James McCann!

Are You Garbage presents stand up comedian and podcast host James McCann! We're talking communism, coming to America and chasing your dreams! You know James McCann from Stand Up Comedy, Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast w/ Shane Gillis, the Joe Rogan Experience, Kill Tony, James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan, Soder Podcast, Stuff Island, and so much more! Thanks for watching AYG Comedy Podcast. Love youse guys. Come to a live show! AYG 2025 Live Shows: https://punchup.live/areyougarbage/tickets Best of AYG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL8bt-D-ZN4&list=PLCJp1IfokN9Cy1Hi79LSGAykCKfRDM_y9 Live Shows: https://punchup.live/areyougarbage/tickets PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/AreYouGarbage MERCH: https://areyougarbage.com/ Sponsored By: Tushy: Over 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off TUSHY with the code GARBAGE at https://hellotushy.com/GARBAGE Factor: Eat smart at https://FactorMeals.com/garbage50off and use code garbage50off to get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year. Comedians H. Foley and Kevin Ryan are self proclaimed GARBAGE. Each week a new stand up comedian gets put to the test. Steal shampoo from hotels? Own a George Foreman Grill? Ever worn JNCO Jeans? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00H. Foley?

  Calling all homies and bozos, you're cordially invited to come hang out with the boys on that Back on the Block Tour. Grab the squad and come see us. It's gonna be a good time. Little stand-up comedy, plus we play Are You Garbage with the crowd.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're starting in September. We're doing San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Brea, California, Burlington, Vermont, Boston, Massachusetts, Atlanta, Georgia, Charlotte, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina, Richmond, Virginia, Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the Met, Rochester, New York, Toronto. Get your tickets at areyougarbage.com. We love you.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  Welcome to another exciting edition of Are You Garbage? The show where you find out if your favorite comedians are classy individuals or absolute trash. Now, here are your hosts, Kevin Ryan and H. Foley.

• 0:50H. Foley?

  Hey, everybody out there, and welcome back to everybody's favorite podcast. This is Are You Garbage.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 0:57H. Foley?

  It's that little show we sit down with your favorite comedians and we find out that they're going to be classy.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02H. Foley?

  Or just a big old piece of trash.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Trash, trash, trash.

• 1:04H. Foley?

  I'm your host, H. Foley, coming at you on a beautiful day. We're out back here at Toody's in the new addition. She just got back from the pet store.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:11H. Foley?

  Bought a bunch of ticks.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Okay, good for her. Watch out. I didn't know they sold those at the pet store.

• 1:16H. Foley?

  Kid gave me a little more on that. My cousin's coming at you from right next to me. That's two hours down the drain. He is the CEO of Are You Garbage. He is an international businessman. And a tough critic, I'll tell you that right now.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Don't laugh.

• 1:29H. Foley?

  Give it up for KJ. This kid's a hard laugh on a Monday. Give it up for KJ, Kevin James Ryan, everybody.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  What up, gang? Shout out to you. Thanks for tuning in. As always, please make sure you review, subscribe on iTunes. Full video available on YouTube. Full video available over there on Spotify. And the boys, I gotta be honest with you, climbing the charts over there.

• 1:43H. Foley?

  We're on the charts over there. Look out.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Charts. Uh, sure, it's the bottom half of the charts, but we're on the charts.

• 1:48H. Foley?

  Still.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  And then, obviously, the greatest website of all time, www.patreon.com/areyougarbage. Lot of money, gang.

• 1:55H. Foley?

  Yes, sir. Gang, we couldn't be more excited to have our incredibly, and I mean incredibly, special guest here with us today for the first time. He is a very funny, very successful stand-up comedian, podcaster, and author. He just put, he just put out his fourth book of poems, "Disquieting Levels of Egg." Look at that. He's got a brand new special out September 1st on his YouTube page, and you can hear him every week on his amazing podcast, James Donald Forbes McCann: Catamaran Plan. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for James Donald Forbes McCann, the thunder from down under, as they call him.

• 2:29Speaker 03

  This is easily the best podcast professionally that I've ever... Usually, you're in a corner and there's a guy smoking a joint, and there's eight guys doing mushrooms in minute quantities in the corner. This is a top quality of arrangement.

• 2:41H. Foley?

  You leave La Mer out of this. He's a good kid.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  We play for keeps, baby. This is also, I mean, this is very garbage set, like, to have the good set. The rich guy thing is to go, "I don't care. I'm a slob." No, we care too much. We care too much. New money. It's upwardly mobile working class. Yes. Whoa, upwardly mobile working class. That's my audience. That's my favorite group of people in the world.

• 3:02H. Foley?

  Upwardly mobile.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Upwardly mobile working class. No, you don't want downwardly mobile working class.

• 3:06H. Foley?

  No.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  That's the opioid people.

• 3:08H. Foley?

  Sure.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  Well, we don't discourage, you know, I'll take those two.

• 3:11H. Foley?

  A little trank, a little fent, whatever you want to do.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  I want people to have at least enough money to buy the tickets. Listening's for free, though. Don't forget that, gang.

• 3:16H. Foley?

  Or have to sell them for sex later on. Buddy, give us the backstory. Give us the origin story of James Donald Forbes McCann.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  All right.

• 3:24H. Foley?

  Very prestigious name for a collar that frayed.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  This is a good...

• 3:31H. Foley?

  You pulled that out of a...

• 3:32Speaker 03

  At some point, I thought that was fancy to do four names, like Prince Pizzi. You know, like Madonna, she goes the one name, and Prince, one name. They go, "Look how fan... You know, I'm so famous. I just need one name." You could say you're so weak that you only think you can get one name across to people. If you have real star power, you should be able to get four names to fly. And it also cuts out a lot of the weak fans. You've got to really be committed to type in all four names. A lot of characters, yeah.

• 3:59H. Foley?

  On the street, you go by James McCann.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, James is, yeah.

• 4:03H. Foley?

  Literary. James Donald Forbes McCann.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  Man, it's a number one bestselling book of poems, and here's the secret. They're having a number one bestselling book of poems.

• 4:11H. Foley?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 03

  Just release it.

• 4:12H. Foley?

  Sure.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Because if you, man, there are so few sales for books of poems. That to win the poem category on Amazon. You sell three books in a day. You're a number one bestselling poet.

• 4:23H. Foley?

  It's killing it. I like it.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  I'm not making enough money out of it, but I feel very successful.

• 4:28H. Foley?

  I love it.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  What's my story? I don't, I'm from Australia. I'm from Adelaide.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  What? I thought Detroit.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Uh, it is like Pittsburgh and it's like a post-industrial town that's trying to recast itself as an arts hub.

• 4:40H. Foley?

  Say the, say the name of it again.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  Adelaide. Sweet Adelaide.

• 4:43H. Foley?

  Sweet Adelaide.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  Man, we're in trouble this week. The football, uh, best football player going into finals has just dropped a, uh, I don't know what words I'm like, a strong F anti homosexual slur.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  And he might be out for the full final season.

• 4:57H. Foley?

  Damn.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  And we're trying to finagle something to let him back in.

• 5:01H. Foley?

  To get him back in.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  It's hard.

• 5:03H. Foley?

  When did he drop this slur?

• 5:04Speaker 03

  On field.

• 5:05H. Foley?

  Yikes.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, the other team reported him, which seems to me a breach of some sort of code.

• 5:09H. Foley?

  Sure, I could see that.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Obviously you shouldn't be doing it.

• 5:12H. Foley?

  Right.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Isaac, but what a great player. We'd really like him to play.

• 5:16H. Foley?

  Now, when you say football, what are we talking about? Rugby?

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Aussie Rules Football. This is, uh, it looks like Gaelic football.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Ozzy Osbourne?

• 5:21Speaker 03

  Yes. He has died so that the game may live.

• 5:24H. Foley?

  Uh huh.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  It's a lot of, man, I was, I did a road trip through New Mexico. Went to, anyway, I went to California, but I start, Pistachio Land was on the way. It was like a theme park to the pistachio. But their big thing on their website, and they hadn't taken it down, was that Ozzy Osbourne had once visited Pistachio Land.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  That's big.

• 5:40H. Foley?

  That's all right.

• 5:40Speaker 03

  They got a big photo.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Now it's number one seller James Ford McCann.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  James Donald Ford McCann. We've got the new special out now, Black Israelite. We've got the new book of poems.

• 5:49H. Foley?

  Wait, is that the name of the special? Black Israelite?

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:51H. Foley?

  I love it.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  It's all about Israel and black American people. So I, we'll see if that's allowed up on the YouTube.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  You are a, you are a niche kinda guy.

