Part Two of Eight.

My life as a clown (Part Two of Eight)

* Army
In the year 2000, Sydney hosted the Para Olympic Games as well as the Olympics. The security at the Paralympics was supplied by the army and afterwards at Holdsworth Army Base they had a party for the troops to thank them for their efforts. I was the comedian on the bill. I was to play to about 500 twenty year old guys from the back of an Army truck. Anyway, before the gig, I was half way through my pre-gig turd in the Portaloo when I heard the sergeant introduce me.
This is what he said: 'We've got this comedian for you this afternoon who reckons he's pretty funny. Anyway, I reckon you'll let him know pretty soon if he isn't! Please welcome Jimbo'.
I rushed on stage pulling my pants up while whispering 'Thanks cunt' to the 'MC' who was leaving the stage.
I then looked out at the crowd thinking I'm going to have to hit this crowd pretty hard early to have any chance of holding them so I opened with, 'I reckon all you guys in the army are pretty good, I'm mean lets face it, without all the armies in the world a lot of those Para Olympians wouldn't have been able to compete'.
I then pressed on.
'Land mines have got a bit of a bad rap in the press lately but I think the last few weeks have really shown that they bring out the best in a few people. And that's not to say that those who didn't make it didn't show a lot of guts either.'
The boys let me continue.
I knew by now that if a crowd is about to go you, the best thing you can do is get in early by putting them all on the back foot, as hard as you can. If you pull it off, they'll love you for it. I learnt this at kid's birthday parties with my leaf blower. And if you don't pull it off.... well, you're in trouble. Especially if they've got guns.

* Vegas Bar
In order to get stage time and more creative freedom, I started approaching publicans to do my own gigs. One of my favourites was a regular Thursday night I did at The Vegas Bar in Kings Cross for a couple of years. I started booking comedians there to begin with on my bill but there wasn't enough of a budget and comedians didn't like playing to my loose and sparsely populated crowds. When I was MC, I encouraged audience members to talk back too. Not many comedians I was finding liked that. So I started doing gigs where I'd literally talk by myself for a few hours until no-one was left in the room in exchange for a few bucks from the bar manager. My job was to make them laugh but also hold the crowd's attention so they'd stay for longer and buy more alcohol.
To me it was just like my original clown job at the 729 club, only more intense. My work and idea of a good night out again were merging into one. I was having raw, honest conversations with strangers who were spilling their guts to me on all sorts of personal topics - all because I was doing comedy in the roughest rooms I could find. It was addictive and the rumours about me, both in my personal life and professional life, escalated.
'Maybe I had lost it' I thought each time I heard gossip about myself on the grapevine. It didn't matter though because the normal addictions which people took part in, like alcohol, therapy, gambling, juke boxes, drugs, strippers, hookers, kebabs, cabs, a wife, kids and buying stuff were out of my budget now.
'Not having money had it's benefits', I mused as my comedy habit got worse.
One night in the wee hours of the morning there were only eight people left in the crowd. After a few hours chatting amongst ourselves, we knew each other well. So I asked them if any of them had lost their virginity up at 'The Cross'.
A boofy looking nerdy guy put his hand up. 'I lost mine up here about a month ago'.
'Great. What happened?’ I pried.
He then started talking. We could all hear.'It was in Porky's across the road. I went in there and a big Aboriginal lady got me in a head lock and said, 'wanna root?' before taking me upstairs'.
'What position did you do?' I asked.
'I think it's called Doggie', he replied.
'And how much was it?'
'About $50. Well actually it was $550 because afterwards I found out she'd stolen my wallet', he said.
I then thanked him for what I thought was an amazingly brave story to tell us before asking him how old he was.
'Thirty five', he said.
'At least you waited until it was special', I added.
The Vegas room soon turned into a confessional Jerry Springer type room. Meanwhile, I heard again on the grapevine that the comedy industry who I'd impressed so much in my first six months was now largely saying:
'What's happened to Jimbo?'
'He used to be such a clean comedian.'
'I thought he was going to be the next big thing?'
'Has he lost it or something?'
'Why would you want to do comedy in the rooms he goes to?'
'Have you done any of his gigs? They're shit!'
Anyway, on one night up at The Vegas Bar a guy got up and told everyone in the room about his marriage break up. He said the problem was that he was an alcoholic and she was bulimic.
'So you were both spewin' each night' I replied to keep things light.
'Yeah and the second marriage didn't go to well either' he said.
'What happened?' I asked.
'Well I was a truck driver. I did runs up the coast for a few days at a time and when I came back home all I wanted to do was go to the pub and have a few beers. She didn't like that'.
At this point one of the girl backpackers yelled out from the back of the room, 'That's because she wanted to spend some time with you'.
To which he turned round and earnestly replied, 'Yeah but I fuckin' invited her'.
Next came another confession from a young guy up the back. He was about to tell us what happened to him on the weekend before he stopped and pulled out of telling his story. I encouraged him a bit more and he then started telling the crowd the story about he went to McDonalds and before pulling out again saying, 'No I can't tell'.
At this point the guy who'd been through two marriages stood up at the front.
I was the only person who could see this but he pulled out a foot long knife out of his jacket, had a look at it and then put it back before turning around and saying to the voice he couldn't see up the back, 'If it's got anything to do with raping women or sex with children, I'm gunna kill you!'
He then sat down and I quickly signed the night off before I got on the front page of the newspaper for inciting a murder.
I thanked everyone for coming but after packing up the mic, I was still pretty shook up. I needed a drink and asked anyone left if they'd like to come with me. The guy with the knife by this time had gone. The young Irish guy who'd kept pulling out of his story and his two friends joined me.
As we were walking down Kellet St out the back of the venue, I said to him 'what was the story you were about to say?'
He said, 'Well I feel a bit bad about this but I picked up a girl from McDonalds last week and went back to her place and shagged her'.
'So?' I said.
'Well I was looking at her wallet afterwards and found out she was only 15'.
'How old are you?’ I said.
He said, '19'.
I then patted him on the back and said, 'Look mate, don't beat yourself up about it. It's no big deal, you're 19 not 50. In future just make sure you I.D a chick before you root her, especially if you pick her up in McDonalds'.
I then said, 'I'm fuckin glad you pulled out of telling that story tonight though because you probably would have got killed!’
I then told him what I saw before adding, 'I reckon the guy would have stabbed you and then had a drunken moment to himself to think about what he'd done then pulled his knife back out of you and said 'I suppose it's wasn't that bad'.
My viewpoints into people’s lives from my job becoming more and more addictive too - like the drugs I was always offered but not interested in. Meanwhile my bank account was dwindling back to zero. I thought I was onto something though and blindly thought my comedy career break would come soon despite the general industry concerns about me. Perhaps someone would give me my own chat show? And if no decent paying break came, I didn't really care. My personal goal career goals were still being met, I reasoned. That is, at 30, I was still getting away with not having a job. The type of job I felt I had when I worked in advertising. The type of part time job I had before I found clowning.

* Valentine’s Day.
I once did a gig which happened to be on Valentine's Day at The Brass Monkey Hotel in Cronulla. There was what looked like fourteen couples on a first date, sitting in the crowd. I think I went out a bit too hard with the dick jokes that night. Good dick jokes though. Ones that usually work. Anyway half way through the gig I realised what was happening.
There were 14 guys looking at me with their arms around their girlfriend going, 'That's very funny Jimbo but if I laugh at that, I'm not going to get laid tonight. So can you cut to the intellectual jokes, give us a nod when the punchline is and we'll help you out too brother'.
So I told them my Japanese Flag joke.

* VB
In 2002, a casting agent at Fox Studios were auditioning actors for the new VB series of ads which were about to come out featuring three guys bantering on a couch while watching sport. The casting director had gone through hundreds of actors from all the acting agents in town but they still weren't happy that they'd found the right actors yet. So in desperation they went to the manager of The Sydney Comedy Store and asked her to send down any 'yobbo looking' comedians she knew who were in between 25-35. The next day I rocked up and somehow got one of the parts.
The director said afterwards, 'Great acting, Jimbo!’
Which to me was a bit confusing because all I was doing was sitting on a couch with a couple of blokes talking shit while watching the cricket with a beer in my hand. It wasn't much of an acting stretch!
Anyway, the director then said, 'who's your agent?’
I told him I didn't have one and he said that I was the first person he'd heard of twenty years of casting he'd seen get a part without an agent. I guess I got lucky. Twenty thousand dollars lucky.
Shoot day for the VB ad involved us filming ten different 15 second ads. In each one we were drinking from a VB can filled with water. Advertising laws strictly stated that people seen advertising alcohol can't appear drunk.During a break in shooting someone from VB came up to me and the two other actors and told us how they used three other guys in a different campaign before us. They were going to use again but decided to re-cast because their acting agents were demanding too much money from them so they lost the job. He then told us that we should be careful in case our agents were pricing us out of the market for some work. The other two guys politely mumbled to the guy that agents are there to get the best price for them and make sure they don't get ripped off.
I didn't know what to say, so I said, 'Hey mate, you know all those VB ads that have been on for years, you know the ones that went, 'you can get it working a plough, matter of fact, I've got one now''.
Yeah', he said.
'Well what I like about those ads is that a lot of the guys you had in them looked like they were regular guys and not out of an acting catalogue, especially the big boofy guys. Where did you find them?'
He then got all animated and said, 'Funny you say that, our most successful VB ads were the ones where we weren't happy with the actors on shoot day. So on one of them we used as a last minute replacement a guy who'd driven all the film equipment for us that day and another involved a guy who was initially washing the dishes on set'.
'Wow, that makes sense', I said.
'And the best part of it was we didn't have to pay them!' he added. 'They were just stoked to be in an ad which their mates would see. All we did was sling them a case of VB at the end of the shoot and they were stoked!’
The VB ads then got rolled over twice more when they went over their six month airing contracts. $60000 for a day’s enjoyable work, I remember thinking and comparing it to all the tough gigs I've done for nothing over the years. I never did understand commerce. The money in my working life didn't seem to have any correlation with hard work or effort which I'd been told in school it would. I didn't mind though. The money bought me another second hand Mazda 323, to replace the previous one that had just died in a bonfire thanks to some local joy riders. I also paid my rent for a year ahead and most importantly I gave myself creative room to only do gigs where I didn't have to give a fuck what I said on stage instead of toning my act down and chasing the few gigs which every other comedian seemed to be going for. I started going to publicans directly and saying I'd work for free until I built the bar tab up to an amount which was viable for them too.
I remember making a joke to my accountant one day after a year of gigging, 'I can't wait to go broke again because that's when all my career breaks happen'.He said, 'Funny you should say that coz in all the business's I see each day, the ones that are doing well normally just sit back and coast and the ones that are running out of funds are the ones getting the breaks a lot of the time. I think it's because the owners are working harder and chasing more opportunities then. What you’re saying isn't a joke. And it isn't luck either. A bit of both but your breaks are probably happening then because you're looking for them more'.
'Spose' I said back, thinking of how much my little 'joke' had just been turned on it's head by reality.
It was true though, whenever I'd been broke something had come up. My first clown job, my advertising job, my job in Japan, my Sega world contract and now this VB ad. It made me feel more and more confident that maybe, just maybe I could kick it in from here being a clown for the rest of my life?!

