember going around like because i joined the infantry which is also wrong as a choice yeah you probably could have done better you seem like a smart i mean you are a smart guy oh yeah i definitely like would qualify for other things i think at the time i i had this idea as a as a young kid like 19 years old or whatever like i was always good at school and stuff and i was like I want to do something I'm bad at to grow. Okay.

And so I picked like the thing that I thought was like the farthest from my skill set or whatever. Which is legalized murder. Which is, yeah. Murdering people for fun. Yeah. Um, but yeah. First stop was what?

Berlin probably. That's where all the young hop heads go. No, I lived in Dresden for about nine months. Okay. Cause you wanted to wear a top hat and a bow tie yeah sure you know carry a cane and a monocle hang out at the slaughterhouse it was probably what was it rave place yeah yeah there was like an art installation there but yeah i was dating a german girl who i'd met and we drove around australia together and stuff

and then like her visa ended and i was like oh i, I love her so much. I'm going to go to Germany to be with her. You should have gotten American Express. Instead of Visa. See, so that's the credit card joke. Yeah, that's great. It's not bad. Someone had to do it. You're too close to it to see it.

Right there. This is what 17 years in the biz gives you? Yes. We're passing Wolongong, by the way. Which is the name of a real place. I mean, Wolong, by the way. Which is the name of a real place. I mean, Wollongong on the left. But yes, I went to Dresden, lived with her until my money ran out. Went to the UK, worked until I had money.

Went back to Germany and stuff. And then we did a bunch of travel. And then I cheated on her with the girl I married. So you were maintaining a monogamous relationship with this drifter you met? That's right. That's crazy. I'm a nester. I love love.

Now are you actually autistic? Because in America people would be like, I like train horns so I must be on the spectrum. Yeah, listen, I mean it's something that I'm on like a waiting list to get diagnosed right now because i more or less because i started i realized i socialized health care for you yeah i realized i was and also it's gonna be cheap so that's nice

18 months when you finally get your fucking it's literally 18 months but um yeah it's something that I sort of realized over the last maybe six months to a year. Like, I got into therapy and stuff, like, for other reasons. But I sort of realized that it was more than likely true. And then when I started to talk to other people in my life, they were like, oh, no, you absolutely are, like, for sure on the spectrum. So it's something that now, because i'm talking about it on stage i want to get diagnosed just for that what's going to help sell some tickets well i don't want to do that bullshit you're going to be the next nanette oh my god like plenty of people are

doing that show and i don't want to do that show yeah but just like i have jokes about it yeah you doing a fully immersive animated rabbit experience where there's songs and dance that you do everything yourself there's nothing autistic about that no no no that's all neurotypical behavior yeah for sure um but yeah because i have jokes about i've had i've had a couple of audience members like pull me up after shows and be like yeah you can't make jokes you're stealing valor yeah exactly it's like i already like committed treason i think i should be allowed yeah that's why you changed your name so many times yeah that's true oh yeah that's we didn't cover that so yeah my legal name

is Jez White Rice Supreme White Rice Supreme yeah White Rice is my middle name with a hyphen and Supreme and last name

is your god given Supreme is my surname yes yes so why what kind of where did Supreme come from

is that just when Australians came here they gotta give themselves names like i'm jeremy warlord everyone you have to kill a lot of uh the indigenous population to get that title i'm bosco skull splitter i'm the king of walongong yeah so that's not my birth name right so my birth name is uh James Wynne but when I got married the first time like in Vegas with the LSD and all it went to my drug buddy and stuff yeah we decided rather than like her take my name which is like outdated or us do a hyphen because we had planned to have kids which is lucky for everyone

that we did not yeah we pick a new last name together And so We decided to pick Supreme So that we'd be able To introduce ourselves To people as like The Supremes And you guys were like Hypebeasts

You guys were like This is the best Clothing company in the world Yeah exactly Yeah yeah yeah And there's actually There's a lot of brands That I've noticed since then

So you're gonna be Jez and Sassafras Supreme I assume her name. You don't have to say it, but it's probably like Lilac or like... Oh, that's so close. Oh, yeah? Daphne.

Daphne, okay. Daphne Supreme. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a eugenicist. And so we had planned the two kids, right? We already named them. What were they going to be named? So we made a deal

where I could pick the first name of the boy, middle name of the girl, and she could have the others. Sure. And so we're going to be Moses Danger Supreme. Jesus Christ. So Danger's his middle name. Of course.

And then Zoe Disco Supreme. My God. So it's great that they don't exist. I'm so happy that didn't happen. Those, yes. They'd be running grifts all over Canterbury right now. What a horrible life they would lead. Yeah, you guys would live in a treehouse, you know.

But yeah, so I changed my last name to Supreme and it's like one fee to change your name. And I was like, oh, everyone's been calling me Jez for years. Before I did comedy. Yeah. So I changed my first name to Jez. And then the middle name, it's like, I was already changing everything.

And my brother's birth middle name is Ace. And I was always mad about that what's happening here i don't know these are australian people behind the wheel of a moving vehicle it's dangerous it's not allowed um so yeah so i was kind of like i'll just pick a new middle name and so the middle name of white rice i mean it's a silly thing, but, um... No. You seem pretty somber. You're really honoring the tradition with that. Um, it came, like, so we were in New York, like, after the wedding, and we're hanging out with, um, this, uh, friend of ours from Boston, and we found, like, a little monogram nameplate that said HWR,

and we were just, we found, we had found all these, like, expired drugs in, like, prescription medication in, in like this guy's apartment. They were moving out. And so we were like just eating these random pills. This is in where? I'm sorry. In New York. Okay.

