Part Five of Eight.

* Ponderers.
This it the poster I put up regarding my new non profit business idea in 2008.

The Ponderers:
Meeting every Wednesday, 7:30pm upstairs @ Mars Hill Cafe; 331 Church St, Parramatta. Just turn up and join in!
'The Ponderers' is an idea I got from a country pub in Cranbook, Western Australia. Once a month a group of people (usually about eight of them) would get together in the pub for a chat around a table.
The chat would be over a topic they agreed on at the end of their last meeting. E.g. Love, Happiness, what three things would you bring to a deserted island, drugs, sex... etc whatever.
Anyway, literally anyone can join in the group and the chat goes for an hour or two where everyone gets to have a say and hear each other's opinions. It's very casual. What appealed to me mostly about this was that it was a social outlet that wasn't based around chit chat, status updates or any form of social hierarchy and it wasn't based around getting off your face and picking up. It was just based around hearing different people's opinions on interesting topics in a non-competitive environment (with no political, business or religious agenda), where everyone had an equal time to have their say. That's it, pretty simple, really.
Anyway, the Parramatta Ponderers went like this: Each week from Wednesday 7:30pm til 9:30, we started on a topic. We then usually ended up on several others topics by the end. We then choose the topic which interested us the most and made that the starting point for next week.
The Ponderers went for six weeks in Sydney before I had to leave town again. I wouldn't mind starting it up again somewhere because I thought it was one of the best ideas I've ever stolen.


* Rude! Who me?
I know I'm a rude comedian but criticism that I am too rude still gets under my skin at times. Rude and shocking to me is what is reported on the TV news each night. I don't see how any comedian can possibly compete with that.
The penny finally dropped though that I was the last person in my world to realise I was indeed perhaps a too rude comedian (at times) when I did a gig for an inner west Sydney Aussie Rules club as part of their end of year party.
It was a typical football gig. It was in their changing rooms next to their home ground. About fifty guys were crammed into a concrete block, with a bathtub full of beer in one corner, pizzas in the other corner and meat sizzling outside on the BBQ outside. Salad consisted of a fake wooden bowl filled with crated cheese.
Anyway, I was to come on after two strippers had done their stuff. It was the perfect environment for my act. Low roof and a crowd packed in together which is always good for comedy. Plus I knew that after two strippers and a crowd full of guys I could fully go for it comedy-wise and have full creative licence without being worried that I'd offend anyone - I thought.
The first girl did a standard strip then the second headline stripper did the full ‘pearls and dildo’ show, which culminated in her picking out a young looking guy who was being ribbed by the rest of his team for being a virgin. She then got him to put a cucumber in his mouth and head fuck her with it. Anyway the crowd loved every second of her fifteen minute 'variety act'.
I appreciate a good stripper for totally weird reasons as I've mentioned a few times before. I reckon for a girl to come into a bunch of guys by herself, get naked and have total and utter control of the situation takes looks but also lots of experience as a performer.
Anyway, I came on after the second stripper and delivered to the boys my set, giving them the full force of my most paint stripping punch lines from the kick off whistle.
The second stripper who had done the head fucking act had stayed to watch my act. She was rugged up in the corner in her jacket while I went hard.
Three minutes into my act I looked over at her. She had her mouth covered in a horrified 'Ohh my God, you can't say that it's so rude!' look.
I did a double take to see if she was being serious or not. Her jaw was covering her neck and she was staring at me in wide-eyed disbelief and then lookin around to see if anyone would agree with her before shaking her head and sitting back shrugging her shoulders.
'Life is so strange', I thought as I went into my next dick joke.

* Racism.
Often in the Australian country I'm asked whether I've got any, 'Abo jokes'.

The best 'Abo' joke I ever heard was this:
Q: How does every 'Abo' joke start?
A: By looking over both shoulders.

I have an 'Abo joke'. And I wrote it myself. Here it is:

An Abo was in court in Darwin for stealing a car.
The judge said to him, 'Have you got anything to say for yourself?'
The Abo said, 'Yeah, when I was a kid, you cunts stole me! Weigh that up, Judge!'

I like telling this joke in private to country people who expect and enjoy the joke to be on Aboriginals.
I also like telling it to city people who think that telling jokes which involve Aboriginals is wrong. In my logic of comedy purism, I think the automatic presumption that an 'Abo joke' is going to be derogatory towards Aboriginals is in itself a racist assumption.

In other words not many people laugh at this joke. It's aimed at my prejudices based upon my life experiences and influences. There is no target market for this joke except me really. In other words, it's a verbal wank for me.
When I say a new joke on stage and people laugh, to me it's the crowd saying 'that's universal, keep it'. If no-one laughs its the crowd saying to me 'that's your shit not ours, ditch it'. Developing new material can be painful. An even more painful path though is to sit back do the same jokes to the same crowds and whinge to other comedians about why you're not famous yet. Bitterness can creep in very easy. Especially in Australia where places like the Comedy Store are now paying comedians less money than when it opened in 1980. With conditions like that entropy is natural.
Comedians say that every comedian has got a 100% indulgent joke which they only they think is funny.
A classic sign of a joke that isn't funny is when you have to explain it to people afterwards why it was funny (like my one above).
Comedians never retire. They just start explaining (or defending) their comedy philosophies until no-one books them.
Thanks to comedy festivals though, it's now possible to book yourself, if you've got the cash.
Whatever path you follow in comedy though I don't think there is a wrong or a right way path aside from remembering 'funny is funny'. Listen to the crowd, not anyone else.
If the audience laughs it's funny and if they don't it's not.
Some nights you're hot and some nights your not. And it can be doing exactly the same routine.
And the nights you're not funny always make for the funniest stories later.
It's a weird, fucked up, brutal, beautiful game comedy.
It can totally fuck with your head if you're not careful.
It can also make you feel the rhythms of the universe for fleeting moments when you least expect it.
Anyway, I won't go on with my opinions.
Yes I will.
New comedians have a habit of trying to out funny each other off stage.
Old comedians have a habit of trying to out opinion each other off stage (or in blogs!).
It's what happens while the show's running that counts though.
I wish everyone who heckled me in private straight after my show knew that too.
What a cracker show that would be if everyone yelled back what was in their head immediately!
It could also be the most nightmare gig imaginable.
Opinions are so easy to express when applied to hypothetical situations.
There is no punchline to this story.
And it's why I don't smoke dope much at parties.
I usually chew everyone's ear off until I'm the only one awake talking to myself in a mirror.


* Industrial action.
In Perth in 2007, there was a big rally of people who had gathered to protest about the new John Howard Work Choice Industrial Relations laws that were coming in.
It didn't really affect me as I am really a busker of sorts in terms of earning income from pubs. I declare my income and pay tax (when I earn enough) but my pay doesn't come with any industry conditions or pay levels. No industrial relations laws really affect me nor can.
Anyway, I thought I'd join in the march throughout the Perth CBD, coz it was a sunny day, I normally do a walk each day plus I thought it was an interesting way to tap into the current zeitgeist of the time, at a time when John Howard was about to be unelected as Prime Minister after eleven years in government.
All different unions were marching under the one protest. I ended up marching under the metal union banner for no particular reason other than I wanted to be part of the whole rally.
It was fun feeling like I belonged to something bigger than myself, and I got into the group mentality as I walked along looking at all the city worker ‘sheep’ looking on at us in bemusement in their suits from the sidewalks as we walked past yelling out our chants for better conditions. That was until I saw a guy walking the other way through the crowd.
The image in a weird way, reminded me of the guy in Tiananmen Square who got on top of a tank in 1989.
This guy in 2007 had no shoes or top on, he wore just jeans and he was holding up his finger at every one of us while he walked right through the middle of the whole rally, saying 'Unions just end up being as corrupt as any government is'.
I was gob smacked and immediately thought of the MEAS incident I'd had twelve years earlier. Yet here I was marching with a whole lot of union organised protesters against the unfair policies of the government. The words from one lone man walking against the tide of thousands of union members took me out of the rally. I slipped into a cafe, grabbed some water and looked on at the protesters like one of the bemused 'sheep', I had been looking upon in disdain from the chanting mob, five minutes earlier.