* Fitzroy Crossing
Gleny is one of my very good friends from way back. We'd first met on the Sydney Showboat in the mid nineties. She's a muso who plays accordion, piano and violin. Later she moved up to Darwin and started a band called 'The toe-sucking cowgirls' which she toured with another girl Tracey mainly on the run through the Kimberley from Darwin to Broome. She invited me on a tour one year in 2002. They added on another $100 to the proposal they gave to the publicans at each gig for me doing a stand-up set in between their sets. Anyway, the pubs bought the proposal and I flew up to Katherine. I still credit this tour, which Gleny offered me as being what opened me up to touring Australia later on with my solo show.
The Outback scene was a big culture shock for me at first having been a city boy all my life from Sydney. The Aboriginals were jet black and the blokes in pubs rough and raw in a way that was a lot more alien to me than what I'd experienced in suburban Sydney. Many a pub I walked in behind the girls hoping they'd protect me until I worked what was up and what was down, usually by following their lead.
My first reaction when I arrived in Katherine was, ‘Fuck they’re black!’
I’d seen dark skinned people in the big cities before but nothing like the jet black skin of the Kimberley Aborigines.
Arriving in Fitzroy Crossing after a long road haul, Gleny and her band mate Tracey, insisted we go into The Crossing Inn for a beer. Just to give you a quick idea of what the Fitzroy Crossing was like in 2002; a few years before NASA was doing their usual thermal imaging of the whole planet. I’m not too sure of the details but one of its goals it to find irregular metal heat sources in towns in order to detect military operations and/or weapons. Anyway, their thermal imaging showed up an inordinate amount of heat coming from the innocuous town of Fitzroy Crossing and they pointed it out to the authorities. After much head scratching it was finally worked out that the heat source was because of the amount of aluminium cans found in the bushes around the pub on the Fitzroy River.
On this day I remember pulling up outside The Crossing Inn and following Gleny and Tracey into this pub which looked like a cross between a bomb shelter and a prison. The only way in was via the chicken wire entrance out the back. I had never been amongst so many Aborigines in my life. I had no reason to be scared other than blind ignorance and lack of experience though. I knew this on an intellectual level but I was still scared on an emotional level. Inside the pub there were a couple of redneck whities with no teeth, long hair and tatts amongst the throng of Aborigines. I nervously sipped my beer while the girls mingled freely with the locals.
One Aborigine came up to me and asked me for a game of pool. I said ‘yes’ and gave him a two dollar coin to put in the slot where he was hovering over with his hand out. He grabbed the coin put it in his pocket and then said, ‘That’ll be five bucks’.
He then staggered backwards and knocked my beer off the table. I had no idea whether he did it on purpose or not.
Then another Aborigine came up to me and said, ‘Can you lend me $5 for a beer, bro?’
By this time I was sweating.
I went over to Gleny who was sitting down laughing with someone I didn’t know, ‘Hey, Gleny things are getting pretty heavy in here’.
Tracey then chimed in with a big grin on her face. She'd been watching me.
‘Jimbo, all you’ve got to say when you get humbugged for money is ‘no’, they’re just asking. That’s just their culture, if someone’s got money, food, alcohol or anything, they share it around. That's all it is.’
I then went back and just said ‘no’ each time someone asked me for money. Instantly with this change of mind shift, I no longer felt intimidated and was glad I’d come in and experienced something different - that is drinking in a black pub.
Driving away, I asked the girls naively, 'What do you think is more intimidating? A white person walking into a fully black pub or a black person walking into a fully white pub?'
They both smiled at each other before Gleny looked at me through the rear vision mirror. 'Definitely a black person walking into a white pub, Jimbo'.
I nodded and then stared pensively out the window into the foreign yet beautiful remoteness of my home country which I knew so little about.

* Lake Argyle
The ‘toe-sucking cowgirls’ consisted on this tour of Gleny, Tracey and a young 20yr old guy called Sam. On the way back, we stopped in for a pre-arranged tour at a caravan park at Lake Argyle, near Kunnunura on the W.A/N.T border. There was a small bar and the place was renowned for ‘grey nomads’ or as the park owner described them ‘SAD’s, an acronym he explained as ‘See Australia and Die’.
My type of humour in pubs was by then pretty full on and blue even for outback pubs. Tracey was very nervous about this gig. She said that I would be only doing very small sets in between the band as the older crowd was unsuited to my material.
The owner of the park backed this up by saying, ‘go easy on the language with this crowd’. Anyway, I took this as a red rag to a bull. In the sense of it being a 'challenge'. I disappeared for half an hour and re-read my list of jokes I used to say when I was a clean comedian for the first year of my career back in 1999.
The first set I did was squeaky clean, no swear words, no sexual references and plenty of balloon animals.
The second set I did, I started getting a bit looser, introducing some sexual innuendo and the odd ‘fuck’.
My third set was at about 10:30pm. The ones who had stayed had warmed to me and were up for me pushing it further. And so I did.
After the band finished their fourth set, the crowd asked me back and told me to ‘go for it’. All I can remember was having said over two hours of jokes and emptying out of my mind every bit of filth I could think of and thinking ‘shit they want more!’
So I looked over at Brian the owner of the park and said, ‘Anyway, I was rooting, Brian up the arse…’
The crowd, staff and Brian pissed themselves. After he'd told me a few hours earlier to 'go easy on the language', I was now talking about raping the owner of the park in front of his staff and customers. Anyway it was one of my favourite ever gigs. A magic night. Comedy wise, I'd given them a lot of foreplay and then 'hosed their guts out' to a screaming comedy crescendo consisting of a group orgasm of bonhomie and laughs. Tracey quickly disappeared to her room after the gig.
After the gig, two of the guys who worked on staff came up to me Gleny and Sam (after we’d had a few joints and bourbons thrown at us) and said, ‘look you’ve entertained us tonight, now we’d like to entertain you, would you like to come for a ride looking at crocs on the river!’
‘Fuckin’ oath’, we all said in unison.
The two guys ended up being literally croc hunters.
As the five of us jumped into the tinnie (aluminum boat), one of the guys said to me, ‘I don’t know how you do stand-up, I’m really impressed’.
I said, ‘What’s so impressive about it?’
He said, ‘Humans are the most unpredictable animals on earth, you've got no idea how someone in a crowd will react to what you’re saying’.
At this point, I realized I was on a tin boat heading into this huge lake bigger than Sydney Harbour looking for crocs and been told by the guy taking me what a dangerous job I did.
The guy at the front of the boat started shining his torch across the water after we’d travelled about three kilometres across. He said the bright lights were reflections of the crocs eyes. The guy driving the boat then slowed down as he leaned over the front of the boat. Before we knew it, he’d pulled out a one metre croc with his bare hands. ‘Don’t worry he said, they’re just freshies but be careful of this mouth here, razor sharp teeth though. They could take off your finger and we’re about eight hours from a hospital, plus what we’re doing is illegal by taking you with us, so we wouldn’t be able to take you there anyway’.
He then threw the croc back in and asked us who wanted to have a go. Gleny immediately said she’d have a go. Again the boat glided forward. Gleny was told to grab the croc on the back of the neck and to go hard without hesitation when she did it. ‘Bang’, Gleny pulled a croc out of the water. I couldn’t believe it.
Then it was Sam’s go. He leant over the boat as it cruised up to some eyes glowing from the water. Sam was reminded by our 'croc coaches' that what he was doing was like a karate chop. He must execute the grab with full confidence and not let go otherwise it’d bite him. Sam focussed again and leant over further and then shot his hand down into the water. The only problem was that he grabbed it so hard he fell overboard. I couldn’t believe it - even more than what Gleny had done. He’d just fallen into a croc infested lake!
Three seconds later, Sam’s hand came punching through the water holding the croc like it was Excalibur’s sword followed by the top of his body coming through the water too. He stood there laughing and holding up the croc like a trophy in shoulder length water. Everything was okay.
He handed the croc over and then jumped in the boat, before Craig, said, ‘she’s a big one’ before chucking it back in.
Then he said, ‘well you’re the next and last one Jimbo, you’re turn!’
I went up to the front of the boat and nervously looked over the edge while the other guy shone the torch.
Coming up to the crocs I said, ‘I don’t think I can do this’.
The guy driving the boat said, ‘Bullshit Jimbo, you’re going to do it, otherwise we’re going to leave you on the other side of the bank’.
‘Ha, ha’, I lamely answered back while staring back into the water.
I remembered his words, ‘It’s like a karate chop, no hesitation, and full confidence’.
I then realized that I didn’t have the ticker or inclination to do it. It just wasn’t in me and if it wasn’t in me, I didn’t think it was the best thing to do half-hearted. All or nothing. And I didn’t have my all in it. I told the guys again that I didn't think I should do it'.
Again they said, ‘Jimbo you’re going to do it’.
I then remembered what he'd said to me when I got on the boat and how I'd taken it as a compliment.
I said back to him, ‘I’ll get up in front of humans and try and get them to laugh no worries all but there’s no way I’m fuckin' going to lean over a boat and pull a croc out of the water. That's fuckin' crazy in my book!’
‘Fair call’, he said before turning around and taking us back.

