TRIGGERnometry - December 02, 2020


＂So What If You're Offended？ Nothing Happens＂ - Steve Hughes


Episode Stats

Length

57 minutes

Words per Minute

184.71602

Word Count

10,562

Sentence Count

682

Misogynist Sentences

27

Hate Speech Sentences

37


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Comedian Steve Hughes joins Francis and Constantine on the show to talk about the dangers of political correctness and his journey through comedy and rock and roll. He also talks about his career as a musician and how he got into stand-up comedy.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
00:00:07.560 I'm Constantine Kissinger.
00:00:08.760 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:14.040 Our brilliant guest today is an Australian comedian who's been warning about some of
00:00:18.080 the stuff we've been talking for a long time since about 10 years ago.
00:00:21.060 Steve Hughes, welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:22.800 Hello.
00:00:23.620 It's good to have you, man.
00:00:24.960 It's good to be here.
00:00:25.740 It is.
00:00:26.100 Hour and a half in a taxi.
00:00:27.100 but it's great to have you uh tell everybody who are you how are you where you are what has been
00:00:35.220 your journey the abridged version through life all right so for people who might not know who
00:00:39.840 you are well quite a few probably won't know who i am actually well i was born in australia
00:00:45.420 english parents uh i grew up in australia didn't really suit it wanted to play rugby league gave
00:00:54.800 it a go, but it's hard when you're made of bone.
00:01:00.560 Can't you handle this?
00:01:01.580 No, I can't.
00:01:05.400 If I, without getting too involved, I really grew up thinking, what am I going to do?
00:01:08.640 Like, I couldn't do maths, I couldn't do science, I couldn't kick balls.
00:01:11.900 I was going, and then I saw Iron Maiden in 1982 and just went, all right, I'll make bands.
00:01:20.120 So then I made bands, some of the first Australian thrash bands, probably the first Australian
00:01:23.660 And the hardcore thrash death metal band was in that for a few years.
00:01:27.100 It was quite well known through tape trading back then.
00:01:29.840 It was like the internet before the internet in underground heavy metal.
00:01:32.740 You just tape trade.
00:01:34.640 When Metallica and that started thrash metal,
00:01:36.260 even the mainstream metal people didn't like it, thought it was a fad.
00:01:38.680 Will it get big?
00:01:39.700 Well, yeah, I knew it was going to get big.
00:01:42.340 So there was a kind of tape trading underground punk metal scene,
00:01:45.780 fanzine.
00:01:46.300 So that band got quite well known just from that.
00:01:50.720 Then that broke up and I joined Immortal Sin,
00:01:52.260 which is another heavy metal band, toured overseas,
00:01:54.240 played in England and stuff and Germany and Faith No More,
00:01:57.240 Testament, bands like that, played in the States.
00:01:59.620 Went back, that broke up.
00:02:00.840 I formed another band called Presto which was a kind of eclectic rock,
00:02:04.540 cross metal folk, let's do whatever we want.
00:02:08.480 You know the 90s, let's do whatever we want.
00:02:11.620 Made two albums with that.
00:02:13.520 Joined another band called Nazul which is an extreme black metal band
00:02:16.540 in Australia which was only a studio band, made two albums with that.
00:02:20.560 But at the time I started comedy.
00:02:22.260 because after being in bands for 20 years and you get to a point
00:02:25.120 and you're in the band for five years and you've gone to rehearsals
00:02:27.200 twice a week for five years and you've done major tours
00:02:29.240 and you make records and now the bass player leaves.
00:02:33.820 Now the singer realises, I don't want to do this.
00:02:36.340 After years and bands, you're always relying on other people.
00:02:41.140 So I thought comedy.
00:02:43.260 I don't have to rely on anyone.
00:02:44.600 And I was all right at it.