* 4C Tours.
This is a business idea proposal I had in 2008 which I advertised in pubs and over the internet:

I’ve noticed a lot of women in Sydney these days complain about how all the men seem to be either gay or married.
I keep telling them, ’get out to the country, it’s a sausage factory out there’.
Anyway, I’m a doer not a talker so I have come up with the idea of starting Jimbo’s ’City Cunt Country Cock’ tours.
I’m trialling the first one on Saturday March 29th.
I’m hiring a bus and taking city chicks from Sydney, up to my mate’s ’Gibbo and Colleen’s’ Paxton Hotel (Google it) in the lower Hunter Valley, for the night to meet some real country blokes.
Blokes who are real shy before their tenth beer (there will be no poofter wine drinkers in this pub), funny and charming from beer 10 to 15 and incoherent and useless thereafter.... but with hearts of gold. Word has gone out and all the Paxton boys are keen, pumped and prepared to shower and wear their good work gear on the 29th.
Please note. The men at this pub are not desperate for women. They’re just desperate to meet women who aren’t related to them. Just like city chicks aren’t desperate for men, they’re just bored with guys who look in the mirror more than they do.
Anyway, I reckon there’s going to be some meeting of the minds on this tour and who knows? Maybe a pregnancy? The bus will leave from Kings Cross (outside ’Bar Me’ cnr Brougham and William st), midday on March 29th for the two hour trip north to Paxton (near Cessnock) and comes back the next day when my mate ’Wayne’ sobers up enough to drive the bus.
I’ll be your tour guide throughout the weekend. This will include me MC-ing the ’City cunt, country cock’ special dating game called ’Perfect snatch’ - which will be a great way to break the ice with the locals. The trip will include dinner and breakfast, accommodation on top of the pub with three to a room (whoever pulls a root gets the double bed) and transport there and back to Kings Cross plus two complimentary songs on the juke-box*.
Pig hunting at 3am and dirt bike riding back to the pub in the morning is also available for the more ’adventurous’ city girl.
Anyway it should be a top night. There are 16 spots available for $100. There is an age restriction though. All girls must be over 18 and under 100. Please note, me and my mate ’Wayne’ are prepared to shag anyone who doesn’t pull a root but only as a last resort**. This trip is all about a cultural exchange between city girls and country guys, so we will be strongly encouraging all girls to sample the local produce in order for the ’City cunt, country cock’ tours having the best chance of being invited back to the same pubs on future trips.
I’m serious about this. First Sixteen ladies to contact me, get a ride. Otherwise turn up a Bar Me before Midday on March 29th and try your luck.
* From ’The Proclaimers’ back catalogue.
** Chicks over 80 will be required to remove dentures.

Little known facts about country towns (like Paxton) where there’s a serious chick drought.
1) While there may seem to be not enough girls for the guys, there’s usually a few chicks in these towns rooting about twenty blokes each which evens things out a bit.
Which in reality makes country chicks a lot scarier to city chicks than the country guys?
It’s also why there are very few brothels in the country. One recently opened up in Cobar. It didn’t last long though, due to the working girl’s being run out of town by some of the local chicks. Their argument was, ’Why should these girls get paid for rootin’ guys we fuck for free?’
2) Country guys appreciate all woman’s company because it’s so rare. Therefore if a guy physically or sexually mistreats a girl, especially in public in these towns, there are usually about ten other guys wanting to step in, be a hero and beat the shit out of the guy mistreating the girl... in order to maybe get a chivalry root out of her later off down the track or off any other girl who hears about the story at the local supermarket the following Monday.
This fact alone makes country pubs a very safe place for women to let their hair down and enjoy themselves.
3) Male suicide is unusually high in the bush. The main group killing themselves aren’t middle aged farmers who have gone broke though. Its late teenage/early 20’s guys who emotionally find the break-up of their first childhood romance extremely hard to deal with. Especially as their old girlfriend’s new romance is usually played out right in front of them each weekend at the local pub.
As one broken-hearted guy once bitterly lamented to me over his twentieth beer, ’In this town, you don’t lose your girlfriend, you just lose your turn’

First ’City Cunt Country Cock’ Tour (29/3/08) report:
There was a lot of interest for my 4C Tour idea from the ladies but only one chick who put her hand up and said ’I’ll come up to check it out’. One person on the tour, ended up being a blessing in disguise for me though because I couldn’t afford a bus and my mate Wayne told me he had a ’dead cert’ lined up Saturday night and so couldn’t make it either. Anyway Charlotte, an ex-girlfriend’s sister ended up coming up to check the joint out.
She said she’d shown my facebook spiel around to a few of her single friends at the Flight centre place where she works and the feedback was this: It sounds like fun but when it comes down to the crunch, how do we know we’re not going to be molested by a three-toothed unemployed country Hick.
I ensured Charlotte that most of the blokes in Paxton have at least five of their own teeth still left which doesn’t include any of their mate’s teeth which can still be occasionally found in their forearms.
So the first 4C tour ended up being a bit of a reconnaissance mission, on the condition that I drove Charlotte back that night coz she had something on in the morning. I was stoked. My 4C tour idea was underway and hopefully from there the work of mouth amongst single chicks in Sydney would flow quicker than tissue paper sales at the local Paxton corner store.
After a two and a half hour drive and a great travel chat which included a dispute over how stoned I was the last time we saw each other (at her sister’s 21st birthday party fifteen years ago), we arrived at the Paxton pub.
We were instantly greeted by ’Haydo’ aka ’Paxton Batchelor of the year 2008’. Haydo is, twenty years old, a diesel fitter at the local mine, 150kegs and a heart bigger than Phar Lap, not to mention a few other body parts, like his ears.
I told him ’look Haydo, I know I promised you a busload of chicks but instead on this first 4C tour, I’ve bought quality not quantity’.
And like a gentleman Haydo then ignored me and put his hand out to Charlotte and said ’Owyagoing?’
We were then greeted inside by the publican’s ’Gibbo and Colleen’. I’d met Gibbo and Colleen in 2004 when I did a show at the Molong RSL, just outside Orange. Gibbo bought one of my ’I fucked a goat’ shirts that night and then said to me ’You know what I like about these shirts Jimbo - it basically says I don’t give a fuck about what you think about me’".
I then gave Gibbo a big hug and said, ’You understand the deeper underlying philosophical meaning of these shirts, Gibbo’. And we’ve been great mates ever since.
They’ve managed three different pubs throughout NSW since then and wherever they are, always put me up give me a gig.
Gibbo and Coll, then gave Charlotte a big hug too and said welcome to the Paxton pub! Gibbo then went onto explain that there are ’no dickheads in this pub because we don’t allow them in’. He then showed us the long handle axe he keeps behind the bar just in case they do sneak in. Gibbo then let out one of his legendary laughs.
Terry Batu was doing a solo gig in the corner of the pub which has a wraparound bar. Terry is a legend guitar player and can even play the national anthem with his tongue plucking the strings. He’d driven seven hours to this gig from a West Wyalong gig, the night before. He had to drive via Sydney, to feed his dog.
Gibbo then took Charlotte on a tour of the pub upstairs. Charlotte was impressed. It’s a lovely old style pub with a huge sweep around balcony looking out onto the forests. Perfect, I suggested for the girls to chill, taste the local wine and have a giggle.
Gibbo explained that there’s only a shared bathroom but it’s clean and has got plastic flowers in it, plus pink hand towels to make the chicks ’feel at home’.
Charlotte commented that these old style type of pubs are really only in Balmain in Sydney now and the upstairs accommodation in these pubs is always now replaced by pool table rooms and extra bars.
Gibbo sucked back on his cigarette and said, ’Yeah, I know. Fuckin’ poofters pubs in Sydney. The lot of ’em’.
Charlotte then asked if there any gay guys in Paxton. Gibbo said, "Look there are a couple of gay guys who live in the hills who pop in every now and then for some piss but these guys are not ’poofter Gay guys’, they’re ’good bloke gay guys’. Other than that pretty well most of the guys are single here. In fact the people getting the most action in this town are the married women who take in a bit of the overflow on the side from the excess of young cock in the area".
It seems by all accounts that Paxton is a town where heaps of guys come into town to work in the nearby mines and heaps of girls leave once they’re 18 to chase the big, bright, lights of nearby towns like Cessnock.
Back downstairs, one of the local girls said, ’Most of the guys in Paxton only get laid when they go into Newcastle and visit a brothel every time they have a win on the punt.
All the chicks leave because the guys are no good’, to which Haydo and his mate Swampy then chipped in, ’How do they know we’re no good when they don’t even give us a go before they piss off?!’
With that there was a bit of an awkward silence and Haydo and Swampy went to the bar to get another drink. I asked Swampy how he got his name. He said because there’s a swamp in Paxton.
I then said "yeah but how did you get the name Swampy though?’
He then said his Old Man used to be a good football player in the local football team which are known as ’The Paxton Swamp Wallabies’.
’And so yeah, I got the name Swampy’ he added.
Anyway it made sense to me. And it also made me think, how hard it must be coming out of your father’s shadow when you’re Dad was such a legend footy player. Apparently Swampy’s dad nearly made it into the regional team.
Charlotte was telling me on the way up to Paxton that a lot of Sydney Chicks were into RSVP.com dating. I enquired with Haydo if he knew what RSVP was. He took a sip of his beer and said, ’that’s something you put on the end of a letter or something, isn’t it?’
I then asked him whether he gets on the internet much. And he said he doesn’t know how to get into it.
’Have you got an email address?’ I asked.
He said ’Na, I can fix a four tonne truck but computers don’t interest me’.
For a young bloke Haydo had done well. He was on $140,000 at the local mine. He said he worked ’four days on, four days off’.
Charlotte asked him what he does in his spare time to which Haydo replied, ’Ohh, you know, I come down here to the pub a bit, do a bit of banking and stuff while the shops are open, help my old man out and you know... I just live my life the way it’s meant to be lived. You know, without rushin’ around and stuff’.
And that to me summed up the Paxton fella. A good bloke, straight up with every one, with time on his hands to listen and help people out especially a women who wants a bit of attention.
He then complained about how chicks who come in here just use the blokes. ’The last barmaid left to go to Scone’, he said. ’I helped her pack, drove me truck up there, unpacked all her stuff and got her into her new house and haven’t heard a word her since. Jimbo, she used me. And not in the good way I wanted to be used either’.
Haydo then went to the bar and got another beer. There were a lot of other eligible bachelors at the pub as well. Including Trent who ’paints and does heaps of stuff for a job’. There was also Claus from Germany who was visiting the place where he was an exchange student fifteen years ago.
I did a bit of a set on the microphone explaining to the crowd how my ’City Cunt Country Cock’ idea was just kicking off and that next Saturday April the 5th, I’d hopefully be bringing up more girls so don’t forget to treat in them in the same lovely way, which they’d all treated Charlotte. I then drove Charlotte home to Sydney.
She said she’d had a top night and would see if she could convince some of her friends to come back with her next week.
Fingers crossed! Footnote: Saturday, April 5th is the next tour to Paxton Pub. City chicks, let me know if you’re interested. Who knows, we might even get two car loads this time! www.jimbo.com.au
Anyway, no-one turned up and I put Jimbo's 'City cunt, country cock' business idea on the backburner!