And having a great day. And we decided in the day to like come up with a backstory for the owner of the nameplate. And so we decided it was a guy named Howard White Rice. He was like an investment banker. And he had like money in the Caymans. He had a secret family in Mexico. And like we just spent all day coming up with this silly little backstory and then like we left new york and i haven't since then seen my friend from boston at that time i was like i might never see

him again he didn't exist yeah he was in my head i was imagining it and so uh when it came time to change the name like daphne was there for that as well and And she was like, oh, why don't you pick White Rice? And it'd be like a connection between you and your friend Alex. Sure. And you'll have that forever. And so I changed the name. And then I emailed him the next day after I formally changed it and got the paperwork. And I was like, hey, maybe you never guess what my new middle name is.

It's White Rice, like Howard White Rice. Like, how cool is that? And he emailed me back. And he's like, who's Howard White Rice? Like, he didn't remember any of it. And so the the whole thing the middle name is just like an in-joke with myself now that like i don't share with anyone yeah because you guys thought you were getting high on like valium as an adderall but it was really probably just like heartworm medication but do i have heartworm no no you don't and uh yeah so that's because your current girl is a

she's a better Yeah, I did I did take some actually the other week do some deworming chocolate because she was eating deworming chocolate I what have you a worm? She's all vets can get worms and they can give worms to their partner Have you heard of deworming chocolate honey? Emmys is delicious. I bet it is. I used to eat my mom had these these chocolates that were supposed to be like It's delicious I bet it is I used to eat My mom had these These chocolates That were supposed to be like They were big in the states In like the mid 90's

And they were like They were like Weight loss chocolates I think that they like They like gathered Like the fat in your food And then like made it So your body didn't digest it

Oh it gives you A nice bit of anal drip Yeah but I was just Eating them Because I was a little fat kid And I like found them In her closet And I was like Oh mommy's got secret chocolates and then just really dropped like

it was it looked like i was like a third trimester like i lost the baby type thing i remember the turd it was gelatinous it looked like a squid so you you get married in las vegas yeah and you're still taking a lot of drugs yeah well Well, we decided to get off the drugs after that. Okay. We were like, right, we're getting married. We're going to have these two children, Moses Danger Supreme and so on. Yes. So we're going to stop taking drugs.

We're going to go back to university and get our lives together and stuff. So we did that. And then once we stopped being high together, we realized we actually sort of did not care for one another so much we suddenly went up we're on the same wavelength so it was kind of a bad marriage for a good year and a half no way were you guys married in the states or did you guys come back we got married in the states and then we're like we submitted the paperwork here and stuff but um so we were like properly married but yeah we like went to uni uh like university and like started

started getting our degrees and then we broke up, of course. In Australia? In Australia. Okay. That was back in Perth, actually. Okay, and you, after you break up, you get, you said four degrees? Yeah, I mean, they're just worthless, but... Right, but are these like two-year, are these like, are these real?

Are these associate's degrees, are these bachelor's degrees? I don't know the equivalent. Yeah, so I guess I've got like, I've got two bachelor's degrees and then a bachelor's with honors, which was, like, I did, like, a year-long. This is what Serco gave me that money for, actually. But I did, like, a year-long research project in, I was, like, researching this particular kind of muscular dystrophy. And then that's the honors degree.

And then I did, I was doing a doctorate in neuroscience when i started comedy whoa and so i ended up quitting that to drive you around yeah exactly in shanghai into being this tour manager exactly that i absolutely wanted to do it and i'm glad see that's what sucks because like i'm glad you're here Cause we met when I was in Melbourne Last time I was here Yeah absolutely It was you and your buddy Glenn And I thought you guys were both Fucking righteous dudes

And we went to dinner Yes you did And Glenn didn't have a dime To pitch on dinner Well listen he's Hey He's a poor man Glenn I never forgot

Alright But yeah Glenn and I Were drinking A shit load of pints That was That was the day you shit Listeners of the pod will know. That was directly preceding me shitting the bed

and having the worst panic attack slash hangover in my entire career as a human being. I was with Jez and his bald mate, Glenn. And Glenn told us about he was dating a girl and like... Oh, and her kid has like a bubble butt. A huge righteous butt, yeah. He hates the kid, except the kid has the mother's butt, which he loves. Right, but he's not attracted to the kid.

He thought it was very funny that the kid had a huge funky ass. And I was like, you know, 12 pints of VB deep. And I was like, Glenn, you gotta take it on stage, man. You gotta talk about this kid's rump. He still has not done that, by the way. Well, probably for the best. But yeah, you left very quickly at one point. I think you felt a rumbling, maybe.

Well, no, I went to Hungry Jack. Oh, this is what caused it. I went to Hungry Jack, and I had a couple whoppers or whatever. Yep, sure. And then just woke up in a flotilla of my own fucking feces. I've covered it enough on the pod. Is that bad? Yes. I never told you that? No that you don't know this wow yeah it's i had comedians messaging me the day after that pod lot like drops to be like

hey you know you shot the bed yeah yeah i shot the bed very bad baby like the first night i was in melbourne in my hotel room and i had to pack up all the sheets and bedding into a pillowcase and then carry it outside like I was a hobo going to work in the apple orchard just over my shoulder and then I slept on a nude bed for the next five days or whatever. You didn't know this? Do you like to know that now? Do you feel closer to me? No. No? Anyway. Hey, everyone. Let's talk about Manscaped, huh? I know you guys love talking about undies and, you know, mental health apps.