• 6:01H. Foley?

  It's a loose cannon. I like it.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  It's hard to search. It's a big problem. I'm trying to fix that. I gotta get one of these people.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  The number one stand-up comedy special about backlit Israelites by an Australian guy.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  It's mostly about Sammy Davis Jr. No, I was, yeah, Adelaide. Uh, I went to my pa, what, you get the whole?

• 6:19H. Foley?

  What the whole thing, baby?

• 6:20Speaker 03

  All right.

• 6:21H. Foley?

  Moms, dads, brothers, sisters?

• 6:22Speaker 03

  All right, dad's side. It's, it's odd. They lived in a very rough part of town and they refused to move because my, my dad's dad was scared that he would have a heart attack. He'd had friends who'd moved off the neighborhood street.

• 6:35H. Foley?

  Uh huh.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  And they'd all died. And so he said, I'm staying here. So even though he worked his way up to be like,

• 6:42Speaker 03

  he was a bureau, he was a deputy head of telecom. It was like AT&T in the state.

• 6:46H. Foley?

  Your grandfather.

• 6:47Speaker 03

  Yes. And so he would have a- He was afraid to move. He was afraid to move. And so like a limousine would pick him up from a very rough part of town every day. Anyway.

• 6:54H. Foley?

  That's awesome.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  It was very strange.

• 6:56H. Foley?

  I like that kind of superstition.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  But it was, it was, it was in the seventies. So working for like a power company or a phone company did not have, now you'd be on huge, you know, CFO weird money, but at the time you're a civil servant. Gotcha. You know, they, they gave you a fancy car, but you didn't have heaps of cash. But he, you know, he went to a-

• 7:13H. Foley?

  That was a civil servant job back then?

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Yes. The government owned the telecommunications.

• 7:18H. Foley?

  Damn, I didn't know Australia was like that.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  We, if only we could return to it and gets, now we're getting ripped up now. The bloody Chinese on the phone companies. And they're, they're not doing a great job. Let me tell you that. You guys got Chinese phone companies down there? My mum came from- The hell's going on? Oh, it's a lot. My mum came from the- This is kooky. The worst place in Adelaide, which was Elizabeth. And my grandparents kept living there and we would go up there. It was a saddle, it was a, suburbs are usually bad. The further out you go in Australia, the worse it is. We didn't have white flight. We didn't have some of the dynamics happening in the 1970s in America. So fancy people live close and the further out you go, the poorer it gets. But they were both, they're like the first people in their schools to, sorry, in their families to go to like uni and no, they went to public schools, like rough and tumble public schools.

• 8:04H. Foley?

  Okay. How'd your mom and dad meet?

• 8:06Speaker 03

  They were teachers. They both became English teachers.

• 8:09H. Foley?

  No kidding.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  And they went out to, I think that it was Wayala, which is, oh man, that's a- That's, that's a rough, we don't.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  It's like someone just turned them on.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  No, it was like an iron, it was an iron town that shut down a steel town. And you go back there now, people say Waiala, Waibata. And then the next town is Port Augusta, Port Agata. It's called the Iron Triangle. The third town is riddled with cancer. And it's genuinely.

• 8:33H. Foley?

  Chinese phone companies.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Oh, they yearn, they yearn to have a Chinese phone company move in there and just give some semblance that something's going on. But they, like, it was really important. They were rapidly mobile people. They were, they went to university.

• 8:47H. Foley?

  Right.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  They got to become English teachers.

• 8:49H. Foley?

  Were they English teachers in Adelaide?

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:51H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. Although dad wanted to be a lawyer and he got to go, he was a communist in college, in university.

• 8:57H. Foley?

  Really?

• 8:58Speaker 03

  And then he went to China just after the Cultural Revolution.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Is that just like?

• 9:01H. Foley?

  You're joking.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 9:02H. Foley?

  Your father was a communist?

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Father was a communist. He was studying history. He went to China as all the sort of mass death was starting to wind down, but he really, that, the West didn't know what was happening in China.

• 9:14H. Foley?

  Is this after the, what was the call with the guy ran over in the tank?

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Uh, before, before. So this was the Great Leap Forward. Where Mao decides we're gonna have, people are gonna smelt iron in their backyards. And then what do you know, it's not good iron and you can't really sell it. And then there's a lot of famine because Albania is giving them all their food. It's a beautiful part of history.

• 9:33H. Foley?

  Your dad was a communist?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  That's crazy. That's some commie bullshit.

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Came, came back from China, very much not a communist and is now. Very conservative.

• 9:43H. Foley?

  But a hankering for Mushu pork.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  He gets into, he gets, he, he gets intrigued by communism in his studies and his readings.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  He wanted to be a revolutionary. He wanted to.

• 9:55H. Foley?

  Let me ask you this. You mentioned that the.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Take over Australia, I think.

• 9:58H. Foley?

  You mentioned that your grandfather was, was owning, or working for a telecommunications company was a civil servant job.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:06H. Foley?

  Australia was never borderline communist socialist, were they?

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Man. Don't sound democratic if you ask me. Goddamn, they own a phone company, his dad's going to China. What the fuck?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  I tell you in the-

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Don't sound like BlackRock, I'll tell you that. How many, how many, how many of your uncles ever went to China?

• 10:20Speaker 01

  We had a-

• 10:20Speaker 03

  I got two words for you, Vanguard, let's go. We had a go becoming a little independent from US power in the 70s. I'm out. And then spontaneously, a prime minister was not the prime minister anymore, and we've been friendly ever since. Right. He said, "We might close down some of these military bases and sell our own oil." Oh, yeah. And he had to go away. So we've never tried again, and nor should we. He was exhausted, he could go to a couple weekends. People were sick of him, he was, uh, he was acting like a dickhead. Went for a swim in the reef, if you know what I mean. That was a previous prime minister, he went for, that was Harold Holt, who disappeared. People say a Chinese submarine got him. What? Yeah. What do you mean got him, like picked him up? Yes, that he was a Chinese spy, and they came for him, they came to take him away. He'd fulfilled his mission. I tell you what, that's- I feel like I'm talking to a beautiful mind here. I'm sorry, I'm-

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Start writing on the windows, you're out of here. I'm trying to give you my story, and it starts with Harold Holt going, "You'll enjoy this." The prime minister- I'm not sure I will. The prime minister goes swimming, disappeared, probably drowned, maybe a Chinese submarine. Maybe, who knows? But what- Or got whacked out. Who can say, he was, he took his mistress to the beach, he went into the water, he never came back. What about her, did she, was she gone too? No, she was alive, she said, uh, Harold just went away. But then, what the government does in- Probably got Chinese brought over there. They, they have the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Center, it's the big swimming center. In China? No, in Adelaide, no, in Melbourne, sorry, Melbourne, they named the swimming pool after the prime minister who drowned. That's a little ironic. Isn't that nice? That's a little weird. Isn't that a tender- I mean... No, not if he died, don't give him a swimming pool. Do you do like a-

• 11:50Speaker 03

  If he died. If he died. If he fucking died. I don't believe he did. Now, the, the wife said he couldn't have been a Chinese spy, didn't like Chinese food. That's the strong argument against it, that's genuine, that's in a book. I tell you what, though, that's pretty good. The prime minister was a spy.

• 12:07H. Foley?

  That's pretty good, man.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Great to be sharing this.

• 12:09H. Foley?

  Listen, if that's the move and you get to, you get to get picked up by the sub, that's the way to go. That's tight.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  So generous of the Chinese to risk their entire international reputation by rescuing one of their own. I think they would have plugged him.

• 12:24H. Foley?

  Yeah, that's what would have killed him, yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Mum's side, dad was, uh, my mum's dad was an orphan in Scotland. This kid moves quick. He was an orphan from Abilauer in Scotland and he was, he came to Australia, he was part of the military. Okay, this is your mum's dad, I'm sorry? Mum's dad, and he was at a place called Maralinga. So the British government gets nuclear weapons and they want to test them out and see how bad are these for people, really. So they go to the Australian outback and they detonate nuclear weapons and then they say to the soldiers, "Go for a walk through that and we'll see where your health is at in 20, 30 years."

• 12:54H. Foley?

  Damn.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Go through the radiation. So it doesn't work out well, um, for any of them. I think they're all dead.

• 12:59H. Foley?

  Your grandfather was one of these?

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, he died in his, I think, you know, mid 60s, mid, late 60s. It was terrible and genuinely, yeah, he was, but he was in Elizabeth. Elizabeth was that suburb to the north of Adelaide. It was meant to be like British, the best of Britain coming over after the war and setting up their own town.

• 13:18H. Foley?