* Rockbolt.
At the mine gig just outside Fitzroy Crossing, everyone started yelling out 'get Rockbolt up'
'How come they call you Rockbolt? I asked.
'Because I got a rock bolt drilled thru the head of me cock'.
'How did you get it in?’ I asked.
'Well they sent me into a room and told me to stroke it up and measure it. They said it had to get the measurements correct, right down to the millimetre otherwise it could haemorrhage when I got my first stiffy with it in. Anyway, I couldn't get it all the way up coz I'd been drinking so I just measured me cock and added a couple of inches'.
'Don't worry', I said, 'You're not the only bloke who has done that. And how do the ladies like it?'
'Well I've only had two fucks since I had it in'
'And?' I prodded.
'One liked it and the other one didn't'.
During the show a few guys started yelling out in the crowd, 'Poofter!' and then kept repeating it. Afterwards I asked one guy 'How come?' to which he replied, 'Well Sydney's in NSW'
'And?' I said.
'Well Sydney's got the Mardi Gras'.
'Which makes me a poofter?' I enquired.
'Well.... yeah', he replied as if what I was saying was obvious.
'Now let me get this right. Say I was a farmer living in NSW, five kilometres from the South Australian border. What would that make me?'
The guy had a confused look on his face. It wasn't confused as in he was thinking about what I said. It was more confusion as in 'How simple is this guy I'm talking to?'
He then looked me in the eye and went, 'A poofter'.

* Fuckwit radar.
At one point in the tour, I commented to the red-blooded Gleny that of all the years I've known her, I'm always been impressed by the type of guy she hangs out with. I've never found anyone of them to be a dickhead.
'Have you ever misjudged things and got into trouble', I asked.
'After all, you are two girls alone in the Outback for the most part'.
Gleny said, 'There was one time. It was in Robby Downs. We did a gig at The Uranium mine down there which is town full of pretty tough blokes. When you work in a uranium mine you cop a lot in return from a lot of people, not just greenies. The miners there are pretty tough. Anyway, we made the mistake after the gig, which we never do now, of casually telling a few guys where we were staying when they asked us after the gig. Upon driving back to the caravan park which was about ten kilometres out of town that night, we noticed that we were being followed. Anyway, I sped up, took a short cut and then zigzagged through the park. We got back to our donga's (demountable caravans) thinking we'd lost them. Twenty minutes later though, in the deserted caravan park we were staying at, when we'd bunked up for the night, they found us and started knocking at the door. Instead of doing nothing, which we thought of, I decided to open the door and confront them using a bit of basic male psychology'.
'What?’ I asked keenly.
'Well it’s well known that guys see women it terms of three basic archetypes, the Whore, the Virgin and the Mother character.
When I opened the door to find a guy standing there with four other guys backed up to their truck yelling 'How about it girls?' while holding bottles of bourbon, I slipped right into the Mother Character.'
No partying here, I'm afraid boys, best you find somewhere else', I said firmly, hands on hips.
'Come on, darling, let us in for a drink?' they slurred.
Gleny said she then cut straight through to the sexual subtext with a white lie, 'Anyway, you're barking up the wrong tree fellas, we're lesbians'. To which one guy turned to his mate up the back and said, 'even better!’
Gleny said she then just held her ground firmly telling them that there was no party here and they should go back to camp instead.She said after a few minutes of repeating it, guys started putting their heads down and heading back to their truck until the last guy noticed what was happening and said, 'Ohhh righto' and did the same before they drove out. Gleny said she watched them with arms folded from outside her door until she couldn't see their headlights anymore.
Gleny said she felt just like a mother who was sending the neighbours kid's playing in her backyard back to their own parents for dinner at sunset.
I then said, 'What are the main archetypes girls see guys in?'
She said, 'I don't know but I think there's probably four. The father figure, the joker, the little brother figure and the creep'.
'What am I? I asked.
'You're a bit of all four Jimbo', she replied diplomatically.

* Tour to East Timor
In 2002, I got back from my second tour to East Timor with the Australian defence force. This is what I wrote up on my blog at the time:
The tour went for ten days and was again, an amazing experience. I went this time, with the Melbourne army band and the band 'Sneak' whom were starting to get some commercial airplay around the country. My job was to do MC and comedy work throughout the tour. The gigs varied from clown shows in orphanages, to R-rated mess halls raves playing to infantry 'grunts', to hosting the outdoor big band show at Dilli stadium.
As far as tours go, this was hard work. Each morning we were woken up in our mozzie stretchers, by bagpipes, at 6am. Humidity was extreme, it bucketed down most days and the malaria tablets gave you some pretty trippy dreams. The drives between gigs were long and slow, along potholed cliff top roads. More than once we had to stop, for a mudslide that had blocked the road. Every day though, there were some incredible experiences that blew me away (luckily landmines weren't one of them). These included riding in a black hawk over the highland rice paddies, scrub bashing in a tank which they let me drive and the various performances each day to Aussie soldiers and the surviving East Timorese people.
The Aussie troops have done an incredible job, restoring basic human rights to a much traumatised people who still essentially survive off a subsistence economy. We were driven between each army enclosure by a heavily armed UN convoy, in case of a militia attack. In each town the locals greeted us at the side of the road with waves and smiles, thankful for the peace that had been installed since the UN arrived. Hopefully the East Timorese will be able to survive, prosper and defend themselves, when the UN eventually pull out. At the moment their navy consists of two fishing boats.
I was telling the infantry boys, how stand-up comedians use similar terminology to soldiers. I.e. if we went well, we say we 'killed' and we if we didn't, we say we 'died' - except for them it really does happen. Trying to make soldiers laugh (who are all holding machine guns), certainly tested me but I'm proud to say, I made it back alive.
Anyway, I want this to maybe scrub up one day into a book I can sell so here are my uncensored stories from my experiences with the Australian Army in East Timor!: Haha!
On my second trip to entertain the troops in East Timor, I was with a whole lot of troops who'd been trained at Townsville.
Before I did my first gig, I was told from one of the officers about a sensitive matter which had occurred before leaving.
A few months back a Military Police Officer (MP) had walked into a common room on base one night at The Townsville Army base. Upon opening the door the MP had found a naked girl yelling, 'Rape, rape!' as twenty guys were scurrying out on to the third floor balcony and diving over the edge using ropes (most of them were paratroopers).
Anyway the matter went above the army police and straight to the local cops. Four of the guys who were caught were then hauled into the cop station and told by two female cops that they were all 'as good as locked up for a long time'.
The Townsville army base had long had a reputation for bullying and mistreating local woman at the local cop shop as well as in the local media and these two lady cops wanted to make a big example out of this latest incident.The boys then pulled out a video tape from their mate which they said was evidence that what they did wasn't rape. Apparently one guy had been videoing the incident in the corner while pulling himself. Anyway the two cop ladies looked surprised and then said they were going into the other room to look it over and then said, 'You're all still fucked coz if I we see one second of intimidation on this you're still being charged'.
An hour later the two cop ladies came back into the room ashen faced. One slammed the video down and then put her face in her hands before exclaiming, 'What a fucking slut. Now get out of here!’
Apparently the video was the ultimate show of female power. One girl in a room ordering which army guy she'd chosen from around the room. What she'd do was point to the one she wanted to fuck her next and then told him what to do. 'Come on you. You over there, you soft cock you're next' etc.
That was until the Military Police guy came in and she changed her tune.
Anyway, I was told this before my first gig to about thirty guys, most of who were actually in the incident or at least at The Townsville base at the time.I was told not to say anything.Never say that to a comedian. It's not because we're being nasty, it's just because whatever the taboo topic is, it's always the richest vein to loosen the room up - if done properly.
I then opened up my set to a bored bunch of drill weary guys with, 'Guys I know you've been over here a week or two so you probably haven't seen the new recruiting ad on TV for the army back at home which has just came out. A lot of you guys are in it actually. It's a video at The Townsville barracks and the tag line is 'Serving the nation'.
I then motioned with my hands doggie style while winking at them with a grin.
From then on, each and every one of them was listening to my jokes.
In East Timor, I played to big crowds. I came on in between the band sets where I did mainly sight gags like balancing a chair on my chin and balloons. The biggest crowd was at Dilli stadium to all the troops and about three thousand locals who looked on bemused at what these 'white people' thought was entertainment. I suppose they thought it was at least better entertainment than watching the Indonesian Army raping and killing family members. We couldn't go wrong really after that act.
I also did kid's show at Orphanages. I remember one town in a place called Bobinara. Its way up in the hills above Balibo where the five Australian journo's were killed in 1975. Anyway, this town had a house which was literally the kid's house. In it were about fifty kids who lived together by themselves. Their parents had all died or being killed in the genocide. The other people in the town kept an eye on them but in this cruisey, relaxed little town in the hills. I didn't know whether to feel sorry for the kids or jealous. Imagine the shit and fun you'd get up to in that house!
I did one street show in the town square. It was one of my favourite shows. I had about 200 people around me, mainly kids. I juggled rocks, balanced sticks on my chin and did slap stick mime. I was going to pull out my balloon animals but didn't coz I just wanted to use stuff that they had to make them laugh. It literally felt like a place where the Coke can had been dropped in 'The gods must be crazy' movie. I didn't want to introduce anything more myself but also using balloons I thought was unfair.
At the end of each week in Bobinara, the Army guys rigged up a projector and put on a movie for the locals. It was always very popular. But after a few months, the army guys were getting a bit concerned about how excited the locals were becoming in fight scenes during the movie, particularly on movies like 'Gladiator'. So the decision was made to go more for Romantic comedies over the action films. I.e. a bit more Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan and bit less Arny, Sly and Bruce Willis.
Anyway, after three weeks of Hugh Grant type movies the crowd started getting really pissed off apparently. To the point where they started throwing rocks at the projector and the night had to be shut down altogether. They were demanding films that had more death and carnage in them. I found this really shocking but interesting too. I would have though that in place which had been decimated by real life violence and death just a couple of years ago, in what amounted to the largest per capita genocide of the twentieth century that violence would be the last thing they wanted to see on film.
Like my croc hunter friend said, 'Humans, they're the most unpredictable animal there is'.
We travelled around to a lot of camps in East Timor. At night time, I'd normally do a show for just the troops. I'd really let these shows rip. There were no locals or media at them so I went totally uncensored. I remember one night I played to about 50 troops in a lounge area. Anyway I did my 90 minute show. Instead of ending it there, I just kept talking though and chatting to the crowd. The more people left, the more the people who did remain opened up. It reminded me of my room at The Vegas Bar I had up at Kings Cross. Anyway on this night about four hours after I'd started my show there were about five left in the crowd. We were talking about what they do when they have a week off and go back to Australia after spending six months away without a drink or a root and doing jobs like ten hour border patrols, night in night out, trying to stay awake. Most of them obviously went nuts with alcohol and brothels on their break and so had some pretty colourful stories.
Anyway, one guy piped up with a story which I remember in particular. He said an Army mate had invited him and another guy to visit one of his ex girlfriends in Newtown, Sydney. They all went there expecting not much more than a catch up. After literally a cup of tea the girl then went into another room, got some plastic sheeting laid it on the ground and said, 'I want you to all fuck me. And I'm calling the shots!' Anyway this guy said he can remember at one point his mate having his cock up her arse and she saying to him to put his hand up her pussy and grab his cock. He then said he did it.
There was absolute silence in the room after he'd mentioned it and then he got all nervous before saying 'Does that make me a poofter?’
I then went and patted him on the shoulder and said, 'Considering there was a vaginal wall between your hand and his cock, I think we'll let you off on that charge!'
Sometimes my act causes people to go to therapy. This time I provided it.
I did two tours to East Timor. I then got asked to go on a tour to entertain the troops in The Solomon Islands. We were told the usual stuff before the show by the army public relations people. Nothing offensive etc.
Anyway, there was a big show coming up. It was on an outdoor stage that was rigged up for the band. In the crowd were about 200 troops and a few locals who'd rocked up for a squiz. Anyway, I decided to just do my set with the troops in mind. When you're hanging around them all day you get to hear what everyone whinges about and where their issues are. I always think my job as a comedian is to bring up those issues and squeeze them like a zit (that wants it!) in the belief that laughter really is the best medicine. Anyway, I'd found out there was a bit of a division between the Australian Army guys and the Australian police force that was over here too. Both Australian contingents were training the local Solomon Island army and police forces respectively. Anyway apparently the Australian Police were allowed to go into town each night and have a few beers. The Australian Army guys weren't which they thought was a bit unfair especially as they lived next to each other and it was rubbed in each night the army guys could hear the cops coming back pissed each night. Another thing necessary to know for the set up to my joke was that many of the locals had a red stain around their mouth. It was from chewing a locally grown plant called 'Beetle nut' which was addictive and also worked as an appetite suppressant in tough times.
Anyway, during my set, I went for it. I used the 'f' and 'c' word liberally. I got a couple up, strapped a balloon cock and cunt on them and made them fuck. At one point in the show an army guy got so wound up he came up and did an impromptu naked cart wheel across the stage which I thought was pretty impressive considering he was sober. I then told the story how the night before I went into town with some cops and how they made me drive because they were so pissed and how we then went to a bar and I don't know what happened next but we all woke up in the morning with red cocks.
Anyway, I did some rude material as well and I thought I did a good job. I got 'em laughing and forgetting for half an hour about the tough, mundane and dangerous job they were doing month in month out here.After the show I was relaxing on my stretcher in the tent when Major Reynolds who was in charge of me came and tipped me off my bed. I was a bit taken aback and thought maybe he was being playful but then he started yelling at me saying I'd totally gone overboard in my comedy and my act was extremely offensive to the locals.I then apologised before thinking ‘what part of the act did he particularly find offensive?’
I'm always interested. What people find funny and offensive are totally subjective things.'
You know full well', he replied.
I then said, 'Yeah I shouldn't have used the 'c' word'.
'No it wasn't that!' he yelled back.
'Um, yeah, I shouldn't have implied that I'd gone to a brothel with the police'.
'It wasn't that either', he yelled back.
By this time I was becoming intrigued.
'What was the offensive part of my act, Major, you've really got to tell me coz I've got no idea!?'.
'The part where you strapped a balloon penis to the guy, you idiot!’
I couldn't believe it.
I then said, 'And that was more offensive than the real penis that went cart wheeling across the stage during my show?'
But by that time the Major had left my tent.
He didn't talk to me for the rest of the tour. He didn't even say goodbye to me at the airport in Sydney. I suppose his arse was being kicked somewhere up the line too.
'Make sure the comedians don't do anything that will end up getting us bad publicity for people who think we're invading the country instead of helping it etc'
In the end I figured I was the dog to be kicked at the end of the line of command. Or the clown.
The hardest bit for me was I wasn't selected to go on the next tour which was to Iraq which I was looking forward to checking out.
Weeks later I got a letter saying the Army was disappointed in the offensive content of my act which included excessive swearing.
I knew I'd done a good job though and that none of the troops were upset at my act.
'How could you possibly be upset at a comedian swearing and talking about sex after part of your job is to pull up dead bodies from wells?' I groaned as I threw the letter in the bin.
I then mumbled to myself, 'Swearing like a trooper was I officer!?
'Good gag', I thought. Pity there was no audience.