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So, you're getting your degrees. Yes. And then why do you start stand-up comedy? Oh, I mean, I just love stand-up comedy forever. I just had, like, really low self-esteem. I didn't realize you could start and be bad and slowly get better. Yeah, you have to be. You're the worst comic in the world when you start.

Of course. And I was, particularly. And, yeah, but it was just that thing of, I even, like, didn't realize I could be a scientist until my then-wife, like, enrolled. And I went, oh, yeah, I'm smarter than you. I could probably do science as well yeah um but yeah i just i mean i love love comedy and i wish i'd started it earlier but uh what it took was i did like a year exchange in the states at the university of north carolina

at chapel hill interesting uh which is a very good university yeah it is uh and that's also a pretty hippy dippy part of north carolina that's true i was worried it was north carolina yeah but it's like a college town and is that raleigh or durham yeah just near there yeah yeah chapel hill chapel hill yeah yeah um but i uh the classes were like real difficult because right near the end of my degrees and um i ended up just being like i'd just been divorced and stuff and as much as we shouldn't have been together i was still a mess and uh i realized pretty quickly and i was like i don't care about this and then i ended up i met a girl in new york and i stayed on a couch

for like way too long like three months and i would just like go to the comedy cello every night and i met someone who was like an open mic just in brooklyn and that's what did it for me i went oh you can start yeah you can just start and not be great i only knew incredibly great comics because i'm in australia just watching things on youtube or whatever and it's just like oh people who are exceptional at it i thought were the only people who were doing comedy yeah i think when you're a kid it's like really hard to realize like at least it's achievable well it's like you can just go you can just sign up at an open mic exactly it's like you feel like there's like this whole like gravitas to it like there's like the sacred few who are allowed to do

stand-up exactly no any idiot can wander into the fucking bar on a Tuesday and put their name on the piece of paper yeah and meeting someone and she was funny but like just meeting someone who was in that beginning phase I went oh shit I can start too you're really bad look at you and so i immediately yeah started like you know right i wrote like a big list of things i just i basically wrote down a list of stories i'd use to get laid more or less right sure just like because i was just like i'm not a big uh like alpha male or whatever my whole thing was always just to entertain someone long enough that at some point we were having sex. Sure, yeah. And just be fun.

Yeah, you just keep spinning the plates. Just be fun to be around enough that they are willing to have sex with me. Sure, yeah. So I thought I had an hour. I'm familiar with that, boy. Exhibit A in the back. But yeah, I thought I had, so I wrote down this list of stories basically,

and I went, great, I've got my first hour, I thought. And none of I wrote down this list of stories basically. And I went, okay, I've got, I've got my first hour. I thought, and you know, none of that is in anything of course. Oh, but, um, but yeah,

I did my first open mic when I got back to Perth. And then, so you didn't, you didn't go up in New York for your first time. No, no, like I, I sort of,

I think it took a long, like it took a long time to emotionally switch from this idea that I was always just going to be a fan of stand-up to I could be participating in creating it. Right. And so it was a long sort of, like, dial-up time, you know, where I sort of had decided I was going to do it. But from actually there to doing my first spot took me a good few months. It also must have been intimidating. Like, if you go to Mecca to become an Iman, like, you're in New York City. Yeah. Like, yeah, watching, like, you know, Todd Barry or Big Jay or whatever or Sarah Silverman or whatever.

Yeah, David Tell. Oh, man, I wish I'd seen David Tell. He's the greatest. He's the greatest comedian in the world. But, yeah, like, but there was so many people, like, Gary Goleman and stuff, like, at the cellar who were just such high-level comedians. I mean, getting to see that live. Gary Goleman and stuff like at the cellar who were just such high level comedians. Um, I mean, getting to see that live,

that was the first time I'd ever seen live comedy. Yeah. The comedy cellar kind of sets the bar and possibly high. Yeah. It was this thing. I was like, Oh, I,

I now realize I'm allowed to start, but I really want to be good. So I like took extra time to like prepare and like read a, read a book about comedy. Which book did you read? Uh, I think it's, what is it is it zen and the understander comedy i think maybe what was the name of it it was a long time ago you read like richard belzer's book or the uh no there's a bunch of these books that people read and then they're like okay so the first step to being a comic is getting a pair of sunglasses i need a suit with patches on the elbows yeah I mean it's that thing of like

there probably were a few relevant pieces of information in there sure but the main thing was just I think making me feel that it was less alien maybe because I think as well

like you listen to podcasts and you listen to very good comedians talk about comedy forever and then you go right i've got the inside track i know how it all works but it's very different from a first person perspective yeah you pierce the veil yeah so yeah so i started in perth like perth is like you said the most maligned well as as far as like the arts are concerned i mean even in australia australians make fun of perth oh yes absolutely like the same way we would make fun of like uh like alabama or wyoming in the states

yeah it's just like yokels and idiots maybe like alaska would be a good no one cares about alaska that's what i mean yeah we have like we don't even talk about alaska yeah well that's i mean honestly that's probably yeah i guess maybe Tasmania is like the south. Sure, sure, sure. And then like, Perth is, I think probably Alaska is the right thing, because nobody thinks about it, and there's like, you know, primary resources that are just getting extracted from the ground. And it's just like, this is your last chance. Like you're running away, you're moving to Perth to get a job. Yeah. Same with Alaska.

