My life as a clown

Part Five of Eight.

2010-01-15T07:52:00.000-08:00

* 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....

Part Four of Eight.

2009-12-18T18:33:00.000-08:00

(My life as a clown)

* Granite’s mine
Mining is big in Australia, particularly in Western Australia and The Northern Territory. The promise of good money has lured many a man and women into the industry. The bigger mines have bars called wet messes where they occasionally put on entertainment.
Mines these days aren’t like the Wild West of old. They’re now very institutionalized with strict rules. In return workers get gyms, three cooked meals a day, neat and tidy air-conditioned accommodation, TV's, and great pay (compared to other industries). And in return again they also get kicked out and banned from working at other mines sites in the country if they misbehave (i.e. fighting, failing the morning breathalyser). They even have sexual harassment lectures where people are flown in to teach the blokes how to talk and interact with women. It’s mainly based around what not to say to women. I.e. you can’t say ‘nice ass, Karen’ anymore at the work coffee machine. If reported, you’ll get sacked.
And then someone books me to come in and do an act!
The bigger the laughs I get with my act at mines, the more management sit up the back wondering who is responsible for booking me.
Not many mines have me back twice.
‘He’s just undone every rule that was drummed into the team at great expense at last week’s seminar!’ is what I presume they’re thinking.
Particularly the time where I got the lesbian sexual harassment liaison officer up on stage (whom I later found out everyone was shit scared of because she's so strict) and innocently strapped a balloon dildo on her and asked her to root some guy who’d I’d tied a strap on vagina on to. To the crowds surprise and delight she loved it.
Anyway, I can remember talking to a few girls who were in their 40’s one night after a gig at The Granites mine in the Tanami desert in Northern Territory. I asked them what they thought of the strict sexual harassment laws where a bloke could be kicked off site for saying something like, ‘Nice tits’.
They took a sip of their beer and then one of them piped up.
‘I’ve been working on and off the mines for about fifteen years now and I think the rules have gone too far’.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Well it’s boring. The guys are now too scared to flirt with us now!’ she lamented.

* Hedland.
Port Hedland, W.A, ain't the honeymoon capital of the world or known for much else other than what's in the ground there.
The Pier Hotel in the centre of town has a unique world record though. It's the pub with the most recorded stabbings in one night anywhere in the world. On this eventful night back in the nineties, there were eighty-three recorded stabbings, which included six bar girls.
I don't know what happened that night between the two bikie gangs involved but I imagine there was one guy maybe on the mic going, 'come on Port Hedland, we've had 76 people stabbed. Six more and we've got the world record!'

* Halls Creek.
Halls Creek is on the only paved road through the Kimberley Ranges, located up the top of Western Australia. The nearest towns either side (Fitzroy Crossing and Turkey Creek) are over 200kms away.
Locals at Halls Creek affectionately call their town, 'Hell's crack'.
Anyway, the back bar of The Halls Creek Hotel known as the 'Animal bar', is the roughest bar I've seen anywhere in Australia. And I've seen a few. The publican took me around. It was midday. The bar looks like a cross between a fallout bunker and a chook yard (but can be hosed down easily). Outside are a whole lot of 'Long-grassers'.
Long-grassers are groups of Aboriginals who live in the long spinifex grass. They are generally either talking, drinking, laughing, fucking, fighting, passed out or cooking (e.g. a goanna on some burnt fence palings).
A lot of white people look down on certain groups of Aborigines due to their lifestyle choices.
I think deep down its just jealousy though.
How many white guys do you know who have the guts or ability to turn their life into one never-ending bux party!?
The publican says the 'long-grassers' either buy green cans (VB) or Red cans (Emu export). He introduced me to a guy called Ewok who smiled and grunted. The publican said he was born without a tongue. Fuck he could drink though.
I asked a local if there was much tension between the blacks and whites in the town.
‘Na', he said 'The white's fight with the white’s and the blacks fight with the blacks'.

* Mildura.
Aside from the sex, a bit of one-on-one female company is something I love and crave. Especially as a contrast to the huge amount of male group energy I'm always around while working in pubs while on the road.
The girls I love most are the ones who have the confidence and ability to be open about who they are with me straight away -plus have internet, a shower, a bed, a day job to give me some solitude to plan my tour and some condoms.
Relationships for me are not difficult just different. Despite what it may appear to a few people, I don't get laid heaps.
Many a time I've rocked into towns like an old mangy dog looking for a feed, which as any male knows can become a vicious circle...
Sometimes I can go so long without being touched by a girl that the only thing in recent memory I've got to wank over is the slightest touch of a service station attendant who accidently brushed my hand when she handed back my change back to me three states back.
Australia is a big country. Not many pubs employ me. Each year while on tour around Australia I average 75000 kms a year which is about 200kms a day.
Getting love on the run ain't always easy. When I get it after a long dry spell though, I lap it up like a bulldog with its face in a custard bowl (Sorry, I love that phrase. I had to put it in somewhere)
One such girl was Katie from Mildura. She worked as a nurse during the day. We met playing two up on Anzac Day. We shagged and I hooked up with her about four times over a couple of years when I was coming through town.
And I admired and appreciated her like every girl who gives me shelter and love in her house, trusting that I'm more 'harmless guy with a few stories looking for affection' than 'lone traveler out of Wolf Creek'.
It can still be nerve-racking too sometimes for me as a guy going back to a girl's house for the first time after I've just her though.
There are always risks on either side.
After all, as a male you never know when you're going to be used by a girl to make the psycho boyfriend who is coming around later jealous?
Or be used by the jealous ex-boyfriend who has no idea that the relationship between him and the girl you're sleeping with is over.
The first night at Katie's place, we were in bed when suddenly there was the noise of a whole lot of rocks hitting the roof.
'What's that?' I asked waking up.
'Ohh probably just some school kids throwing rocks'.
'At 3am?' I asked again.
'Yeah, they're just bored. It won't last long.'
I slept with one eye open that night, and then things got comfortable for four days.

Anyway, I remember driving back across the Nullabor after doing my first trip to W.A.
I was on my way back to Sydney.
It was November. Last time I saw or spoke to Katie was in January that year.
Before I texted her, I remember she said something about wanting to go to New Zealand for a holiday that year when I last saw her.
So I tailored the text. ‘Hey Katie, coming thru town next week. What you been up 2? Get to NZ? x Jimbo’.
She replied in text: ‘No. Bit of a change of plan. I met a guy, we're engaged and I'm having his baby in four months’.
We'd always been honest with each other.
So I knew there was only one response I could text back to her without her thinking I'd changed.
'So I suppose a root is out of the question?'
I never heard back from Katie.

* Manly
It was towards the end of my set at The Manly Boatshed. I had literally just mentioned the word 'Mother' in a joke.
A lady down the back suddenly yelled back over the crowd in despair, 'Don't talk about mothers, my mother's dead!'
I replied back, 'So what, we're all in the queue!'
It didn't shut her up though.
She kept on yelling out, 'My mum's dead!'
The crowd by this time was becoming nervous.
The whole tone of the evening was coming down and I remember thinking, 'I'm a comedian not a shrink and I'm now in a tough corner. To get a laugh from this I'm going to have to go a bit left of centre'
She then yelled out again, 'My mum's dead!'
So I looked at her and said, 'Yeah, well how about I go dig her up and fuck her!'
It got a laugh, a big laugh, mainly from people who were also vomiting into their beers. The lady then weaved her way through the crowd and tossed her wine in my face. Luckily it was white wine.
I then looked at the crowd and said, 'Thank you. I'm going to remember this night and so will you. Thank you. Good night!'
I then walked straight up to the girl in the crowd, gave her a big hug, thanked her for giving me a great finale and then asked her what the story was with her Mum.
She said, 'Oh don't worry about that, she died ten years ago, I'm just a bit upset tonight because I broke up with my boyfriend this week'.
She stayed for a quick drink and then left. The next day the agent who booked me who wasn't at the gig rang to tell me that the owner of the pub who wasn't at the gig either had rung the pub to complain about the comedian who was making jokes about 'digging up someone's mum and fucking her'.
She then said, 'Jimbo, you've gone over the line again'.
I then got into a philosophical debate with her about how there is no line in comedy because what makes people laugh what makes people is individually subjective.
As long as most of the people are laughing at my joke, who cares, if it's not someone else's cup of tea?
I wasn’t getting anywhere in my argument though.
I then said, 'Look it wasn't like I'd said, I'd stick her femur up my arse while I came into her skull! Where's the line now!?'
Anyway the line went dead and I went touring in Outback W.A again.

* Guerie
A lot of people often ask me, 'Have you ever had your head kicked in at a gig, Jimbo?'
The answer is ‘no’ but I've come close a few times.
One such time was the Mitchell Inn, located in the small town of Guerie in the middle of NSW. It was a good crowd of about 100 locals packed into the front bar. As usual, I tried to loosen the crowd up with a bit of local banter at the front of my set.
In most small towns there's usually a place where the locals sneak off for their first fuck or kiss etc.
In Guerie, when I asked, I found out pretty soon this place was under a local bridge.
The whole crowd seemed to be boasting about it by yelling out how they'd been there and who they’d fucked etc.
It was a good lively response but I tried to regain focus by pointing at one bloke and saying 'How about you mate, have you had a fuck under the bridge?'
He proudly yelled back, 'yeah!’
I then replied with what I thought was an obvious gag, 'What was his name?'
The crowd laughed and I kept jabbing the crowd, feeling a good rhythm and connection happening for a fun gig ahead.
That was until the guy I'd been talking to, weaved his way through the crowd up to my mic and picked me up by the collar.
He then pushed me through the male toilet door which was beside me and all of a sudden I was pinned me up against the inside wall with him saying above me, 'Stop calling me a poofter!'
I cut to the chase and said, 'Sorry'.
I wasn't sorry for what I'd said but I was genuinely sorry for upsetting him. After all, I'm a comedian. My job is to make people laugh not make them upset.
He accepted my apology more out of surprise I think than anything and then put me down and let me go.
I’m not saying this always works but not acting scared or aggressive to some being physically threatening, I think is the best option.
A genuine ‘sorry’ is always a good disarmer too.
Even for guys who are angry, ‘sorry’ can be a surprising response which is hard to punch. We all want to be listened to and by saying 'sorry' it shows at least you are at least recognising that they’re upset and won't do it again.
I then dusted myself off and we walked out and suddenly again I was back in front of 100 people who were watching a comedy show.
How do I get them back with a laugh while addressing what had happened inside the toilets?
I was going to say 'Look he just told me to stop calling him a poofter. Anyway, after I sucked him off he seemed to calm down....'
I didn't though because I wanted to live.

* Dunedoo.
Dunedoo is a town near Dubbo in NSW. The town was once going to put up a big Dunny in the main street to attract tourists, just like Coffs Harbour does with the Big Banana and Ballina does with the Big Prawn etc.
In Dunedoo however the idea was narrowly voted down by the farming gentry in the surrounding area - much to the disappointment of local shopkeepers and stoners.
I arrived to my gig at The Dunedoo Hotel early and wandered out the back. Two greyhounds were chained up. I walked up to them.
I’d done some miles that month and the two dogs sitting there forlornly looked liked they needed as much affection as I did at the time.
I started patting one of them. He loved it. I then went to pat the other one. The first one jumped across and bit me on the wrist. It wasn't a bad bite but it did draw blood. I went inside and asked the owner for some band-aids and showed him what his dog had done to my wrist.
He looked at my injury and said without emotion, 'Is the dog okay?'

The gig's highlight was a guy in the crowd who generously let me mine his personal life for laughs during throughout the show. He'd been married five times. He told me and the crowd that he'd left his second wife and then married her sister.
'What was that wedding like?' I asked.
'The best thing about my third marriage was that I didn't have to meet any new in-laws, that time.' he replied.
I then asked him, 'Did the sisters taste the same?'
Straight away he shot back with, 'There is a difference between vegemite and marmite'.

* Werribee Hotel.
Joey Jnr from the Werribee Hotel told me he'd 'seen and heard it all' working there.
'Give me your best story?' I asked.
He sucked on his cigarette. 'There was one couple who drank here. Anyway she was shagging someone else on the side. When the boyfriend found out she told him to go and stab the guy who she was shagging on the side coz she said she didn't like him. So the boyfriend stabbed him. When the other guy went to hospital, she then left her boyfriend and went to the hospital to say she wanted to be with the guy who she'd ordered the stabbing on. She then put an AVO on her old boyfriend. He kept on trying to get her back until the cops intervened and told him to stay away. Eventually he stopped contacting her. And that's pretty much the sign that a romance has died around here’, continued Joey, 'when an AVO is obeyed both parties know it's over'.

* UFO
One night at The Corrigin Hotel we were all called outside onto the street to check out what was happening on the street. A couple of guys had rigged up some garbage bags with some light wire around the rim of the bags entrance and crossed over in the middle where they'd tied a fire lighter. They then stood it up, lit the lighter and one by one the garbage bags rose into the air like a flotilla of mini hot air balloons.
Fifteen minutes later they were each like a bright planet drifting off into the distance. It was quite a sight, all ten of them.
Apparently they'd once done it from a backyard in Perth which resulted later that night in their flying machines being on the nightly TV news report. Hundreds of people had rung in asking what they were. The 7pm news reported them as ‘Unidentified flying objects’.

* Woody.
Woody was the first publican who gave me a gig in W.A in 2005. He was the publican of The Corrigin Hotel. After the gig he said I could stay in one of the rooms in his pub in between all my other gigs, I'd got after driving around the W.A wheat belt.
I’d got these gigs after spending a week driving through every town in the SWest of W.A hustling them up.
I went on to spend a lot of time at The Corrigin pub thanks to Woody's generous offer. Woody and I became mates, despite being totally different people. e.g Woody was an accomplished drinker. Up there with the best of them. I mainly sat on one wine when drinking with him and his mates. Woody always served it to me in a full schooner glass though, just so I didn't 'look like a poofter'.
Anyway, Woody took over running The Corrigin Hotel with his girlfriend Jodie when he was 24. He said he was the youngest Licensee in W.A at the time. Woody and Jodie worked as a team. She worked mainly behind the bar. Woody worked in front of the bar.
Woody's theory on running a good pub was this: Most guys usually drop in for three or four beers after work and then go home. He figured if he could get into shouting rounds with guys and nudge them in the process into having five or six beers, they'd then stay for 10 or 12. And it worked.
Turnover of his pub soared. After most nights apparently Woody would turn up to bed absolutely pissed at 3am having been in shouts with twenty different guys all night.
He would then placate an upset Jodie by saying, 'Just keeping the business running baby', before patting his stomach, ‘Doing it for us, honey, doing it for us honey...’
In four years since he was License, Woody said he'd put on over 50kgs. One morning I found him hobbling down the hallway. I asked him what was wrong. He said he had gout.
I said, 'But Woody, isn't gout an old man's disease from drinking too much piss?'
'Na, not in my case, it's hereditary', he grinned back, 'My brother got it at 21 and he doesn't even drink. I've been lucky'.
I was still in shock though. Later that day, I ran into one of Woody's mates on the street.
I said to him, 'Woody's 28 years old and got gout'.
His mate looked at me and said, 'Yep, a bloke could only dream of getting it that early'.
In Corrigin, gout wasn't a disease - it was an achievement.

I was the first person to hear a few weeks after my first gig at The Corrigin Hotel that Jodie was pregnant after ten years of trying together. Woody told me proudly that he was going to be a Dad for the first time, one night after the bar had shut while passing me a Canadian Club.
Jodie was told she couldn't have kids by the doctor years ago. Woody went on to tell me that he reckoned she got pregnant when he ‘rooted her’ on the night of my show.
He then added while passing me another Canadian Club, ‘I reckon you're a good luck charm Jimbo’.
He then said if the kid was a boy he wanted to call it Jimbo and if it was a girl he wanted to call it Jimboleena before handing me another Canadian Club.

Lucky for the kid, Jodie over-ruled Woody and called their daughter Jasmine. I was staying with them on the night of Jasmine’s birth. Woody woke me up and said, 'She's about to blow. I'm driving her to Narrogin'.
I knew it was a long drive and out of phone range. I left a message on their answering machine while trying to contact them half an hour later saying, 'I hope you don't hit a kangaroo', which I realised didn't make much sense when I finished the call because they'd probably get my message when they stopped driving.
They did hit a roo that night. They killed the kangaroo, dented the radiator but they got to the hospital okay. Woody heard the message later on his phone and reckoned I'd jinxed the accident.
'So much for my lucky charm!' he said.

Eighteen months later, Woody rang me up while I was in Perth one Sunday morning. He said Jodie was hassling him again to get married the night before over their second bottle of wine.
'Anyway', he said, 'I've made a few calls this morning to organise it in the gardens near the fountain at The Burswood Casino and you're the last call. Wanna be my best man?'
'Sure' I said.
And then I tried to think about my responsibilities for such an honour 'Does that mean I've got to organise a bux party?'
I knew most of Woody's mate's in town and so knew it would be easy to organise.
'Fuck no!' he said. 'The wedding is going to be next week with just you, one of Jodie's friends and family. I want it done on the sly before anyone in town finds out’.
‘Right so no bux party, Why not?’ I asked
‘Jimbo’, he stated clearly, 'there's no way I'm having a bux party because I know what they'll do to me! What I want you to do though is organise four quilts for all the boys at the wedding coz apparently I've got Scottish blood in me somewhere down the line, so it's going to be a Scottish Wedding theme.'
'What size are you all?' I asked.
'Big', he replied.
'But....’ I stammered back.
'Don't worry about it Jimbo, it's only a wedding, just get some big kilts, we'll fit into them. Anyway, Jas is screaming. I'll email you the address of the caravan park we're staying at the night before. We'll meet you there'.
He then hung up. I went to about ten fancy dress places that week. And the best I could find were four mismatched vaguely big quilts with matching puffy white shirts that hadn't been ironed.
I rocked up to the caravan park on the night before the wedding to meet Woody and Jodie, the parents and a brother and sister and Jodie's best friend all sitting around drinking. After a few hours and a few more Canadian Clubs, someone suggested a fit out.
I was nervous. I’m used to dressing like a clown. I wasn’t too sure about the bridal party looking like clowns though. Anyway, the four blokes kitted up. When finished, we looked like we'd been dressed at a jumble sale by kindergarten kids. If fact only three of us were in kilts because Woody's brother said we looked ridiculous and didn't want to take part in the ‘fancy dress party we were having’.
‘I’m wearing my jeans tomorrow’ he insisted, ‘there’s no way I’m wearing that shit’
And he had a point. All the boys were all laughing though and having a great time until we looked across at Jodie.
She was crying. 'This is not how I want the photo on my mantel piece to look like for the rest of my life', she sobbed.
The next morning Woody and I arrived at the local suit hire place at 8:30am half an hour before it opened, 'Just to keep the missus happy' Woody said on the way there.
Another bunch of guys arrived after us.
They saw us at the door.
One guy came up to us pointing at his friend 'Look fellas, can we go first to be fitted coz he's getting married today'.
Woody said, 'What time?'
'Midday', he replied.
'Well get in the queue’, said Woody, I'm getting married at 11'.
Inside, while measuring us up, the fitting lady started gently berating us for leaving such an important thing so late.
'This is the easy bit', said Woody. 'I still haven't found him a wife yet'.