* Comics on the Run tour
Also in 2002, I went on a tour with the comedians Akmal Saleh and Barry McCleod. In six days we drove from Adelaide to Sydney.Highlights included, performing an impromptu show outside the 'supposedly' roughest pub in NSW - The Club hotel, Wilcannia. We were literally welcomed with open-arms and had a ball despite all the stories explaining why there were no windows and only plastic glasses allowed in the place. That night we played an outdoor gig, under the stars to about fifty people on a sheep station in Wilcannia too.
The next day we went exploring the outback (we heard it was good) and got bogged. We were on a dirt track and spent four hours digging the hire car out while racing against time and a dwindling water supply. Unable to get the car moving, we then trekked, four kilometres to the Barrier hi-way, where we finally flagged someone down after about ten trucks and cars had driven straight past us. The guy who finally stopped was a parole officer transporting some inmates to Broken Hill Gaol. We asked him why no-one had stopped for us and he said it was because Akmal ‘looked like an Abo.’
For the rest of the tour, we hid Akmal in the boot.

* Holiday Inn
The Holiday Inn, Coogee Bay was experimenting with a comedy night in the bar area on its ground floor.It was run by a comedian who was concerned that the comedians don't go too blue so as to not upset management who were watching to see how it went.
On this particular night my ten minute set was going well. I'd done eight minutes, could feel the set building to a crescendo and felt the taste of blood. I wanted bigger and bigger laughs. An American I was having banter with in the crowd mentioned Japan. I was at the nine minute mark. I decided to drop my joke which had got me banned from the Comedy Store. Sometimes this joke works sometimes it doesn't. It all depends on whether the crowd likes me at the time I say it.
This night they liked me. I dropped it. Kaboom went the crowd!'Thank you, I've been Jimbo, good night'.
The next week I was booked into to do another ten minutes. The comedian who booked me came up to me and said the managing director of the Hotel saw my set and liked it but he wanted it to be passed on that I was not allowed to do that Japanese flag joke again.
'At least I wasn't banned this time', I thought.
A guy who had overheard the conversation then came up to me and shook hands.
'Look excuse me for eavesdropping but I overheard your conversation then and I wanted to let you know, that I'm the personal assistant to the Managing director here at The Holiday Inn and I've been with him all week at all his top level meetings around town etc. Anyway, all the big wigs at the bank and companies he visits always ask him how his comedy night is going and each time this week he repeated your joke Japanese joke. He got huge laughs every time he said it. He's using it all the time now'.
'Right, so the cunt is telling me not to say my joke while also stealing my material and using it for himself!’ I said back to him.
I then walked away stoked. I knew it was a good joke.

