The Chaser Report - ARVO: Waisting Time with Sami Shah

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Sami Shah joins Gabbi and Charles for an Arvo Chat. Sami talks the news of the week, and asks why everyone is putting so much attention on the candidates' weight loss. Plus Charles gets in a few final jabs about Adelaide, of course. Be sure to buy ticket's to Sami's comedy show 'Unappreciated' or listen to his podcast 'News Weakly'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Friday the 18th of March and we are of course joined by our regular Friday afternoon guest, Sammy Shaw. I'm Gabby Bolt. Charles Perth is here and Sammy's here. Hi. Hello, everyone. Charles is enthused with life. That's the sound of someone in Adelaide, that kind of enthusiasm, right? Are you still in Adelaide, Charles? I'm still in Adelaide. No, my problem is that, so I'm doing a show down here, spin, you can still buy tickets to it. I've got two problems.

The first one is Adelaide has enormously good restaurants. Like just some of the best restaurants in Australia. Really? Are in downtown Adelaide, yeah. You wouldn't expect it, would you? Yeah. Because they're essentially, like, it's basically built on a desert. Like, it's like literally, and it's the laziest design of any city in the universe, right?

It's literally like God got to Adelaide and went, oh, I'm so bored. Okay, I'll just do a flat slab, right? And then we'll just divide it up in writing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect. Yeah, exactly. But, no, no, but there's just Shabot Show, Peel Street, Odgy, Osteria. There are just some amazing restaurants, right? But because I'm doing a show at night, I can't drink.

Oh, yeah. So I go to these lovely lunches And I have to be sober Right It's just horrible Never been sober through the day Life is not meant to be experienced sober It's terrible

I worry that maybe this is more of a critique Of your willpower rather than a critique of a restaurant Not having Or an admission of Charles Is burgeoning alcoholism Yes Yes The other major problem is that

The South Australian election are here tomorrow night. Yes. And our show is entirely about politics, right? It's called Spin. It's about the art of spin in politics, right? And for weeks now, we've been going, why the fuck is the final Saturday of our show

just completely underperforming in ticket sales? Like, every other show selling quite well. We're almost sold out tonight. We'll sell out by the end of the day. But the one tomorrow night Less than 100 people are coming And he's going, what the fuck is going on? And then I only realised this morning

It's because the elections tomorrow Yeah And like we're appealing to exactly the type of people Who are all going to go to daggy election parties Yeah, true, that's right They've got a better show at home They don't, yeah, they've got their own They're going to turn on ABC

And have a rollicking great time Don't you hate it when ABC is All right, so you're losing your Yeah, you're losing ticket sales to the national broadcaster. There's no shame in that. They've got a bigger market. Actually, I was going to say they have a bigger marketing budget, but having been at the ABC, I don't think that's true at all.

I think the ABC's marketing budget is the executive producer of whichever show just tweeting out, hey, we made a thing. I think it's quite poetic, really. I think, you know, it used to be that ABC helped you boost your ticket sales. And now it's like... Oh, no, I've never had that, by the way. I was, you know, I was a presenter on ABC radio. for two years.

And during those two years, as a presenter, I did a comedy festival show one of those years. And I saw a drop in ticket sales. Oh, shit. You had a drop in tickets. So a drop in tickets. Because I assumed people know me from radio. They'll come to my comedy festival show.

But I didn't realize that people hate me from radio. And as a result, less people will come to my comedy. I have done better professionally as a comedian after being kicked out of the ABC than I ever did what I was at the ABC. It would, though. It makes you edgy. Oh, that's what it is. It makes you like, it's edgy.

It's thought-provoking, you know? Like, why did you leave? Like, yeah, I think it's... There's no mystery there. I think it's too brown. It's also a bad time to address two people who've worked for ABC. Because I think Charles, for you, it's quite poetic as well because ABC definitely used to help you sell ticket sales.

And now it's like they're taking from the hand that fed them, you know? Like, it's a nice... It's a circle of life thing. It's fine. Do you think what we should do is just shift our show, like, just change our format tomorrow night and just put the ABC on the screen. Yeah.

Oh, and do live commentary to their life commentary. You just do live commentary on the election. Yeah, I would pay for that. Or you curate a whole new show based on a 50-50 guess of who won. And then you like announce who won at the end when people who are stuck in your show who don't have access to their phone and stuff.