00:02:45.500 So I went and started that in Australia and then I suddenly realised,
00:02:48.320 okay, Bill Bailey came out in
00:02:50.320 1980, 1998.
00:02:54.740 I always knew British comedy was the best
00:02:56.660 and then I, but I saw Bill Bailey
00:02:58.500 in this small theatre in Sydney.
00:03:00.920 It was brilliant.
00:03:02.180 And that's when I went, I've got to be around guys this good.
00:03:04.680 How do you get good if you're not around guys this good?
00:03:07.240 So I just, I've got an English passport.
00:03:08.760 I'll fucking come here.
00:03:10.480 And so you came here and when I was talking
00:03:12.600 to you about being on the show, because
00:03:14.880 you know, massive fan of your
00:03:16.660 comedy and when we were talking about political correctness you use the words to me i fucking
00:03:23.040 told you about this shit 11 years ago no one was listening you are now that's his best australian
00:03:29.220 accent by the way well i obviously wasn't the first to bring this up obviously bill mars had
00:03:33.820 a show called what politically incorrect or something 20 odd years you know there was even
00:03:39.320 an album brought out in the 80s which was a joke album a joke band anthrax which is a legitimate
00:03:44.120 band still going, but they mucked around.
00:03:45.920 They had an album called Speak English or Die.
00:03:49.460 Just a sort of punk crossover joke because all the songs were anti-PC
00:03:53.760 and offensive, you know, right?
00:03:56.760 So obviously that PC stuff was obviously in a place like New York,
00:03:59.720 that's where they're from.
00:04:00.460 It had been around.
00:04:01.120 That was like mid-'80s.
00:04:02.420 They had this kind of anti-PC.
00:04:04.340 So obviously, you know, I'm not the first guy to go,
00:04:06.240 hey, PC people are a bit nuts.
00:04:08.440 But back in, what, 2008 or something when they really did start
00:04:11.740 of bringing in that crossover of we can connect hate crime
00:04:15.640 to offence, that's when I went, hang on.
00:04:20.320 Because offence is not abuse or even insult, is it?
00:04:24.840 It's offence, which is you don't want to bring law into offence
00:04:30.020 because a vegetarian could be offended at a barbecue.
00:04:34.420 But that seems to be the place that we're at.
00:04:37.600 It is the place that we're at.
00:04:39.260 Well, you were talking about it.
00:04:40.360 You better agree with the narrative.
00:04:41.740 Yeah.
00:04:42.540 On every single political niche, cultural niche, social,
00:04:51.900 sort of a racial niche, sexual niche.
00:04:54.640 You better agree with all of it or you're some kind of sexist,
00:04:57.100 transphobic, Islamophobic, racist, heteronormative,
00:05:03.720 cisgendered, microaggression lunatic.
00:05:08.640 Yeah.
00:05:08.800 well I want to bring it back to to the video of you on Michael McIntyre's road show uh which we've
00:05:16.940 just played at the beginning of this episode uh and this was recorded in 2009 right and you're
00:05:22.820 talking about this very thing you're talking about the culture of offense people taking offense and
00:05:28.040 it's a subjective thing you're talking about all of that that's 11 years ago at a time when we
00:05:33.040 weren't really having this conversation in the same way like you said to Francis I was warning
00:05:36.880 you guys um and back then the way i remember it like people talking about political correctness
00:05:43.180 it was very much the sort of daily mail pc's gone mad you can't say anything these days
00:05:48.060 but 11 years on now i think we're in a very different place aren't we
00:05:51.940 i think i think you two know we're in a very different place yeah yeah well yeah it seems
00:05:59.580 as i said when i talked to you the other day i said i'll come on this you know there'll be lots
00:06:03.220 of people watching this that don't know who I am.
00:06:06.340 And I've watched some of the shows, you know,
00:06:08.000 some of the Douglas and the other fellow who was on who did the stuff