* Tasmania.
In 2003, a few mates of mine, namely Greeny, Dom, James and Bushy rode their bicycles around Australia. Each night they did a comedy and music show at the nearest pubs they stopped at each night and raised money for cancer.I joined them for a few days in Tasmania. Included in this trip was a gig in the west coast town of Zeehan. Zeehan was a boom nickel town back in 1890. At its peak it had 23 pubs.
When we were there it only had one pub left: The Cecil Hotel where we played our gig and where we were staying. After the gig, I got chatting with an 18 year old local lass called Debbie. We went upstairs while everyone was still partying in the bar and had a chat and a kiss. Soon her sister was knocking at the door. She came in and spoke to Debbie and said how a guy who was a friend of Debbie's ex boyfriend was downstairs and pretty pissed off at us being up here.
At this point, I realised I wouldn't have minded a root but not that badly, so I said, 'How about we all go downstairs and just relax'. She then came up and held me and said 'I don't care about them Jimbo'.
I did. I went down first and walked past the two guys Debbie's sister was talking about.
Before I could say anything one of them looked up at me with glazed eyes and said, 'I've lost my wallet. Where is it?'
Realising that pretty well anything I said was potential bait for a fight, I moved on.
Debbie then came up to me and said she still wanted to go upstairs after with me. Then the bar shut. I went up to Dom and the boys and asked them what they were doing. They said they had been offered to go to a party down the road where there was heaps of free piss and dope. Meanwhile the two guys I was worried about were across the road staring at me.
I said to the boys, 'Boys I think there might be some shit going down tonight. Any chance you can bunk down upstairs in the pub tonight? These two girls are keen to hang out with us'.
Soon we were all upstairs in the lounge room ripping some pages out of a bible to roll a joint and having a great laugh. Until we heard the banging downstairs. It was the two guys wanting to know where Debbie and her sister were. Then we heard them coming up the stairs.
'Quick', said Debbie's sister, 'hide in here' she said pulling Dom, me and Debbie in. 'You two stay in the hallway and don't mention you know anything about us,’ she said to Greenie and Bushy.
And with that all four of us were in the room.
I was starting to feel by now I was in a small town David Lynch film. I whispered to the girls as the guys stormed up and down the hallway outside yelling, 'these guys don't have guns do they?'
'No but my Dad has', said Debbie.
'You're Dad has! Why?’ I asked.
'When you've got six daughters in this town, you need a gun', whispered her sister.
Soon the guys outside left empty handed and we all decided to come out and relax.
The landlady came up, 'Look, I'm afraid the girls are going to have to go home. There's a big rape case going to court next week involving a local and I don't want to risk any controversy by having girls stay here. I'm sorry.'
She then added, 'Nothing against you fellas but I don't want any girls staying here, okay. That's the rules.'
She then looked at Debbie and her sister, 'You've got ten minutes to get out girls'.
And with that she was gone.
The sister then said to Dom and me, 'Well if we've got to go, can you guys walk us home?'
I being the gentleman said, I wasn't keen because of the two guys out there who looked like they were now out on the streets either looking for a fight now they didn't have a fuck - namely with me.
Then Dom said to me, 'Come on ya pussy, where's your sense of adventure!?'
Dom knew my soft points well.
We walked a couple of kilometres down the main street to where the sister lived. She said she bought it a few years back for free.
'How?’ I asked.
'The home owner’s grant of $10,000 paid for it all', she said.
I was amazed. She said one guy a few years back bought a house for $7000 with the $10000 first home owner's grant and then spent his remaining $3000 on piss.
I said 'how come everyone doesn't buy a house here?'
She said, 'Because it rains 300 days of the year and there's no work'.
Debbie then took me into a bedroom and we jumped into bed.
We kissed but I soon realised she was a very young 18 year old. She didn't want to do anything else.
'Have you had sex before?' I asked.
'No', she replied.
'Have you had a boyfriend before?’ I asked further.
'Yeah, I've got one now?'
'Right', I said, thinking, 'this is information I need to know'.
'Where is he?' I asked.
'He's a friend of my cousins. I met him last week when we went to Hobart. He's fourteen and I love him', she oozed.
At this point all I could think about was 'Gee have I got a story for the boys when I get back'.
'And why do you love him?’ I asked.
'Because he's got a big cock', she replied.
'I definitely have a good story for the boys', I thought.
Then I said, 'If you've never had sex with a guy before how do you know he's got a big cock'.
'Because his mother told me', she replied.
I really was living in a stereotyped cartoon now. Eighteen year old old Tasmanian girl meets 14yr old boyfriend through her cousin and loves him because his Mum told him he's got a big cock.
After a bit more chat, I said, 'Look I really should be going now'.
I'd heard Dom leave about an hour ago.
She said, 'No you can't. Please stay until the morning'.
I was now in male purgatory. Couldn't go, couldn't come and in bed with an 18 yr old talking about her 14 yr old boyfriend who had a big cock.
I really had to go and tell the boys this story. Soon, I hoped.
She wouldn't let me go though without getting upset so I started asking her about her Dad.
'He's a wood chopper', she said.
'And whenever any of my sisters get a boyfriend, they have to ask my Dad's permission to go out with him first. He's kind of traditional like that. No-one's ever asked my Dad for permission to go out with me though'.
'How come?' I asked.
'Because, I'm his little baby', she cooed as a shiver went down my spine.
At this point I said, 'I've really, really got to go'.
Then she protested again. So I started asking her what she does all day. She said she mainly watches DVD's at home and smokes dope.
I asked her 'Why?’
She said, 'Because its always raining and there's no work'.
I said 'Fair enough' and the asked her for permission to leave again.
She then got up with me and said, 'Okay but I want to walk back with you to the pub'.
We then opened the bedroom door which leads onto the street. It was getting light.
'Look', I said. 'I don't know all that much about wood chopping but I imagine your Dad gets up pretty early and perhaps drives through town each morning? I don't want to be rude but I just don't want to be seen walking through this town with his' little baby' okay'.
Just then she gasped while looking out at the street through the door which was now ajar. I looked out and saw a green pickup truck slowly drive past.
'That's my Dad!’ she cried.
'You've got to be kidding', I said looking out on the streets to see where the truck was going. 'What's he doing?'
'Probably driving around the back to see if I'm here'.
With that, I gave her a kiss and said, 'Look I'm definitely outta here now'.
I called Debbie a couple of years later wondering whatever happened to her. The number was dead.

* Eat grass
Dom has an interesting relationship with his younger brother. The first time I went back to Dom's farm with him and a few mates he explained just before he got out of the car that what we were about to see was weird but he'll explain it all to us afterwards. Upon getting out of the car he started running. Another bloke then came out of nowhere and started chasing him. About fifty metres away I could see Dom's head being forced to the ground. We asked him later. The explanation was simple.
'He's my younger brother. I used to bash him up as a kid and then when he got to fifteen he grew a foot taller than me. Now every time we see each other which is about a couple of times a year, he makes me eat grass. Just a mouthful'.
'But you're both in your thirties now!’ we said.
'Yeah, I know. But it doesn't taste that bad grass, you get used to it', replied Dom.

* Damo
I was doing a kids gig down the coast with Dave when I got a call to find out that Dom was heading back to his home town of Trundle (near Parkes NSW) for a funeral of his best mate Damo who'd died in a house fire.
'You want to go and give Dom some moral support? It should be a good party too', I said to Dave.
'Sure' said Dave.
'The wife will understand'.
Dave had never met Damo but knew Dom well. Anyway the funeral was massive. Damo was 35 and single. Every ex girlfriend turned up and every one of his four brothers at the after party seemed to be having a crack at them. It was just how Damo would have liked it. One enormous piss-up! At about 3am, Me, Dave, Dom, our comedian mate's Akmal and Greenie, Damo's brother and a few others were lying on the ground having a chat when Damo's brother suggested we go down and have a look at the burnt house.
To which, Dave piped up, 'who’s Damo?’
We then explained to Dave that Damo was the guy whose funeral it was today. Like I said, it was a massive pissup.
At the house, we watched as Damo's brother stood solemnly smoking a cigarette looking at the charred remains of the house.He was in a reflective mood, so we let him talk. 'They say that you can't take anything when you die....... but Damo he took the fuckin' lot!' he said pointing to the remains of the house.
In the car on the way back, Damo's brother turned to me and said, 'that was a good gig you did down at the club tonight Jimbo, you're pretty good aren't you?'
I said, 'I've never done a gig at a funeral before, it was a good crowd'.
'No you're pretty good aren't you? he said.
'Ohh yeah, it was pretty young pissed up crowd, they were up for it'.
'No', he repeated emphatically, 'You're a pretty good comedian, aren't you?'
I was in the backseat and was becoming a bit uncomfortable. I didn't know what to say, so I finally said. 'Yeah, thanks, I suppose I am, cheers'.
To which he turned around and said, 'Fuck, you're up yourself aren't you!’ before laughing his head off with the other guys in the car.
He got me. And I reacted like most comedians who do when someone says something really funny to them.
I nodded, raised my eyebrows and went 'That's good'.

* 'Tell us a joke!'
I appreciate a good hammering from a punchline. Particularly the ones that come out of nowhere and slam you hard. And I always thought every audience members expected this too?
A lot of people say that it must be tough being a comedian because you'd always have to be telling jokes.
The reality though is that when I say I'm a comedian or if someone knows I'm a comedian most people take it as a challenge to make me laugh which can be hard work after a gig when the pub is loud and the words being thrown at me are slurred and repeated... to the point where I don't even know where the punchline is when someone is telling me a 'joke'.
Often I'll be thinking about something else, like 'Am I going to get paid in cash tonight' and then give a polite laugh when I think they've reached the punchline.
Sometimes, I'll misjudge it though and laugh when there wasn't a punchline which will only encourage the joke teller even more that they're telling the funniest joke in the world.
I imagine it's the same situation when a wife/lover decides to fake orgasms. Sometimes it then causes more troubles than it's worth... and you're stuck!
Sometimes I will hear a good joke though or a bit of conversation I haven't heard before and it's all suddenly worth it. Much like an opal digger who suddenly strikes 'colour'!
Usually the jokes I've hear after a gig are racist ones I've heard a thousand times before down the road. I learnt early in touring though that if don't have the energy to laugh politely at these jokes, they'll then pull their phone out and show me actual footage of a guy fucking a goat in order to impress me. Particularly the one with the guy in shorts facing the other direction as he fucks it. I think that clip is in every second guy's phone in this country? Or do I bring it on myself perhaps by selling, 'I fucked a goat' shirts!?
Anyway if that footage doesn't get a reaction out of me, they'll then show me a clip on their phone of someone from Al Qaeda hacking off someone's head with a blunt knife before going 'cool hey, Jimbo!?'
I soon discovered that sometimes it's much easier to laugh politely at racist jokes after a gig than give no reaction and then later on go to sleep with the image of a decapitation running through my head on continual loop.
Racism to me was something I slowly changed my attitude to as well.
I'm not a racist I realised primarily because a) I wasn't bought up to think like that and b) it was pretty uncool in my peer group in the city to think like that.
And the more I travelled around the country the more I realised that someone is generally a racist for exactly the same reasons that I am not one.

* Griffith
I'd done my gig and wandered down to the local nightclub. The gig was in between the sets of my mate Steve Edmonds' band.
On the dance floor a girl came up to me and yelled over the Billie-Jean sound track. 'What star sign are you?'
'Pisces', I replied.
'No way!’ she replied while jumping up and down, 'I'm Aquarius!'
It was at that point that I realised I really should just go back to the hotel room and have a wank.