* Dinner parties.
I live a good life. Most of my life as a clown though is very simple and boring despite a few highlights which I’ve put in this book.
In fact the main reason I've written this book is that my stories are basically my biggest and only assets apart from my health, family and friends.
Which makes me feel really awkward/bored at dinner parties and some social functions sometimes because the things a lot of people inevitably talk about like marriage, kids, their job and their things have nothing to do with me and also provide no segue into my life which most conversations between people ebb and flow between.
I don't mind listening to people talk about their stuff especially if they enjoy listening to my stuff as well in return. That too me is how friendships are maintained no matter how different your lives are. Often though i find this balance out of kilter in some company which makes me start to feel real self conscious when the talk goes to domestic matters and I'm trapped at the gig!
I don't feel self conscious in that I'm embarrassed about not having much of a domestic life to talk about but self conscious in that 'Is it becoming obvious that I'm being really quiet. Do I sound uninterested shy or perhaps even arrogant by not saying anything? And what can I talk about which won’t sound like I’m on stage?'
Anyway, I think I best describe this feeling in one of my favourite onstage stand-up gags which borders on self therapy for me.
This is how the routine goes:
At one point at a friend's dinner party after I hadn't spoken for about twenty minutes of table banter, I suddenly interrupted and said, 'Is it alright if I talk about myself for a bit?'
To which the table said 'Yeah sure, Jimbo'.
I then said, 'Well on the weekend, 'I stuck my cock up a goat!'.
To which someone at the table said, 'That's really funny Jimbo but we didn't really need to hear that'.
I then said, 'Well I didn't really need to hear about the new blue taps you bought last week for your bathroom to match your tiles, did I? But when you told me about the new blue tiles you bought, I said 'Fantastic' because I'm polite. And then I asked you 'where did you eventually find the blue tiles?' You then told me about the three hardware stores you went to until you found them just before the shops shut at 5pm’, to which I said, 'that was lucky!'. But when I told you about the goat I fucked on the weekend, not only did you shut me down but you didn't ask me any leading questions at all, like, 'What did the goat look like?', 'Are you going to see it again?', 'Did you stick your thumb up it's arse?', which to me makes you, a bit of a RUDE CUNT!. Anyway, I don't get invited to dinner parties much these days....’


* Injury
At the beginning of 2008, my Mazda 323 which I'd driven hard for five years doing about 70OOO kms a year was on its last legs. The back right hand side was a mess.
The previous year I'd had a little accident with it. I'd done a three day haul down from Darwin to Perth. All day, I’d driven and most of the nights too. I was basically just stopping for food, toilet and sleep. On the day I'd arrived in Perth, I stopped off in a small town in the Northern Part of the W.A wheat belt.
Anyway, I'd bought a bottle of water and was drinking it while relaxing next to my car which was parked beside the town park. A few kids were playing with a football. I sat there admiring how much fun they were having before I started thinking, I probably looked a Paedophile. There were two boys and one girl playing together. They were about eight. One of the boys then kicked the ball high into the air over the other boys head.
He followed the ball watching it while running and turning around and running towards it. And then 'smack'. He ran into a tree, face first - at pace.
I remember thinking 'ouch!' that would have hurt' and trying not to laugh. Then about thirty seconds later I noticed he hadn't moved. I then got rid of my paranoia about what it looks like going up to a bunch of kids in a park as an out of town male and ran up to the kids.
The kid was on the ground, he was conscious and the other boy was saying 'he won't get up'.
I then asked the kid what was wrong. He said his neck hurt. I then asked him whether he could move his arms and legs which he seemed to be able to. I then asked him whether his parents were about. I was told his mother worked at the Cafe, so I told the injured kid to sit still and don't move. I then went on a wild goose chase from the cafe to the shops to the pub only to find out that his only relative in town had knocked off work and gone to the races that afternoon, so I went back to the kid who said he was still in pain but hadn't moved yet.
I then asked the kids if there was a hospital about. The hospital was a small one down the road. I ran down and told them what had happened. They immediately wheeled out their ambulance and headed down 'just in case'.
I was by this time back at my car, knowing I couldn't do anymore. I watched on though from a distance. By this time there was a crowd of 20 people around the car and the ambulance guys were putting a neck brace around the kid and sliding a stretcher carefully under him.
As they finally slid him into the back of the ambulance, I hopped into my car thinking, 'My job is done in this town!' and drove off.

