The Chaser Report - How Sami Shah Saved Christmas

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

For our final Afternoon Edition of the year, we call up our emergency mental support, Sami Shah. 2021 has been a long and upsetting year, and so Charles chats to Sami who brings out his new and optimistic way of looking at life. Sami reminds us that every turd has its beauty, and that includes 2021 - and Alan Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chase of Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Friday, the 17th of December. I'm Charles Firth, and joining me this afternoon is Sammy. Sammy, we're the last two left. This is so bizarre. How did we make it all the way to the end of 2021? And how come it's us? I would have thought that we're not the most robust people. Surely the young people would have stuck around and we would have died by now. Or they would have killed you, which is where I had my money. I've seen how Gabby looks at everyone.

I know that there's some murderous tendencies in there. Well, actually, we saw Gabby's first ever solo show last night. I saw on Twitter, and the reviews seem to basically be that Gabby has, even though we had very high expectations, has outdone all of them, and that this is probably one of the best shows of the year, if not the best show of the year. Well, Cam, basically, when, that is not only the best first show I've ever seen. That is the best show I've ever seen. And he worked at a comedy venue.

He worked at a comedy venue for years. Like, it was literally like, right, so why is this performing in front of 27 people when it really should be playing to packed stadiums? Like, it was just, because it was every, like, it was not only amazingly good comedy songs, all original, but also incredibly funny banter between each. I mean, I know I shouldn't sound. surprised. Like, we know Gabby his talent, but it's like, you fuck with how much more to, and it was sort of like, okay, and like, even half a tear is like, okay, well, you know, at some point

Gabby's going to, like, we're just going to be the footnote where it's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Guess what? I once, uh, I once actually worked with Gabby Bolt. And then I go, people were like, no, of course, something ridiculous. Well, I mean, it's, look, it's also one of those things where it's scary because I remember, what, 15 years ago or something when my first show I had done in Pakistan and it was a success. And I've basically been chasing that high ever since. Luckily, Gabby's got the talent and skill to make sure that this first show is just the first of a level that she just keeps one-upping. Because the alternative is that you just basically never live up to that standard. And I don't think Gabby's going to suffer from that. The thing is,

you know, 27 people saw it. That's just how it starts. She's going to come to Melbourne. She's going to do the Melbourne Comedy Festival. She's going to do the Sydney Comedy Festivals. And by the end of 2022, we will all be putting, has worked with Gabby Bolt on our posters. We will all be borrowing money from her. That's already part of my plan. That's my backup plan. So yes.

No, that's excellent. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. So unfortunately, we do have to go to a break before we actually start talking about whatever we're going to talk about. But we'll be back right after this. The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. So, Sammy, what are we going to talk about today? Well, there's a couple of things.

One is I've been taking time to take stock of 2021 and kind of looking back on the year that was and the lessons that it has imparted us. But I also feel before I do that, I do want to tell you that I, for the purposes of my own podcast, News Weekly, it's a new satire podcast. I do. I ended up doing a deep dive into Alan Jones's new. live streamed YouTube show and I watched four episodes

the Monday the Tuesday the Wednesday and Thursday and they're all two hours each and I watch them entirely

Sammy are you alright I feel like a war correspondent I feel like someone who spent time in the front lines in the trenches

being shot at seeing the worst that humanity has to offer and has come back now to tell the harrowing tale and this by the way

on the back of last week when I had to do a deep dive into Alex Jones, the American Alan Jones, and his podcast and live stream and everything as well for the purposes of journalism. So I'm really putting in the hours here. It is a remarkable show because he keeps referring to his show Alan Jones does as the first of its kind. It's just a YouTube show. It's just a man talking to the camera on YouTube. And for some reason, he keeps insisting it is the first of its kind in Australia.

