The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - Eveapalooza

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

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Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.clom. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, you'll look, you'll find a way. Catamaran! Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Danielle. He sounds naked.

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I'm seeing how long you would be quiet for. I thought you would break. I'm respecting your boundaries. You've had a swim, you're in a good mood. Yeah, I did 10 laps. Eve Ellen Bergens here. Laps. She borrowed the key to the public-ish pool,

the moderately public pool. And I went down to go and swim with you because it was closing at 10. I thought it closed at 11. But I got there 10 minutes before 10 and the teenagers who work there said we close at 950 and I wanted to say look at the sign yeah I felt a lot of rage coming from you but as somebody who just swam I can't relate to it you know I'm a very zen this will be so welcome for the listeners to have Zen Eve, Eve Ellen Bogan, at Eve Elbow back on the pod, crushing, disabled, recently disabled.

I'm a peg leg. Yeah, I have a stress limp, which I've been talking about on stage. I haven't heard it. I haven't heard it put in those words before. Because I've been limping on stage and immediately I have to address it. I'm like, I have a limp.

It is a stress limp. And people look at it and I go, have you ever had a stress? And they're like, no. And then I'm like, but you've had your back seize up because you're stressed. Yes. But this is in that in leg form. It's that, well, my foot is fully numb. My right foot.

I mean, I can have some sensation, but some sensation was slowly returning. Yeah. It'll, it'll get there. All right. I've been journaling. I've been trying to get the pain out. I want people to know that I was ready to pay for neurological tests on the day that this occurred. Listen, I might still.

I didn't know that's what I was signing up for. I called you. You said, what did you say? What do you think you said? And I'll tell you what I think you said. I called you. So it went numb on Sunday-ish. Monday was fully numb. And then I called you.

Tuesday I had to take the day off work and I called you crying. Almost crying. I was very scared. I didn't think you sounded emotional at all. I want you to know that. You sounded strong. I was worried I had a brain tumor or MS because that's what my mother had and that's what my family said.

You could have, that's my father, you could have MS. It could be a tumor. I'm like, this is not comforting. Out of nowhere, having seen you a couple days earlier and you seemed fine, I got a call on Tuesday saying, my leg's numb, I need $500 for a neurological scan. I may have MS. And I remember saying, have you been to a GP?

You said, no, but this is the age my mother was when she developed MS and brain tumors. I said, oh yeah. I said, maybe we could go to a GP. You spoke with Jeremy at Black Rabbit. He's a doctor. He's a doctor. And he said, stress limp.

No, he said herniated disc. My birthday was Thursday before. I spoke to him on a Tuesday. And I've had like weird psychosomatic pain before, but like so real that you could never, you would never think that it could be anything except for an injury. I believe, I believe that I suffer from this also.

Yeah, it's very common. People go, oh, I injured my knee in high school 30 years ago. You think that you're still injured from 30 years ago? I've seen some of those high school football compilation videos and some of those collisions are nasty. Yes, that's true. High school football, I will give them that.

But they're like, ah, once when the wind blows west, I, my knee. I can feel the rain in my arthritis. Yeah, exactly. And so I, this was 10 years ago, it was so bad, I almost couldn't work. Was this on the leg? That was lower back, right, like bottom right

and all the way up and down the leg. When I lived in Korea in my 20s, I had chronic leg pain. I didn't know you had an Irish phase as well. An Irish, oh yeah, I lived in Ireland briefly in my early 20s. I did not know this. You were just so keen to get out of this sweet, beautiful country.

And then every time I live here, I end up in pain. You know, like I just, I was living in New York, I had chronic pain. My versions of this and I got sick all the time in Australia. Yeah, I'm sick. I think it's fair to say quite seldom now. I gesture at my wife. We were always sick. What did I develop? I did develop black clothes intolerance. I don't think I have psychosomatic diarrhea from having cake. You drank from a slutty goat or something like that, but Would anyone like a glass of wine? I'm okay. No

You don't want a glass of wine, honey My sweet wife off-microphone as ever refusing to be engaged for the pod I just noticed that there's a white wine that I opened it the day before I left Those are the last day that it's good. Those are the pod. I just noticed that there's a white wine that I opened the day before I left. It's probably the last day that it's good. Those are the pants. You look great. We went clothes shopping the other day.

And I think she looks fantastic. Isn't she beautiful? Isn't she love? She is beautiful. The leading James McCain conspiracy theory is I have no wife and it's a lie because I keep her off social media. I can see where that conspiracy theory comes in,

but you'd really have to engage, well, you'd have to engage both me and Ruby in the lie, but we are Jews. So there is that does the whole Jewish conspiracy. It's that classic book, The Jews and Their Lies. Yes. We'll be discussing it in the anti-Semitisms on the podcast today.

But with the thing, you got sick when we went to Chicago, we went to Zany's. I did, that was a serious... You were sick, but I think that the, like you had a lot of stress going on. The stress does make it worse. I noticed overall, like I was sick every third week

in Australia. And my back was constantly seizing up. I do have a bad back at the moment. But... It could be, I got a book for you. No, well this one, I think this is... I'm stretching my hamstrings. I have very tight hamstrings.

Yeah. And so I've been doing many stretches. Yeah. And people comment on the... I did some on the YouTube video, the last one, the visual one that went out, and people said, you're just doing it all wrong. And then they gave me... Everybody.

But everyone's comment was a different thing they thought it was. No one... They knew it worked for them, you know? That's the joy of a doctor, is he's not just going, I think you have what I have. It's not true either though. So, okay, can I tell you briefly the whole premise of the book that I'm into?

Tell me the premise of the book that you're into. Okay, so the book is, the guy's name is John Sarno, Dr. John Sarno, and he, like Howard Stern swears he saved his life, Larry David, Vince Vaughn, and Bancroft, like he, all these people had really bad chronic pain, like on his back. But basically the premise that he, like he died now, he was in his 90s, psychosomatic death. But basically he was a pain specialist, blah, blah, blah, back pain, this, that.

And he said no one was getting better. And what he really did was he was like, I'm gonna go to the hospital, I'm gonna go to the hospital. And he was like, I'm gonna go to the hospital. And he was like, I'm gonna go to the hospital. And he was like, I'm gonna go to the hospital. And he was like, I, blah, blah, blah, back pain, this, that, and he said no one was getting better. And what he realized is that people who had all this pain often had other types of, you

know, like, like a tendonitis thing or this and that, but also that they had a certain kind of personality, perfectionist, hard worker, conscientious, you know, all this carry it all on your back. But like basically you, yeah, sure metaphorically, but also that he said all of these things put pressure on us to be like good people, hardworking. And that he talks about like the subconscious mind and Freud and all this stuff. And that subconsciously, there's a lot of you've got to be liberated. There's a lot of work through your rage.

You got to shout your rage out. Well, there's a lot of anger and that when... I love you. Love you. Oh she's gone. Oh okay. You keep telling me this while I get a glass of wine. Okay. Basically when...

We all treat our rage in different ways. Yeah, James is drinking away that rage. But that basically when the rage is getting like greater and greater because life's pressures are more and more, and your mind finds these feelings really threatening because you're not supposed to express them, that your body kind of creates a diversion. So instead of quitting your job, you develop a bad back, and the bad back kind of keeps you

from focusing on the real problem or focusing on the real feelings. So that's the gist of it. So for me, I was journaling the other night, I was like, what am I stressed about? Well, my mother started to die at 41, as did my grandmother. I just turned 41.

I got the same symptom that my mom had when her tumor first kicked in, which was that she lost control of her foot. But in her case, it was like, yeah control of her foot. But, you know, in her case it was like, I don't think it was like mine. I think it was just she lost kind of neural motor function. I'll be lying down on this couch. Yeah, because you're in pain.

I'm sorry that those things happened to you. But just yeah, a lot of different things. Money, my dad's old, and my best friend James McCann isn't really here that much, you know, that's enraging. You know, what do I do? And then when we hang out, he gets drunk on white wine. I'm not here at all when I'm here. He just sips on old white wine and talks about the good old days. You know, I was, here's what I've done to try and get myself in a better mental state.

Yeah, tell me. I've begun reading legacy media. Like, so like what? The New York Times? Literally, the New Yorker magazine I bought in an airport today in Des Moines, Iowa. That's actually a pretty interesting magazine to flip through. Yes, I thought I'll read this cover to cover and I made about halfway on the flight. I had to, oh boy, I did have to skip a couple. The one about religious leaders being on hallucinogens, they did a study with religious leaders taking

hallucinogens. That's kind of fun. Yeah, I just, I mean, like, if you can believe it, everyone sort of believed afterwards a louder and more confident version of what they believed before, which is my, this is my skepticism of hallucinogens. So people go know takes you a so they get them the Muslim and the Muslims like oh why is real and he's close to me just like this verse in the Quran and the Catholic is like Jesus spoke to me our Lord spoke to me you go great and the Episcopalians like the Episcopalians like, the Episcopalians actually said something really funny.

What did he say? He said, because it is a valid theological point, but it's just funny that a Church of England, you know, lefty liberal, a guy who was reading Buddhism to get him closer to the Christian God, this type of guy. Right, okay. Was like, I felt like a woman. And he was like, I felt how masculine Christ's love was and that I was a woman. I felt how how masculine Christ's love was and that I was a woman. And we do believe the church is a woman, like the church is married to Christ.

This is it, but he was like, I think I had an orgasm. Did he say that? Yeah, he said it felt like an orgasm. He was like, it felt erotic. And it's like, yeah, this is in the book, Song of Songs, one of the great Jewish books of the Bible, is, you know, your nose is like the tower leaning towards Damascus. It's very intimate, sexual, erotic language. And that's one way to understand it.

But I just, I thought it was funny that it just seems to have doubled down on what people thought before. Anyway, I skipped through that one, because at some point I was like, where's this? There's a tone to The New Yorker. Yes, for sure. Where it's like, I'm not really, I don't have it. This is just the way things are. I mean, one of their sections is called Shouts and Murmurs. Which was written by Larry David this week. Was it? Yes. And it was, it was pretty good. It ended

strong. Right. He's definitely, I think a better, I mean, I don't want to be negative about Larry David, one of the great comic minds. You hate Jews, yeah. No, his delivery is really important for his work. Right, I get it. And he has an incredible gift of delivery. Right. And I think in text, when I'm reading it as Larry David, and this is something my poetry

self is from, when I'm reading it as Larry David, I go, oh, I get that, I can hear how he'd say that, this is very good. When I'm reading it, just words in sequence. You know, that seems a little flat. That's interesting because I think about, when I read your poems, I hear you, and that's part of what's so funny. But I guess I should try to read it just as some man.

As long as people are reading it, I don't mind. New book of poems coming out very soon. This quieting levels of egg. But that's funny, that's the second time Larry David was mentioned in this very short podcast. I was ready, that's why the ring went on this finger. Really? I was ready to work it back to Larry David.

Yeah, that's what I said. But I thought it would be better to let you talk about your dead mother. I didn't want to interrupt you. It's a comedy podcast. When I was, she was 41, she started experiencing, I go, shut up, you said Larry David? I've got something to say about Larry David.

I thought that would be wrong. Now, other things in the New Yorker. Yeah, tell me. And I thought this would be too boring a direction to take the podcast. So I'm not going to do this. OK. But maybe I just read magazines and tell people what was in them. And that's the podcast. This week, I read The Economist.

And it turns out tariffs are bad. Who could have guessed that they would take that opinion? There was one about the Sudanese civil war that I'm really enjoying. Which never seems to end. I mean, I read a book about it. They got a fresh new one. It's Arab on Arab now. Oh, god.

I remember reading What is the What, which is by David Eggers. What what? What is the what? But David Eggers. Yeah, David Eggers. But he wrote it on behalf of this guy. Oh, I forget his name. McSweeney's Eggers?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wrote it on me. He basically wrote the story of this guy who was a child who lived through the Sudanese Civil War. And I was like, I read that when I was in Portland, Oregon in 2009. That's the place to do it. That's the place. I bet that that is that where McSweeney's is based?

It feels. San Francisco. Really? That's where it was based. I don't know if it's still going I don't know either but I remember David Eggers is such an interesting person. I wish I could be more like David Eggers He's kind of he had a he had a mother die of cancer. Oh, that's true I read that book out and I bring work to staggering genius, which I started

It's a good I read the depiction of her on chemotherapy of the first two pages because I was looking for something like David Foster Wallace, but a little lighter and jolly not It's not light and it's not jolly. But he is light. I mean, McSweeney's is a pretty light, jolly. It's true, but that was not that book. No. But I did, I didn't make it through the beginning at first. And then I went back and read it and it was a good book.

And I really did like it, but he was, was that? She's like, she's like spitting into a plastic tub. But this time I was like, I bought it. And I was like, I'll a plastic tub at this time. I bought it and I was like, I'll read that. I bought it, I had it for like a year. I looked at it like, can't wait to read that one. I opened up the first page like, as she spat into the tub. I was like, nope.

Cause she had lung cancer, didn't she? Yeah, I just, I didn't have that in me at the time. It's funny, like I think there was a time in my life when I just felt like I had to read every book about the mother dying of cancer. Of course. I was like, oh, this is, oh, I like that. And now I'm like, I think I've read enough.

I should write one. What, what have you found there, honey? I'm sorry. That's my bed. Like a used one. That's almost certainly my bed. I'm trying to get better at not leaving them all in the house. I really am.