*Bankstown cop.
My ‘I fucked a goat’ t-shirts always get such different reactions. The best reaction for me is when someone buys one. I often wonder where people wear them though when they wake up in the morning after one of my shows and realise what they’ve bought (or what they’ve done if they can’t remember).
No-one really tells me though coz I rarely ever see them again. One guy did. He said how he was once walking down the street in Bankstown Sydney in the middle of the day with my shirt on. A cop pulled over his squad car and went up to him.
'Where did you get the shirt? I want one. I want one'.
Anyway you can order them by sending me an email on jimbo@jimbo.com.au

* Thongs.
It was Australia day. I was in Boulder, W.A and had just finished hosting the wet t-shirt competition. It was a big crowd and a queue of people were lining up to buy my, 'I fucked a goat' t-shirts. Every now and then a guy would buy one and call me a poofter. It's an occasional greeting in Australia and generally just as friendly as the heckle 'I've fucked your Mum'.
When the fourth guy had said it to me in a row though, I checked with him to make sure it wasn't personal.
'Mate, why is everyone calling me a poofter today?' I asked.
He then looked down at my shoes. 'You're wearing Crocs mate. It's Australia Day. Where are your thongs?'
I then laughed while explaining that my sister had sent them over to me as a present before realising this guy wasn't giving me a friendly rib. He was genuinely upset that I was wearing Crocs and not thongs on Australia Day.
He then paid me $20 for my 'I fucked a goat' shirt, grabbed it and walked away with a snarl on his face.

* Langtrees
Langtree's in Kalgoorlie is perhaps Australia's most famous brothel. So famous that a large part of its income now comes from tours it runs through its premises during the day, to middle class tourists. Mostly couples.
There's no live action to be viewed on the tour though, through the variously fitted rooms (such as the one that looks like it's at the bottom of a mine shaft) but plenty of interesting stories.
The best one was about an effeminate boy who grew up in Kalgoorlie in the 1970's. He was continually bullied at school and like a lot of gay country Australian males ran away to Sydney at his first opportunity. He then had a sex change and became a dancer with the famous Les Girls troupe as well as a being a prostitute on the side.
Years later he/she moved back to Kalgoorlie and worked at Langtrees. Anyway, story has it, that one night when he/she was in the line-up one of the guys who used to bully her at school picked her out. While he was fucking her, she looked up at him and thought 'If only you knew!'
She now works as a prominent council member for Kalgoorlie.

* Observations from my South African standup tour.
In 2007, I got invited over to South Africa to do some gigs for a month.
I got the gig from Alain de Woolf who was a South African hypnotist I’d worked with on my Big Night Out show in 2003. We’d kept in contact over the years. He’s always said he’d get me over there in the odd phone conversation we had over the years.
I always thought ‘sure’ but also ‘as if’ and then sure enough, four years later he convinced an agent to fly me out there to do gigs while I stayed at Al’s place with his family.

Here are my observations from the trip which I wrote in my blog at the time:

The first thing I noticed here in South Africa is that they think that all Australian's fuck sheep. This segue-wise has been a gift from the comedy gods for introducing myself to crowds, getting a laugh and selling my t-shirts.
"Australians don't fuck sheep....we fuck goats."

The second thing I've noticed here in South Africa is the perception that Australian people are a very hard-working, well behaved, orderly bunch of people. I.e. we stick to the speed limits, we pick up rubbish and we basically do what the government tells us to do.
This is a safe, good and lucky Australian trait in many ways but I think the carefree, cheeky proud self-perception by Australians that we're a bunch of lay about larrikins who take creative short cuts at work, support the battler, think outside the square and who thumb our nose at authority is something we can no longer boastfully claim these days.
It's a bit like saying that America still gives a green card to the world's 'huddled masses'. Australian's don't fuck sheep but since the property boom in the early 90's are we perhaps starting to act like them?

The third thing, I've noticed in South Africa is that the cultural facade of white South African life is very similar to Australia's cultural facade in many ways (e.g. the weather, television shows, food, beer, BBQ’s, chit chat, the desire to keep up with the Jones's). The similarities stop there though.
And I benefit from it greatly on stage as the comedy scene here is a lot less conservative than in Australia.
That's because in South Africa, comedy also takes people away from the aftermath of apartheid, the extraordinary levels of violent crime still going on, the huge difference between rich and poor, the barbed wire and electric fences around each middle class home in the suburbs, the threat of being car-jacked at every traffic light, the thought that someone could kill break in and rape you, every time you go to sleep.
Therefore a comedian swearing and talking about sex on stage is the last thing a Johannesburg audience will get indignant about.
White South Africans often ask me 'why did you come over here to work when we all want to go over to your country and work!?'
I've been telling South African crowds though that in Australia one in seven people are on anti-depressants which is a far higher level than Sth Africa where there's probably more reason to be filled with anxiety and depressive thoughts.
One coloured guy said to me in response to my desire to find the answer to this peculiar disparity: "Depression! That's a white man's disease! When you live in a two bedroom house with ten others, you got no time to be depressed!"
And a white girl in another audience also gave me an interesting response to this fact.
She said that when people in Johannesburg get back to their houses/security compounds each night after work "we are always filled with such an incredible sense of joy and appreciation that we're still alive. Maybe you don't get that in Australia at the end of the day because things are too comfortable?!"

The fourth thing I noticed here in South Africa is the amount of bribes/tips you have to give to people who do things for you which don't need to be done for you in Australia. Things like tipping someone who fills up your petrol tank or pointing out where a spot is in the car park is. I can see why it's done though. It's a trickle down of wealth from people who have a lot more than those who don't, from a political system that’s doing it's best to correct itself while trying not to become an economic basket case like Zimbabwe.
Accepting tips is also more dignified than begging and eases people into the modern workforce culture where there wouldn't otherwise be an opportunity. In South Africa though, there is a fine line between tipping someone for a simple task and feeling intimidated which took me a while to get used to.
For example, when I went to collect my excess baggage from the cargo section at Johannesburg airport I was accompanied by two big burly blokes who kindly carried my bag to my car (which was out of CCTV range). They then got into my car and asked me for 500 Rand each ($200). It's amazing though, how stand-over men in any country who are trying to assault/intimidate/collect a bribe/get a tip off you, can be instantly reduced to giggling schoolboys just by giving them an 'I fucked a goat' shirt each.

The fifth thing I've noticed here is the amount of white people complaining about the racist policies of the BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) which insists a minimum number of black people be employed in every company in South Africa. It's the same merit vs. political correctness argument that John Laws used when women started getting job opportunities in the second half of his broadcasting career. This similar 'reverse-racism' and 'political correctness gone mad' argument from white South Africans, makes certain whites feel marginalised from all angles. Even when they go overseas, white South Africans still get vilified about their racist past from other whites.
Anyway, on this issue, I want to firstly say that I don't see any whites cleaning black people's houses in South Africa.
And secondly, I also want to make another point, which I hope people re-read carefully again if it upsets them: As a white Australian, the main difference between white South Africans and white colonialists elsewhere in the world is that we (Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada) managed to kill off our indigenous black people to a 'manageable' level while it was still internationally fashionable (i.e. before TV).
And rightly so too because 'these savages' had spears that could really fuck your leg up!
And when we in Australia did get the Aboriginal population (compared to the white population) down to an appropriate level, THATS when we let them vote (1967).
And there-in lies the essential difference between Australia and South African's historical treatment of blacks by white people. In South African history, whites seemed to more intent on segregating blacks and using them for labour in mines, agriculture and their homes.
In Australia we didn't segregate blacks and whites or make Aboriginals our maids, gardeners or lowly paid slaves. Although I'm pretty sure white Australians tried. (Why else would we still today stereotype Aboriginals as lazy? - It's because they didn't play ball!).
So instead of getting the locals to work in Australia, white Australians killed Aborigines (most notably in Tasmania) and pushed the remaining ones, out of mind and out of sight, into towns bordering the inland deserts where they still mostly congregate today (Wilcannia, Morree, Meekathara, Cunumulla, Katherine, Laverton, Ceduna, Halls Creek).
And that's the thing that genuinely impresses white South Africans about white Australians the most. World cup or no world cup, we've still got our country whereas they are losing theirs.

* Boulder
If I hadn't explained by now, my outback pub show basically consists of me setting up my P.A in the corner of the front bar, doing some jokes, inciting heckling and then having an audience talent quest to see who can win one of my ‘I fucked a goat’ t-shirts.
By the end of the two hours, Karaoke stripping is what my show normally turns into. The last time I was at The Rock Inn in Boulder, W.A, the winner of my talent quest was a consortium of four guys and one girl who stripped naked, jammed some toilet paper up their arses, lit it and then ran around the roundabout located outside the pubs front door while the rest of the pub watched from the window. The time before that a couple of girls simulated dildo sex on the bar with my balloon animals.
Sight gags work well in my show, especially when the crowd are all on their tenth drink or more. When they’re like this they generally want to have fun more than just listen to someone who is funny.
The time before the dildo sex incident I compared the wet t-shirt comp on Australia Day.
Anyway by this particular time in Boulder, I was a little bored of seeing the same type of thing win the talent quest: namely a guy come up and burn his pubes.
So I asked the crowd ‘Is there a chick in here who wants to come up and burn her pubes, for a t-shirt? I’ve never seen it done before’.
A slightly plump girl of about 25yrs put her hand up and walked confidently down the side of the bar to where I was in the corner next to an old broken poker machine. ‘Yeah, I’ll give it a go’, she said confidently. ‘I haven’t had a root or a shave in a year, so ‘fuck it!’
Next, she was standing beside me with her pants around her ankles looking nonchalantly out at the crowd. I then pulled two young guys up from the crowd who had lighters and told them it was their job to 'light the forest'.
Just to make sure there were no Occupational Health and Safety issues I got them to clump up a bit of her fur in their hands so it stuck out. I then got one of the boys to take the fire extinguisher off the wall and hold it, just in case the back burning got out of control.
As well as being careful, I was also milking the visual of a girl standing down the end of the bar with her box out while holding here hands on her hips.
After a couple of minutes, the girl was onto me though.
She turned around to me and yelled ‘Are you gunna hurry up and burn me pubes or what!?’
A guy getting his cock out in a pub is nothing special but a girl standing there exposing her bush is quite a site, even for me.
Even the topless bargirl seemed surprised. I’m not to sure whether it was because she felt redundant or shocked.
Anyway the guys torched up the pubes, there was a flame and then she patted it out, pulled up her pants and walked back to her friends with one of my ‘I fucked a goat’ shirts in her hand, which she'd proudly grabbed off me while the rest of the bar cheered. She knew no-one would beat that.
Coming back after a ten minute break, I said to the crowd, ‘If a girl has burnt her pubes on stage in the first half of the show, what the fuck is going to happen in the second half of the show!?’
Just then another girl jumped up and grabbed my mic and started speaking to me and the crowd. She said, ‘Jimbo did you know that crabs is the only sexual disease which is now decreasing?'
I said, ‘No’.
She said, ‘it’s because so many chicks are shaving now which means that the crabs have no place to live’.
I said, ‘so it’s a bit like the Orangutans in Malaysia: their numbers are being decimated due to deforestation of their natural environment’.
She said ‘Exactly’ and then sat down while I mentally noted to myself to put that gag in my next show.
I then went back to the talent quest.
I said, ‘because this is such a special crowd, (and because I’d run out of material) I’m now gunna put up one more t-shirt for anyone who can top the crab burning we saw in the first half of the show’.
Next minute I had a young guy lying down on the ground in front of me with his cock out for all to see. He then started to open a packet of beef jerky he'd got from behind the bar and put the bits of meat around his cock. He then asked me to whistle over the pub dog to see if it would have a feed.
Not many things on stage make me genuinely laugh but this was one of those moments. Not so much what this guy was doing but just the look of the people around the bar on this quiet Thursday night in Boulder.
'Whatever these people’s worries were, they weren’t thinking about them now', I thought.
The funniest thing for me though was watching the dog came over, have a sniff and then fuck off.
I then patted the disappointed guy on the shoulder and said, ‘Mate, when the pub dog won’t even go near your cock - that’s rejection!’
He got to his feet.
No-one beat him or was game to try after him though.
So I said at the end of the show ‘Mate, you’ve won the shirt but I should get another one made up for you to give to the next girl who gives you a blow-job which says, ‘I sucked the cock that the pub dog rejected' and when she asks, ‘what’s this about?’, just pat her on the back and say ‘Long story’.

* Aussie slang.
Guys in Australia often say, 'Harden up, ya soft cock' which has evolved to 'Go drink a can of harden the fuck up ya soft cock'.
What do girls say to each other I wonder?
'Moisten up ya dry cunt?'

* Touché.
A guy came up to me when I was selling my shirts after a show in Darwin with this really intense look.
He then stuck his face right into mine while pointing to my, 'I fucked a goat' t-shirts and said, 'you’ve fucked a goat, ya soft cock, whatever. If you were fair dinkum it'd say, 'I fuck goats'. You've fucked ONE goat!'
He then walked away and I was left feeling like some people maybe feel when they see my shirt.
He’d freaked me out to the point where I had no idea whether he was joking or being serious.
I love when that happens.

* Cunumulla.
A guy was telling in Queensland about 'a couple of friends he knew' in the Outback town of Cunumulla.
Apparently they were bored and kicking and throwing rocks on the outskirts of town one day when they came across a wild goat which they managed to catch.
One said to the other, 'How about we fuck it?’.
His mate looked at him strangely.
He then said again, ‘come on, how about we both just fuck it!?’
He then continued with his frenzied enthusiasm, ‘What else are we going to do out here, it's no big deal, come on lets just do it, no-one will know, lets just root it, what do you reckon?’
The other guy finally shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Why not?’
The first guy then went, ‘yeah!.... Well you go first and I'll follow'.
Then as soon as the other guy stuck his cock into the goat he ran into town pissing himself and told everyone.
‘How Australian is that!’ I thought.
We never dob our mates in...... unless it’s fuckin’ funny.

* Weston
I was playing in the front bar room of The Aberdare Hotel in Weston, just outside Cessnock in NSW. Everyone was standing around. There was no formal seating arrangement for a show so as usual I was trying to galvanise the crowd into a bit of heckling so that the crowd could bond.
I did this by asking a young girl up the back a few questions.
A middle aged lady then piped up from the side, 'Careful Jimbo, she's going out with my son'.
I replied back, 'Let me get this right, 'Your son came out of your cunt and now he's cuming into hers'.
The crowd roared.
Even the guys at the bar who were talking before were listening to the show now. The lady then stood up and yelled out over the noise and hooting of the crowd, 'Na, ya fuckin' wrong. I had a caesarian!'
'Full marks to her', I thought.
Not only did she take the joke without offence but she went one step further then me in her reply.

* Snowy River
At the back of the snowy river there's a cute town called Walwa.
Anyway, when I did a gig at The Walwa pub and I found out some interesting information about the real story on 'The Man from Snowy River' after my show by a guy at the bar.
Apparently The Man from Snowy River was born at that 'inbred town of Tumburumba up the road' and the reason he could hold on to the horse down the mountain was because he had fourteen fingers.
It seems every small town in the world has a town down the road 'where they fuck their sisters'.
You got down the road though and the people are no different.
Except in Tumburumba.

* Vomit.
Being a pub comedian really comes down to one thing with publicans: selling alcohol. Most publicans don't really care how funny I am when they book my show. They just hope at the end of the day to look in their till, pay me my $200 fee or whatever and have more money leftover than they'd normally get on that night of the week. They're businessmen first. Comedy critics second.
I often go into the toilet after my gig. If there's spew in the urinal I know I'm going to get paid.

* Wedding Celebrant.
A few couples have asked me at times whether I'd like to marry them. I told one guy who asked me, 'how about I marry you while I'm holding a goat on stage on a lead, at a gig?'
He said if I could get my celebrants license he would. I looked into it and it cost $300 which I didn't have at the time.
Maybe I'll do it down the track.
Weddings are funny things. They basically seem like an excuse to get you and your friends together and have a party. I can't see myself ever getting married because I’m not into paper work or monogamy.
But one day I might do a surprise wedding invite to all my friends but not tell them who to. I reckon most of my friends would turn up just to find out who it was.
And none of them would be surprised when they saw a goat with garters on.
I would then get my Dad to walk her down the aisle. And my Mum would cry in the front row. Mum and Dad and my two sisters are cool. One of the most common questions I get from people is, 'What do your parents think of what you do for a living?
Neither of them has ever told me to get a 'real job' which, I'm very proud of them for and thankful.
They know I'm healthy, responsible and not hocking their furniture for cash!
What more could a parent ask for?!
Plus they know what I do is essentially an act.
One particular incident confirmed this:
Mum and Dad were once in a show I was doing where I do a gag about how the biggest heckle from going around to pubs in Australia is 'I fucked your Mum!'
I then tell the crowd how, 'last time I saw my Mum, I sat her down and said, 'you slut'. I've gone all round Australia only to find out that you've fucked a guy in every town I've been too!'
Mum then yelled out from the crowd 'Don't tell Dad', while my Dad sat there chuckling.

* My best story.
I always enjoyed playing at Karratha Tavern. They always let me play there and they always let me go for it. The bar was always full of single blokes still in their work gear getting slaughtered on beers then rum.
I don’t enjoy socialising in these environments but I love working in them.
Anyway, on this night as usual behind the bar were an array of topless bargirls or 'Skimpies' as they're called affectionately in W.A.
I did my show which culminated in me giving away an 'I fucked a goat shirt' to a guy who stuck his cock in his bourbon glass. He then told the crowd he was doing a performance piece called 'The Aquarium'.
I remember thinking at the time, ‘I haven’t seen that trick since Wickepin Hotel in 2005’.
Anyway, The Karratha Tavern owned a house down the road where staff and performers could stay. Back at the house afterwards I was having a beer with one of the Skimpy's.
Somehow the conversation turned to sex.
'My first sexual experience was when I got fucked up the arse by a dog when I was eight', she said out of nowhere.
I'd been on the road for a long time and thought I'd heard it all.
'This was certainly new', I thought trying to neutralise the shock I was feeling. I didn't want here to see the shock though because I wanted her to elaborate with details of her story and not clam up embarrassed.
So I took a sip of my drink and then tried to say in the most casual manner possible I could, 'Ohh yeah'.
She then said a little bit shocked herself, 'I've never really told anyone that before'.
I then said, 'So how come you told me?'
She replied, 'Well you've been down the pub for two hours telling everyone how you fuck goats on stage'.
I was silent. She had me there.
'Well have you?' she followed up.
I desperately wanted to be honest to her in order to mirror her honesty to me which I thought would get the rest of the story out of her.
So I said 'no'.
But as soon as I said 'no', I felt really bad that she'd told me such a big childhood secret on the premise that I was a goat fucker, so I added 'But I think that's because I haven't met the right one yet'.
There was a bit of a silence again. I knew I was walking a thin line of diplomacy to get this story out but I knew I had to press on and ask questions quick because I knew I'd never be in this conversation with anyone else again for the rest of my life.
'So you and the dog... how did you meet?' I said taking another sip.
She said she grew up on a farm in the country.
I immediately said trying to be cool, 'yeah, I know what it's like on a farm. Animals are shagging in front of you from a young age. It becomes normal....’
She continued, 'I was playing ball with the neighbour’s dog when the ball went over my head. I turned around to pick it up. Anyway, when I was on all fours, it mounted me.'
By this time my eyes were wide opened.
She continued, 'Anyway I was just curious so I pulled my panties down and the dog's cock just happened to go up the first hole which happened to be my arse'.
The beginning of that last sentence changed the whole slant of the story for me though because to me it implied consent.
I then realised I had to now ask the very big obvious question which beckoned on this once in a lifetime conversation.
'Did the dog cum?' I asked.
She said, 'No it just had a few pumps and then I pushed it off'.
Anyway, the comedian in me then wanted to go, 'so not only are you a dog fucker but you're frigid as well'.
But I didn't because I wanted to fuck her.
Doggie style.