* Car crash
That night I eventually got into Perth late at night after three solid days of driving and not talking to anyone except service station attendants and the odd ambo and injured kid. I didn't know anyone well enough to call at Midnight for a couch so I decided to just crash out in my car in Fremantle. There was so much stuff in my car between the speakers, and the t-shirts and DVD's I was selling which meant that the best position for me to sleep was to roll my swag over the top of them all. I'd done this many times before and it was generally no hassle. I'm lucky in that I'm a good sleeper and can pretty well do it anywhere no worries, especially if I'm tired.
Perth was about 15 degrees colder than where I'd been in Darwin three nights before though and at about 3am I woke up and decided to give the warm air conditioner a bit of a blast through the car. As I slipped out of my swag and into the front seat, I undid the handbrake to give my legs a bit of manoeuvring room to get into the front, not knowing I hadn't left the car in gear.
The car then started sliding backwards while I was half asleep and while the handbrake was buried half way under my swag. I knew it wasn't good as the car picked up pace and then all of a sudden I heard my car go 'Bang'. I jumped out. I didn't care about my car, just the car behind. Somehow it was untouched and my car was in the corner of the road all smashed up. I couldn't work it out.
Then a lady appeared from up ahead. What had happened was that I'd slid into an oncoming car which happened to be puttering up the road on this quiet Fremantle Street at 3am. If I hadn't hit her car my car would have rolled 15 more metres downhill all the while gathering more pace before it hit a wall - much harder than that kid had hit the tree. Was this karma for helping the kid I wondered, trying to look on the bright side?
I then noticed I'd collected the front corner of her car and every panel down it. I then started explaining to the poor lady while in my beanie, pants and no socks, that I was sleeping in my car and how it all happened. We exchanged details. At the time I wasn't sure if I was insured which I later on found out I was, so she was okay from a money point of view though. It wasn't okay for the back of my car though which I didn't have the money to fix. Being broke is one thing. You've still got your freedom when you're broke. Owing people money is a completely different world which I didn't want to go into though. Thats when you become a slave, I always thought.

* Backyard panel beater.
I ended up just jamming some garbage bags into the back mess of my car and taping it on with gaffa. It looked like a nappy that had been put on by a three year old. That was until I met my mates Gleny and Dougie back up North in Fitzroy Crossing three weeks later. Dougie is a backyard mechanical whiz. Over a camp fire one night he pulled out the broken metal, did some soldering, shoved some reinforced steal in behind it and then sealed over my light with some old red light gels from his band gear. Somehow, five hours and ten beers later he'd got my car back to having half a chance of looking like it was roadworthy.

*Cops.
I then drove to the east coast for six months chasing gigs over there. I got pulled over one night by some NSW cops. They asked me what was up with the back. I went into as spiel about how the light works and I how there were no sharp edges sticking out but was cut off by the cop who went, 'No mate, I just want to know what happened!'
He reminded me of the bikie whom I’d done the same thing too, years earlier. I was doing the same thing where I was talking to the uniform instead of the person in it. I then realised the two cops were just two 25year old blokes, no different from the guys in most of my shows. I told them what I did for a living and then gave them both an 'I fucked a goat' stubbie holder.
They were stoked and I realised I was on a good wicket with my car as cops on the east coast didn't seem to bother with defecting W.A cars because it was too much paper work. Plus the W.A rego each year only required payment and no pink slip or roadworthy slip each year which my car would have definitely failed if it was checked over.
Plus my rego papers and fines in W.A went to a dumpster. The year before I'd tried to get my rego in W.A after a cop in Corrigin suggested I do it after seeing my NSW plates repeatedly for a year. I thought it was a good idea too coz it was cheaper. So I went to the W.A rego office in Fremantle. They said I needed an address. I had been technically homeless for a few years not though. So I told them I was living in a pub in Fremantle and kept on going back to tell them. Finally they accepted a letter from the publican saying it was where I lived. I think they gave me my W.A rego just to get rid of me.
Anyway, I then had a W.A address. The next week, all the boarders in the pub were kicked out coz the owners were bulldozing The Rose Hotel to make way for a new development. Anyway, the skip outside is where my rego and speed camera fines subsequently went I presume.

* Death of my Mazda.
By mid 2008, I decided my Mazda had to go though, even by my rego standards. It was too old and the petrol cost too much. I got $300 from the wreckers in Ryde, Sydney for it.
My VB money was now well and truly gone. I'd been on zero money for a couple of years now and I became used to living like most people seem to in the Austalia: form one pay packet to another.
I realised too, as a bloke with not dependants, it's not all that bad being broke, it's just something you just get used to more than anything.
Whenever I got broke I just got rid of another thing. I then found I was saving money on insurance or running costs or something and could keep going. I felt like in many ways, I felt I was in a hot air balloon continually chucking things out so my 'career' of doing uncensored comedy could keep flying.

* Mad Maxine - The Landcruiser.
In the meantime, my mate clown mate Dave had been telling me for years how he drove his old Landcruiser on used vegetable oil which he picked up from takeaway places. Doug in Karratha also did it and had a spare truck for sale. I flew into Karratha in April 2008 for a run of gigs and picked it up. I had no idea about what was under the bonnet.
Doug explained it all to me, 'it's just the fuel line you have to remember about Jimbo'.
For two days I listened to every word Doug said to me, knowing I was about to do a run of gigs inland on some of the most deserted roads in Australia.
The rig worked like this: It had a couple of 44 galloon drums on the back which was full of vegetable oil, giving it a range when it was full of over 2000kms. It had a fuel line dropping from just off the back of one of the veggie oil 44 gallon drums into the back fuel tank of the Landcruiser. The front fuel tank I kept on diesel. I started the engine each day on diesel and then swapped the lever beside my seat over to the back veggie tank two kilometres down the road and kept it on veg all day, even when I stopped and started. For the last few kms of every day, I swapped it back to diesel as diesel didn't clog up the fuel lines over night and was easier to ignite in the morning than veg oil which worked best when the engine was warm. Especially as diesel engines ignite on compression not spark plugs.

So basically once I got my head around all this technical talk I (which previously I would have just zoned out when hearing), the payoff was I could do a thousand kilometres each day and it would only cost me about 50 cents in diesel. Perfect for a comedian touring around Australia in. I really should have done it earlier if I'd listened a bit more. Dave had been telling me about it for years. Plus it was so much fun driving ‘Mad Maxine’.
I broke down occasionally in Outback W.A but it seemed every time I opened the bonnet, someone would pull over next and help me out and tell me how to bleed the clutch fluid or something while telling me eagerly 'I used to work on these cars'.
It seems, particularly in the outback, basic mechanical knowledge is what most blokes have. Not only that but they actually find it an enjoyable challenge to find out what's wrong with someone's vehicle broken down on the side of the road. All you've got to do is put your bonnet up and someone will stop, I found.
Many a time I found myself explaining to diesel mechanics how my veggie car ran to their amazement and also my amazement that they were listening to me talk about cars. And in return I asked them about what my truck needed elsewhere. I learnt heaps and became slightly proficient in car maintenance which was a big thrill to a clown who thought he was hopeless in this area.
I drove 30000kms around W.A in it on this tour. Picking up oil was easy. Most people in outback towns are a bit wary of 'Greenies' though. Many a time I had to explain to someone in the front bar when they saw my rig, 'I'm not a greenie, I'm just broke, that's why I run it on Vegetable oil'.
To which the reply would be, 'Ohh yeah no worries mate, the chef's over there, just ask him, there's plenty of oil out the back.'
The amazing thing for me was that not only was my fuel free from pubs I went to but I was using for fuel something that most places paid someone to take away. I was in fact doing most cafes/pubs a favour by taking their waste. There were some places where it was hard to find because of other people doing the same thing but having two barrels on the back of truck meant I could go a long way without needing to find waste veggie oil.
Often when I did need oil though, I'd find somewhere to fill up a whole barrel which then took me over 1000kms before I needed to start looking seriously again.

