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140 Jim Jefferies Australia_S Top Comedy Export On Illustrious Career Hollywood Parties Trump Family

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I'm Mike Boris, and this is Straight Talk.

Jim Jefferies, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Thanks for having me.

Jim Jefferies.

Jim Jefferies.

I'm Australia's biggest comedic export.

I need it for protection.

Is that why they're called assault rifles?

Is it?

I wanted to be a professional comic from the age of 11, and that was all Eddie Murphy's delirious.

James Packer's birthday party.

Al Pacino and Warren Beatty and Leonardo DiCaprio and Eddie Murphy comes in.

I know you.

He goes, what are you doing here?

And I said, um...

I'm going to do stand-up for the dinner party.

And he goes, there is no way that's going to work out.

And then he left, and I was like, oh, no.

My favourite comedian said, I've just got an unachievable task.

Am I losing it?

And I went, why are you a fuck-up?

Like, I went for it like that.

Me and Pierce have no problem anymore, because my wife wouldn't have married me unless I told him to fuck off.

I've never said this joke, right?

This is the first time I'm going to say this joke, right?

Jim Jefferies, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Thanks for having me.

How cool is it to be back in Australia?

I love coming back to Australia.

Doing the 1% Club has allowed me to come back more often than I used to.

I used to do like a tour about once every two years, you know,

and now I get to come back every year and do the show, plus I get to do a tour.

And, you know, my dad's not getting any younger, and I try to see him as much as possible.

And I always try to sort of have it happening when America's on school holidays,

and Australia's not.

So I've got my kids coming down.

But it seems like we always come here in the winter, you know, because they're on summer break right now.

It's pretty fucked at the moment.

It's pretty cold.

Oh, it's not too bad, actually.

I thought it was going to be colder, but we've been staying out in Bondi.

And, you know, look, we're not going to be getting in the water anytime soon,

but we'll have a gelato and some, you know, fish and chips.

That's all my son talks about is fish and chips and Australian prawns and eating golden gay times.

You know, I've got these American kids who I think, well, they're three-year-olds.

It doesn't say anything, but the 11-year-old thinks that there's a bit of cachet in being Australian.

So if I watch him and he's playing, like, you know, Fortnite with his mates,

he'll go like, go around the back.

All right, shoot him.

Now cover me.

Thanks, mate.

And then he'll just slip a mate in there.

It's always weird.

The word mate, whenever an Australian says mate, like every other culture in the world,

they always try to push their greeting onto others.

So you go to Hawaii and it's aloha.

We all say aloha here.

Hawaii, you go to Japan, konnichiwa.

We all say konnichiwa.

Australians, we all say g'day, mate.

But doesn't it sound terrible when a tourist says it?

It sounds really bad.

But does yours sound really attour?

I mean, what do you call it?

No, when an American goes, g'day, mate, you're like, that's not your word.

Yeah, dude, drop off.

So, by the way, I was just thinking about myself this morning when I knew you were coming in.

I thought, I reckon Jim must be one of Australia's biggest, definitely, let's call it comedic exports.

Yeah.

Would you be?

And what does it feel like to be that dude?

It's different now.

But for stand-up comedy, for the longest time I was, but I'll never, you know, for comedy,

comic performers, I'll never beat Paul Hogan.

Paul Hogan's the biggest.

Yeah, but not stand-up, I'm talking.

But for stand-up, yes.

But it's a different world now.

So you're going to get a lot more now.

So right up until about 10 years ago, and 10 years ago, I was the first, I was one of

the first five people to get a Netflix special.

They brought five specials out at once.

Now, incidentally, those five specials were me, Bill Burr, Chelsea Hanley.

Chelsea Peretti.

But the fifth comic, it never aired because his name was Bill Cosby.

So Netflix came out and they said, Netflix is a joke and we're going to do specials.

Because before that, it was all HBO and Showtime that did specials.

And those specials may or may not have aired in the UK or in Australia.

But because of Netflix now, there's no conquering America.

There's no conquering Britain anymore.

It's just conquering the world because everything's streamed at once.

So what?

I went over and did the UK.

I started my comedy career out there.

Then I went over and did America.

And I had to keep going back to cities and getting repeat customers.

But now you've got comedians like, I saw like the other day, Theo Vaughn came out here and

sold out big arenas.

He's never been to Australia before.

You know what I mean?

But because he's on Netflix and the podcast world, where people can just stream podcasts.

So all media now is international, where it wasn't international 10 years ago.

So me being arguably the biggest...

Australian comedian worldwide 10 years ago, there'll be people who will overtake me because

they're all just going to be now...

Comedians is going to be universal and they weren't universal before.

So I'm probably only going to have that crown for a very short time.

You're fucking hanging on to it though, don't you?

People probably argue like Hannah Gatsby won, like she won Emmys and stuff like that.

I think she got paid a lot more money for her stand-up specials than me.

But I don't know if she...

The ticket sales were the same, but it's not a competition, is it?

Bullshit.

Totally.

Well, speaking of that, I've got to ask you straight up, Geoffrey Nugent.

Yeah, Geoffrey Nugent.

How did you get Jim Jefferies out of Geoffrey Nugent?

Okay, so my full name is Geoffrey James Nugent.

And so Geoffrey with a G.

I always kind of disliked the name Geoffrey because my mother was a very strict individual.

Right up until the day she died, she was a very strict individual.

She wouldn't let my friends call me Geoff or anything like that.

It was always Geoffrey with a G.

It sounded very...

Geoffrey Nugent sounded very prim and proper type of a name.

I went on to do...

And Nugent's not a very popular name in Australia.

It's more well-known in America or in Ireland or something like that.

But I went on stage and I think it was Adam Hills, but I'm not completely sure.

As Geoffrey Nugent.

As Geoffrey Nugent.

My first gig, 17 years old.

Or maybe 18 years old.

And they said, please welcome to the stage, Godfrey Nugent.

And there's no D in there or anything, but I went, Godfrey Nugent.

Godfrey Nugent.

Godfrey Nugent isn't a very rock and roll name, is it?

And so I thought I'll change it for one show, change it to Geoffrey James,

which just took my last name off.

And that didn't sound right.

And then I thought maybe Jim Jeffreys and then the alliteration.

So I changed it.

And it was just like a decision that took me minutes.

And I was just like, oh, Jim Jeffreys, how about that?

I'll give that a go.

And I remember, incidentally, I actually ran it past my parents,

what they thought, you know, because I didn't want to disappoint them,

you know, like changing their name.

The name I was given.

My kids have – so I never legally changed my name.

I'm still legally Geoffrey Nugent.

My kids have the legal name of Jeffreys, right?

As in when they were born, you registered them on the –

Yeah, I registered them.

I gave them my stage name.

And I just did that because I just didn't want it to be really difficult.

Why do you have a different name from me?

And my wife kept her name.

So all three of us have different names on our passports,

and we try to get through the airport, and it's very difficult.

So does your passport say Jim Jeffreys?

Geoffrey Nugent.

Geoffrey Nugent.

And I've always thought I'll legally change it, but you know what?

Sometimes it's nice to have two names.

Like if I'm ringing up and I want a quote on something to get fixed in my house,

well, Jim Jeffreys has got money, hasn't he?

Yeah.

Geoffrey Nugent doesn't have any money.

You're not going to bump his quote up, right?

Well, Godfrey Nugent has got none.

Yeah, Godfrey Nugent's got nothing, right?

So I use one name when I need it, another name.

That's pretty cool, actually.

I can call you Jimmy Two Names or Geoffrey Two Names.

I don't respond to Geoffrey.

I don't turn around anymore.

It took years for that.

And I've got one of my brothers calls me Jim,

and one of them calls me Geoffrey, and my dad still calls me Geoffrey,

and he's not going to change any time soon.

Can we just go back to when you were talking about your parents?

Born in Sydney?

Yeah, yeah.

What's the deal?

My parents, my father in 1969 bought a block of land in St Ives,

Sydney, St Ives, St Ives, Sydney, and he built the house himself.

He's a builder?

My father's a carpenter.

Carpenter, yeah.

And he built it over time himself, and the whole block of land,

on a dirt road, cost him I believe $16,000 was the whole investment,

block of land and the property for a house in St Ives.

I always find it weird whenever you say, anyone from Sydney will know the name

St Ives.

And everyone always thinks it's really fancy.

They go, ooh, St Ives, ooh, like that.

We were pretty, we were a very working class family.

But that's my dad's best investment he ever did, I think,

buying a block of land in St Ives in 1969, yeah.

That'd be worth a fair bit of dough now.

Is he still there?

He still lives in the same house that he built, same house that he built.

Little, very small house, bloody tidy, you know.

He still lives in the same house.

He's 82 or 83, and he still lives in the same house.

And he's in good shape?

He's got a few health conditions as all 83-year-olds, but he's of sound mind.

Let's put it this way.

He could run the free world.

Yeah, like Joe Biden.

He's young enough to run to be president, you know what I mean?

I think he could out-debate Biden.

That's pretty good.

It's sort of a low bar, though.

Yeah, yeah.

How about Trump?

He wouldn't take a bullet as good as Trump, I'll tell you that much.

Well, we're going to talk about Trump.

A bit more gingerly, get to his feet, I reckon.

But no, he's in good health, yeah.

And you've got a brother, did you say?

Two older brothers.

Two older brothers.

Two older brothers.

And would you go to school up there?

St. Ives High.

St. Ives High.

So you would like to go into the state school system?

State school system, St. Ives High.

Good student?

No, terrible student.

Very dyslexic to this day.

Reading is my kryptonite.

I find it very hard to read.

Please explain what you mean by dyslexic, as in words don't go in the same shape?

I find reading out loud very panicky to this day.

And even when I'm doing the 1% Club, I'm going to have to read a teleprompt.

Yeah.

And if anyone who's been a contestant on the show,

they'll know that the-

Even now I stutter a little bit.

And the lead-ins and the outros and stuff like that, that's hard work for me.

But when we did the Jim Jefferies show in America,

I used to have to just sit there and do a 30-minute show from top to bottom.

And in the end, I got rid of the teleprompt and just really put points in there.

And I memorized the jokes as much as I could, you know.

So I'm all right when I'm just talking, but I find reading out loud very hard.

I had, you know, a few dyslexia.

I don't believe it, but I got diagnosed with-

With attention deficit disorder, which later a doctor in my adult life said that I was probably autistic.

But I still to this day, I've got a few social Q problems.

I find it very hard to make eye contact.

I keep on reminding myself through this interview just to look up and all that type of stuff.

And if I'm at parties, the thing I do with my wife is my wife stands next to me at parties

and every now and again reminds me to ask people questions about their life.

And I go, just making sure I ask something about them.

And I go, how long have you two been married?

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's not that I'm a bad dude or nothing.

I just, you know, I just, I've spent my whole career just basically talking to myself.

That's all stand-up comedy is, working by myself, talking to myself.

And so even if I do an interview like this, you won't even have to ask a question.

I'll just keep talking until there's, I don't like silences.

It's very interesting what you said about, I mean, I want to come back to you growing up in a minute,

but I just want to quickly advance to that point.