* Review.
I get a lot of people reviewing my show, to my face and behind my back. Most either love my show or hate it. I know this and accept both. It's still nice to get good feedback though.
My Favourite show review, if not my only was by a guy who has become a bit of a cult phenomenon on the Sydney live music and comedy scene. He does reviews of music and comedy on the net under the name of ‘Sidney Critic’.
What I like about him is he's anonymous. No-one seems to know who he is. And neither do I.
Anyway, he was apparently in my crowd at ‘The Rude Show’ I did for the Sydney Comedy Festival at The Factory Theatre in May 2008.

This is what he wrote:
There has been a name change since I last saw this show years ago, it used to be called 'The Big Night Out' and is now the more aptly named 'The Rude Show', which describes the show better.
The thing about this show, if you don't know about Jimbo's previous show, is the level of rudeness, it's way ,way, way, way more rude than you could imagine, even the support acts, were taken aback, except Bev Killick.
Jimbo improvises based on the people in the audience. He singled out a group of three girls and stereotyped them as lesbians, trying to entice one to come on the stage and do a hand stand in the nude and 'fill up her box with JB and coke', while the other two girls sipped on cocktail straws while a cocktail umbrella hung out of her ass. Did I mention the show was rude?
The first act in this ensemble act with Jimbo MCing it was so perplexed, after Jimbo’s usual rude intro, he just had nowhere to go. His rudest joke was like a cute fluffy kitten to Jimbo’s utter filth. Bev was next, she is one rude bird, but that's what her usual routine is anyway. How rude you ask, well she explained how a girls undies gets a cake mix like discharge stuck to the inside with the edges drying out to form a Lamington like look, if you didn't wash them often.
Next was Eddie from the U.K.
He said 'I thought I was rude till I meet Jimbo', he stepped up his act and pulled it off.
Jimbo is up to his usual best, but be prepared to be shocked.

* Long way.
I once was doing a show in Lane Cove at a Bowling Club. Before the show a guy about 18 came up to me and said, 'You were the clown at my third, fourth and fifth birthday party'.
I patted him on the back and said, 'If you're a bit shocked tonight, keep in mind mate that my material has changed'.

* Censorship.
By 2008, I had a decent run of publicans who would book me in Western Australia each time I went back.
W.A is also my favourite Australian State for many other reasons.
It has huge, beautiful natural features from the reef at Coral Bay to the massive Karri pines at Nannup to the beaches of Esperance to the prehistoric gorges of Karijini National Park to the absolute remoteness of the Great Sandy Desert to the beauty of a Kimberley Skye.
And that's before you get to the huge Waterslide in the small wheat belt town of Kulin which was bequeathed by a rich farmer who wanted the kids of the town to have somewhere to play after he died.
As with all my favourite places though, it’s the people that make it.
The characters and the laid back attitude (which seem to have faded gradually from the East Coast a bit since the 1970's) brings me back every time to W.A.
Why? The capital Perth is the most isolated city in the Western world.
And when you go to W.A you go to W.A. You don't go there on the way to somewhere else unless you're flying over it on a plane to Southern Africa.
Gig wise the state was particularly good to me mainly because the mining towns had pubs that were full of guys spending money. After sweating all day to earn their pay, there was no censorship needed in my language or ideas.
Ironically, I have more creative control in pubs in W.A than any theatre manager or comedy venue has ever given me.
Anyway, I once booked a couple of theatres (not pubs) in W.A just to see if I could make the step up from pubs with my show after being on the road performing in pubs for years. The first one was a theatre in South Hedland.
I paid the $500 hiring fee and gave them my posters. On show night, they told me I had two paying customers. It was a theatre that held over 400 people. Backstage on the night, I didn't care.
I don’t see the point in getting upset about the people who don't come to your show in front of the people who do. Plus I love a challenge!
Anyway, I remember pacing back and forth backstage on this night thinking, ‘I'm going to give those two people who paid to come and see my show the best night of their life’.
Ten minutes after the show was due to start, I peaked out from the curtains but I still couldn't see anyone in the theatre. I couldn’t even see the sound guy up the back. I then went round to the one lady in the box office.
She said, 'Look, I'm terribly sorry Jimbo but the two tickets booked were accidently booked in your show by mistake by someone in the office a couple of weeks ago for a couple who wanted to see Ross Noble instead. It was our mistake. We swapped the tickets over last week and I forgot to change them on the computer. Sorry.’
'No worries', I said. 'The show must go on though, after all you've come to work and so has the sound guy and the girl in the shop. How about I do a little show for you three?'
'Okay', she said nervously.
I then got the sound guy to hook up my DVD and I took them through some of the footage from the wildest pubs shows, I'd caught on tape.
The guy burning his pubes... the blow-job incident at Parramatta.. the guy lighting his chest hair which then lit a cigarette in his mouth... the guy who drank a schooner of his mate's piss... and some other stuff.
After half an hour the staff said they had to go.
I then went down to the Last Chance Tavern which is the only pub in South Hedland. I had a beer and told the guy next to me my story about my first theatre show in the town and what a raving success it wasn't.
He then told the publican my story. The publican then said I could do a show at his pub in two weeks if I wanted. He said he'd put my posters up and I could take the $10 door charge.
'No worries!’ I said.
The next day, I drove down to the 400 seat ‘Walkington Theatre’ in Karratha where I had another show booked. I was a lot more optimistic about the turn-out to this show though. Unlike South Hedland, I had performed a few gigs in Karratha before at the Karratha Tavern and they had always gone well. So a few people in town had at least heard of me unlike in South Hedland. I.e. I had a minor following of at least more than two imaginary people, I confidently assumed.
The theatre too had advertised me in some papers and via their theatre mailing list. I did notice though before the show that they had advertised me as 'Australia's most all-round comedian - able to play to any audience'.
This was what my website said at the time but it referred to all my comedy. It didn’t refer to this show I was doing, I thought. I had told the lady when I booked the show that this was going to be my R-rated show not my M or G rated show. There had been a mix-up obviously.
'Not to worry', I thought.
As long as people turn up. And they did turn up. Fifty eight of them paying $25 each which meant I at least broke even on this gig when fees and commissions were taken out. Most of them sat up the front too.
During the show, I gave it to them as best I could. I did my jokes, pulled people up on stage, strapped balloon genetalia to them, got them to fuck and showed my footage.
Highlight for me, was when I showed the footage from my show in the only pub in Cranbrook which is down the bottom of W.A. It's the footage of a guy who lights his chest hairs from his belly button which burn up chest until it lights a cigarette in his mouth.
When I showed it to the crowd, a lady gasped particularly loudly in the crowd.
I asked her 'why?’
She said it was her brother. She then said, she had no idea about his ability to do this trick and was a bit in shock at seeing it suddenly in a theatre show.
I said, 'you mean Graham!? Beauty, I'll get his number after, I've been meaning to send him a copy'.
I did too and he was stoked. He said he wanted to get into stand-up comedy. I told him, he's always got a closer to his show if he does. As long as he's got time to regrow his hair back in between gigs.
Anyway, after the show I was told by a slightly upset manager of the Walkington Theatre in Karratha that she had to refund money to six people who left in disgust in the intermission of my show. She said they were regulars from the theatre's mailing list. She then went on to say that when she was trained in theatre school management in England her tutor drummed it into her that you should never give people a refund to a theatre show if they didn't like it because it was art which is subjective – and subjectivity is why theatre exists in the first place.
I then nodded wondering where she was going with her argument.
She went on to say that she'd always wondered why her teacher said this but tonight she had for the first time agreed with the people wanting their money back because she thought my material was totally inappropriate, especially the blow-job footage.
I was a bit taken aback but accepted it. Walking away later, I kept on thinking to myself that when I walk on stage, surely it is my space surely to do whatever I wanted?
Short of violence and getting people to do stuff without their consent that is.
I then got a bit wound up. I had been a good customer to her. I told her what the show was about before, I paid up front in cash, I didn't trash backstage and I was polite to all the staff. '
What I did onstage from that point was surely my business? ‘I lathered to myself as I walked to The Karratha Tavern.
When I arrived, a couple of blokes came up to me who'd been at the show and who'd also seem me performing at the Karratha Tavern as well before. They said they enjoyed my show and bought me a beer.
We chatted for about an hour as I came down from my post gig rush. And then one of the guys leaned across and spoke to me after his fourth beer, 'To tell you the truth Jimbo, I thought your show was good but it was a bit soft compared to what it usually is when you're down here at the pub'.
It then suddenly dawned on me that if I'd toned my show down for the eight or so theatre goers who’d walked out, I probably would have had about 40 walkouts from the people who'd turned up because they’d either seen or heard about me from before.
I vowed then (again) never to censor my show to what anyone else but my gut instincts said again. Otherwise no-one will end up enjoying my show - especially me. And then I thought I’d really be fucked because I’d be broke AND unhappy! Besides, if I'm going to do a job where I have to say what other people think, at least get one that pays better!
I really went off that night. I had three beers.
The next week I went back the Last Chance Tavern in South Hedland to do my show. Sixty payers at $10 turned up which meant I’d made my money back I'd lost to the South Hedland theatre the week before.
I was happy and the publican asked me to call him next time I was in town.
I then pulled out and drove 600kms to my next gig in Broome while The Highwaymen played, 'The road goes on forever and the party never ends'.

* Fringe Bar.
I was once doing a feature act at The Fringe Bar comedy room run each Monday night in Paddington, Sydney.
During my act, I'd had one heckler who was a drunk guy in a suit. He was sitting with friends on a bar stool up the back. He'd been yelling out stuff during my act. Drunk incoherent aggressive stuff.
I hadn't really said anything to him in return apart from ask him what he did.
He mumbled something about working in Advertising.
At the end of the routine, I asked the crowd if they've got any questions, (which is also my way of giving me a couple of seconds to remember if I've got another joke, I wanted to say).
One person yelled out, 'What would you do if you weren't a stand-up comedian?'
I absorbed the question and gave it some thought, thinking the question deserved a genuine reply.
I said, 'I'd probably still be working as a copywriter in advertising. I'd be really rich, twenty kilos heavier and I'd be sitting down the end of the bar really drunk yelling out stuff to the comedian which he couldn't work with while making asides to the people around me saying 'I could do this shit better than him'.
The crowd then clapped.
‘But instead, I'm doing it’ I added proudly.
The crowd then clapped and whistled.
More at him than me though.
Which I appreciated as I walked back to my mate's couch, smiling to myself while kicking a coke can.

I usually do The Fringe Bar gig when I get back in Sydney. It's one of the few comedy rooms that still booked me. The Fringe Bar is different from all others in Australia for me because it's got more female audience members than male. Stand-up crowds are usually particularly male dominated. On a quiet Monday night in the affluent area of Paddington in the swankily done up Fringe Bar, the ladies flock in.
One time was just after I'd just literally come back from a six month tour of W.A mines sites the day before and hadn't really gone over my set list and made adjustments before I went on stage.
In turn, I had a bit of a tough time this night as I lazily went into auto-pilot of my 'blokey set'. If you don't get a stand-up crowd at the beginning, they can be hard work getting back especially if you don't acknowledge where you'd gone wrong in the first place.
I'd gone wrong by showing them my 'I fucked a goat shirt' in the first five minutes and then followed up the silence by asking whether anyone wanted to buy one off me.
I was a bit short of cash at the time. I was MC and when I sign off my gigs, I usually give them my website jimbo.com.au embedded in a gag. I did this night as that night at the end of the gig too.
The next day I got an email from a girl telling me she'd seen my gig at The Fringe Bar the night before and she had some advice for me: I should stop wasting my money buying those t-shirts and should change my material.
I sent her back a photo of the place I'd last been in Newman, W.A with the 23 guys who'd made purchases after the show, who were all wearing my shirts.
I then said how there is a market for my shirts... but yeah maybe not at The Fringe Bar and I apologised for doing material she didn't like and said I'd adjust it in future. When a crowd laughs well and someone tells me to change my act coz they didn't like it, I get upset. With this particular gig, I agreed with her. I hadn’t done a good one.
We then emailed back and forth to the point where it would have been really easy to become Facebook friends.
And then I thought this relationship really sums up life in the internet age.
In Newman W.A (where a lot of the blokes don't even have an email), if they don't like what I'm saying on stage they'll just yell out, 'Fuck off Jimbo' or 'I fucked your Mum' or 'Get off'.
Whereas at The Fringe Bar, Paddington, Sydney, my heckles were now coming in the form of an email, 24 hours after I'd walked off stage!
Sometimes it's hard to leave what happens on stage, on stage.
You can have such highs and lows in response from crowds from one night of the week to the next.
The tough nights are the ones I learn the most from though, so on intellectual note I find it good to think about why it went wrong despite not wanting to dwell on how it made me feel.
Emotionally I try to internalise each gig until it's at worst a neutral feeling. I.e. when I kill, I save a bit of the euphoria up for when I have tough nights.
This also cuts down on my drug and alcohol bills too... and shop talk to someone who's not interested.
It also means, as a lone traveler, I wake up alive each morning, knowing where my keys, wallet and car are.
It's a total head fuck doing stand-up comedy and that's why I love it.

To be continued....

P.S. Thanks so much to the seven odd people who have indicated that they're got thru this book draft so far!
If there are anymore who have got through it, all feedback (good or bad) is most welcome on my noticeboard or via my inbox.

Part Three of Eight.

2009-12-08T13:18:00.000-08:00

My life as a clown.

* 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 most entertainers start.
Something smart I thought, perhaps like ‘Ideals: Weapons of mass deception’.
In the end I went for ‘I fucked a goat’.
I thought it had more universal appeal.
Why goats?
Sheep has racist conations. With cows you need a step ladder to fuck 'em and goats are found in every country. Plus they're sexy.
I gave my fridge, dryer and couches to friends. I then terminated the lease in my Coogee flat and hit the road in my Mazda 323 with everything I owned in it, on April 14th, 2009 for what turned out to be a five year odyssey 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 was in. I'd ask for the decision maker and show them my posters. I then told them that I'd set up my P.A and do jokes in the corner of their bar for two hours in return for $200, a room and a feed. Afterwards I'd normally end up at a local’s party and stay there until I headed to the next town.
On a basic level, I was looking for money for petrol and food to keep me going as I went around Australia. 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. I slept in pubs, on the side of roads, in truck stops but mostly in strangers places who then went onto became my friends.
After a while, I felt I was no longer on tour, I was just going around re-visiting my mates.

* A.A meeting.
Jock was an old guy who sat out the front of the White Cliff Hotel during the day sipping take-away cans while his dog lay at his feet. He said he'd been banned for a year for swearing inside. When I heard this, I figured I wasn't going to get a show there so I stopped and had a yarn with him instead. We somehow got onto talking about the local branch of the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings he used to go to.
'We used to take a dozen in', he chuckled.
'Wait a minute', I said, 'You used to take a dozen beers into the A.A meetings?'
'Yeah he didn't mind it', he said casually back while taking a drag of his cigarette.
'Well I suppose alcohol is one way to get people to get to the meetings', I said.
'That's right', he said straight-faced, 'otherwise we would have pissed off.'
'And what happened to these meetings. Are they still going?' I asked.
'Nah, we stopped going. In the end there was only two guys going to it... and they soon got jacked off with each other... and so now it's all finished',

* Cat
After my show in Broken Hill, I heard about the guy who fucked a cat. He was caught after he turned up at the local hospital with the poor dead feline stuck to the end of his cock. Its arse had tightened up around his member during the act and hadn't let go right up until rigor mortis had set in.
Now, if you can suspend your judgement of what he did and look beyond that, I think the guy has to be at least admired for his courage in facing head on, what was a very sticky situation to be in.
I mean, come on! We've all been in situations (maybe not exactly like this) where you know it is time to go in and 'face the music'. It's not easy. It might be something like confessing to your parents that you did steal the chocolates. It might be telling your partner that you want to break up. It might be proposing to your partner not knowing what they're going to say.
Anyway, try to imagine what this bloke was going through as he paced up and down the car park of the hospital in his trench coat thinking 'if I'm going to get the smell of pussy off my cock, I'm going to have to go in and get help removing it's body first.'
And I reckon being an Aussie there would have been a small part of his brain that said, 'I reckon I can bullshit my way out of this by saying, 'no doctor, I know what you're thinking but I can explain....'
After many miles on the road thinking about it, this is the best excuse I thought of: 'Doc, I was lying in bed about to have a wank. Anyway, I couldn't find any cream so I grabbed some haemorrhoid cream which just happened to be lying on the table next to me and started applying it. Next minute the cat, who also happened to have haemorrhoids too, was backing itself onto my cock... anyway to cut a long story short, here I am. So how about you get the fucker off me and we discretely put this through Medicare as a strictly private matter'.

* Coober Pedy.
Coober Pedy is a legendary Australian opal mining town in the South Australian desert. Boom times for Coober Pedy were thirty odd years ago when migrants came from everywhere, in particular from Eastern Europe. One such guy called Nichola was at my gig at The Opal Inn. I pulled him up the front and asked him his story. He didn't seem to understand English so I spoke slowly.
He replied even slower with this lament: 'I come to Australia in 1967 to find my fortune but all I find is un-fortune'.
As a gag I then said, 'Look Nichola, I'm going to teach you some English, repeat after me, 'OWYAGOINGYACUNT''
To which Nichola replied immediately with an innocent face, 'Good thanks'.
After all these years, there was some English (or at least some Australian English) which Nichola knew very well.

* Rabbit fishing.
I'd just done a gig at The Residents Bar, near Uluru. Afterwards I asked the staff what they did in their spare time, apart from visit the big rocks.
They then laughed and went on to tell me about one guy who apparently goes out into the desert each sunset and sits on his Esky and loads up his fishing rod with baby carrots on gang hooks. He then casts it off into the sunset, jagging baby rabbits as he trawls the bait back in over the spinifex. He then breaks their necks and leaves them in a pile besides his beer cans.
I said 'does he do anything with the rabbits?'
'No, he just does it for fun' they replied.

