TRIGGERnometry - "So What If You're Offended? Nothing Happens" - Steve Hughes

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

We're joined by the brilliant comedian Steve Hughes. Subscribe to Steve's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC251i5snt-2LDRfdcEQBCLw  Join our exclusive community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/  OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissing. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today is an Australian comedian who's been warning about some of the stuff we've been talking for a long time since about 10 years ago. Steve Hughes, welcome to Trigonometry. Hello. It's good to have you, man. It's good to be here. Hour and a half in a taxi. But it's great to have you. Tell everybody who are you. How are you? How I'm a lot of you. where you are, what has been your journey, the bridge version through life. All right.

So for people who might not know who you are. I've got a few. Probably won't know who I am, actually. Well, I was born in Australia, English parents. I grew up in Australia. It didn't really suit it. Wanted to play rugby league. He gave it a go.

It's hard when you made of bone. Can't you handle this? No, I can't. I really, if I, without getting too involved, I really grew up thinking, what am I going to do? I couldn't do maths. I couldn't do science. I couldn't kick balls. I was going, and then I saw Iron Maiden in 1982.

I just went, well, I'll make bands. So then I made bands, some of the first Australian thrash bands, probably the first Australian hardcore thrash. Death metal band was in that for a few years. It was quite well known through tape trading back then. It was like the internet before the internet in underground heavy metal. You just tape trade. When Metallica and that started, Thrash Metal, even the mainstream metal, people didn't like it,

so it was a fad. Will it get big? Well, yeah, I knew it was going to get big. So there was kind of tape trading underground punk metal scene, fanzines. So that band got quite well known just from that. And that broke up. Then I joined a Mortal Sin, which is another heavy metal band, toured overseas, played in England and stuff,

and Germany and Faithon More, Testament. It's bands like that, played in the States. Went back, that broke up. I formed another band called Presto, which was a kind of eclectic rock cross metal folk. Let's do whatever we want. You know the 90s, let's do whatever we want. Made two albums with that.

I joined another band called Nuzul, which is an extreme black metal band in Australia, which was only a studio band. Made two albums with that. But at the time, I started comedy. Because after being in bands for 20 years and you get to a point, then you're in the band for five years,

and you've gone to rehearsals twice a week for five years, and you've done major tours, and you make records, and now the bass player, leaves. Now the singer realizes I don't want to do this. You know, for years and bands, you're always relying on other people. You know? So I thought, comedy.

I don't have to rely on anyone. And I was all right at it. So I went and started that in Australia and then I suddenly realized, okay, Bill Bailey came out in 1980, 1998. I always knew British comedy was the best. And then I saw Bill Bailey in the small theater in Sydney. It was brilliant.

And that's when I went, I've got to be around guys, this is good. How do you get good if you're not around guys is this good? I've got an English passport. I'll fucking come here. And so you came here. And when I was talking to you about being on the show, because, you know, massive fan of your comedy. And when we were talking about political correctness,

you use the words to me, I fucking told you about this shit 11 years ago. No one was listening. You are now. That's his best Australian accent, by the way. Well, I obviously wasn't the first to bring this up. Obviously, Bill Mars had a show called What? Politically incorrect or something for 20-odd years, you know.

There was even an album brought out in the 80s, which was a joke album, a joke band, Anthrax, which is a legitimate band still going. But they mucked around. They had an album called Speak English or Die. Just a sort of punk crossover joke because all the songs were anti-PC and offensive. Yeah.

You know, right? So obviously that PC stuff is obviously in place like New York, where they're from, it'd been around, that was like mid-80s. They had this kind of anti-PC. So obviously, you know, I'm not the first guy to go,

hey, PC, people are a bit nuts. But back in, what, 2008 or something, when they really did start bringing in that crossover of we can connect hate crime to offence, that's when I went,

hang on. Because offence is not abuse or even insult, is it? It's a fence. Because, you know, which is, you didn't want to bring law

into a fence because a vegetarian could be offended at a barbecue. Yeah, but that seems to be the place that we're at. It is the place that we're at. Well, you better agree with the narrative. Yeah. On every single political niche, cultural niche, social, sort of a racial niche, sexual niche. You better agree with all of it, or you're some kind of sexist, transphobic, Islamophobic, Racist, heteronormative, cisgendered microaggression lunatic.

Yeah. Well, I want to bring it back to the video of you on Michael McIntyre's Roadshow, which we've just played at the beginning of this episode. And this was recorded in 2009, right? And you're talking about this very thing. You're talking about the culture of offence, people taking offense, and it's a subjective thing. You're talking about all of that.

That's 11 years ago at a time when we weren't really having this conversation in the same way. Like you said to Francis, I was warning you guys. And back then, the way I remember it, like people talking about political correctness, it was very much the sort of daily mail PC's gone mad. You can't say anything these days. But 11 years on now, I think we're in a very different place, aren't we? I think you two know we're in a very different place. Yeah.

Well, yeah, it seems. As I said, I'd come on this. There'd be lots of people watching this that don't know who I am. And I've watched some of the shows. You know, some of the Douglas and the other fella who was on who did the stuff about Christianity and history. Tom Holland. Tom Holland.

Interesting. With the hedgehogs. Yeah, yeah, that's the one. So they're educated. I can tell they're educated, well-spoken men where I was on. I'm not. So I'm not here to tell anyone that I'm, you know, an expert or all I'll talk about is the stuff that I've read and,

studied, I guess, through 20 years and for my, I don't like the word belief system, but for my sort of view of how certain things in the world are connected and deep in conspiracy. And I don't mind being called the conspiracy theorist because it's like being called a racist now. It's like the boy who cry wolf. No.