00:06:11.260 about Christianity and history.
00:06:13.500 Tom Holland.
00:06:14.040 Tom Holland.
00:06:14.460 Interesting.
00:06:15.420 With the hedgehogs.
00:06:16.420 Yeah.
00:06:16.800 Yeah, that's the one.
00:06:18.240 So they're educated.
00:06:19.400 I can tell they're educated, well-spoken men, whereas I'm not.
00:06:22.020 So I'm not here to tell anyone that I'm, you know, an expert
00:06:25.520 or all I'll talk about is the stuff that I've read
00:06:29.120 and studied, I guess, through 20 years and formed my,
00:06:35.840 I don't like the word belief system, but formed my sort of view
00:06:38.920 of how certain things in the world are connected
00:06:42.020 and deep in conspiracy.
00:06:43.520 And I don't mind being called a conspiracy theorist
00:06:45.120 because it's like being called a racist now, doesn't it?
00:06:48.320 It's like the boy who cried wolf.
00:06:50.060 No.
00:06:50.980 Oh, you're a racist, am I?
00:06:52.240 Or whatever.
00:06:54.120 It doesn't mean anything to me anymore.
00:06:55.520 I don't care.
00:06:56.260 I'm not going to listen to these feminists or PC people
00:06:59.000 or trans a lot.
00:07:00.460 Who are you?
00:07:01.120 I'm a 53-year-old man.
00:07:02.860 I don't need some 20-year-old with pink hair to tell me that I'm a racist.
00:07:05.540 I'm like, what are you talking about?
00:07:07.300 But I know it.
00:07:09.500 Like, who are you?
00:07:10.500 You don't know my life.
00:07:11.480 You don't know anything about me.
00:07:14.140 You're just, when I see people now, when I grew up around punks
00:07:17.200 and metalheads, here's why I can't stand these young people.
00:07:20.160 When I used to see girls when I grew up with green hair and Doc Martens,
00:07:23.100 they were cool girls.
00:07:24.700 Now I see anyone like that, I'm like, get them the fuck away from me.
00:07:29.000 because here's the great irony to me.
00:07:32.300 It's like even though now I can see a lot of my old punk mates
00:07:36.300 were still getting inundated with that lefty ideology.
00:07:39.100 We use these terms without getting too dualistic in politics, right?
00:07:44.300 Because some of my old mates, I realise, and also just the vibe
00:07:47.420 that was around when we were in underground punk and that,
00:07:49.620 a lot of this stuff was, you know, already in our heads.
00:07:53.560 In that underground punk world, it was like no one cares
00:07:56.680 where you're black or Chinese, you come to the punk gig,
00:07:59.600 no one cares if you're gay.
00:08:00.580 That was the whole thing about it.
00:08:01.680 It was that opening up of away from that mainstream sort of idea
00:08:07.020 of just, you know, you get married to a girl and it was all that sort
00:08:09.940 of, you know, everyone.
00:08:10.800 You know, I've been to, here's the other thing,
00:08:13.280 I've known tranny guys for 20-odd years at hippie festivals
00:08:16.800 that I met in the 90s.
00:08:19.300 You know, that's what I love now.
00:08:20.720 And you think you're having a rough time now.
00:08:21.960 This guy was one in like the 70s in Australia.
00:08:23.980 Like, you know, now he's in a teepee on pills.
00:08:31.820 So, yeah, you know, he still had some stuff to get to.
00:08:34.600 Yeah.
00:08:35.440 But, you know, so it seemed to me that, you know, and punks,
00:08:38.460 the whole thing was that we don't mind not being accepted
00:08:42.260 by the mainstream, we use these words, right?
00:08:46.440 So we'll make our extreme death metal band.
00:08:48.540 We don't care if no one likes it.
00:08:50.540 Other metal heads will like it.
00:08:52.460 We've got no support.
00:08:53.420 we won't get on a TV show, we won't do this,
00:08:55.220 but we're going to do it anyway, right?
00:08:56.420 We'll do it anyway.
00:08:58.320 But now it seems to me you've got all these young people
00:09:00.620 who have been inundated with this PC narrative that now they're,
00:09:04.380 they tell you that the system is what?
00:09:06.480 Well, they want it destroyed, don't they?