But you know, you know why Stephen Marshall, who's the premier here? You know where he's going to lose tomorrow? Oh. Why? because he opened up South Australia like literally two days after Omicron was invented

and he's like and you're going yes of course you know like because I was talking to people last night he's like oh but it meant I could go and see my daughter in Sydney and you know I could do this and everything like that but the vast majority of Australians and Sammy you would attest to this right just if they want to if they see a border

they want it shut right they want it shut right they want it shut and they want you to just suffer right yeah and so and so like but any moron any moron who has done politics for five seconds would know that you just if you see a border regardless of whether you're liberal or labor you just shut it right you just shut it down that's the w a way approach to life yes see a border keep it shut all day long you'll have good luck yeah but about three like literally it was about three seconds before the election had to be called. Stephen Marshall opens up the border. He was the only state in the whole of the world to go from COVID zero to going, oh yeah, come in if you're infected. It doesn't really

matter. Like, what a fucking, I mean, like I totally, at some level, completely agree with his approach. No, no, look. As a philosophical level. Yeah. But what a moron. Yeah, as a human being, what he did was a decent thing, which is people haven't seen their families and they should be able to see the families. As an Australian, what he did was a stupid thing. because we hate families. We hate other human beings. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yes. Here's the thing. It's a good preview of the federal election. It's a good preview of some of the dialogue and discussion is going to happen. Has there been any body shaming? A big part of the federal election that we didn't anticipate was the whole body shaming aspect where the better your body is, the more embarrassing it is now.

I feel that's very Australian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fact that Anthony Albanese no longer looks. like he woke up on a couch covered in potato chips means it's working against him for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. Haven't quite cracked that one. Yeah. No, no, no. It is like, like Charles said, it's very Australian. We want you to look like our daggy dad who basically was probably a negligent father, maybe also, you know, slap you around a few times, maybe had beers for breakfast and maybe also things reading is for dorks and nerds. Like that's what we want a prime minister. Look at it. If you

Look at our last prime ministers. Malcolm Turnbull was at his most appealing when he put on a leather jacket. For some reason, Australians were like, he's not an educated man. He wears a leather jacket, like a bogan. And then they were like wheelboat for him. Tony Abbott just looks like basically every 96-year-old woman's wet dream of what a hot Aussie bloke looks like, which is just, you know, really old yet somehow has washboard abs and a giant package in a tight underwear.

That's all we've gone for. So if you were advising Anthony, have an easy semi would you be saying hey mate here's a 12 pack of donuts donuts donuts that have been dipped in beer yes yeah and you just be saying take them out with you make sure you you tug at least what you know look look there's been a lot of analysis around why bill shorton lost the last election and the thing people don't remember is there was a moment in the days leading up the election when bill shorten was given a hot dog to eat, and he ate it sideways.

He bit into it in a way that no human being has ever bitten into a hot dog before. And that showed that Bill Shorten is not used to eating shitty foods. I want a Prime Minister whose breakfast is a sausage sizzle from Bunnings, whose lunch is a six-pack of V-Bs, and whose dinner is a heart attack. And if I can't have that, then I don't want in Australia that gives me anything else. it's funny because you think image isn't that important that important to like an election like you don't think about it and you always think like oh it's like I call it like the superhero effect like when you watch Superman and you think why are all these people believing that this guy

who has eight washboard abs and like runs into a phone booth and oh my god he put on glasses I have no idea that that's Superman but then you look at it and you go Australia would fall for it 100% like yeah absolutely absolutely he tucked his shirt into his jeans and all of a sudden women are like, oh my God, he's so hot now. Oh my God, I saw it on Twitter. You ought to screw your eye. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's a bit concerning. The Chaser report. Less news. Less often. Although I just don't get why bodies are coming into it at all. Like, if you're going to judge people for their trash aspects, judge them to their trash thoughts rather than what's... You have to be a little happy that for once men's bodies are the central focus of

an election and they're being body shamed and body focused. And, you know, we're obsessing more over Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison's profile now than we are ever have over Chris Hemsworth or any Sophie Monk or anyone. Maybe. Do you think that maybe Anthony Albanyese slimmed down because he mistook the strategy, like he misunderstood the strategy of being a small target? Do you think that's a thing? Oh, this is the kind of wit and witticism that is.

resulting in low-ticket scenes for tomorrow night. I love high-concept humor. It's high-brow, Charles. That was good. That was really good. I do like the fact that they did everything right labor on every level that they, according to their strategy, they created a small target, they stayed out of the focus, they Anthony Albiniisie slimmed down, everything, everything possibly that they could have done.

And then a labor member dies tragically, which is a very shocking and sad thing. and it's completely derailed their entire strategy and now they're completely getting hammered in the press because the one thing they didn't factor in was people actually discussing their internal politics yeah well you never factor that in do you internal politics imagine if ABC discussed internal politics but what's the shock there right

everyone's like going this is horrifying it turns out the Labour Party's got a shit internal politics which political party has got a great culture of support and consideration every single political party in the world is known for being a cesspool of shitheads. Yeah, absolutely. I'd be willing to guess that, yeah, no, actually, you're right, isn't it?

Because the grains are notoriously bad as well. I'm just trying to think, like, presumably... You know what, I bet one nation's pretty fucking lovely. You know what? It would be hilarious if it turns out that Napoleon has a great culture inside. Pauline brings in coffees. Yeah, everyone with a grievance is allowed. There's an airing of grievances at the start of every work there.

No, they have a grievance jar, and they write them down. And they read them out and they burn them like a little, like, let's get rid of that negative feeling, you know. They had like leadership consultancy programs and they've gone on camps away to like, you know, build trust like we used to for school leadership team. Exactly. I mean, they do, she does have a lot of loyal. Malcolm Roberts seems to be still hanging around. So there must be something in the culture that keeps them there. Yeah.