Well, you let me use your desk the other day for therapy because Because I- Oh no, there's a lot on the desk. Yeah, I stayed over here because, oh, I didn't say over, I stayed over somewhere else. You wait till you see my sink. Oh, I haven't seen the sink, upstairs? When it's time to brush the teeth, I have to get on top of the zines. Excuse me, I have to get on top of the zines.

Hold on, I want to tell you more of the things that were in the, there was some poetry that I didn't understand. Okay, oh. And I think that's probably very important for- I think it's good that you say you don't understand it. That's great. Well, I think it was written to be as I was reading it, I was like, there's a weird line break. Okay. There's a line break that doesn't have to be there. This is contemporary. Yeah. In the New Yorker. Yeah. So they're like, there's a line break.

It doesn't have to be, it doesn't make sense. And there's a word that everybody, there's just a word in there that everybody's going to have to look up. What's the word? I can't tell you, I'd have to look it up and I was on a flight with that one. But it's like, and it just, it read like, and maybe this is part of the poem, but it read like a dickhead writing wanker poems. And I say that as one of the earthiest poets working today, you know, really for the people. Then I read the next one, it was very similar and it was by a different person. It's like, well, they can't all be about that.

I guess this is just how people write poetry now. Yeah. Oh, honey. I love you. What's she doing? Is she going to put this together? She hit her foot and she had a little trip. Oh, are you okay? And she's been stepping on Lego because I bought Lego for the kids. Just be careful with the foot. You don't know what you have until you lose it. Do you know what Eve would give to walk into a table leg and feel it?

What I exactly would give to feel the pain of bumping my foot. What else was in there? Actually, your daughter did jump on my foot the other day because it was numb. So I let her and then the nanny got mad at her. She was like, I won't say her name, but she was like, hey, you know, and I was like, I can't feel a thing. It's fine. Anyway, what are you going to say? You're so good at standing up for yourself most of the time. But she was like, hey, and I was like, I can't feel a thing, it's fine.

Anyway, what were you gonna say? You're so good at standing up for yourself most of the time. It shows what a difficult position you're in now that you're left at that level. I just like your kids, you know? They're great kids. The one that I read and enjoyed reading start to finish. Yeah.

Oh, I'll say one more, because at the start, there's like, here's a bar, you know? Because it's still a very New York based magazine. So they go, here's a bar in New York you can go to. Here Here's a guy we did a profile on a guy doing a show in New York Yeah, and it sounded great. I was on the runway You're on the tarmac for ages in Des Moines I was like, oh look at me and they're like his beautiful blend of guitar and synthesizer takes folk music Do you blah blah blah blah blah and I started listening to it and sucked. Yeah, I've had that before where just like I

Forget who it was, a comic or something. I've read comics in like Vulture or this or that, you know, or New York or whatever. Within like a second, you know, this is shit. It's terrible, but they just want to, I think like there's just not a lot of, there's not, the review culture is not that big anymore because everybody reviews stuff. It's so easy. Yeah, exactly. Everybody reviews stuff and it's so easy just to go, you see the name of something, you go,

I'll listen to five seconds of that. You don't have to go to a record store and sift through it. I remember I was reviewing shows that were streaming on Netflix. And I thought I was writing good streaming reviews and it never took off and then I realized afterwards, if you're interested in a show on Netflix, you just watch a minute of it.

You don't need to read some dickhead's 800 words. Well, but I missed that a little. Like, do you know? Absolutely. Do you know who A.O. Scott is from the New York Times? I think we've. Talked about him, I think. Yes.

I think I've read it. He used to write great reviews. Now he works for the New York Review of Books, because he said that basically films have become shit. He didn't say that, but he was just. Well, I mean, there's so few of them, and they're so shit. Yes. But he was like the action, you know, the franchise, whatever.

But he was a great reviewer. Now, if you need to swap spots with me and lie down, would you be more comfortable? No, I'm actually not in pain. I'm just like adjusting. Okay, because I've gotten myself very comfortable. Yeah, isn't that crazy? I'm not in pain. My foot doesn't hurt. It's just I can't lift it up. I just can't. I can't. But drive here I decided that driving go-kart style two feet. Well, no, I'm only driving one foot But what I'm doing is it illegal to drive two feet and you don't want to admit that No, my grandfather used to drive with two feet and he was the worst driver ever known

he one time backed up on the highway and This is yeah, well, they're all Jewish my grandparents, but he was the only one who lived. But he ended up- From the camps? No, just from, like, all my grandparents died before I was born except for him. Grandpa Al. And he had a strong Yiddish accent. And he-

Would you do that for us now? He was like, it's hard for me to, hold on, I'll tell you what he did and then I'll try to do the accent. But he reversed on the highway and ended up going up on top of the median. Nice. So that his wheels were dangling over the accent. But he reversed on the highway and ended up going up on top of the median. So that his wheels were dangling over the thing. And then he was stuck and had to get a tow.

And then the cop came and gave him a ticket while he was getting towed. He was like, you can't reverse on a highway. You're not allowed to. That is wild. Yeah, but he would go, what, what? Well, we should go over, we should eat something. He said, oh, did you get the meat?

You know, he was a deli meat inspector in New York in like the 50s, and he used to take bribes in deli meat. I knew you'd like that. But also, what do you get? Well, you only need the bribe if it's off. Well, so I thought the same thing, but then someone was saying, because I said that, I was like, why would he want to eat bad meat? But apparently it was because you got to pay for all these like certifications

and whatever. So he would give them the certificate, right? Maybe rush the certification through for the pastrami. Exactly. I'm sure it was pastrami. By the way, I'm sorry. Um, to your people this week, for the Knicks losing. Oh, my people as in New York, not the Jews. I believe that's the Jews love the Knicks.

Because on the old Jewish men of New York Instagram page, they were devastated at the Knicks losing. Really? Yeah. I am in so much of the Jewish media, because I think I'm the only person I know, I could check, there's probably a couple other people, who are, because we lived near, well we went to Mass near a Jewish area in Melbourne,

in Lewisham. Oh in, what part of Melbourne? North of St. Kilda. Yeah, it's like Camberwell, not Camberwell, what's it called, what's the? Well Lewisham was the parish. No, but what's it called, the Jewish area, it's like, um, Camberwell. Not Camberwell. What's it called? What's the... Well, Lewisham was the parish. No, but what's it called?

The Jewish area. It's called Malvern. Malvern. Malvern was... Hold on, because there's the one... John Sefran is always talking about it. Because I used to have a joke about it. You must have met...

John Sefran must have cracked onto you at one point. No, I never met him. Really? You were a Jewish woman in Melbourne. Young, beautiful Jewish woman in Melbourne. Oh, thank you. At the time. Yeah.

Now I'm 41, only have a few years to live apparently. But the Jews news. Yeah. And I think people who believe that Jews are controlling things should read the Jews news of Melbourne and you get a much clearer, people are like, oh, they're secretive, they're back rooms.

No, no, just read the Jewish news. It's very open about the Jewish gender in Melbourne. If anyone has the mildest criticism of Jews or Israel, they come out, swing. Every second story they do is a successful apology they've managed to get out of somebody for saying something and I love that it's tightening it especially in Melbourne Sydney is more loosey-goosey secular Jewish people Melbourne the curls the ropes the hats not everybody some are fake Jews like comedians there that you call out sometimes discreetly and privately yes but not on the pod not on the but yes definitely at least one comic I knew who told me he was not Jewish

and then suddenly was doing Jewish material. He's got a Jewish name. And I was like, this, he said, he told, he lied. But- His father's side. Yeah, but I don't think, I think he was like my grandfather or something like that. You know what I mean?

My paternal grandfather. I mean, give me a break. These fucking Texas Jews. Oh, sorry. These freaking flippin' Texas Jews. No, I've relaxed. They're not swearing on the pod. Fuck.

The Texas Jews, I went to a Passover Seder here, I told you about, in April. You said they had heaps of money and not a lot of, they didn't know each other very well. No, it wasn't that. It was like somebody invited me, so I went. I never got to, good night. Good night, sweetie.

I never get to go to Jewish stuff, and it's nice to do some Jewish things, although, yeah, sometimes I'm like, this is, this is, well, basically what I'm not saying is that I met a guy there who sucked, and he was Jewish. That's fine, we can move on. We can move on. I'm not gonna go into any details. You don't want to disparage.

No, but. Speaking of Jewish related things. Can I say my last? Oh yes you can, but then I want to make my segue. Okay yeah, but basically, like I feel like I don't know so many Jewish things. I didn't grow up religious. But then these Texas Jews,

I was like they don't know shit. Like there's so many, they were reading from the Haggadah, which is like the prayer book for Passover. How was their pronunciation? It was terrible. Like, I was like, I can't believe, not even in Hebrew, but like just words that are so common for Passover.

I'm like, this is the most important holiday. This man is a putz. This man, yeah, he's a shmuck. He's a putz. He's, you know, he's poor. Okay, anyway, go ahead. Tell me the other thing you're gonna say. It's not as funny now. But I was gonna keep talking about things that I'd read in the New Yorker magazine. Okay. And one of them

was about control of the media. Yeah. So there was an easy way. But the it was about Jeff Bezos who put out the Washington Post. And you must remember the Washington Post as a young American. Young. I remember when he bought it. I remember when he bought it. But before then, it was like, you know, one of the papers of record. Yes. Yes. A real hard hitting journalism and all that business. And they go like when he bought it, he'd led that Trump resistance thing.

Yeah, because Trump was anti Amazon. And they detail in this article that when Biden gets in, the, I don't know if Biden was doing it, but people working for Biden, because I think Biden might've been out for lunch for most of that presidency. He was napping. No, he was napping.

He was napping, he was having to sleep, and a little bicycle ride. It's exhausting being president, so hard. I think, yes. Anyway, he was fighting some diseases at the time. He bought the Washington Post. He buys the Washington Post and then the, and he pushes for the Dems. He really attacks Trump during Trump's first term. And then the Dems get in and they start doing all this anti-trust stuff because they hate

big, you know, there's a segment of the party that doesn't like big business. And he turns, just Jeff Bezos, and he turns hard, and they start to swing in the other direction. And now they go like, now he's a jacked Trump boy. Oh, totally. New woman, corrupt, paying Melania a ridiculous amount of money for a documentary for her life story.

Jeff Bezos is? Yeah, someone is, I don't wanna get this wrong, because I don't have the article in front of me but like, she's gotten the most money anyone's ever got for a documentary about them and she's getting half the money. So it seems like that's a pretty easy way to buy influence and favor. That's the sort of thing I would know if I wasn't now part of the liberal elite reading New Yorker magazine. Is that what it's

called? The New Yorker? Yeah. I mean, it's probably the New Yorker magazine. But yeah, that's wild. But also it's like the only, I mean, all you need to do to get into like the president's pocket in this country is just give him money. That's it. It's just like buy a share. Genuinely, I mean, I don't think they make out that he's after money and he's all about money. I think you could probably give him a compliment and that would, if you're a high profile person who gave him a compliment, that would get you just as much. I think it would get you something for this,

a couple hours, couple days, you know, if you were like, this guy really gets it. You don't even have to say anything that means anything. This guy sees and then he go, yes, I do. We have different views on Trump, I think he wants to. You and I? I think so. What do you think he wants to do do save this country? I think you don't really believe that because I Yeah, I don't think you here's why I'm reading the liberal media liberal legacy media, right?

So you can feed information to the Trump party. No, I just Sort of yeah, but I thought it was You know like I'm always, I don't like any media. I don't like the conservative media. You know, I watch the, I try watching the Fox News and I feel like they think I'm an idiot. Like, I don't like watching all those gentlemen and those ladies have their, just like feeble, just like dunk on the libs nonsense. It's pointless.

It's boring. What's done, like it was fine, dunk on the libs. Trump's in power now. There's been a big swing the other way. The tech barons are all jumping into bed with him. The culture's totally moved. Like, I'm not saying don't, you know, have a rearguard action and take off some of the libs along the way, but like this is not the cultural struggle that it was a year ago. It's dull.

Yeah. And sometimes, like I was talking to a liberal friend of ours, a very far left liberal friend of ours. I can't imagine who that is. And they were saying like, the left was never in power culturally. I was like, what are you talking about? And you know what?

I didn't think that was true until you and I talked about it. Well, I'm glad to have won that one at least. I feel pretty confident about that. It doesn't mean that I, I mean, look, I- But I don't think they're there anymore. I would say that they're out there, but like that, whatever that monopolization on cultural,

you know, you get fired for saying the wrong thing. I was talking to someone. It's easy enough. It's easy enough. I was talking to someone. So again, I was talking to someone. Oh, yeah, it was a comic last night who's an actor. And like he gave up acting, but he was saying that like as an actor, just if you say one wrong thing in that world, it's like, you know, because everybody's so far left and so sensitive that it's like your politics kind of determine your career. Obviously once you become famous it's different but I was thinking about that because um

a lot more directors are right wing than actors I've found. Maybe big directors. Big directors. Yeah yeah people who can make their own decisions in show business tend to be right wing and then people who have to get picked for something tend to be left wing. And I think that's because you, oh, I've thought about this a lot, especially in Australia where it's all like you got to get picked for something. It's very hard to make your own way because there's less opportunity and there's less money floating about the country. So you want, oh, I've got an, oh, I've got so many things.