* Motivational speaker.
I once did a very nice gig for an organisation called 'Young Leader's'. It was a once a year gathering of most of the school captains from all the schools throughout the each state into one conference centre. They were then exposed to a series of motivational talks from Australian's who had been or still are at the top of their fields. Those fields being mainly in sport, the arts, business or government. At the NSW Young Leaders day at the Sydney Conventions Centre each year there were over 3000 students in each audience.
Again, I was employed much in the same way a clown is at a circus. I provided some comic relief by coming on for a few sets in between the Kieran Perkins's and Bob Carr's. It was an easy and satisfying crowd coming on after so many successful people had told the kids their advice on making it to the top. I was introduced as another motivational speaker at the top of my field in business.
Once at the podium, I asked which kid's liked to sleep in. Normally about 100 kids guiltily put up their hands while giggling at the other kids who put their hand up too.
I then went on to say how 'I think everyone should sleep in everyday for as long as they can.... because it's really important in life to chase your dreams'.
I then went on in this vein for a while before signing off with my normal optimistic plug of 'If you want a de-motivational speaker to come to your school go to my website jimbo.com.au'.
I ended up getting a few gigs out of this from kids recommending me to their headmaster.
One was at Kelsey High School near Bathurst for 200 yr 11 and 12 kids. The gig was in their basketball gym.
I spoke to the headmaster and he said, 'I know you do jokes but can you put in a few motivational points particularly with regards to an anti-drug message'.
At the time I was starting to run low on money again and can remember thinking, 'For $500, I'll tell them whatever you want. Fuck, there are a lot of schools in Australia. If I get on this gravy train, I've got it made!'.
In retrospect I realise now it was totally the opposite mindset to how I was thinking with regards to stand-up. I was doing an act based on what I was told to do, not what my instincts were telling me. And the reason I was doing it was for money.
At the gig, I was about 30minutes into my 40minute set and going well. I then started talking about how clowning and doing comedy is my drug.. and how when you do something in life which you enjoy you don't need drugs.. and that you kids should look for things in life you enjoy because drugs are bad'....
Anyway, cliched stuff like that. I can't remember anything being out of place though or feeling the gig wasn't going well until a student stood up half way down the crowd, looked me in the eye and then turned to one of the teachers and said loudly, 'What is this? You told us we were getting a comedian!?
It was the most hard hitting heckle I'd ever got in my life. It even rocked me harder than the guy who later came up on stage during one of my rough gigs at a Darwin strip joint and whispered into my ear, 'You're going to wake up in the morning with a shit on your head!'.
I was severely embarassed at the blatant call which this young guy was making at me i.e I was totally selling out on my comedy. What had the most impact on me was that this guy didn't even give the heckle to me. It was to the teachers. It was like he was saying I was such a fraud I was beyond heckling to.
I then quickly changed tact and went back to comedy ramming the best jokes I had left in me with a heap of inteactive balloon jokes to get the crowd going again.I saved face with most of the crowd I think but not really with myself.
Afterwards students and teachers were thanking me but I still felt pretty unsettled by the experience which I knew I had to learn from.
I asked one teacher, 'Who was that guy?'
She said it was a year 12 kid who was a very good student and normally didn't say anything out of line at all and she was sorry for what he said. The fact that he wasn't a trouble-maker or stirrer to me made what he said even more powerful and pertinent though.
He was obviously just saying what most of the students were thinking which I had no idea about i.e 'Let us work out for ourselves what we think about drugs like you and every generation before us did'.
I vowed to myself afterwards never to do a gig at a school or anywhere else where I had to ram in a message into the comedy without getting laughs. I realised it was as ridiculous as pausing mid routine to auto-cue a commercial.
I then drove back to Sydney thinking about how far petrol prices were rising and how my VB money was already starting to run out.
Two months later I got a call from a year 12 student in Wyong who asked me to come along and do a key note speech at the school 'Drug summit' talk. It wasn't a comedy piece they wanted, he just said he reckoned I would be a good voice to hear amongst the speakers based on my comedy he'd heard at the Young Leaders forum.
I said yes.
A week before the scheduled event I got an email from him saying that the headmaster had no idea what my background or references were and so wanted a quick outline on the point of view I was going to be taking when talking to his students about drug use.
I thought about it long and hard and went for the policy of saying what I thought in my heart and then emailed my thoughts to the headmaster.
I thought the line of zero tolerance to drug use when talking to 16-18 year olds was totally unrealistic with what influences drugs are in society and a waste of time to kids who quickly see through the hypocracy of it.
So I outlined that my speech would be based on 'The main thing you need to know about drugs is this:If you're going to smoke cigarettes do it until you feel you have to have one because you crave it and then stop, if you've going to drink, don't drive. If you've going to try dope and you find yourself having 'Breaky cones' when you get out of bed in the morning, you're probably having too much. If you're going to try pills do it in a safe and comfortable environment when you're around friends who will help you - in case you have a bad time or get sick etc. And if you try heroin, don't expect much sympathy from anyone around you if your habit gets out of control. We're all addicted to some substance which changes how we feel whether it be sugar, coffee, bread, alcohol, cigarettes or drugs. But if you're on heroin. You're the dog the rest of society will kick hard'.
Anyway I got an email from the school later that week saying my services weren't required anymore.

* Air guitar.
In 2003, I entered the national air guitar competiton.I entered in the Northern Beaches of Sydney heat at Mona Vale Hotel.
The idea was they played a song for a minute while you went nuts on stage with your imaginary guitar to a crowd full of drunks.Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to pretend being a rock star for a minute in my life.
I got right into it and got asked back to the Northern Beaches final at the same pub the next week. The top two, I was told went through to the state championships at Penrith Panthers the next week.
My finale of my Northern Beaches final consisted of me sliding down the protruding cat walk they'd provided on my knees while arching back playing the imaginary guitar like I was the imaginary rock god I visualised in my head. The adrenaline pumping through my body and the excitement of the gig made me push myself beyond what I could handle though. When I got up, I knew my knee was fucked.
I went to the physio that week. He said it was a medial ligament injury and needed a bandage and eight weeks rest. He then asked me how I did it. I said, 'in an air guitar competiton'.
He then lowered his glasses looked at me again and said, 'I thought I'd heard it all'.
When I got out to Penrith Panthers the next week for State Finals I was pumped despite my injury. I'd come second in the Northern Suburbs Final and snuck in. I wanted to come first in the State final though. This bit of 'fun' I was having with air guitar was suddenly turning serious. There was a massive stage, a big crowd and the winner went through to the Australian championships and the winner of that went through to the world championships in Finland. I was two rounds off a free overseas trip, I thought.
The state final competiton rules were harder though. The first song could be a minute of your own choosing. There was then a second round which we all had to play too but we didn't know the song until we got on stage.
I'd prepared my first song all week. I'd chosen a song purposely with a lot of wanger work and finger lickin' down the lower end of the fretboard to take the attention away from the fact I couldn't move my legs well. I chose the guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen in the middle of the Michael Jackson song 'Beat it'.
When Michael Jackson on vocals at the end of fifty seconds of Eddie Van Halen/Jimbo wizardry suddenly started repeating 'Beat it, Beat it', I then pulled out some clown silly string from the top of my pants and sprayed it all over the judges in the front row like I was doing my load on them 'Rock n Roll style'. The crowd loved it. I couldn't see the judges. It was too dark.
For the second song, to make up for the fact I couldn't move much again, I walked out on stage with talcum powder all round my nose, like I'd just been out the back with Al Pacino. I then spewed out some beer from my mouth like I'd puked and acknowledged the crowd. Strapped to my groin was a blow-up doll with a beer shaped hole in it's head where my stubbie rested. As 'Black Betty' started over the P.A I skulled the rest of the beer and balanced the upturned stubbie on my nose while I lyed down on the ground (old clown trick). I then played a bit of guitar before lifting up the blow-up dolls legs and pretending I was growling her out. I then performed what I knew was a revolutionary air guitar move for 2003. I pulled my pants down, stuck the air guitar up my clacker and then pulled the guitar out of my mouth. By about that time my minute was up and I walked off thinking I was in with a chance. After all, air guitar for me was about entertaining the crowd and I felt I'd connected with the mosh pit up the front.
Not so for the judges. I came last. I found out later from a comedian mate Simon Kennedy who was a guest on the judging panel at the time that the other judges at the state final level of air guitar were looking for correct chord progressions and technical know how. Unlike Simon, they were taking their judging position very seriously. They were apparently in particular looking at correct chord progressions with the fingers which was something I had no idea about.
Simon then told me the judges thought my act 'was taking the piss out of air guitar'.
As I drove home, I thought, 'Taking the piss out of air guitar! What the fuck were they doing to guitar!'
To see my performance youtube: 'Jimbo, comedian, air guitar'.