Oh, you're a racist, am I? Or whatever. It doesn't mean anything to me anymore. I don't care. You know, I'm not going to listen to these feminists or PC people or trans or what? Who are you? I'm a 53-year-old man.

I don't need some 20-year-old with pink hair to tell me that I'm a racist. I'm like, what are you talking about? But who are you? You don't know my life? You don't know anything about me. You're just, when I see people there when I grew up around punks and metal heads,

here's why I can't see any of these young people. When I used to see girls when I grew up with green hair and Doc Martins, they were cool girls. Now I see anyone like that. I'm like, get them the fuck away from me. Because here's the great irony to me. It's like, even though now I can see a lot of my old punk mates

were still getting inundated with that lefty ideology. We use these terms without getting too juristic in politics. Because some of my old mates, I realized, and also just the vibe that was around when we were in underground punk and a lot of this stuff was, you know, already in our heads. In that underground punk world, it was like, no one cares where you're black or Chinese, you come to the punk, punk gig, no one cares if you're gay, that was the whole thing about it.

It was that opening up of away from that mainstream sort of idea of just, you know, you get married to a girl and it was all that sort of, you know, everyone, you want to, you know, I've been to, he's everything, I've no trainee guys for 20 odd years at a hippie festivals that I met in the 90s. You know, that's what I love it. And you think you're having a rough time now. This guy was one in the like the 70s in Australia. You know, now he was.

in a tee-pee on pills. So, yeah, you know, he still had some stuff to get to. Yeah. But, you know, so it seemed to me that, you know, and punks and the whole thing was that we don't mind not being accepted by the mainstream. We'll use these words, right?

So we'll make our extreme death metal band. We don't care if no one likes it. Other metalheads will like it. We've got no support. We won't get on a TV show. We won't do this, but we're going to do it anyway. We'll do it anyway. But now it seems to me

you've got all these young people have been inundated with this PC narrative that now they tell you that the system is what well they want it destroyed they say defund the police they say they believe that the system is what inherently racist

so I can't be a white guy that's not racist why because I've been brought up in that system that's systematically racist is that the word they use systemic systemic racism so therefore they they use this to quantify their arguments that, well, you have to be some kind of racist.

Why? Because you've been brought up in this hierarchical, white colonialist dominating, especially with Britain, I guess, empirical. And there's a truth to tentacles that came out of colonialism. But it doesn't mean that what these people think is, somehow now I've got to bow down and go, oh, yeah, white people have been the evilest people in the world and everyone else's.

I'm like, forget about it. Right? Because, because, because these young kids are telling you that this system now is this. It's intrinsically systemic race. It's all this. But they're begging to be accepted by it. Whereas when I grew up these punks and that together, well, we don't want to be accepted by it. We'll stand over here. We're not going to work in the bank. Why? Well, I've got a Mohawk. This is why I got a Mohawk? Why? So I stand out against the system and it won't accept me. But now you've got these young people going to, well, why won't the system accept me? even though I think the system is systemically racist, sexist, violent,

colonialist, capitalist, capitalist, which I want to see destroyed, but at the same time, I want this very system I'd like to see destroyed, accept me. It's a great point. What? It's a great point. And my friend sent to mine the other day.

He said me this thing the other day going, he goes, this is your joke on the news. And there was some Aussie punk guy going, like, with his, you know, and like punk was over at about 78. in London, you know, but still they exist, the fashion suit on. So there's some guy in a discharged jacket with studs and liquid paper and a mohawk. And the articles, you know, I go for jobs and the employers don't want to hire me because the way I look, well, of course.

That's why you're dressed like that. But now they use it as this victim, see how I don't get anything? Yeah. See if I just want to express myself, the system won't accept me. What, what, blah, blah. So what you're really talking about this is how people rebel. So what you're saying is in the 70s, you rebelled against the system. And now people are rebelling against the system.

But what they really want more than anything is to become the system. Seems to me that's the way. Or as my therapist in Australia put it perfectly, he was an old guy, an ex-alcoholic. And it was a, it's not your average therapy. He said, he gets that's like asking the rapist to rub you back. that's what you're asking. He goes, and I had that once when I was talking to the Canadian Indians

because he'd done a lot of work overseas. He's an interesting guy. And there was a woman in Canada, you know, indigenous. With legitimate concerns, if you've been through shit like that, I understand, I'm from Australia. But bitching about the Canadian stuff and what's going on.

And he just said to it, just stop expecting your oppressor to help you help. Do it yourself. Now, these are big things, obviously. You see, We've only got 50 minutes. We could talk for just days because it's... I can start to see things radically connected,

in my head anyway, from the information I've done. You can see how PC and all this stuff, this divide and conquer. That's why I don't like feminism, because that's the big one between men and women. Like me and Reggie Hunter did a gig down the night at a university, and he actually said in one of his jokes, he asked, how many girls in here, women in here,

feel that not only do they sometimes be upset with men, but feel like they hate like all men. Every fucking girl put her hand up. Wow. Every girl on the gig put her hand up. Every girl. I was on the balcony watching. So to me it was like watching a puppet show.

I can see the propaganda, how it's gone in. There you go, girls. Do you hate all men? Yeah. They're like 18 years old. They're like 18 years old. Do they know that much? What do they know?