  Gotcha.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  And it turned into a slum quicker than you can say.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Fuck, man, that's a rough place to walk around. Oh, Chinese, again, Chinese restaurant would be a real step up. There are, there were factories there. We stopped, we used, the only way we could have manufacturing is if the government was like pumping it up and giving them a lot of money. So when we liberalized and we go- Tommy. Yeah, but then we go, "We're gonna be a free market." Then they all close and all the manufacturing jobs go away.

• 13:44H. Foley?

  Hmm.

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Now we don't make anything. America has learnt this lesson as well. I mean, I've, when I first came here, I was in the Rust Belt, I was in the Ohio River Valley for several months.

• 13:55H. Foley?

  What, thinking the action was still going on?

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, just, isn't that the place to be? Almost heaven, West Virginia.

• 14:01H. Foley?

  Where's all the locomotives are at?

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Man, some of the, some of the poverty. What'd you, how'd you end up there? So I came to America because I got offered a job on a podcast. It was a... Anyway, they looked at my comedy and they said I was too dirty and they fired me, but I'd already moved my whole family. Wait, what? Yes, it was rough. Hold on, wait, put a pin in that, we'll get to that. Alright. Get back to the communist. Well, he left his communism behind. We've moved past that. He became a teacher and an author. So your dad became a teacher and... And now he's an outspoken friend of Israel. Nice. He's gone full, full circle.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  No, sorry, the other side. Whichever one is more respectful than my father, that's the one that I meant.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Brothers and sisters? One brother. Older, younger? He's younger. He, uh... Your parents stayed together? They're still married? Uh, brother, late career, like, I moved to America and they broke up just before then. Is that true? Separate house, yes, they're in their 60s, they've split up. Really? And I don't talk about it very often, because I don't know what to do with that. Sure. What are you, when you're a kid, I mean, I... Ah, it's very, I think... Ah, I'm, I'm...

• 15:12Speaker 01

  We lost him.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  I'm sorry. Well, he looks like a completely different guy without his glasses on. I have this cold, small, North Irish sociopath eyes that I try and cover up with there. Man, adult divorce is a weird category to be in. The marriage lasts all through the childhood, all through into the 30s. Have some kids of your own.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  I gotta be honest, it's the most, that's not the craziest thing I've heard about you so far.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Isn't it?

• 15:36Speaker 01

  If we're being honest.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  That's the one I wrestle with.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  After what you have to, you told me your dad was a commie, this is shocking to the point where you have to take your glasses off.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Different to be a communist in Australia.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Sure. Uh, not better, still bad, but like whenever people go, like in America, they go, there were communists in the Democrat Party and, or like they were lying that there were communists there and the whole McCarthy thing. We just genuinely had communist, we had, the Labour, our centre-left party was riddled with communists. Gotcha. It was like, just a normal cash thing to do. People didn't know it was that bad at the time. Uh, we didn't know which way we were gonna go as a country. We came down on, I think... Sure. The right side in the end. I believe. I love freedom. I love America.

• 16:22H. Foley?

  I knew he was gonna say that.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  This is beautiful. I love.

• 16:25H. Foley?

  To the victor go the spoils.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  Have you seen the James Brown CNN interview?

• 16:28H. Foley?

  What?

• 16:28Speaker 03

  No. Don't worry about it. It's the greatest interview of all time.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  They make you watch that in naturalization class?

• 16:33Speaker 03

  No, I just, I just pro bono went and did some James Brown research.

• 16:37H. Foley?

  Same six Chuck Berry songs.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Go.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Look at you in the toilet.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  It's my favorite.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Is that Chuck Berry was doing that?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's referenced a lot on the show.

• 16:45H. Foley?

  Chuck, where at?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  You know where he's at. He's in the bathroom.

• 16:48H. Foley?

  Hello? Kim, let's talk about Tushy.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Shout out to the good folks out there, Tush.

• 16:52H. Foley?

  Let's talk about keeping a clean bee hole. Tushy is where you want to be. What do you do? What do you wipe?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Bozo.

• 17:00H. Foley?

  Like a Neanderthal? Like a guy in a cave scratching your girl's name on the wall? No, you do Tushy. You get that bidet system going, nice warm water shooting up the bee hole, keeping you fresh, keeping you clean all day. Absolutely fantastic.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Listen, gang, you're not too old to learn out there, and that's what I've learned as I've gotten older. There's things that I went, that's not for me, that's not for my kind of guy, um, my, my people aren't into that. And I gotta be honest with you, I was wrong. Tushy, Tushy, Tushy, they have the everyday luxury bidet.

• 17:31H. Foley?

  Call me a Frenchman.

• 17:32Speaker 01

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• 18:17H. Foley?

  Kip, what do you know about Factor?

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Uh, I know.

• 18:19H. Foley?

  You've never had Factor before.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  I know everything about Factor. You know nothing about Factor. I know everything about Factor.

• 18:22H. Foley?

  We all know about Factor over here because we're absolute big, big, big, big fans. Gang, do yourself a favor. School's getting ready to start, alright? Things are gonna start getting busy. Next thing you know, you got the holidays and you're bulking up. Get yourself some delicious nutritious meals, ready to go in two minutes, fresh, never frozen Factor. You got a million different options over there. Not to mention they're getting in the breakfast game. You got the snacks. Everything you need, covered by Factor.

• 18:48Speaker 01

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• 18:53H. Foley?

  Really?

• 18:54Speaker 01

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• 18:56H. Foley?

  Surf and surf.

• 18:57Speaker 01

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• 19:10H. Foley?

  Hello!

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Um, for more choices and better nutrition, that's why 97% of customers say Factor helped them live a healthier life. Feel the difference no matter your routine. I was a fan, I listen, I've been a fan of Factor for years. It's well documented here. I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm breaking, oh, a broken record here. Uh, shredded chicken taco bowl changed my life. It's fantastic. Go get involved with Factor. It takes that, just because I'm the kind of guy, I'll get home and I'll go, I'm on my way home, like, I'll get pizza. Don't get pizza. Get a sandwich. Don't get a sandwich. And I go, you know what?

• 19:37H. Foley?

  Chicken taco bowl!

• 19:38Speaker 01

  I got Factor at home, baby. Throw that. I do it on a stove because I'm a gentleman. Two minutes on a skillet, sss.

• 19:43H. Foley?

  I like it in the microwave.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Uh, eat smart at factormeals.com/garbage50off and use the code garbage50off to get 50% off your first box, plus a free breakfast for one year. What? That's, I might have to sign, I might have to sign back up. That's code-

• 19:56H. Foley?

  That's a fake name.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Code garbage50off at factormeals.com for 50% off your first box, plus free breakfast for one year. That's crazy.

• 20:03H. Foley?

  Nuts.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Get delicious, ready to eat meals delivered with Factor. Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Do it.

• 20:11H. Foley?

  Were you a good student growing up? And how was the household growing up? You, your mom, your dad, and your brother? Quiet.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Uh, what you would mean by suburban neighborhood? Right. I think I was, I was, I was not a good student until I got put in the, they put me in the school that my dad was a teacher. And then he was so, sometimes your dad's a teacher and kids get away with everything. Because their, their parents can pull some levers and. Now, I got spat on by one boy whose mother was not even a teacher. She was like an assistant teacher. And I, we couldn't, I couldn't do anything. I got in trouble for punching him with him. Probably all that comedy. There was some of that. There was some of that. I was, I was giving him a bit of the chat. I was, I was. Sipping with that comedy talk. I got into too many fights. I got into too many. Fistfights? Well, I started out with some fistfights and wasn't very good.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  And I'm ashamed, no, I'm ashamed to say I, I kicked a boy in the testicles. First time was an accident, but people were afraid of me after that. And so I did it. That became your move? I did it twice, I did it three times. It was like stone gold. I literally, in six months, I kicked three boys in the nose. I like it there. Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And then people were afraid of me. Not in a good way. Not like, he's so tough. It's like, stay away, stay away. Stay away. If you can. He's got a problem. I kicked the boy in the testicles. I kicked the boy in the, yes. He's a good friend now. Hey, Nick!

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Sorry you can't have kids. Call, call Nicky Sopranos. I believe, I believe he's, he's brought children into this world. At least one child. There you go. But I do remember he vomited up the stairs as he was walking away. It was a trail. I feel very bad about it now. Why did you kick him? I. What was the argument? Isn't that always the way, who can remember? That's the move. No, I shouldn't have done it. Take a swing. I had a late pu, I was the smallest boy by a lot. How late's late? I was the oldest soprano of the boys choir ever had.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  It was late. It was like, what would you would say? I was, I would have been sixteen when my voice broke. Okay. Yes.