* Great Sandy Desert.
In August, my mate Dave flew into Karratha for a two week holiday. I told him I wanted to drive from Karratha to Alice Springs across the Great Sandy Desert with him on veg oil. I knew I had to give him something interesting to take on for him to take time off from his fireman job for. It was 1500kms straight across from Newman to Alice Springs. We knew we had the range. Dave bought his gun and we had a crack.
Three days into the trip, Dave shot a camel and we ate it (not all), round a campfire at a desert billabong we'd found on a part of the road where we hadn't seen anyone for two days. I'm not sure I'd be involved in shooting a camel again and I'm not too sure where we stood on the political spectrum of political correctness. It all joins up if you go to the extremes though. Here we were travelling across the desert on used vegetable oil, drinking bore water and eating meat from animals we'd hunted. Dave even suggested we boil up some of the camel fat and run the car off that which he said was possible. He said apparently a boat had just sailed around the world using fuel which included human fat from liposuction.
We also dropped into a few remote aboriginal communities across the way and did some impromptu clown shows just like we used to over twelve years ago in NSW. We heard tales in the communities about how apparently there are underground caves under the desert and that's where the Aborigines survived the last few ice ages. We also dreamed about storing some drums full of oil out here and sprout seeds in case some Armageddon happened or something less serious like the power grid went down.
'What would people do if power went off for a long time?', we mused amongst many other travel chats while staring out at what was probably one of the most isolated places on the planet, short of Antarctica.
Most people in cities would have about three days food and about 300kms in their tank we imagined. Not us. We also talked about the people around Australia who were supposedly running their car off water after they'd split the hydrogen and water through electrolysis via the battery unit. Apparently is was a word of mouth thing going around Australian towns. We agreed our next mission was to find someone who did it and run our trucks off water. I couldn't see why it wasn't possible though. Running a car for free of used veggie oil was possible. Most people don't believe it though. I didn't until I needed it.
After a few days, Dave said he wanted alcohol so we fanged it across the last bit of the desert only stopping to sleep. We then drowned a few well deserved beer in Bojangles nightclub in Alice Springs. We hadn’t showered in five days. Luckily they still had the same door policy as when I first went in four years before.
That night was huge. We got drunk (or at least thought we were on watered down rums from the bar) and ended up crashing at someone's place at the casino. When we woke up we walked down to the Todd River and saw all the Aboriginals camping in the river bed and realised outback town like Alice Springs were magnets for all the people in the surrounding outback areas to come to and get on the piss from areas where they'd been - which was invariably places without much alcohol or people.
Most of the whites mainly got pissed in bars, and the casino and crashed out after doing their laughing, fighting, loving and sleeping behind the closed doors of houses and hotels. Most of the blacks got pissed beside the river and did their, laughing, fighting, loving and sleeping in public. What a world of difference in people's perspective it is between sipping wine in a restaurant with well dressed company compared to sipping wine by yourself on a park bench in jeans. A bit like the difference between someone in a park feeding stale bread to pigeons and someone ten metres away feeding stale bread to swans. Surely, at the end of the day they're the same thing though!?
The next night was the last night before Dave flew back to Sydney. We lost each other like blokes do when out on the town. He ended up sleeping under a bridge in his swag. I crashed out in the truck.
I was woken up by Dave's booming laugh in the morning. He was rummaging through his bags which I was on top of 'fuck Jimmy, can you move a bit, I just remembered the rifle you've been sleeping on is still loaded!'.

* Winging it.
As usual for 2008, I'd woken up with no money but I had a gig that night which was going to turn things all around - I remember thinking to myself again!
This time I was in Perth and I had to get to Geraldton that night. The gig at Breakers Tavern, Geraldton was always my biggest gig in the country. It was a straight $10 door charge and usually at least 100 people turned up, thanks to the staff putting out the word but also because the local newspaper always did an article which publicised the event.
No other local newspaper around my country talked about my show, honestly like the articles I got in the Gero Guardian each time.
I asked the journo once how he got his articles through where he generously wrote that there would probably be burning pubes on stage etc.
'Just got to give it to the right editors at the right time', he said.
Anyway, I'd just had the Pittman Rod on my veggie oil landcruiser replaced after my uncle Phil, who is a mechanic, told me it was about to snap when I'm met him in a caravan tour of Australia he was doing. He'd been on tour with his wife and we met up when we had passed through Albany (at the bottom of W.A) at the same time.
He said over a bbq one night, 'it's worn and if it snaps you'll probably run into on-coming traffic'.
'That was a week and 500kms ago', I remembered thinking in Perth.
The quote the local Midas mechanic had given me was $120. I had $127.
‘I can do this’, I thought.
When I picked the truck up though he said, I needed a wheel alignment to complete the job which was another $53 and it needed to be done somewhere else because they were shutting for the day.
I had seven dollars. Across the road was miraculously a St George bank that I was with. Miraculous, because it's an eastern state bank.
I then went across and withdrew the last of my $3.53 from the lady behind the desk, leaving 1 cent for a rainy day. I had about $11 now. I then walked around to all the wheel alignment places I could find trying to suss out if there were some young fellas in there who looked like they'd appreciate a few 'I fucked a goat' t-shirts.
From years of doing shows, I could pick straight away any guy who’d like them. None of the places I asked though had any room that day for a spare car booking. And that was before I'd asked them how I was going to pay for it.
Finally I found a place that could do it that day. I bargained the guy down to $45. The guy at the counter was a very straight looking middle aged guy though.
I knew I had to give it a shot despite it being a long shot.
'I needed to get to Geraldton without veering off the road on the way there', I thought before hitting him up.
'Mate, I've got $11. Is there anyway I can pay for the rest of the wheel alignment with two 'I fucked a goat' t-shirts and a couple of 'I fucked a goat' stubbie holders... I'm sure the boys out the back would like them?' I pleaded optimistically.
There was a long silence. The guy then looked at the merchandise I'd put on his desk and then at me. 'My son's password on his X-box machine is 'goatrooter'. He'll love this. Take your truck around the back', he said.
'Life was too easy', I thought. I then drove my grease and dirt covered jalopy around the back.
'We need to weigh the truck to get the right wheel alignment', said the guy looking at the two 44 gallon drums on the back of my rig.
I then told him how I store my veggie oil fuel in there and there's always anywhere in between 0 and 410 litres of veggie oil in it at time.
He scratched his head and said, 'I'll make it out to be in the middle but I'm glad you're driving this heap of shit not me!’
I got to Geraldton. The hostel owner gave me free accommodation in exchange for a ticket, the pub gave me a free feed, the show went off and I drove away with $1000 in my pocket and a drum full of fuel from the bistro. Life indeed was too easy, I thought to myself again that day.
'Shark Bay, here I come!', I yelled to myself as I felt the excitement yet again of rolling out of own town and going onto the next town not quite too sure what was going to happen next.

* Paradise.
The gig at Shark Bay the next night wasn't full of 100 people paying $10 to see my comedy act. It was full of about three people who hadn't heard of me before and who weren't going to pay for any entertainment in their local pub - ever! The publican apologised for the crowd no show but said I could stay for four nights in the pub in return for me not earning any money.
The pub was right on the beach in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. A true World Heritage listed wonderland. My next show was in Karratha a week later. I could swim with the dolphins in the meantime and see if any locals had any chip oil to get me outta here in four days.
Plus there were some pretty backpacker girls everywhere. ‘Ohh for some good lovin’, I thought.