* BNO.
Back in 2001, I was asked to do a ten minute gig in Parramatta. Two muso's were doing a show where they sat on a couch, played some songs, chatted to the crowd. They had a few guest spots for comedians and other variety performers. The show was largely run off the profile of one of the musos who had a bit part in a soap opera which lasted a few years on channel ten.
Anyway, what I liked about the show was it was different. Namely it was interactive with the crowd instead of just about doing music or telling jokes. When Steve Edmonds told me his soapy side-kick had left and would I like to replace him as co-host I jumped at the chance of doing it each week.We had a $400 budget for the night at The Albion Hotel. For that we had to make sure the bar was doing $1000 at the bar.
We were doing alright but we weren't quite there. The agent who booked Steve gave him a warning. We had three weeks to hit the bar tab target or we were out. So we made the decision that in order to grip the crowd and get their friends coming down too we had to get down and dirty with them. Get personal personal with them to the point where they'd be interested in coming back each week to drink more. Which we did by pulling people onto the couch with us and mining their personal life for gold. In the Reality TV era where everyone wants to be a star, we found people to be far more willing to come up and talk honestly than we expected and we kept pushing it. We also started a talent quest where people had to come up the front and do something that rocked the crowd. We weren't the judge though, the crowd was.
One girl in the crowd on the first talent quest we had was a 23yr old with three kids who had recently got divorced. She hadn't been out much over the last few years and made up for it this particular night by coming up on stage and getting every bit of clothing off. She won. And we discovered our new hit segment in our show: karaoke stripping.
The crowd always went nuts at the bravery of someone who obviously hadn't been to the gym in a while gettin naked in front of people. What appealed to them most though was the fact that they were being so utterly un-self conscious about it too. It was a trend I was to find year in year out when someone stripped off at my shows.
The better the body the less the crowd reaction. It was almost if the crowd was saying, 'Look if I had a body like that, I'd be getting naked too. So what, ya wanker!?'
For the following few weeks, people came up on stage like the girl who told us she'd walked into the local Vauxhall strip joint the week before and got a job their stripping. The next week she was talking about her boyfriend she met there. The next week she bought him along and introduced him to everyone on stage. More people were coming to the shows and a whole lot of different story lines were developing on stage. The audience memebers were becoming soap stars to each other and the bar tab went up to $1200. The agent had a complaint to Steve though.
'Who is this guy you do the show with? Rumour has it he rocks up there with you in a flannel shirt, drinks beer all the way through the show, every second word is fuck and all he talks about is sex. Did you just grab someone out of the audience to do the show with you? Can't you afford to a pay a performer with the fee I give you!'
It was at this point I realised I was carrying off my pisshead yobbo character perhaps a little too well.
Most shows I sat on about two beers throughout but crowd members were still coming up to me after the show and saying, 'Don't drive man, you've been drinking all night up there, you're fuckin' blind!'
So for the next few weeks Steve and I dressed up a bit smarter, swore a bit less and didn't stick our noses into the crowd's personal life as much and the bar takings in turn went back down to under 800 dollars. By toning things down we realised we'd lost our mojo with the crowd.
We both then had a chat to the agent whom I met and we negotiated permission to creatively do what we want on stage as long as the bar tab was good. Which we did.
We called back up the stripper girl and her boyfriend. She told us she was pregnant now and not too sure whether to have the baby. He wasn't sure either. We polled the crowd on whether she should have it or have an abortion.
And we then polled the crowd whether he had any say on the matter beyond giving her a nudge down the stairs. The show was totally raw and uncensored and slowly the bar tab got up to $2000 per week. Our budget went up too. We could afford now to book more acts, like Bryce who did an audio visual segment. We also started scripting the show more, doing pre-production and making the show as tight as the material was loose.We had a bong making competition one night, we're three contestants had to go out onto the streets and make a bong from stuff they found. The winner was a girl who made one out of an apple and a garden hose.
As the crowds became more demanding of attention, the comedians I booked started hating the gig even more. Most were getting spat out after ten minutes on stage, either because they weren't funny enough for them or they'd seen their material before. So I eventually decided eventually stop booking comedians and instead put the $200 I paid to the comedian into the talent quest as the prize instead of just a couple of beers.
More people started coming down and entering and the talent quest started going for over an hour instead of just ten to twenty minutes, like before with the comedians before they did the bolt. We had poets, rappers, magicians, musos enter. Nudity always won though. Because the crowd as a whole was the judge. And the crowds loved it.
Soon Bandido bikers were coming down to the show too because they heard there was more action at our show than the local strip joint.I once asked one Bandido in the audience next to his mate in a wheelchair whether they wanted to come up. He said, 'no coz you'll take the piss out of us'.
I remember thinking, 'surely you know I'm more nervous of you!?'I got to know a couple of the Bandido's having a drink and a yarn after the show.

One night I was out in Parramatta at another pub when I saw a whole lot of Bandido's bikies outside on the pavement in their colours and with their bikes. I walked up to them thinking I could find one of my mates from The Albion.
One looked at me approaching and said, 'How are you going?'
I replied, 'I'm looking for my mate Padge'. Padge had always been friendly to me at The Albion and enjoyed my show.I then explained further 'I know him from a comedy show I do down the road at The Alb..'
The guy cut me off with a smile. 'No mate, I was just asking how are you going!?
'Ohh', I said realising I was being a complete dickhead and not being in the moment at all.
We then got chatting. He told me about a charity joker bike run they were doing next week culminating in a pissup at The Ermington Hotel.
I told him I'd love to do a gig for them. I didn't care about being paid.
The next week I excitedly rocked up. I'd never done a gig for bikies before.When I went in, I sat down at a table with some guys who pulled me over. They introduced me to their wives and we had a pleasant chat much like in 'Waynes' World' with Alice Cooper when he talks backstage about how he likes drinking tea and playing golf.
Then a stripper came on stage. No-one watched.
'How many strippers have these guys seen?', I wondered.
Then it was my turn. I then realised I was about to come on to a bunch of bikies to do comedy act after a strip act with dildo's which had failed to grab their attention. I was going to have to go hard I thought.... without also offending anyone. Tough gig.
'The kind of gigs I live for', I re-assured myself!
The first thing I did was walk across the dancefloor and jump onto a table in front of them so I could connect easier.
I then pulled up a ten year old boy who was in the crowd up and made him a balloon hat to which he said to me while I was putting them on, 'Careful what you say otherwise I'll punch you'.
I then started getting some easy laughs out of calling a bikie nearby with a mullet, 'Billy Ray Cyrus'.
He had a girl either side of him.
I then tried to mimic what I thought he was thinking, 'Leave 'em alone. These are my bitches,' I intimated.
He then yelled back, 'And you're going to be my next one!'
I then realised I was the only one in the room not laughing.
After the gig, I was chatting with a few guys who were saying how they liked my act when I got a tap on my shoulder to a deep serious voice whispering in my ear, 'Billy Ray wants to see you out the back'.
I nervously turned around to find ten bikies laughing their ass off at my ashen looking face.
I nodded and nervously smiled while thinking, 'These guys are funny. Nice punchline'.
I also realised I'd done gigs for coppers and now bikies.
And then I thought, 'cops and bikies are both basically into the business of protection and organising the flow of drugs within the community. The main difference between them being that they wear different uniforms plus cops draw a wage from the taxpayer'.
I then realised that the bikies were now drinking more so I thanked them for the experience and left while thinking about a publican who once told me about a Christmas party he had in his pub function room which was booked out by the local police branch.
'Jimbo' he said, 'At the end of the night they were all getting really roudy, messy and damaging stuff. But what could I do!? Who was I going to call to get them kicked out!?'

Anyway, back to my night at The Albion. I advertised one week to the crowd that next weeks theme was going to be 'Root a backpacker night'. I told them I was going to hire a bus from Coogee and go around picking up backpackers for a genuine Aussie night out in the suburbs for them, away from the normal tourist spots of Bondi and the city. I hired the bus but every backpacker's common room I went to was just full of people watching TV.
I screamed at every one of them. 'Can't you watch the Simpsons back home!? Get on the bus! It''s going to be fun!'
No-one got on! In desperation, I got the driver to stop off at The Matthew Talbot Homeless men Hostel where I'd done a free gig for fun the month before. The only bloke I could get to get on the bus was Bronson. A guy who looked like he was one brain cell away from licking the window. I had no idea what he was on or coming down off.
'Full marks for him for turning up', I thought. 'He's got more sense of adventure in him than those backpackers hypnotised by the TV!'
So me, Bronson and the bus driver set off to Parramatta. I sat Bronson up the front of the crowd until a bouncer escorted him out for falling asleep when I wasn't looking. When I realised he'd been turfed out I stopped the show and went out looking for him for half an hour to no avail. I was pretty upset.
The crowd reasured me afterwards with that old gag. 'Don't worry Jimbo, he's homeless. Drop him off anywhere and he's at home'.

I came off the show one night and a younger mate Tim who had been helping me film the show came up to me and said, 'Jimbo this is my ex Kylie who wants to shag me tonight and this is her friend who wants to shag you'.'
That's right' said Kylie.
Both were young tidy girls. I was amazed as I don't think I'd ever been confronted in this forward manner for a fuck in my life, despite fantasising about it. Half of me went 'Beauty!' and the other half went 'this is a bit full on, can I have a drink first?!'
I then thought about how they wanted to go to Seven Hills to shag which was way out of my way as I had an early meeting in Randwick in the morning etc.
Kylie then said, 'Look if you're busy, she can take you across the road and blow you there'.
It was getting full on. I then slipped out the back and decided to do a runner.
Driving out of the car park, Kylie ran up to my window stuck her head in and said, 'Jimbo you carry on with it on stage but off stage you're soft, I'm gunna tell everyone about this next week. Why won't you fuck my mate? Haven't you got a cock, are you a poofter, can't you get it up!?'
I then drove away a little off centre with both halves of my brain having a fight, 'Why didn't you fuck her, she was gorgeous?' and the other half saying, 'Just drive Jimbo'.
The next week while driving to the show I was thinking about what type of show to pull out of my arse again. By this time I was hosting the show solo, with Steve leaving to pursue his impressive music career. I on the other hand was intent on ruining my comedy career credibility with a show which was further sterotyping me to every agent and comedian in Australia as someone who was a total loose cannon on stage! Plus a potential liablility with regards to controversy and crowd walk outs and complaints.
Anyway, I was thinking about what show to do and about what Kylie said on my way to the gig. And then I thought, I ask people the most personal questions on stage. I should be able to take it back. It doesn't matter if I don't laugh. Just as long as they do.
So to start the show I pulled Kylie up the front of the stage from where I found her proudly standing at the back while smirking at me.'Have you got anything to say to everyone?' I asked.
She said, 'Yeah' grabbed the mic and to script said, 'Last week Jimbo wouldn't fuck my mate. He carries on with it on stage but off stage he's soft. What is he? Hasn't he got a cock, is he poofter, can't he get it up?'
And with that I had a sudden inspiration on how to kick the the rest of the show off. I grabbed the mic back off her, 'So Kylie does that mean that any bloke here is allowed to go up to any girl here and go, 'I want you to fuck my mate' and if they don't they're allowed to chase the girl into the carpark and say, 'What's wrong with you? Are you a leso? Have you got a dry cunt!?'
I then added while looking out a the crowd. 'The blokes here are sick and tired of you girls using us for sex. We've got feelings and we've got emotions and until you girls start playing to that you're not going to get any sex out of any of us'.
And with that every bloke in the room stood up and went, 'Fuckin oath!'
And for a split second every girl in the room was confused.

I loved that room at The Albion Hotel and I felt I was onto a potential TV show with my 'Big Night Out' concept.I ended up filming it each week for three months with my mates Tim, Matt and Az who helped me for free each week. We made a pilot and I presented it to the head of the Foxtel comedy channel.
I told him, 'I've got the crowd. All I need is cameramen, lighting and editing for the best late night out of control tonight show in the world!'.
I then proceeded to show him footage of our dating game, 'Perfect snatch', Jelly wrestling, girls getting their tits sucked on stage, guys having competitons to see how many coins they could stick up their foreskin, some mad banter, horses being bought on stage that skull beer cans and some other stuff which was a bit rude.
I was sure he was going to take it. And then I looked at him. He was pale. I got the impression that perhaps he had never been to a pub at closing time in his life. At least one that was west of Balmain. He didn't seem to have any idea what most normal people got up to, I thought. Or did I now have no idea what normal people got up to!?
I then explained to him that what was happening in my video was what people like to do in pubs: get off their face, pull a root and have a laugh. And my show provided at least one of those to people in the crowd to have, if not all of them all.
'People', I said further digging my grave at the Foxtel Comedy Channel, 'Will love this show!'
His polite outclause with me was, 'Its just a bit too Jackass for me'.
I then replied 'You mean it's a bit too much like the most successful international movie of last year. It's a bit too much like that!?'
I was then shown the door.