What do they know? But yeah, yeah, I hate all men. Why? What, your dad? Your uncle? Your brothers? Maybe the uncle. But don't you think as well?

So we've got feminism, but we also have identity politics as well. We've got the lot. We've got the sexual thing, haven't we? Like there's 50 million genders. Which, how do you even have a discussion? If you can't have a basic consensus of an objective reality, how do you psychologically map a conversation.

Right. In a civilised sense. How do me and you have a discussion about biological sex? If you go, I don't know, but there's 88 different genders. Well, how many can there be? Well, into infinitum. And I just make up another one. So there's no, why?

Because isn't it like this, is it this, what do they call it, this postmodernist thought? Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of, it's just in my head, so it's a reality in there. And if that's the basis, I'm sure someone will be in a comment section going, He doesn't understand postmodernism. You're right, I don't understand all that's complexities. But that seems to be the general thing of like, well, you know.

There's no truth, there's subjectivity and interpretation. Yeah. And if my lived experience is that you're a woman, then that's my lived experience. And I get to say that. Yeah. Right. That's it. Yeah.

It's all a bit. But you. It's like almost like, as I said, that guy who when he walks up to some girl in the university and says, you know, so what if I identify as a 65-year-old Chinese woman? And she just goes, Well, as long as you're not hurting anybody, you don't see what the problem is. Well, it's a big problem here.

He's not a 65-year-old Chinese woman. See, this is not open-mindedness. This is insanity, right? Yeah. This is, it doesn't matter what he does. He's not going to become a 65-year-old. He's a 6-foot-2 white American guy. This is all getting very transphobic, Steve.

I've got to tell you, mate. This is getting very, very problem. I don't even know what that means. To me, you know what, transphobic. To me, I don't agree with your narrative. It's what racist means. You don't agree with me? No, well, you must be racist.

You don't agree with gay marriage? No, well, you must be a homophobic. There could be no other, like they had a plebiscite in Australia to get the gay marriage through, which I knew was already going to come through. Why? Because it's the globalist agenda. To me, the plebiscite was an illusion to create the idea that you're having a choice. Plus, I think what it does is it gives these little lefties.

Then they go, oh, yeah, look, we won. And then they get the illusion. they got some power when it was already a done deal. Why? Because they're going to move this stuff in to deconstruct your societies. Also, you can deconstruct your own religion, what if you make, you know, how can you be a Christian eventually if they go, well, if you don't agree with everything homosexuality stands for, then therefore you must be a homophobe and a bigot. So that means, well, you really can't be a Christian anymore.

So we'll just get rid of your Christianity. And all the atheists will get this, isn't that great because they did this and that, well, you'll find out, well, you? And it's a great point because we now feel that we've moved beyond religion, don't we? We feel that we don't need religion anymore, that we've sort of evolved past it. Doesn't it mean that we're more divided than ever? I think it means we're arrogant. Now, of course, there's different words.

Now it comes religion, of course, that could be construed in many ways, I think, for my interpretation, you know, do I think the Catholic Church is involved in serious globalist conspiracy theory stuff? Yeah. Do I think that religion be fundamentalist and theistic and learn how to dominate people by telling them they go to hell and that they're filthy? This virus is almost like

religious, isn't it? Like you're born a sinner. Like you carry this filth in you. This is what the virus is like. That's what you like. Have you got it? I love the way he's looking at you. Oh, he's just got a broken rib. You know what I mean? And that's almost like PC. It's like

puritism. Puritanism. How do you say that? Puritanism. Puritanism, right? It's like, uh, see, it wasn't educated. It's like puritanism, you know, if you don't agree with the narratives, then we'll just burn you. But we burn you in different ways now, don't we?

We do it via social media. I notice you're not on Twitter. Is that a... No, I don't. I didn't even know. I don't know how to attach something to an email. I'm like, I literally, I don't like machines and... I just don't fucking like them.

They don't like me. They know. People go, it's very easy, Steve. You just put this thing in and it comes up. It's an app and just comes up. And I give it it. I soon put it in and goes, no, wrong. Okay, then they always get it.

I've never seen that before. Yeah, that's because I'm doing it. Maybe this is a bit neurotic, but computers have got it in from it. Constantine, do you like music? No. Well, if you're not completely soulless like him, and you do like music, may I recommend the Plant Society band? They've got a lovely soulful, chilled out flavour to their music

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brilliant bit of stand-up, just incredible. I remember watching it before I became a comedian, just thinking this is incredible. Really great stuff. And you did it in 2009. You talked about the culture of offense a little bit. You did it on a mainstream TV show. Do you think you could still do that routine now on TV? No, no, probably not. I think at the only, see, people used to often wonder, how do you say these things on mainstream, you know?

Because I know that some young comics, and they know a guy that's apparently controversial with some of them, they'd like to be like that. But some of them make the mistake of thinking that, oh, I'll be radical and offensive. No, no, that's not the point, right? I think I say things that I just want to say because I'm probably coming up in that underground thrash metal world

where I just always considered, well, you just do what you want, so you want to put an album out that's called, you know, Satan's soldiers. And the songs are all violent and satanic. Yeah, okay. So I didn't, I've never thought, from my perspective, just, well, you write a song about the devil

and sing some songs. if you want, do you? Have some gore on the cover? Oh, I don't care. So it's not quite of work for me. I just go, I'll just do what I want. So I didn't even sometimes know, you could not say that on that, can't you? I'm sure they'll tell me if I can't.