* Alice.
The couple who won my talent quest at The Todd Tavern, Alice Springs were an elderly couple who took out their dentures and pashed each other. No matter how disgusted every one in the crowd pretended to be though, they were all still looking when it happened.
I sold 12 'I fucked a goat' shirts that night to a bunch of guys who demanded I kick on with them to the local Bojangles nightclub afterwards. As we approached the door I thought there was no way the bouncer was going to let 13 guys in, who were all wearing 'I fucked a goat' t-shirts.
'In you go fellas' he casually mentioned as we walked by the sign besides him which said, 'Strict dress codes apply'.
When I walked in, I realised we were over-dressed.

* Roopaw.
Marie runs the Calen pub on the Bruce Hwy, mid way up the Queensland coast.
'Thomas', a local has been barred that many times she said but 'he always comes back and apologises the next day when he sobers up and realises there is only one pub in town. He'll be a good heckler'.
It was a usual story and I'd love to know who in Australia has been barred from the most amounts of pubs. As well as the person who could drink the most as well as how many 'Wombat', 'Pluto' and 'Bluey's' there ares in the country.
Anyway, Marie told me the story about the guy in her bar, they call 'Roopaw'. He was born with a useless arm that just hung there.
One day when he was about forty he was at the bar with his mates and he said to them, 'Guys, I need your opinion. I'm thinking of getting my arm cut off. There's no need for it to be here and I couldn't give a fuck anymore about the way I look. Whatdyareckon? Should I do it?'
There was a long silence and then one guy piped up, 'I reckon you should get it cut off because when it goes hard we can put it behind the bar and use it as a back-scratcher!'

* Dysart
Brownie came up to me after the show and put his arms around me like we'd known each other for years. 'Jimbo, I've had the best week of my life', he beamed.
'Why?' I asked.
'Our football team got into the Grand Final and I got my first root ever. Then he added, 'without paying for it'.
'So you normally go to prostitutes?', I asked.
'Yeah when I've got some money I go to Mackay but they never look like they do in the classifieds. The last one I rooted had a fake leg. I fucked off with it afterwards'.
I looked back at him aghast.
'Don't worry Jimbo', he said, realising he'd just shocked the rudest comedian he's ever met, 'I gave it back to her'.

* Gin Gin
A lot of country towns in Australia advertise their tidy town’s credentials like a grown man who still wears his Cub Scout uniform to show the badges he collected when he was nine years old. Take for example Gulargambone or Narrogin. {insert pic later)
In Queensland, they have another state competition called ‘The friendliest town’.
Last time I drove through Gin Gin on the Queensland coast I saw a sign on the outskirts of advertising how the town had won 'friendliest town in Queensland' in 2003.
People often ask me on my travels, ‘What’s your favourite town?’
When I think about it, the favourite town is never the place which has the biggest reef, statue, rock, pub, art gallery or well known feature that sounds impressive at a dinner party. It’s usually the place where I had the best time with people and made some friends.
Which made me think, ‘how is the Friendliest town judged?’
Do a panel of guys go around from town to town having a drink in a random pub each night and at the end of their tour go, ‘Well, we all got laid in Gin Gin’?

* Cunt of a shot.
Opal mining towns are culturally unlike any other places in Australia. The main ones are Coober Pedy, Lightening Ridge and Andamooka. They are all rough, raw and literally down to Earth. I love ‘em.
The opal mining town I’ve grown to love the most though is Grawin, located west of Lightening Ridge. I've gone back there many times to do shows. When my Dad once asked me what I thought the most unique place in Australia was, I took him to Grawin.
When I was there the first time I heard about one character called, ‘Cunt of a shot’. He got the nickname after a night on the piss with his missus. In a drunken argument, he pulled a gun out and said he’d kill himself. Well he tried. He shot the left hand side of his face off, was taken to the nearest hospital, (a few hours away) where they did a skin graft from the right hand side of his arse on to the hole in his face.
Anyway, after this failed suicide attempt, the locals affectionately nicknamed him, ‘Cunt of a shot’ – not to his face though (what remained of it, at least).
I heard in the bar one night a fellow telling me how he was over at his place a few months after this incident. Again ‘Cunt of a shot’ was having a fight with his missus. The guy said 'Cunt of a shot' was telling her she’d done something the wrong way or something.
Anyway, his wife turned around and said straight back to him, ‘what would you know? You don’t even know how to blow your fuckin' head off properly!

Years later apparently, ‘Cunt of a shot’ was having an argument with a guy down at the local ‘Sheepyards Hotel’ in Grawin. The guy then left to go to the ‘Pub in the scrub’ down the road. When he got there, some mates asked him why there was blood all over his shirt. They then worked out that ‘Cunt of a shot’ had shot him from point blank in the back of his neck back at the ‘Sheepyards Hotel’ an hour before.
The guy who was shot hadn’t even noticed there was a bullet in his neck. He shrugged when his mates told him and kept on drinking. The bullet was removed the next day without any damage to him apart from a scar.
And ‘Cunt of a shot’s’ nickname was cemented with the locals.

* Gibbo
Gibbo was the barman at Molong RSL, NSW where I did a gig there.
After the show he came up to me and said, 'You know what I like about your 'I fucked a goat' t-shirts'?
'What? I enquired.
'They basically say, 'I don't give a fuck what you think about me!'
I hugged Gibbo. He understood the deeper underlying philosophical meaning of my t-shirts. I knew it was universal.
We then went back to his place and pulled cones. Gibbo's girlfriend's daughter shagged me. It was a top night. Gibbo and I have been mate's ever since.

* Animal fuckers.
I go on a lot about fucking animals in my show. It helps sell shirts too. I think I've sold about 3000 of them around Australia.
Fuck knows where people wear them?
Where would you?
Hitch-hiking?
And who would pick you up?
And would you trust anyone who you did pick up wearing an 'I fucked a goat' shirt?
I've done a lot of night driving around Australia, especially on long, dark unfenced roads like in the Pilbara where cows run across the bitumen unannounced at speed. I often think one day a cop is going to arrive at the scene of an accident and find a dead beast on the road, me dead in my upturned car next to it and 200 'I fucked a goat' shirts in the boot.
And he is going to scratch his head and say to his partner, 'Should we tell the coroner or should we spare the family the details?'
Often after my shows in country towns I get guys coming up to me and cornering me over a beer before gently asking, 'so have you fucked a goat?’ I started mixing up my answers to this question after I noticed quite a lot of guys getting disappointed when I said 'no' and then look at me like they'd just lost a potential soul mate.
I realised that by doing this, I was often missing out on an A-grade confession or an animal fucking story about, 'someone they know' in the town.

* Timboon
Timboon is a town tucked away on the back of The Great Ocean Road in Victoria. I was doing a show nearby and afterward the show was told about the guy from Timboon who was caught actually fucking a horse.
Apparently the local Warrnambool newspaper did an article on him and the last line in the article went, '...and it wasn't even his horse'.

* Tamworth
I was passing through Tamworth one year during the country music festival. My friend Gleny asked me to get up and do a quick set before her new band 'Gleny Rae and the Tamworth Playboys' played.
I opened by asking the crowd whether they wanted to hear my tribute to the late King of Australian country.
I then told the crowd the song was called 'Last night Slim Dusty bent me over and gave me his Golden Guitar'. Some jokes don't work in Tamworth, especially a few months after Slim's death.

* Katanning.
Katanning is a small town in the W.A wheatbelt.
The male to female ratio reminded me of a bumper sticker I once saw in Alaska: 'In this town you don't lose your woman, you just lose you're turn!'
Anyway, I was in Katanning for three weeks and was still five deep in the queue.

* Corrigin
It was Dicky’s bux party. The location was in a farm house about ten kilometres outside the W.A wheatbelt town of Corrigin. I went out to have a look. Dicky was the opening batsman in the Corrigin Cricket team. I’d played with the team for a couple of weeks last year in between shows, so I knew most of the blokes.
On the road, I get to meet heaps of interesting people and bond. It’s usually very intense but also fleeting though until I meet up with them again next lap. I’m rarely in the same social group for long. When I was playing in the Corrigin Cricket team each weekend in between doing gigs around the surrounding wheat belt, I got to hang out with a group of guys playing sport together. It reminded me of the camaraderie of team sports as a kid. Or perhaps even the camaraderie of working together each day with people in the same job. Or perhaps even the camaraderie you get from eating and living with the same house as people every day? – Which I hadn’t done for a while.
Anyway, I enjoyed it and lapped it up the team spirit as a total contrast to my normal life on the road. The running into the middle. to backslap a bowler after a wicket then the team huddle to talk tactics after a wicket falls and the pissup at the pub that night. Even though, I'm not really a drinker. I loved my brief time in the team. I got to play four games.
The first game, I was put in at number ten, which was fair enough. I hadn't really played the game in over 20 years. I got a duck, clean bowled on my fourth ball.
I later found out that the bowler was the brother of a girl I'd had a shag with in Kulin. She was typical of a lot of my shags. After the gig I went back to her place with her thinking, 'wow, the comedian is staying at my house'. Three days later she was thinking, 'how can I get rid of this homeless bum who sleeps all morning while I'm at work and then sits around my place checking the internet, using the shower and kitchen and waiting for the phone to ring for his next gig!'
I think she eventually got rid of me on the fifth day.
Anyway, back to the cricket. The next game, I decided to not play defensively like last time, so I went out swinging. Second ball, I was caught behind.
The next game the captain called 'Breeder' comes up to me and says, 'Look Jimbo, you're a good bloke and I know you're broke but there's a rule in the competition that if a player gets a duck three times in a row, he has to buy the team a keg'.
'No worries' I said, slightly honoured.
'You're opening too, this game', he then added five minutes before the game started.
To maximise the chance of the team getting a keg it made perfect sense to send me in to face the chin music first ball. I responded to the spirit of the game by putting on my 'I fucked a goat' t-shirt and strapping a blow up doll to my groin. The opposition team, by the time I'd got to the crease, got the picture I was 'on a keg' and crowded in close to maximise the chances of it happening. They knew that if a keg was on they would be hanging around for a few more hours after the game drinking free piss too.
The bowler came roaring in. First ball, I took a swing and edged the ball behind, splitting the gap between second and third slip. I ran three. I then removed my helmet and raised my bat to the boys in my team who were unselfishly standing up and cheering generously from the seats in front of the change rooms. I then acknowledged the six people clapping from their seats on Esky lids sprinkled around the ground who were aware of the occasion too.
I then did another three bat raises, imitating the way all my Australian cricketing heroes act when they reach a significant batting milestone.
And as I held my bat up for the last time to some stranger sitting behind the boundary fence, I realised, I'd just experienced one of the greatest moments of my life.
I then wiped the sweat from my brow and nodded to Dicky down the other end of the pitch.
It wasn't scoring a century at the MCG but it was as close as I was ever going to get.
The umpire then told me to remove the blow up doll from my groin.

When I got to the site of Dicky's bux party, a few months later in a farmhouse about ten kilometres out of town, there was about forty guys milling around the backyard sipping beers. One of the guys asked me if I wanted a beer.
I told him I wasn't drinking that night, to which he replied, ‘What? Have you got AIDS or something?’
What surprised me most was that he said it without any hint of sarcasm. It then occurred to me that the only men who don’t drink in this town are ones with terminal diseases. And even they were labelled as poofters afterwards.
Anyway I then asked the boys, ‘Is there going to be anything special happening for the buck tonight?’
‘Ohh, na, just the usual. What we’re gunna do, is chase him, pin him down, pull his pants down, poor some molasses over his cock, tie him to the hills hoist and then get the potty calf from next door to come in and lick his cock’ one guy replied.
I said ‘when is this gunna happen?’
His brother said, ‘in about five minutes’.
I quickly bolted out to my car and got my video camera.
The whole ritual started with his brother running up to Dicky who swiped him away. Dicky then started jogging around the yard while one, two and then three other guys started following him. Pretty soon there were five guys chasing him, while Dicky swatted them away with his arm. Most of the guys by now just stood around watching with knowing looks to each other while holding their cans. They looked on like it was a familiar scene. I looked on like I was on set at a David Attenborough doco, where a bunch of lions start to attack the lame animal in the pack.
It took about eight blokes to hold him down, while the rest of the group started standing closer and laughing. They then pulled his pants down, while one guy nearby piped up boasting about the size of his cock compared to the bux. Then the molasses was poured on. At this time, even the buck was still laughing. Then the rope came out.
This is when the buck started picking up some extra strength and started kicking as the rope was tried to be put around his legs.
At this point I think the increased buck's strength was coming mainly from the realisation that he was getting to the point of no return. He knew that once he was tied up, he would have pretty well lost all control of the situation. More rope came out.
Then something else kicked in. Dicky suddenly got super bux powered strength! The strength to take on eight guys pinning him down. A kick here, a punch there, a shoulder there. And then some combinations, increasing in speed and desperation. The fight was on.
Who was more determined?
The people tying him down or the buck trying to get out of it?
It was a good fight. One by one though, the boys started peeling off until there was only his dutiful brother trying to pin him down. Dicky jumped up and then started running around the backyard again. A few guys came at him but he pushed them away. He then snuck into the house and locked himself in the bathroom and had a shower.
I spoke to a few blokes after and said, ‘that was a bit full on!’
One of the philosophers in the group said it was a fine line at Bux parties. ‘You don’t want to totally humiliate the buck but you also don’t want to do nothing otherwise he’ll think he hasn’t got good mates’.
I said, ‘it’s funny because, girls don’t really do the same thing. I mean you never see at a hen’s night a bunch of girls suddenly attack the hen, strip her, tie her up and then get an animal to lick her while the rest of the girls sit around and laugh’.
I then started asking people what’s the worst treatment they’ve seen dished out at a bux party. One guy said they’d strapped a mate to a train naked which was going across the Nullabor to Adelaide. Apparently he missed the wedding.
Another guy said, ‘that’s nothing. My old man’s mate got tarred and feathered’.
I said ‘what’s that?’
He said, ‘what they used to do was get road tar and put it all over the bloke's body and then get him to roll in feathers which stuck to him’.
He said the guy ended up having to scrub his whole body the next day with kero to get it off.
The guy I was talking to, then said the groom ended up dying two years later from ‘cancer of the nut’.
I was a little shocked again and said, ‘that’s pretty full on!’
To which the guy replied, ‘yeah, shit happens’, before disappearing to get another beer.

* Wombat glasses
The guy at the bar was called Wombat. It seems there's one in every town along with Pluto, Johnno and Bluey.
Wombat yelled some advice at me as I was leaving, 'Jimbo, if you're going to drink drive, drink out of a stubbie not a can. It's safer.'
'Why?' I asked.
'Because you can see through the bottom of a stubbie'.

* Pluto
I was becoming friends with guys called ‘Pluto’ in just about every town I went to.
My mobile phone list was full of them. Each different Pluto had a dash after their name with a different town name location written in to differentiate them.
Eventually I asked one, ‘How did you get the name Pluto?’
‘Apparently, I’m out there’, he replied.
I then asked about the scar around his elbow. He said it was from punching a publican. He said he was outside the pub and punched through the window to get him. He said the reason he punched him was because he was upset at being kicked out of the pub. He said he’d drunk $300 worth of tequila. I thought about it. He had a point. No other business kicks you out of their establishment for buying too much.
Can you imagine a girl going into a dress shop and buying forty dresses and then eventually being kicked out because the shopkeeper was pissed off?!
And that’s what I like about freaks/nutters and so called 'weirdos'.
No matter how fucked up their actions and conclusions on life are, there’s usually at least a vague thread of rationality in every bit of madness they do or think which they’ll always tell you about if you ask and are prepared to listen to them.
Which I think is much more impressive than concluding an argument/discussion with the rationale of ‘I read it in the papers’ or a book or ‘Everyone else thinks so too'.
I got to know Pluto pretty well over several visits and late night yarns while he drunk ten bourbons and I had two. He had a slight speech impediment. Blow-ins thought he was simple. Locals knew he was a tortued genius as well as the best mechanic in the district.
One arvo I once asked him how come he knew so much after a discussion where I'd been thouroughly interested in listening to him talk about everything from crop farming to Aboriginal history.
He said he grew up on a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and decided one year as a teenager to sit down and read the British set of encyclopaedias.
'I'm just lucky I've got a photographic memory, I suppose.'
In 2008 Pluto from Corrigin died at 33 years of age while going to the toilet. A stomach ulcer burst.
He's still out there. Always was.

* Dog in a Ute.
Most towns in the W.A wheatbelt had a day each year where they did something weird to attract tourists.
Darkan imported tonnes of sand and had a beach party.
Kondinin had a legal burnout competition as part of their 'Hoonavation' weekend.
Corrigin tried every second year to beat its Guinness book of record attempt for the most Utes that can be lined up with a dog in the back of them.
Their best attempt is over 1500 Utes all lined up along the road into the town's showground with a live dog yapping in the back of each one. Corrigin even has a cemetery which is used exclusively for dogs located 5km's out of town.
On one particular attempt a couple of German tourists happened to be driving past. First they went past the dog cemetery then drove past 1500 odd Utes lined up with dogs in the back of them. They decided to drop into The Corrigin Hotel to have a beer and ask what was going on in this ‘interesting little town’.
One lark at the bar told them it was a funeral.
'Wow, it must have been a popular dog' replied the Germans.

The Corrigin Pub show was mad. Full of pissheads. I knew I had to go hard to impress them. I opened my show by suggesting that they spice up their local event by having a whole lot of girls line up down the main street while smearing dog food on their pussies and call it the 'Dog in a Uterus' competition.

* Patrick.
Patrick was a gold fossicker in Coolgardie. His pearl of wisdom to me at the bar was, 'When you're up to your neck in alligators the best thing to do is drain the swamp'.

* Esperance
Paul the publican at the Esperance Hotel Motel knew I liked talking to freaks. It's not that I don't like talking to 'normal people' (whatever that is) but I'm forever listening to chit chat in my life about things which have nothing to do with me. I don't mind it. It's part of being polite. But what I crave most is hearing something, some story, some prejudice or some perspective on life I've never ever heard before from another human being. They're the opals I'm trying to find in the soil of every casual conversation I have.
If I'm not getting any opal in a conversation, I’d rather be alone and chill. Paul the publican knew this. He pointed out to me an older guy at the end of the bar.
'Go talk to him. He’ll freak you out'.
He was an older Italian guy looking up at the horse races with a ticket in hand. I went up to him.
Straight away he got into it.
‘The problem with humanity is that humans generally follow the majority. We do this in order to survive. Yet nine times out of ten, the majority end up being wrong. If every human could learn to individually follow their own thoughts, intuition and psyche a lot more, humanity as a whole would have more answers to draw upon in order to take us to the next level of evolution - and this next step of evolution is something humanity desperately need to take now because culturally we're lost and not too sure which way is forward at the moment.'
I loved it. I thought the man was a genius.
He then went on to say while looking up at the screen, ‘what pisses me off most though, is why should Melbourne have the Melbourne cup each year!? Why can’t they tour it around the country and have it in different towns? You know, share it!’
Some people like Pluto go from idiot to genius upon meeting them. This guy went from genius to idiot upon meeting him.
Not that there's really much difference at the end of the day.