I then launched into my show at Parramatta even harder, until the night our talent quest competition came to it's logical end. I don't know if it was a full moon or not but for the talent quest to really kick in you need at least two people competing who don't have boundaries or at least want to push the boundaries of what they think the crowd's is. In reality though, as long as everything is consential on stage and there's no physical violence, I don't believe human crowds have boundaries.
On this night I did have two girls competing to win. This is the ideal situation for a cracker talent quest. Especially as these two girls were both willing to flash their tits to the crowd. On this particular night they were doing it about half an hour into the talent quest. By now I'd seen that many tits or cocks flashed at that stage of my comedy career that the sight of any more bored me now more than shocked me. In fact I was starting to feel like a bikie when he sees a tit. 'Everyone enjoying themselves?' I thought as a I looked around the crowd.
I never get sick of the crowd going off though. And with four tits being flashed on stage the crowd was going off that night plus the bar manager was giving me the nod that the bar tab was looking good.
I then told the girls that 'we needed a winner so how about if I get two guys from the crowd to suck one of the girls tits?'.
One said 'Yes'.
The two guys I picked looked like they hadn't sucked a tit since being weaned off their Mum fifteen years ago. They loved it and were having a good suck like they were a couple of piglets. They even tapped each other on the shoulder and swapped mid way through it. The girl loved it too, standing up there with a big grin to the crowd.
The other girl didn't want to be outdone though, so she got some whipped cream from the kitchen and got two guys to spray it on her chest and then lick it up.I was happy. All was going well at the show. I still didn't have a winner though. I was about to go to the crowd for a vote on noise.
Then I got a beer coaster handed to me from the crowd. It said, 'I'll suck my boss off while he raps a song!'
I looked at the girl and the guy she was with and said 'you get up here', not really believing what they'd written.
They were both about twenty and worked at Burger King. He was her supervisor and still had his uniform on. Anyway, she undid his zip, fluffed him up a bit and then got on her knees and started smoking his pink cigar. She wasn't bullshitting.
The crowd went nuts with people including 'Tongan Dave' storming the stage to take a close up photo with their mobile phone.
I looked across at the bar manager and he was motioning, 'cut, cut, cut' with his hands. In the end I nearly had to pull her head off him. She was there to finish the job off.
Afterwards the whole crowd was instantly sober. There was no way I could come up with any entertainment to top that, I thought so I sat the winning couple down and interviewed them. Eventually I said to him, 'Look mate, you're in front of 150 people and as a bloke to a bloke, I'm interested in knowing, were you close to cumming at all?'
He said, 'No' - which made sense to me.
And that was the only point in the whole interview or time on stage being filmed where she got upset.
She slapped him and said, 'What? Wasn't I good enough?'
I heard some gossip later on labelling her as a 'slut', which I thought was unfair. To me a guy only calls a girl a slut if she's fucking everyone else except him and a girl only calls another girl a slut if she feels her boyfriend would fuck her given half a chance.
To me what this girl and guy did on stage was an extraordinary event not because of what they did but because of the context they did it in. This was a talent quest on a Thursday night at a local pub. I also thought that anyone who looked down on them because of what they did - was only being hypocritical. After all they were only doing what goes on inside most houses. The only difference was they were doing it on stage at a pub, in front of people.
Anyway, the whole incident was caught on tape which everyone in the crowd knew I was filming each week. I then told the crowd to spare a thought for the girls who'd got their tits licked and didn't win.I then handed the $200 prize to the guy from Burger King coz I reckoned the rendition he did of the Snoop Doggy Dogg song while getting sucked off, was superb. He then gave half to her.
I then found out he had a girlfriend. So I said to them both. 'Come back next week with ya girlfriend mate and what we'll do is get a bit of Jerry Springer happening. We'll show your girlfriend the footage and then bring you both out on stage holding hands'.
Next week didn't happen though. My show was cancelled by the agent. I also got a note from lawyers of the agent who was representing the pub saying they wanted me to hand in footage of the show and not say a word about it to anyone. I was slowly coming familiar with how these invisible lawyers, I never got to meet, operated.
I said, 'No' because everyone in the room knew I was filming and it was my property and also I told them that when I was eventually in the nursing home I wanted to be able to show people footage of what was undoubtedly going to be the highlight of my career. All they could do was sack me. And they did.
I put on a brave face but I was disappointed on this one more than any Sydney Showboat sacking could make me. The weekly show had been running for three years now. It was my baby which I'd seen mature while I ran down just about every VB cent I owned over three years. I'd built up a big loyal crowd and thought I was on the cusp of getting some backing to make a pretty wild TV show which accurately portrayed Australian culture in an honest, fun and informative manner while also giving people an outlet to discuss taboo subjects like, sex, love, race and conflict in a healthy way. Paul Hogan meets Jerry Springer stuff.
Meanwhile the rest of the comedy industry was apparently thinking, 'Soft porn meets lawsuit. Careful about booking Jimbo!'
So now, I did have a potential lawsuit, no regular gig and a blacklisted name in the rest of the comedy world due to rumours about my show which then got even more exaggerated. Within a month I had new comedians coming up to me who I'd never met and saying they'd heard about the blow job I got on stage.
As for the pub, I found out later it was one pub in a consortium of pubs owned by a syndicate of people which included high court judges. They were in the process of buying another pub and didn't want my blow job incident at their Albion Hotel to jeopadise their standing with the local licensing police which would possibly affect their next purchase.
The irony for me was that the local licensing police used to come to my show each week when they knocked off. I knew this when I pulled two guys on stage and asked what they did. They then agreed to pull their pants down and kneel down with their backcracks facing the crowd while two girls from the crowd whipped their arses with their belts to see which bloke could take the most pain. This was straight after we'd had a crowd vote on who had the hairiest arse.
I would have loved to have gone to court over the whole blow job incident but they backed out when I again said, I'd see them in court. The bar manager told me afterwards if I did go to court, I'd be in a lot of trouble because you're not allowed to show genetalia on stage in a pub.
I would to have loved to have told the judge, 'But your honour, her mouth was covering it, here's the video'. I knew Rodney Rude had done some of his best work in front of the High Court of Australia defending himself from libel. Maybe I could too!?
After I lost my show at The Albion Hotel at the end of 2003, I had some soul searching to do. Do I tone down my material and get back to the agent/tv/corporate friendly act which was the traditonal road to financial security in the comedy world or do I take my sacking as an opportunity to travel further into the heart of Australia in search of wilder crowds and more exciting humour!?
Dave the bouncer answered my dilemna for me. He told me after I was sacked how he was the bouncer at The Albion every week of the night and my night was the only night he'd never seen a a fight.'
I was still on the right path', I thought

* Reconaissance mission.
To check though whether touring the country was for me , I booked a three month road trip out to Adelaide thru Broken Hill, up to Darwin across to Townsville and back down to Sydney. I rang up a heap of pubs, sent out some posters and got enough gigs to cover petrol and food money for the trip.
When I got back, I got rid of all my stuff I owned in my rented room at Coogee that I couldn't fit in my car and hit the road. I'd found the life for me.
I was 34 and the alternative was sitting around Sydney with other comedians listening to them whinge about shit pay, shit gigs other comedians who were less talented but more famous than them - over a cone, a line or a beer . Pretty soon, I knew I'd be doing the same in order to bond and get some work and thrown my way. I.e I'd be treating comedy like the job I never wanted.
And on a personal note, I was staring at trying to come up with more excuses why I didn't want to do chit chat and get pissed with friends at weddings, engagement parties, dinner parties, kid's birthday parties or house warming parties. Besides, I could no longer afford the presents. The thing that concerned me most though was what was I going to talk about!? I was already finding less and less people interested in my blow-job on stage story while I in turn was becoming less and less interested hearing the details of people's renovations in return. It didn't seem like a fairtrade for either party.
In other words, I knew I had to get out of town soon and hunt for gigs otherwise I'd go mad. Or even worse....start looking for an advertising job.

* T-shirts.
Before I drove around Australia on what I called to myself 'The never ending tour', I knew I needed to have some merchandise to flog after my shows to help increase my income or at least pay for the petrol.
A shirt with a slogan is where all entertainers start. Something smart I thought, perhaps like ‘Ideals: Weapons of mass deception’. In the end I went for a shirt which said ‘I fucked a goat’. I thought it had more universal appeal.
'Why goats?'
'Sheep has racist connations. With cows you need a step ladder to fuck 'em and goats are found in every country. Plus goats are sexy.'
I had my merchandise patter sorted.
I was ready to go.
I gave my fridge, dryer and couches to friends and left my Coogee flat in my Mazda 323 and everything I owned on April 14th, 2004 for what turned out to be a five year oddysey around the forgotten pubs of Australia, 'looking for adventure and whatever came my way'.
The way I got gigs in pubs was simple. I'd just keep driving and pull into every pub in every town I drove through. I'd ask for the decision maker and show them my posters telling them to put them up and for $200, a room and a feed I'd come back with my P.A set it up in the corner of their front bar of the pub and do my stuff for two hours.
About one in every fifty pubs went for it. It was enough to keep me going though.After the gig, I'd normally end up at a local's party and stay there until I headed off again.
On a basic level, I was looking for money for petrol and food to keep me going as I went around Austalia. What I wanted most though was to do the wildest shows I possibly could and to meet people who would spin me out with their outlooks on life.
For five years I slept in pubs, in my car, on the side of roads, in truckstops but mostly in stranger's places who then went onto became my friends by the time the sun was rising. After a while, I felt I was no longer on tour, I was just going around re-visiting my mates.
TO BE CONTINUED....