I mean, it's, yeah, it's definitely, it's super isolated. The scene there is a lot bigger than it used to be. But when I started, there was one open mic that you could get on maybe once every couple of months. And so I started a room very quickly. And then some other people started rooms. And, like, now it's, like, much more of a vibrant scene than it used to be. It's still the source of the most per capita craziness within a comedy scene in Australia. Sure, yeah, Andrew Wolfe, who I will have on this pod next Monday. Yeah, he's incredible. He, I don't know about anyone like him, have you,

did you, was he around when you were starting out in Perth? No, he was in Sydney at the time. Like, he's from Perth, but he came up in Sydney and that's part of the reason he's so good, is he started in a bigger scene. Before his wife removed him over there. His then wife. His then wife. Yeah. Okay, so you're in Perth,

you're doing shows, you're getting your shit together and then when do you flee to Melbourne? Oh, so I mean like... I'm saying Melbourne as they say it here. I know that we say it

Melbourne as you should. Do you want me to say Melbourne? No, no, no. I'm also saying Cairns. Cairns is good. Yeah, yeah. Good pronunciation. Cairns.

You're local. And then also, the funniest thing that people say here is, Nar. Nar. They put an R at the end of no, and it cracks me up every time. But yeah, I mean, I wanted to leave Perth, like, really quickly. But I started dating my partner, my fiancé now. Like, pretty much the week I started doing stand-up and I remember telling her hey I'm gonna do stand-up forever and I

don't think she believed it at the time because I was like doing a doctorate right uh but look at this territory we're driving through right now it's very pretty sorry go ahead oh that's all right yeah um but uh yeah so i you know started doing gigs around and as many as you could do at the time which was not that many um and then i wanted to move but she had like this great career opportunity so we ended up doing this sort of devil's bargain like her um her income was going to go up like 20000 a year if she took this opportunity but she would have had to stay in Perth two years and so we talked about the options which was like I could move to Melbourne and gig a lot more but then over time we'd probably drift apart we'd break up uh I and she could move to Melbourne with me and turn down the opportunity and then resent me for it. Sure. And then over time, we'd drift apart, we'd break up.

I could stay and then I'd resent her for it. So you set it up very romantically. Yeah. Look, I've analysed the data. Yeah. I ran it through the ones and zeros. I'm autistic, I'm telling you. Yes.

And what we decided in the end was if I could maybe tour and do like the festival system, so within Australia, maybe do the Edinburgh Fringe, I could have a lot of growth, but we could still continue living in Perth for a couple of years. And in order to do that, she would like underwrite me 10,000 of the extra 20,000 that she was going to get. So you meet this girl, you're about a year into stand-up, and you ask for 10 grand. That's right. Yeah.

And then... Hey, buy in now. Yeah, and then that year, I lost $16,000. Oh my god. Of her money. Wow. And I... Just producing your shows at festivals and whatnot?

Yeah, so it was big overheads, like traveling and doing the fringes. So it's like I did Perth Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, and the fringes. So it's like I did Perth Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe. And Edinburgh, I think I lost seven grand there. Wow. Because you have to rent the room, you have to promote it, all that stuff, right?

Yeah, and just fly to accommodation, marketing, all that stuff, you know? And so, yeah. Because there is something unique to Australian comedy is like, we were just in Sydney for this last week, and a bunch of comics, like, flew in from, I don't know if they all flew in, but we did this run of the comedy store there, sets up shows the whole time. And then you're all on the same show together.

You're like a platoon, and you go from theater to theater doing the shows. But, like, Wolf flew in from Perth. Like, you came in from Sydney or from Melbourne. From Melbourne, yeah. So, yeah, like like you guys just travel so much within the continent well it's yeah i mean it's just i mean it's a small market you know it's like less than 30 million people in australia and it's funny when you guys compare your problems to ours in the states when you're like oh you guys got a wee bit of the bigotry there and it's like we let people in all right there's 400 million of us oh australia is way more big oh yeah but you guys don't want to act like it because you guys gave your guns up after one whoopsie um listen he was the world record holder for quite a while so yeah don't don't diminish his accomplishments but the states have lapped him like 10 times over

no but now they have yeah he did that shit with pistols, you know? Oh, wow. That guy, he's an Aussie digger, you know? Yeah. Easy. He's like the Jackie Robinson. Yeah, exactly. He broke the color barrier. But yeah, and he did the whole thing just to get famous, too.

Really? Yeah, I was reading up on it. Like, I have a bit about it where... It doesn't matter what the bit is. But, like, um... But, yeah, like, he was not, like, politically motivated. He wasn't even really mentally ill. He just sort of went,

Huh, if I'm the world record holder for the most kills in a mass murder, I'll be famous. And that's his whole motivation to do it. How many bodies did he claim? Uh, just, like, 47 or something like that. He did it with pistols. Well, he did, did like he had pistols and maybe like a rifle but like a like a bolt action right yeah yeah like a musket and it was

it's australian you know yeah he had a cannon and what year was this uh oh 1993 three yeah pretty sure um but yeah he's still in prison now and you never see his name in the news and And they've never granted interviews for him, because they're like, well, fuck him, if that's his whole goal. Yeah, he just wanted to be famous. Yeah, yeah, at least to be mentally ill, like a good person. It's like when they wouldn't let James Holmes see The Joker. But yeah. So, sorry. Oh yeah, well, Ned Kelly's cool. you guys got him oh yeah i mean who gives a shit i read that book the true history of the kelly gang and then i saw the movie was more

stylized the people who own the rights to my book right now oh yes did true history of the kelly gang oh wow yeah like they they they are australian yeah okay And the Vogel brothers So Anyway That's neither here nor there But There is like The outlaw is idolized here in Australia And I think that's cool

Yeah I mean I don't mind Ned Kelly I mean obviously he was just an outlaw And Whatever Like my dad went to prison for seven years I don't care

But What did he do? Oh he did a bunch of crimes Nice He started out Is he like Zane's brother Who shot a cop in the chest with a shotgun? More of a white collar. Okay.