All right, I'll say this one. You're moving the range of the pinky now. Yes. I've got so many things to say. Forget everything that was boring. I'm sorry. This is great. So there was an article that came out in the Australian newspaper this week. Which newspaper? The Australian. It's called the Australian. And it's a big center right. Some people are going to be upset with me saying it's center right but it's like the Murdoch, what Murdoch believes. Is it his paper? It's his paper. Okay because he owns most Australian papers right? Boy does he. Yeah. Yeah a lot. But this is the only like national newspaper in

Australia. Okay. And it's uh I would say I mean like economically it's free market, Like economically it's free market, socially conservative but nuanced, you know, like let's not talk about abortion. Let's not talk about it. Yeah, yeah. But also in Australia people don't really seem to think about it that much. Yeah, but I think a big part of that is because the media is all owned by Murdoch and he's like, don't talk about it. But I agree.

And there's a bigger segment that as am I anyway, they wrote this story on right wing comedy in America, how right wing comedy is having a surge. Yeah. And they're like, why isn't this happening in Australia? And they talk to Daniel Muggleton, who's not a right winger. I love Daniel. And he put me forward to it, for it.

And I said I didn't want to be. Really? I didn't want to go on record about. Just because it's someone else's, she's writing it. I don't know her. Yeah, I guess it's not a video interview. It's a written interview. Yeah.

It's not like the Tim Dillon on CNN thing. I just don't. I've written for magazines and newspapers. They pick and choose. Yeah. You've got a narrative that you're going into it with and you just like, I'll take what I can. It, it, and she, it was good. The article ended up being pretty good. Right. So you could have done it. Ah, I didn't want to be involved. I didn't want to have that conversation because also I think there are things she wanted me to say about how Australia works and how America works. Right.

So she really wanted to talk to you. Pretty badly. She did want, she, she, she expressed, and she seemed like a very nice lady and she did express interest in talking to me about it. But I just could not see how it, like, you know, I don't think the mothership, and you can tell me I'm wrong cause you've seen it. I don't think the mothership, and you can tell me I'm wrong, because you've seen it.

I don't think it's a right wing club. I think that as far as comedy has been in the past, comedy was very left wing. I think that the mothership would appear far more right wing, but I don't think that that necessarily means it's right wing. I think that, do you know what I mean? I think that there's just, we're in Texas and people, and then the audiences who come here, they're Kil Tony people, they're Joe Rogan people. Absolutely.

Joe Rogan's, I mean, historically he wasn't particularly right. He's become much more so right center. I mean, he endorsed Trump. Yeah, no, he did. I mean, I think the culture has moved around him. Right, totally. So I think that the club is like right friendly. I don't think... Right, but I don't... This is what I would say. Right. I wouldn't call it a right wing. But there are big lefties, there are Democrat voters who get up there and do just as well. Who do you think, who's like a Democrat? I don't want to like, I don't, because I think some of them are people who don't talk about their politics or wouldn't say that, but I would say Ruby would get up there all the time.

Ruby's an anomaly though. I could list a bunch more people. Yeah, I mean Ruby's an anomaly in general. She found it anomalous to be there. Yes. And it's certainly in the minority. And I remember her getting up and going, well, her going, hi, you guys are fascists. Yes, she did.

Yeah, but I love that about her. Also, she could do that there and everyone was fine with that. Well the club was fine with it. It didn't mean that the audiences... I saw the audiences, the audiences liked her a lot. Sometimes. I remember seeing her... Yeah I mean I think you can call them fascists twice. Yes exactly. I remember that time I was like you called them fascists three times. But um... I think if I called, you know, if I went up at the comedy center and I said, you call me scum. Yeah, I could do it once.

Get a good laugh. Yeah, it's true. If I said it three times, he just hates us. Yeah, it's true. But she did do very well and they want to book her as much as she wants to. I don't think I don't think her politics were an impediment. This is all I would say is I don't think anyone's politics are an impediment to them. I would agree. I agree with that.

I think the sample size through Killtony people would skew right. But... I mean, I was on Killtony and they had booed the guy before me who said that he was Jewish. You know what I mean? Like when he said that he found out he was a part Jewish, people booed him. And that was it. But that was a Killtony crowd. That's because they free Palestine. They're very left. That's so not what it was. I mean, it-turning crowd. That's because they free Palestine. They're very left. That's so not what it was. I mean, it was also because they were so drunk that they were like, yeah, fuck the Jews and the blacks. You know, like they let it be known.

The points you're making are good and valid. Yeah. And I agree. But I just, I didn't, there's something. But I also agree with you. I don't think it's a right-wing club. No, I want to, it's a, I think it's an open club where a lot of right wing people are because everything else is close to them. Maybe. I mean, Stan isn't close to them. So they talked to, no, that's true.

Stan's very, Stan's been very nice to me. Yeah. But I think also a lot of people from New York and LA have moved here to get away from the New York LA progressive thing. But like, interview Susan Proven at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. LA have moved here to get away from the New York LA. Yes. Progressive thing. But like interview Susan Proven at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. And she goes, we don't have a political agenda. Yeah.

And the journalist goes, I can't. She goes, can you name one conservative you've had? Right. You know, in the 700,000 people who are buying tickets every year or whatever it is. Can you name one? She goes, you know, I can't off the top of my head, no. but maybe they don't want to do it. It's like, man, I must kill Sarah every year. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing is I'm not even like I'm left generally, but like it was, it's so annoying how the festival is. It's that called that arts, but you know,

they get like allocate funding and then you have a whole staff and the staff is made up of all these people who like have gross yeah and it honestly pet interests and grievances right and they have lists of people it's like you're talking about comedy it is sure it's subjective but there's also a objective and the objective part of it is are people laughing and that's how you seem so important. It's a big indicator of whether someone's fucking funny. And the fact that they would go, yes. I don't think we say the only metric.

Yes, seriously. But, and I get that like, fine, this person's like not as funny, but we want to be more inclusive or whatever. And I know that I'm sounding like I'm being such a dick. I get wanting to have different people. Yes, exactly. Like if you have people who are funny in the same way over and over again. Right. Yeah, but I would just say I mean I remember the French French clown glut and

Everyone's going to Get me started but every Australian I knew for a while was going. Yeah, man was too many It was too many. I wrote a poem about it. I wrote a poem. No, I keep having Yeah It was too many. I wrote a poem about it. I wrote a poem. No, I keep having, I keep having things I want to talk about. Yeah. Um, oh, but I can't remember. I mean, this was the main thing. It was too hard for me to express, but I can say it now. She was like, are you getting more opportunities in America? Can you go on record and just say there's more opportunities for a guy like you in America? And the answer to that is obviously yes. Just in the abstract,

it's yes. But I also, having gotten opportunities in America, I can see now that I was off, I did get some opportunities in Australia. Or I could have generated opportunities there. And I behaved in a way that was not conducive. I walked around saying out loud, I'm the best, you all suck. And if I didn't say that with my words, which I did,

I would have said it with my body language and I no longer believe that. You know, I would say one of the bit. No, but it's like there are ways to make yourself hard to work with. Yeah. And I started a lot of fights and I refused to have, much like my dear friend Eve,

I refused to have like rock solid. You know, I did, I did comedy for 15 years. I might've had 15 hours of comedy and no gold. Like nothing that, if I was on a cruise ship. Wow, thank you. No. Yeah, I get it. Something I would go with a 99.9% chance of accuracy if I'm on late

Drunk with the dumbest worst people in the world right I'm still gonna do a great job And there's nothing that can shake me yeah, I mean that takes so Long I do have some new stuff. I'm not saying You're gonna love it. Yeah, the fact that you're describing that as you got new stuff rather than old stuff That's been polished up. This is the thing. I feel like I love doing the news But here's my thing and this is what I'm going through right now because the 41 right if I told him 41 and I realized

That like you go through times in your life where you just don't really know who you are you know, I mean and I think that's been like the last few years. And I think it's because in my head, and this is all because of the foot that I've realized this, I think I was like preparing to die. Like my mother and my grandmother, I was like, my debt has piled up. I, you know, my furniture isn't what I want it to be. Like nothing is the way I want it to be.

And I got to like, I didn't realize that I was feeling this way. And then I turned 41 and my foot fucking seized up. And I was like, what is going on? And the symptom I have is the same symptoms my mom had. I'm like, what does this mean? And I think in my brain, it's like, this is it. This is the end.

And I'm like, it's not. And I realized that. And I'm like, so like, what do you actually want to talk about? Do you know what I mean? Because if you feel like you're under the gun and you're up against the wall, it's really hard to be like, what do I really feel? You're just like, what's funny?

Like it's a stress thing. But recently I've just been talking about like- If you take a minute. Say again. If you have some freedom and you get to take a minute to reflect. Yeah, and also I realized maybe I have time. Maybe I have time to work on stuff until it's good.

Maybe I'm not dying. Eve, that's great. I'd like to think you're not dying. It makes me happy to think that you're not dying. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. The only symptom I have is that my foot is numb. There's nothing else wrong with me.

I've also been thinking I'm dying. Yeah, everybody. I went to the doctor because I had this rash on my shoulder. Yeah. And he said, that's a fungus. Yeah, it's what I told you. It's tinia versa color. Right? Is that what he said?

It never went away. Is that what he said? It was not a good doctor and he didn't tell me what it was. I know what it is. It's a fungus that's related to your gut health. I can tell you that. Oh, I didn't know that. It's related to your gut health and there is a short term cure for it which is-

Wait, if I get rid of that, can I have milk again? That I can't tell you. I won't promise anything. But I just keep thinking it's cancer and they're gonna have to take my shoulder. No, it's not cancer. Is it the thing that, like, when you get a tan, it looks like little light spots?

Show me. Where are we looking? Show me where. There. Right here? There's really nothing there right now. Well, there's, oh, that, it was like the raised thing? Oh that's not tinea versa color.

But that's also, but what'd he say, is that just a wart? He said it was fungal. Cause look at my face, I have like, see that right there? No, I think, I've gotta go to a proper doctor. But that's not cancer. Cancer's dark, it has dark borders. I'm just worried it's cancer. No, no.

But I'm still worried I have cancer. It's like a white dry patch basically. Cancer or I'll have a heart attack or my back. Anyway, it's a lot to work through. Well the back, I got the book. I can tell you about the book. Healing Back Pain. I want that.

There's some horseshoe muscle where the sole lives. You mean your psoas? Maybe, yeah. But see, all this stuff, and this is what I realized from the back pain that I had 10 years ago that I'm relearning, is that people tell you all these reasons why you're like weak and dying. They're like, well, if you're sitting too long, your spine gets out of it. Or if you stand up.

I keep thinking it's because I'm too fat. And then I think I know monstrously fat people who are fine. Exactly. I'm getting some wine. Yeah, go get wine. And so basically in the book, and also watching this guy's lectures and whatever, he's like, we evolved from like crazy animals

who slept on rocks. Like, we're not like, I have to sit at this perfect angle on only soft cushions with an S curve in my chair and I have to get, you know, it's like, it's all made up stuff to try to explain something that we don't understand, which is that our fucking minds have a huge impact on our bodies. And nobody wants to acknowledge it because it may mean that we actually have

to try to be happy or deal with our feelings, you know? And I'm happy to see you drinking this wine because that's how that's me dealing with my that's my good friend. Do you know what, though? It's like you have a coping mechanism. And even if how fucking do you fucking come into my ass? But when I was on Keltoni, he asked me, he's like, you get anxiety. How fucking did you fucking come into my ass? God! When I was on Kill Tony, he asked me,

he was like, you get anxiety? I said, yeah. He goes, what's your coping mechanism? And I was like. Get a bad hiccup. Yeah, exactly, cause I had my bangs weird. But the truth is I was like, I don't really have one. But then I realized now I'm like,

and then so I was reading tonight at the pool where you showed up and they were closing. But before you got there, I was reading how your pain or your numbness or whatever it is becomes the coping mechanism It's like how your oh is dealing with stress. So important to have a couple of drinkies for me. Yeah Well, I wish I fucking drank also. I'm pumping nicotine into my skull at all times. That's great Yeah I see a more relaxing future for me one day. Me too, and now that you're buying my MRI, you know?

I'm so glad you don't need that. Listen, I might, but I think I'm gonna get it in New York. In New York I have insurance. You don't need it. Oh, it's all... I gotta tell you, it was so comforting to call you and I was crying, or I was almost crying. And you were like, whatever it is, we'll do it.

I'll fang you $500, you said. Yeah, I don't think fang is an expression here in America. No, but I know what it is. And it was crazy how much that alleviated my fear of imminent death. Do you know what I mean? You just feel like the walls are closing in and then somebody's like, I got you.

And I was like, thank God. But yeah. I mean? When you just feel like the walls are closing in and then somebody's like, I got you. And I was like, thank God. But I mean, financially things have, it is nice to be in a position where if something goes wrong for yourself or a friend or a family member, you can, like, I'm not, I'm not at the point where I can get us a car that works. Yeah. Really? Well, I could get a car that works. You could get a better car.

I mean, I love your car. No, you're right. You're right. It's totally get it fixed. I could get the doors fixed. None of the doors work. And I haven't paid taxes for last year. But you're saving for them. I've got the money now, I think, to pay the taxes. But then I have to pay taxes on next year. And I have to pay Australia taxes.