When, I've often had a theory too, like when you address an audience, a big audience,

it doesn't matter whether it's a fucking audience, whatever the size,

I don't reckon you're actually talking to the audience, you're talking to yourself the whole time.

That's what I think anyway.

Yeah, you're giving opinions and you're telling stories and all that type of stuff.

But, you know, you need the response from them.

It is a relationship.

It isn't just.

You're talking to yourself.

But there, I see them as not thousands of people or a hundred people.

I see them as one unit that I'm talking to, one group.

And so, like when people say, oh, there's a bad crowd or whatever like that,

they're not all bad.

I've done shows in front of 8,000 people and they weren't a great crowd.

And I've done shows in front of eight people who were banging.

It's just the ratio of good to bad, you know.

I guess it also depends where you are.

If you're in Texas or something like that.

I've had, yeah, I've played all over America.

I've played all over the world, you know.

And, you know, like next year I'll be touring Europe and the UK.

And this year I'm touring Australia as my overseas tour.

And me and Jimmy Carr are doing a double act thing in Canada, across Canada.

We're doing, not when I say double act, the tour is doing a double headline thing.

We're doing that in different ice hockey arenas in front of Canadians, you know.

So, look at that.

Looking forward to working with another comic, you know.

And then, but also like last year I did Asia.

And then I'm going to do Europe again.

But this next tour I'm going to do places in Europe I haven't been.

You know, I'm going to go to like, I know this isn't all Europe,

but Turkey and Morocco and different little places that I haven't been on tour before, you know.

And I try to take the family and sort of see the world that way, a bit Partridge family.

That's Partridge family.

Not many people around even know what you're talking about.

I remember the Partridge family well.

So, if I go back to that when you see, you weren't a great,

you were a student, you had a bit of dyslexia.

Terrible student.

You know, maybe they said you had a bit of ADHD.

In other words, you couldn't.

I don't think I did.

I think that was just something that was over-diagnosed.

And I also think that a lot of things with attention deficit disorder,

because I wasn't disruptive very much.

But I think that sometimes they over-diagnose personalities.

That's just my opinion.

You know, there's people with attention deficit disorder

that will completely disagree with that and think it's a real thing.

But I think that, I personally think that I was over-medicated.

Oh, you were medicated for it too?

Yeah, I was taking so much Ritalin.

My hand's still in shape.

Wow.

From what age?

Oh, nine.

Oh, my God.

And by the time I was 15, I was taking about six to eight Ritalins a day.

My mother would wake me up with a Ritalin and a glass of orange juice.

So, the first thing, as my eyes opened, a pill would be put in my mouth.

Quick shot of the amphetamines.

Yeah.

And I've been very open about my drug.

I've been very open about my drug usage throughout my life.

And to this day, amphetamines don't do much to me.

Yes, there's no point.

There's no point.

They don't do much to me.

They just sit on me, you know.

But I got off them about 16.

I didn't take them for the rest because I thought,

my hands started twitching all the time.

I thought, this can't be good for you, doing all this thing.

That's a big decision for a 16-year-old, mate.

Yeah, but then, you know, I still took other drugs as an older person, you know.

I got into that game sort of a bit late, living in England and all that sort of stuff.

I never say that I was...

I was a drug addict or something like that.

But I, you know, I went pretty hard with drugs.

Yeah, but more recreational.

It wasn't like day-to-day.

Recreational, yes.

Not day-to-day to day-to-day.

Not day-to-day.

But, yeah, I was doing them pretty...

It depends if there was a comedy festival on or I was just sitting at home.

If I was sitting at home, I was never doing it, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, I think most people wouldn't admit it,

but I reckon just a bit of it in Australia, especially these days.

I mean, like, we're sitting here right now in the middle of these suburbs, mate.

There's just about every dude and girl in these suburbs takes cocaine

every fucking Friday night and Saturday night.

Well, there's not...

It's mentally.

But, see, when I was doing it in England for 50 pounds a gram...

That's cheap.

Yeah, versus, what is it, $300 and something here.

And then, you know, I'm going to have to be open with my sons about it

because I've been open about talking about it so much

that they'll be able to see footage of me talking about it.

And now, with the fucking fentanyl in America, people are dying.

It's just not...

As a substitute because they're putting fentanyl in

and people think it's cocaine or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, the fentanyl people...

I know people who...

Drop dead.

Like, it's rampant in America.

People fucking dropping dead from fentanyl.

Wow.

And these are people who aren't drug addicts.

They're just taking a little bit...

A line here, a line there, and they're bloody dropping dead.

And I know it hasn't really hit Australia,

but you don't want that fucking shit coming over here.

I hear that the bikies put an article saying,

anyone who cuts our products.

You know what I mean?

Like, bloody terrible stuff.

So...

I haven't taken drugs in a very long time.

Very long time.

So I'm not talking about someone who did it last week.

But there's been some incidences in the comedy community,

so people I know who are just like that.

One line, bang.

Jesus.

You need a mount that's like a grain of sand up your nose

and you're bloody, you're gone.

Bloody terrible.

Someone says, like, a hundred times more lethal than heroin.

Heroin, yeah.

Like, it's a shit drug.

And so, yeah, they fucked with it too much.

You know what I mean?

They fucked with it too much.

Back in the day, pills and ecstasy and all that,

they had a wonderful time.

And then the fucking assholes bloody fucked with it.

If you didn't...

If you weren't a great student,

then how did you end up...

In terms of study, like, what did you end up doing, like, after school?

Hardly past school, I got what you would call in your HSC,

you had that rank score and 100 being the best.

And I got 34.

Not great.

Not great, but better than I thought I would.

And then I went and studied at WAPA,

the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts,

which was more famous than anything

for having Lisa McEwan and Hugh Jackman went there.

And I went and studied musical theatre there for one year

and then I didn't get through to the next bit of the course

and then I went and did opera singing for the last little bit

because I was just...

But I was really just buying time until I could be a professional comedian

and that's what I wanted to be as a little tiny kid.

Oh, really?

I wanted to be a professional comic from the age of 11

and I was obsessed with comedy from before that.

And that was all Eddie Murphy's Delirious.

So you've got to...

So this is what my point is.

We're going to have some amazing comics come out of Australia now.

We're going to have world...

We've always had world-class comics,

but we're going to have people who are going to be so big

coming out of this country because they're getting exposure,

which I never got, right?

So my first experience with George Carlin was...

He was Rufus of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

I never saw a George Carlin special.

I never saw an HBO special, someone doing comedy for an hour.

All we had was...

People doing comedy for about five minutes on a late-night show

on Steve Visard once a month, maybe.

You'd get a comedian.

And they had a TV show on the ABC called The Big Gig

and The Big Gig, Wendy Harmer and different comics were on there

and they were doing a great job, but they were all doing five minutes,

five minutes, five minutes, and they put a bit of music in between

and I used to lap that up.

And the big show for me in high school was the late show

with Mick Molloy and all that and Rob Sitch.

I used to love that show.

Look, I'm working with Mick Molloy tonight.

And I would never say this to him.

I hope he doesn't listen to me saying it.

Everybody's listening.

But it's so wonderful to call a hero of mine a friend.

You know what I mean?

That's cool.

Because I...

He doesn't know that.

But so the difference between...

My parents didn't buy comedy albums.

There was no way...

There was no cable TV.

There was no way to watch an hour-long comedy special in Australia

except for one special, and that was Eddie Murphy's

Delirious.

And Eddie Murphy's Raw eventually, but that stayed delirious.

And Delirious was available at the video store

because it was the first special ever that was a cinematic release.

So it was counted as a movie.

So it was released in the movies.

And it just so happened that when I'm fucking 11 years old,

I have an 18-year-old brother who can rent that video, right?

So my 18-year-old brother who has since become a cop,

he was showing R-rated movies.

He's the children, so we should pull him up on that.

Pull himself up.

Yeah, yeah.

We should get that bloke, you know?

But so we had Delirious, and my brothers rented it a few times.

And I used to wait.

Like if my father went, oh, he's doing a bit of gardening for 10 minutes,

I'd put it in the video player and watch 10 minutes

and then sneak another five minutes because I wasn't allowed to watch it.

And I just thought it was so amazing, like a bloke.

And it's still to this day sort of why I wear like leather shirts on stage

was Eddie Murphy was in like a leather outfit.

Look at that.

He's looking like Elvis just with the red in the thing with the shirt open.

And at that stage he was maybe 21 years old or something.

And then he's off to do Beverly Hills Cop,

and I thought that guy was just everything to me,

just telling these long-winded stories.

And to this day I think I probably modelled myself more on him than anything.

And then by the time I was 16, Anthony Morgan, the Australian comedian,

he always used to do the side pieces on Vizart, and I used to watch Vizart.

He did a show.

There was a theatre called the Harbour Theatre or something,

which is underneath the Harbour Bridge, I think on the east side

and on the north side.

But he – fake ID'd it and went in and went and saw Anthony Morgan.

And that was the first time I'd seen stand-up comedy live,

and the guy was on stage for an hour and a half,

and I thought that was just wonderful.

And I've still never met Anthony.

And he doesn't do much comedy, but I'd love to give that guy a hug

because that was a real pivotal moment in my life.

It was actually seeing someone – and there was only a couple hundred people there,

you know, but I thought that was fantastic because the idea of, you know –

I'm going to say something very arrogant here.

I'm a better fucking entertainer than Beyonce.

Fuck yeah, I am.

Too right, I am.

On what basis, though?

Explain it.

Let's see her do it without fucking dancers and choreographed routines

and fucking lights and a backup band.

Let's see her get out there and entertain people.

Let's see her get out there and entertain people with nothing but a microphone, right?

And that's really what it is.

That's a fair point, yeah.

With nothing but a microphone, right?

Scary.

I can entertain – I saw that at the Rod Lever.

I can entertain 10,000 people just with a microphone and a spotlight, right?

And I know lots of other people who can do this.

I'm not alone on this.

There's loads of comedians.

But I remember having so much respect for Anthony Morgan when I left that room,

thinking that was something special.

But what was it?

What was it?

What was the –

Because I'd seen people talk in front of rooms full of people

and they were fucking boring and they were called schoolteachers.

You know what I mean?

I'd seen people stand up and chat with us and it was always just such a –

if you see now, you go to any conference or anything

and someone walks up and they get to the podium,

there's an element of how long is this going to be, right?

And anyone can do it for five minutes.

Just five minutes.

Anyone can do it for –

like stand-up can do real punchy, a best man speech at a wedding

or something like that.

But an hour?

People are going to get bored now.

If you can hold people's attention an hour plus, that's something else.

So I thought more than seeing – I've seen Paul McCartney in concert.

I've seen great art of Elton John.

Great musicians.

Great musicians.

And it's amazing when you watch him, like going,

how do they play all these instruments and all that type of stuff?

But at the end of the day,

they've still got that trick in front of them and they've still got –

so the big difference between music and comedy is –

I don't know why musicians even bother naming their fucking tours

because there's been bands that I like.

Like I've seen Oasis live 15 times.

The tour is always the same.

They can name it something else but it's always the fucking same, right?