00:09:08.240 They say defund the police.
00:09:09.720 They say they believe that the system is what?
00:09:14.900 Inherently racist.
00:09:16.880 So I can't be a white guy that's not racist.
00:09:19.260 Why?
00:09:19.540 Because I've been brought up in that system that's systematically racist.
00:09:22.780 Is that the word they use?
00:09:23.620 Yeah.
00:09:23.840 Systemic.
00:09:24.400 Systemic racism.
00:09:26.200 So therefore they use this to quantify their arguments that,
00:09:29.440 well, you have to be some kind of racist.
00:09:30.820 Why?
00:09:31.080 Because you've been brought up in this hierarchical white
00:09:34.120 colonialist dominating, especially with Britain, I guess,
00:09:38.440 empirical tentacle.
00:09:41.220 And there's a truth to tentacles that came out of colonialism.
00:09:47.360 But it doesn't mean that what these people think is somehow now
00:09:50.200 I've got to bow down and go, oh, yeah, white people,
00:09:52.680 between the evilest people in the world and everyone else.
00:09:54.700 I'm like, forget about it, right, because these young kids
00:10:01.500 are telling you that this system now is this.
00:10:03.740 It's intrinsically systemic race.
00:10:05.060 It's all this.
00:10:05.580 But they're begging to be accepted by it.
00:10:09.560 Whereas when I grew up, these punks and that,
00:10:11.040 you go, well, we don't want to be accepted by it.
00:10:13.200 We'll stand over here.
00:10:14.560 We're not going to work in the bank.
00:10:15.960 Why?
00:10:16.220 Well, go to Mohawk.
00:10:18.120 This is why I go to Mohawk.
00:10:19.320 Why?
00:10:19.500 So I stand out against the system and it won't accept me.
00:10:23.300 But now you've got these young people going, well,
00:10:24.940 why won't the system accept me?
00:10:26.440 Even though I think the system is systemically racist, sexist,
00:10:29.860 violent, colonialist, capitalist, which I want to see destroyed,
00:10:33.480 but at the same time I want this very system I'd like to see destroyed
00:10:36.540 accept me.
00:10:39.620 It's a great point.
00:10:41.000 What?
00:10:42.760 It's a great point.
00:10:43.400 And then my friend sent to mine the other day, he sent me this thing
00:10:45.960 the other day going, he goes, this is your joke on the news.
00:10:49.580 and there was some Aussie punk guy going, like, with his, you know,
00:10:54.140 and, like, punk was over in about 78 in London, you know,
00:10:57.360 but still they exist, the fashion they stood on.
00:10:59.400 So there's some guy in a discharge jacket with studs and liquid paper
00:11:03.060 and a mohawk and the articles were, you know, I go for jobs
00:11:06.180 and employers don't want to hire me because of the way I look.
00:11:09.520 Well, of course.
00:11:12.700 That's why you dress like that.
00:11:16.600 But now they use it as this victim.
00:11:18.340 See how I don't get anything?
00:11:20.520 See if I just want to express myself, the system won't accept me.
00:11:25.580 So what you're really talking about there, Steve, is how people rebel.
00:11:31.420 So what you're saying is in the 70s you rebelled against the system
00:11:35.640 and now people are rebelling against the system,
00:11:38.860 but what they really want more than anything is to become the system.
00:11:42.260 Seems to me that's the way, or as my therapist in Australia put it perfectly,
00:11:45.380 He was an old guy, an ex-alcoholic, and it's not your average therapy.
00:11:50.960 He said, he goes, that's like asking the rapist to rub your back.
00:11:56.040 That's what you're asking.
00:11:57.400 He goes, and I had that once when I was talking to the Canadian Indians
00:12:00.500 because he'd done a lot of work overseas.
00:12:03.480 He's an interesting guy.
00:12:05.340 And there was a woman in Canada, you know, Indigenous,
00:12:08.120 with legitimate concerns if you've been through shit like that.
00:12:10.920 I understand.
00:12:11.480 I'm from Australia.
00:12:12.020 but bitching about the Canadian stuff and what's going on.