Oh my God. Even though I didn't make a lot, I have to pay off my student loans because they ask, how much did you make in America? And then I have to pay it. That's wild. The US can't keep track of stuff like that overseas. So I've never paid American taxes when I lived overseas ever bang, but also I never made you have to make more than 90 grand Overseas like equivalent in order to pay taxes in the US whereas Australia. I don't think is like that Now I just take everything I can the grubs. I don't really know how it works, but it's it's just like it's starting to I can see I'm This was my last weekend for a while opening for Shane, and I'm not doing it as much moving forward

because I've got headline, I'm doing my own, he's been so good to me, and so financially good for me for giving me work, and helping me find an audience that I get to go and headline now. But now it's like, you know, and they're letting me headline one night in the middle of the week. And I've sold them out.

So we've had, you know, the next, the first two sold out, the next one sold out and Cincinnati looks like it's going to sell out as well. The first two meeting in Des Moines and Omaha? No, sorry. The first ones were Portland and Seattle. Great. Both sold out ahead of time. And Philly, we've already sold one out, we added an extra.

So like we're doing midweek shows and we're adding extra ones and that's great. And it needs to, and I talk with the agent, my sweet agent, and he's like, yeah, if you sell them out ahead of time and then we add extra shows and they sell out, we can move you to weekends. And then you can sell those, you know, and then you add extra shows and then you do six shows a weekend. And then you do five shows, exactly. And then it's a theater and then it's like a theater on a Thursday and a Friday and a Saturday. And then you got to go. And it's like just an endless thing of,

until you get back to where I've been opening for Shane. And even then, Shane is at the top. Yeah. Shane's doing arenas. Five comedians ever, I think, have done arenas. Really? Arenas in the round. It's so... It's like him, Louis, who else? So Louis did a couple in Madison Square Garden in New York, but Shane will go to... We just got back from Des Moines. He had 20,000 people in a city of under a million people show up.

It's nuts. I mean, I know Steve Martin used to do like stadiums. He would do football. So that's arenas. Steve Martin did football stadiums. And Shane's now moving to football. Shane is, I think, the first person since Steve Martin. Is that true?

That I'm aware of. That's crazy. Who's gone up to stadiums. I didn't realize that. I thought that like, because I just don't keep track of like that kind of stuff. I didn't realize that Shane was beating all these. I knew he was like mega famous.

He breaks the attendance record at every place he goes just about. Wow. It's huge. And it's so, he works so hard and it's so deserved. And I see that and it's like, what do I have to do to get there? It's so much.

Would you want that? Would you? Or do I have to do to get there? It's so much. Would you want that? Would you? Or do you? Here's the thing Eve. Yeah. They're great. Yeah. Anyone who's saying that comedy in an arena you can't do it. You can. You can. Yeah. Because once they put it in the round. Yeah. They're as close to you as a normal theater. It's not like being in a stadium anymore, because people got little stadiums, that's 8,000 and they're on one end of it. And then that's not great because the audience is way, like you're on one side of a stadium and they're on the other one.

Once you're in the middle, everyone is reasonably close to the stage. And you can riff with people and you can see a lot of people and people feel like they're close to you and it's and the laugh comes at you. It's like a wave. Well, wave is unidirectional. So on stage. Wow. It's like being in a storm. Right. And that's cool. So like, I would never say no to getting that. Yeah. I'll take whatever I get. This is a weird thing about comedy where it's like, you go through the levels and it's like,

I want success, money, fuck success and money. I wanted to stand up for an hour to that many people. Like that's a good feeling. Like I remember starting out, what really broke me and started me writing set, you know, I'm going to have five minutes I can do anywhere. I couldn't do another 12 comedians and one guy who barely speaks English who's a backpacker who's there by accident in a basement on a Tuesday. I couldn't. Yeah, I get it.

I have to do it sometimes and I'm like, I don't even, it's not that I have to, because I could just not do it, then I'm just not doing it. It's not like I am like, oh, I'm slumming. I'm just like, this is what is available. It's what's available right now. And it's like, what do I have to give them

to break through the next door? And And it's like, what do I have to give them to break through the next door? And now it's like, I would love, like doing a comedy club is better than what I was doing before, which is like, can we get a bookstore? Can we get a bar? Will someone let me do their living room? Right.

Let me come to town. Backyard, yeah. I always did want to do a back yard. Backyards are funner. But a good comedy, a full comedy club feels way better than a half full comedy club. Yeah, of course. So it's. And then an arena would feel or it would feel better than a theater.

I mean, I guess the reason I say would you want that is not so much about the show. Because I would just think it's about because you're with Shane all the time and people come up to him and all this stuff. Oh, no. See, this is the other thing. The fame of it. Not at all. You don't want that. No, because because Oh no, see this is the other thing. The fame of it, not at all. You don't want that. No. Yeah, because we were talking about

at the mall the other day. Oh, that was quite nice. But then when your daughter started crying. Oh yeah, then I felt bad that people could see it. Can I say what you said and why she cried? I don't remember. You were talking about, like you were like, if I ever got really famous, I would just like,

like change my appearance. I would, yeah. And shave my head or whatever. And she's six and she heard you say that and she burst into tears. She did. She's like, I don't want him to shave his beard. Yeah. Well, that was so cute. That was my, that's my plan is to dye my hair and have a weird beard. Yeah. It's too late for me now. What I should have done starting out is done comedy in a mask or with fake teeth or weird glasses or something. Or you could have been like Duncan Trussell with like a giant beard and then you get rid

of it and like long hair. But there are definitely things I can do to radically alter my appearance when it's time for me to disappear. Listen, you do stuff that sometimes I see you and I go, oh, and I don't recognize you. I mean, I recognize you. It's happened several times at the club where people go, hey man, you can't, oh! Yeah, James!

So I think that you're good at being a chameleon. I have no face. All my features are very small. That's not true. Look at my eyes. Your eyes are quite small. Look at my nose. It is also small.

Look at my mouth. Oh my God, you're right. I've never known it. You're just a beard and some brows. I mean, little ears. Tiny, petite ears. Little ears. Little bitty ears.

Big head, small, everything on the head. I don't know why. It's funny, I never noticed that. I'm Irish. I, yeah, the fame thing is very strange with stand up because it's like, if you're gonna be like a super successful comic Yeah, unless you're Mike Pabiglia, although he does get recognized. I'm sure but like for a long time I don't think he would have like you're gonna get recognized unless you're Mike Pabiglia

very specific He's there's just an article about him in some magazine about how, like, why he's not more famous. Like, he's so respected. Which is a work. Say again, you don't like his work? No, no, I mean, it's, I've really enjoyed Mike Bibbidi's work. But it's like, it's niche and it's not especially clipable.

And you sit with him in it for like an hour of him exploring something. But Mike Bibbidi's comedy does not strike me as the most TikTok friendly performance. It's long form. Yeah. I saw him in New York at the Cherry Lane Theater, which is like a tiny theater that you would really like

in 2015, 14 when I was living there. And I was like, you know, when I moved back from Korea before I moved to Australia and I was really broke and I saw that there were $40 tickets or something so I bought myself a ticket and I was sad and alone, it was snowing. And I remember I loved it and afterwards I took myself out for sushi and made notes

about what made him a good performer. I did the same thing with weirdly, I'll let you do your story, I did it with Dmitri Martin. I listened to Dmitri, but I went through joke by joke and I was like, how does a joke work? Where's the turn? What is the, for every word of it, what is the audience's perception

of what's being explained to them? Because he's a great joke writer. And I don't do that now. No, I never even think about it. But I think it's important to go like, again, we had this conversation about introducing yourself to the audience and starting for the first 15 seconds. Yes, we had an argument about it.

We did. But only because I did so much, I couldn't believe that everybody, when they introduced, like when it's the first time, before a person is famous, everybody is doing some version of hello, nice to meet you. Yeah, yours was I'm fat and I'm poor. I was doing fat and poor for a long time. Mine was always like a Jew thing,

or like a New York thing, and I realized like, I don't really wanna do Jew stuff that much right now, because I'm kind of bored of it, and I also, I can't remember if I found an old journal or so I think I like saw an old email, but it was like it's I've been doing horny Jew since I started doing stand-up pretty much Like I'm just shit the horny Jew. Yeah, I'm just like, okay now now it's stress limp, you know, but I've also been doing stuff about like moving here from New York and saying the word, you know, that I live in Texas. Retarded.

Retarded. But I haven't done that recently because stress limp really takes over. Stress limps killin'? Stress limps is doing well, but the other night, you know, there's also like a dirty part of it too, because I talk about what stressed me out. This is sex. Yeah, it was the sex that broke the camel's back. It was just sex and then...

The sex that broke the camel's back is very funny. Do you say that on stage? No, I say something way dirtier that I won't say on your podcast because you wouldn't want me to. I wouldn't mind, but you don't want to give that joke away. You've got to keep working on that joke and say it on Fallon. Yeah, that one they're not going to let me say on Fallon. Eve.

Yeah. I watched Late night. Right. Last week. Yeah. I was sad. Were you watching, who you watching? I was flicking between them. Between Fallon and Colbert. Fallon, Colbert, Kimmel. Because you have a thing with Kimmel because Amos's girlfriend works for Kimmel. I have, she's so funny. The girlfriend? Yeah. Yeah. So I went to stay there. Isn't she German or something?

I always do her with a German accent. Her dad's got a German accent. Oh, but she's not. It's extremely mild. Do you use my German accent? Where you're like, hello, it's so good to see you. Let's find out. No, I think, I do more like this.

You do like your Hitler, Kanye West accent. Somewhere between like Valley, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I go, oh, you work for Jimmy Kimmel. That's great. And she goes, yeah, it's a real dream. She's like says it. She's always wanted to work in television.

Yeah. But it's very hard to tell when she's kidding and she's not. So she's being sincere when she says that. Okay, well then I, it's cause I then say as a joke. Yeah. Well, can you get, do you think Jimmy would like to have me on? And she said, oh it would be the greatest happiness of our lives, you will come tomorrow

and sit on the chair and you'll talk to Jimmy. And I said, alright let's do it. And then I, you know I wake up the next morning and she's gone, she's at work. And I hang out with Amos all day and then in the evening she comes back and I go, You never let me know about going on with Jimmy. She said, We were all so sad that you didn't show up. We had to have Gwyneth Paltrow instead. She's so funny. That's really funny funny but does she have any accent like

that at all and not really not really but where did she grow up very much oh no but I will continue doing Annika with an accent as long as I do leave that's so funny I think she's great. Yeah, that's so funny. And it's also funny that she's like, we had to get Gwyneth Paltrow. You're like, I guess I'll just go fuck myself. The beats of what she said was magical.

And then that night I was extremely, and people can listen to the podcast. I think I did a podcast two days later where I describe all of this. This is an old podcast because I had food poisoning. Oh my God, from the government milk. No, this was another bout of food, I just get food poisoning, I'm very queasy.

And they were living in this terrible, like two, three story, medium density housing. Right, in LA. In LA, nearest the airport, but it was like all of, like YouTube's studios. Right. The headquarters for YouTube, where they, you know. You have like the depressing part of LA.

All these people who have been fired from, because AI can do the job. But all the people, like content check and whatever, people, you know, working on the, anyway, people who work at YouTube and like all their coders and they all live in this like big medium density thing, people who work at YouTube and like all their coders and they all live in this like big medium density Think people who work in shitty LA stuff and I got food poisoning. I like I stumbled around Their complex because I didn't want to vomit in the house They're in a they were in a they were in a studio and I was on the couch and their bed was in the corner And I didn't want to go to the bathroom about so I said give me a bag I'm gonna go for a walk and I thought I'll somewhere private. And I just like was hurling my guts out

into this plastic bag and seeing the lights pop on. Because there's so many people and it's shitty thin doors and windows. I woke up, I think hundreds of people stumbling around. I'm a really loud vomiter. That doesn't surprise me at all. When was that? That was my first time in America.

That was two years ago. That was when I saw you in New York. Yeah. That was just after I saw you in New York. I went to LA. Blame me. No, no. They didn't have it at the start.

We went and got really good pizza on Staten Island. It was a joy. Yeah. It was really fun. It was such a joy. We got to know each other. I heard a woman with a Staten Island. It was a joy. Yeah, that was really fun. It was such a joy. We got to know each other. And I heard a woman with a Staten Island accent. Yeah. And I found it very erotic.

Just the trashiest people. Yeah, I love it. It was so funny. We really like. Topping's over there. Yeah, yeah, the cheese is over there. Like I can't even do it. Cheese over there.

Yeah, like I guess I just. I'm having a full freak out at that point. Go like, oh, there's things that you can put on the cheese. Why, you never had pizza before? And I remember being like, he's Australian. That's kind of the same as being retarded. Like, I mean, but I wouldn't have said that back then. I wouldn't have said retarded.

Cause I was living in New York and I wouldn't say a thing like that. I'm sorry to have cut you off. I just, that memory really, I can picture that shitty pizza place, great pizza, shitty place. I remember it, it was on a hill. It was on a hill and I remember a pair of Birkenstocks I wanted to buy but they weren't

in my size at a factory outlet. We went to, it was like either a Nordstrom rack or something like that when we got off the ferry and you bought a shirt. Oh it would have been, I haven't put together what, because now I've been here longer, I've been to Nordstrom so many times. Yeah, that was like a Nordstrom rack or something. I just thought, what is this incredible store

with this incredible, the best brands at low prices in almost no sizes? This is incredible, is all of America like this? And now I can put a name to it Nordstrom Rat. Yeah, it's like the overflow from Nordstrom. Oh my goodness, what a funny hyperlink to the past. Well, once you become like ingratiated into a culture, you know what I mean?