Now I'm sure they'll tell me. Yeah. So that's what I was getting at, is do you think your attitude, which I always thought was the comedian's attitude? You know, I got into comedy because I was watching Bill Hicks, George Carlin, people like you. And I was going, wow, these people are actually saying something, right? And they're making it funny, which is the important bit. Of course it is. But there's more to it than just, hey, I'm fat or whatever. You know what I mean? Not that that's bad, but never appealed to me. But that's why I got into it. And I guess what

I'm asking is, do you feel that the comedy landscape has changed since even 10 years ago? Well, I've spent five years dealing with having a breakdown, which was a night. but came in handy. It does, you know. So I was touring for five years before then, sort of with Reg and also just my own shows. So I haven't been in clubs for like a decade. Right, right.

I've done a couple since I got back, so I don't know. So obviously there's a whole, there'll be a whole group of people in there, one who've never seen me who have come out of university and gotten older. And I think about it, some of these people were 12 when I had a breakdown.

They're 20 now. So they could be in a club. Yeah. And so I don't really know how much it's changed. I'm sure it has to a degree because, you know, you could have... When I used to come up, the clubs would stand by the act no matter what. Jonglers could be a bit more mainstreaming in the 2000s. You know, maybe you could...

I think I told an audience in Birmingham Jonglers to go fuck themselves once in that morning. The rest of your gigs have been cancelled this way. Yeah, you're like... But usually clubs would... You know, if someone go, I want to complain about the comedian, the clubs would go, it's a comedy club, man. Not like that, no, man.

Now there, now there. And then you see the way comedy has gone in the mainstream, and it tends to follow up at his face. You know, I haven't watched it, but I've got a feeling if I did. Yeah. Because I've got a feeling that there would be like some 18-year-olds who I'd never heard of going, where is this guy or girl come from? Like everything will be nice and is anything.

I mean, at least in England they're very, it's a great comedy country. So you may still get some guy who's eclectic and eccentric. But I can imagine they're all pretty, well, someone in Melbourne started a safe space comedy room. And you'd have to give them your stuff first so they could go, oh, can you come in and do that? So they're vetting your material before you go in. Yeah, yeah. Right. And is this place popular?

I doubt it. I mean, piece of comedy is hilarious, is it? I mean, it's like sexless porn or something, isn't it? But, Steve, I mean, look, we talk about it. Why do you think it's important that we don't police comedy and you don't hand in your jokes? Well, like you were just saying, I was never, I wasn't a young guy who got into comedy. I wanted to be in bands for years. In hindsight, I realized that we liked comedy.

We used to, especially the 80s, we were still listening to a lot of thrash metal. But we'd also, in the mid-80s, I was still, sometimes we'd listen to Slayer and Exodus and Megadeth, but then we'd listen to Bill Cosby Records. So we kind of always liked that thing. And in the 80s, we watched a lot of that, Eddie Murphy, Raw, or DeLore. of those two. Yeah, those two big specials. Richard Pryor on Sunset Strip, is it?

Live at the Sunset Strip. One of the best ones. And Steve Martin had that Hollywood Bowl. It's just, we just had those VHSs. So we had this mixture of thrash metal and these three guys that we just used to watch continually.

But also I used to listen to Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins, which my punk mates introduced me to, which is the first time I'd ever heard of spoken word. And I like that. Like, all these guys get up there and just rant, you know. And I did like, I always like comedy that's got, and music that's got something to say.

Right. I like that. Some of the artists I like, you know, I listen to Kate Bush or Peter Gabriel or something that's got, I notice a lot of the artists I listen to it. It's usually an expression of the person. You know, so it's, people go, how do you get into all this different music?

To me, Slayer and Kate Bush is the same thing because they just do what they want. Yeah, there's no fakeness here. You know, this is death metal and this is Kate Bush, but they both go, well, this is what we do. There's no strategy to make you like me and dress up in a way. And so comedy, as a getting back to that, I always liked the comedy too that had, there was a realness.

I like Billy Connolly. He had a realness. You know, it was him. You know, I like the Eddie, that weren't all political, the Richard Prize in that, but it was real. Right. This guy would tell you, I took too much meth and set myself on fire,

and I'm getting divorced and he'd tell you about his mess and his life, and it was, he had balls, you know, and then when I saw Bill Hicks, that was the first time that I'd, that was like watching this kind of cross-spoken word

from the punk stuff mixed with jokes as good as Richard Pry. That was like heaven for me. Oh, look at this. This is like this merging of these, these two worlds. So, yeah, I always like that kind of comedy.

I like comedy. I don't think all comedy has to be political or one of the better words. word, but you know what I mean? I like Michael McIntosh's comedy, which many people would go, do you like Michael McElwell, he's funny, man. He's very good of what he does. He's fucking great, right?

Yeah, like, yeah, and he can do it, you know, he gets 20 minutes out of the kitchen drawer and he doesn't say fuck once, and I can't do that. And he has people dying with laughter. And I watched him when he first started in the clubs, you know, and he was kicking us. And he's, so, so some comedy's just good. You know, that guy can make just, you know, going on a tube funny. I can't do that. I wish I could.

You know, I've got a draw with sticky tape and scissors in it. But when I look in it, I go, how did Michael get 20 minutes out of this? So, you know, and some comedy is more eccentric and especially in England, they're very good at it. I forget the words sometimes, like Milton Jones or something. Yeah, surreal. Surreal, sort of twisted stuff. Mitch Hedberg was good at that kind of stuff. So, you know, I like it when it's weird.