00:12:15.400 He just said to her, just stop expecting your oppressor to help you out.
00:12:24.300 Do it yourself.
00:12:27.000 Now, these are big things, obviously.
00:12:28.720 You see, we've only got 50 minutes.
00:12:30.600 We could talk for just days because it's – I can start to see things
00:12:36.560 radically connected, in my head anyway, from the information I've done.
00:12:39.860 You can see how PC and all this stuff, this divide and conquer.
00:12:46.240 That's why I don't like feminism because that's the big one
00:12:48.100 between men and women.
00:12:51.040 Like me and Reggie Hunter did a gig the other night at a university
00:12:53.240 and he actually said in one of his jokes, he asked,
00:12:55.400 how many girls in here, women in here, feel that not only do they sometimes
00:13:00.000 be upset with men but feel like they hate like all men?
00:13:03.680 Every fucking girl put her hand up.
00:13:05.920 Wow.
00:13:07.480 Every girl in the gig put her hand up.
00:13:09.140 Every girl.
00:13:09.860 I was on the balcony watching.
00:13:11.760 So to me it was like watching a puppet show.
00:13:14.440 I can see the propaganda, how it's gone in.
00:13:19.440 There you go, girls.
00:13:20.240 Do you hate all men?
00:13:20.940 Yeah.
00:13:22.480 They just, yeah.
00:13:24.460 They're like 18 years old.
00:13:25.660 What are they?
00:13:25.920 Are they feminists?
00:13:26.540 Do they know that much?
00:13:27.220 What do they know?
00:13:27.560 What do they know?
00:13:29.260 But yeah, yeah, I hate all men.
00:13:30.460 Why?
00:13:30.800 What, your dad?
00:13:32.380 Your uncle?
00:13:33.940 Your brothers?
00:13:34.960 Maybe their uncle.
00:13:38.340 But don't you think as well?
00:13:39.540 So we've got feminism, but we also have identity politics as well.
00:13:43.660 We've got the lot.
00:13:46.240 We've got the sexual thing, haven't we?
00:13:47.960 Like there's 50 million genders.
00:13:50.960 Which how do you even have a discussion?
00:13:52.460 If you can't have a basic consensus of an objective reality,
00:13:56.620 how do you psychologically map a conversation?
00:14:00.360 Right.
00:14:00.940 In a civilised sense.
00:14:02.220 How do me and you have a discussion about biological sex if you go,
00:14:05.800 oh, no, but there's 88 different genders?
00:14:10.200 Well, how many can there be?
00:14:11.740 Well, into infinitum.
00:14:14.480 I just make up another one.
00:14:16.240 So there's no, why?
00:14:17.660 Because isn't it like this, is it this, what do they call it,
00:14:21.440 this post-modernist thought?
00:14:23.100 Yeah.
00:14:23.480 Yeah.
00:14:24.380 It's sort of it's just in my head so it's a reality in there
00:14:26.980 and if that's the basis, I'm sure someone will be in a comment section
00:14:29.400 going he doesn't understand post-modernism.
00:14:31.080 You're right, I don't understand all its complexities,
00:14:32.640 but that seems to be the general thing of like, well, you know.
00:14:36.440 There's no truth, there's subjectivity and interpretation.
00:14:39.440 Yeah.
00:14:39.780 And if my lived experience is that you're a woman,
00:14:42.880 then that's my lived experience and I get to say that.
00:14:45.280 Yeah.
00:14:45.640 Right, that's it.
00:14:46.800 Yeah.
00:14:47.100 It's all a bit...
00:14:49.100 But you...
00:14:49.840 It's like almost like, as I said, that guy who when he walks up
00:14:53.140 to some girl in the university and says, you know,
00:14:54.960 so what if I identify as a 65-year-old Chinese woman?
00:14:58.760 And she just goes, well, as long as you're not hurting anybody,
00:15:01.440 you don't see what the problem is.
00:15:02.780 And I'm like, well, there's a big problem here.
00:15:03.960 He's not a 65-year-old Chinese woman.
00:15:05.460 See, this is not open-mindedness.
00:15:10.720 This is insanity, right?
00:15:12.320 It doesn't matter what he does, he's not going to become a 65-year-old.
00:15:16.780 He's a six-foot-two white American guy.
00:15:20.240 This is all getting very transphobic, Steve.