* Northcliff.
Northcliff is a small town at the bottom of W.A in tall timber country.
When I arrive at a pub to sell in my show, I normally tell/warn the publican that I swear a bit and ask if that is okay with them.
The publican lady at The Northcliff Hotel pub took a long deep breath of her cigarette when I told her and replied, 'I'd prefer if you swore, otherwise everyone will think you're a poofter!'

* Pemberton
When I was doing the gig at The Northcliff Hotel and talking about fucking goats in my show, the crowd suddenly started yelling about the 'duck fuckers' who live in Pemberton.
Years ago. a guy was caught fucking a duck there and to this day everyone in the cute town of Pemberton is known as a 'duck fucker' by the surrounding towns.
It seems that all it takes is for one guy in your town to do something like fuck an animal and unborn children in your town are tarred with the ramifications of your act years later!
Anyway, it got me thinking when I was doing a 12 hour drive to my next gig, ‘if I were a judge, who would I give the bigger sentence to, a horse fucker or a duck fucker?’
It'd have to be the duck-fucker I'd think. I mean feathers would be going everywhere. Whereas a horse... probably wouldn't even feel it.

* Goat shaggers.
I'm often told the story about the guy in England who was caught fucking a goat after a train load of people with mobile phones went past him at the same time.
My favourite goat fucking story though is the one about a guy in Afghanistan who was caught during the act.
He went to court and his defence to the judge was, 'Your honour, I couldn't afford a wife'.
Not a bad argument I reckon.
I mean how many girls reading this can honestly say that they've never had a fuck where they haven’t thought, 'I may as well be a goat!’

* Potty Calf.
I remember one guy telling me in a pub one night, 'The best fuck I ever had was sticking my cock up the nose of a baby potty calf'.
I said, 'How come?'
He said, 'Because it licked my balls at the same time'.

* Opportunity.
Most if not all of the animal fucking stories I hear seem to come from the country.
I don't think people in the country have a tendency to fuck animals anymore than people in the cities though.
I just think they've got more opportunities.

* Margaret River.
I arrived in Margaret River a few days after a guy had been caught walking down the street naked following a double murder he'd committed. When I got there he was claiming to the police who had caught him that his act was the result of drug induced insanity.
And I reckoned he had a point.
I mean, I'm not a murderer but I imagine if I was a murderer, the first thing I’d do after murdering someone would be to…. lay low?…..not attract too much attention to yourself? …not walk down the main street naked!?

* Pedro
Pedro was the Publican at The Seaview Tavern. Seabird is a sleepy fishing village north of Perth. The locals call tourists 'Wooducks' because they come in swivel their heads and then leave.
I had a lock-in with Pedro after the show and after his fifth beer he told me his dream to make money.
'You know those bins in the kitchen where you put your foot on a pedal and the lid goes up. Well I reckon there should be one like that on toilets for when guys go and do a piss. That way a bloke would never forget to leave the seat up'.
I look forward to seeing 'Pedro's Piss Pedal' on the market one day.

* Books
I was at the bar in the small country town of Mullewa, NSW chatting to a local truck driver. The conversation then got onto books.
I asked him casually 'do you read books much?’
He then looked around the packed bar as if to check that none of his mates were listening to him, put his head down and mumbled while looking at me nervously in the eye, 'yeah I'm not too ashamed to admit it, Jimbo, I read books'.

* Newman
Pidge is one of those extraordinary publicans who genuinely loves his job every second of everyday. Why? Because as he says ‘I get to drink piss all day, while I work!’
He's literally like a kid in a candy store when he's at work, which is about 15 hours every day. His pub is the Red Sands Tavern in Newman.
Pidge is an enormous bloke, 30 years old with a bald head and his name ‘Pidge’ tattooed on the back of his skull.
He says he got the name Pidge when he picked up an injured pigeon on his way back from school and nursed it back to health.
He said he tattooed his name on the back of his skull because he feels every person he goes past deserves to know who he is.
When I arrived at the pub I was a little road weary. It was about a two day drive to get there from Perth and I was starting to see the same things happen at pubs. Things which no longer shocked me, like burning pubes, tits being flashed etc
Pidge's energy immediately lifted me though. I felt comfortable around him, so I immediately cut to the chase and told him what my show was really about as opposed to the spam email I'd sent him months ago asking for a gig for my 'comedy show'. I.e I told/confessed to him that I’d seen just about everything happen on stage during my show except a guy eat a turd or fuck a goat.
I had no idea until later that Pidge had taken what I said as a challenge.
Halfway through my show, Pidge barged through the back door into the pub and up on stage, holding up a young goat. He then pulled his pants down and proceeded to hump the goat.
Just to clarify, I want to say his cock wasn't erect and it wasn't in the goat but his flaccid slug and the goat’s rear area were definitely 'bumping uglies'.
He then turned the goat around and kissed it on the lips and then grabbed my mic and told the crowd, ‘that’s just so you know I respect the goat after’.
Pidge then walked off with my t-shirt. I reckoned he deserved it more than anyone else I’d ever given the shirt too.
I then looked out at the crowd in this rough outback mining town and said, ‘What the fuck would it take to get kicked out of this pub? The Publican has just rooted a goat!'
From that gig on, Pidge and I were great mates. And his wife Jill shook her head every time we got together. It was always a long night.

Next time I was at The Red Sands Tavern a year later, a guy came up to me with a goat’s skull and gave it to me. He said he was the pub’s neighbour and owner of the goat Pidge had 'rooted' during my last show. He said, they’d had a barbeque one arvo and decided to eat it and he’d kept the skull for me as a memento.
Just then Pidge came up to me and whispered in my ear, ‘Just to freak the crowd out tonight Jimbo, how about we both skull fuck its eye sockets!’

After the pub had shut, Pidge put on a five hour show for me and the staff from behind the bar. Highlight being the bit where he tucks his cock between his legs and impersonates the world’s cheapest nude skimpy.
Pidge told me that night that his dream is to one day run a bar in Melbourne called, ‘Pidge’s nude net bar’. He said he wants it to have a see through roof with a non-stop netball game happening upstairs with girls wearing no undies. He said that way, every time the workers leant back to have a sip of their beer, they could cop an eyeful.
I look forward to one day doing a gig at Pidge’s Nude Net bar.

* Karratha
The crowd at Karratha Tavern is always packed, full of blokes drinking after a hard week’s work in the local mines. At one of my gigs there, forty minutes into my show a guy in bright orange work gear came up on stage and with a cone in his hand brimmed full of dope.
He said, ‘Jimbo, smoke it’.
I looked out at the crowd.
All of a sudden 150 guys started yelling in unison, ‘Fuckin’ smoke it, smoke it, smoke it’.
I didn’t want to let the crowd down so I had two and then cut to a break.
The bouncer then came up to me and said, ‘Jimbo, the manager wants to see you in his office’.
I slowly walked to the office, thinking of my excuses, ‘Look I was just doing it for the crowd, I didn’t suggest the idea…’ etc
The manager was behind his desk. He asked me to sit down in the chair in front of him.
He then pulled out a cone from his top draw. ‘Jimbo, you’re doing a great job out there, do you want another one!?’
I can't remember what happened in the second half of the show.

* Cockatoo Island.
Cockatoo Island is off the top of the Western Australian coast. It's full of iron ore. The mining company flew me there to entertain the workers at their wet mess bar.
About sixty of the workers came down to watch me. Like just about all my crowds when I meet them, they were sceptical of a comedian who they'd never heard of before.
'This cunt better be funny' is the usual vibe I get from crowds especially from the back row when I start. As usual I went hard. If you can get the back row I think, there will always be a few you flush out as collateral damage towards the front of the crowd who think it's too rude. But at least if the back row is listening, the gig will never descend into everyone ignoring you and talking amongst themselves.
In my book no-one listening or everyone talking amongst themselves is far worse than everyone yelling out, 'Fuck off!' together.
At least if they’re doing that, they’re listening to you. You can work with that.
At Cockatoo Island there was a middle aged woman who kept on yelling out I was being too rude and another girl in her twenties who was doing the same. Usually this is good for the show. I prefer it heaps more to people coming up to me after the gig and telling me that I should change my act.
To me this is gutless. Do your talking in front of the jury, like I am – to the crowd. And if the crowd agrees, I’ll thank you and adjust my act. And if they don't. I don't have to tell you to shutup. The crowd will.
Anyway, the gig was good but the younger girl was starting to get repetitive in yelling out how much she wasn't enjoying my act coz it was too rude - despite the males (90% of the crowd) loving it.
Then she went over to my P.A and started to pull out the chords.
I managed to get her to sit down with a joke without getting too serious mid gig. I.e by telling her 'Look I'm trying to do a job here!'
Anyway, the gig went okay and afterwards I went to sit down at a table for a drink with everyone. She then came and sat down next to me and started giving it to me again, telling me how rude and inappropriate I was.
I was pretty tired and was about to go into my standard reply: 'Look I know my act wasn't politically correct but comedy sometimes involves going over the line into taboo areas in order to get people to laugh and I didn't meant to cause offence’ etc.
Anyway, before I could say this, I realised her hand was on my knee. Next minute she was rubbing my leg. Half an hour later I was kissing her, in her room and listening to her tell me how she had a boyfriend on site that was flying in tomorrow, so don’t tell anyone.
Next we were in her bed rooting in every position she could nominate.
Finally she turned around and presented her arse to me. Or as they say in Western Australia, she motioned for me to root her 'up the rusty bullet hole'
As I was doing my load, I remember thinking, 'is it any wonder that us guys don't understand women?!’

* Griffo.
The Darwin YMCA is like four stories of concrete cell blocks. I was there for a week in 2005 in the build up to the wet season. When I moved into my room there was a guy from the room next to me sitting outside on the balcony sipping VB’s. He had tattoos down to his fingers, his teeth were gone from methadone. On the first night he told me how he used to do Armed Robberies. Lovely bloke though.
We chatted well into the night and each night after. On about the fourth morning, I remember coming out of my room to find him in his usual position basking in the sun with a tin in his hand. ‘Jimbo, you know what I hate about Darwin?’ he said before I’d even wiped the sleep out of my eyes.
'What?' I asked.
‘It’s just too hot to wear a balaclava!’ he replied matter of factly.
I thought to myself, 'Now that's funny!'
Over the week, Will went onto tell me his life story in detail as we both opened up to each other as only strangers who don’t know anyone in common do. He said he was 36 and on benefits for a fucked up liver and kidney and due any year now to die according to his doctors.
He said when he was 13 his Dad had pulled a shotgun on him in an alcoholic rage. Somehow the pellets had missed him. He then left home and couch surfed between his grandparents and friends places for the rest of his schooling while pulling cones and becoming a binge drinker.
The usual stuff from a neglected youth. What wasn't usual though were his results when he finished school. He got enough marks to get into the top Medicine University in Victoria. He said he left in second year.
I asked him, 'why?'
He said he soon found out that Medicine was based upon rote learning incredible amounts of information with little or no lateral thinking. He said it was all Cartesian thought.
‘I could do it but I got bored’, he said.
Then as an after thought he added, ‘I suppose the heroin habit didn't help either'.
I then asked him whether he wanted to come down to my gig that afternoon at The Winnellie Hotel. I could tell he didn't get out much. He said just wandering over to the TAB made him tired. When I told him though he said he'd love too come out and see my act.
At the pub I was to come on and do a couple of sets in between the strippers. The pub was full of guys still in their work singlets having a few beers and a perve before going back to home to their missus’.
As I've probably mentioned a few times, when you come on to do comedy after a girl has shoved a dildo up her, there’s only one way to go, and that’s hard from the very first sentence otherwise you’ll either get booed off or talked over.
I opened up first with the old classic joke I was peddling around the country ‘How do you get a poofter to fuck a girl? Ya shit in her cunt!’
From there I had them. Two twenty minute sets going flat out are hard though. Will was in the crowd watching from the back. I did a joke about gym’s and then said to a bloke on stage with me that I reckon the only time he’d been to the gym was to do an ‘A.R’. It got a laugh. Everyone in the crowd seemed to all know that ‘A.R’ was short for Armed Robbery.
I nodded to Will up the back, thanking him for the new term I’d learnt off him the day before.
By the middle of the second set I was desperate to keep the crowd though after I’d pounded them with my heaviest hitting punch lines with the shortest set-ups - the only jokes that cut it on a crowd that pissed up and wainting for the girls to come back on.
So I said I’d organise a jug of beer to the guy who could ‘fuck the pole’ the best in front of everyone - the pole which the girls had been dancing around before I came on. I milked about five minutes of guys coming up and rooting the pole in all sorts of positions to the amusement of the crowd. Then a guy came up on stage right into my space with a real serious face and yelled, ‘You want me to fuck the pole do you!?’
I said ‘Yeah’ leaning back cautiously trying to escape the spit coming out his mouth.
He then disappeared out into the car park. A couple of minutes later he reappeared. He walked straight past the pole towards me with an axe in his hand. The axe was a big long handle axe to match the big long handle moustache on his face. In these weird situations where I don't know what's going to happen next the best thing to do, I think, is to not act aggressive or scared, despite me being on the side of the later.
‘Surely I hadn’t met a nut who was about to kill me’, I thought.
He then stared directly into my eyes while holding the axe over his shoulder, half a metre from me, ‘You want me to fuck the pole do you?’ he repeated at the top of his voice.
The crowd was now silent.
‘Yeah’ I said a having no idea of what was about to happen and too scared inside to even guess.
That was until I thought ‘well if you’re going to die, Jimbo, at least enjoy it! Lighten up! After all it is a comedy show you're doing! What a way to go!’
He then walked over to the pole and cocked the axe as if he was about to chop the pole in half and I suddenly got his punch line!
He then turned around and smiled a cheeky grin at me as if to say ‘get it!’
I love it when people in the crowd freak me out!
‘What a sense of humour', I thought with a pinch of relief as I pissed myself with the rest of the crowd who started clapping.
‘Such an extravagantly well crafted set-up too’, I mused.
He then walked over to his table and laid the axe down and had a sip of his beer before raising his glass humbly to acknowledge the crowd while smiling sheepishly at his mates who were at the table with him patting him on the back.

After my set, I was back stage packing my t-shirts while amongst all the strippers who were getting ready to go to go out on stage later.
The lady who ran the strippers then walked up to me and poked me in the chest and said, ‘I was disgusted at your act. It’s so degrading and demeaning to women’.
She was a big lady and I could tell she was angry. Her reason didn't seem to match her words though. I was instantly confused.
‘What!?’ I stammered John McEnroe style. ‘You cannot be serious!’
She went on. I was about to interrupt her tirade with the argument ‘Demeaning to women!?Don’t you pay women to get naked and stick things up themselves for money?’
But I didn’t because I don’t actually think stripping is degrading to women. I’ve seen enough strippers to know it’s an act as well as an artform as much as stand-up is and I know from experience at watching so many strip acts that a good stripper’s performance goes way beyond the way they look. Holding drunk guy's attention for fifteen minutes is hard no matter what you look like naked.
Then again, perhaps I’ve seen too many strippers!? Either way though, I didnt' know what to say back to this lady who was seriously ripping into me.
Then a stripper walked behind me and said, ‘Don’t worry Jimbo, I enjoyed your set’, without caring about what her boss thought.
The boss lady kept at me.
I was now starting to get more upset. It was more out of my confusion of the situation though. I couldn't work our why this lady was verbally abusing me and so I started raising my voice back to her.
The bouncer standing next to both of us then stepped in and said, ‘Careful what you say mate, she’s my Mum!’
Anyway I backed off and went back to the bar. Ten minutes later the publican was slipping me my $100 for my gig. I told him about the incident.
He said, ‘don’t worry about her. She’s had the stripping contract for the last five years here and this is the first time there’s been any other entertainment on in between. She’s just paranoid that she’s about to lose her job!’

I walked away relieved and marvelling at the concept that there’s usually some other reason behind all our verbal rants which is totally unrelated to what’s coming out of our mouths. Working it out is very difficult. Especially the ones we do ourselves.
Anyway I was philosophising about these quirks of human nature with Will on the way back in the car when he said, ‘How do you normally come down after a gig with all the adrenaline and all?’
I said ‘I normally go for a walk or have a quiet beer or a water or something’.
I then looked at Will curiously and said, ‘How the fuck do you come down after an armed robbery? I mean the worst thing that can happen at my gig is no-one laughs and I don’t get paid. But if your gig fucks up you get ten years in jail!’
Will answered, ‘the best drug after an A.R is dope or heroin, the worst is speed’.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because then you go back into town and tell everyone what you did!’
I rolled my head back with laughter. Another punch line that floored me. One that was true too. Five kilometres down the road I then said, ‘Look Will, I remember an A.R happened at a pub when I had a weekly show up at The Cross in Sydney years ago. It was The Vegas hotel which is basically a pokie den’.
I went on, ‘The pub had two entrances and three blokes had come in via the Kellett street end, chained up both ends from the inside and told the five customers on the pokie machines to get down on the floor. Anyway, apparently one guy didn't want to get on the floor coz he'd just got 'The Feature' and was keen to see how much his free spins were netting. The gunman then repeated his demands to get on the floor but the guy wouldn't take his eyes off his machine. Finally the gunman pulled his chair out from under him. When the guy hit the floor he then looked up at the gunman and said, 'Can I at least look at the fuckin' screen?!' By this time, I think the gunman realised this guy was the last guy he had to worry about in the place’.

By the way, can you imagine that guy one day at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting and being asked the question, 'When did you realise you might have had a problem gambling?'
'Well a guy once had a gun to my head and I didn't give a shit...'

Anyway I then told Will how the three gunman held the bar staff up and ended up getting away with about $12000 in cash. They missed the Kings Cross cops arriving by about two minutes. Their burnt out car was found the next day.
I told Will I imagined there were at least five people involved in the job including the getaway driver and someone else in planning, which meant they'd risked by two minutes going to jail for ten years - all for about $2000 each.
I then said 'Why do you do it?'
Will then said, 'Jimbo, Armed Rob is like comedy, you don't do it for the money you do it for the buzz!’
The reasons why people do armed robbery suddenly made more sense to me.
Risk taking. Some guys get it driving fast, some get it gambling on the stock market, some get it doing comedy in Outback pubs, some get it by fucking their sister-in-law, some get it doing Armed Robbery.
Will then stared out the window and started talking like many a jaded old comedian, I've heard after a gig reminiscing about the good old days. In fact just about any old guy talking about his business and how things have changed.
'AR isn't the same as it was in the 80's though’, lamented Will. ‘Direct debit machines ruined our game. None of the small shops carry cash like they used to. The returns just ain't there'.