• 22:09H. Foley?

  Were you in the choir for real or no?

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:11H. Foley?

  What were the, what were the extracurricular activities?

• 22:13Speaker 03

  I did them all.

• 22:14H. Foley?

  Did you play?

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Nut stomping.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  No, I squeezed in the nut stomping between, I did debating, I did chess, I did...

• 22:22Speaker 03

  I tried all the normal sports and was shit at them, so I started doing the ones that...

• 22:25Speaker 01

  The obscure things.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Did squash.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  You played squash?

• 22:28Speaker 03

  Squashing badminton.

• 22:28H. Foley?

  What is squash exactly?

• 22:30Speaker 03

  It's tennis, but really dull, and the Saudis love it.

• 22:33H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  He always goes to another country.

• 22:35H. Foley?

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Every time you ask him something, he always ends with a problem at a country.

• 22:39H. Foley?

  I just got on a plane. He's very geopolitical.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  I just got on a plane, it was Korean Airlines, everybody.

• 22:44H. Foley?

  Do they have a test over there? Cause you seem like a pretty sharp guy. Is this going well? It's going great.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Please.

• 22:51H. Foley?

  You kidding me?

• 22:51Speaker 03

  Do they have a test?

• 22:52H. Foley?

  Alright, we're gonna turn you in as soon as you get out of here.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  They do have a test.

• 22:55H. Foley?

  Do they have like a, do you know what the SATs are?

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:57H. Foley?

  Do they have a similar test in Australia?

• 22:59Speaker 03

  They, you just, uh, they don't have a standardized one. They have, they, uh, sort of, yes. It's state by state.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  How did you do on that?

• 23:08H. Foley?

  I would assume, I would assume you're extremely intelligent.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  But I feel you're intelligent, I could be wrong.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  If I was showing up and paying attention, I did okay, but it was really, my dad was like... Cause he was a teacher there and he was, he would be so ashamed. That was it, that was the only reason I was taking a break from video games and kicking boys in the testicles, is he would go, "What the fuck are you doing?"

• 23:26H. Foley?

  What video game system did you have?

• 23:28Speaker 03

  I, man, I was thinking about, I had the, uh, the Xbox.

• 23:32H. Foley?

  There wasn't like different ones over there, right?

• 23:33Speaker 03

  No, we had them all, we had them all. But I had the Playstation before then, but I never got the Playstation 2. And, uh, I wish I'd had the Playstation 2 instead of the Xbox. I had a lot of good Halo memories.

• 23:43H. Foley?

  Gotcha.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  But I think the PS2, we were... So it's a, it's a fancy school and they got a discount, but my mum, my mum didn't work and my dad was on a teacher's wage.

• 23:50H. Foley?

  Alright, so your mum didn't work, so the neighborhood you grew up in was upper middle class? It was, it was nice?

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:57H. Foley?

  Alright.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:57H. Foley?

  Okay. Your dad did well?

• 24:00Speaker 03

  We were, we were in the fancy area and we were the poorest people by a lot.

• 24:05H. Foley?

  Understandable, gotcha. Cause they bought at the right time.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  They bought at the right time and he had a job at the, at the good school. He got a job at a good school.

• 24:12H. Foley?

  Gotcha, okay.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  So I got brought in on, you know, you don't have to pay the same amount of money as everybody else.

• 24:15H. Foley?

  Understandable.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  And so everyone else comes back from holidays going like, "Oh, we've been the power..." Oh, it was beautiful, the lights.

• 24:21H. Foley?

  And what would a vacation be for you? My dad took me to China.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  We would get cable television just for the holidays and I'd get to watch SmackDown and Raw.

• 24:30H. Foley?

  You would get it just for the holidays and then cancel it?

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Then they cancel it, yeah. Because they don't want to be paying for it and they don't want to be watching it, but during the, just during the summer holidays.

• 24:40H. Foley?

  Like, summer off?

• 24:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, we'd get like two months of, we'd call it Foxtel. So you'd get cable TV for two months.

• 24:45H. Foley?

  That's crazy. That's awesome.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Just ingest a huge amount of television and then back to school.

• 24:49H. Foley?

  And what was the, what was the school year for you? Because I, not to sound ignorant, I can't tell what's winter, what's summer.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  No, it's like a January to start of December.

• 24:59H. Foley?

  What is?

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Uh, that's the school year. That's the school year. So you get, so summer is.

• 25:03H. Foley?

  January to the start of December?

• 25:05Speaker 03

  So, uh, maybe early Feb. But then, we do it different. We have four terms with a two-week break. You do one big.

• 25:11H. Foley?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  Kids go off to summer camp. We have like 10 weeks, two weeks off, 10 weeks, two weeks off.

• 25:16H. Foley?

  Wait, hold on a second. You gotta explain this to me.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 25:19H. Foley?

  I don't know how else I can explain it to you, but that was pretty clear. When, when, when do you, okay.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  I'm doing my best.

• 25:24H. Foley?

  You're, you're, you're going into eighth grade. When does school start?

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Like, start of February.

• 25:29H. Foley?

  The start of February?

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:30H. Foley?

  That's wild. Wait a minute, hold on. That's un-American. Wait, what? That's when school starts?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  End of January, start of February, yeah.

• 25:37H. Foley?

  Okay, and then?

• 25:38Speaker 03

  That's just when it's starting to get a little less hot.

• 25:41H. Foley?

  Where to when?

• 25:42Speaker 03

  You're going through to the start of December.

• 25:44H. Foley?

  You're going the whole year straight through? You just said you go 10 weeks on, 2 weeks off. So it'd be like how we had marking periods or, you know, whatever? So you're going to school in the summer months? In the, like, ju-

• 25:55Speaker 03

  In your summer month, they're our winter months. So.

• 25:57H. Foley?

  The toilets, the other ones that go down the way down there.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  December is hot. Let me tell you, cutting down a Christmas tree in Australia is a slog. It's 100 degrees. You go into a field, there's Christmas trees that, we would never do this as a kid. My mom would get the plastic tree, but that was my, like. I believe in the real tree. I love heaven.

• 26:16H. Foley?

  Sure.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 26:17H. Foley?

  Sure.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  It's a waste of money. The whole house is filled with pine needles. It's a bitch to get in and get out.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Sucks.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  But here, I imagine it's very nice to go out and cut down a tree. Not that you, I mean, you just, people sell it in the parking lot and they do it for you. But there, you've got to crawl in long grass and there's snakes everywhere.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  What the fuck?

• 26:33Speaker 03

  Hacking away.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Imagine getting bit by a rattler when you're trying to celebrate Christmas.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  It's a lot of things.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 26:38H. Foley?

  I got a half a pint of eggnog in me. I'm not watching where I step.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Slap a kangaroo.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  Eggnog not as popular because it's a hundred degree day. So it's, you wanna be having the beers very early on Christmas. Barbecue.

• 26:50H. Foley?

  You're telling me that you're basically going to school all, all year round. Ten weeks on, two weeks off, ten weeks on, two weeks off.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  I'd kill myself.

• 26:58H. Foley?

  Wait, so you're going to school, your entire childhood, it never stops?

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Uh...

• 27:02H. Foley?

  I would freak out.

• 27:03Speaker 03

  Our summer holiday is like a month and a half. So you get, you get a slightly longer break. But it's not like this beautiful three-month American

• 27:10H. Foley?

  Right.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  summer running around riding your bike.

• 27:12H. Foley?

  You start in September, you're done in, you're done in May, you go down to shore.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:16H. Foley?

  You get a summer job, find a girlfriend, do a little smooching.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  You're saying you, but this is definitely first-person stuff. I wasn't getting any, I had a very, I had one girlfriend in high school briefly and then she broke up with me and then...

• 27:28H. Foley?

  Kicked her in the nuts.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  I think she did become a non-binary.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm su- mate, who can say?

• 27:36H. Foley?

  No kidding.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  Who can say? Devastated all through my last year of high school.

• 27:40H. Foley?

  Huh.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  At this, oh.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  How long was the relationship?

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Weeks.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  A summer break.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:49H. Foley?

  Holy shit. Alright, okay.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  What okay?

• 27:52H. Foley?

  So what would you guys do, so, you're telling me that your parents would get

• 27:57Speaker 01

  You broke Foley, by the way.

• 27:59H. Foley?

  Yeah. Your parents, your parents would get cable for like two weeks or that month and a half?