If we're going to be racist, we're going to do it as a team. Yeah. We're going to do it together. That's right. We're racist, but we're not racist. We're not hateful towards each. though, we're hopeful towards other races and that's important. We're racist in the most conducive work environment possible.

I really like that idea. Our HR is brilliant. You will be heard in this party. Well, not if you're not white and straight, but you'll be heard. This is a safe space. And we hate safe spaces, but this is a safe space. Yes. A safe space to come together and discuss our hate of safe spaces.

It's pretty funny. I think I'm whipping up a sketch in my head now, I feel. Like, I reckon this is pretty fucking good content. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Might have to sign a waiver. Although, who's surprised to find out that there is a group of bullies in the Labour Party and Christina Kennedy is definitely a part of them? Like, I just want to be a point.

Just. What? Breaking news. Politicians bully. Yeah, fuck. Yeah, and it's so bad. Like, I realize, um, some. something really interesting whenever I hear Christina Caneli's talk is I used to be on breakfast

radio and people would text in sometimes and say they I hate Sammy Shaw's accent. It's grating and I hate it and I hate him. And I would be like, what an asshole. Why would you say such a thing? What a hurtful thing to say? And then whenever I hear Christina Caneli talk, I'm like, oh, I get it. You can actually hate someone based on their accent. And it is purely something that I feel it is an entirely internal hatred that arises within me. Whenever I hear the Aussie American accent which for some reason is the worst of both accents. Yes.

It's a horrible blend. You got to wonder how it comes around. I always think that about people who live a long time in America and then live here and they and you got to wonder how certain syllables warp. And then I reckon with Christina Canelia's case, it's probably like her A's are probably all very Aussie A's because half the time in Parliament she'd be spending going, hey! I reckon that's a shit joke.

I reckon that's a big change that has. happens to her and apparently I think the other big change that happens to her is now she's Asian enough to be you know representing Asian districts in Sydney so yeah those are the two big cultural changes that took place there fucking hell I forgot about that you know just a fleeting fleeting blissful moment you forgot about it's got it johansson of australian politics yeah no I did I forgot and then I remembered oh god not a good year not a good year so far where are you third month in fuck We still haven't even called the election yet.

That's the crazy thing. All of this is happening and the election hasn't been called yet. I feel like I'm going to be 36. I'm going to have two children by the time the election's called. 36. No one's that old, Gabby, you asshole. How dare you? 36 is an example of, I don't even remember back when I was 36.

That was a good year for me. I'm sorry, that was ages. You know where that wouldn't fly? Yeah, Pauline Hanson's one nation. They would have scored that shit out right away. They're like, that's offensive. Gabby, that's offensive. Please put a dollar in the swear job.

Sammy, how does Scott Morrison claw back from here? He's behind in the polls. What's the trick that he's going to pull out of the bag? In the end, it'll be, if he, look, if he does win the next election. I came into this big conference. Which he will. We know he will. We know he will, but also now I think it's his to lose and always has been his to lose.

But, you know, there one trick. he can always pull out, which is only, the only trick that ever works is somehow convincing boomers that they will be paying more money or losing more money under labor. And that's all he needs to do. In the end, they just haven't made it really good. I think they're holding back something, which will convince boomers that will just be, maybe it's just a Photoshop picture of Anthony Albanese helping a poor person, you know, something that we otherwise would never see.

And that's probably why they're so annoyed. that he's changed his body shape because they've got to redo all the photoshop. Oh, yeah, that's right, of course. Yes, that's it. They've prepped all the material. Oh, well, another happy, bright afternoon interview with Sammy Shah. I'm bringing the gold.

What do you want me to say? Queensland sucks? I've used up on my hack material at this point. I need new shit. Oh, we need to keep plugging. I keep forgetting to say, your shit you got on sammy oh i do have shit i've got on one is the i'm doing the melbourne international comedy festival and the sydney international comedy festival or sydney just called the comedy

are you doing the gala i am not doing the gala for either of those that i know if i had never been asked to do the gala nor shall i ever i don't know but no i'm not doing the gala which means i've got a ton of tickets that need buying still available um melbourne i'm doing a full run from the 24th of march no from 31st of march to 24th of april it's a hundred-seater every night. So I have over 2,000 tickets to sell, which means for fuck sake, please buy tickets. Please, God, please buy tickets. You know, even if you don't want to come, just buy tickets and throw them

on the ground. I don't care. Just buy tickets. Sydney, I'm going to be there. I can't know that the soul is still in the craft, Sammy. Yes. And I also have a news satire comedy podcast called News Weekly. That's W-E-A-K-L-Y. Very funny. And you should listen to that. Thank you very much. It's 15 minutes. It's the top headlines of the week,

and it's me punching the news in the headlines. Woo! Thank you. Good shit. Our gear is from road microphones, and we're a part of the A-Carras-creator network. And, Charles, you normally say this bit, but you're not here, so. Yeah, you can say it. Oh, okay, great. Bye.

Bye. Catch you next week.