Because the big difference between comedy and music is when you're watching comedy,

you only want to hear the new stuff.

Yeah.

When you're watching music,

you only want to hear –

you want to hear the old stuff.

When they play a new song,

they're like,

oh, fuck.

It plays something off the old albums.

Yeah.

Right?

And if I played one of my old jokes,

I haven't put enough effort in.

So musicians,

they can sort of sit back on a few hits and keep on bringing them out all the time.

If you do stand-up comedy at a certain level,

once you record a joke,

you have to –

not everybody.

Like Seinfeld has a different theory on this.

He reckons you keep the jokes going all the time.

But if you record a joke,

you should retire a joke.

You should retire a joke after it's recorded.

Right?

So I've got nine specials and a CD.

So I've got recorded plus TV spots,

I don't know,

12 hours of stand-up or something like that.

But it's all different stuff.

You know?

Some of it's better than others

and some of it's a bit more fillery than others

and then there's some more iconic pieces and stuff like that.

But no one wants to hear me come out

and just crack on about gun control again

because I've done it.

You know?

So there's a bigger workload.

I think involved in live touring for a comedian.

That's something I want to talk to you about

because I mean it's funny you should say that

because I mean I'm always over comedy

and I go into YouTube usually

because I'm sick of looking on Netflix.

There's a lot of old stuff on there

and I've seen it all and I've watched you

and you mentioned Bill Burr.

I love Bill Burr.

And he's hilarious.

Lovely man.

I like the way he sort of yells at me

and gets me thinking about myself.

He is going to slip very easily

into being an over-the-top.

Oh, man.

He's already curmudgeon-y

but he's a sweet guy.

He's a lovely guy.

But I like his content

but it's funny you should say what you said

because I keep going through it.

Now, have I fucking seen that one or not?

Because I don't want to see it again.

Same as you.

When I look at your stuff,

I don't want to see it again.

You're right.

That's quite interesting between that

and the difference between a singer or a musician

because you're right.

When it comes to music,

what the fuck?

Where are all the old songs?

Because you want to tap your foot along with the music.

Is it more memory or nostalgia?

You want to tap your foot along

with the music

and know when the chorus is coming

and with comedy,

you want to be surprised.

Right.

Okay.

So music is about being familiar.

Comedy is about being surprised.

Yeah.

Comedy is...

Music is about memories.

Surprise me.

Yeah.

You want to hear a joke?

Yeah.

Give me one.

I don't have a joke.

You don't have one?

I'll tell you a pub joke.

Yeah, go on.

Let me think.

Okay, this joke is a name drop for you.

It was told to me by Jay Leno.

Wow.

Whenever anyone asks for a pub joke,

this is the pub joke I give, right?

So who knows who wrote this

but...

What's the pub joke?

He goes,

so there's a guy who finds a genie's bottle,

right,

and he rubs it

and the genie comes out

and he goes,

you have two wishes.

And the guy went,

I thought I get three wishes.

He goes,

check your pants.

He looks down,

he's got a great big dick

and the genie goes,

I've been doing this a long time.

That's a good pub joke, right?

It totally does.

And the good thing about that joke is

now you can tell it to your friends

and you can tell it to your friends

and then it'll spread like a fucking STD

and everyone will enjoy it

just like an STD.

Just like a good dick joke.

So,

what was it then about Eddie Murphy

that actually got you enthralled

about being a comedian?

Like,

was it his content?

Was it about how the accolades he got?

Was it the fact that he just made you fucking laugh?

He made me laugh

but also just cool, man.

He's just a cool dude

because up at like,

okay, so...

I don't know what that means, cool man.

What do you mean?

He's just cool, man.

It's like,

before Eddie Murphy,

right,

so there's arguments with comedy

where you can have higher status

and lower status than the crowd, right?

You can be above them or below them.

For the most part,

British comedy

and somewhat Australian comedy,

definitely New Zealand comedy for some reason,

the comedian normally has a lower status, right?

Oh, really?

Yeah, like...

That's a thing, is it?

Yeah, so like Mr. Bean.

Mr. Bean,

bumbling idiot, right?

Frank Spencer,

bumbling idiot, right?

Eddie Murphy, cool.

Right?

Being the same as everyone in the audience

doesn't...

It's not funny.

You know, so...

So like Cleese could play...

John Cleese could play above and below

depending on what sketch he did.

He could do above or below.

And so...

But Eddie Murphy was always

cooler than I could ever fucking be, man.

Cooler than I could ever be.

And I met him...

I've met him twice.

And, you know,

I've met a lot of famous people doing this job.

But Eddie Murphy's the most starstruck I've been

to meet a human being.

And I met him once

at James Packer's birthday party

where I was employed to be the entertainment.

And I was sitting in the kitchen.

Mariah Carey had paid for me to be there.

This was a couple of years ago then?

Yeah.

Yeah, Mariah Carey.

Yeah, it's not recent.

If it was Mariah Carey,

it would be a couple of years ago.

Yeah, yeah, no.

This is before COVID.

Yeah, before COVID.

That's when they were engaged.

Yeah, when they were engaged.

And so I was in the kitchen.

I was in the kitchen.

And I normally don't do corporate gigs,

but the money was right and the, you know,

the whatever, right?

And I was sitting in the kitchen.

I'm meant to be the surprise birthday gift.

You know, you're a wealthy man.

You know how it is, right?

When you guys don't...

You rich people, you don't get presents, do you?

You get other human beings performing tricks, right?

No, you buy experiences.

Yeah, no, no, 100%.

You're right.

Experiences rather than material things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because any material thing you want, you can get.

But then every now and again,

someone will go,

I just bought you a thing to go do this thing,

to go drag race a car.

Oh, brilliant.

Because you never would have bought that for yourself.

Yeah, and you're right.

Right?

So I'm in the kitchen waiting to go out

and I'm shitting myself.

And then Al Pacino and Warren Beatty

and Leonardo DiCaprio

and all these people at this bloody dinner, right?

And I'm sitting there in the dressing room

in the kitchen being hidden away.

They've given me a meal.

I've got the same meal as them,

but I'm off in the kitchen by myself.

And Eddie Murphy comes in

and I can't do the impersonation,

but he walks up to one of the...

Oh, he was there too.

Yeah, he was there.

He walks up to one of the catering people

and he goes,

I need a soda or something,

a soda, a little drink or anything.

And he looked at me

and I used to have a sitcom called Legit

that was on FX.

And in that I had a...

It was based on a true story,

but I had a friend who was disabled, right?

And he goes,

I know you.

He goes,

you do the TV show with the disabled boy.

You knew my show.

You knew my show.

I was like,

what?

Yeah, yeah, I do.

I do do the...

He goes,

what are you doing here?

And I said,

I'm going to do stand-up for the dinner party.

And he goes,

there is no way that's going to work out.

And then he left

and I was like,

oh no.

My favourite comedian said,

I've just got an unachievable task.

And this is a man who...

Something else I respect about Eddie Murphy is

he respected stand-up comedy so much

that when he stopped doing it,

he never dipped his toe back in again

because he never...

He knew what it took to be at that level.

And if he could...

And it's very hard for Eddie Murphy

to get back to that level

because where does he try out material?

Where does he go and do five minutes

where it's not every camera's out going Eddie Murphy?

How does he build a set?

He can never build a set again

because too many people will document

the work in progress.

And so he can't get up at the improv

on a Wednesday and have a go.

So I know for a fact that

Netflix have offered him...

They've backed up money trucks to his house

for him.

To do a stand-up special.

More money than anyone would have ever been paid

to do stand-up.

And they've ummed and ahed

and I've heard through people,

oh, it's going to happen.

It's going to happen.

And it hasn't happened yet.

And he hasn't done stand-up.

I don't reckon he's done stand-up in over 30 years.

Is it because he doesn't need to or he just...

He became a movie star,

stopped doing it

and he respected it enough

not to go back to it

because he couldn't...

As I said, he couldn't develop material.

He can't build.

He couldn't build it and get it to a stage.

Well, can you explain that to me?

Because you say that so...

Nonchalantly.

Can you explain that to me?

Like, so, you know,

like in terms of building a show,

what do you got to do?

You got to go sort of pre-test things,

validate things.

Yeah, well, you got to...

What I do is many comics will go down

and just sort of do a joke

and then try it out.

And if I got a new joke,

I will wedge it in between

two bits that I know work

and then just slip in the joke

because it might be gangbusters,

it might be weak,

and if it is weak...

But the joke's a bit of a theme, though.

Yeah, it's...

So at the moment, like,

okay, so when we're recording this,

yesterday there was an assassination attempt

on Donald Trump's life.

I'm getting up at the comedy store tonight

and I got some things that I'm going to do,

you know,

but I don't expect to nail it tomorrow,

but maybe three or four times in

I'll get it good, right?

Now, I can afford to do that

because I've got good jokes

that I've been doing for a year or so

on either side,

or either side of that joke,

but Eddie Murphy can't do that

because the whole set's new.

The whole set's new.

If you could just go down and say,

I've got five minutes I want to try,

but no one wants to hear him do five minutes

and you can't, you know,

if he goes down to the comedy club,

as I said, they'll bring all the phones out

and the joke from its infancy

to when it's fully developed

is going to be vastly different

and that's why we get so angry.

There's several reasons

and people don't understand

that comedians get so angry with people videotaping,

like their...

phones up in the show.

That makes sense.

Now, at music concerts,

no one gives a fuck

because as I said, it's old songs.

No, they want them to.

They want to stream it.

They want to stream it.

They want to put it on the...

tell everyone,

you're having a great time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't want the person

who's about to see me

to know the punchline.

Yeah.

I want to still surprise them

and I don't want it recorded

until I think the joke's ready to record,

till I'm happy with it,

then I'll record it, right?

But I don't want the work in progress

to be put out there

and so,

so a lot of comedians,

Dave Chappelle, for example,

just off the top of my head,

has started using these pouches

that you put your phone in

and then you put the tag over the top

and then your phone's sealed

and you can't open it back up

and then pull your phone out afterwards

and it has made shows really good

but I'm a cheap bastard.

To have that at the theatre

costs about seven grand.

I'm like,

ah, fuck it.

But you do ask people

to put the phone away?

Yeah, there's signs up,

please do not videotape.

Right.

And if I see you do it,

oh,

I'll ask you,

can you please put your phone,

I'll do it in the middle of a joke,

please put your phone down,

like that.

But people think you're being precious

or something

but you're not

and also,

it's not music,

we're not all singing along,

you have to,

I don't want you to miss it,

I don't want you to miss the joke

or the news.

You've got to be focused

and if you're texting or whatever,

you're not,

it's the same as driving,

just keep your eyes on the road, man.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So,

it's very interesting

so when you say joke though,

I don't,

I'm not a comedian,

so when you say joke,

do you mean

a theme?

Yeah,

but it's like a thematic,

like for example,

you know,

something about gun control

for argument's sake,

is that what you're talking about?

That's a line of jokes?

The gun control's a routine

and inside that routine,

there's maybe 30 jokes.

Right.