Back on the balcony that night, Will said he was going to miss me when I was gone, so he was thinking of doing a 'job' in Darwin just to stay interested in life.
I asked him 'what was he going to do?’ trying hard not to think I was in Quentin Tarrantino movie.
'I've thought it all out’, he said.
I'm gunna hire a Santa suit and walk down the street with a bell handing out lollies to kids. When I see a good cash target, probably a tobacco shop or kebab joint, I'm gunna pull a gun on them, get the cash, run down the nearest alley, ditch the Santa suit and beard and then mingle in with the crowd. Should be easy'.
'And a good story for the NT news too', I warned.
I then wen on, 'look Will, I don't want to read about you in some Adelaide newspaper in a few weeks and go, 'OOhh no and he did it in a wonder woman outfit too!''.
Will laughed and had another sip of his beer.
'You know Will', I eventually said after a long silence, 'When you pull a gun to someone's head, you're probably just trying to project and exorcise the demons of feeling utterly hopeless and at the mercy of someone else which is left over from your experience of having your Dad pull a gun on you when you were a kid..... That wasn't fair what happened to you as a kid but it's not real fair to the people in the shops you're pulling a gun on either'
Saying the truth to friends doesn’t always get the result you hoped for.
It's always a risk. It can go either way.
The lightening strikes around Darwin in the lead up to the first thunderstorm of the wet are awesome.
Will had the best seat in the house from his balcony on the third floor of the YMCA where he'd been the last six months.
'I know. I know', he said gently as he took another sip of his beer.

* Worst heckle.
I'm not too sure if this was the worst heckle I've ever had while I'm working or the best heckle. But in terms of me being speechless this was the best heckle:
I was in Darwin at The Winnellie Hotel again, a year later during the wet again after doing my third consecutive set in between strippers where I'd been performing five weeks in a row to exactly the same crowd.
I was really running out of material and dead tired when a guy wandered on stage and calmly whispered in my ear, 'You're going to wake up in the morning with a shit on your forehead'.
I wrapped up my set pretty quick after that and went back to the YMCA, sat on the balcony and gave Will a call while the lightening snapped on the horizon.
Will was over in QLD by now back in rehab.

To be continued....

Part Two of Eight.

2009-11-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

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....

Part One of Eight.

2009-11-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

My life as a clown - by Jimbo

*The beginning.
I never imagined I'd earn a living being a clown. Not because I didn't want to. I just didn't think it was possible. People grew up to be butchers, policemen, lawyers, football players, fishermen. Being a clown was something I thought people did for fun.
Looking back now though, there were early signs that this was my path.
When I was seven years old at my local Public school in Sydney, I was auditioned with my friend Peter Danks to be the clown in a skit for our end of year play. We were sent outside by the teacher while he was selecting kids to audition for other parts. We were told to think of something funny. Peter was about twice my size. We came back in five minutes later. I piggy-backed him. The class and the teacher laughed. We got the parts.
Three years later I was at another School. Again, they needed someone to do a skit during the half time break for the class’ end of year play. The kids told the teacher that the new kid did impressions of Alan Seale. Alan Seale was a gardening personality on TV who did a few commercials at the time. He had a distinct lisp. I was pushed up the front of the class where I told them all with an exaggerated whistling emphasis on each 's' about, 'Lace bugs, aphids, beetles and yellow belly sap suckers'. I got the part.
Six years later in year 12, some students were putting on a roast one afternoon where they impersonate the teachers. I was selected to impersonate a teacher we affectionately called 'Shovel'. He was known for telling tall stories. I got the part.
Upon leaving school, I didn't really know what to do. Most of my friends were going to University, so I did too. I didn't have any idea what course I wanted to do, so I chose 'Commerce' at the Uni of NSW. Commerce to me seemed like something that left me, with options to go into any business afterwards. i.e. it gave me another three years to decide what I wanted to do for a living.
When I started it commerce, I realised I hated it. It just didn’t interest me. Binge drinking did though. It was heaps of fun, in only a way that spewing up twice a week can be thoroughly enjoyed by an 18 year old. After all, it was a sign that you'd had a 'top night'. Towards the end of first year Uni, I'd failed most of my subjects. One ‘macroeconomics’ exam was made up entirely of multiple choice answers. I realised five minutes into the exam that I couldn't even rule out one answer in any of the multiple choices on offer, so I went through guessing by filling in what I thought looked like a nice pattern of pencil marks on the a) b) c) d) and e) answer form. When I finished I had to change all the ones I'd answered e) back because I discovered there were not e)'s on the question sheet. I ended up getting 20% which was 5% below the law of probability for a multiple choice question with four answers. Like I said, I was finding commerce tough.
Drinking was easy though. And then in October I got sick.I think it was a combination of glandular fever, tonsillitis, and too much alcohol. I didn't have alcoholic poisoning. I think I'd just slowly run my immune system down. I ended up in hospital for a week on a drip. When I got out I decided drinking no longer interested me anymore. Or at least getting drunk no longer interested me. From there, my marks picked up and I dribbled through my exams with a combination of passes and pass conceded before choosing a marketing major in my second year. Accounting, finance and the other commerce majors seemed to involve right or wrong answers which I wasn't interested in. Marketing was based on subjects like sociology where there weren't necessarily right or wrong answers, just explanations. In other words, I figured I had a better chance of bullshitting my way to the end of my commerce degree through marketing.
In my third year of Uni in Feb 1990, I was up at the local CES again which was what the Australian ‘Centrelink’ job centre was called back then. I needed another part time job. I'd got sacked again from my latest job as a waiter for being 'too vague'. You need to be on the ball as a waiter not a daydreamer. The time before that I'd got sacked as a barman at my local bowling club. A guy of about seventy, who ran the bar, gave me a trial run. I'd gone alright until I pulled the rack of bourbon glasses out of the washing machine too far causing them to all smash on the ground. Then an old guy who had just came off the bowling green asked me for a 'Seven of Fosters' (back when Australian's drunk Fosters). I thought he meant seven schooners of Fosters. I found out after the sixth drink, I'd poured that a '7' was the term used for a small seven ounce glass. The manager then had to pour six beers down the sink, while apologising to the customer for ‘the new guy’.
The next time I turned up for work, the guy who managed the bar sweetly told me, 'Look Jim, you're a really nice young guy but every time I look at you, you make me nervous. I can't take you on here. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you'.
And with that and a long line of other part time jobs behind me from Pizza delivering to being a ‘brickies’ labourer, (all of which I'd eventually been politely faded off the roster sheets for each week), I went back into the CES looking for another part time job.

*First paid gig.
I was enjoying life but no job or anything I was studying, particularly grabbed me. One card on the wall at the CES took my eye in particular this day though. It said, 'Fire-eaters, stilt walkers wanted at a new nightclub opening up'. I took the cardboard slip up to one of the job centre interviewers and told him I knew how to juggle from when I played cricket at school and I told him also I somehow knew how to balance a chair on my chin which I promptly demonstrated to him and everyone else in the office. He then told me how this was an unusual case for him as he'd never interviewed a guy who could balance a chair on his chin as part of the job requirement before. He then shrugged his shoulders and sent me along to the job interview. The lady who ran the 729 club at St Leonards said she wanted a circus theme for the newly fitted nightclub. She thought clowns’ mingling with people doing tricks was a good way to build up the atmosphere in the recently re-launched club. I got the job and remember thinking as I nervously rocked up to the nightclub to do this job where I was putting on a clown suit and going up to strangers and trying to entertain them on the spot, 'If I can pull this off tonight, I can do anything'.
When I started and I soon realised though that I normally rock up to nightclubs on the weekends and run around being an idiot anyway, so there was no need to be nervous. And this way I also got paid $20 an hour to do it. Plus it was a good way of talking to people without having to have a drink in my hand.

* Jackson’s-on-George.
Within a few weeks the 729 club went broke again. The clown didn't work but I got my first positive written working reference out of it. I then hit the streets again looking for a bar job not even considering that there was another job like the last one in the world for me. That was until I walked into 'Jackson’s-on-George' the bar at the end of George St, on Circular Quay.The upstairs nightclub was called ‘The Luna Bar’ and the walls were adorned with old memorabilia bought from when Luna Park had recently been shut down due to a fatal fire in the Ghost Train in the mid 80's. Instead of asking for a bar job, I asked the boss if he wanted a clown to run around his 'Luna Bar'. I then showed him the only positive job reference I had. He said he'd never thought of having someone do what I'd proposed. I got the part.
For the next year I was running around the 'Luna Bar' as a clown every Friday night. I basically went up to everyone in the club trying to make them laugh with my jokes, banter and tricks as they discussed their end of week woes and joys with their colleagues after work, before the nightclub kicked in later.

* Advertising.
In the meantime I'd finished my University degree and landed a job as a trainee in an advertising firm called Young and Rubicam. I wanted to be a copywriter. I never knew there were people who got paid to sit around in jeans and write ads until I did marketing and I pursued this advertising job for the same reasons I pursued marketing from Commerce and commerce from school. It seemed like the easiest option and one that would still enable me to daydream as part of the job. I soon discovered though that life in an office, or 'the real world' wasn't like school, University or sport - where promotion happened on a plainly transparent merit system. Politics came into play in work environments.
I was a daydreamer not a networker. Soon I became bored of work which I covered up with outwardly docile yet very polite work demeanour. This impressed a production manager. I was given the job of going through the last ten years of filing of video tapes in the 'dub room'. The 'dub room’ was a dark room in the middle of the building which no-one ever went to. I didn’t care too much though; I still enjoyed my other job - running around ‘The Luna Bar’ as a clown on Friday and Saturday nights.

* Birthday parties.
One night while dressed up as a clown at The Luna Bar, a lady came up to me and said she ran a children's birthday party agency. She wanted to know if I did that type of work. I said, 'No'. She said that I should. All I'd have to do, for her to give me work, was learn how to do balloon animals and a bit of face painting. Which I did and I got the part. And in the process I soon learnt that dealing with drunks was easy compared to dealing with the verbal heckling you get from kids that are excited or the punches to the balls you got when they were bored..

* First death on stage.
While I was doing my nightclub work at Jackson's-on-George and kid’s parties during the day on weekends, I found another pub near the Uni of NSW in Kensington. It had a nightclub out the back called ‘The Circus Bar’. I dropped in there one day and asked the manager whether he’d like me to run around as a clown on Thursday nights, like I was also doing at Jackson’s-on-George. I then explained what I did.
He said, ‘No but we’ve got Tommy and Phil Emmanuel doing their guitar show next Thursday. Can you do a comedy act on stage in between their sets?’
‘Sure’, I lied.
I bought four of my mates along to the gig. I’d never done a stand-up show in my life but thought I’d give it a go. I prepared by collecting jokes I’d heard before.My mate Roger told me one, on the way in: ‘What’s worse than a bull with AIDS? The cowboy who gave it to him’.
When we got there the venue was full. Five hundred people were jammed in and rocking the place. Immediately Roger went into the crowd trying to hit on every chick he saw. His chat up line was, ‘I know the comedian who is going to be on tonight and I write his jokes’. I opened up with Roger’s gag. It got no response. I then did a few more jokes that went nowhere before people started yelling at me. I then went to a few putdowns I’d heard before at comedy venues, ‘If I wanted shit from you, I’d come down and squeeze your head’ or ‘Out of six million sperm, you had to be the fastest one’.
I managed for a bit but the heckling then started popping up like spot fires at different places in the crowd. Each one I tried to deal with another stock standard line. I thought I was going okay until suddenly the room literally seemed to erupt into one unified voice which was saying ‘Get off! Get off! Get off!’ I remember at this point thinking, it’s probably time to cut to the juggling. I picked up my clubs only to feel a yank on my t-shirt cuff. The DJ was literally dragging me off stage.
Roger didn’t speak to me for a couple of hours afterwards. He was too busy telling all the girls he’d spoken to that night that he didn’t really know me.

* Food fight.
I remember the second kid's birthday party as a clown I did back in late 1991. I was with 15 kids getting stuck into junk food around a table and having a ball. I motioned for the birthday boy at the end of the table to catch a Cheezel in his mouth which I was about to throw at him.
It hit him on the nose. He then threw one back at me, then the kid next to him copied. Soon they were all throwing food at the clown. Then they were all throwing handfuls of food at the clown until the mother walked in and yelled out, 'STOP. Everyone get out... Now!!
Then she looked at me. 'You too clown. Get out now!!'And I went out the back with all the other kids. We were in trouble.

*Clown Camp.
I soon became better at handling children's energy and the parents who booked me. I loved the job.If a kid was disrupting the show, I soon learnt that instead of getting upset or blocking them it was better to pull them up the front where I could simply use their energy for the show. If they didn't upstage me then in front of everyone they then morphed into my helper and if they did upstage me it made the show even better and I let them continue until the crowd was no longer interested. I later used this principle as the basis for my audience talent quest in my outback stand-up comedy shows.
Anyway, I started getting lots of clown gigs through word of mouth where parents told other parents that I entertained the adults as much as the kids. And as my children's party work built up, I left my 'dub room' job in the advertising company I was with. I had the confidence to leave my advertising career temporarily because I had an income on the weekend being a clown.This would give me enough money to keep me going before I re-entered the advertising industry as a copywriter once I'd had time to hock my portfolio around town. Or so I thought.
While I looked for another job in advertising, I ended up becoming the busiest kid's party clown in Sydney doing over 450 children's birthday gigs over the next year.I was still sure an advertising job would come soon, I thought as I flicked through an obscure juggling magazine one morning. It was there I noticed as ad for 'Clown Camp' as part of a summer holiday programme at The University of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA. I never knew you could actually go to a school and learn how to be a clown. It was next month. I looked at my bank account and booked my ticket the next day.
I got there a day early and was asked to stay with the president of Clown Camp's place while he hosted a dinner for all the other teachers. I was the only student clown. They said they were honoured to have someone from overseas come to their school. None of the teachers were in make-up or character. They were a homely bunch of people who looked more like they were respected professionals in whatever line of work they did otherwise. I found out that night, they were all full time clowns.
'Are you a white faced clown or an Auguste clown?’ they asked.
'I don't know' I said.
They then explained to me the difference. White clown are more what you'd call the straight person in a clown duo routine. Auguste clowns were the buffoons, the ones who copped the pie in the face or who ran face first into the wall to get the laugh. I was an Auguste clown, I thought. I then told them how kids don't laugh when you juggle four balls in front of them.
'You're just another big person then who can do stuff they can't. But when you stuff it up and drop one of the balls on your head, they piss themselves'.
They all nodded at each other and said I was an Auguste clown in between wiping the corner of their mouths with napkins.These people are clowns I thought but otherwise pretty normal.
‘Maybe I could be a clown for the rest of my life? I thought.
And from there at Clown Camp I learnt about the basics of the art: The history of clowning, make-up, magic, balloons and stilt walking etc. We even had a big pie throwing class one day. The camp was mainly full of middle-aged people who seemed to use clowning as a good excuse to mix with people and be social while earning a bit of pocket money on the side, rather than full time professional clowns -like the teachers.
A lot of the classes were for religious clowns too. In America there is a big market for Christian ministries to sell the message to kids via clowning.
One of the teachers there for the big religious strand of the course was an Irish priest. He was born as one third of a set of triplets. Apparently, he did his preaching at his popular parish in Ireland on Sundays while balancing from a slack rope and dressed as a clown.
'Howies' was the local bar where the clowns from the course socialised in each night. Hardly any of the religious clowns went there. The Irish Priest did though. And he was a phenomenal drinker. He always had a different drink in his hand from the one he had ten minutes ago and never seemed drunk. One day a couple of the religious clowns in his class came down to the pub and saw him. They went up to him and immediately started talking about the bible with him. Each time he told them, 'Look, I'm in the pub at the moment having a drink so can we not talk about the Bible or God. I'm trying to relax'.
To which there was a stunned silence. They then left him in peace to hang with the atheists.

* Clown College.
At Clown Camp, I then found out about Clown College which was a training camp for clowns for the Ringling Bros & Barnum and Bailey circus. Each town the circus went to they did auditions for clowns. After Clown Camp I went backpacking around America and planned to an audition Clown College when the circus I were both in Las Vegas. They audition 3000 people each year and the auditions also double as a good publicity story in the local papers where the circus is performing. They select 30 trainee clowns each year for an intensive stadium style clown training programme (unicycles, contortion, piling out of clown cars, hard-core slapstick) for four weeks in a town called Baraboo in the mid west.
They wanted performers with potential but also people who were single had no ties and weren't going to complain about having 'the experience of a life-time' while travelling around America in the 'Greatest show on earth' for $100 a week.
One of the clowns at the audition regaled us with road stories. He said the circus travelled by rail and above the women's showers he'd once put a big detachable bear's head which the ticket sellers wore when working. The girls at first thought it was really funny after grabbing it and checking it out. Then after a while they got used to it being there. He said he then stuck his head in that bear's head from outside the showers every night for four weeks until the girls eventually found out the view he was getting from inside the bear’s eyes. He then went onto say the biggest night he had in the circus was waking up one morning in bed next to a naked trapeze girl and a midget on either side of him. He said, still to this day he hasn't asked them what happened.
He said the midget was his partner in a routine they did while the trapeze apparatus was being taken down at shows before the elephants come on.
Clowning at circus’s apparently evolved through the need for a distraction for the crowd when sets were being changed. A bit like when I carried Peter Danks on to the stage in third grade while the trees were being put up for the next scene. He said his midget clown friend was a big alcoholic. One time during a performance at Madison Square Garden, he was doing the usual routine where he walks out into the middle of the arena with a bag and opens it to which a midget clown pops out to a big laugh from the crowd etc. He said on this particular time, he opened the bag and the midget was passed out with a bottle beside him. He then realised he was in the middle of Madison Square Gardens performing to thousands of kids and their families and the only prop he had to work with was a comatose midget. He was so angry, he lifted the bag and slammed it on the floor. The midget immediately rolled out, got up and kicked him in the shins. The crowd went nuts and they kept that bit in the show every time they went out from then on.I remember thinking most of my clown gags developed out of mistakes which got a laugh from which I then added into the next gig's collection of gags. And that's what I always loved about being a clown the most, I think compared to any other job. It was the only job in the world where the more you fucked up, the better you were at it.

* Vegas.
From Vegas, I did a tour to The Grand Canyon with about ten other backpackers. Afterwards we came back and hit the town. I drank Midori's all night, for some reason. Probably because the girl I liked was drinking them too. When I did a turd in the morning I thought I'd been eating plutonium. It looked radioactive and then I remembered what I'd been drinking all night.
‘I hadn't had a blow out like that in years’ I mused to myself.
I then sat down for breakfast with the girl I was with that night and she told me what had happened the night before to my horror.
She said that I'd driven her car to a drive thru marriage place where I then backed her car out saying to her, 'what the fuck is this place!? I had no idea! I only wanted to take you for a hamburger!'
I then told the attendant who let me out, 'I wanted onion rings not a wedding ring!
'I'd then driven her back into town while I told her how 'driving on the other side of the road in America is easier when I'm drunk coz that's the side I normally drive on when I'm driving drunk in Australia'.
Anyway, I made it out of Vegas alive without waking up with Mike Tyson's tiger in my hotel room and two days later I found out I'd been accepted into Clown College.

* Clown offers.
At the same time I'd been accepted into Clown College, I'd also been offered a job in Japan for a year from a Japanese agent at clown camp who noticed I was about the only clown who was young, single and not religious.
Clown College later came back to me and said it'd be hard to accept me without a green card. After much deliberating yet excitement over the fact I actually had two choices to keep working as a clown before me which were in different overseas countries, I took the Japan offer. My marketing degree and advertising career could always wait a little bit longer.Despite, taking the Japan option, Clown College invited me up and be a part of their opening day for the 1994 Clown College students that year. I was told to join the students as we walked in. We all instantly turned into wide-eyed kids again. The place in Baraboo was like walking into Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Smoke and music filled the big warehouse door we walked through upon arrival. We were then greeted inside by the most amazing array of circus props and memorabilia I'd ever scene. Going down that path in life as clown travelling around America with the circus would have been fun too, I daydreamed.
'Where's Jimbo gone?’ they would say back at the advertising company.
'He's run off and joined the circus'.
'I suppose dubbing tapes just wasn't for him', my boss would then reply as the next ten years of unmarked tapes piled up.