It's like, oh. I see it all now. Yeah, that's like how I was with Australia. Cause I first, I mean, well, the first time I went to Australia was 18 and I was like, you know, from Sydney to Cairns and then I flew to Alice Springs and was in Northern Charters.

I've never been to the North. Beautiful, I mean, I've never seen people as homeless and sad. Yeah, I've watched the news and I'm aware that there's an issue. I mean, now in the US, you see that? Because back then, the US was not like that, now it is. That's terrifying that the Rust Belt

is now at aboriginal levels. Not even the Rust Belt, fucking 6th Street in Austin. Yeah, we gotta do something about that. I was explaining to somebody who's not here, they were like, what's it like? I was like, well, sometimes you walk around and see somebody who's homeless and asleep and they have a shit

partially coming out of their butthole. I'm like, yeah, sixth street, man. Sixth street, where you can poop on your side and you don't even have to do the work. It's just your body takes care of it for you. The brown line. Exactly. Brown lines coming out of the tunnel.

It's just crazy. The ice turning. It's crazy. The amount of just like pure homeless that like you see that is now commonplace. I mean, it's yeah, something should be, um, Yeah. Oh, we should elect Donald Trump. He'll stop the,

Well, he, I'll say this because he... I think to some extent you have to judge a political candidate by what they say, and then you have to punish them if they don't do it. Yeah. So, first time around there wasn't as big a homelessness crisis, and I think COVID, by all accounts that I've heard, COVID has really amped up the homelessness crisis.

Trump talked about homelessness and wanting to fix it. Right. Now, how genuine he was about that, I don't know. I doubt it. But he stood on the stump. I remember because I watched some of it because it was when Amos went to, it was the one he went to in Brooklyn. Yeah, and the one in the Bronx. Sorry, in the Bronx. Yeah. And which, by the way, so funny. That he went to the Bronx? The more I know about America, the more I go, Trump going to the Bronx the more I know about America the more I go Trump going to the Bronx is pretty insane him he might not have been to the

Bronx aside from going to a baseball game no he was a slumlord landlord I mean in the Bronx though no in Queens but I guarantee that he would have been he would have yeah people would all New Yorkers yeah but I was born in the Bronx he said we've got to do something. Oh, come on. You know that, no? In the suburbs of the Bronx. I was born in the Bronx. I was born in Albert Einstein Hospital in the Bronx.

Yeah, you got straight in the cab and drove north. We didn't... This is like saying, the Pope is from the south side of Chicago. I'm saying, I came into this world in the Bronx. I mean, I came up in the western suburbs of Adelaide, but I wouldn't let anybody know that. I don't say I'm from I came into this world in the Bronx. I mean, I came up in the western suburbs of Adelaide, but I wouldn't let anybody know that. I don't say I'm from the Bronx. I say I'm from White Plains.

You were born in the Bronx. I was born in the Bronx at Albert Einstein Hospital. Doesn't look like if somebody says I was born in the UK. I'm not having to go about it. Oh my God, you're not having, how dare you? But Trump said, he said something like, we gotta do something about these homeless. And you see these homeless out there?

Gas them is what he meant. I think he was saying bring back sanatoriums. But you know what? I really agree with. Yeah, it's crazy that it's like, it's anti, like it totally makes sense. But like on the left it's like, that's not humanitarian. It's like, it is humanitarian. Well the left is in such a pickle on homelessness where like I don't think correct me if I'm wrong

Anybody listening? I don't think Kamala mentioned homelessness. I don't yeah I don't think that fit with their narrative because she had to go. We're on the right track Well, she's a California person. They have the worst homelessness in the country Yeah, but you know But part of that is because the whole country flocks to California because they you know, there's no winter really It's one of the best places to be homeless. You'd have to think of course that is because the whole country flocks to California because there's no winter really. It's one of the best places to be homeless, you'd have to think.

Yeah, of course. I know somebody, one of my relatives actually, who went to California to be homeless. He's no longer homeless. But he was a kid. He wanted to leave. Hence Austin. Yeah, people come here, it's the same thing.

These kids are learning the Connect Four. Get away from them. Yeah, that's a Connect Four chip on the floor here. We got that for us. Well, I wanted the kids to be able to play as well, but I wanted to play against Taylor. Did you get to? She's wily but I the left had nothing to say about I did be I crushed you every single time is really humiliating She did me though. Did she? Good for her. She's so smart Your wife. Yeah, she keeps that on the down low. It's not it's not kept it's

not low it's like so apparent. Well how when did you you figure it out after Ruby you'd known Tay for a while. I also didn't really know Tay that well yeah because she was such a good friend of Ruby. Nah you met Tay you knew Tay for like seven months before. I knew Tay but only now are we like closer yeah I would say. She's a real, she's a real smitey. Yeah, we'll talk on the phone now sometimes. We talked the other day. I'm happy to hear that. Yeah, I love her.

She's great. Let's normalize this friendship. What, me and the- Rerad it through the wife. Yeah, exactly. It's wrong for a man and a woman. To be friends. The homeless thing, I said to my friend,

I voice note my friend who lives in the UK, my friend Hannah who you talked about and I was like I think I was voicing her on the way to work and I got to this intersection at the end of the highway. I'm just absolutely confirming that you are being recorded. I haven't, I can't set the time. Wouldn't that be such a bummer. No no we're going. Oh yeah. But uh, my friend. Woo! Yeah we're going. Sorry. Tell me more about Hannah. Sorry. Wait, is yours working? Do something. Woo! Woo! Now you go woo. Woo! Okay, it is. Thank God. Yeah. Um, so once more and we think and we pray for Hannah. Yes. Yes. But, um, I said to her, I put so

many good things about Hannah. She's great. And you would really like her. She's very fun and she's got a great sense of humor. And yeah, she used to be a very good friend to day and night and go, so it's her whole thing, she's like, I know who's gonna be successful, you're gonna be great, talk about your dead mom, you feel like whatever, talk about your foot.

But I was saying to her in this voice note that I was like, cause politically you're probably more in sync with her than with me, although she's not at all Catholic. Was she a fascist as well? That was a joke. No, but. But I said, I got to this intersection

and I always try to get like the left lane borders like all like there's always like everybody, there must be like shifts that people take. There's always someone pacing up and down by where this like off ramp is. Yeah. With a sign that's like homeless need help or like one guy I see like whenever he's rotating in it's like whole family was murdered like just like so and it's like 9 45 in the morning and you're like I can't like this is a lot for me right now.

And so I was like I always try to get to the second to the left lane, because I have to turn left, but I can't deal with that first thing. And I said in my voice note, I was like, I know that this, I might sound like right wing, or like an asshole, but I just don't think that the best way to help these people is to just give them money on the side of the highway.

You could do literally anything. Any job would be better than, than the humiliation of like walking over down and she was saying about, she was like, how did it become anti like woke to suggest that people would be better off with a job? You know, like I have listened to some Supreme court oral arguments on this topic. Excuse me as I adjust myself onto a better position. I'm glad that I didn't look down because you're wearing a bathing suit.

No, no, it's everything is is tied up. OK, because I didn't look, but I just had a feeling. I know, I know everything is tied up. Everything's tied up. Um, the left wing argument seems to be some, some, it's more neoliberal than anything. Like you would think the left would want an institution to take, to step in and to say like, no, we've got public services. We've got big, you know, a big house, lots of beds in it, and trained people, and

they have jobs. And we're getting people rehabilitated like Mao Zedong style. We're getting in the army or whatever. Right. And it's no, they just go like people should be free to be homeless in the park and to shit while sleeping on the sidewalk. Yeah, but this is like an affront to the working classes. Of course. The mega rich aren't milling about in the town square, trying to go to the stores or like, you know, play with their children in a public park or something. Like the services, the people who are being impacted

for having like a nice community because there's just to be slightly negative for a second a drug addict a psychotic drug addict screaming and shouting you know yeah of course I mean this over the days of the sourced up vagabond who's had a couple of too many whiskies and is depressed. And now, foaming at the mouth, seeing shit, violent, weird, nutty people. And it's also like, people make it seem like it's anti-poor or whatever, but it's like, there have always been poor people and they weren't all thrown into a sanitarium or whatever.

But also have some sanitarium. Right, exactly. Some people are mentally ill and some people are just homeless. Like this is, if you're gonna have therapists and I know you have one, and I know you're gonna say, James, you've gotta have one. You're at risk.

I say this. on your second glass of one what do you what do you say I was like get on to the third glass of one. Yes you unscrew the bottle. I'm a very mentally healthy man. I don't like all these like young professionals. Right young professionals professionals. It's like Tony Soprano has a therapist. And her crisis that she eventually has, and I only know this from Wikipedia, because I don't watch much of this. It's a good show.

But at some point she has a crisis like, am I helping him do his job? Oh, I thought you meant her crisis where she gets raped brutally. That was a non-episode. And she doesn't tell him about it. Right. And she could.

What a strong person. Yeah. And then she walks into the fast food restaurant where he works, she doesn't realize that, and he's employee of the month. That was a crazy, anyway, whatever. Yeah, rape. Did she go through the police to try and?

I think so, I can't remember. She would have reported it, she would have reported it. Yeah, I don't remember, it was very. She reports it and then nothing happens. Yeah, yeah. And that's why. It's a fiction because in life. I in life you on the day of my daughter's way, right? Exactly why she could that's the whole thing. She chooses not to write which is the right thing. She's not Italian Well, I think if I had that happen to me, maybe she's done. I think she's a time. I would I would want that person

Murdered but anyway, go ahead. I think a lot of people do and that's what anyway What I was trying to she's helping him. Yeah, let's work through what he's doing You know that is morally in defense of like, you know killing your friends killing other people Yeah, the job's a job organized crime. Yeah, he obviously He is not he has a rational soul and he's he feels sad and weird and Pigeon fix that whatever I don't know but he with ducks He feels like we said and we and she helps him work through the trauma so that he can keep doing his terrible job

Yeah, right. She feels bad about that and I feel like The reason that resonates is not because everyone's a mafia boss with the lawyer. So we all know people who are in you know, these boss with the lawyer. So we all know people who are in, you know, these, um, like a huge Terrible jobs. Just like terrible jobs that do terrible things in the corporate system. You make a lot of money and you fuck up a lot of people's lives. You talk to therapists to feel a little bit better about it. Those therapists are enablers. Enablers. And what you, you know, who has no therapist is the schizophrenic on 6th Street I'm saying move the therapist out of the corporate sector and towards the guy who's saying he's gonna eat you But the but the therapist in the corporate sector are paid for by the corporate sector. I mean this was a there

I'm a reading. That's what I'm saying tax Text the corporate sector. Oh, wow. OK, commie. All right, communist over here. But I have a story for you. I don't think it's communist to say that something should be done about these. I am with you. But I remember reading that Google, I remember this. Where did I find it?

I don't know. Google had introduced a mindfulness program. This is back in the early days of Google, the campus and whatever. Mindfulness program for its workers. I had a back in the early days of Google, the campus and whatever. Mindfulness program for its workers. I had a friend who used to work for Google and she wrote this article, this blog post called Why I Love My Cubicle

and I was like, this is like saying you love your rapist, but whatever. But they used to do mindfulness, like meditation and whatever. And they got rid of it because too many people were quitting. Because they were like, yeah, this sucks. It sucks.

You take people, you put them in a little cubicle and you tell them, no, we got ping pong and we got free food and there's a gym. And you never have to go outside ever. You can just be here at Google with all your friends and make the world a worse place, but you're important and you're a part of the machine. Yeah, and you got all this money that you never get to, I mean, but it's like,

but it's, it's still, that's the world we live in now. Tech I think has ruined everything. I think it ruins everything. Just go, it's ruined New York. It's ruining Austin. I'm planning my escape from tech. Yeah. Are you in tech?

No, I mean, from, from allowing the technological yeah. Texas, has anyone said that before? The, I, because I have a manager and an agent now. Yeah. So if there's something- Jewish. Are they both Jewish? Yeah, but that's why I chose them. Yeah. No, it's not.

I chose them because I like them more. What are your thoughts on Israel? Okay. My thoughts on Israel? Oh, here we go. I was thinking about it today. I think it has a right to defend itself, but it doesn't have it shouldn't exist. Okay, great. Why do you think it shouldn't exist? I think I think we actually do this right now because it'll go. Yeah, let's do it

You want to do it? Okay. Here's current thinking genuinely I reckon it might have been a mistake in the first place I won't say shouldn't exist, because it does exist now, and there's a lot of people there. And I always thought it had a right to exist, and it's a holy land for the rich. I don't know if it has a right to exist because it's a holy land.

It just does exist, because people decided that they wanted to create a country, and now it exists. There was a decision, there was a Zionist movement. I think that if it was urgent to it's I don't want to say the wrong things but get in I'm a Jew here really moving millions of people who had been in Europe yes out of Europe into land that other people were

living on at the time right but some of them were Jews. It wasn't a country. It wasn't a country. No, no, it was a, it was a, what is it? Mandate? It was a mandate, the Health City mandate, yeah. But there were like, people were living there. Yeah. And then you have this big influx of other people living in a place.