* Bush Fire.
In January 2008, I drove down to Melbourne from Canberra to see my girlfriend Lou who’d travelled around Australia with me for six months a couple of years earlier. At the last minute I decided to take the coast road into Melbourne via Bega. The day I drove through the National Park from Bega was the hottest day I could remember from being on the road in five years.
I remember thinking it was even hotter than when Dave and I were in the middle of the Great Sandy Desert.
My truck, 'Mad Maxine' is a slow old girl which sits on about 100kms max an hour. To speed cameras it was invisible. On this day, I remember too as I drove through about 100kms of bushland how few cars there were on the road. A few were coming towards me every now and then but strangely none were passing me. I remember thinking too, 'gee, I'd be pretty unlucky now if there was a bushfire, especially with 500 litres of cooking oil in the back of my truck and no-where to go but into miles of bushland either side of the road.'
Mostly though, I was just thinking how good it would be now to have a radio that worked. Later that evening at about 6:30pm, I eventually got into the town of Sale in Victoria and was stopped by a police road block. They told me there was no road into Melbourne that night because of bushfires. I slept in my truck.
At about midday the next day the roads were finally opened and by then I was aware I was 24hrs off driving into Australia's biggest ever single day death toll from bushfires. If it'd been where I was driving I would have been incinerated like so many others had in their car that day a couple of hours ahead of me.
I didn’t see the full extent of the damage the next day but I drove into Melbourne past many a house that had burnt down.
In Melbourne, indeed all around the world, everyone was talking about the bushfires and how terrible they were. Three days later on the Tuesday, I was offered a ten minute spot at a friend's comedy room on Smith st.
The one condition was, 'Jimbo, no jokes about the bushfires, it's too soon'.
I couldn't help it though. In comedy you have to address what's on people's minds and lance the boil, it's our job - especially if you've got a good one. To get up that day and not at least acknowledge what everyone was talking about all day, to me seemed ridiculous and unprofessional. Plus I wanted to use my joke I'd thought of.
So I opened with, 'Look there's been a lot of appeals to send up some clothes to the bushfire victims. I didn't have any clothes to send up so what I did was send up a bag full of dildo's for all the wives who had lost their husbands'.
As usual I heard those in the crowd who were laughing and not those who weren’t. A few ladies up the front, I could see though were a bit shocked which was perfect for my next gag.
I pointed at them and said, 'now come on ladies, how would you like to masturbate with a burnt stick?’
The crowd again bent over in agony fighting the two halves of their brain. One half that was saying it was very funny and the other that was saying it wasn’t in the slightest bit funny.
The laughter side won though. At least in some of them.
I then got too cocky and tried to tag the joke again with, 'And the worst thing about that would be, when you pulled the stick out, you wouldn't know if they white bit on the end was ash or clitty litter!'.
By this time I gathered the crowd had had enough of bushfire jokes so I moved on to another topic; Global warming and recycling and how I've been getting my girlfriend's tampons and squeezing out the blood for the blood bank.
The crowd seemed a lot more comfortable with this topic.

* Busking.
By late 2008, I had enough gigs in W.A to keep me going but was finding the East Coast tough going, gig wise.
The comedy rooms in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne were still not fans of my style of comedy. At least not fans enough to book me enough to have enough money to stay in the town.
In fact after four years in the bush most new comedians and comedy bookers weren't booking me because they hadn't even heard of me let alone because they were worried about my act being too rough. Plus the type of pubs where I hussled my own solo's shows on the west coast always seemed to be layered with management and rules and hoops when I was on the east coast.
When I spoke to the bar people on the East Coast, they generally had to get another manager, who had to report to another manager who wasn't there at the moment who outsourced all their entertainment through an agency who only put on act which were on their books etc. I was usually just left with a number which lead to an answering machine that didn’t call back.
It was a long slog, especially being an unknown entertainer, whereas in W.A the guy serving the beer behind the bar was usually the guy who ran the pub and made the decisions… on the spot. (And like Woody and Pidge they then went on to become my mates.) Their response on meeting them was more likely to shrug their shoulders and give me a go. On the east coast the only gigs I could really get were through small pubs where I told the owner to put a poster up inside and a bit of chalk work outside and from there ‘I'll come down on the next Saturday, do my act and then put my hat out so don’t worry about paying me'.
One such gig was at Tewantin on the Sunshine Coast. I was staying with my friend Jo who'd just had a baby. She'd pissed the Father of her child off three months ago before her kid was born after finding out about his four other current girlfriends and two ex wives who were chasing him for maintenance.
When she kicked him and all his stuff out onto the street and paid for a removalist van to pick it up, the last thing he yelled from the passenger seat was 'can I still get my mail sent here?'
Anyway I dropped in while in Tewantin to see Jo and for a free, friendly couch in return for learning how to change nappies and burp a kid - which she said was handy while she was out surfing with her mates. It was a fun, hippie-esque house. And her girl Ayla was a magnet for all her childless friends to learn some skills on and fall in love with babies for the first time.
By this time too, on my four year tour, I was craving being longer with people I knew also translated into doing less gigs. In response, I had stopped drinking alcohol at all as well as eating sugar or fatty foods. As much for cost reasons as health. With the money always tight, I was constantly thinking about how I could put the most nutrition into my body for the least cost. And I found it was working for me in more ways than I expected. I was getting healthier, spending less and having time to hang with good friends more in the process. And I wanted to see how much further I could go on this new 'trip'.
And then I went to the Eumundi markets and ran into an old clown mate Craig, who was running a stall up there. Dave had introduced me to Craig years ago. He used to work as a clown as well. Craig then introduced me to sprouts. I did some reading up on it. All you had to do was soak them overnight in water and then put them into a porous bag and dunk them in water two or three times a day. And then in three days time you had food! With three muslin bags which I rotated, I had suddenly found a way to grow my own food while travelling. It was a big revelation and opened up a whole new world to me.
I started mixing up mung beans, alfalfa, lentils, adzuki and chick peas together. The result was technically a whole food, full of protein, carbs, enzymes, vitamins and minerals. I did more reading and realised it was not only the cheapest food but also the most nutritional food you could eat and the easiest to grow plus I could do it from my bag without soil. Taste wise it was fine too. And energy wise, I wasn't having any dips in my day at all.
I hadn't had sugar or salt for ages so my taste buds could taste food now which most people seemed to thing was tasteless. I was pretty proud of myself. I didn't need to do as many gigs to survive now! Life was in many ways getting easier and easier, the less money I had, I thought to myself again.
I really thought I'd gone to the edge and learnt a new life skill which would help me keep going. I still ate other stuff but on most days since then I had for lunch a big bowl of sprouts which cleaned out my insides while giving me super nutrition. I thought I'd found the limit now.

* UT.
And then I met Peter who was into urine therapy! Like I said, Jo had a true hippie house with all sorts of people dropping in. From healers to people who lived on boats. And when you've got time, no deadlines or bills these people become even more interesting.
'No way', I said as Peter explained that he once went on a ten day fast where he had nothing except every drop of his own piss and a couple of glasses of water each day.
'It cured me of hepatitis', he went on.
'I hadn't gone to the edge' I thought while munching on my sprouts. The edge as I was always discovering was a mirage anyway. I then started researching urine therapy through books and the internet while watching Peter drink his own and not die.
All the literature seemed to point to the fact that at the very least it did nothing to you and at the very best it purified your blood and got rid of all toxins in your body.
Pete then told me he was going on another ten day fast soon.
This I wanted to see. Each day he turned up just with his VB stubbie holder which he pissed into and then rinsed out after with water.
I went through all the obvious questions with him and he answered them like he had to a million people before.
'The idea that piss is disgusting is only an idea in your head', he said, 'And just like normal medicine didn't taste so good neither did piss but the healthier you were and the less shit and more raw food you put into your body the better it tasted,' he said. 'Mine just tastes like slightly scented water' he added proudly.
Anyway, after ten days drinking nothing but a glass of water and his own piss, he looked a bit skinnier but other than that he was glowing and seemed fine.
He also said that when goes on this diet he realised how much time he spent each day preparing food, eating it and cleaning up afterwards.
'Not when you're on the piss diet' he added. 'You've got so much more free time!'
It was time for me to try too. I'd done my research and needed to try it. I did it one morning in the shower with a plastic cup. I got it down. One gulp. I couldn't do the second gulp though.
Then I tried it again a week later. Once I got over the mental idea that it was disgusting, I soon fournd it was easy. Especially when I mentally thought how good it was for me.
I don't want to do the ten day diet, unless I get cancer or something but since then I've been having a cup most mornings midstream from my first piss when I remember.
This is meant to be the best stuff full of healthy hormones and anti-cancer fighting shit and will keep your body re-calibrating towards health so 'they say'. And it's worked so far. I haven't been sick since. I don't do it every day or if I've been eating shit and not drinking lots of water. Usually I forget but it's also good for keeping your teeth clean, your gums healthy and it's also good for any skin infection from athlete’s foot to psoriasis. And it perfectly benign and sterile straight from the tap. I won't go on! You get the picture!?
It's not for everyone and I don't want to push it on to anyone cause I know how much I hate when someone tries to convince me that going out and drinking until you spew or until you have a headache the next day is good fun, let alone making me sit through the details including how they 'shaped up' the next day. I'd rather drink my own piss.
I also knew now that if things get really tough gig wise, I could survive on my own pee for ten days and nothing else.
‘How re-assuring is that!’ I thought.
'Why doesn't the medical industry promote this or even do tests on it?' I asked Pete.
‘Because there's no money to be made from it’, Pete said. 'Urine is free. There's not even any storage costs'.
And in that new bit of information on how to live more effectively from Peter I discovered another reason not to start censoring my act in order to get more gigs.
I no longer needed to spend money at pharmacies or doctors as much.

