Part Five of Eight.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

Part Four of Eight.

(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.