I don't know,

I haven't watched that routine back ever

but I would say there was,

it was 14 minutes long

and so in that,

if the math's right,

you want to have a laugh

at least sort of every 20 seconds,

there's probably 30,

40,

40 laughs in there.

So they're the actual jokes

in the routine.

So you actually,

so there is a structure,

there is actually a,

so you're not just

not standing up there

just free balling,

you actually got a structure

of for example,

the 14 minutes set.

Yeah,

I don't really write anything down,

I sort of think of a joke

and then I,

the best way to write it

is on stage

and then you just sort of

come up with a theme

and you know,

look,

the problem is now,

the thousand comics

putting a thousand clips online

and all the people who

tweet out a joke

and all those things,

so you know,

everything,

everything's sort of

being said,

you try to put your

original take on it

but it's very hard now

to come up with a truly,

truly original one line

because everyone's on

Twitter or X as it is.

So at the moment,

like,

I'll say what I'm

working on right now.

This is what,

I've never said this joke,

right?

This is the first time

I'm going to say this joke,

right?

So at the moment,

who's the name of the

kid who bloody

shot Trump?

It was something

Thomas Cooper

Marx or something.

I know I've got that.

I got it wrong.

It's something like that.

Yeah,

Thomas Cooper Marx

and then you had

John Wilkes Booth

and then you had

Lee Harvey Oswald.

I go,

it's these three names,

you know,

these three names.

I'd be watching out

for Michael J. Fox,

although I assume

he would miss,

right?

So that's the premise.

Now,

without a doubt,

probably people

have done the,

done the,

aligned with

John Wilkes Booth

and Lee Harvey Oswald

and all that type of stuff

but you just try to

make your own

little sort of thing

and then,

you know,

now that's the core

of this routine,

right?

The core of the routine

that I'm going to try out

is that little tiny punchline

about Michael J. Fox

and naming those three names

three times

and so,

but that routine

might become five minutes

because I might go off

on a tangent

about Michael J. Fox

and I might go whatever

and I won't know that

until I'm on stage

and I hear the groan

from the audience

and I rebuttal

and then go back and forth

and so,

all I know

is that little bit now

but I don't know

what it will become.

Because you're waiting

for the response.

I'm waiting for the response

and I don't know

if that punchline

will do well yet

and whether it needs

a little bit of finessing

or whether the joke

needs to be a bit harder

or more aggressive

or it needs to be softer,

you know,

I don't know

where it's going to hit.

In terms of aggressive,

you mean a little bit

more confronting?

Yeah, yeah, yeah

or whether I just have to,

there's a few ways

you can either tell

the audience

what it's all about

or you can basically go,

oh, I think this,

you know what I mean

and soften your way into it

and sometimes

the softer way

is to get into

a really offensive joke,

you know,

and there's,

I would like someone

to one day do a,

a mathematical equation on.

Because that's what I'm thinking

as you're talking.

I'm thinking mathematics here.

Okay, so there's

the mathematics of

the more offensive the joke,

the bigger the laugh, right?

You can talk about anything

but you have to get a big laugh.

So if you bring up something,

let's go as offensive as we can.

Let's say you make a joke

about Holocaust, right?

You better be getting yourself

a real good laugh, right?

If you don't get a real good laugh,

you're just being offensive.

Right.

But if you,

if you have a payoff

that's good enough

and witty enough,

then you can really get away

with anything.

But I've had times

when it hasn't worked

and that's why I don't want

your fucking videotape

in the show

because I'm having a go here.

So you're going to try that

at the comedy store?

I'm going to try it

at the comedy store.

Nothing about the Holocaust.

Hey.

But I'm going to try,

I'm going to try

the Lee Harvey Oswald,

John Willis,

Michael J. Fox routine.

That's going to be

my new bit

that I'm going to try,

you know,

tomorrow night.

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So Jim Jeffries is,

would you call yourself,

would you call Jim Jeffries?

I don't know if there's

two personalities here,

but would you call Jim Jeffries

a real observer of life?

I mean,

is that who you are

as a bloke?

No,

I don't know if I'm

wanky enough to say that

about myself,

but I...

No,

but you don't have to.

I mean,

not wanky,

but...

I, you know,

I...

Are you generally curious

about everything?

Yeah,

I, look,

but, you know,

I think I've got

personality traits

that I, you know,

if you take me to a party,

I'm going to ramble

on the whole time

and I'm going to annoy

a lot of fucking people

and that type of stuff,

you know,

and it's probably

better on stage

and so I found an outlet

for the skill

that I have in life

which is talking

underwater,

you know,

so...

Maybe I would have

been good on radio,

but even now

I didn't let you

fucking talk,

did I?

No,

but I should,

but I should let you talk

because that's my role,

but what I'm sort of

interested in

is that are you

walking around

the streets

and looking at the newspapers

or watching the television

or whatever

and saying,

fuck,

that's fucking interesting.

There's a little bit,

but mostly,

mostly routines

come from these days

is all my friends

are stand-up comedians.

They're all my friends.

They're all the people

I know

and so

when the news happens

or when there's

something

that's going on

and there's something

that's going on

happening in your life,

you ring them up

and it's very hard

to soundboard routines

on non-comedians.

They can't see it

and other comedians

can see it

and they'll go,

I had this line

to take away that line,

blah, blah, blah.

Other comedians can see it.

My wife can't see it.

I've tested out

so many jokes on her

and she can't,

she goes,

why is that funny?

And then she sees it live

and I can see her laughing

in the audience,

but she can't,

she can't see it.

So for the most part,

when you say observations,

you make an observation,

you ring up your best mate

and you go,

what do you think of this?

And then he goes,

I got a bit

and you help each other

with your dates.

Oh really?

And then you go on.

There's a good camaraderie

for the most part

between comedians.

There's very few comedians

who hate each other

or anything like that.

For the most part,

we're all pretty solid

with each other.

Pretty collaborative.

Yeah, it's like,

well, not collaborative

because you're still

working by yourself,

but you help out your mates,

you know what I mean?

But often if you get off stage,

even a comic

who doesn't know you very well

will say to you,

I have a tag.

I have a tag.

And just another punchline

to add on to the end of the joke

to get one extra laugh.

And so we give each other tags.

Do you do that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, if I can help

another comic out,

for sure, yeah.

If I've got a line,

it's their routine.

If I've got a line

that can help them out,

yeah, yeah, for sure.

Well, you text them.

Oh no, no,

you just tell them.

No, because also comedy

doesn't read very well.

Yeah, yeah.

I've never understood.

Comedy reads terribly.

See, look at it this way, right?

So comedy,

is a visual and audio art form, right?

You can have silent comedies

and you can have a visual

and audio art form.

It never reads brilliantly.

You know, if you were to read-

You mean in a text you're talking about?

Yeah, even I find it very hard

when I'm reading a comedy script

to sort of see it,

you know, sometimes, you know?

If you were to read

a novelization of The Three Stooges,

how depressing would that be?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

You know, we think it's stupid.

It's a story of three men

with diminished mental capacity

trying to look for work.

They're homeless.

Three homeless men

with diminished mental capacity

looking for work

during the Great Depression.

Moe, Larry and Curly.

Yeah.

And then everything is like,

then he smashed him in the head

with a bat.

It sounds like a horror film.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like it doesn't read funny,

but those three men

made it really, really funny.

So was it the theater though?

The theater of it?

Is there theater that makes it funny?

Oh, people have funny bones, don't they?

Some people, some people have funny bones

and some people don't have funny bones.

And that's why, you know,

you can't teach people to be funny,

but over time they can learn.

If they are funny,

they can learn to be good comedians.

You know what I mean?

But you can't inherently teach someone to be funny.

In the same way,

you can't make someone musical.

You know, you can't.

I do believe that over time

you could probably teach an actor.

I think acting's all confidence, isn't it?

Yeah, and understanding the routine.

So knowing what's in front of you

and being confident.

You're right.

It's funny you should say that about music

because my mother made me learn the piano

up until year 12.

I didn't, you know, in HSC.

Yeah.

But I played piano like fucking Mary

around music.

I could play it.

I knew what I was doing.

I could read the music,

but I didn't have a musical bone in my body.

You didn't have the musicality

of a surgeon through here.

Whereas my brother,

I could listen to something

and walk away and start playing it.

I could never do that.

I could put it in front of him.

I could do it.

And I think your point's

a really good point.

Like probably,

and I've never thought about a comedian,

but the same applies to comedians

is what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But funny is inherent in you.

You have funny bones.

So I got two brothers

and I don't think I'm being rude

to either of them by saying this.

One of my brothers,

and he knows which one,

has also got the funny gene.

My father has the funny gene

and my mother and my other brother do not.

They didn't have the funny gene.

My mother had amazing stage presence.

She was a school teacher

that when she walked in the room,

all the kids sat up and stopped talking.

She had nothing to say.

My dad has no stage presence

and he's one of the funniest people I've ever met.

It could have gone the opposite way for me.

And my brother's very funny.

I look at my nephews and nieces

and my sons

and me and the funny brother,

we look at them like we're on the Jedi Council,

like the force is strong with this one.

And I don't think they'll be upset,

but out of my nephews and nieces,

I have,

I have one niece who's got it.

She's got it in spades.

And my eldest boy,

we don't know about the three-year-old yet.

I sense he might have it.

My eldest boy has it as well.

What about your missus?

My wife's got a good sense of humour.

She's very funny.

And my eldest boy's mother is a very funny person.

But my son, he's got it.

He's got the gene.

And my niece has the gene.

The three-year-old, I think, has the gene,

but it's too hard to tell with this youngling.

Whether he's going to have the force strong with him.

But it's a wonderful moment when you go,

oh, he's got it.

And I think it's no different than an athlete

throwing the ball to their son and going,

oh, he just did that little thing with his hands,

that little flick on.

Good eye-hand coordination.

Yeah, your hand-eye coordination

or just little intuitive things, you know,

to be a great rugby league player or something.

It's not just enough to be fast and strong

and, you know, have good hands.

There's also got to,

you've got to feel the players around you,

when to pass and stuff like that.

Intuition that other players don't have.

Yeah, this great instinct.

It makes you look like you've got more time

than everybody else on the field.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Johns, like, so much time.

Do you follow footy?

Mate, I'm trying to get the North Sydney Bears back in the cup.

Well, they might end up being in the West Australian team.

You think?

I don't know.

I'm part of the consortium trying to get them going.

But do you think they should be?

No, but do you think they should keep the name Bears

along with the West Australian?

I'm not investing money if they don't keep the name Bears.

That's fair enough.

I'm not investing money unless they're red and black.

Yeah.

I don't care if there's a new, I want the Bears back.

As in the old stripes.

Yeah.

No, just those colours.

Just those colours.

The red and black.

The red and black.

And the Bears, I don't want to change the logo.

Just keep the bit underneath that says 1908.

That bit's vital.

No, they were, they're 1908.

Were they?

1908.

They were one of the original teams.

Original teams.

One of the foundation clubs.

Foundation club, right?

1908.

Where it says North Sydney over the top, just write Perth.

That's all we've got to do, right?

And then the jersey, they can play around with it

and put their own stamp on it for Western Australia.