Has it ever been done by an 80-year-old fuck-wit before? Because maybe that's what he means. You know what? Even that I know. I don't even think it's the first of its kind done by an 80-year-old fuck-wit named Alan Jones in Australia, probably. There's so much YouTube content out there. But what's remarkable about it is even though the fact that the numbers

that you can see of people watching it in live stream and after the fact as well are lower than my podcast. And my podcast is not a measure of success by any measure at all, by any metric. Thanks for your confirmation there, Charles. But it is so low. And yet he gets on in the second episode, he had Mark Latham. He has had Pauline Hansen. He has had Matt Canavan, who at one point he said,

wouldn't you like him to be the next prime minister of Australia? And he has had Tanya Plibersek. I think we might be seeing why his numbers are so long. Oh, like that least, except maybe Tanya. Why was Tanya on there? Not only was she on there, but they clearly have a great deal of respect for each other because Tanya was just, after he was done, even his commentators, all, both his viewers were in the comment section going, why the hell was she on here? And he addresses it. He goes, look, you've got to have voices from all sides.

Isn't she remarkable? She's so graceful. She's so eloquent. They clearly have a mutual appreciation society. Right. So, yeah. Yeah, but it's the greatest hits. It's climate change is a hoax.

He complains about, you know, COVID lockdown stuff. He complains about vaccine mandates. He also then complains about a bus in Sydney that's been rerouted. And he complains about the ferries, the manly ferries, not having windows that open. So it's very much old man yells at cloud energy. So, but, I mean, I don't think that there's many YouTubers who complain about the change in Sydney bus routes. So in that way, it is. It is the first of its kind.

Yes. Very true. Very, very true. But basically, yes, Alan Jones is now the friendly jordies of the aged care facilities. It's basically his next career. And my question is,

is he trying to seek an international audience? Because after the first show, John Delmenico sort of reported back. And he had a whole thing on American politics or something. Yes, yes. Is that part of his schick? is he trying or is he clearly is he going for the sydney bus route audience i don't quite understand

who did he want to view him so the first episode he did focus entirely largely on american politics he hasn't done that since then and it seems more australia focus now i think he's figuring it out you know like you've done you've done broadcasting you know where you take the first few episodes to figure out your voice and identity and at the age of 80 after something like 80 years of broadcasting behind him where he basically started broadcasting at birth he's now figuring out his new voice. And he keeps, the best part is he keeps telling throughout the episodes, he keeps telling the audience how easy it is to watch and how they can go on YouTube and they can click this

button, click that. He knows his audience. They are too old to know how to network this technology. If he keeps saying it's easy, they might stop believing it's easy. And then, of course, the live stream went dead for two hours. So maybe not that easy. Because I must say, like, I wouldn't trust anyone that I know over at the age of 60 to be able to, like literally watch a YouTube video.

Yes. It just doesn't happen. Yeah, absolutely. So probably what the numbers that he's getting is probably entirely just satirists looking for some good material. Basically, I mean, I know it's me, it's probably someone from your office, it's probably doing it, Dan Illich is probably doing it, Charlie Pickering's probably got someone on his team doing it.

And that's basically it. Yeah, that's it. Oh, well. Yeah, yeah. We should all say hi to each other in the comments forum. All right, so that's basically been where my deep dive has been going. But the thing I've been thinking about is 2021. And I was really trying to figure out where I sit on this year.

And what kind of, you know, every year, like, especially when you write these columns and stuff, you always have these columns where the people... Well, you've been writing a column for the shot, haven't you? That's right. Indeed. That's why I started doing this research into, you know, the year that was. And one of the things that's a mainstay of these columns is you go through a list of all the major things that happened.

And you try to draw a theme, a through line through them that shows that, okay, this is the thing that happened to Australia. And I was thinking on January 1st, we had a moment that we've all forgotten now, where our national anthem changed. It went from, we are young and free to we are one and free. I don't know if you even remember that. Yeah, I remember. It's the first time the national anthems changed since 1984.

And it was a minor change, one word change. But it couldn't have been at a more particular year when the question of our oneness as Australia was brought into debate, you know. Are we one country or are we several different states that don't like each other? Are we one country or are we the politicians and the citizenry? Are we one country or are we the rich and the poor?