Embezzling. Yeah. So that was the first thing he went to prison for. So this is before I existed. Dude. But he worked at a bank when he was like young. And he had the problem I had when I was 19, which I thought I was like the smartest guy in any room.

It's like, if you think that you're a fucking idiot. Sure. But he thought that. And so he embezzled money for the bank he worked from he got caught then he got like sent to jail for like six months and then while he was in he met some people who like boosted cars and they taught him how to steal cars and then he got out and then he stole cars for a while yeah and then he went away for like a couple years and then when he was in he met like a B&E crew like a break-and-enter crew and then he got out he had a crew so then they did break-and-enters and while he was doing that

um yeah then like he was with he was with this woman they had a kid and stuff and then like he went away to prison for seven years for that um that's not white collar no he started white collar he works his way up all right yeah yeah but not, like, shotgunning police in the chest. That was, like, the first... He's not a biker. He's not a bikey. Bikey, yeah, bikey. Which is so silly to me.

Like, Zane was like, yeah, my brother got a swastika tattoo on his throat and he shot a cop in the chest with a shotgun. He's a bikey. It's like, put some respect on it. He's a fucking motorcycle-riding hate criminal. Yeah, I mean Anyway, that's what I think Zane seems real messed up. Dude Zane was like back story So I was like I'm going to Australia not everyone can be that insane and then sweet Zane was like the first dude that I met At that show yeah Chippo I think yeah

He just sits down and tells me about his mom and how he watched her pass and like oh, oh I mean this has a lot of trauma, but he's just telling it like it's a you know like he wants me to buy him a beer it was like a pub story with his big shining gold tooth it's silver silver yeah yeah yeah because gold would have been too ostentatious so you are you lose 16k oh yeah yeah so then i owed it like the next year i did all the same festivals and i broke even um but I still owe her the 16 grand yeah and at this point I was away for six months a year and I was in debt to Nicole sixteen thousand dollars so a lot of people in her life started being like maybe you should break up with this

guy which is very good advice that she got given for sure um but i had but the second year of doing the festivals i had done 16 grand better right because i broke even compared to losing 16 and then the year after like i made a profit i started paying down the debt and so it was this thing of that that initial sort of cash investment is sort of a lot of people get that somehow right in australia to start making the festival system viable because it's every time you come back to a city you sell more tickets and you can charge more

you know it is there like a so when people need that initial startup capital are there sponsors for these

like how's that work I mean some people look at this woman driving a fucking jeep with a safari circle on it

so she can go aquatic and she's also 53 years young. Anyway. I mean, some people just come from privilege and, uh, you know, like I think a lot of people, that's how they get their start in comedy. Oh yeah.

It's, uh, it's. The world over. Yeah. It's such a, you know, there's, there's such a front loaded poverty to comedy. Yeah. That there's gotta be some way that you get an income that's not jokes when you begin um but yeah i mean i was you know i was very lucky that in some ways and unlucky in others and you know like being in starting in perth for like probably a good four years or something

maybe five years it definitely slowed my growth just as there weren't enough gigs oh yeah it's like when people start in omaha nebraska yeah and they're like yeah we got three open mics here it's great you know you get on the road twice a year and you're like leave here if you really want to do this yeah I mean it was a thing if I wasn't in and now we're getting married right so it's like it was the right call but if I wasn't in a committed relationship to somebody that I loved more than anyone I'd ever loved before, then I would have absolutely, like, a year and a half in, just moved to a bigger city. Oh, yeah, like, if I didn't love Emmy so much,

I wouldn't have gone to Las Vegas. What was Las Vegas about? She did her... She went to med school in Vegas. Yeah, Vegas, I mean, we were there... When we got married, we were there for maybe six days, which is too long. Oh, yeah.

And I can't imagine living there. We didn't, didn't we, baby? Didn't we? What? We made it through Vegas together. I mean, when we got together, were people saying, ditch this guy, he's no good? No. Only my mom. What'd she say?

Nothing. I'm not on the pod. Okay. That's an empty update, everybody. So you moved to Sydney. Moved to Melbourne. Moved to Melbourne. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We moved to Melbourne like six months before the pandemic hit.

Then had the world's longest lockdown. Yeah, you guys loved it. It was great. You guys love following the rules. That's when, well, all right. You do. Australians love the rules. Rules make you safe, Sam all right. You do. Australians love the rules. Rules make you safe, Sam.

Yeah. If you guys don't vote, they fine you, right? Yeah. It's not much. It's like 50 bucks or something. Still. But, um. Right to abstain is still a right.