But I, if I move back to Australia and I intend on doing this in my life,

I don't intend on retiring and living in America.

I love America.

I'm very proud to be an American citizen.

America's done a lot for me.

My wife's British and, but if, one day I'll live in Australia again.

When I was an old man, I'll live in Australia

and I'm going to live in Perth.

I love Perth.

By the way, they told me you'll really hit the ball out of the park

for the Mississippi.

She's all right.

My wife's good looking.

You've killed her.

I'll do all right.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I just thought, but my team here just went and said,

my God, he's Mrs.

I mean, your wife's a good looking woman.

Yeah.

She's too good looking for me.

I was going to say, like, what's the deal?

How'd you meet her?

I got more money than her.

Helpful.

How'd you meet her?

I met my wife on an app, a dating app.

There's a dating app called Raya, which is for the famous,

rich and the good looking.

Really?

My wife is an actress, and at that stage she was in a TV drama

called The Resident, which is one of those medical procedural shows.

And I was doing the Jim Jefferies show at that stage,

and I was on the app, and we paired up, and it just so happened

she lived 300 metres from my house.

No.

Yeah, and she was just a couple of streets up around the corner, right?

Yeah.

What, in London or something like that?

No, in LA.

In LA.

In LA.

And so she was living up the road.

I was, at that stage, a single dad, and my ex was living down the road,

and I had my son one week on, one week off.

And so on those weeks off, you know, I was dating, you know,

trying to get me, you know, fine.

Yeah.

Well, they are job interviews, aren't they?

You just, look, that's every day it's a job interview.

You're trying to employ someone.

We'll give you a three-month, you know, trial period, see how it goes.

No obligations.

Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean?

And so I started dating my wife, and I think she wouldn't have given me

a second or third date if I didn't live so close.

She was just like that.

Convenience.

Yeah, there's a shag around the corner.

You know what I mean?

She was like.

She's practical.

That's good.

Yeah, I can shag this bloke until I find someone better.

And I won her over because my wife's British,

and there's footage of me on the Bill Maher show.

I got a bit heated in a discussion on the Bill Maher show,

and I told Piers Morgan to go fuck himself, and I gave him the finger,

and they had to cut.

To an ad break.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I got all fired up.

What was the topic?

What were you arguing over?

Look, this was back when Trump had just gone in,

and do you remember the Muslim ban?

Yeah, yeah, I do.

Yeah.

You had a whole return about that.

It wasn't.

They say, oh, it wasn't a Muslim ban.

It wasn't a Muslim ban.

It was just people from Arab countries.

But they weren't being allowed in even with their green card, you know.

It was like at that stage it was like a thing.

And so Piers Morgan, this is what really happened.

That wasn't what I was fired up about.

I just didn't like Piers Morgan, right?

Now, Piers Morgan and me got into an argument.

I can't, for the life of me, I can't remember what it is.

I haven't been on Twitter for over seven years.

But you got the arguments on Twitter though?

Yeah, so on Twitter, on Twitter way before that,

Piers Morgan and me got into a little verbal, like a little written altercation.

Yeah.

Then cut to, and I didn't think anything of it.

I was just happy, you know, get a bit of press from each other.

You know, and then, and then I was booked to do the Bill Maher show.

And he sends me a direct message and he goes, all he writes to me, he goes,

I'll be sitting six feet away from you.

You better bring your A game.

And I was like, fuck that cunt.

Right?

It's on.

You know, it's like this, it's on.

If he fucking starts and my little bit of autism kicked off, I was like,

oh, I got to talk to him if he comes at me.

And so, so I'm sitting there and, and he brings up that and I said,

you're full of fucking shit, mate.

I said.

You're just happy that you're, you're friends with the president, mate.

That's all you're happy about.

Cause you were on a little fucking game show and you can suck up to that,

Blake, you're a fucking dickhead.

You know, I went on, I went in a bit like that and he goes, oh, please,

you're losing your audience.

You look, and I turned to the crowd.

Now this could have been a career ending moment, right?

I turned to the crowd and I went, have I lost you?

If they were silent, I'm done for.

Yeah, cooked.

Cooked.

Yeah.

I go, have I lost you?

And they went, rah.

And I went, what are you, fuck off.

I go.

I went for it like that and then they had to cut to an ad break, right?

And my, my social media, the whole world was for me was going crazy.

In that moment, the whole internet started talking about anyway.

So I said to my wife, she goes, I like the Bill Maher show.

That was her favorite comedian, Bill Maher.

And I said, oh, I told Piers Morgan to fuck off on the Bill Maher show.

And then in that moment, she went, she watched it.

She didn't, she didn't know it was me, but then she goes, you're the bloke.

And she, I went to the bathroom.

Yeah.

And I came back and she was on her phone and she was talking to her mom.

Cause my, my wife's quite posh English.

And so she still calls her parents, mommy and daddy, as they do, you know, in that type

of thing.

And she goes, she goes, mommy, remember the man who told Piers Morgan to fuck off?

I'm at dinner with him right now.

And I'm like, so me and Piers have no problem anymore.

Cause I wouldn't have met my, my wife wouldn't have married me unless I told him to fuck

off.

So.

Did you reconnect with him?

Well, I tell you what, the other day I got no problem with Piers Morgan.

Okay.

So after.

The Piers Morgan thing, people got online and spread it and all that type of stuff.

And he tried to sort of say, oh, pull up some old jokes where I said offensive things and

try to make the audience turn on me a bit.

And JK Rowlings, like, like she said, watching Piers Morgan get told to fuck off on TV was

as, as satisfying as I hoped it would be.

Right.

And Piers Morgan, he must've had a real fucking bug up his ass about the whole thing.

Cause he, he goes.

He goes, oh, I'm hardly going to be told off by a woman who writes books about wizards.

You're like, mate, the fucking, only the Bible is sold more.

Yeah.

Literally.

Only the Bible is sold more.

Like, like you can, you can make anything.

And that's been around for 2000 years selling.

So yeah.

Yeah.

But she's only been around a short period.

You can make anything seem small by breaking it down to wizards, you know what I mean?

And so, and so, so Piers Morgan's son has, I believe a Hogwarts tattoo.

Oh.

And so he posts a picture of the tattoo and goes, well, this has become awkward, right?

So from that moment on, I was sort of enjoying it a little bit.

I was like, okay, so Piers, it all dies down.

I've got no problem with Piers Morgan.

And I don't think he does either.

I think he, he attracts that type of attention.

That's what he want.

Maybe that little moment backfired for him.

But for the most part, when he's talking about Meghan Markle or something like that, he wants

to be talked about.

That's his thing.

You know, that's his game.

Yeah.

And so he was doing the interview with the lady from Baby Reindeer, you know, the, the,

the, the real person who was a stalker.

And I love Baby Reindeer.

And then I really, I had to tune into Piers' show to watch that thing.

And so I put out a little post on my social media.

I said, I said, Piers Morgan did a very good job here.

And I put a picture and a link to the thing and he reposted it.

So I don't know if we're cool.

But I think we're okay.

I think we're on the, on the right track.

You know, so me and Piers are probably good.

That's a fucking great story.

If I met Piers Morgan, as I said, I'd give the man a hug, mate.

He, he, my son wouldn't have been born without him.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So fucking thanks, Piers.

Can we talk about Trump?

Yeah, sure.

I mean, I know he.

I don't, he gets you into a lot of trouble because the problem with the Trump thing is

you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

You know, as a comedian, because half the nation,

and bloody, well, not even half, half the nation's Republican.

And then, then 20% of them are super Trumpy, right?

And the people who are really into Trump, they get very angry when you joke about him.

But it's very hard as a comedian not to joke about him, especially during that first run

when he's going grabbing by the pussy.

We didn't think he was going to win.

So to tease a man that's saying grabbing by the pussy and all this type of stuff,

of course we were going to make jokes about it, you know?

And I'm not a big Trump fan.

I mean, I think, but I'm not.

Why not?

You're not a big Trump fan or not a big Republican fan?

No, no, no.

Okay, so.

More liberal.

So look, I'll be honest with you.

If I was to vote here in Australia, I'm a bit more right wing than you think I am, right?

I'm not.

Peter Dunn's watching this, by the way.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'm more right wing than you think I am.

That's all I'm going to say on that.

But when I'm in America, they think I'm basically a bloody communist.

Because.

Because being right wing, being left wing in America means, okay, I believe in gun control.

I believe in universal health care, right?

And I believe in a woman's right to do what she wants with her body.

So those three things, health care, guns and abortion, they're the bloody,

they're the poster children for the fucking Republican Party.

That's what they want.

And in America, as long as they keep talking about those three things,

over and over and over, they can fuck you in the ass with taxes all they fucking want, right?

Because all we're arguing is about is abortion.

And they did it in the debate.

Deportion, guns, health care, right?

So I am left leaning in America.

And that makes me.

Or liberal.

Yeah, I'm somewhat of a socialist.

Yeah.

I believe in a society where we take care of our most vulnerable.

Yeah.

I believe in housing for.

I believe in housing.

I believe in housing for the homeless.

I believe, you know, all these different things.

But, you know, fuck, there's lots of tax things that I'm right wing about, you know?

There's a lot of shit that I'm very right wing about.

But as an Australian, I'd be, I'm a right wing Australian, left wing American.

So I'm in a terrible position in my career because people from the left, the extreme left,

they don't like me.

People from the extreme right fucking hate me.

And my fans, the 80% of the population who are in the middle, who for most of us, we just

shut the fuck up.

Just go, I don't want to talk to either of you about it, right?

The problem I have is when the right wing go for me, I don't have the left defending me.

And when the left go for me, I don't have the right defending me.

But how do they go for you?

Like, you can make them troll you.

I just people just say troll and saying rubbish about you or untruths about you or whatever.

But what do you do?

Do you just ignore it?

Do you respond?

No, no, no, no, no.

I don't even bloody bother about it.

There's only one thing that matters.

In my career, there's only one thing that matters, and that's ticket sales.

Yeah.

Right?

And if they drop, I'll ask what's going on.

But until then, you know, you just keep, you just keep talking.

Like, even now, there's people watching this podcast who don't agree with half the shit

I've said already.

You know what I mean?

But I hope that you understand that we're all different, aren't we?

And you've got little things about you that you believe in that I'm not going to agree

with.

Like, this idea that we have to be all one way or all the other.

I'm right wing on some subjects and left wing on other subjects.

And it depends.

I go subject to subject.

You know, you're never going to, I don't think, I think I pay too much taxes in California.

I know I do.

It's too much, and I don't get anything in fucking return.

I'm very right wing about that.

I tell you.

You know, because American tax system is fucked.

In California, it's fucked.

It's fucked.

You know, it's fucked.

Yeah, totally.

It's fucked.

It's fucked.

And now they've, and if I have to hear another Democrat.

Say, oh, the 1% need to be paying more taxes.

They fucking are.

They are.

It's the 1% of the 1% who's not paying.

You know, you start getting tax money from fucking Amazon.

What are you bothering me for?

I'm paying through the fucking wazoo.

You know what I mean?