Like, they had Woody Allen's early stuff. I was inspired by the creativity of the joke structures, you know, how much fat he would cut off a joke and it would just be this small package of words that would bite, especially biting towards himself, but also great gags. But I don't like comedy that's, yeah, well, I don't like mainstream things that are amazing.

to accommodate a safe. I understand if you're going to do a gig at the nursing home at midday, you don't come out if you you might accommodate the crowd, right? But generally, I don't like things that are made to fit in so that it'll be

accepted and nice. I'd rather have something that's got to have someone go, fucking hell, what's this going on? What's going on over here? It's more exciting. Do you have a website or do you plan to have a website? Well, if you do, then EasyDNS are the company for you.

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years, which was intense. So I was kind of out, which was a profound thing. I could almost look at this whole thing that's going on with this. I don't even say the word, COVID. I hate the word. but I can almost see it like that in one sense. It's like, see, now we get, like William, you were talking about the other day. See, see, in me having a breakdown, I knew for years that, what, I had stuff to deal with.

Usually if you're an artist, you've got some stuff to deal with. But it's kind of a springboard, isn't it, for the work? Because the neurosis and the pain gives you this kind of, like John Cleese said, I didn't want to get therapy because, what, I'm not funny? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it gives you that kind of springboard for music or this is this inner turmoil and stuff. But it has to be dealt with eventually.

You know, and usually if you've got something like that and I've got a driven personality, you know, I never stopped working. You know, never. Not that I'm a, I had a job I liked. I don't mean I wouldn't stop working if I had a shit job. But, you know, I didn't stop touring for five years. I was on the English comedy circuit for 10 years, and I did five years of touring nonstop.

And it just, you know, after, and I'm hitting me from, 40s and then when you've, you know, I was never a big drinker. I never took tons of drugs. I was never a drug addict, but you know, I've drunk and I've taken drugs and, you know, and then you're not sleeping. I've been sleeping at night for 30 years. I was in bands. Once this Chinese woman gave me a message and she just goes, you're sleeping daytime. I can't, how do you know, she goes, I can tell, not good. And so then, you know, you're eating at service stations. So, you know, I was 20 gigs away from taking a year off and maybe get me then girlfriend and move them to Australia for a year. And like 20 gigs

and what's the end? I just bang, adrenal fatigue, gut problems, you know, you blow out the neurotransmitters with the cortisol and the adrenals, with the no sleep, with the 46, with the unprocessed trauma. Bang. Have a mental breakdown. It takes you into deep, deep, deep depression, you know, which took me into a world, which I'd rallied against and everyone to go in, which was antidepressant world, which is another world I went into. which got out of because I know no way I'm staying on their drugs. I mean, I'd take an illegal drugs throughout me life

but I've never been addicted to it. When the doctor said, why don't you take any depression and said, I don't want to take these. He goes, but you take an illegal drug. I went, yeah, but not every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Admittedly, there was the odd Tuesday

I did some lines, right? But really, you know, Friday, Saturday, if it was rabid, you know, I'm not Wednesday, let's get some coat, You know, like even drinking, I don't really drink. And weed, you know, I just make some pot. But you realize, you know, it all just started to, and then what do they say if you're looking at even in a simplistic version of this,

in that Jungian sense, which is now you can get this information. You come out, if you listen to Peterson, Jordan Peterson, he'll tell you about it. He likes to go into that Jung shadow work, right? And if you listen to a guy called Gabel Marte, you know, Gabon Marte, that Canadian is a psychological way. He dealt with a lot of people on drugs. And he used to use ayahuasca and stuff in Canada until they sort of stopped him using it.

He's a Hungarian guy who escaped to Canada when he was a kid. But he's had a very, he's a very interesting guy. Most drug addictions to tell you is trauma. It's all unprocessed trauma. What's going on with your health, your illness. You've got to deal with the shadow work, you know. Like Youngens tell you, you've got to walk, even in the Bible, isn't it? You're going to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, be no evil?

I think what is that? Well, that's you, man. You've got to face yourself. You've got to face yourself. Otherwise, you keep going, well, I'm a victim. They do this to me. There's never, but what if things that are manifesting in your life are because of you? That's exactly the. How much of this victimhood shit do you think is people projecting their shit onto the world? Well, I think the victimhood, I think whoever this, this, this, this, I don't use the word elite, whatever's going on, this, system in the world. I believe they've used things like PC and all these minority separations to create exactly that, that victim mentality, which is a back foot mentality. It's, it's, it's, it's, you like, oh, look at my, I'm, I'm a victim of circumstance, you know, some circumstances are harder than others, of course, you know, I'm not saying that any of this stuff is easy and you could kill yourself doing it.

We're not, you might, you might not handle it. Depression will make you kill yourself. It's brutal. Brutal depression is, man, I've been there. You know, it's fucking brutal. And it's a strange one again because you can't work out a comparison. Someone else goes, yeah, I've had the same thing. We don't know because some people have a generally happy life and then they get a bit sad. They think they're depressed because they're not used to being a bit sad.

But I grew up pretty sad in my whole life. So being sort of just sort of miserable wasn't really a problem. But when I got depression, then I realized, this ain't the same thing. this is hardcore. And so then they will tell you this. So what's going on to the world at the moment? So what if what's going on to the world at the moment, you've got, now this is radicals and stuff, I guess.