Well, I mean, that's why, there's a thing here called the donkey vote, where you go in and you just, like, draw a picture of a dick on the voting form and, like, you've checked your name off so you don't get fined. Sure doesn't have to be an official vote you know okay you just have to say that you went there but um yeah so that's when my mental health took a serious decline i was trapped trapped in an apartment for seven months straight in a new city yeah able to do the thing that you moved there to do no and the only place in the world at the time that had no lockdown and no covid was perth the place i'd left wow because it's the most isolated city and

they just closed the borders they closed the borders they didn't have covid at all until the borders open six eight months later wow so everyone there was just gigging up a storm and i was just like i left that fucking place damn it to do gigs and that's the only place i could have been doing it and it uprooted us you know like we had to ship a horse interstate like that's expensive and that was oh because nicole has a horse yeah she owns a horse okay cost two grand to ship like drive the horse through the nullable gee whiz so covid and you get back up let me ask you this have you done um shows like all over have you done darwin and uh all these places yeah the most i've done at least spots if not if not full shows in most cities in the middle in australia no well it's not really much in the

middle alice springs is not much uh mostly the coast right that's where everybody lives yeah in the middle don't people literally like much. Mostly the coast, right? That's where everybody lives. Yeah. In the middle, don't people literally live underneath a school bus in a hole? I mean, that could be true. Someone told me that like... I'm not going there. People's front doors are a bus and they park it on top of their house. And then you walk down the stairs through the bus to get into

the house. Yeah, I mean, that certainly could be true. And also, you're probably like, you know, there's a lot also you're probably like you know there's a lot of statics i mean there's a lot of crime in the middle as well yeah because who would live there but clinically insane human beings well people who have 230 000 cash in their pocket and they bought enough meth so now it's time to get like the sharpest blade they can find yeah yeah sure uh but yeah done yeah most cities in australia and like done some stuff overseas like i've done edinburgh like three times and toured a bit through asia i think edinburgh

sounds fun i think it's great it's a great festival whatever uh if she can get like a contract in scotland for a little bit that'd be cool to go over there yeah because housing is the big cost there and if she's getting housing supply exactly Exactly. Yeah. That's the single largest overhead. But yeah, the three times I did it, like it was the best month of my life every time. Because the first time I went, it was the best month of my life. And then the second time I went, it was better. The third time was better. And I really had it worked out where I was like, I was the only Australian I knew who

by the third one was like making a profit and paying rent at home. Oh wow. Everyone else was losing thousands of dollars to do it. That's like the fourth dead weird marmot we've passed. Oh, that happens a lot. What are those? Well, it definitely would be kangaroos, wombats. I think that was a wombat.

Probably a wombat, I reckon. Does a capybara look like a wombat? Yeah, they look pretty similar. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wombats are definitely chunky. Yeah, that was a little chunky creature. probably a wombat I reckon does a capybara look like a wombat yeah they look pretty similar okay yeah yeah wombats are definitely chunky I think

yeah that was a little chunky creature yeah they got head was crushed they're real beefy and dead yeah right

but yeah Edinburgh's sick I um I don't think I'm gonna go back though cause it's just a big commitment

it's going on right now too right yeah I'm like super envious it sounds fun it's just a big commitment it's going on right now too right yeah I'm like super envious it sounds fun it's just like I talked to American comics

who like like Ari Shafir loves it Sean Patton loves it oh sure like I did I already did my I did it like two weeks yeah I already did my

showcase when I was over there last actually do you know Jessica Michelle Singleton yes she's great like uh yeah hung out with her a bunch like i mean it's it's the largest arts festival in the world and certainly at the

time coming from perth it was like getting to be on stage that month that like that much in a month yeah it was just like you could just feel the difference between the beginning and end of that month like so dramatically oh for sure skill level yeah like you burn the fuck difference between the beginning and end of that month like so dramatically oh for sure your skill level yeah like you burn the fuck out by the end of that month but you're just so much more comfortable on stage yeah you're just sharpening your steel so what you like in edinburgh you like do your show every night and then you hop on other people's shows yeah i mean like the reason i was making money is I was doing my full hour and then I also would host a showcase at night. And then I would do a bunch of spots during the day as well.

Yeah. So yeah, I'd be on stage maybe like two and a half hours, probably total a day. For like 22 days or 23 days or whatever. But yeah, you burn out for sure. but yeah you burn out for sure yeah you need you I guess the the American model is either like you produce it yourself and you eat it or someone brings you over there and people come and you don't have to pay anything but you don't make any money I mean that's yeah doing like the because there's sort of two Edinburgh fringes right there's a ticketed fringe then there's the free fringe yeah so the ticketed fringe you only will lose money there's no way to really make and that's

like the south by southwest where it's like the corporate event right it's been monopolized by other interests there's no like the overheads of it are not i mean it's not constructed in a way that anyone should make money it's constructed in a way that you get industry attention yeah but then the free fringe which happens at the same time in the same city is you do like tickets are either donations in advance or on the way out of the door and so essentially it's a free show um but you don't pay anything for the venue which is like a massive amount of overhead is gone so then you just gives you your space the venue's just like hey if you're gonna have people come in here who are gonna buy drinks cool sure okay um so these are in bars and shit yeah but but they have like rooms you know like separate There's either space. The venue's just like, hey, if you're going to have people come in here who are going to buy drinks, cool. Sure, okay.

So these are in bars and shit. Yeah, but they have, like, rooms, you know, like, separate rooms. That's what's impressive about Australia is all these, like, hotels, I guess, which are just bars that you can't really stay in anymore. Yeah. Everything's called hotel, but, yeah, none of them have accommodation. But, yeah, they all have, like, these dedicated performance rooms in the basement, it seems. Yeah, well, like, a lot of them do, yeah, for sure. Which is cool. And that's where these dedicated performance rooms in the basement, it seems. Yeah.

Well, like a lot of them do. Yeah, for sure. And that's where the majority of shows in Australia are, are bar shows. Right. But they're like, it's not like you have a bar in the back where people are going to get drinks. Like it's an actual like little concrete, like 80 person seater. Sure.

And. It's like a black box diddle. Yeah. It's perfect. It's perfect. Like that, uh, that one we did on Wednesday, uh, with the flowers, uh, standout, like that's a perfect. Oh're perfect. Like that one I did on Wednesday with the flowers standout. Like that's a perfect time. Oh, I love that room.