* Alaska.
My pre-booked plane pass from Delta airlines allowed to me to use an unlimited amount of planes in the U.S for three weeks. To save on accommodation I spent most nights sleeping on a plane and eating Delta’s food while I crossed the country in the air. One morning I woke up in the airport of Anchorage, Alaska. It was July 3rd in the middle of summer. I booked into the hostel where I was told that at midnight there would be a fireworks display in the local park celebrating Independence Day. I cruised down to have a look. The locals loved the display. I remember saying to the guy next to me, 'Not bad, but back home we light them when it's dark. They look heaps better then'.

* Central Park.
I then flew to New York. One morning I decided to take a day pack from my hostel and visit Central Park. Compared to Hyde Park in the middle of Sydney, this park was massive. I choose to start ambling along a road amongst all the joggers and bike riders in the middle of the park. I then started veering off onto a dirt path beside it which was in amongst some trees. Soon I was daydreaming again and not realising the dirt path had been turning away from the road for sometime and I was now by myself in what was a heavily forested bushland. I kept walking assuming it would bring me back to the path. A guy then appeared out of nowhere coming towards me on the path. I quickly glanced at his eyes as he walked past and got shivers. I wasn't too sure whether I was just being paranoid or not so I turned my head around about twenty metres on to find he had down a U-turn and was following me. I walked faster. I didn't want to appear panicked. Surely the road, some people or some civilisation would greet me soon, I thought.
Another 300 metres down the track I realised I'd walked down a peninsular that leads into the lake where there were a whole lot of ducks and people in paddle boats cruising around on. I turned around casually and could see the guy about 50 metes behind me on the track, loitering in the bushes. I didn't turn around again.Instead I sat casually on the bank of the lake in full view of all the boats and read my book. Twenty minutes later I realised my book was upside down. I knew I was okay at the moment but I had no idea how I was going to get back past the guy before dark. I then took out some balloon animals. Maybe I could freak him out with a balloon sword as I ran past him!?
I then blew one up and found myself making a swan which I pushed out onto the water. It looked pretty. I ended up making ten different coloured bright swans which I pushed out onto the glistening lake.
A father with his son in a boat saw them and yelled out to me that they looked cool. We then started chatting as he rowed in closer.
'Wow, you're Australian. I've got a cousin who works in a company in Australia', he said.
'Thank God, Americans love talking', I thought.
I then asked whether his son would like a poodle to which he said 'yes' and we chatted while my getaway boat was now only two metres away from me in the water. We kept chatting. I knew I had shouldn't ask to soon until I knew the rapport had been built up enough but I knew also knew it couldn't be too late either.
'Say, you wouldn't be able to give me a lift to the other side would you?’ I said mid-giraffe.
He hesitated and then said 'sure' and I hopped in. As we rowed away I turned around to see the guy for the third and last time standing where I was on the bank.
As my American friend rowed with me sitting behind me with his kid in front of him, he casually joked, 'Gee, I'd be really unhappy if you stabbed me in the back, while we were crossing'.
I laughed. Little did he know how happy I was to be on the boat. I then made his son another balloon sword before thanking them for the lift to the other side where I disappeared into the warm anonymous embrace of the New York hustle and bustle.

* Chimpo.
A few weeks later I was broke again but landing into Narita Airport, to a job as a clown (or 'crown' as they say in Japan) in the Korakuen amusement park, Tokyo Dome.
The job involved doing four walkaround 'meet and greet' shifts around the park each day with three other American clowns who were employed.
When I started working a lot of the Japanese kids would come up to me as I did my juggling and basic mime shtick. When they realised I didn't speak Japanese they'd ask me excitedly in broken English, 'What's your name?'
To which I replied, 'Jimbo'.
It always got a big laugh which is good for clown's self-esteem. Making people laugh is my job. After about a week though, I was getting confused as to why it was always getting such a big laugh. It was just my name, I thought. Surely getting a laugh in Japan isn't that easy.
Anyway, I found out later that 'Chimpo' which sounds like 'Jimbo' is the slang word for 'Penis' in Japanese. So here I was walking around an amusement park as a clown saying to little kids, 'Hi I'm Penis the clown!'
Despite it getting a laugh, I decided to change my name. I chose 'Bimbo' instead which I prophetically then found out was the Japanese slang word for ‘a homeless man who lives in a park’.

* Stilts.
I learnt a lot of skills in Japan which I practiced in my spare time including, cigar boxes, devil stick, diabolo and the basics of the Japanese Language. I also learnt how to walk on stilts. Working around an amusement park without falling on kids who are grabbing onto your legs is hard. Taking a piss during your break is even harder.

* Expo.
Way back in 1988, Mum and Dad took me and my two sisters to Expo in Brisbane. The only things I remember about it were the street performers. They fascinated me. Six years later as a clown performer working in Japan, I decided I should try street performing myself. The place I decided on was a popular walking bridge in a district called Namba in Osaka. I was up there on holidays.
My first go was fun. I did a twenty minute routine of all my tricks with all my gags in broken Japanese. I had about 50 people around me and just as I was coming to my hat line at the end, two Japanese cops came out of nowhere and hauled me off to the station. I was pretty scared. I thought they'd get back to the company who was sponsoring me to work here and perhaps I'd also loose my visa for doing something illegal. I was in a different country and didn't know what the rules were let alone what the two cops were yelling at me.
As I was being questioned in Japanese, a drunken Japanese couple who I'd made balloon hats for in my act were jumping up and down making funny faces at me in the window behind where the cops were questioning me. The cops eventually let me go. And as I walked out the couple in the window came up to me and gave me some coins for my act, which I bought dinner with.
I found out later from another busker that busking wasn't illegal in Japan. The cops were apparently just jealous after they'd heard a rumour that buskers were made more money than them. So what they did for fun on quiet nights was wait until buskers did their routine and then as soon as they were asking the crowd for money at the end during their 'hat line', they'd haul them away for 'questioning'.
Later on I did street performing in Shinjuku, Tokyo. After the third bald headed Yakuza guy with dark sunglasses and missing little finger approached me for a cut of my takings though, I decided to just stick to my job in the local amusement park.

* Showboat.
When I came back from working as a clown in Japan I got a job in Sydney working on a tourist paddle steamer that went around the harbour. It was called The Sydney Showboat. I had two shifts. One was during the day on Monday and Tuesday. This involved me cruising around to tables and talking to tourists who were admiring the harbour and also amusing them with a bit of patter, table magic, jokes and balloon animals for a few minutes - before moving onto the next table. I was also a bit of a bi-lingual commentator for the Japanese tourists who frequented the boat.
It was a cruisey gig and I was paid about $108 for each eight hour shift.
At night during the week, I also got gigs a doing the same on their night cruises which lasted three hours. I got $135 for these shifts.Anyway about six months later, I found out that the Award wage for a roving performer according to the Media and Arts Entertainment Alliance (MEAS) which I'd been a paid up union member for years, was about $18 an hour. This was under what I was being paid for my Monday and Tuesday day shifts. The Sydney Showboat was a reputable and profitable company. I assumed the award wage had just crept up over the years and they'd made an oversight and failed to adjust it, so I pointed it out to the agency who booked me.I was immediately not given any more shifts from them at all on the boat.
The agency that employed me was the biggest dancing agency in the country and employed the many dancing girls who performed on the boat at night and also managed them throughout their careers elsewhere. My main income however was from random Mum's and Dads who booked me at birthday parties on the weekend. I had nothing to lose and only the $1500 in back pay to gain I thought, so I asked the MEAS to pursue the money for me instead of staying quiet.
I was then immediately called into a 'mediating' meeting with the Late Bobby Limb who was the figure head of the company who employed me on The Sydney Showboat and the two agent ladies I'd dealt with for work. One was Di Heaton. There were also two MEAS representatives in this six person meeting. They all sat down in the conference room with folders in front of them. I'd been into a few meetings in office conference rooms while I worked in advertising years ago but only as a work experience kid listening in - at best. But this meeting was all about me. I felt like a proper grown-up and was excited!
I had only met Bobby Limb briefly a couple of times while on the boat and had no prior impression of him other than being aware that he won a Gold Australian television Logie for something in the 70's. I thought he was a decent, intelligent bloke until he mentioned to the MEAS people in front of me without looking at me in the eye, that I was sacked for being an alcoholic. I couldn't believe my ears.
I said, 'Excuse me!'
To which one of the agent ladies then took over. They'd obviously briefed him. 'Come on Jimbo, remember last shift when I saw you backstage, you were all over the floor'.
I racked my brains to the last time she saw me and remembered it was on one of my hour long breaks while the dancers were doing their show.
I said, 'I wasn't drunk. I was resting. That's how I always relax. I lie on the floor and chill'.
She then rolled her eyes and went back to shuffling her papers.
The meeting didn't last much longer and the Showboat people left, leaving me alone with the MEAS reps.I said to them, 'I couldn't believe what they said about me being drunk!
When he said it, I felt like I was an actor from a plot line from a really badly scripted B grade movie!'
The MEAS reps then said, 'yeah it was embarrassing to hear to tell you the truth, I could tell they were making it up as soon as they said it. They're obviously desperate. Don't worry we'll sort it out from here'. I left the meeting confident I was going to get my money and happy I no longer worked for The Sydney Showboat people.
The next day I was rung up about the MEAS and told they couldn't represent me in court like I'd expected.
I asked 'How come?’
He said, 'Well there's a bit of a political problem. Bobby Limb is affiliated with the board of MEAS, so I've been instructed that we won't be able to represent you because of a 'conflict of interest'.
I said a little shocked (but also amused that the plot line of the B Grade movie I imagined I was in, was getting thicker).
'Don't worry then.' I said, 'I'll represent myself. I reckon it'll still be an easy case to win. Just tell them I'll see them again in court!',
I said feeling even more like a grown-up now.
As I put the phone down the main concern going through my head was that the only suit I owned was a bright fluoro red colour.
The MEAS then sent a legal letter to me saying that The Sydney Showboat was prepared to pay me the outstanding money owed to me on the condition that I don't communicate with anyone afterwards about the details of the settlement.I thought about it and realised that it meant they could go on and keep slandering me in any way they wanted to anyone but I had then no legal entitlement to defend myself back, even verbally!
'Fuck that!’ I thought.
What if I want to include it in a book of amusing stories about my life 15 years later!!
I then told the MEAS, who now seemed to be representing The Sydney Showboat, that my offer still stood otherwise 'I'll see them in court!'
This was enough to call their bluff. I got the money off them without going to court or having to sign anything. I then cancelled my MEAS subscription.

* Bills.
Kids don't lie like adults. Especially four to five year olds. They're so stoked at the joy of using words to communicate that they haven't quite learned how to use them to manipulate yet. They do learn quickly though! Anyway, I remember doing a clown show at Five Dock primary school to over 100 kids in kindergarten to year six kid. I'd held them for forty five minutes of gags and shtick but then ran out of material. I was also a bit worn out so I decided to sit all the kids down and try and get them calm by just shooting the breeze with them with some questions.
I asked them questions I've often thought about. 'Kids, who wants to be older here?!'
Pretty well every kid put up their hand from Kindergarten to year six.
I then said, 'How come young people want to be old and old people want to be young?'
A whole lot of hands went up and I picked out one kid who looked like he was about five and in Year one up the front.I pointed to him and said, 'How come, mate!?'
He looked at me and then stuttered, 'Old people,.. old people,.. old people, don't like being old... because they've got bills to pay'.
I then said to him, 'What are bills?'
He said, 'I don't know'.
It then dawned on me that he had no idea what bills were other than they were what the postman bought his parents each day and as the parents sat around the table opening them up each night and then putting their head in their hands each night, all this kid probably thought was, 'Whoever this Bill guy is. He's a prick!'
For a kid who had no idea what he was talking about he knew exactly what most people don't like about getting older.

* Telling it straight.
One of my great friends is a girl called Yumi. She was my manager from Korakuen amusement park in Japan and often comes out to Australia. She was telling me once how she was at friend's place in Australia holding their five year old son on her lap when he looked up and said, 'Yumi, how come you've got such a flat face!'

* Jumping castle.
I once rocked up to a kid's party which I'd been booked weeks before. It took me an hour to get there. The Dad opened the door and then talked to me from behind the locked security grill door. His daughter was standing at his feet.
He said, 'Did you get the message on your answering machine?'
I said, 'no'.
He then looked down at his daughter and said, 'She decided this morning that she'd prefer a jumping castle instead of a clown'.
I thought he was joking until I looked down at Jessica who was nodding at me earnestly while her Dad patted her head. We all then just stood there in silence before I turned around and walked back to the car.

* Michael
I'd finished one kid's party and was waiting to get paid at the front door when a little boy ran up to me and grabbed my leg in front of his father.
'Daddy, Daddy, do you know who Jimbo reminds me of?'
'No' said the Dad.
'Michael Jackson!’ exclaimed the boy.
There was an uncomfortable smile between me and the Dad. Eventually he handed over the money and I left wondering whether I'd just had the best compliment in the life or the worst.

* Big shoes.
I remember driving to one kid's party. I was late and as usual in a rush to arrive on time in order to save the Mother from dealing with thirty dosed up and screaming kids. Anyway, the traffic lights up ahead went red. The car in front slowed down. I went for the brake but my over-sized clown shoe hit the accelerator instead of the brake.
The poor bloke in front of me! Not only was the rear of his car all dented up. But he had to go home and explain to his wife that 'some clown ran up the back of me', which I'm sure he would have then had to follow up with, 'No, no really honey, some clown ran up the back of me...'
When I first started clowning I used to dress up in full clown make-up. It not only made me look like I knew what I was doing but it also gave me a mask to hide my nerves behind. I don't know whether I became better at clowning or just lazy, a bit of both probably but eventually I stopped wearing any make-up or funny clothes. I was known as the 'jeans and t-shirt' clown who didn't dress up.
Some parents didn't like it others thought it was comforting having watched 'It' as a kid. Many people have phobias about clowns. Go to 'www.ihateclowns.com' if you do.
Most parents didn't care whether I wore make-up or not though, just as long as I kept the kids from destroying their house. No make-up also made it a lot easier for me to do my shopping, banking and chores on the way to and from gigs too. It also made it easier to drive.

* Fire eating.
I was doing my fire juggling routine to about twenty kids in a backyard once. They were surrounded by about ten adults who were watching with the usual beers and barbequed sausages in hand. I got up to the part where I say I'm going to put the burning fire stick out in my mouth. As part of my routine I then went to put it in a few times before retracting the burning stick at the last moment to build up the tension in the crowd.
Suddenly a boy yelled out at the top of his voice, 'Jimbo, Jimbo, just stick it in really quickly, it won't hurt at all!'
My love of hecklers started at kid’s birthday parties.
'Timothy', I said, 'Be quiet, this is a family show'.

* Pass the parcel.
When I started clowning, I used to do 'pass the parcel' to chew up a bit of time in my one hour gig. One of my gags was when a kid wouldn't pass the package on, despite when the music still playing, was 'Come on mate, are you deaf?'
Not a top gag but a gag none the less.
Anyway on this day, I yelled it out at a kid about four or five times trying to get him to pass it on until one mother came up to me and said, 'Yes he is'.
I was going to apologise and step out of character but then thought, 'so what? He's deaf!'
I then thanked the lady and picked the parcel off him while giving him a pat on the head and passed it on to the next kid, which I then did each time it came back to him when the music was still on.
I was stoked later when his Mum came up to me asked me to be the clown at his party the next month.I played pass the parcel that day with a dog whistle. The kids kept passing the parcel until the dog went nuts.

* Winfield.
In 1996, despite loving being a clown, paying my bills each week and living a good life, I still thought that what I was doing was a career detour which would eventually lead me back to advertising. The tap on the shoulder from ‘the real world’ would come soon, it was just a matter of seeing how long I could get away with it for.
When I was working in an office, I remember thinking once, 'Is this it for the next forty years?'
Now I thought, ‘surely I couldn't be a clown for the rest of my life?’
It was still very hard to get in the door at advertising companies just to see if someone would have a look at my portfolio. Perhaps my tits weren't big enough, so I decided instead to approach companies direct with my ideas. I approached several industries.One idea was for a condom maker.
I thought an ad with a picture of their product next to the slogan, 'Go and get F*****' would shift units for any franga on the market.
I had it all planned out. When the ensuing controversy happened with all the fuss on talk back radio they could then throw it back at the people who thought it was offensive by saying 'it was short for 'Frisky. What did you think it meant?' which would then give the product even more publicity.
None of the companies took my proposal though or even wanted to meet up.
One company that did show me some interest though was the tobacco company Winfield. I sent them off the idea for their little known cigarette rolling papers called 'Winnies' and suggested the idea that they do an ad which said, 'Winnies smokers would roll in their graves for one of these'.
I combined this with the idea of a dog up on all fours rolling a cigarette while an Aussie country farmer said to him, 'Bluey, I said Rollover not roll up!'
I also packaged it up with a TV ad idea of two guys in a Ute driving along until the driver swerves to miss a koala and rolls the car. While they're then upside down in their car on the side of the road, the passenger would then grab the rollies off the driver who was taking them out of his pocket and say, 'No mate, I'll roll this one'.
To my surprise, the marketing manager of Winfield asked me in for a meeting after receiving my fax addressed to him with no letterhead on it.Winnies was an inconsequential product in his marketing portfolio. He was even more interested though when I suggested what I thought was an obvious loophole for him in the market. That being that rolling papers weren't covered under the advertising ban for cigarettes and if they advertised their 'Winnies' rolling papers heavily (which was what everyone called their Winfield brand colloquially), they could slip through incidental advertising for Winfield cigarettes without being banned - at least for a while. He said the idea was brilliant as he stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray beside his desk which was literally as big as a bucket. He then said he was going to present the idea to his boss. He needed artwork though for the presentation and he asked me for a quote to get it done. I told him I'd get back to him and then rang around the biggest names in the advertising game I had the balls to call.
I wanted to know what was the average consultancy fee which advertising executives charged their clients - and I mean the top guys. I then returned for a meeting with the Winfield guy and bravely told him I was $250 an hour to which he replied to the best poker face I'd ever done in my life, 'no worries'.
I ended up billing 40 hours work including driving to and from the two meetings we'd already had, plus the time finding a student to draw up the storyboards and the time if took me to find the board and pens for her.
All along I thought, 'is this how business's earn their money?! This is bullshit!!'
I now loved smoking too. I didn't smoke but every time I saw someone smoking I thought of the $10000 cheque I had just received. This was just the beginning I thought too. If this guys boss approves it, I'm on $250 an hour until the shoot and ads have been made and that’s not even before I sell them idea which I'd copywrited. I asked around further and was told about the billions of dollars in advertising budget money cigarette companies had now with nowhere to spend it - except I now believed on rolling paper advertising at the football, cricket, racing cars - everywhere I daydreamed!!
In the end their lawyers scuttled the idea but the $10000 came in handy at the time and kept me going. Later on when I went into stand-up comedy I realised that copywriting for ads and writing gags were essentially a similar creative process. Set up punchline, gag - except stand-up had no product placement, was harder and was way worse paid. And more satisfying.