Yeah. And then you have, you know, United Nations drawn up like, man, like, I know, I know people complained about Britain and like the way Africa looks. Yeah, yeah. And they go like, they just arbitrarily drew a line through a tribe. They did. Okay, yeah.

But what's also bad is drawing a fucking crazy town. Six thousand zones that intersect. This is Palestine, this is Israel, this is international city. Well, they didn't say Palestine. They were like, this is Israel, this is the international city. Well they didn't say Palestine, they were like this is Israel, this is Lebanon. The Arab territory. No, but I mean like that original map where it's like all those little green circles within what is today Israel.

And then like obviously the Arabs are the, after the original Nahbah of the Jews arriving, the Arabs are the provocateur. Like this is what's always missed. I hate it when the lefties and the ra ra Palestine people go, and they go like, look at Israel expanding its borders every 10 years. You go, yeah, cause they got invaded and then in a war, they took land from the people who had invaded them.

Right. And then some people go, Egypt took land from the people who had invaded them. And then some people go... Egypt lost the Sinai at one point because they invaded Israel and then Israel gave it back to them. In exchange for diplomatic recognition. But this is like... Clearly what's going on in Gaza is not good. No.

Yeah. It's not... No one... I think no one wants that to be happening. And then also Hamas got off of the ceasefire like a couple days ago and they turned it down. So like I think if you could take anything from it, here's the bigger point,

if you're going to have colonization, if you're gonna take over a piece of land, you've got to kill a lot of women and children and push everybody else out. Like that's how this country that we're in now was founded. There wasn't TikTok then. If there was, I'm sure people would have been spewing. Like maybe the media environment that facilitated the bloodshed necessary for colonization is not currently, you know, it wasn't, we've moved on.

It's like you can't have a proper war anymore after Vietnam because it was on telly. You can't do the stuff you used to have to do to win a war. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's some broad with the camera. You just cannot have a war anymore. I miss the old days when you could just murder. I'm not saying it's like, I'm not making fun of you. Maybe it's good.

Maybe our bougie sensibilities in the media will help solve world peace that coupled with the nuclear bomb and will be who would have thought? Who would have thunk it? But it's like I don't think what they're doing is especially novel in terms of how countries are forged Yeah, I think that the hard part from for me anyway is just being like because part of me goes This is the world. This is the reality of life. And that is that wars are fought and countries are made. And we just happen to be living at this time

after kind of so many countries were made. And like, you have that joke about how after World War II, the US was like, all right, stop. And now these are the borders. Spoiler, that's in the next special. Shit, sorry. That's fine. That's fine.

But like, so we think like, well this is how it is, but you can't do that and this and that, and it's like you just happen to live at this time and this has already been done before, and you're just saying it's wrong because you're here now, but that's how we got here. So part of me is like that, I'm like, this is the pragmatic, realistic approach.

But then part of me is like, like I listen to Eckhart Tolle or read his books and stuff. He is great. And there is like, yeah, but it's like, my dad loves him. Yeah. But also it's like, you can even look at like what Catholicism would say about all this stuff like that, like just murder and bloodshed and whatever. And it's like, yeah, we are an insane species that cannot get along with itself and just constantly like conquering people and for what you know But then I look at the what happened on October 7th and the people go over it started before that but it's like I am Fucking Jewish and I have been to Israel multiple times and it is pretty fucking cool

It's heinous what they did what they did was the kind of evil that like kind of evil They hang lighted in a kind of evil that is like just unthinkable I mean I watched everybody's in like when that happened. I was obsessed They hang glided in. A kind of evil that is like just unthinkable. I mean, I watched everybody's, like when that happened, I was obsessed. And I watched every fucking thing I could. I didn't watch the documentary because I knew it would fuck me up forever.

But I watched interviews with people who survived and they talked about all this stuff. And I was like, it's crazy. And it's an evil, but then this is the part where the left comes in and they go, well, when you treat people like this, then what do you expect? It's like, we don't accept that in this country. 99% of serial killers have experienced abuse in childhood, severe abuse, 99%.

But we don't go, well, like, oh, well, I mean, the guy went through so much, you know, he killed a few people. This is where the only answer to stop the trauma. Right. And you're gonna, there's no way that I can say this now that you won't think it's me being sardonic or silly or having a joke. Right, is what, to murder everybody?

No. What? The Catholic Church has to take it back. Has to take back what, Israel? The Holy Land. Right, well it's not that I think that you're being sardonic, it's just that I think that's just not gonna happen. I just don't think that that's a realistic approach. They're not. When was India at its best? I don't know. The Raj. When the British pulled out, the killing started. The British kept both sides, you know, sad and looted,

sure. But there wasn't the massive bloodshed that happened when the British pulled out. It's time. The Jews and the Muslims, you've proved yourselves over almost a hundred years now incapable of coming to an agreement, Christian imperialism. Give us a go. There's Muslims in Israel. There's a lot of Muslims, a lot of Christians. Of course, I didn't say there weren't.

No, there's not a lot of Christians. Tiny, tiny. But like I've been in Israel, there's like, I've been to the old city. As tourists, sure. Yeah, but you drive around the country and you see the Muslim cities. And yeah, sure, there's not as many Christians.

But it's like, there are, it's not that they're incapable of getting along. No. I think there's more in Palestine. I think there's more Christians in Palestine as a percentage. What do you mean by, you mean Gaza? In Gaza.

That's not called, just for the record, it's not called Palestine. People now call it. What are you saying this for? Well, because there is no Palestine. They're never, but there isn't. There isn't. There's no such thing as Palestine. It's like a, it's a no Palestine. Oh. But there isn't. There isn't. There's no such thing as Palestine.

It's like a fiction at this point. But that's the thing is that even saying it is a political leaning. Yeah, but that's also true of Ukraine. I mean, Ukraine didn't exist as a country until- But I'm saying that there's no country named Palestine. Yeah, but I'm saying Ukraine is a fabricated country. It means border in Russian. Right, but now Ukraine is a recognized country. It actually is in Russian. Right, but now Ukraine is a recognized country.

It actually is a country. Right, but it started by people, you know, like Germany was not a country. It existed in the imagination for centuries. But there's nowhere, I'm saying, where is Palestine? You're talking about Gaza and the West Bank. Yes. But those are, that's what they're called,

is Gaza and then the West Bank. But they think of it as Palestine. Well, they think of all of Israel as Palestine. It's not gonna be a three as Palestine. Well, they think of all of Israel as Palestine. It's not going to be a three state. So they think of all of Israel as Palestine. So then when you say Palestine, what it implies is that there is no Israel. That's what it's implying. When you say policy, I'm just saying be accurate.

You know what I mean? Like just be accurate. I'm saying there are people who believe in a two state solution. Yeah. I don't think that's going to happen at this point. I agree. Yeah, but There are a couple there are some reasons that it won't happen I mean at this point it's just bank seems like pretty chill seems like they'd be happy to go in for a two-state I mean the thing about the West Bank, you know, tell me if I'm wrong. I bet someone comments

No, I don't write to me like a knife, no I have crime, people showing up, four dead, yesterday, fuck you. My friend Sophia used to live in the West Bank, she lived there, she's Jewish, she lived there for a while and she loved it. But you know, during the beginning of the war and stuff, you know, it's like I think the Palestinian Authority runs the West Bank, but Hamas is like,

has gone over, whatever. But there were two guys accused of spying for Israel, accused, they just lynched them. They literally hung them up on their feet and murdered them. Yeah. But it's like, though. Don't doubt it. Yeah, but the world loves this narrative.

Vice versa, I bet we could find stuff where, you know, a kid was playing with a stick. And then he got machine gunned by some hot 18-grade year old. Yes, but everybody knows about it from Israel That's not it. That's the thing is what happens in the West Bank or in Gaza Everybody knows about I mean Depends on anti Hamas marches not long ago. Nobody reported it I only know because I'm fucking Jewish and I'm all my Jewish friends like the media isn't reporting I mean all I get is the Jews news.

Right. It's not cool. It's called the Jewish news. But the New York Times... What a wasted opportunity not to call it the Jew news. That's true. The Jews news, I think. Jews news. Jews news. Like Blue's Clues? Jews news, Jews news.

But I think like, I just, you know, when you talk about the bias in like the left wing, the establishment media, the likes of media, it's the same thing about Israel and Palestine or whatever. It's like, there's so much bias that it's hard for me to take any of it seriously. My brother and I are so different, but I never knew my brother to give a shit about Israel. He's not married to a Jewish person, which I probably won't marry a Jewish person either,

but it's just not a part of his his kind of, I thought, worldview. And I came back from the UK and I had been in Germany and whatever after October 7th happened. And he got me from the airport and that was when that hospital had exploded and they said that it was Israel. The New York Times said it was Israel and then they issued a retraction saying that actually it looked like it was Hamas. One of their rockets fell on it.

This was at the beginning of the war. Back when people used to... I remember back when we could count the hospitals. Right, exactly. But it was back in the beginning and my brother ended up canceling his subscription to the New York Times because he was like, they made a statement, they went along with what Hamas reported and then... I need another nicotine, hold on. reported. Yeah. And then-

I need another nicotine. Hold on. Please keep going. And it changed- what are you doing? Again? Oh, more Zen. And it changed the course of the war because from then on, people were like, Israel is this genocidal, this and that.

They bombed a hospital, which they hadn't. The whole world opinion turned against Israel. But that's his- No, that's his. That's the way he- But he said- But I's like, but he said, but when he said that was crazy, they've done some stuff since then, of course.

But when he said, what he said that was craziest to me was that he was like, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm watching Fox News for the more accurate Israel information. And that's what I was doing too. I was going to their website. I couldn't believe it. What are you, you're on a Zen mission?

Where is my name? He can't find his Zin. Uh oh. Speaking of genocidal, James McCann without a Zin. Oh, come out. Are you out of it? I'll put some upstairs, but I'm like, down the floor. Yeah, plus you don't wanna wake up, Taylor.

All right, I mean, if I start to get upset, that's why. If you get upset, it's because of the nicotine, if you start? Well, after last time, we agreed that you would stop hitting me when you get mad at me. Where are you going? He doesn't hit me but would he? I don't think so. I don't know. He's Australian, he likes to drink. Would he do it? Religious man? Honor? I don't know, he's Australian, he likes to drink. Would he do it? Religious man, honor.

That's what I get. That's what I get. That's what I get. Are you pausing it? No, I'm saving time. All right. Wow, it's a hour and a half. Okay, well, I guess we'll finish.

I have work tomorrow. No, no, no, no, keep going, this is strong. This is strong. Is it strong, or have you had two and a half hours? No, this is good, I don't know. Maybe we can't be bothered. This is fine. I think we're going to get to the end of it. Israel has conducted itself really bad.

I agree. Well, I would say that Netanyahu more than anybody has, I mean, because he's fired anybody who is getting more credit than him. He's fired people who were dissenting voices. I think at some point after you elect a man for the seventh time. But it's like there's all this corruption stuff. I don't know, I'm saying there's no corruption. But you know what's going on. This is a free country.

Yeah, Israel. I mean if there's enough corruption that Israel can't pick its own leaders, then it's not worth defending. It is a free country. So what's going on in Israel, and actually this is so funny to tell you because you're Catholic, right? Israel has become more and more right-wing because the only people really having kids are the super religious. Absolutely. And so they're the worst as far as Jews are

concerned. They're the fucking worst. Because there are Jews in Israel... I love the ultra-orthodox. There are Jews in Israel... By the way, the ultra-orthodox who have all the kids not doing heaps of the fighting. I'll tell you what, none of the fighting. Like nobody, I think that as far as anti-Semitism goes, few people really have the venom for the ultra-orthodox Jews that I have towards them. No, every American Jew that I've spoken to. I hate them.

Jewish person. Yeah. Person of Jew-acity. Yes. Hate the ultra-orthodox. When I went to Crown Heights and people go, ugh. Yeah, seriously, I go, tuh. I love it, I love them. I had a joke in New York, I don't do it here

because no one would get it, but I'd be on the subway. I was like, I'm on the subway and this fucking ultra-orthodox dude comes in and I would see him and I go, oh, here comes Shmuel. Sit here, davening. Repulsive, repulsive. You know, davening is crying. That you would say that.

I love Eve. Shmuel is disgusting. Listen. Eve, they're the best. They're the worst. They're the best. They're the worst. And I'll tell you why.

I remember going to Israel. Obviously all the Catholics are the best. They are close number two. I went to Israel when I was 19 for the first time I think I remember, you know, I was like wearing something pretty conservative like long black pants and like Tanked up it like covered my shoulders. It was just sleeveless and we had to find a cash machine in Jerusalem and the only Cash machine that was open on the weekend was in the cold on that Just the Jews the cash machine that was open on the because it's a weekend was in that cool them that

Just the Jews the cash machine was in this ultra religious area But there they don't bother shutting down the cash machines because so you're not supposed to touch money on Chabot. Oh Man, so they don't even bother to turn it off. They just know that no one's gonna use it They will never you in and you use and I was brought in by another Israeli who was like, it's fine. Come on. I'm going to walk through this area. So it wasn't so much about using the machine. It was that I was dressed not in a Hasidic way. You were immodestly. But it's a free country. There's no such thing. That looks like a wig. I think that could have been fine. But there's, it's a free country. They're not allowed to. It's not Saudi Arabia. It's not Afghanistan. You don't have to dress in a particular way.