Yeah. Those guys come in so early to set up all those flowers. Yeah. And you can tell because... It's a beautiful space though because they make it that. Yep. I was really impressed by them. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, that's like, there's only a few like, you know, proper comedy clubs in Australia. You know, there's like one few, like, you know, proper comedy clubs in Australia. You know, there's, like, one in Sydney. Right, which is a good room. The Comedy Store. That's set up very well. Beautiful. I love it.

Like, there's two in Melbourne. There's one in Perth. There's one in Brisbane. I guess there's maybe two in Brisbane. But, yeah, I mean, the vast majority of shows are bar shows, but in these separate spaces. Yeah. And then you have horrible open mics where people are serving and doing cocktails. Sure, sure. Next to the stage. but yeah I mean the vast majority of shows are bar shows but in these separate spaces yeah and then you have horrible open mics where people are serving and doing cocktails sure sure next to the stage the intermission is a Australian thing which is that's not a fuck no dude you keep the momentum

going you don't get you don't let it then people like they get up and they go get drinks during the show or there's like you know servers but servers. But the intermission is like, I hate the intermission. Interesting. Americans don't do an intermission ever. All right, so no intermission tonight. No, no, we'll do the intermission. No, we don't have to. If it's my choice,

like, well, the venue probably wants it. No, I don't give a shit about the venue. Well, I mean, we should. Like, I want to get along. No, no, that's fair. I mean, I don't think, yeah, I don't think tonight's venue, like, demands one. Okay. Yeah, I hate the intermission. It's, I don't think, yeah, I don't think that tonight's venue, like, demands one. Okay.

Yeah, I hate the intermission. It's just like everyone's sitting there, they're building all this momentum. You got your openers, they're doing a good job. And then it's the big payoff at the end of the headliner or whatever. Like, the intermission just kills all that forward-moving kinetic energy. Yeah, I mean, like, particularly, I mean, so many venues, they're giving you the space essentially for free to get their drink sales. And if you have an intermission, there's going to be more. That's the only reason that open mics exist in the States is because a bar has a Monday night and they're like, no one's in here.

Yeah, we want to sell drinks. Yeah, if I sell one drink to the 35 comics who come in here, we've sold more than we ever have before. See, I get it but usually in the states like the bar is in the same room and right they just walk up and you get your drink and you still sit at your stool um so let me ask you this this is this is one question i had so when you were um in north carolina for that year yeah you're recently heartbroken oh yeah but you're a handsome, funny guy with an accent. Oh, yeah, dude. You must have just been rolling in the spoons.

Drowning in it, man. Drowning. I mean, for real, right? It was insane. Yeah. Yeah, I lived in the UK, but there's a lot of Australians in the UK. Yeah, you guys just sound like them, but retarded. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, there's more of a plucky charm to the australian accent because everything goes up at the end yeah i'll be like jez how are you doing you're like yeah yeah good good i'm you know yep uh-huh and it's like everyone you know enthusiasm i think there's an enthusiasm culture right yeah there's like a like i had an uber driver who was telling me the racist history of sydney which was, like, proud of, you know? Like, and that's Redfern, where they rioted, and boy, did we bring the kill doses to them. But I would ask him a question, and everything was prefaced with, well, he would say, look. He'd be like, look, well, you know, like, there was just always, like, they have this initial, I'm engaged, I'm talking to you, I heard what you said, now I'm going to respond,

and they have their own unique, like, of that which i like yeah i mean it was it was something where in the uk like the accent helped but um in the u.s it was a deluge it was almost a problem how much people wanted to fuck me and particularly. And particularly because I was coming off a divorce. Oh, yeah. And, like, a mess. You were probably wearing some kind of, like, fringe jacket, your hair's in your eyes. Oh, yeah, of course.

But, no, it was a lot of fun. Oh, me, baby? I'm from Perth. It's the most isolated place in the world. My daddy did seven years. Nothing crazy. Me? I was in the army.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't know I crazy. Me, I was in the army. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't know I left. Yeah, these are all just facts. Yeah, you're married in Las Vegas. Yeah. But yeah, I think that's why I managed to get on that girl in Brooklyn's couch for three months. Like, definitely, eventually, it was, she did not want me there, but she couldn't say no to this cute little Australian boy. Charm is the only currency

they have here it's so far away a beer is 25 dollars it's like if it wasn't just the most fun i don't know if you could sell it on the world stage anything uh you want any seven more minutes anything you want to tell these people anything they should know about the the man known as jez white rice supreme uh i don't know i think we probably covered some good stuff uh what about uh how would you how do you think australian comedy could get better uh i could just be more american i guess um it's um well the festival circuit is so entrenched here where you guys do every city's festival for the first six months of the year, right? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

I mean, there's a few festivals in the back hop as well. Okay. Is that like in Edinburgh? Because my understanding of Edinburgh is if you're a UK comic and you do Edinburgh or an Irish comic or you live over there at all, then the rest of your year is just booked. If you have a good showing at Edinburgh, it's like, okay okay now here's all your shows for the rest of the year and then next year you come back and then if you do good again you get another round of bookings i would say that's less true here i mean it's just that it's that small market syndrome that there's just only so many spots to go around but like something if you win an award here at one of the festivals which that's the thing that's a big like reviewer culture

and award culture. Four stars, best newcomer. Yeah, if you get an award here, that really is going to bump your income for the rest of the year. And does that bump you by now you're on the panel shows, now you're on the TV talk shows? Maybe some TV stuff, but certainly some of the bigger promoters in here will have big shows.