00:15:23.480 I've got to tell you, mate, this is getting very, very popular.
00:15:26.440 I don't even know what that means.
00:15:28.560 To me, you know what transphobic means to me?
00:15:30.280 I don't agree with your narrative.
00:15:33.380 This is what racist means.
00:15:34.760 You don't agree with me?
00:15:35.700 No.
00:15:36.000 Well, you must be a racist.
00:15:37.360 You don't agree with gay marriage?
00:15:40.160 No.
00:15:40.420 Well, you must be a homophobe.
00:15:41.360 There could be no other.
00:15:42.260 Like they had a plebiscite in Australia to get the gay marriage free,
00:15:44.600 which I knew was already going to come through.
00:15:46.140 Why?
00:15:46.360 Because it's a globalist agenda.
00:15:48.140 To me, the plebiscite was an illusion to create the idea
00:15:51.400 that you're having a choice.
00:15:53.340 Plus, I think what it does is it gives these little lefties,
00:15:56.160 then they go, oh, yeah, look, we won, and then they get the illusion
00:15:59.020 they got some power.
00:16:00.320 When it was already a done deal.
00:16:01.660 Why?
00:16:01.840 Because they're going to move this stuff in to deconstruct your societies.
00:16:07.600 Also, you can deconstruct your own religion if you make, you know,
00:16:11.040 how can you be a Christian eventually if they go, well,
00:16:13.180 if you don't agree with everything homosexuality stands for,
00:16:15.600 then therefore you must be a homophobe and a bigot.
00:16:19.180 So that means, well, you really can't be a Christian anymore.
00:16:23.860 So we'll just get rid of your Christianity.
00:16:25.960 And all the atheists will go, isn't that great because they did this?
00:16:28.280 Well, you'll find out, won't you?
00:16:32.620 And it's a great point because we now feel that we've moved
00:16:36.460 beyond religion, don't we?
00:16:38.040 We feel that we don't need religion anymore,
00:16:40.000 that we've sort of evolved past it.
00:16:42.720 Doesn't it mean that we're more divided than ever?
00:16:44.600 I think it means we're arrogant.
00:16:47.840 Now, of course, there's different words.
00:16:49.360 Now comes religion, of course, that can be construed in many ways,
00:16:52.640 I think, through my interpretation.
00:16:54.540 Do I think the Catholic Church is involved in serious globalist
00:16:57.860 conspiracy theory stuff?
00:16:59.840 Yeah.
00:17:01.260 Do I think that religion got to be fundamentalist and theistic
00:17:04.900 and learn how to dominate people by telling them they'll go to hell
00:17:08.180 and that they're filthy?
00:17:09.160 This virus is almost like religious, isn't it?
00:17:12.220 Like you're born a sinner, like you carry this filth in you.
00:17:17.020 This is what the virus is like.
00:17:18.060 That's what you're like.
00:17:18.720 Have you got it?
00:17:20.300 I love the way he's looking at you.
00:17:22.520 Oh, he's just got a broken rib.
00:17:25.640 You know what I mean?
00:17:27.000 And that's almost like PC.
00:17:28.720 It's like puritism.
00:17:30.260 Puritanism, how do you say that word?
00:17:31.880 Puritanism.
00:17:32.620 Puritanism, right?
00:17:33.380 It's like, see, I wasn't educated.
00:17:35.540 It's like Puritanism, yeah?
00:17:36.760 If you don't agree with the narratives, then we'll just burn you.
00:17:42.320 But we burn you in different ways now, don't we?
00:17:44.800 We do it via social media.
00:17:46.380 I notice you're not on Twitter.
00:17:47.680 Is that a...
00:17:48.220 No, I don't.
00:17:49.480 I didn't even know.
00:17:50.300 I don't know how to attach something to an email.
00:17:53.100 I'm like, I literally, I don't like machines.
00:17:58.020 I just don't fucking like them.
00:18:00.980 They don't like me.
00:18:02.120 They know.
00:18:03.780 People go, it's very easy, Steve.
00:18:05.240 You just put this thing in and it comes up.
00:18:06.900 It's an app and it just comes up.
00:18:08.060 And I give you it.
00:18:08.520 And as soon as I put it in, it goes, no, wrong.
00:18:10.960 Okay, then they always go, I've never seen that before.