It's just that this area is religious. When I walked through Crown Heights with my wife, she went, I'm getting a hat. Yeah. I need a hat. But the truth is that in Crown Heights, you actually don't because they are so used to living among non-Jews. But it felt like hat time.

Yeah, I get it. When I walk through fucking Crown Heights, I show my shoulder. I mean, I'm like a nudist. Pussy out. Yeah, I'm just like, exactly. Here's a Jewish tunnel for you. Very small, very shallow.

Barely breaks the surface. Hey, dudes just came out of here. I'm like, quiet, get into the, I don't know into the museum, whatever, there was a whole museum involved or something with the tunnel thing. I can talk about this. I bet you can. But we don't have to. But, and I know where the building is.

It's the Messiah. I know where the fucking building is. It's the Messiah Eve. Coming out of my pussy. But, um. How dare you. You talked about. Not the virgin birth for this lady.

Let me tell you that. Now please go on. But, uh, I had to walk through this area and all of these, I mean I'm fucking Jewish. All of these Hasidic guys were going, Shiksa, Shiksa, which means non-Jew, but it really means whore. I know, I know. I watch Sunfill. Yeah, it really means whore. The way that they were saying it. But it's nice, right? No. They were taunting me.

Oh, they didn't want to, they weren't, it wasn't a come on? No. They were, I mean they were like you little, basically they were likeunting me. Oh, they didn't wanna, it wasn't a come on? No, they were, I mean they were like you little, basically they were like calling me a slut. And there were other guys who were older, who were, my friend spoke Hebrew I was with, who were covering their eyes, but they were like kind of like spread their fingers a little bit to look at me as if I was naked.

I mean it's like literally, I could not be more covered, but like my shoulder was showing and I was wearing pants. And the guy's yelling at my friend, I was with a man too who was yelling back at them in Hebrew, but he's yelling that I shouldn't be there and all this stuff. And then my friend, she now lives in Israel, but she was becoming more fluent in Hebrew

and she's trying to yell back at them, but she was even less clad than I was because her shoulder was showing. And then people were like, you should not be here. This is a sign of disrespect. And it's like, listen, I know you guys live in this part of the city, but that doesn't mean that I have to abide by anything. But these are the people who have had all these kids.

And when you say that nobody wants what's happening in Gaza to be happening, some of those people for sure want that to be happening. And it's because they are in a cult where everybody who's not in the cult is not a real person. You're telling me that people of a different religion moved into an area that used to belong to people like you and now you're furious that they bring their wars

and their new way of life. But I don't know that it used to belong to me. I just think like, I wouldn't say to... I knew there was something there but I couldn't put it into words because they had three glasses of life. But I don't know that it used to belong to me. I just think like, I wouldn't say to... I knew there was something there, but I couldn't put it into words because I had three glasses of wine. But you gotta admit, there's something there. Well, if I, what if like somebody walked

on the street in Mueller, or sorry, oh fuck. No, I say I'm in Mueller. Okay, somebody walked on the street at, and I say your address, in Mueller, and they were wearing like a hijab or they were wearing something religious, and I was like, you shouldn't be here. You're not allowed to.

It would remind me of my childhood and hanging out with my dad after 9-11. That's a joke. But this is the thing, is it's like, if you're gonna live in a fucking free society and Israel is supposed to be a free society, the whole point was that it was free that's why people went well is it is it is it the Jews home or is the home for the Jews

It's most is it a secular free country that Jews happen to be in or is it the Jewish state? It's hard to say because that's the that's the conundrum right it's supposed to be a secular country for Jews But it's also the Jewish state and if you're not Jewish, I don't know if this is still the case, I don't think it's still the case, but for a long time Jews could not marry non-Jews in Israel. You had to go elsewhere. Now I think it's allowed, I think it's legalized. It doesn't sound especially secular.

Yeah, exactly, you had to be married by a rabbi. Because this was like one of my cousins, I went to Israel with her, but she's like an anti-Zionist in the sense of like kill them all. She's just like, you know, imagine, but she's like, it's disgusting that Jews need a homeland, that Jews should be able to live anywhere in the world. We shouldn't need to have a homeland. But I think like, yeah, I get what you're saying, but as far as I'm concerned, Jews do need a homeland.

Well, I mean, there are definitely places Jewish people go that they have fertile soil, yet to yield. I was talking to someone this week and they were talking about Asian stereotypes of Jews. Right. Oh yeah, well, I lived in Asia. I heard a lot of them.

Well, I think they were talking about Chinese people specifically. And they were saying all of the most, other than like blood libel, all the hateful Jewish stereotypes that abound in places like Poland are present in China. I could see that. But,

Fucking Chinese, you know? But, they view them all as, because they're Asian, they view them all as positive. That's it'll be like, Yes. Jewish people are so good with the money. That's what happens. Great family respect.

Yeah, your Chinese accent is not, it's not even offensive, it's just not, I think you could do better. So good with the money. That's what happens. Great family respect. Yeah. Your Chinese accent is not, it's not even offensive. It's just not, I think you could do better. Jewish people so good with money. I was scaling it back. I can't do it. That one makes me uncomfortable, which means it's probably closer. Thank you.

In Korea, people would say like, oh, now when I'm thinking about it, I can't do it. But they share things with the family. That's a Vietnamese. That's a Vietnamese. Yeah, yeah. Excuse me. In Korea, it's like, they do it. But they share thing with the family They say you they in juicer juicer juicer people people just people very good with money I'm trying to like trying to think about like You they in you they in pretty good with money very smart Yeah good with money. But he's smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. No better price price.

Now you're doing Japanese. Yeah. No better price price. But like I would, I would go to students houses. Ibu teacher. Ibu teacher. Ibu teacher. Why so petty?

Why so petty? I remember like one of my students, he was like. Ibu teacher you don't have money. I was sitting around with one of my students and it was like a low table on the ground. And I was with the whole family and I was teaching after the father came home early and they're like, come eat with us or whatever.

And it was such a big deal for them to have the English teacher there. And this was when I lived in a small town and I remember him going, you are so pretty but you are too fat. It's like me and the grandma and the dad. And I remember being like, that's so rude. But they don't think of it that way. I'll take that on board, Korean man.

Yeah. Oh. Thank you for the tip. I am so petted. But it was just. Can I ask you about South Korea? Because every statistic I see in regards to suicide, birth rate, the sort of, the indication that something has gone wrong that a country has become, if you will, too developed.

You know, you've got all the things that it's not developed, people can't read, people can't eat. But when people overdevelop and you start having non-third world problems like killing themselves, can't have kids, South Korea is, wow, number one. For them for killing themselves, it's not actually always. Is it not that high? It's pretty high.

Yeah. But it's not the thing that you would think like, suicide doesn't mean, it's not the same origin that it would be here. Okay. Where it's like here, it's like rumination and depression. Here it's making a point? There, sorry.

There it's for shame. Yeah. so you kill yourself you're shamed or Yeah, I think a lot of it's shame like you see a lot of like female celebrities kill themselves because they get bullied in the media for oh sex or get over it honey or like like if somebody is the head of a company and Like there's an accident that the company is responsible for. They're gonna kill themselves. Yeah and sometimes there's a Samsung has such incredible results. You're right because it's like you better

not fucking kill yourself. But it's like but like you're kind of expected to if you do anything. Yeah it's so great. I wish I could just if you're if you're a top executive at Samsung and you're going, I gotta kill myself because I fucked up, buddy, you probably got a lot of money saved up. But they probably wouldn't be the top. Go on holiday, go to Hawaii, it's right there. Chill out on a beach for a little while.

Let people hate you. But I think it's like, so it probably wouldn't be the top executive, it would be like the top of his division. Yeah. Because it wouldn't be like, there's called the table families, which is like what, it's like the reality of what people think Jews are. Where there's called the table families, which is like what it's like the reality of what

people think Jews are, where it's like the table are like in Japan as well, where they got the old it was the old samurai class, they turn into the top capitalist class. Exactly. This happened in Korea as well. Yeah, tables are like the high end. And it's like the people who run Samsung and people who run like day, like what you say day, whatever. But like all the like all those big companies, Samsung washing machine Daewoo, like which we say Daewoo or whatever, but like all the like all those big companies As a Samsung washing machine sings the trout

But that's funny, I remember when I moved to Korea and it has that little song on it like dee dee dee dee dee dee to say that it's finished Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum And I remember being like what the hell and then now it's like every American appliance sings, you know Samsung But they I mean they do have great brands they're winning with some big brands It's like every American appliance sings, you know. Samsung. Samsung. But they do have great brands.

They're winning with some big brands. But mercy me, they seem so unhappy. I wouldn't say that they're overall unhappy. I would say- The feminist movement there is nuts. The Four No's. The Four N's. Sorry.

The Four- It was like no childbirth, no dating, no sex. No dating, no sex, no marriage, no childbirth. You know, I get it in Korea because women have it so hard. We should maybe say, I mean we were just having a chat and this is the only bit that I feel the need to provide context on. What's that? Just people listening, people who happen to be listening.

The big feminist movement in Korea. It's called like the, I forget what it is, but it's- It's like women getting together and saying we're women going our own way. We're not having any, we're not having sex. We're not getting married. We're not having kids. We're not dating. We're not even looking at men anymore. But that's the four things. It's no dating, no sex, no marriage, no childbirth. I remember it in order. But they make it like a vow to not.

It's a movement. It's kind of like, yeah. Do they have demands that they want before and then they'll go back or they're like a vow to not. It's a movement. It's kind of like, yeah, look, do they have demands that they want before? And then they'll go back or they're like, they just were nuns. Effectively, they're nuns. So this is only really emerged as far as I know, since like the Me Too movement. OK. And I think part of it is probably because so many women in Korea have been raped. I mean, like so many women. It's a lot of rapes. So many rapes. And also after I left, they went through this crazy era.

And I don't know what they've done about it. Where, you know, they're the pioneers of like the tiny little cameras. Yeah. And the subway stations in Korea, the bathrooms and whatever, like they're really nice. And, you know, I would like they're just like everything spotless and whatever. They're filming you on the toilet. So there were places where they would put little cameras in the toilet, like in the actual toilet or in the little cubicle, and these women would end up on the internet, like totally naked. And then there were also

women who were like raped or drugs and they would end up, and there were all these sites that no one would shut down. And then of course those women would kill themselves. And so there was a huge, horrible. So then, and then there's women who came out, there's one, there's a, they probably felt so relieved when the Japanese left after the war. Yeah, like it's only gonna go up from here Yeah, and then and then oh no the guys who are still here. They're pretty crook, too Well, it's just like women are treated pretty shitty in Asia in general, but then in Korea. It's like it's the confusion thing There's like everybody has a role and in North Korea actually so the the grammar in Korea, it's like, it's the confusion thing. There's like, everybody has a role. And in North Korea, actually, so the grammar in Korea is like, depends on the age and depends on your role in society or whatever.

But generally, if someone's younger than you, you speak kind of down to them. If someone's older than you, you speak up to them. In North Korea, even five-year-old boys are above an older woman. So like all children speak down to women of all ages. We've got a cop that the West is sort of around the world. Like with all this stuff about sexism and patriarchy and whatever. The least patriarchal civilization going. Yeah, I think like, got our number yet. Tibet. I do think that like, sometimes when people talk about like the, the most niche nuance thing, like for Jen, like gender, for example, where they're like, you

know, like not all people who get their periods are women or whatever. And all of a sudden, and then I'm like, you know, you should go to India where like, when the girls don't even have like pads for this, so they just bleed on stuff. And then when they get, they can't go to school. And so then like, The government is doing forced sterilizations or sorry, no, I take that back. So which in the ABC. I know that that used to happen under Indira Gandhi.

So they're not doing forced sterilizations anymore. They're doing, they're going to poor areas and they're giving them money to get sterilized. I take that back. So I watched an ABC. I know that that used to happen under Anderica. So they're not doing forced sterilizations anymore. They're doing, they go into poor areas and they're giving them money to get sterilized. They're doing, what's that? What we said that was? That was like an incentivized. Incentivized, not coerced, incentivized sterilization.

Well coerced, if you're that poor. Yeah, if you're that poor. It's pretty coerced. I remember watching a story on the ABC, Lefty Media, Lefty state media, call me propaganda and strife. And they were just like presenting it as like, well, this is how they've chosen to deal with overpopulation and climate change.

As if, as if in- Kick these people into the dirt. What are you saying? They're tying the tubes, you sweet young girl. I know. And fucking in fucking in in I forget the name of the province exactly I was reading about the provinces there's a Christian province in the northeast that borders on Bangladesh for like

Iranukia Pradesh or something it's not Uttar Pradesh no it wouldn't be Uttar Pradesh North northeast I know that like Calcutta is Northeast. There's a lot, India is so big. It's a state. I've got a couple. Yeah. I would love, now I want to go to Israel. Yeah, we'll go together.