• 28:03Speaker 03

  They get the, the month and a half and then sometimes if, you know, if the Iraq war was really kicking off and dad wanted to watch Fox, because by this point, he's a Fox Republican. Then he gets Fox.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Man, this guy's a flip-flopper if you ask me.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  He has one, he's a huge pivot. I mean, really, the rightward tilt is, uh... It was before my time.

• 28:22H. Foley?

  Here's a shocker, James, how old are you, by the way?

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Thirty, I wanna say thirty-three.

• 28:25H. Foley?

  Thirty-three.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Why, why do you think I'd be shocked at that?

• 28:27H. Foley?

  Young guy.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  You thought I thought he'd be older?

• 28:29H. Foley?

  Yeah.

• 28:31Speaker 03

  We've got three kids.

• 28:32H. Foley?

  He's a communist.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  I have never been. Nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party. That said. They have some good ideas. I've hung out with communists at parties.

• 28:47H. Foley?

  I do enjoy Chinese food.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  We just have communists in Australia. They're at, there's the, they sell newspapers. Here's, man, I kinda miss them, cuz there's a certain kinda person. When you see a, uh, English-speaking communist, you know, you see the Russian commie in there like being above.

• 29:01H. Foley?

  It throws you off a little bit.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Communists are skinny, pale in Australia. They're selling badges nobody wants. Badges? Those, you know, like buy a little bad, buy a little. To support communism. Yes. But they never, you know, it's never just, it's never like a hammer sickle. Straighten some of these guys out. They are the communists, but it'll be like the rainbow stuff, the Aboriginal stuff, the no-nuclear stuff.

• 29:21H. Foley?

  Gotcha.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Very angry with their newspapers, which are very thin and poorly researched.

• 29:27H. Foley?

  Spelling's horrible.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  They're doing their best.

• 29:29H. Foley?

  Anytime you ever, guys, would you guys ever go away? Would you go to like, how far away were you from the beach, first of all?

• 29:35Speaker 03

  So everywhere in Australia is near the beach. It's around the, it's on the edge, yeah. The difficult thing is everywhere worth going to is eight hours' drive away, minimum.

• 29:45H. Foley?

  Why? What do you mean? Like a be, like a beach?

• 29:47Speaker 03

  We got, the country is the same size of America. We got five big cities.

• 29:51H. Foley?

  Right.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  And that's it.

• 29:52H. Foley?

  Cuz in the middle, there's.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Lot of hot sand, lot of poverty.

• 29:57H. Foley?

  Does anybody live in like the middle of the country?

• 29:59Speaker 03

  It's called Alice Springs. I think it's the stabbing capital of something. But, uh, yeah, they had to bring in a curfew in Alice Springs.

• 30:07H. Foley?

  Jesus.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  There's a lot of problems, Lord's name.

• 30:09H. Foley?

  Huh.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  There's a lot of problems.

• 30:10H. Foley?

  Cuz so, could you, how far, how long would it take for you to get to the beach, from your house?

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Not long, uh, forty minutes.

• 30:16H. Foley?

  Forty minutes?

• 30:16Speaker 03

  And it's a beautiful, nice.

• 30:18H. Foley?

  And would you drive there and go swimming and stuff like that?

• 30:20Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:21H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  Oh, it's, one of the only, I mean, there's not, sometime, Adelaide is, for a long time, it was known as a place where there was nothing to do. So you would just have to. Oh, we got a beach, we got mountains, it's beautiful. Too many people are moving there now and the house prices have gone up like a million dollars. So if you would stay the fuck out of Adelaide.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  You live here now.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  I know, but one day I'd like to have a beautiful home.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  No, if you live here now, you have to not care about Australia. That's what, that's the...

• 30:44Speaker 03

  You can never forget. That's what a disgusting thing to forget your roots.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Later.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  We're not letting you go back. What, you're a Jets fan now?

• 30:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  You forgot where you're from?

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  You forgot who raised you? Go Birds!

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Go Birds, dickhead. Um, what, uh, what was the first job growing up?

• 31:01Speaker 03

  McDonald's.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Really?

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Yes, I was a fry cook in McDonald's. I wanted to be customer facing, but they didn't think I had the personality for it.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Trying to convert everybody communist.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  I was a very bad... I'm not a communist! My father was, before being very right-wing, a good staunch, loves America. How was the gig at McDonald's? And how old were you? I would have been fourteen, fifteen. Okay. Uh, I was not great. When can you work there? Could you work during the school? Can you work during... Yeah, I'd work, I'd work after school and then weekends. No kidding. And then, just on a terrible, you get a, I don't know if they have children's wages here, but like they can pay you less than minimum wage if you're a kid. No kidding. Yes, you get like sixty percent of minimum wage. Holy shit. Australia is wonky.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Got no work ethic. What, uh, what was the big seller at a Mc, at the time in McDo, at Australia McDonald's?

• 31:53Speaker 03

  They would, oh, like the, the menu item? Yes.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  I mean, we, we have many, a quarter pound is great.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  I was always a big, big Mac fan. My man. But the family was all vegetarian throughout my teen years.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Man.

• 32:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, my brothers held on to it. I eat meat. I, when I left home, I started, I was like, oh, let's try ham. Ham is good. Yeah, ham's very good. Welcome to America, baby. I, so when I left home, I went to university and then dropped out twice and just bummed around in like the art scene doing comedy and not having any money. Mm-hmm. For eight years, ten years, fifteen years. It was a long time. Where was that, where was that, where was college? Where was university? So we go, we always, we go in the same town that you're from. We don't have this...

• 32:35Speaker 01

  You don't try, yeah.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  No. So you were just around town? I just lived at home. You didn't go to like Melbourne or...

• 32:40Speaker 01

  You lived at home.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  I tried moving out of Adelaide a bunch of times. I tried moving to Melbourne, had another breakup, had to get the fuck out of Melbourne. I was dating a comedian. You can't, boy, a comedy breakup is ugly.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Man.

• 32:54Speaker 03

  It's all your, all your friends are also your colleagues.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  And she was much more successful than me, and rightly so, because I was doing the, my act was bad. But I was just, anyway. Uh, I get lost in the past. Excuse me. I wasn't ready to talk about.

• 33:08H. Foley?

  I love this.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  I have so many closed doors in my mind.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  He's staring off into no man's land.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Yeah. I tried to move away a couple of times, but I always came back.

• 33:16H. Foley?

  You always came back?

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:18H. Foley?

  And then, okay.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Because Adelaide's great. I mean, it's, in many ways, it's.

• 33:24H. Foley?

  Were you doing comedy there?

• 33:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  That's what he said, yeah. Living at home.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  Small scene. We've got a big fringe festival, so you do like the festival every year.

• 33:32H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 33:32Speaker 03

  Just for like a month. You're doing like an hour. It's a good way to get early stage time.

• 33:36H. Foley?

  Right.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  To four people who, who don't want to see it, and family members who are going.

• 33:40H. Foley?

  About what year did you, when did you start? What year?

• 33:42Speaker 03

  2008. I was 17.

• 33:43H. Foley?

  2017 you started comedy?

• 33:45Speaker 03

  2009. I was 17, yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 33:48H. Foley?

  And you didn't move here until 2000, until last year, right?

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, you guys don't make it easy to come.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  Cross the border, getting here legally is almost no commit. Jim Jeffries made it. Who else? It's a small list of Aussie, they all go to the UK.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  You have to go to the UK, yeah.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  But, uh, there's a couple more now who are, Aaron Chan is here, Blake Freeman is here, Amos Gill. The great Amos Gill is here, but that's like six guys. Scott, do you know Scott Dooley?

• 34:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  I think he's in New York. I think he does.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  You're there, you're, it's so funny, you could be naming like people who could sell out Madison Square Garden or open micers, and you're like, Scott Dooley? It's all sounds like people who died in high school.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  He was a radio presenter in, uh, in Australia. He was great. And now he's here. I think he writes captions for The New Yorker now. We all are on a different journey.

• 34:34H. Foley?

  So you started in 2008?

• 34:35Speaker 03

  I don't know, Scott Dooley.

• 34:36H. Foley?

  Started in 2008?

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:38H. Foley?

  And then moved here in 2024?

• 34:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:41H. Foley?

  Right.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:42H. Foley?

  So you, yeah, we've been doing comedy about the same time. I started in 2008. I was 32, you were 17.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  I mean, but I would, you might have been better faster.

• 34:50H. Foley?