* My last bill.
By this time, the only thing I was now sick of was driving. So I gave Mad Maxine back to my mate Doug to run. I was now down to one bag, I carried around with my clothes, sprouts, water and toothbrush in it.
My contact with people who wanted me now was my jimbo@jimbo.com.au email which was the only thing on my website. I was stripping my life back more and more and just when I thought I'd gone as far as I could, I discovered something else in my life that I didn't really need - my mobile phone.
One day I lost it. I didn’t get a new one. My phone was my last bill too.
My contact with people who wanted me now was my email address.
Without my mobile phone, nothing in my life was was urgent and I loved it.


* The big show offer.
In 2009 my mate Pidge and his wife Jill who ran The Red Sands Tavern in Newman got upgraded to run The Tambrey Centre in Karratha by their management group in Perth.
I'd seen the managers of Tambrey Centre before in 2007 and optimistically asked whether I could perform there. They wouldn't take my show. The managers told me the venue was too upmarket for my style of comedy which they'd heard of from when I performed each time at the The Karratha Tavern.
They had an awesome stage area out the back which could seat 400 people though and I remember eyeing it off jealously and dreaming that one day I'd like to play in the venue.
Pidge knew this and said, 'I'm running the joint now and I want you to do your full uncensored goat fucking cunt licking extravaganza pub show there'.
I was stoked. Not many big venue operators I knew talked like that. This was my chance. I'd had a few goes now at trying to translate my pub show into a theatre show. None of them had worked so far. I was having another shot now though out of the blue when I had little money, thanks to Pidge.
I got up to Karratha a week before the show, this time on a Greyhound from Perth. From now on I was catching buses, trains or planes if I could afford it. Just me, my bag and my sprouts plus a book to which I could now look at when I travelled instead of the road. Plus an empty VB bottle.
I was loving it. I kept on thinking about Bobby McGee’s song, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’.
I was relieved too after giving up my phone. I did love email though. Keeping in contact with my friends wasn't something that I wanted or felt the need to give up. Plus I found just being on email was good for business. Or at least no worse. I didn't have any more tyre kickers now. If someone wanted to book me, they had to email me and ask in writing. Anyone who went to that length I knew wanted me to book me plus for me to do my stuff rather than do an act based on the proviso that I 'tone it down a bit'. In other words my real clients were still in contact with me.

* Goat.
Anyway, when I got to Karratha a week before my show, Pidge had sold about 30 tickets. I knew there was some work to do to get the show sold out, so for the next seven days I went around hassling everyone who came into the pub to buy one of my $10tickets. My main selling point was that they'd see me fuck a goat on stage.
When people don't know who I am, I thought that saying I’d fucked a goat was my best selling point. It worked. Most people bought tickets just to shut me up, I think in the end - plus just in case I did fuck the goat. Who would want to miss that in Karratha?
Two days before the gig, a guy pulled me aside and said, 'You'd better have a goat on stage this Friday. People are expecting it.'
I was relieved he didn't mention anything about me fucking it but I knew I had to at least find a goat and see what happened from there. There weren’t any goats in Karratha, so I drove up to Roebourne which is a town 30kms north of Karratha with Pidge's car and tracked down a lead for a goat.
Sure enough a Grandmother at the back of the Light Industrial Area had a goat. She was there with her Grandson Patrick.
I told them what I wanted their goat for a couple of nights and offered them six tickets and an 'I fucked a goat' shirt in return. They said 'no worries', like I was a neighbour popping in for some sugar.
I was impressed. ‘Who would give away their pet animal goat for two nights to a stranger in exchange for an 'I fucked a goat' t-shirt!?’ I thought driving away with a goat shitting pebbles in the back of Pidge’s wife's (Jill's) car.

* On the piss with my mate.
I don't drink much if at all, as I've mentioned. Most of my good mates are good drinkers though and also guys who have no problem if I don't drink. My viewpoint is respect both ways. If I'm with someone who drinks, my attitude is I don't tell you how much alcohol I think you should drink and you don't do the same with me. The same with urine and sprouts!
If a drinker has this attitude to me I’m fine with them no matter how much they drink. The same with drugs. Each to their own and I'm cool.
On the night before my big show, I went out for a drink with Pidge in Karratha. We got back to his house at about midnight. I'd had about four drinks that night. Not heaps but a lot for me. We then continued outside on the table under his car porch.
After two more beers Pidge then stood up with an empty stubbie holder and abruptly said, 'Fuck it Jimbo, I'm going to drink my own piss'.
I'd been telling him earlier about my urine therapy like I do with all my good friends who are interested in where I'm at.
Anyway, I was shocked to then see him go over to the corner and brim his stubbie with it. No-one I've told had ever tried it before and I didn't expect them too either.
I then finished my stubbie of beer and he did the same.
Anyway, there we were both raising our glasses and having a sip of a full stubbie of our own urine together.
Truly a bonding moment in any man's life!?
Pidge then took another sip and said, 'You know Jimbo, it ain't that bad!'
We then carried on talking as normal for another six drinks together alternating between beers and urine refills.
Finally we went to sleep with Pidge mumbling before he jumped in with his wife who was asleep, 'I'm never going to use the toilet to piss again. I'm gunna drink it all for the rest of my life'.
In the morning Pidge's wife Jill came up to me and said, 'Jimbo when you two get together it's always a big night but what have you done to him? He got up this morning and did a piss in front of me into a schooner glass, drunk it in front of me and then tried to nuzzle up to me for a kiss!'
By the end of that afternoon, Pidge was back pissing into a toilet again. 'It’s just a phase I was going through', he said to his relieved wife before saying to me with his arm around her, 'But what a top night Jimbo!'

* The dream show.
Anyway, the show that night went well. Real well. 400 people turned the venue into a full house. 40 people were turned away and the end product of the show is my DVD, 'Goats need love too' which should hopefully be out soon!?
Anyway after the gig I now had enough money to get to London which was the Mecca for stand-up comedy.
After travelling around Australia for so long I felt I was ready to take on a new country and a new challenge.
That being to see if I could survive and perhaps thrive doing comedy in the U.K after all my years experience doing comedy in what was perhaps the toughest conditions in the world: The frontbars of Outback Australia.
So thanks to Pidge and Jill and their gig which they backed me into doing, I flew to London to give it a crack.