I've got family. I want to go to Israel and I want to go to Russia. Yeah, I don't want to go to Russia. And for very different reasons, I can't go to either of them at the moment. Why can't you go to Israel because of the war and then Russia? Israel, no, not even, this, oh, What is that? How many things are beeping in my fucking

house? All these Korean appliances. Everything's listening to me. No, I mean I can't, the US government would be furious if I went to Russia. Yes, that's true. And I'm on a visa and I go fair enough and I'm not a Russian agent, whatever. I just like, I like the music and the architecture. That's all the literature that I connected with as a kid. Couldn't be more anti-Putin if I tried. Naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty man. But you know, I like Tolstoy, I like Dostoevsky. If I could go on a walking tour of like, this is the hovel where Dostoevsky gambled it all away. That would be very meaningful to me. That would really mean something. I could see that.

And Israel, it's the Holy Land. I want to go to the Holy Land and I've won it's not even the war I don't even fuck about I'm not gonna die if I go to Israel that's why I feel pretty strongly that I wouldn't die yeah but I just I think all the groovy lefty or not even the groovy lefties at this point the right everyone who's anti Israel would go he's an endorsement he's Tom York you don't have to tell anybody you think should just shut the fuck up about it. You can just go. Ladies and gentlemen, if I disappear for two weeks and no one knows where I am, I was in

Israel. I mean, like, you know. I want to go to the Holy Land. I want to go and see the tomb. I want to go and see the... I've walked via Dolorosa. Isn't that crazy? Yes.

I've walked and they're like, this is where Christ touched the stone. It is pretty crazy to go into the Old City. It is insane is where Christ touched the stone. It is pretty crazy to go into the old city. It is insane. Where Christ touched the stone? So it was like the way of the cross. So it's like where he touched it because he was like bleeding. Oh where he fell. He fell.

Yeah, yeah. And so they have like all the stations. I want to go into it. I want to go to the stations of the cross. Yeah. I mean when I was there, I really didn't know what it was. I was like, oh interesting. It was like watching like a, it was like going to a museum and like reading the things at an exhibit.

But it was I mean, being in the old city of Jerusalem is pretty fucking crazy. And it's like I got to stay there for like a week. My my hostel owner tried to rape me. I'm sorry. I'm laughing because you're laughing. I know. Not because the thought of someone trying to rape you is inherently funny. Well I don't think I ever said it like that before but but yeah I was a feisty little 21 year old I just finished college I was 22 and he was an Armenian man it was in the Armenian

camp. I was supple I was live. Isn't it crazy when you think about, well, you wouldn't have this, but I think about all the times I like didn't get raped, but people were trying and I was like, stop it, you cheeky little rapist. Like I just had no idea. Eve, I can remember every time. That you almost raped someone. Yeah. No, I can just remember like, I remember like two or three times I thought a woman was hitting on me. Yeah.

I couldn't do anything about it. That was the closest I got. Right. Yeah. To being like someone's expressing, not that rape is just someone expressing interest. Yeah, that's what it was. He was like, she's so pretty. I don't know why I did the German accent again.

She's so beautiful. Well, it was like- It just doesn't happen that much. It happens so many- As a man, you don't, you don't, I tell tell you everything's going off. That's the dishwasher going off. Oh that's the dishwasher. There have been... one time a trans woman looked at me. Yeah. And I got to see... You got it a little hard. Yeah. I got to see what the male... What the male gaze looks like.

Ruby would be so mad if she heard you say it that way, but yeah. You see how I got out of that? No, it's honestly, I don't care. Everyone can get angry with me for this if they want. You know what, I have to- Because it was passing. It was like, it was a trans woman who was passing pretty well from a distance.

Looking at me. Right, but giving you that like mean eye. Give me the look. But I was like, fuck, women don't usually look at me like that. I got closer and it was a biological male. Right. But it was like not, it's such a different look,

the man sexually interested in a woman to the woman interested in the man look. Like the woman will look at you like with, it's almost hard to sometimes recognize it. Cause it's not a porny. That's a put on. No, it's a glance. It's a glance, it's a sensitivity, it's a-

A little smile. A little opening the eyes, it's a chuckle. This trans woman looked at me like she wanted to fucking eat me. It was like violent and hunger. It had, it didn't look like love. And I thought, I bet that's how I, I bet that's how all men are looking at women. Cause I never get to see.

Not all. I bet a lot of dudes are looking at ladies like that. What's crazy is that that's what we're taught to like hope for is like, he, he wants to kill or eat it. It's just closer than I had anticipated. Yeah. I mean, I've seen it. Sometimes you go, Whoa, that's a weird vibe.

The guy in Israel was it. It went very quickly from, Hey, what's going on here to I'm afraid to pull that's interesting yeah well that's nice at least you didn't get got you know I couldn't get gone do you want to hear my almost rape story I was hoping if I spoke for long enough about the trans thing no open up it's not that no I think you've told me though I don't know if I told you long enough about the trans thing. Open up. It's not that dramatic. No, I think you've told me though. I don't know if I told you. It's not that, it's not depressing.

I didn't get raped. It was victorious. I was like 22, I was alone. I'd been with my cousin and her family and then they left and I stayed in Jerusalem. And I got to, I stayed in the Armenian quarter and it was like, you walk through all these alleys and up and over and then you go in this little door and then you're in this like beautiful hostel

that's like inside of kind of a cave type thing. Do you know what I mean? Like imagine like low cave ceilings and you're kind of a labyrinth. It was amazing. And then you up into the roof and right there is the Dome of the Rock, that like super holy, you know, mosque and then you up into the roof and right there is the Dome of the Rock that like super holy

Yeah, you know mosque and then below it. Temporary mosque Temporary that's what I could see you were thinking temporary mosque. That's not what I was thinking at all I thought beautiful holy mosque beautiful holy mosque that'll be there for a little bit longer. I don't think that they'll get rid of it That's what I was seeing in your eyes Yeah, maybe they can incorporate some of that into the temple. It is on the ancient temple. That's yeah. But anyway, that was their first. No, who's counting?

But I was like staying at this hostel and there was like a weird Russian woman. It was a hot part of it was like July or something. And so there weren't a lot of tourists and there was like one other woman who was staying in my room and she was away. Yeah. And so I was the only other person in this hostel. And I could feel that the older man, who was like in his 70s, was like aware of me and like paying a lot of attention to me.

I remember when I met him, he shook my hand and held it for too long. And he was like, your father and your brother, they let you, I didn't even tell him anything. What did he say? They let you come here. Your father and your brother, they let you travel alone? And I was like a young, I was like a young little feminist and I was like well they don't have any control over what I did. Like I didn't clock like oh this is a creep. I was like he

doesn't understand me you know like that kind of thing. And so um anyway this woman's away you know I'm like starting my independence all the time and And I was sitting on the landing outside of my room, just on this little couch under this beautiful stone ceiling. And I kinda heard him puttering around. I think he just figured out, he saw the light on it, he knew I was up there, I was writing in my journal, this place is so magical and I feel so alive in the world

and it's such a friendly place, whatever I was saying. And he comes up the stairs and he's like, you are still awake. you know, just like, and I remember I wasn't wearing a bra, I was like wearing my pajamas and I was like, like just aware that it was like a vulnerable situation. I was wearing- Was this post-surgery?

Yeah, yeah, so I had a breast reduction when I was 19. But they're still huge. Yes, yes, you've noticed. But how dare you notice? You had another great story, is that Dr. San. I'm going to leave a lot on there. Yeah, him going, no, trust me, small d, you'll be happy. Small d?

Yeah, triple fucking d. So I was like, big C. He's like, no, small d. Piece of shit. I was like, I hope he's dead, but I'm sure he is. I was like his last surgery before retirement. But so he's like, okay, well, you know, like I was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm writing in my journal,

just like so desperate to get away from him. And he's like, okay, well, I have to go to bed, good night. And he leaned in and like started, he like kissed me on the cheek. And then he started like kissing my neck and like all down. It's like 70 something year old man your old man and all down my body and then kind of leaned on top of me and then I had to just like push him off of me. And then he pretended like, Oh, okay.

I go to bed. And he like left and I guess calling it like a rape, almost attempted rape is probably an exaggeration, but maybe if he were younger, you know, if he wasn't. He did follow. He didn't have that fight in him anymore. He did not, I could've kicked the shit out of him. But a couple days later I was up on the roof and I'd been avoiding him and he cornered me.

It was like a roof that you climb up on a ladder to get to. And he was like, I have to say, I'm so sorry. You are the age of my daughter. But I guess if that was the issue that he was old and I was like, oh just get away but um, I think of him and I wonder what might have been making this old Armenian man, but There's a guy that comes no one should be sexual ever There's a guy who comes into my work my mom and I love him

He's in it's like probably the 60s and he's like super PTSD Afghanistan Iraq like but like an older guy, but he's like I've seen terrible things. I can't tell you I've seen people die He comes into work. How often does he you work? Not a macro parent I work in a computer store he comes in pretty regularly He has he's got a lot of money come in pretty regularly just computers. He used to computers? He used to just buy shit. He'd go, show me what you got. And he would spend a thousand dollars. Does he just fancy you? Both. I think at that, I think he did that

before I started working there. And then when I started working there- He's just a lonely man whose hangout spot is a computer store? Yeah, he would come in and he'd go, hey, I gotta ask your advice. Come outside with me. So I'd go outside with him. I can't tell you, I don't wanna cut this story off.

But I used to work at the, I used to work at the Telstra, which is like AT&T. Oh, and I know Telstra. How dare you? But people know, we're still doing a performance. Oh, that's true, I forgot. And by the way, ring moves onto the finger, so I remember to talk about the Telstra story.

And then we should, I do have to go soon. All right. But this is the most fun I've ever had in my whole life. Well, this is better as a pod. This now. Because I went swimming. Well, this is just what it's like when we're hanging out and chatting.

That's true. We've managed, I think, to mostly capture it on a pod. Yeah, I think when I first moved here, we didn't really know each other very well when I was doing stuff with you. We hadn't known each other for a long. Yeah, it was just a few months. And then now I'm also humbled by the foot

and I've been swimming tonight. You've been so much more agreeable since the foot. The best. You and I had a couple arguments. Tay was saying it. Really? Tay was like, oh my God, he was here, and we were talking. She's never been so grateful since the foot.

She's never been kinder and nicer since the foot. It's true. The foot's very good for you and your development. But what I wanted to say, I used to work at Telstra, and I was working at the disconnections hotline. And a weird thing about this company is I worked there and I got it through my brother who had worked there and previously Taylor had worked there. So we all went through, my brother worked there for a long time and Taylor worked there

for a while and then I think the pregnancy took her out of there and I was like, fuck I better go and work at Telstra because we're going to have a baby. So I went and worked there and people would call up to disconnect their phone and you'd have to try and sell them like extra you know people be like I'm not I'm not having Telstra you're like oh let's make it a bit cheaper so you stay on. Yeah yeah that's what spectrum does to me. It's evil. Yeah. Evil. People die and you'd have to you know they'd be disconnecting their wife's phone number and you try and sell them an iPad or some shit. I used to do jokes about it I I was like, I know nothing will ever replace the

loss of your sweet wife, but you can watch Quas Anatomy on an iPad in bed. That'll go some of the way, won't it? It's only $20 a month. But some people would, would, because we couldn't hang up on them. Right. Like we could, eventually, if we were being like abused or something, we could refer it up, but it was like very, very bad to hang up on somebody. And lonely people across Australia had figured this out and would call and pretend to disconnect for a few minutes and then just start telling their stories. What do you mean pretend to disconnect?

That so that, right. So I once had a guy call and he was like, I'm not happy with the, uh, with the, with the, uh, Telstra. I got, I want to disconnect it. I go, well, don't do that. We can get you this. We can get you that. He finds like archaic ways, because he couldn't admit to himself

that this is what he was doing. Right. But he'd like spin it out and go and so. And I remember like, I remember how I was doodling on a piece of paper. It's funny, like a weird thing you remember. Yeah. Because he'd been talking for so long,

and I was like just drawing a triangle over and over and over again. And he was going like, and that's when I saw Don Bradman bat for the last time at a test match. It was out for a duck. And I was a little boy at the time. And I went up to him and I said, I'm drawing on the panel. I go, wow, that's crazy. How was that? Was he must've been pretty upset to be out. Oh, he said a few choice words, Don Bradman,

when he was out for a duck that day. Yeah, it was a bad temper, Don Bradman. And there was some, and people would call up and it was weird. We have like a special protocol for people with suicidal. Oh my God. And it happened a lot. You should be writing about it.

It happened a lot. Like in hindsight, if someone is. If someone is doing an intent to die of suicide, they're not calling the mobile phone carrier to disconnect. They just know that that's someone who's gonna hang on. But because it's a big company, you've gotta take it seriously. Right, because it gets too.

And people call up and go, I can't pay this fucking bill. I'm ending it all. And then you've gotta like, the police have to be called and your manager has to be notified And he's yet like I've just shown up. I'm just a normal I'm a normal fucking relatively normal human being showing up to the call center and this field have worked there for a long time and she goes and

Like it's your you know fifth ever call and sounds like I'm gonna I'm gonna jump I'm gonna fuck it jump and you you panic you think like something crazy has happened to you you go Janet Janet yeah put him on mute Janet fuck comes up and then she's way too relaxed about it and be like are you easy alright well you know we've got a form in the day open up the drawer. All right You just do say the thing that's on these He's probably gonna kill himself But you do from a legal point of view you have to say these things to

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