So it's like, there's always a scapegoat, you know, that these people aren't doing enough.

And this is why our society.

So in America, I pay all these fucking taxes.

And what do I get in the end?

More military.

I get more military.

More military.

Fix the fucking pothole in me street and get rid of all the homeless people and put

them into fucking housing.

Work on the fucking mental health of all the soldiers that have come back from the wars

and are all fucked up in their head.

How about we work on that for a little bit and stop spending it on more missiles?

It turns out that in America, guess what?

They've made enough weapons.

They've made enough weapons to last forever.

And I used to think that, oh, no, we've got to be strong because, you know, what about

Russia and China?

Have you been fucking, they can't take over the Ukraine, mate.

You're worried about Russia.

Together.

Yeah.

They've got, the Russians have technology from fucking Top Gun and not Maverick, the

original Top Gun.

Just, just that old shit.

And the Chinese, we were worried about them for fucking ever.

They sent a spy balloon, not a drone.

They sent a spy balloon over America for three days.

Yeah.

For three days on the news, we talked about the spy balloon, the slowest moving, largest

vehicle.

That mankind's ever created is what they said.

We've got enough guns.

We've got enough weapons.

We're fucking good.

Start spending it on the actual people.

And so me saying, start spending on the people, healthcare, housing, that's called socialism.

And socialism in America might as well be called communism.

That's how they, when they hear that word, they hear the word communism.

And so I will never talk on stage in America about healthcare.

Because I've tried doing it and they'll never understand.

No, they will never see why that's a good thing.

They'll go, but why should I be paying something when other people aren't paying enough?

And it's just like, dude, just, and part of their problems is that they're next to Canada

and the Canadian healthcare system's not the best.

You know, the Canadian healthcare system is everybody gets the same healthcare.

A homeless person to the prime minister gets the same healthcare.

With the Australian and British system where you can have public healthcare, plus you can

have private on top.

There's no private on top in Canada.

So they're always going, those people up there are waiting too long for their surgeries.

Because really, what is healthcare?

What is private healthcare?

All private healthcare is, I get to jump the queue for my surgery.

And when I'm in hospital, I get my own room.

That's the only difference.

In public too, whatever.

Yeah.

I'm fucking gone.

I've probably lost a lot of fans with this rant right now.

So when you, when you, when you, it's sort of interesting to me because when you go off

to say like Austin, Texas, which is like, you know, red territory.

Well, not Austin.

Austin is the blue in the sea of red.

Is that right?

Because, because I did listen to one of your shows there and you had them going.

You had them in the palm of your hand.

Oh, you actually gained my show in Austin?

I was there.

Oh, brilliant.

And, and no, I'm just joking.

Oh, you were?

Oh, okay.

But I have listened to it.

But, but, but you had them.

And, but you were bagging the shit out of Trump.

Oh, that was in Nashville.

Nashville.

Sorry, Nashville.

Which is the same, the same, a horse of a different colour, but the same thing.

Yeah, totally.

They're blue.

Yeah, yeah.

No, they're red.

They're red.

They're fully red.

So, as opposed to the opposite here in Australia, of course, but, red, blue, anyway.

But, but you had them going and they, they loved it.

You were bagging the shit out of Trump, basically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They have no problem with that.

And there's also a lot of Republicans who aren't Trump Republicans.

Ah, yeah, yeah.

You know, they want to go back.

Remember when we thought that like George W. Bush was a nut job, warmongering type of

thing?

And now he's a delightful old man that dances around a bit before, you know what I mean?

He's a fun little fella.

I'll tell you a Texas story about, so I was playing, I believe it was Dallas.

And I'd done the gun control thing.

And before I went down to play Dallas, I had to cancel the show a few months earlier because

there was a, a, a, a, a gun threat.

To you?

Yeah, to the theater.

Someone was going to come and shoot up the theater.

And so Texas is the only place, incidentally, where we had metal detectors for the shows

and people had to turn in their guns.

And we had a Tupperware container.

Everybody guns it.

You get it back after class.

You can't have it in the show.

And they, and they felt unsafe without their gun, you know?

But anyway, so the gun control thing, even with what happened with Trump the other day

with the assassination, there's people now have been writing to me saying, oh, well,

where was your gun control now?

And you're like doing exactly what is, first of all, he shouldn't have had a gun.

And men that knew what they were doing eliminated the threat.

People seem to think that if all the punters in the crowd,

all had their guns, maybe you wouldn't have gotten up on that tower or something,

but then you'd be, you know what I mean?

But if those gunshots went off, they all would have pulled it out.

We wouldn't have known who the shooter was.

It would have been fucking mayhem.

You need an us and them mentality, you know?

Anyway, so, so I had to cancel my gig to go back to Texas and then they rescheduled it

and the threat hadn't really gone away.

And so I was like, all right, I've got to do the show and I don't want people to panic.

And I don't think, I don't think the threat's real.

So there's no point telling you.

So we go back.

We go back to the theater and I, I rang the cops up and I said,

can we have a sort of bit more of a presence at the show?

And they said, well, you know, we can, we can, you can pay the charge.

So in America, you can buy cops in uniform on their off time as their second job

to do your personal security for you, which is what I did.

So I bought, I believe, eight or nine cops.

And I had two on the edge of the stage and I had them at each exit door.

And so there was a big, and then they're metal detected in.

And it was a, I've never seen a comedy show with more sort of security.

And I'm in my dressing room.

I got there two hours before the show.

I normally get there about 30 minutes before the show, but because of this incident,

I wanted to know what was going to happen and all the protocols.

And I'm in my dressing room and the dressing room next to me, all the cops are being briefed.

And they're all sitting around there.

And the police officer goes, okay, I'm going to need to have, I'm going to need one of you on each door.

You can pick your door.

I don't care which door you want to pick.

You know, it's fine.

And who wants to be the two cops at the edge of the stage?

Right.

And one of the cop guys is like this.

Hey, why are we even here, Sarge?

And he goes, well, this, this particular comedian has been getting death threats.

Why has he been getting death threats?

Well, he does a routine about gun control.

And then one of the cops who was paid to protect me said,

maybe you should learn to shut his fucking mouth then.

Oh, my God.

How's he feel?

Yeah, I was like, I don't reckon this cunt's going to dive in front of a bullet between me and you.

I reckon I might just be left out there.

You know, that same cop, he had a big tash and he had those boots over the pants.

He's like a highway cop sort of guy.

Every joke he just sort of threw out the show.

He wasn't having a good time.

He didn't like me or what I had to say.

I was a pain in the ass for him.

I think it's really funny the way you sort of talk about Trump in terms of his simplicity,

the way he sort of speaks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

His simplicity in his speech, his language, his topics, his content.

Like, how do you get away with it?

Like, do you ever get a phone call from Trump's people ever?

No.

No one's ever said, hey.

No, no one.

Dude.

They don't worry about things like that.

No, I said about Trump, I said, I had some clip that went good about how,

what was the fucking routine?

It went viral.

There was a routine about, what was it about?

Oh, it was just like, don't be an asshole.

And just like, you know, I can't, I can't remember what it was.

It was something, it was something about the, the lead with love or something.

It was a very sort of.

Love versus hate.

Love versus hate was my routine.

Yeah.

Love versus hate.

And if you, love won't always beat hate.

Hate on hate doesn't work.

Hate on hate.

Love can get on top of hate sometimes.

Love can beat hate.

Not always.

And you said, I don't want to sound like too hippie type of.

Yeah.

Too hippie.

Yeah.

That was the routine that I did, right?

Too hippie thing, right?

So, so love can beat hate and all this.

And I, it was something that I just sort of said in passing, like maybe he said it a couple

of times and I said it on the recording, just thinking it wouldn't make the cut and it went

viral and all that type of stuff.

And then I did a few jokes on my TV show about him.

And then I did the grab him by the pussy routine.

I did a whole grab him by the pussy thing.

And he was just a very easy sort of buffoonish sort of a man to, to, to make, to make fun

out of.

But is there a political content behind it though?

Is there?

No, I, look, I, look, I would never.

I would never vote for Trump, but I'd never vote for Biden.

Yeah.

I believe that every celebrity will tell you to make sure you get out there and vote.

That's the celebrity catchphrase after an election.

They'll all post themselves with their sticker, I voted.

Make sure you vote.

No, no, no, don't vote.

We deserve better than this.

We deserve better options than a fucking lunatic and a senile old man and they're both fucking

old as well.

We should just let those two men vote.

That's it.

Just those two.

And they have to vote on an iPad.

Whichever one can do it without the help from their grandchild, they get to run the free

world.

You know what I mean?

Like, like, like we deserve more.

Yeah.

It's just.

But what is that?

Like, I mean, you're, you're, you live in the States.

I mean, what, what the fuck?

Why is it such a shitty choice?

I mean, how come?

Well, a lot of, a lot of people believe that, but so, so, so Joe Biden, for the most part,

whether you agree with his policies or whatever, he has been a good public servant.

He has dedicated his life.

Yeah.

Whether you agree with him or not.

Trump has had many different lives before he became this guy.

He's been a businessman, a real estate guy, a TV presenter to the president.

He's had, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, different lives until he got to that thing.

Biden's had one life, same life, public service, public service.

And, and there's things I've liked about Joe Biden.

I've always felt, you know, I've, I've had tragedy in my life.

Right?

He, he, he, he lost his wife and his five-year-old.

Yeah.

Child in a car accident.

You know what I mean?

And he's not a good talker, Joe Biden.

He's not a great talker.

Yeah.

But whenever he talked to people who lost their children in an incident or something

like that, even if it was like a school shooting or something like that, when he spoke from

the heart, it was quite beautiful because you knew he'd been through it.

You know what I mean?

So I always had a soft spot for him in that, because, you know, you can be the most powerful

man in the world, but doesn't bring his, bring his child back, doesn't bring his child back.

Right?

So I always had a soft spot for him for that.

But.

And I look at his policies and I don't want to get into what's going on in Israel and

Palestine and I'm not going to get into that fucking debate and, you know, whether I agree

or not with those type of things and the, you know, do I think he's done enough for

certain things or does, do I think he's covered all of his promises?

No, not really.

Right?

But he could have gone out on a top, on a high.

He could have stood up at the Republic, at the Democrat, you'll see, we all fluff lines.

Right?

He could have stood up at the Democrat convention.

Yeah.

At the Republican convention and handed the torch over to someone else and gone, thank

you so much.

And I'm proud to be American and thank you for having me.

And he would have been, left a hero.

The man who defeated Trump, the man who got the Democrats back in, but all he will be

remembered for is, is a bitter old man who wouldn't give up power, a petty old person.

Or do you, no, no, hang on.

But do you think.

I don't think there's a chance in hell he can win.

No.

But do you think he's doing it out of the greater good?

He's doing it out of the greater good and sort of says there's no one else can, he really

believes there's no one else can defeat Trump.

I think that'd be ego.

There must be something so intoxicating about power.

I don't know what it is.

Cause I wouldn't want that.

So what do we have like 45, 46 presidents or something?

Yeah, something like that.

Something like, something like five of them have been killed.

Yeah.

That's not a good stat.