* Pubs in Australia who have let me perform my uncensored comedy show over the years (some even let me back):

The Albion Hotel, Parramatta NSW
Oriental Hotel, Newcastle, NSW
Jolly Frog Hotel, Windsor NSW
Walwa Hotel, Walwa, NSW
The Bull n Bush, Baulkam Hills NSW
Oxley Hotel, Bourke NSW
Coolabah Hotel, Coolabah NSW
Nyngan Bowling, Club, Nyngan NSW
Nevertire Hotel, Nevertire NSW
Pastoral Hotel, Dubbo NSW
Narromine RSL, Narromine NSW
Molong RSL, Molong NSW
Park Hotel, Bathurst NSW
Commercial Hotel, Lithgow NSW
Mitchell Inn, Guerie NSW
Pub in the scrub, Grawin NSW
Courthouse Hotel, Tamworth NSW
The Kurrajong Hotel, Erskinville NSW
New Tattersall Hotel, Glen Innes NSW
Wilcannia Golf Club, Wilcannia NSW
Tollgate Hotel, Parramatta NSW
Coogee Hotel, Coogee Bay NSW
Caledonian Hotel, Singleton NSW
Royal Hotel, Denman NSW
Tourist Hotel, Sandy Hollow, Sandy Hollow NSW
Port of Bourke Hotel, Bourke NSW
Dunedoo Hotel, Dunedoo NSW
Gooloogong Hotel, Gooloogong NSW
West Wyalong Bowlo, West Wyalong NSW
Queensland Hotel, Barmeadman NSW
Cambridge Hotel, Parkes NSW
Vandenberg Hotel, Parkes NSW
Koorawatha Hotel, Koorawatha NSW
Gardeners Inn, Blackheath NSW
Australian Hotel, Young NSW
Town House Hotel, Cowra NSW
Wombat Hotel, Wombat NSW
Royal Hotel, Tumut NSW
Canterbury RSL, Canterbury NSW
Musician's Club, Broken Hill NSW
Globe Hotel, Cootamundra NSW
Horse and Jockey Hotel, Tarcutta NSW
Cobar RSL, Cobar NSW
Gulargambone Hotel, Gulargambone NSW
Sandringham Hotel, Newtown NSW
Royal Hotel, Blayney NSW
Post Office Hotel, Grafton NSW
Locomotive Hotel, Junee NSW
Metropolitan Hotel, West Wyalong NSW
Star Hotel, Macksville NSW
Royal Hotel, Temora NSW
Locomotive Hotel, Junee NSW
Boorowa Ex-servo's, Boorowa NSW
ZanZbar, Kiama NSW
Aberdare Hotel, Weston NSW
Paxton Hotel, Paxton NSW
Railway Hotel, Cessnock NSW
Bombaderry Hotel, Bombaderry NSW
Khartoum Hotel, Kitchener NSW
Longueville sporting club, Lane Cove NSW
Albert Hotel, Tamworth NSW
Iron Knob Hotel, Iron Knob SA
Ceduna Hotel, Ceduna SA
Roxby Downs Club, Roxby Downs SA
Opal Inn, Coober Pedy, SA
Yulara Resident's club, Ayers Rock NT
Todd Tavern, Alice Springs NT
Tennant Creek Hotel, Tennant Creek NT
Rorke's Drift, Darwin NT
Noonamah Tavern, Noonamah, NT
Jabiru Golf Club, Jabiru NT
Crossways Hotel, Katherine NT
Squires Tavern, Darwin NT
Howard Springs Tavern, Howard Springs NT
Walkabout Tavern, Nhullenbuy NT
Winnellie Hotel, Darwin NT
Katherine Hotel, Katherine NT
Wayside Inn, Timber Creek NT
Honey Pot Club, Darwin NT
Corroberee Park Tavern, Corroberee, NT
Cecil Hotel, Zeehan TAS
Rocky's Tavern, Rockhampton QLD
Freemasons Hotel, Gympie QLD
Great Western Hotel, Hughenden QLD
Magnum's niteclub, Airlie Beach QLD
Black Nugget Hotel, Moranbah QLD
Leo Hotel, Clermont QLD
Dysart Hotel, Dysart QLD
Calen Hotel, Calen QLD
Central Hotel, Collinsville QLD
Bakers Creek Hotel, Bakers Creek QLD
Whitsunday Hotel, Mackay QLD
Bay Central Hotel, Pialba QLD
Apple Tree Creek Hotel, Apple Tree Creek QLD
Universal Hotel, Warwick QLD
Criterion Hotel, Rockhampton, QLD
Royal Mail Hotel, Tewantin, QLD.
Exchange Hotel, Footscray VIC
Werribee Hotel, Werribee VIC
Victoria Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Sandbar, Mildura VIC
Seanchai Hotel, Warnambool VIC
Elephant and Wheelbarrow, Melb VIC
Carrington Hotel, Geelong VIC
Last Chance Tavern, South Hedland, WA
Corrigin Hotel, Corrigin WA
Albion Shamrock Hotel, Boulder WA
Denver City Hotel, Coolgardie WA
Hordern Hotel, Narrogin WA
Kellerberrin Hotel, Kellerberrin WA
Judd's Hotel, Kalgoorlie WA
Beverley Hotel, Beverley WA
Rocke Inn, Karragullen WA
Club Hotel, Southern Cross WA
Castle Hotel, York WA
Commercial Hotel, Merredin WA
Williams Hotel, Williams WA
Gosnell's Hotel, Gosnell WA
Kondinin Hotel, Kondinin WA
Bruce Rock Hotel, Bruce Rock WA
Settlers Tavern, Margaret River WA
Dunsborough Hotel, Dunsborough WA
Northcliffe Hotel, Northcliffe WA
Nannup Hotel, Nannup WA
Palace Hotel, Wagin WA
Mt Barker Hotel, Mt Barker WA
Cranbrook Hotel, Cranbrook WA
Walpole Hotel, Walpole WA
Katanning Hotel, Katanning WA
The Esperance Hotel, Esperance WA
Brass Monkey Hotel (Laugh Resort), Perth WA
Narembeen Club, Narembeen WA
Kulin Hotel, Kulin WA
Wickepin Hotel, Wickepin WA
Palace Hotel, Ravensthorpe WA
Port Hotel, Hopetoun WA
Norseman Mines & Workers Club, Norseman WA
Broomehill Hotel, Broomehill WA
Albie's Hotel, Busselton WA
Dongara Hotel, Dongara WA
Seabird Tavern, Seabird WA
Club Hotel Mullewa WA
Coral Bay Resort, Coral Bay WA
Beadon Bay Hotel, Onslow WA
Royal Mail Hotel, Meekathara WA
The Lodge, Fitzroy Crossing WA
Iron Ore Bar, Cockatoo Island WA
Tambrey Tavern, Karratha WA
Karratha Tavern, Karratha WA
Red Sands Hotel, Newman WA
Paraburdoo Inn, Paraburdoo WA
Kimberley Tavern, Halls Creek WA
Town Hall Hotel, Wyndham WA
Mojo's, Fremantle WA
Rocke Inne, Boulder WA
Roebuck Plains Roadhouse, Roebuck Plains WA
Boab Inn, Derby WA
Mt Magnet Hotel, Mt Magnet WA
Yalgoo Hotel, Yalgoo WA
Breakers Tavern, Geraldton WA
Gilgai Tavern, Kalbarri WA
Shark Bay Hotel, Shark Bay WA
Gascoyne Hotel, Carnarvon WA
Potshot Hotel, Exmouth WA
Pannawonica Sports Club, Pannawonica WA
Walkington Theatre, Karratha WA
Paraburdoo Bowling Club, Paraburdoo WA
Mountain View Sports Club, Tom Price WA
Matt Dann Cultural Centre, South Hedland WA
Gulliver's Tavern, Kununurra WA


* Hitching.
In between Karratha and London, I went up to do a pre-booked gig at Noonamah Tavern in Darwin though.
Hitching was next and something I'd been getting tips off from my friend Amy who I'd met in Esperance back in 2005.
She had been and still does hitch around Australia with her dog Monty.
'Just stick your thumb out' she said. 'That's all there is to it'.
I was building up to it.
At the gig, I was asked to go down the road to the sky diving convention the next night to do a gig in Batchelor. They paid me the next day by throwing me out of a plane. I then hitched into Darwin from the Stuart Hwy into the airport in Darwin where I was catching my plane from to Brisbane which was taking me to London via Tokyo where I visited Yumi for a week and her pet Ostrich.
The hitch from Batchelor to Darwin was only a small ride but it was my first genuine hitch and Amy said she was proud of me when I told her before saying, 'about time, you hitched, ya soft cock'.
Life again was getting more and more simple and more and more easy and more and more fun while my instincts seemed to be pushing me further to lead the barest existence I could possible find.
In the U.K, I put these skills I learnt to practice when I really needed it. After three weeks in London I ran out of money and couches to stay on and found myself doing unpaid open mic comedy spots while homeless and living on the streets...
To be continued....