00:18:12.920 Yeah, that's because I'm doing it.
00:18:15.100 Maybe this is a bit neurotic, but computers have got it in for me.
00:18:20.220 i'm not saying the points that they're making don't need to be made i'm not saying that the
00:18:33.160 complaints are not are not just it's it's the execution of it yes it's all you think
00:18:39.960 constantin do you like music no well if you're not completely soulless like him and you do like
00:18:47.980 music may i recommend the plant society band they've got a lovely soulful chilled out flavor
00:18:53.880 to their music and you can find them anywhere that you normally get your music
00:19:17.980 That's right. Just look for the Plant Society Band on YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, and everywhere else on social media.
00:19:33.140 Steve, let's come back to comedy a little bit, because that video of yours, which is a brilliant, brilliant bit of stand-up, just incredible.
00:19:39.460 I remember watching it before I became a comedian, just thinking, this is incredible. Really great stuff.
00:19:44.500 And you did it in 2009.
00:19:46.140 You talked about the culture of offence a little bit.
00:19:48.100 You did it on a mainstream TV show.
00:19:50.860 Do you think you could still do that routine now on TV?
00:19:53.480 No, probably not.
00:19:55.140 I think at the end, see, people used to often wonder,
00:19:58.240 how do you say these things on mainstream, you know?
00:20:02.380 Because I know that some young comics,
00:20:03.680 when they know a guy that's apparently controversial,
00:20:05.660 that some of them, they'd like to be like that.
00:20:08.400 But some of them make the mistake of thinking that,
00:20:10.220 oh, I'll be radical and offensive.
00:20:12.020 No, no, no, that's not the point, right?
00:20:14.060 I think I say things that I just want to say because I'm probably coming up
00:20:20.580 in that underground thrash metal world where I just always considered,
00:20:25.120 well, you just do what you want.
00:20:27.620 So you want to put an album out that's called, you know,
00:20:29.740 Satan's Soldiers and the songs are all violent and satanic and, yeah, okay.
00:20:38.440 So I didn't, I've never thought, from my perspective, just,
00:20:41.780 well, you write a song about the devil and sing some songs if you want.
00:20:44.000 don't you have some gore on the cover oh I don't care so it kind of worked for me I just go I'll
00:20:52.220 just do what I want so I didn't even sometimes know you could not say that on that can't you
00:20:58.120 I'm sure they'll tell me if I can now I'm sure they'll tell me yeah so that's what I was getting
00:21:04.660 at is do you think your attitude which I always thought was the comedian's attitude you know I
00:21:10.380 got into comedy because i was watching bill hicks george carlin people like you and i was going wow
00:21:15.240 these people are actually saying something right and they're making it funny which is the important
00:21:19.060 bit of course it is but there's there's there's more to it than just hey i'm fat or whatever you
00:21:23.760 know what i mean that never really not that that's bad but it never appealed to me uh but but that's
00:21:29.380 why i got into it and i guess what i'm asking is do you feel that the comedy landscape has changed
00:21:35.700 since even 10 years ago?
00:21:38.000 Well, I've spent five years dealing with having a breakdown,
00:21:40.980 which was a nightmare, but it came in handy.
00:21:45.800 It does, you know.
00:21:48.780 So I was touring for five years before then sort of with Reg
00:21:52.640 and also just my own show, so I haven't been in clubs
00:21:55.040 for like a decade.
00:21:55.960 Right, right.
00:21:57.260 I've done a couple since I got back, so I don't know.
00:21:59.640 So obviously there'll be a whole group of people in there,
00:22:01.980 one who've never seen me, who have come out of university
00:22:04.520 and gotten older.
00:22:05.200 When I think about it, you know, some of these people were 12