It's not a stat that I'll.

Statistically not good.

Not a job I'd want.

No.

A one in nine chance I'm going to die.

Yeah, yeah.

One in nine chance I'm going to be killed.

Yeah.

One in nine chance I'm going to be killed.

And not only that, half the population fucking hates you.

Yeah.

Hates you.

Yeah.

Right?

At the end of you get paid fuck all, and then the rest of your life you have to have public

servants and all that type of stuff and security around you all the bloody time.

Cause someone's going to knock you.

But there must be something wonderful about it.

Why do they all hold, why do they want it?

Why does Ruth Bader Ginsburg not give it up?

Why does that, what's her name?

Steinberg or whatever.

She was one of the things.

She was buddy in her nineties and she was holding on to her fucking job.

Right?

Mitch McConnell.

Why am I watching this old cunt fucking not giving up power?

They have to hold on to this.

Like, do you get blow jobs all the time?

What happens?

Well, Clinton did.

Yeah.

Not all the time though.

But what is so wonderful about this power?

My theory is that the job only attracts psychopaths.

That's interesting.

Only.

Because who else would want to do it?

Who else would get anything out of that?

Why would you ever, I understand getting into politics and maybe wanting to make a difference

and all that, but running the free world?

Fuck that.

Do you mean American politics though or you mean everywhere generally?

What about here?

I would say anywhere.

I'd say anywhere.

You can't tell me, I'll go, I'll go both sides of the party.

Right?

From my childhood.

Right?

How many times did John Howard keep fucking going for it?

Going for it.

Just wanting it, wanting it, wanting it.

Paul Keating.

Paul Keating.

The whole time was sitting behind Bob Hawke just-

Desperate.

What did they want so desperately?

What do you get out of it?

And it's this sense of maybe going as high in life as you can go, going as far as you

can go.

Now, I understand that maybe going, let's see how far I can take this life.

Let's see how high I can go.

Let's see how popular I can get or important I can be.

But Biden did it.

He did it.

He did it.

He became, he was vice president for two terms and he was president for a term.

And now all he's going to be remembered as this bloke who wouldn't give up power when

he was very clearly, dementia is a strong word, but my brain's not as sharp as it was

10 years ago.

A bit more forgetful.

Stumble over me words a little tiny bit.

You're fucking 82.

I'm going to be fucking dribbling.

Right?

And you're like, you can't rule the bloody world.

What's wrong with just sitting on your ass and watching telly?

Do you think he might be getting influenced by his wife the first time?

No.

If I was his wife, and especially like his son has been dragged through the mud for things

that he did do.

Although that's funny, isn't it?

But he gets done.

He gets done for fucking having a gun in an inappropriate place.

Right?

And the Republicans are like, got him.

It's like, so you do agree with some gun control.

Yeah.

You do agree that we should at times have some gun control.

Yeah.

And even with, mate, Donald Trump, he fucking, why the hush money?

She signed a contract, mate.

She signed a non-disclosure.

Why are we getting into her?

She's meant to be hushing.

That's the whole thing.

Yeah, totally.

He didn't do anything illegal with the hush money.

What he did was the funding of the money coming out of the wrong funds and that type of stuff.

But she should have been shutting up about that.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with hush money because she took the money to be quiet.

She took the money to be quiet.

It didn't make her do anything.

And, you know, if anything, I think for a man of his wealth, she gave him a very reasonable price.

150 grand.

I think that's a bloody very reasonable price.

Well, maybe she's filthy that she could have got more.

Well, she should have asked for bloody more.

She should have.

I've just been watching and listening to, like, the energy that comes out.

It's fucking crazy.

Oh, is it?

No, it's mental.

I'm telling you, really, mental energy, like, really good.

And if I wind it back and I know that you've given up the grog and you stopped drinking.

Yeah.

Does drugs, alcohol, you know, whatever, does that make you more energetic or less energetic?

What does that do to you, Jefferson?

Well, see, that's the whole thing is, like, the amphetamines are meant to calm you down with the attention deficit disorder and all that type of stuff.

And you're meant to be – you take them and it makes you focus and you watch the fucking TV and, you know.

But for other people, like, Trump's meant to be on Adderall the whole time.

He's meant to be sick.

Is he?

Trump is?

That's what people reckon.

I can't speak for this, but that's what people reckon.

He's on the Adderall the whole time.

A big American drug?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's basically dexedrine and all.

Yeah, it's dexedrine.

It's dexedrine.

It's trying to – it's like – it makes you focus and do exams very quickly and memorize a speech or whatever.

I – weed came into my life very late in life when I was only into uppers and not downers.

And I've never been into painkillers or anything like that.

So you weren't smoking hot ones or anything like that?

No, no, no.

Just edibles.

Yep.

And when it became legal, I only ever took legal drugs.

Legal weed is the only drug that I ever took legally, you know.

And then there's shops and you just buy gummy bears and you buy this and you buy that.

This is in California.

It's not every state.

Yeah, California.

But in saying that, they let you travel around America with it for the most part.

They made a press release from LAX airport saying, stop trying to hide it.

We're not looking for it.

Right.

You're – like, that's the other end's problem, you know what I mean?

So I found that weed – I don't think I could have become – you know what I mean?

I don't think I could have become a pothead if I was single.

I needed alcohol to lubricate my confidence to be able to talk to women or have a thing

because weed makes me the opposite of what I am right now.

You retract.

Yeah.

Weed makes me sit back in a chair and just watch telly with my wife and not be the whole

fucking time.

So weed came into my life and really changed things up.

And then when I got into weed and I'd already given up alcohol and I was sort of struggling,

and I was sort of struggling with quitting alcohol.

And then I took up weed and I never struggled with the alcohol again.

I don't ever want to drink again.

I don't like what I became on alcohol and –

What do you become like?

I became a sloppy drunk.

I became what the Americans referred to as a lush.

But like as in – well, what we would call a lush is somebody wants to go around darting everybody.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

What's an American lush?

I wasn't an aggressive drunk.

I was a guy.

Yeah, dribbling.

Sloppy.

Sloppy, dribbly person.

A guy you wouldn't want around.

Yeah.

And I was – I used to be what they call a very good drinker.

But was I?

I was just on cocaine.

So a decade before that, I was this guy on stage drinking nine, ten pints of alcohol.

Fuck off.

People going, this guy is a champion drinker.

He just pokes up.

On top of the group, on top of the booze.

Yeah, on top of the booze.

The cocaine made me keep drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking.

And I was drunk in my head, but I was steady as a fucking die to talk to you because of

the cocaine.

You know what I mean?

And I don't think I was what you call a terrible asshole on either one of those drugs.

But I do believe that my restraint with my tongue or saying stupid things went away,

which is both a powerful thing and a curse.

You lost your judgment or you –

My judgment went away.

I never got into fist fights really.

Well, I was – I think I got into one in Boston that I would have walked away from

if I wasn't drunk.

But to this day, I wasn't at fault in that fight.

But a sober person would have walked away.

But the person pushed me first and then I went for him and then, you know, like that

type of thing.

So you go, well, that's not good.

And, you know, I'm more of a sober person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it wasn't like more argumentative or whatever.

You know, I wasn't a terrible, nasty drunk but, you know, you could get the very happy

version of me as well that was very nice but I could say some nasty comments, you know,

every now and again.

I could be a bit more mean I guess.

So now, though, you –

I just – man, I just – that's what I was saying.

I wouldn't – you know, I'm not high right now.

I don't plan on getting high tonight.

I'm not high every night of the week or a couple of days a week.

Like couple of days a week, I take an edible.

I watch.

Man.

young kids i have to watch a lot of fucking pixar movies and we does a lot of heavy lifting for

those films you know but my son's funny because i'm always very open with who i am and what i'm

doing and all type of stuff and my wife my son who is in who has inherited the wonderfulness

of dyslexia right so yeah yeah my father hasn't he but you got it you don't have him on the uh

no no no my son my son's a lovely boy and he's very gentle like his mother very gentle funny

lad not just that but i um so me and the wife were there when my son was i don't know seven

and he was still having problems spelling and all that type of stuff seven's a bit old to be

having these problems you know he wasn't quite getting we had him in tutors and all that type

of stuff and so i was i walked into the room and i was i guess i was being overly friendly

and my wife went to me she goes are you h-i-g-h right and i and i i i said no no

right and then my son goes i can spell you know and i said oh yeah mate what does h-i-g-h spell

and he went drunk

and that was when i just crossed over to the other way you know to to being high over over booze you

know because it's been 1200 and something days it's been over it's march 10th three years ago

three and a bit years ago was my last alcoholic beverage and do you do you have to do you see

people about it or just just

i'm going to um a for a bit and it wasn't for me and i appreciate that a works for other people

but it didn't work for me in the sense that i like to pack things up and put them away

not like not bury them but i like things to be behind me i like my mistakes i like to apologize

for my mistakes and move forward and try not to do it again and try not to do it again that's what

i like to do you know i mean there's no point having to fucking constantly go to meetings

and talk about how shit i was a few years ago yeah because you know well enough yeah i know well

and that's just for me and other people it really works yeah yeah um and what happened was as well

it was during covid and a comedian friend of mine i won't mention anyone's names because it's called

anonymous for a reason during covid a friend of mine was an alcoholic i you know i couldn't stop

drinking at one stage i just couldn't stop drinking and as soon as i went back out on the on the road

clubs i was just a mess i i'd given up other drugs so long ago and i couldn't people thought

i was really spiraling but it was just i wasn't doing cocaine i was just sloppy and i was just

stumbling and falling over out the front of comedy clubs just alcohol affected yeah and i've never

had i have no interest in having one beer i don't understand one beer if i'm drinking i'm drinking

and i'm even the same way with food i keep i keep my weight off by fasting for two days that's the

only way i can do it i gotta i'm either all or nothing so during my period i was just like i'm

a fast days you're meant to eat under 500 calories i eat nothing i've eaten nothing today i won't eat

anything today because food doesn't exist i gotta i gotta remember that food doesn't fucking exist

right that's pretty powerful though yeah you can think that way yeah yeah so so it's like i'd like

to eat today but sadly food doesn't exist you know so so i can do that mondays and wednesdays i don't

eat right and um uh so the same with alcohol if i had one beer i was having until i was obliterated

that's all i cared about was going until i was obliterated

and so i i i broke down and i remember i called um my manager and my agent up my american manager

and agent not my australian one who's who's here in the other room and i i um i broke down in tears

and they wanted me to do a gig and i said i can't i can't leave the house right now because i can't

control it i said i can't control it and i and i and they never i never admitted to other people

that i had a problem ever until then i said i can't control it and uh so i started

another comedian who i knew was sober but i didn't know the extent of how his life had what

he'd been through he rang me up and me and him weren't great mates before this we're good friends

now but he rang me up and he talked to me and uh he said look i have an aa meeting right and this

aa meeting is just comedians and and there's loads of famous people in there so don't worry

that you're going to be you know judged by the media you're going to be judged by the media you're

going to be judged by people or whatever and and so there was comedians that i knew who i never even

knew were sober and they were there and they come to this meeting on zoom every day every day every