But what if that great trauma? What if we have a collective trauma within the collective subconscious, subconscious? After 2,000 years we'll use of wars and slavery and colonialism and separation and just being on the planet. And so what if there is this great trauma? What if that trauma, like,

which is also part of the earth, which we're connected to, which we're not even connected to, we are of, is coming up. What if it's time to face this collective shadow? And so on almost one sense, what's happening in the world with this virus and this thing, we'll crush economies, we'll do all this, what if they're the manifestation of our unprocessed trauma? So almost like we don't, we can almost thank these people, this cabal for what? for showing us how to wake up.

Why? Because most people don't wake up until they've got a boot on their neck. Simple way to describe it, isn't it? If you hate the dentist because it's so scary and horrible, but once the pain of that toothache overrides the fear,

you can't get to that dentist quick enough. Why? Because the fear has now been driven out by the pain. And a lot of people wake up like that. How? Because the fear, the whatnot, the fear of my business, my country collapsing, right, but eventually, or even the fear of I'm getting a virus, that would be the one now. But that will soon go away if there's a

UN corporate thug who's busted into your house and taking your kids away and you've got his boot on your neck. No, you believe in conspiracy theories? Oh, no, yeah, no, maybe it's not So the pain will wake you up, won't it? Because, because, go on, man, make a joke. Crack a gag, it's a good time. Yeah, crack a gag. At the jackboot on someone's throat. But so you think it's, what we're doing is we're sort of awakening, almost.

And do you think a lot of people asleep walking through their life? Yeah, well, I was. I don't blame anyone for that. I think, you know, we're involved. we grew up as a TV generation, didn't we? Anyone from the sort of 50s, 60s, and up to now, you know, people go, oh, you think I'm brainwashed? But we're all brainwashed.

Who you had? Why do you think you're so special? Didn't you grow up watching TV, listening to them what they're telling you what to believe in? Watching the news told you what to believe in. Entertainment told you what to believe in. Sport told you what to believe in. You've got all these movies told you. Like me and you were discussing,

if most people think about the people who live in the southern states of America, I'll just start going, you know, all the little rednecks and talk like that and the squeal like a pig boy and you're like, where'd you get that idea? Films. Right. Have you been there?

No. Have you met them? No. No. They're probably the most American, polite. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Most certainly.

Yeah. Oh, no, they all hate black people. Do they? They've been living with black people for 400 years. Not like the northern states. So, you know, who's more used to it? So where do you get these beliefs from? Do you have, of course films have an effect.

Why wouldn't films be used for propaganda? They know what works. That's what advertising is, isn't it? Mix sex up with things that hit you subconsciously and then we'll buy that. Well, they know it works as they do it to you. So why wouldn't they use films? If you've got to, you know, if you want to psychologically control people and you've got access to motion pictures.

Right. It does make sense. And then if you go back and you watch it and you watch all these films and you go, yeah, and then you start asking who made them, and then you'll let's talk about that. And then... You know, and then we are where we are.

But do you blame young people for... No, because I've come to a stage of going, what's the point in blame? Because I watched some young girl the other day my brother sent me a thing of some poor P-Ced girl who's, you know, got no shirt on and slut written on her or something and Black Lives Matter written on her

and some purple hair and you're like I just said there I went I feel, no, I feel sorry for this person because I don't know, has she been brought up in a PC well, of course she has, right, to this system, this slow march through the institutions, which I think even Douglas Murray mentioned that,

you know, you know what's come through here. And did they pop her on psych drugs when she was three? Because they brought that one up, didn't they? Oh, they've all got AD, and ADHD and like here, start giving your children psych drugs. So what's the effect of these psych drugs on a three-year-old's head? Oh, you know, well, maybe so. So now I can look at them and go, well, this girl might be highly damaged from this system.

But also because I think they become so mental, where they start going, there's 900 genders. And if you want to be a chick, you can. Just, you know, just put on dress and call yourself Barbara. It doesn't matter. It's still reality. I think eventually the silent majority will listen to these people and go, these people are nuts

and they'll start waking heart because they're going what's going on with you? There's a thousand genders and average so I one sense I think

maybe we can thank them yeah because they've suffered I think they have suffered to end up like this like you're completely nuts what are you talking about just

well if you don't agree with that and you've seen some of them they yeah people compile like YouTube and make you know what do they call them snow flakes go and berserk or something

But some of them, you're like, why are you throwing a bin through a window? Because someone said something you don't like, man. I'm like, it's savage. But, you know, as I said, maybe, and there is spiritual sort of, I don't know, laws, is the right word? But they actually, the deeper I get into it where they go, it's not your job to change anyone. And it's almost like, it's not your karma. Someone else is karma, how they learn. So don't you go in there and start telling them.

If they ask, tell them. But if they don't, don't go in there and tell you, think. you can tell everyone what to do. Because it's not, maybe it's not their time yet. Maybe they're playing another role. I'm starting to learn that, you know,

with our mind and our intellect and my level of control, I've started to realize I've got to let go of control of some things, I think. Like, I just made the film clip with my band, as I said, wasn't myself and my friend,

but our cameraman, he can't quite, because he's had to go back to work during this lockdown stuff, right? So we can't quite get the time to make, we want to make another clip, but he's had to postpone. because he's got to get him to a normal job.

What was my point? What was I talking about? You're talking about letting go of control. You let it go and forgot. Now, there's a part of me that I know that could even within my unconscious, because I've looked at myself a lot, they could almost take that as,

well, who does he think he is? He said he'd do it. Why won't he do it now? Why won't he do it? And there's a part of me thinking, well, maybe I'll just get someone else to do it, right? I could drive up all these things, and I think, why don't you just let go?