* Up a tree.
My record for doing the most kid's birthday parties was six bookings in one day. Six one hour shows at six different locations around Sydney driving at break neck speeds to get to each one in time. By the time I got to the last gig, I was buggered and completely over it. It was at my friend Jo's Plaster Master business where the kid's had been painting all day and were waiting for their parents to arrive. Jo was tired too and didn't give a shit either. The kid's however were all juiced up on sugar.
This last gig of the day, was a job of attrition - glorified baby-sitting waiting for the parents to arrive. I didn't have the energy to get on top of them and harness their energy with a 'bang bang punchline show' so I played a game where they had to chase me and catch me outside next door in the park. I then climbed a tree and for the last half an hour kept all the kid's attention while they threw rocks and sticks at me.
It wasn't that bad. Jo threw a helmet up to me. Most of the kids missed anyway.

* Bourbon monsters.
Dave is a mate whom I met clowning in the mid nineties. He also worked as a children's magician clown. Like me he didn't dress up like a clown apart from the hat. Anyway, we organised a tour together of kindergartens in the country and that’s where our friendship began really. The tour was really just an excuse to cut loose in the country and earn some petrol money along the way. If someone didn't take us home from the pub and give us a couch we usually ended up being woken up by sprinklers in the town park. We'd then dust ourselves off and head down to the nearest kindergarten where we were booked to do our gig for the day before heading to park and kicking a football or something.
One night we were in Wellington, NSW. We found a rugby club which was full of people. Wellington had just lost the Grand Final to a town down the road and were celebrating their loss and end of season party in one. Dave and I crashed the party and put on a little show and then passed the hat around. We then proceeded to drink the proceeds – all $30 of it. It was a big night though. I remember one huge guy at the bar eating a meat pie which he dropped into a full ash tray. He then picked it up, flicked a bit of ash off and proceeded to eat the rest.
'This ain't Sydney', I thought.
Dave and I at one point were carving up the dance floor with a couple of the local ladies. Midway through the dance one girl turned and spat at the handle of a nearby door.
'Missed' said the other one before trying to hit it herself with her own spitball.
Dave and I looked at each other and nodded. The night was late and we were looking to score some pot at the time, so we asked the girls next song. We figured if they were cool enough to spit on doors from the dance floor in front of the whole town, they're probably cool enough to ask some advice on where the nearest bit of bush weed could be found. Despite having had over ten bourbons the girls sobered up as soon as we'd asked the question.
'We don't do drugs. Who do you think we are?’ they yelled back totally insulted before storming off.
The next day, Dave and I rocked up to the local kindergarten to do the gig we had booked. It was run by the same two girls.
And for forty minutes, twenty kids sat in front of two clowns who were looking at the teachers behind them thinking, 'You're the two bourbon monsters who were hurling spit balls last night. Do you do that at work too?’And for twenty minutes two teachers looked over their pupils thinking, 'I can't believe these two drug addicts work as clowns entertaining children. Should we call the cops?'

* Injury
I did one gig at a primary school in Cronulla. These gigs generally go along the lines of a teacher ringing up and saying, 'Can you entertain 150 kids from Kindergarten to year six while we take 40 minutes off and enjoy your show too.'
This is alright but after 30 minutes of gags, I usually start losing the kid’s attention at massive school gigs and so ended the show with a big game of chasings. This also serves to wear the kids out before I hand them back to the teachers. In this case the teachers were smart. It was the last period of the day.
Anyway, in my chasings game I try and catch them first and do silly dives while missing them etc then finish the game off with them trying to catch me. At small kids parties I usually do this by evading them a few times which gets a laugh and then having them catch me followed by them all piling up on top of me.
By the time I realised this game was not a good idea with 150 kids it was too late. I was okay under the seething mass of bodies but I could hear that there were a fair few other kids who weren't. They were screaming and crying like they'd been stuck in a Chinese building in some far away province that had collapsed by an earthquake.
'Everyone get off!’ I yelled and yelled as they kept on piling up.
Eventually I got out and convinced the kids to stop piling on top and one by one I peeled kids away hoping there wasn't a death to be found at the bottom of the pile. Most of the kids were okay except one kid. He wasn't crying. I think he was beyond that. He was just holding his leg and his face was white. I grabbed him and lifted his leg.
'Phew. There was no bone sticking out', I thought.
The parents were coming to pick up their kids in about five minutes. This kid was sullen with pain. I got him up and I hobbled him to the nearby chair area.
I then pulled him out the front of 150 of his peers and said, 'Toby has taken some big hits under that kid mountain we created out there and he hasn't cried at all or complained. I reckon we should all yell out at the top of our voices, 'Toby is a legend!'
To which they did five times. Slowly a smile crept over his mouth in between a tear in the corner of one of his eyes. I then made him the biggest balloon hat I'd ever made before making the kids give him one more standing ovation. By then end of it, I think he'd thought he'd won an Oscar.
I then jumped in my car and fucked off.

* Club lock.
I remember one night going to a movie with my friend Mel. Upon returning I got in my car and tried to undo the club lock from the steering wheel.I somehow couldn't move it which I found strange because I never locked it. I just used it as a visual deterrent.I then realised it wasn't my club lock and it was locked.I looked around in the back seat to find my bags, unicycle and other stuff still there. My mobile phone was still in the glove box.Why had anyone broken into my car removed my club lock and then put their own on?
The NRMA guy who came out and sawed it off couldn't work it out either. Weird shit sometimes happens to you when you're a clown.

* Sega World.
In the late 90's, I got recommended by someone who had seen me at a kid's birthday party to work at Sega World which was a new amusement park which was being opened up in Darling Harbour. I ended up doing three, half an hour stage shows at Sega World every school holiday day for three years. It was a good gig. I came on before the Sonic the Hedgehog show. I also did a couple of half an hour walkaround 'Meet and greet', shifts on the floor.
One day I had a terrible head cold and couldn't face walking around making people laugh. So what I did was climb up on top of the lockers in full clown make-up (I put it on that day) just near the entrance where people came in, so that at the very least people would see a clown. I thought it was better than going to sleep in the change room. When I woke up half an hour later, there was a crowd of forty people standing around clapping and laughing at me.
'Don't take much to entertain you guys', I thought as I walked back to the change room blowing my nose.
The next week when I was well, I tried it again several times, thinking I now definitely had the easiest job in the world. But it never worked again. People only stopped to laugh that one time when I really needed the sleep.

* Trouble.
During all my kid's shows, I basically wind the kids up and then give them back to the parents at the end of the show to the teachers, parents or whoever owns them.I'd become quite good at it and became especially good at entertaining older boys who beginning to think clowns weren't cool anymore. My act now included whips, knives and a leaf blower... some serious artillery.
My Sega World show ended me with me on stage blasting the kids with an air blower which covered them in toilet paper and shaving cream.
I then disappeared as the kids stormed the stage looking for revenge. After one particular show, I noticed the stage exit door lock wasn't working, so I held it shut from the inside waiting for the kids outside to go away.Holding back twenty kids pulling the other way was tough though. The change room backstage was two metres away up a gangway to a room where all the dancers and performers had a change room. I yelled out to see if any of them were about but they weren't. I then tried to yell out to see if any of the teenagers who were working in the food court and walking backstage were around to intervene.
As a clown to a kid, I'm the antithesis to a parent or teacher. I'm not a role model in any way. I'm an anti-role model and that's why people like clowns. You can look at a clown on stage and safely laugh at the little bit inside you whom you identify with but can't admit to yourself let alone to the world.
And that's why clowns sometimes cry backstage. When we're misunderstood we can't explain why because we’d only then make you cry too – which is not what a good clown does!
Anyway, while I was holding on to the door, my hands were starting to cry in pain as the kids all pulled on the other side. And there was no way if I let the door open the kids were going to take anything I said seriously, especially two minutes after I'd nailed them with a barrage of energy, toilet paper and shaving cream which was still fresh up their nostrils. After my show the kids wanted revenge not instructions on how to behave.Eventually the door opened. I couldn't hold them back any longer. I tried to tell them the show was over but for them in getting backstage the show had just begun. I backed up the gangway to the change room trying to stop them getting up, knowing all the other performers bags and personal belongings were up there. I held them back for a minute on the gangway stairs and then they ran over the top of me. They were a mass of kids aged about 4 to 12 years old. Upstairs in the change room I couldn't do anything.
They were going nuts, yelling, laughing and screaming. Then one little girl came up to me. She pointed to the Sonic the Hedgehog suit on a coat hanger next to Sonic the hedgehog's head which was resting on a shelf.
She said, 'Who chopped Sonic's head off?'
I could handle that question coming out of a five year old girl but I couldn't handle the next question as she pointed to the suit on a coat hanger.'
And Jimbo… who skinned sonic?'
I realised things were now way out of control. The older kids were starting to steal while the younger kids were having a childhood stolen from them. And I was having to answer way too many tricky questions from young girls who's next question, I'm sure was going to be about Santa Claus. Something drastic had to be done.
So I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and started spraying dry ice at them. Within a minute I managed to flush every screaming kid out of the change room and back down on to the stage area outside. I closed the door. They didn't come back.I then sat up in the change room giving myself a breather.
'Tough show', I thought.
Five minutes later a young teenage staff member came up and told me that there was a little girl crying in the food court with her Mother because her skin had been burnt from the fumigation job I'd done on them.
I was on a good contract at Sega World. And I'd just signed a new lease for my apartment nearby in the city. I immediately jumped down the stairs in order to see if I could intercept the lawyers arriving.
I profusely apologised to the lady and then said, 'Can I take your daughter to the sick bay to get her leg checked!?’
'Sure', said the Mum.
In the sick bay area a member of the first aid staff rubbed a bit of cream on her leg and then put a bandage around it while I made the girl ten thousand balloon animals, cracked my best jokes and did my utmost to distract her from any pain she was feeling.
She seemed to enjoy it. She was laughing.I then took her back to her Mum, hoping everything would still be relatively cool and also hoping that I wouldn't be greeted back at her table by management wanting to have a word with me - around an office table with MEAS reps.
Upon finding the Mum I was relieved to find it was still just her and her other daughter there.
I then mumbled, 'Look, I'm really sorry about the burns to your daughter’s legs, there really probably was another way to get the kids out of the change room…'
The mother then leant back laughing, 'Don't worry mate, it's nothing, she's just upset that her sister is having her birthday today and not getting all the attention like she normally demands. Thanks for taking her off my hands for a while. She's been a pain in the arse!'

* Half Beard.
In 1999 I was shaving in the mirror one morning when I decided to just shave half my face to see what it looked like. For the next few days I kept on shaving just the right hand side of my face. Three months later I had a full half beard on one half of my face. I was a clown so there was no problem with it at work.
Socially things were a bit different though. I soon learnt what it must be like to have a facial disfigurement. To make other people feel more comfortable, I didn't look at people in the eye while walking down the street. And I started going to the same shops to get my food. Just so at least it no longer shocked them when I went in. I even managed to get a lease on a new flat while I had half a rug on my face. I think I freaked the estate agent out when I said, 'look I know I look a bit weird', when I was three minutes into negotiations. She in turn compensated for her embarrassment by giving me the lease without any more questions.
Lucky for me at the time, I had a shag buddy at the time from before I'd started growing the beard. Then a few months into the relationship she told me one lunch totally out of the blue that she was suicidal and had indeed tried to kill herself with pills before she met me (which was strangely reassuring on one level). She then went on to tell me over the Caesar salad we were both having that she was thinking about doing herself in that week. After lunch I then rang up the nearest shrink in the yellow pages and drove her straight there. I went in with her that afternoon found out she had bulimia and was suffering under the strain of looking after her widowed single mother who was bankrupt after some bad investment advice years earlier. There were big tears and I learnt more about the girl I'd been shagging than all the times we'd slept together.
After an hour, the psychologist took me aside and said, 'Firstly, this is not your problem and secondly take her down to the Manly hospital suicide clinic now. It's pretty serious. Here's a referral note. So I did. They basically interviewed her and told her to go home and take it easy. I took her back to my place. She was hysterical all night.
The next day I took her back to the hospital. All the way there she said, 'Look Jimbo just let me go so I can do it. People will be upset at first but in six months time they'll get over it. Pleeeease!?'
At the hospital, she wouldn't get out of the car so I carried her in on my back while making jokes about how I'm gunna claim my injury on compo. In the waiting room, she wanted to escape still. I didn't want the indignity to both of us in the mental health section of the hospital of me holding her down while she struggled to get free so I put my head in her lap and held on to her arm tightly while she patted my head talking to me until she calmed down a bit.
Finally two different psychiatrists greeted us for our meeting. We introduced ourselves and then went into a tiny consultation room. They both took a long deep breath and then looked at me and said, 'So Jim, what's been bothering you?'
I couldn't believe it.
I said, 'No it's her!'
The other one looked at me and said, 'How come you've got half a beard?’
I said, 'I'm a clown'.
And then the other said, 'Really! A clown! How did you get into that?'
At this point my frustration was tempered by the fact that my friend was now laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
'For fucks sake, she's about to top herself can you talk to her instead!' I pleaded.
Anyway, to cut a long story short. She didn't escape the hospital by getting me committed for being mad which she probably could have at that point if she tried and I'm proud to say now she got through her rough patch and has since gone on to achieve her dream of being happily married in the suburbs to a top bloke with four kids.
I eventually shaved the beard off. The catalyst was a girl in a pub who came up to me a month later. I'd just gone to watch the footy with a couple of mates who'd gone out the back for a smoke. The girl who came up to me didn't even introduce herself.
She just whispered into my ear, 'You're never going to get laid looking like that' before walking away.
That night I shaved the left hand side too.

* The Sydney Comedy Store.
In 1999, Sega World was about to shut down. Creatively and financially, I needed a new palate to work on too. My clown routine was good but I'd stopped writing new stuff and was coasting on the income from it. That couldn’t last, I thought. Plus stand-up comedy was what I was mainly daydreaming about doing now.
I was very nervous about doing it again after my first attempt nearly eight years before culminated in me being collared off stage by the DJ while 500 people yelled, 'Get off'.
I'd always wanted to try it again though deep down. Properly this time but I was still too scared. Even though I was a performer, I'd always used kids as my props to get laughs.
Then I thought, 'if someone who hasn't even had a performing background can get up at an open mice stand-up comedy night surely I can at least give it one more go.'
With that realisation, I knew it was time. I had to get back on the horse if for nothing else to shut the voices up in my head for not finding out how bad or how good I really was at stand-up.
So at 29, I got my set list out of now original jokes I thought was funny and headed down to The Sydney comedy store (where it was located then on Parramatta road) one Tuesday night. I got on the bill with all the other beginners to do five minutes. I was stoked. I'd been enjoying coming to see comedians here a few times a year, for years now. At least tonight I'd now got in for free, I thought.
Anyway, the only laugh I got that night was at the end of my five minutes when I said to the crowd, 'this isn't going well is it?’
As I walked back stage I heard the headline act say to another comedian, 'Yeah, I remember when I first started, I thought poo jokes were funny too'.
Comedians always say the hardest gig you'll ever do is your first. I found my second one pretty tough too.
Two months later I thought I'd have one more go. I knew that at the very least I had one definite laugh by repeating the same line at the end of my act if I went badly again.
Stand-up wasn't out of my system yet. I changed my routine. I re-wrote it all. No poo jokes. This time, I got some laughs. Not heaps but enough to be hooked.
Sega World went bust a couple of months later and I then lived off my savings from it while I went to open mic stand-up nights as many times as I could.Within six months of my first stand-up gig at The Sydney Comedy Store they offered me my first thirty minute feature spot there. The pay in stand-up comedy was way worse than clowning. Feature acts were paid about $150 a week. I was getting about a couple a week. This was still good for what was really a very small scene compared to overseas places like London and New York where there were 100's of clubs instead of the six that were in Sydney.
Another good sign was that the two main comedy agents in town were asking me to sign up.I then came third in the 'Sydney comedian of the year' competition.
I didn't sign with anyone though. I wanted to wait a bit, I thought.There was no rush. My material was very cute, observational and not offensive to anyone, which is why the agents where after me with their money mainly coming from TV, theatre and corporate. I then got offered a spot on James O'Loughlin's ABC variety show. I think not signing with anyone had a bit to do with being my own boss for so long too doing my own freelance work.
While I tried to make up my mind about which agency to go with as well as build up my material I started also chasing stand-up gigs further out into the suburbs where noticed I had to change my material to get a laugh.
My act became bluer and bluer and bluer until one night the manager at The Sydney Comedy Store took me aside and said, 'Jimbo, the people laughing at your jokes, particularly the Japanese flag joke (where I insinuate I made one by rooting a chick while she was on her rags) are getting people laughing really loudly but their laughs are drowning out all the other people in the crowd who are shocked. Tone it down or your banned'.
I had one more gig pre-booked at 'The Store' after this warning. The advice I'd been given surprised me. I had always judged how I was going on stage purely by the amount of noise that was being expelled out of people's lungs and coming back at me, not on what I was saying.
My attitude was if some people didn't like the act but there were big laughs coming my way 'Fuck 'em', I thought.'
Stay home and watch 'Friends' instead.'
I still took what she told me as a challenge though. So I diligently went through my set list for my next show cutting out all the jokes with sexual references and all swear words.
The gig went well and I did notice a more even and different laugh coming from the whole crowd. But it was a gentler laugh a more polite laugh. This didn’t give me nearly the same buzz as the big wooshka groin laugh I was getting used to though when I let it rip on stage.
I then started feeling more and more uncomfortable about the amount of pressure I was starting to get even from other comedians before I went on stage with regards to the 'risqué' content of my jokes. I hadn't imagined the stand-up comedy industry would be that conservative. I thought you could say what you want up there - and you were booked purely on the amount of laughs you got. And I thought every crowd member went in with an open mind with regards to hearing stuff that might possibly confront them.
In fact I thought that was the whole point of seeing a comedian. Punchlines were based on verbal and intellectual surprises. I didn't see the point in toning down my act by sign posting punchlines that were coming up. I also thought that if I’m going to say what other people tell me to say, I may as well at least do it in a job that pays better! In other words I thought everyone thought like me!!I also knew that despite what I promised I wouldn't say on stage from here on in to agents, bookers and other comedians, I was lying.When I walked on stage I didn't want people in my ear telling me what to say and what not to say. That was what I thought happened to you when you had a 'job' - which was something I’d worked so hard for years, at not having! And in turn my act was suddenly ‘wrong’.
In retrospect, my long, slow exile from the Australian mainstream comedy industry had begun way way, way before I realised it.It didn’t matter though. As long as the drunks at my pub gigs were laughing, yelling out stuff and running around like naughty children at a kid’s party, I felt I was on the right path.
To be continued.....