day and so i did it for a few weeks and um the biggest problem was that uh uh if you do aa

everyone shares right i i thought about having a drink this week and then i looked at the bottle

of whiskey and i thought to myself

no not today and i'm just grateful to be sober today and maybe not tomorrow but i'm i'm good

today and all my fucking the problem was it was with all with comedians now as you've experienced

on this podcast comedians like to fucking talk so everyone shared every single fucking meeting

there's about 15 of us and they're all logging in for 10 minute shares oh it was taking up three

four hours of me day every fucking day i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't

have enough time to be sober it's it's taking up too much of me time so i went off there was

comics in there there was one comic and i won't tell you who i can tell you after that there was

this one comic he hadn't had a drink in 30 years and he was still sharing each fucking day and i'm

just like when does he when does this can't stop sharing he's like it's been 30 years four days

and 26 hours let me make it five days right five days and two hours and two hours since my last

i walked past a restaurant i thought i used to i used to drink in there and but not today you

know what i mean i'm just like the longer you're sober the less sharing we need the less like if a

guy just gets over last week because he's fucking yelled at his wife or been abusive to his kids or

whatever's fucking how he's lost his job let's hear from that cunt tell me something yeah that

cunt so that cunt's got a new fresh story to tell i don't want to hear about you having problems at

olympics or some shit fuck off can i just quickly talk right before i go i'm gonna get wound up about

a hundred times every but i just want to talk quickly about the channel seven show sure one

percent club yeah so uh obviously you live in america so you're not here everybody's watching

it every day they're probably thinking you just did it yesterday afternoon what how do you how do

you do that show and how and how many there's a big debate down at channel seven right now whether

i keep my mustache or not because i've shown up just with a bit of facial hair and i look i think

you know there's a rich history there's a really rich rich history of uh game show hosts with

mustaches you know so what we do is we record 10 episodes over two weeks one episode a day you know

monday to friday and we record the episodes and then there's one week of prep work where we write

like the little intros and outros and the little jokes like people always get angry that i talk

over the 30 seconds while you're trying to think of your answer i have to do that i can't not talk

that i have to do it so i apologize i'm not trying to to uh annoy you um but but so i really um it was

one of those things that it's like i i'd done a bit of acting and i'd done um i'd done sitcoms and

i'd done i've done you know panel shows where i was talking directly down camera and here's the

thing i'm a big game show fan oh really yeah so i in my in my spare time i'll watch jeopardy every

i like distractions and game shows that where where i i have to be engaged i'm answering i'm

not going to check my phone because i've got to get to the next thing can i do the thing

with the with the energy that i have in life i find that to be something that i find very calming

and i've liked game shows my whole life do i think that i could have ever been a game show host no i

never i never ever thought that anyone would but how was the approach made like how did it work

like you i can't just send an application what it feels like a dream i can't

remember what happened i remember i remember my manager ringing me up and going there's a new game

show oh no what happened was when i was out here during covid there there was uh fuck it i think

i'll just tell this right i went and did a pilot for um i won't say what channel but they were

thinking about bringing blankety blanks back oh yeah i love it and i was like yeah i'll give that

a crack right and then great kennedy yeah and and the pilot went really good and that's straight up

that's straight up talking to other comedians not a game show straight up comedy and then the

network um and art and you know we went back and forth and you know and uh they didn't come back

with an answer very quickly and then i think someone else found out that that pilot went quite

well and they said oh there's a new game show that needs a comedian hosting it not a regular game show

host because there's got to be crowd work involved and i'm so bad at reading that as in script

reading just reading

yeah right i couldn't do the chase yeah if i had to have a speed round yeah where i had to go

all right you have 30 seconds on the clock let's start now which horse was it pass you know i'd

be telling myself you'd be passing the questions yeah yeah they'd never get an answer out you've

won one thousand dollars i read one question larry be happy about that oh larry's all right

larry larry's funny larry and me talk online every now and again i've done the morning show and then

larry sometimes people talk to me a bit more they're a bit more

sweary when they talk to me because they they think that's what i'm into you know what i mean

and uh i said to larry if he ever wants tickets to this show and uh he wrote to me and it started

off like this hey fucker could i get larry larry m that started the message with hey fucker

and i was like larry oh my i was clutching my pearls as i read it anyway so um so

so i i couldn't do anything so they said okay i would have been a good host of is it

cake you know that's the one question deal or no deal i could do deal or no deal all day one

question but they said look it's only i think it's 13 13 questions over 45 minutes and so i can

somewhat practice them before i go out there i know the 13 questions before i walk out there

so the one percent club's a good quiz for me because i can just go okay half the questions

are what letters are next in this show and i'm like okay i'm gonna go out there and i'm gonna

sequence oh i love that with those ones what letters are next in the sequence but then there's

the other ones if bob has four pennies and sam has 12 cents and she has all the pennies and like

i think you can hear the panic in my voice as i read those ones out i go into like i go into

shock i'm just like i'm gripping the the the lectern just it's a big one but luckily me like

the one percent club is arguably the only quiz where

you could do it without a host it would be boring but the questions are up on the screen

they've got the ipads they've got the questions on their ipads my read doesn't really affect

how they're going to answer it you know i mean until we get our first blind contestant that

person's going to fuck me i don't have to give it i'm gonna have to get beautiful reads for them

you know with their fucking braille ipads or whatever because i've had the old occasion

i've turned it on i thought fuck i just you're so out of context for me

he just freaks me out like i think you don't even look like the same guy well i like i like

game shows but as i said there's seven and there's a big debate going around the building whether i

keep the tash or not because we start filming on friday right uh so we start we start filming in

four days do i keep the tash do i not i'm a vote for the tash keep the tash well i reckon i force

their hand i reckon i walk up with a hitler mustache and see what they say you know just

shave it down to the square shave it down the square push a bit of hair down

a final question are you going to return to our shores you mentioned something earlier on but like

is it like a dream of yours you want to come back you know do a paul hogan buy a place in byron bay

you know yeah i believe i'm i'm i i look i am america was nice enough to make me a citizen

so i'm a proud american i really am but you still got a strange citizen got dual citizenship yeah

but i'm australian yep i was born here i left this country when i was 20 years old i'm 27 now

and i haven't lived in australia for a long time i've lived in australia for a long time i've lived in

here since i was 22 when i left no hang on what was i was i can know when i left i got on a plane

2001 september 12th that's 23 years ago yeah the twin towers were falling as i was packing my bag

wow right so yeah it's 24 i guess or something like that so i haven't lived back here since

but like the great peter allen once said i'd love to suck your cock no um like

he probably would have said that god bless his soul god bless his soul no like he once said don't

put a condom on i don't think i have it no i don't okay so like i still call australia home

i really do i i i uh i'm i'm a staunch defender of australia and i in sometimes it might seem like

i'm uh criticizing australia when i'm i'm you know joke about it overseas or something like

that there's things about australia i don't like you know there's

things that okay i'll tell you the things i do like fucking we have the best food in the world

oh fuck yeah nowhere else is fucking close totally right we don't know how good we have it i'm not

just talking about restaurants i'm talking about bread yeah fucking a loaf of coffee bread the best

coffee the best bread the best produce yeah everything you go to a cafe it's going to be

good yeah just get a bacon egg sandwich it's gonna be good in america i

can find you good places but a lot of it's shit filled with sugar and additives and this and that

and a lot of times that so just go like i've got a bag of fucking a box of gay times in my freezer

i fucking smash through those cunts in one fucking day i love that shit right there's

things i miss don't they have gay times in them no bloody they don't have anything that good i

miss a good meatball i i've actually become a master sausage roll maker because i couldn't buy

them so i make them at home for myself my sausage rolls are top and maybe kids they like them

well my son doesn't mind them i gotta win people my wife vegan it's a whole thing um but i can make

a vegan sausage roll as well if i'm feeling nice um best food in the world um but you know look how

pale i am pale yeah i i got burnt as a kid so badly i was hospitalized once blisters on me

fucking face right i don't get that with the other ozone i hate but now sunscreen as a kid used to be

yeah and you smeared it on now it's just a shit

my wife doesn't use it she says it's cancerous i'm like give me fucking cancer

because this is the best invention i've ever had right no hat no play all that type of bullshit

like it was hard you know australian sun and all that type of stuff and also there is a little bit

of nanny state about australia that we sort of don't know about us right like they're lowering

the speed limit in most places in sydney down to 40 kilometers an hour that's fucking ridiculous

they're talking about 30 yeah in the city especially that's ridiculous you can't get your

gear right and then they always put it on us if it saves just one life i actually heard i actually

heard someone say that from the city council the other day that's a load on the radio that's a load

of bullshit he said if it saves one life yeah it's not saving any lives the the 60 speed limit

wasn't the thing that was killing people it was the cunts driving at 100 that was killing the

people it was the people not doing the actual speed limit was the reason people were dying

40 you can fucking walk

faster than 30 right this is ridiculous you're being ridiculous and you want i can't imagine how

many speed cameras i've driven past to get here and and they always put it on us if it saves one

life fuck off you're doing it for revenue don't fucking lie to us you're doing it for fun so

there's certain things like that where i find america is a little you know what else america

the greatest thing about america and it'll be turning left on i think turning right on a red

line going this direction this way it's just a give way sign you stop and then you that that

changes your whole day that puts a spring in your step sensible bring that sensible i know so there's

a few things like that like we're the only country in the world that bloody lists a death toll over

easter every time i turn on the news i gotta hear who died in tasmania and who died in queensland

it's fucking morbid right there's things i don't like but the bread's better the people are the

fucking best right our bread's better the people are the fucking best right our bread's better the

beach is a second to none right and just the food like and i know this like my son who's 11 he's like

i want to be australian then i love it oh really but there's things you know i want to move to

perth one day and fucking each weekend i go see the perth bears that's what i was gonna say i go

see the perth bears right fucking that would be heaven that'd be wonderful you know i mean i i

would i would deeply miss the dodgers i'm watching baseball every day baseball's a wonderful

sport

and did you hear today you hear today what happened today something historical happened

today and it hardly made the news what was it okay so australia's had about 10 15 baseball

players play major league baseball and they've all been relief pitchers we've never had someone

smash the cunt out of a fucking ball over the fucking fence until today today the draft happened

and the number one pick was travis bazana from oregon state who went to the cleveland india or

the cleveland guardians and he said i'm not going to play baseball i'm going to play baseball

as it is now right he went to the cleveland right number one pick he's a hitter and the boy was born

in hornsby hospital went to taramara high just up the bloody road from me right as a kid and he

played for the keringai bears or something as a kid right how did how is this jewel

has come out of the rough like how there's no batting cages there's no coaches there's no one

throwing at him as a kid with the as my my son plays little league and he's a hitter and he's a

half the kids are getting professional training every bloody day my my kid's school has baseball

coaches that are just there to coach baseball right and this kid from keringai this kid from

keringai is not only in the draft but he's number one wow so you're here first we're going to have

a young man called travis bazana who's going to be the highest paid australian athlete in a team

sport that has ever been and hardly made the bloody news get on board jim jeffries that'll do me that'll

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