Just go, okay. I can't do it for another three weeks. Okay. Because it would be a part of me the way I operate would start going, well, I'll get someone else to do it. I thought, well, no, I just for once go, okay, and see what happens? So I don't know what's going to happen. He might suddenly go, that job's been cancelled,

I've got a whole week free, do you want to do it straight in two days? I don't know what's going to happen. But if I work myself up through, well, I'll try and control it. So I thought, I'll just drop it all. I'll just let it go and see where it takes me. Because I don't know. My therapist said something which really, I couldn't work out at first.

And then I think I've, he said, whenever you're trying to do something, he goes, have no desire for an outcome, which goes completely against if you want to win an Olympic medal or become a weightlifter. You go there, you've got an outcome, you've got a goal, which is, I think in our society is something that's very,

we look at it, don't we? And it makes sense to the mind. Well, like that, so I'll do this. And I understand it works. If you want to get good at drums, well, hit him a lot and eventually you'll be better than you are here in that linear thing. But he said to me, he said, you know, have stuff you want.

He goes, but don't have any desire for the outcome. He said, do the work, but let go of control of any desire for the outcome. He goes, because you don't, he goes, this is what made me think. He goes, when you do that, you now can put yourself in the position of pure potential. which is beyond your control. Not you trying to control the world, put yourself in pure potential. Why?

Will you let go? If you're in religious, they might call it faith. Let go. You don't know everything. Something may happen. You don't know. And maybe if you try and control it,

that thing that would have happened, now won't. And do you think we live in a great point, but do you think we live in a society where we're sort of taught to believe in control. We have a five-year plan. What do you want? What's your ambition?

You go to university. You go do this. You do that. You do this. We're taught to have control. We're totally taught. And some of it's, I think you have to learn to live in paradox. I mean, some of it is not like you just, I have no control.

I don't care about anything. It's not that flamboyant a way to think. Most definitely we live in a go, go, go. achieve, I'm a winner kind of mentality, you don't really have a society. We have that kind of, no one's kind of, yeah, man, just. But yeah, I think that, I think that stuff's coming to an end because I think that there is an awakening, I don't like that word particularly, but I think there's a, because there's many different angles depending on how you could look at this situation we're in at the moment.

Isn't it? There's the political ones. It's the conspiratorial ones. But there's big, there's big spiritual ones of people I listen to who are like, well, this is just happening, like mystics have told you, like indigenous people told you. Like it's just happening. There's photon belts that are shifting. You've gone from the age of Pisces into Aquarius. You know, this is other realms that people are looking at or what's going on on the planet. You do have to shift. You have to wake up because you've acquiesced over 2,000 years to these

systems, what, that came from Rome everywhere. So you're responsible as well for what's going on. Why? Because you acquiesced. You pay your tax. You agreed to listen to all their stuff. They tell you, they tell you in the films, don't they? They tell you all the time. Look, here's a film, Robocop. We told you in the 80s.

And you went, yeah, it's a film. Well, we're going to bring him for you. And we're getting you used to them. Here they are. And also what that then is that goes, well, we didn't lie to you. In fact, you're so stupid. This is almost satanic. We showed you and you didn't wake up.

Is it our fault? See, that's satanic thinking. That's predatory thinking. That's how satanic thinks. That's how Satanism will think in the level of, well, Levean Satanism, at least in the sense of, well, if you're too stupid to understand that I'm psychologically manipulating you, then that's nature. Steve, it's an important point you made earlier as well, which I resonates with me, which is about the importance of confronting the fact that you have that shadow, that we all have a shadow. and recognizing that and not pretending, oh, I'm this perfect good person.

Because everyone nowadays runs around thinking they're a good person, right? You tweet the right thing, you say the right thing, you have the right opinions, you're on the right side of politics, you're on the right side of history. You're on the right side of history, right? That's the phrase they use. You're on the right side of history. And you brought up Jordan Peterson,

who I have mixed feelings about on some things. But I think he's right on this, which is if you don't recognize, your own imperfections, your own evil desires, your ability, your capability of being evil, then you will find yourself running around claiming to be a good person and doing a tremendous amount of damage in the world. What's the old sake, isn't it? All the road to hell are paved of good intentions.

That's an old one. Right. Didn't always understand, always throughout my life. Yeah. But most definitely, because also then you, and it's not easy. I mean, my personality is, I mean, see, Then we can look at it from this perspective. Then you get the, you know, non-dualism.

You know, non-dualism. Explain it. Okay, well, that's when you're getting to sort of the enlightenment within Buddhism. All right. Now, there's a guy in English guy called Tony Parsons who's radical non-dualism. He's even too full on for some non-dualists.

So what this is, is in that sort of mysticism, Buddhist sense, is that you're living in duality, right? Like in the Ying and Yang, black and white, right? there's a mind and a personality in a subjective world. And it lives in there and it looks out at an objective world and thinks that things in the objective world can come at the subjective world and that these two things are separate. They're telling you, no, well, they're not separate.

But they are dualistic. So you have up, down, black, white, wet, dry, hot, cold, male, female. You have these dualisms. but the real reality is singular, yet the dualism is part of the singular. I'd love to see your comedy after all this. It sounds like you've been on a journey, man. Well, I used to think back then,

how could I get some of this stuff into comedy without taking the piss out of it? There's a certain part of me that doesn't like to take the piss out of topics. That you care about it. Yeah. Yeah, even though I can make comedy out of them. But I've got to make sure that I'm not taking the piss out of it. Right. You're not going for the easy, cheap gag.