Are we one country? Are we the people who believe in CRT and the people who don't believe in CRT? All of these things come into question this year, particularly. It's ironic that we say we're one in the year that we really, really questioned our oneness. But you, but this year is the year that you started liking Queensland. And so therein lies my conundrum because I love being cynical. You love me.

This is our stock and trade. You can't be an optimistic, hopeful satirist, right? Cynicism is our lifeblood. And so it's easy for me to be cynical and say, look at this. We are a country of waxers and anti-vaxxers. We are a country of, you know, Queensanders and Victorians and New South Walesians or whatever you call them, et cetera, et cetera. Or we are a country which did pull together once the vaccines did arrive

and have one of the highest vax rates, you know, fastest growing vaccination rates in the world and possibly one of the highest at this point. We are a country that even though we didn't have the good systems in place to make sure we all had money, even though we had systems in place that we'd make sure a lot of people in New South Wales, for example, Sydney's lockdown LGAs, there were people who were poor and starving and there were people who were rich and living on Bondi and having.

Instagram photos. We had all these things. We had people helping each other out. We did have go fund means and we had people donating money and food and charity organization, charity drives, and we've had outpourings of grief when they were suffering and outpouring to support when Peter Dutton decided to pursue someone and outpourings of caring when you would think that we would be more divided than ever before. We've got anti-vaxxers, but there are a minute enough population that even though they have a protest in Melbourne every week, we still have over 90% of the population double-vaxed. So maybe, maybe, and this is me being a little bit hopeful,

just before we are pulled apart by division in the lead-up to the next federal election, this might be a good time to pause and say we are more of a one country than we give credit to ourselves sometimes. And of course, at the federal election, we'll pull us all apart, and we'll hate each other again. But it's a moment to reflect and be grateful

as opposed to, I don't know, maybe I'm having a Christmas spirit moment. Well, look, I don't know whether I agree with it, Sammy, because I think we all came together to not like Western Australia. And Western Australia came together as themselves to agree that they don't like us. Which I think is fair. Yeah, and I think if that's the case, yeah, I think we are all united in thinking that Western Australians are fuck weirds. And then I think you're right, but I don't know, I don't know.

See, I can see you struggling. I can see you struggling with your own. innate citizen right now because I do and I and I was thinking I wrote my whole column and I was like we're all shit we're all going to burn it's all going to go to hell politicians are corrupt we all hate each other and you know nevertheless you know what it is Scott Morrison has united us against him everyone in the world everyone in Australia thinks he's a wanker exactly and we've all come together and gone yeah he is he there's two things I've discovered that for some reason unite us.

One is a loathing of Scott Morrison. Yes. And the other is support for Julian Assange, where you will find people across the political divides in Australia somehow coming together for Julian Assange. Julian Assange is the spirit of Christmas and Scott

Morrison is the wreaths that holds us all together, or at least waiting him is. We have these weird things that bring us together. But I just want to take this moment to go, you know what? Maybe we're not as divided as we think we are. Well, that is a,

it's a horrible thought, yeah. The Chaser report, less news, less often. I feel like I finally broke you with optimism of all the things I have to bring. Because there means that I'm supposed to like

people from the northern beaches of Sydney and stuff of that. I am open now to the idea of liking people from Queensland. And so there, you know, This is who I am. Look, I'm in my, you know, I'm in that phase of my life. It's that thing, when you've got nothing left to live for, you start finding things that make your life worth living. And so I find, yes, I'm in the kumbaya stage.

You sort of, it's that whole Buddhist thing where you don't actually want to change anything because you've learned to live with all the misery that life is. Exactly. There's a Buddhist style of meditation, right? Yeah. Which is very popular in Tibetan monks where basically, you meditate. on a flower for days, for days. And in that flower, you see its beauty and its imperfections. And then you meditate on, and this is, I've read this.