  Nah.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  Nah? I stink. I was, I started out, I think my first gig was good. Okay. And I was like, I can do this. And then, wow, it dropped off. If the audience is gonna, I read Steve Martin's autobiography. And I was like, Thought you had it? We gotta do some weird, we gotta challenge people, we gotta invent something brand new. And it was 10 years of.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Wow, you did it, you did it for 10 years.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  I did 10 bad years, then I'd start to have some better years. Oh yeah, I was dressing up like a nun, I was writing musicals, I had a piano accordion. I was doing everything that I would now really disapprove of people doing.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  Sacraludious. It was very old, but also it's, we don't have, we got five clubs. Like in the country. So if you're a club comic, that means you're gonna get to do a lot of cruise ships. I remember James Brown, watching an interview of him where he talks about if they don't want you, you have to be so good that it doesn't fucking matter. Right. It's like, alright, I guess we have to try very hard. I don't think I got there. I don't think I got to James Brown, I don't have any sequins, I don't have big hair. I don't have a man come out and put a robe over me at the end of the show and bring me back to life. He's up there dancing, look at me now. James Brown would dance on the street for like four or five hours. You guys have club, you can become a club comic here, that means something. You can be an, we don't have openers.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  Our big comics, they show up in a theater, they say, ladies and gentlemen, so and so. And they come out and they do their hour, and then they walk off, and that's it. They're not, there's no ladder for like finding a mentor unless it's, the business holds every card. Damn. What I love about, one of the many things I love about this country, I love America, fuck communism. I've said it many times.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Take that, dad.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  But, he's not a communist anymore, he's not a communist anymore, I should, I should reiterate. But like, you guys have a, people get success as a comic, then they get a couple of openers, and they drag people up through the business, and the comics have a big say on who's getting opportunities.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Comics have all, all the say, now I would argue, over the opportunities.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Podcasts have really put the sword through the late night.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 36:58Speaker 03

  Thing. Sure. Do you know how many shows Fox is producing in America right now? How many? How many comedy shows? This is what I heard. What? Zero.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  They just have Fox Studios where they used to do TV shows in LA. It's empty. Get the pods in there. Get bad friends to move into Fox Studios. Fox Sunday night. Let's go. That could be, that could really save at this point television. Throw us on there. Man, wouldn't that be nice? That'd be so funny. I'll do it for five grand. Seth Meyers has to say that. Seth Meyers is like, coming up next, are you garbage? They've got, you get, you get, wow, incredible guests. Yeah. Because it's the same booking people. You get to ask if Sidney Sweeney, what was it like being in Idaho with the big buzzies? I love Sidney Sweeney. She is a gem.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  Kid's got a little hound dog in him. No, she's a real talent. Let's go back. And a fine actress.

• 37:57Speaker 04

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• 38:24Speaker 05

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• 38:53Speaker 03

  Uh, who did the cooking in your house? Mom? Yes. How was she? At cooking? Yes. What kind of, what kind of things would you have? My brother was a fassi eater and everyone was vegetarian. So it was like Paul Newman's pasta sauce. Okay. Every... Makes a good sauce. Makes a good sauce. It's a great sauce. It's a great sauce. But that, she would get that one because it's very moral buying, you know, it's never the cage eggs. So we would always, you know, she would, people would complain, the school fees are very expensive, all those things, but the eggs have to be from the most immaculate chicken. Okay. It's that sort of... And Newman took care of the chickens.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  No, Newman, they did the sauce.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  You ever have the Paul Newman's pasta sauce?

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you meant eggs in the sauce of some kind.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I just mean in general, like all the ingredients, like the cows have to be treated nicely.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  And the, but the food, brother was a fussy eater, so I remember having the same pizza, the same fish and chips, that's a big Australian. Fish and chips? I love fish and chips. Shout out to it, me too. I, very hard to find good fish and chips. Here? Yeah. Sure, I'll give you that. But then they'll be weird, they'll be weird, they'll just be like a Greek man, when I was living in Ohio, it was just like, one weird Greek man was there, he's like, have the soup. It's like, I've never had soup at a fish and chip shop, I didn't know they did the Italian wedding soup?

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  You like that? What a soup.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  It's a great soup.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  That's a soup that could travel. I, I, I can see why it broke out of just the Italian weddings and has taken over the whole continent.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  That is a very specific event soup.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  And also, you've got so few Greek guys in this country that they stay Greek sounding. Yes. They're like, oh. You want good Greek food, come over to Astoria, take you out. I saw it. Take you to K. Kletus. That was what, that was the first place in New York I got to see. Tommy then never took you over there? To Dip Mars, take you out? I stayed in that house for one week, and I remember there was a loud, I, it was a week, I, I met both of you, it was the Phillies.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Phillies were in the playoffs. That's when our binge drinking between, with me, him, O'Connor, Pope and Shane started.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  Well, I didn't know it had, I didn't know, it looked like it had been going for a while.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that whole playoff run, you caught us at the tail end of it, yeah.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  That was a, I mean, I'm sorry you didn't get the win in the end, but what a, I was there for a game that you did win. Yeah. And I remember it was Kate Upton was dating the pitcher. Yeah. And there was a lot of, I didn't question Ian Faidance's sexuality at all that evening, because everyone was so, was so happy about the big pussies.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  The pussies. The tits, she had mammary glands on it. And we get you. That's the gap between big tits famous women, it goes Kate Upton, nothing for a generation, Sydney Sweeney.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  You're not wrong.

• 41:26Speaker 03

  She's the first set of big mams that have come out in a long time. What was your first concert that you went to? I think it was Weird Al Yankovic. Oh my god. That's so telling. It was great. It gets worse by the second. Right. I mean, The Wiggles, if we're going very early. Whoa, they were Australian, right? They're Australians, they're always doing. Whoa. You guys don't love Weird Al Yankovic? No, I do, but what age, what age did you go? Ah, man, fourteen, fifteen? When did you see The Wiggles? Four. Okay.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  Trying to think of any other. Eighteen, nineteen? We had big, so to get the Americans and the British out, we'd have like a big music festival once a year. It was called the Big Day Out. To get them out? Well, it's like, it's hard to. To get them over there? Yeah, just to have enough money to get some big names, because if you have to tour on your own. The American bands. Oh, okay, I got you. If you're a mid-level American band, I got to see Death Grips at the Big Day Out. They'll remember that was great, but it's like, they would, they wouldn't tour on their own outside of that. I got it, okay, I got you. So, you know, like, the Red Hot Chili Peppers come out and they're headlining. Mm-hmm. And then there's a bunch of bands that you actually, not that I didn't want to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers. No, I understand what you mean. I do love the Chili's. Bands from America and Britain that were bubbling up, but weren't quite that big yet. Then they pepper it in with Australian hip-hop to support the base.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  We've got, there's a couple, Hilltop Woods, they had the nosebleed section, you'll know that song. I know. It's a big one. Shout out All Day, shout out Cursor. I like how he's looking at Luke, he's gonna start, start spinning it. I'm trying to look at the camera, I'm trying to get. He's in his mark. I try and do the hip-hop beats and these people won't jump on for a feature.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Danny Brown wouldn't jump on one. Wait, you make your hip-hop, you make hip-hop beats? On my phone, on the garage band on the phone, I make the hip-hop beats. Danny Brown wouldn't. He's a Renaissance man, what do you want? He's something. He's something, all right. Listen, there was no money in comedy, everyone over here is a comedian, they're millionaires. Look at this, you got a penthouse studio in Manhattan. Sure. What a third floor. That's no, you gotta, you gotta scrap for what you can. I hear you. You get, you gotta make a beat. So, why don't you start making beats over there or here? I mean, I've, largely I'm working now, so I don't get as much time. You don't, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got the kids. Were you selling them over there at all? Never. Not one person has agreed to buy any of my music ever. You're making them on your phone. Yeah. You wanna listen to some? Nah.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  I kinda do.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  I don't want, I don't want Universal Music Group to pull me into their, their ongoing lawsuit today.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  If you can believe it, I don't have a label.

• 43:54H. Foley?

  So were you over here, well, let's, let's fast forward. I think, I would say we have a picture of the childhood?

• 44:00Speaker 01

  No, but we can, we can move on. I know about the Prime Ministers of Australia. Uh, yeah, we could jump forward to now. When was the first time you came here? Would you ever make a trip?

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Yep. I came over for two weeks. Uh, so I'd met, I met Shane Gillis in Australia like three years ago.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Okay. So that was when we met you, was your first time here?

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Not, uh, yes, yes.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  No shit.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  And I had a, uh, I was not, a friend of mine was opening for him and I sort of stopped following comedy because everything in Australia was not, turned on my brain. My brother loved podcasts and he kept up with it. And we'd had a child. So when podcasts started to boom, I was out of the culture. I was like.

• 44:43H. Foley?

  You had a, you had a kid?

• 44:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, we got a six years ago.

• 44:46H. Foley?

  You had gotten married?