No, no, no. If I want to discuss something like this, it's... Yeah. Well, there's an old saying with heavy metal, I go, you know... Well, people into heavy metal can laugh at heavy metal. It's just that if you don't understand heavy metal, we get upset if you laugh at it. Right. But we can laugh at it, right, because we know, yeah. Because we also respect it, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. But that guy's dressed in a loincloth. Yeah, but... Yeah. Yeah. But it's kind of cool. Yeah.

Yeah. You've got another tradition of the loin cop. But if you're just laughing at it, I think it's stupid, no, no, no, it's not as stupid as you think, right? So are you going to, are you doing comedy about this sort of stuff, spirituality, which is personal growth, whatever you call it? I don't know yet how to do it. I'll do it if it comes. Yeah. So what are you talking about on stage now?

Well, the last show is very about sort of just PC and feminism, especially feminism. I don't agree with it. Why don't you? Because if you come to fundamentalist and radical, I'm sure back in the day, you know, it was fine, you know, but now it's just too, now it's radical. It's just too out of control. It's man-hating, and I don't care what you say it is,

and it just is. Do I now have to go into a long-winded reason why I'm supposed to believe it is to make sure that I don't get bad comments or people try and, I don't care anymore. To be honest, man, on this show, you probably get good comments. Yeah, yeah, so I don't care what they say anymore. Loads of the women who watch our show are massively anti-feminism.

Because, you should have said, it's become a completely different thing. Second way feminism was about making sure the women had the same rights as men, right? And it seems like Douglas Murray says, who he watched on our show. We got to the train station and then we went, you know what, fuck it. And just we keep going. Yeah. That's great. Last stop.

Not for us. May, we could talk for hours, like you say. but unfortunately we're out of time. Oh, already. Yeah, absolutely. Time flies. It does fly. We've got one more question for you.

Which is, as always, what's the one thing we're not talking about, but we really should be? I'm not talking about it really should be. How amazing Kate Bush's drummer is. No, but he is. That would have been very on brand, Steve. I would be honest with you.

That would have been very on brand, that last question. On brand? Yeah. Doesn't it matches who you are? Otherwise. Like your brand, like how people would perceive you, it matches that. Oh, right. Well, certainly does.

Well, well, what are we not talking about that should be talked about? I wouldn't these days bother to tell anyone what they should think or what they should do anymore. All I would suggest, see, as I was going to say before, things are very easy for me because I get a little more radical than some people because of the. So people go, do you watch the news? No. I haven't watched the news about this coronavirus once. The only time I've heard it was in the taxi coming here today

because the guy wouldn't turn it off. And people go, why? Because I'm not going to listen to liars. They're liars. They told you there was weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They told you cigarettes were good for you in the 50s. They told you this. They're lies.

They're bought out. They're corporatized. I'm not going to listen to them. They're good to watch if you want to see what your enemy's doing. Psychological strategies your enemy's doing. But I'll let other people do that. I'm not watching them. Because it's psychological war.

You know, when I watch the news, I just go, well, this is a cultic and it's military-grade psychological warfare. Even a simple thing. You watch some guy comes on, he says something that they want you to agree with, and it flashes back to the news girl, and she's going like this as he speaks. Most people wouldn't notice. What's she doing? She's going, yes, see what he's saying? What he's saying is true, isn't it? So it's just there.

So that's stuff. And I think if you're one of these people that's still running around calling everybody who doesn't believe in narratives a conspiracy theorist, I think what we should be talking about is that you're, see, I could get a little radical and say what you are is an enemy of the people and you're colluding with the enemy. And what we're not talking about is obviously just to just do some research. Because we're not talking about it. Because now everything's just a right-wing conspiracy theory in it, the mainstream. Love to throw that out there.

So I think what we're not talking about is the fact that it's stop being a victim, get off your own ass, do some research. have your journey be what it is. I'm not going to tell you what to do. Maybe you want to give it, maybe you'll karma to be in a UN concentration camp. I don't know.

And on that, super positive not. I don't think that's going to happen. No. Because I think, you know, the spirit is bigger, light is bigger. See, this is death. Where are we getting this system? It's death.

It's on its last legs. Why, that's why it's doing this radical thing. And it is death. It doesn't exist. That's why you have to sign a birth certificate and sign and register everything, and they create the fake you like. That's why you have a mortgage, mort, death. You have a death loan, don't you?

He doesn't. No. He can't afford you. No. He didn't I? I'm fucked, don't I? Yeah, right, right. Steve, we got her up, man.

I'm sorry. Don't sound up yet. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope this was interesting. I know it was a little all over the shop. No, it's great, man. We're not done yet, so don't do the off-camera part before we've gone off-camera.

Where can people find your work? You've obviously got a YouTube channel. Yeah, I've got a YouTube channel on there, yeah. What is it? That's, I guess it's just called Steve Hughes. All right. Well, you can see, Steve doesn't know what brand is, and he doesn't know what his own YouTube channel is.

He says, don't watch the news, watch Trigonometry, and watch Steve's YouTube channel. So I've got YouTube channel, and there's music, comedy on there. Perfect. But it's Efforten if you really want on the internet now, isn't it? There is. But let's not go there. Let's not go there.

Anyway, Steve, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. And we will see you guys very soon with another brilliant episode like this. 7pm UK time on Wednesdays and Sunday. Or you can catch us on a live stream. Absolutely. And they go out Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Always 7pm UK time.

Take care and see you soon, guys.