I don't know if anyone actually does it, on dog poo for days. And in the dog poo, you see its imperfections and its beauties. It's perfections. Yes. And so maybe when you meditate on Matt Canavan and you meditate on you and me, you can see the imperfections of Matt Canavan, but also. there's a beauty within that cold smudged weirdo. And then obviously you and I just feel beautiful.

So I don't know what the imperfections would be like. Well, we're just the flowers. Yeah, exactly. Okay, that's it. I like how everything I've ever said on this show, this is the one you struggled with the most. Well, it's also, you don't want to leave people with a happy thought going into Christmas. Yeah, that's very much.

Yeah, well, I mean, they've got family Christmases to look forward to it. They're going to be miserable. We don't want to, like, you're just going to destroy their whole mood if they're all optimistic. That's very, very true. You don't want to give them false promises. Here's what I can do. I can fuck up Christmas for everyone with one little thing. So I was asked by Comedy Republic here in Melbourne to write a nativity story for a Christmas pageant.

I don't know anything about nativity. I had to Google nativity story and nativity play and watch them on YouTube to learn the story. And in my research, I discovered something. that there are many parts of the church and historians and stuff who believe that there's a very distinct possibility that Mary, at the time of conception, was 12, and Joseph, when he was betrothed to Mary, was 90. So, can I that make your...

90? Yes. So, you know, here's it. If you worried that I made Christmas dinner, Christmas lunch, not awkward enough, bring that up just before the crackers are pulled and see what chaos ensues. My gift to you. What are you doing for Christmas Day?

So Christmas Day, my partner is going to New South Wales, so to be with her family, and my daughter is going to her mother, because of course, you know, I'm a man of multiple tragedies, to have Christmas with her mum. I'll go have Christmas breakfast with them, but then this is my plan.

Everyone thinks it's lonely and sad, but I think it's fucking awesome. I'm going to go to the cinema. I'm going to watch three movies back to back, And I'm going to have a giant Chinese dinner. Look, I see you raising your eyebrows, but it sounds amazing to me. I don't know why people keep judging this. No, no, that's, that's, you do you, you do you.

I'm an immigrant. I don't have family in Australia. What am I supposed to do? You should come up to Sydney. We'll host you. Actually, no, we'll be away. Yeah, you have Omicron. Yeah, I don't know about that.

Oh, fuck, yeah. We're going to, actually, what are we talking about? There's not going to be Christmas anyway. We're all going to be dead by Christmas. I know, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I'm not, no, I'm looking for it.

I'm going to watch Spider-Man. I'm going to watch Dune, and I'm going to watch something else to have not yet decided. Most probably Ghostbusters, the new Ghostbusters movie. And then we're going to have a giant Chinese restaurant dinner alone, and everyone's going to go look at how sad that is, but they won't realize it's heaven. Okay, well, on that note, I'm really sad for it. Well, next Christmas, we should come and, no, no, but you like what you, you like what you just described. You tell me, when you're sitting with your family members

and discussing whether or not, I hate them all. Exactly. And discussing how you all feel about vaccine mandates, you won't think about me and go, God damn, Sammy really had a point there. Well, maybe I'll come and join you and ruin your Christmas. I always welcome, Charles. Sammy Shah, thank you so much for such a great year of corresponding from,

we've been through the low light, and the even lower lights. It's just been wonderful. Indeed, we have. And you'll come back next to you, won't you? Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it, and I cannot wait. Thank you so much, Charles.

Thanks, Jay's team. And our gear is from Road Microphone. We're part of the A-Cast Creator Network. Do you have any final thoughts for the year? Or should we just sort of go out? Don't watch Alan Jones's podcast at all, for especially not every episode back-to-back. It does something to your brain,

and you end up becoming an optimist for some reason because you've stared at the darkest whole of humanity has to offer. It's a good wise tip from saying. It's a good way. Yeah. Merry Christmas one and all. See ya. Bye.