Instead of doing some bar chef 50 bucks you might be doing a theater show for a thousand or fifteen hundred yeah um and there's a bunch of those around and they tour to like little cities and stuff as well like and who are these promoters like century that runs comedy store okay and like a list and a token that that like is very big in melbourne and they have their fingers in in Darwin and Perth and all these different cities. Yeah, they control it. I mean, that's the thing.

I've never... If you talk to anyone who has management here, they're always bitching about it, being like, oh, they took all this money. And it's like, yeah, but also you're, like, getting all these shows that you wouldn't have booked on your own. Right. And I think there's obviously a benefit to it.

Not that anyone's ever offered to represent me. But then if you have a bad like showing at the festivals then are you like boned for the year i don't think so i mean i think the festivals my experience with festivals is different right because i've never done like festival managed stuff i've never gotten any like industry heat but i sell our shows and i live off the money yeah which is my goal is to be able to do comedy all the time and have the money to be able to do that. So it's this thing of like, there's, you know, there's different ways to approach your career in comedy, of course. And different kinds of comedy you can be doing and different things you might be shooting for.

Like, some people are getting into comedy in order to be on TV. Right, for sure. Which I just love doing jokes and stuff so that's why i like to your friend um is it hair hey wang yeah yeah because she was just like i don't give a shit about any of this bullshit i just want to do stand-up yeah yeah but like but like people have been like she's been crushing it the last like year and a half yeah um she got on like australia's got talent a clip went like viral like 60 million views or whatever right um and so like that led to a bunch of other things and now she's getting

on tv and stuff but she doesn't care about tv it's just they offer her a bunch of money and it's gonna sell more tickets for her stand-up which she cares about yeah so it's like when she first started getting offered it with really good friends she was like oh i don't really want to do these things should i do them i'm like yes you should absolutely do them yeah because they're going to enable you to get what you want in other areas of the industry um but yeah i mean the back half of your year in australia is usually prepping for next year's festival so it's just so there's a lot of people cycle yeah a lot of people like september october november december like a different different cohorts of people

start to go fuck the festivals are gonna come up soon sure what's my new hour yeah and then like man every every gig in melbourne for the month before the comedy festival starts there is the worst show you've ever seen in your life. Oh, shit. Because it doesn't matter who's paid what money to see it. Every act is doing all new. Because they need it for their festival show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

But, I mean, that's the thing. I want to record my first special next year. I want to get this comedy musical ready, like, for the year after. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see how things go. I think you're in the driver's seat. Literally and figuratively. What were that sign that said stop, survive, revive?

Stop, revive, survive? Have a rest. Like, pull over. Have a nap. And then don't die on the road by falling asleep. Oh, it's like in the States when you're in Nevada, it's like drunk driving, 30 years in prison, you know? And then you cross over into Utah,

and it's like drowsy driving's dangerous driving. It's literally the state line where the Mormons control, and they're like, take a nap, everything's fine. And then you cross over in Nevada, and it's like's like you know just a fucking raining sin from the sky i saw an ad on like television in the states when i was over there like uh about 10 years ago and the whole advertisement was just uh it was just examples of people being nice to each other and at the end it just said be kind and it had no company yeah it had no like sign off of like here's the person that paid for it no it's just

an advertisement to be nice yeah and it's paid for by definitely a church yeah but i love that they didn't put their church name on it yeah yeah they had one of those during the super bowl and it was like one of the most talked about ads because no one could figure out who the fuck it was right it ended up just being like a fundamentalist church from Arizona yeah they don't believe in women's rights or anything yeah exactly be kind unless you know you need reproductive health you know what I can we'll wrap this up you know what I can't figure out is why like uh more American comedians don't try and come down here and like make this a more dominant market for them because like i think

most comics come down every like three years like if you're an american comic and then you like do it you blow it out you get your money and you leave it's like these are very good comedy crowds at least the ones that we had in uh sydney and then in newcastle like i do think australian crowds are tend to be really like respectful audience members but also they're also really engaged they're engaged they're also not like you can joke about whatever you want for the most part sure like i bet in like melbourne there's more like you know fucking uh people wearing sweaters like it might not be so open to some of the more irreverent shit that i'm into oh i actually think they'll be fine oh i think they will too because there's not like malevolence in what i'm doing exactly but like you know it's

like you go to brooklyn like some people get touchy about certain words you know yeah um and it's just like the crowds that we've had here have just been like so excited like this show at the comedy store in Sydney there's like 110 people there or whatever but still that was a hot ass fucking show yeah like that hour I could have just kept going if I was allowed to because they were so with it they were so comedy literate like it was just that was that was a good show, man. I could have put that one out, probably. I mean, I did record it in 4K, so we'll see. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to go through it with a fine tooth

and probably send it off to my man Patrick to get clips out of it. But, yeah. Okay, tell them where they can find you, Jez. Jezwatts.com. J-E-Z-W-A-T-T-S. Oh, yeah, Zed. Zed is so funny. We say Zed, yeah.

I also do a, let's call it an egg quotes, like weekly podcast with my fiancee Nicole. It's a veterinary medicine podcast that I'm silly on. Yeah. She explains about like different issues in pet health to me and I'm like an idiot she's getting frustrated with. They're only 10 minute episodes. It's the tiny vet podcast oh perfect and that instagram yeah i'm on all the socials jez watts comedy j-e-z-w-a-t-t-s yeah that's right thanks jez thank you