• 44:48Speaker 03

  We got married, yes. We got married, we got, we got three kids. We were six, four and two.

• 44:52H. Foley?

  So you got married, what did you, what did your wife do?

• 44:55Speaker 03

  She is assaulted by a six-year-old, a four-year-old and a two-year-old all the time. She can't work on a visa.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Can't work on a visa.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  But also I wouldn't make her work anywhere. That's repulsive.

• 45:04H. Foley?

  But what was she doing?

• 45:04Speaker 03

  Making your woman work. If she wants to work, let her work. If she wants to work, you can't stop that anymore.

• 45:11H. Foley?

  What were you doing over there to, to make, make a living? To get married and have kids? And where were you guys living?

• 45:17Speaker 03

  I mean, I lived, so we lived, we had a housemate when we were first married and then when she got pregnant, yeah, we moved in with my parents.

• 45:24H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Cause I was, uh, man, I had.

• 45:29H. Foley?

  Nothing.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  I was working in a call center for a while.

• 45:32H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  For actually the company that my grandpa used to run. And then I was working, oh man, if you want to go through bad, I mean, bad jobs, that's probably where I can really connect. Those are the, those are the difficult garbagey years. I was a door-to-door cable television salesman.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  I like, wait.

• 45:47Speaker 03

  I would knock on people's doors. This was after Netflix had been invented.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Selling the services, not actual televisions.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  No, no. I would, I would say, did you want, you know, you want to pay $30 a month and get a Fox sale? They would just drive you out to the worst parts of town because that's where, that's where you make your bread as a door-to-door salesman. You go to a rich part of town, nobody wants to come.

• 46:02H. Foley?

  Sure.

• 46:03Speaker 03

  But you got, you know, housing commission? I don't know what you call it. Section eight?

• 46:06H. Foley?

  Uh huh.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  And just knock on 50 section eight doors and try and sell them cable television.

• 46:11H. Foley?

  Would it work sometimes?

• 46:13Speaker 03

  I was, I mean, some, yes, I was, when I needed the money, I could be good at it and I could put a hard sell on. But when I, then you'd get commission, it was all on commission. And then all of a sudden, I'd have like two or three thousand dollars for the week. I was like, I don't have to, I'll just get in the bus with the rest of it. This is not a job anyone wants to do and it's, it's bad, door to door sales. I'd get on a bus, there was an Indian man named Ragavir who drove the bus. There's me, there's an African guy who'd love talking about cheating on his wife. And everyone was very uncomfortable. He'd be like, don't touch my phone. Is this a public bus? No, it was just like a big, he owned a big van, a Sienna. He owned like a. Who did? Sorry, the guy driving the, uh. That would take you to work? The manager would drive us around, out to an area. Sounds a little human trafficking if you catch my drift.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  You'd only have to work, they'd only do it in the afternoon because it's when people are home. But for, you know, four or five hours, you'd knock doors in the worst parts of town, trying to get people to get cable television. I did that for about six months. I made all the money in the first month and a half and then I just kept doing it to show up. But like sad, Irish people coming over to Australia who need a job. And then, you know, they're too dumb to work in hospitality or something. Like too slow, they just don't have bartender energy. They're doing door to door sales in regional, we'd, we'd do, we'd do week long trips into the outback. I went back to those places, Wayala and Port Augusta. Wait, why would you do week long trips out there to sell? Move the product. And where would you stay? We'd stay at like the worst.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  Sometimes it would be like a house that they'd managed to rent from somebody. I had to share a room with a man from the Philippines who snored terribly. And one night I rocked him, I was, I said, please, stop. And I remember he sat bolt upright. He woke up and he's like, I'll kill you, I'll stab you. And it was, nowadays you go to an HR company, but, or whatever, but I just had to absorb. I told the boss, I was like, he threatened to kill me last night. Did you wake him up? The boss was like, the boss was like, he sells well, so don't, don't rock this part. Number one of the calls. I was in a call center after that for, uh, when people had, when people had our version of AT&T and a loved one died, they'd call up to disconnect the service. And my job was to, while they were disconnecting that service, you know, get an iPad.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Upsell them. Upsell them. Upsell the people who are trying to leave. Specifically when people died? You'd get, you'd get deaths. Man, Australia is fucking weird. They'd lump them in together. So people who just wanted to disconnect, you'd get them. And then one in four randomly, you'd get like an old guy going, my sweet wife is gone. That was in here, pops. You have a sweet ass iPad. Keep you company through the night. But the best markup was on like the Samsung, the cheapest Samsung pad, which was like that big and didn't do anything. I sold. I moved a lot of them. My mom had one of those for a long time. And then I thought I could be a copy. I worked as a, I worked as a music journalist briefly. Okay. I got like six months and a good job doing like music reviews and watching bands.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  And the company, the magazine folded shortly. After about a year,

• 49:18Speaker 03

  they went out of business. It was owned by a Spanish billionaire who said, this isn't going anywhere. The newspaper, the Rupert Murdoch of Spain, for some reason owned this publication. And he shut that down. And then I had to go to the call center and that was rough. And then I thought, I'll become a copywriter. I've got some like, I'll write, I'll write ads. Okay. But I didn't, I didn't have an in. I'd been doing comedy. I'd, you know. Did you have, you didn't have a degree from university, right? I did, but it was in like classical antiquity. It was in like Roman history. Okay. But still, a degree's a degree like over there, right? You gotta have a degree to get a job. A good job. Yeah, but so many people have them. Okay. That it's, I could have, I've never had a job that's used the degree. I could have done any of these jobs without it. Okay.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  But then I, man, I, this was before AI. And I'm glad, I moved to America just as AI was starting to take over this industry. Gotcha. But I would, you know, I would do $4 an hour jobs to get experience that were meant to be done by like Indians. You're meant to be in a third world country, not writing very well. But I applied for one of those jobs and I got it. And they're like, okay, you just got, you gotta write 15,000 words a day about garage doors.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  And I would just sit and this is, I only did this because I'd gotten married. I got married, we, I, we didn't, we got all the wedding money, you get, you know, invite a lot of people to the wedding. We had a very cheap wedding. What'd you make? Wow, I would have made like 10 grand off of the wedding. Pretty good. The wedding, I don't think I had to pay, I had to pay $400 for the priest. No, like for the, you know, the church rental. Mm-hmm. We did the reception in my parents backyard and uh, I, we just lived off that money while she was pregnant. And she had the bad morning sickness with the first baby. And as we're going through that money, I'm selling, I had two guitars that I'd had for years, I sold them, I sold everything I loved. And then I, I got this job writing Indian copy and I found I could really fucking do that, I could power through.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  I could write 10, 15, 20,000 words of slop about like, why should you? It was all these, you know, like, why should you start a coffee business? Reason number, and like they use these words over and over again.

• 51:23H. Foley?

  Jesus.

• 51:26H. Foley?

  And then you have three, two more kids?

• 51:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  Cause I'm a devout Catholic man and condoms are evil.

• 51:34H. Foley?

  And so you're scripping and scraping this whole way?

• 51:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:38H. Foley?

  And then, okay.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  The rent was always a problem and then uh.

• 51:42H. Foley?

  Well, you still live, did you live at your mom's all the way through until you moved out?

• 51:45Speaker 03

  We had to move out, so we, we moved out to uh, the western suburbs. So I grew up in the eastern suburbs because my parents were up, you know, they're doing well, they wanted to be over there, that's the nice part of town. We moved into the western suburbs where there's a little more, oh, I remember one time we went on a road trip. Cause I could work remote, I could sit, what I would do is I would help with the kids during the day. And then at night, when she'd go to bed.

• 52:07H. Foley?

  This is the copywriting job?

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:09H. Foley?

  So you're sticking with this?

• 52:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:11H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 52:11Speaker 03

  So I could work remote because it was all meant for Indians overseas at this point. So what I would do is, so one night we're in this rough neighborhood and the house across the street. When you're doing an outsourced fucking job. I was, it was a rough time. The, I always, the comedy is starting to grow in Australia at this point, but even if you're like a good cult act. A twenty thousand dollar year is a, that's a good year. It's a good year. That's on Australian money too, so I'd say a twelve thousand dollar year is a good year. There was a meth lab across the street and the scents would come in at night and we were going, this can't be good for the children's brains, the chemicals wafting in and it's like, don't have air conditioning, so you've got, the window has to be open so we can, but then the fucking meth smell is coming in.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  Then one night, the gunshots went off across the street because there'd been some sort of dispute. And I was like, everybody get in the car, we're going on a road trip. And I just drove the family to Canberra, it was like a, it's like a three day drive, I just put, it was like a real snap mentally. I'd also, I'd had Covid not long before this. This is like the last thing that happened before I made good in America. I didn't know I was gonna make good in America, but this is sort of where I was at. I just drove the family across the country and I remember I would go off like at night, because I could do the work whenever. But I would, you know, be in a cheap Airbnb and I'd go off to a McDonald's and I'd sit and I'd write like eight thousand words of copy for like a mattress company. And like just write, you know, eight pieces, a thousand words each, try and use queen sized mattress over and over again.

• 53:39Speaker 03

  And I remember it's just, they want queen size, they want those words in, so I tried to work in size queen as many times as I could, I thought that was fun. You've got to make it interesting for yourself. That kid's a comic. But I, I, I worked my way up to a better copywriting job. Okay. About a year and a half before we got it. And then financially it was starting to go, it was a little better. And then give me the night that you met Shane. My brother said, you've got to come and see this guy, he's. You're still in this kind of situation? Oh yeah. Okay. Yes, I think we might have had third child on the way by that point. Okay. Are you still in the meth, are you still in the meth house? We'd managed to move to a house that was in a better neighbourhood, but was not a good fit.

• 54:22Speaker 03

  You know, you've got kids running around and there's two bedrooms. Also, the parents have split by that point, so dad's also living with us. So.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  This is fucking brutal. Kind of like the pursuit of happiness.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  I was thinking through the start.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  My dog got ran over by a car.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  This doesn't, this doesn't sound poor enough. I kept thinking at the start and I, but in my heart, I know, nah, we're gonna get to the good, poor stuff. Yeah, you guys, it's gotta be, you know, it's the hustle.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  You've only ever held jobs that are exclusively in India. But you're doing them in your, you're doing them in your home you grew up in.

• 55:00H. Foley?

  So your parents split up, your dad moves in with you?

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 55:03H. Foley?

  Your mom stays in the house?

• 55:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:06H. Foley?

  You should have left him in that apartment and moved in with your mom. You had the house?

• 55:10Speaker 03

  She was living with us first.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  Anyway, it was a lot. And he also, he ran for politics for a right-wing party and didn't win and that was, and he was living with us and...

• 55:21Speaker 01

  What in the fuck?

• 55:24Speaker 03

  And he ran a good campaign. And frankly, I believe he should run again. He's a good man. My mother is a good woman. They're good people. Wish they could sort it out. The, uh...

• 55:34H. Foley?

  Okay, so your dad's living with you and then your buddies?

• 55:37Speaker 03

  Some of the timelines here are difficult. It was a bit of a, it was a bit of a hectic time.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  It sounds it.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  But my brother, my brother goes, "Come and watch this guy perform." He's the guy who got cancelled. And I'd been vaguely aware that that had happened.

• 55:48H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 55:49Speaker 03

  But I hadn't seen any of that. I think I'd watched the Blind Guy at the Wedding sketch. Do you know this?

• 55:54H. Foley?

  Oh yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  I loved, I liked that. That was the only one I'd seen. And I went and it was like, oh, stand-up is... I didn't know he was the best to do it. I just, at that point, I thought, ah, fuck, you can do stand-up again. Like, stand-up can be great. And you, and people would come. It was, there were like 300 people at the Norwood Town Hall. And it was all men at this point. And I remember they sold out of beer, because they didn't know what the audience was gonna be. And so all these, like, Shane Gillis fans in Australia had to buy white wines and sit with two enormous white wines in the front row. And it was like, there'd been no, I mean, to this day in Australia, there's nothing really that's tapping into that. Might have just like men who wanna laugh and... And some ladies too, but it's like, it's all been like very feminized and old, like, it's all for the old, you know,

• 56:39Speaker 03

  TV generation. There's not a lot of big podcasts.

• 56:41H. Foley?

  Gotcha.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  And I went to that and I, I didn't get to open. My buddy opened, but my brother really wanted to meet Shane. So I texted the opener, I said, "Can we come, can I come back and say hello?" And we got to go in and we hit it off. And it's the only time I...

• 56:57Speaker 03

  It was like, I don't know why I did it, but I said, can I open for you on the next one? Cause I was, you know. He was doing more shows in Australia. That was like halfway through the run. I was like, can I go to? Were you doing comedy at the time? Yes. So I started a podcast and I was, and the podcast was very, James Don't Force Me Camp, Catamaran Plan was not the behemoth that it is now. You had already started the podcast over there? Yes. And I, I'd thought at that point that, cause then Patreon stuff, I mean Patreon was like a couple hundred bucks a month, but I was like, there's actually a future in that. Maybe the comedy is never gonna, I'd keep trying. I keep putting things up. I got a couple of clips that went good on Instagram, but you can't feed your family with a viral clip on Instagram. TikTok maybe. I don't know what their model is, but I don't believe in it.

• 57:42Speaker 03

  Um, so I said, can I open for you in Melbourne? And he said, sure. He said, is it close? And I said, yes, which is not true. And it was the next night and I, I think I borrowed the money cause the only ticket I could get was like a down the front of the plane, $600 ticket. You had to fly, you have to fly. I had to fly. And so I flew, I paid a big lump of money to fly to, it was the more than, all the money I had to fly to Melbourne and do the show opening for him in Melbourne the next night. And, uh, it was great. He was a wonderful man. We got talking. And I, I thought that was gonna be it, but I had a friend who was at the show and they said, ask if you can go to America and stay with him. I was like, that's gross. You can't ask people that. She said, do it. What do you have to lose?

• 58:24Speaker 03

  And I didn't. He said, yeah, if you're ever in America, you can come and stay with me. And, uh, I booked a trip to America and then I met you all. Jesus Christ. That fucking quick? That was like two, three months later. And then when I got back, that was in like September and the third baby came at the start of December. And the parents broke up in October. Okay. It was a big, it was a big run. But I thought, I thought that was it.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  And the Phillies lost. And the Phillies lost. Jesus Christ. But I thought that would be, I thought I just had like a nice week and a half in America. Man, I had a big layover in LAX. I'd never been to America before. I had a big suitcase and I thought I'll walk around Los Angeles. Oh my God. My big trundle suitcase.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Turns into a homeless guy.

• 59:06H. Foley?

  Why, is that the way you came in? You came in the other way?

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Yes, no, so not the Europe way. You come in, so I came into LA.

• 59:11H. Foley?

  Okay.

• 59:11Speaker 03

  And I thought, well, I've, I've got, I've got a day. I can spend a day and I, I hadn't slept on the flight because there was this fucking woman yammering the whole, you can't get to sleep at all on the flight.

• 59:20H. Foley?

  Filipino guy next to you?

• 59:21Speaker 03

  And someone said, go to Venice Beach. It's close to the airport. It's beautiful. So I was at 8:00 AM at Venice Beach with my suitcase, just watching, that's the first thing I saw in America was just like psychotic guys shouting into the ocean and also the fanciest hotels I'd ever seen in my life. And I went to the hotels because I tried to, we have a thing called like a, a day rate, where you can pay to like take a nap somewhere. And I go in there, I was asking everybody, have you got a day rate? And they were looking at me weirdly and I realized it sounded like I might have been saying date rape. I don't know.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  I'd like to take a nap here if that's okay?

• 59:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was what I was, I didn't realize it was the homelessness. I was going, can I have a nap somewhere? I'm very tired. I don't want to see anything.

• 1:00:00H. Foley?

  What's your shit shower shave rate, huh?

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  It was like, some guys, it's like $700 if you want to stay.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  It's like, but there's a, there's a bum out there.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  All right, we gotta wrap it up though. I mean, we gotta get you, I hate to cut you off.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  What? Well, it's been great. I really had a nice time. We had a great time. Thank you for having me.

• 1:00:16H. Foley?

  You're here, you're coming back.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  We'll have you for part two.

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  If I'm allowed.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  You're welcome to come on the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan anytime.

• 1:00:24H. Foley?

  Thank you.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:00:25H. Foley?

  Gang, do yourself a favor. Check out the brand new special on September 1st that comes out. All right, of course, pick up the book, Disquieting Levels of Agg, his fourth book of poems. And of course, listen to the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan and we will be back for part two with James Donald Forbes McCann and this tale of absolute whoa that we have heard, which is unbelievable.

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  JDF McCann, tickets on sale now. I'm going all over the place.

• 1:00:54H. Foley?

  Look at him. We love you.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Thank you, pal. I really appreciate this. This is really nice.

• 1:00:57H. Foley?

  Buddy, you're coming back to hear the rest of this tale. We love you so much. Gang, we love you. We'll see you next week.

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  Peace.