00:22:07.300 when I had a breakdown.
00:22:08.280 They're 20 now.
00:22:09.900 So they could be in a club.
00:22:11.400 Yeah.
00:22:12.340 And so I don't really know how much it's changed.
00:22:15.000 I'm sure it has to a degree because, you know, you could have –
00:22:19.120 when I used to come up, the clubs would stand by the act no matter what.
00:22:25.140 Jonglers could be a bit more mainstream-y in the 2000s.
00:22:29.120 You know, maybe you could – I think I told an audience
00:22:31.680 in Birmingham Jonglers to go fuck themselves once
00:22:34.180 that morning.
00:22:35.860 The rest of your gigs have been cancelled this week.
00:22:39.020 Yeah, you're like, but usually clubs would, you know,
00:22:42.660 if someone goes, oh, I want to complain about the comedian,
00:22:44.680 the clubs would go, it's a comedy club, mate.
00:22:49.940 Not like that, no, man.
00:22:51.760 Now there, now there.
00:22:53.640 And then you see the way comedy has gone in the mainstream
00:22:56.820 and it tends to fall off the good of his face.
00:23:00.300 Well, you know, I haven't watched it but I've got a feeling if I did,
00:23:03.320 Yeah.
00:23:04.180 Because I've got a feeling that there will be like some 18-year-olds
00:23:08.080 who I'd never heard of going, where's this guy or girl come from?
00:23:11.880 Like everything will be nice and is anything – I mean,
00:23:18.800 at least in England they're very – it's a great comedy country
00:23:21.320 so you may still get some guy who's eclectic and eccentric.
00:23:24.360 Yeah.
00:23:25.860 But I can imagine they're all pretty – well,
00:23:30.280 someone in Melbourne started a safe space comedy room
00:23:34.000 and you'd have to give them your stuff first so they could go,
00:23:39.200 oh, can you come in and do the act?
00:23:44.260 So they're vetting your material before you go in.
00:23:46.460 Yeah, yeah.
00:23:46.900 Right.
00:23:47.660 And is this place popular?
00:23:49.000 I doubt it.
00:23:52.020 I mean, PC comedy is hilarious, isn't it?
00:23:56.020 I mean, it's like sexless porn or something, isn't it?
00:24:00.280 But, Steve, I mean, look, we talk about it.
00:24:05.920 Why do you think it's important that we don't police comedy
00:24:11.100 and you don't hand in your jokes?
00:24:13.260 Well, like you were just saying, I wasn't a young guy
00:24:16.840 who got into comedy.
00:24:17.840 I wanted to be in bands for years.
00:24:20.200 In hindsight, I realised that we liked comedy.
00:24:22.280 We used to, especially in the 80s, we were still listening
00:24:24.560 to a lot of thrash metal.
00:24:26.420 But we'd also, in the mid-80s,
00:24:29.960 sometimes we'd listen to Slayer and Exodus and Megadeth,
00:24:33.680 but then we'd listen to Bill Cosby records.
00:24:36.700 So we kind of always liked that thing.
00:24:38.580 And in the 80s we watched a lot of that Eddie Murphy, Raw, Delirious,
00:24:43.580 those two.
00:24:44.320 Yeah, those two, the two big specials.
00:24:46.320 Richard Pryor on Sunset Strip, is it?
00:24:48.740 Live at the Sunset Strip.
00:24:50.180 One of the best ones.
00:24:51.780 And Steve Martin at that Hollywood Bowl.
00:24:55.960 We just had those VHSs.
00:24:56.960 VHSs, so we had this mixture of thrash metal and these three guys
00:25:00.280 that we just used to watch continually.
00:25:02.440 But also I used to listen to Jello Biafra and Henry Rowlands,
00:25:07.740 which my punk mates introduced me to, which is the first time I'd ever
00:25:10.360 heard a spoken word.
00:25:11.900 And I liked that.
00:25:13.060 Like, all these guys get up there and just rant, you know.
00:25:15.720 And I did like, I always like comedy that's got, and music that's got
00:25:19.640 something to say.
00:25:21.480 Right.
00:25:22.040 I like that.
00:25:23.080 Some of the artists I like.
00:25:24.200 I listen to Kate Bush or Peter Gabriel or something that's got –
00:25:29.160 I notice a lot of the artists I listen to,
00:25:30.440 it's usually an expression of the person.
00:25:33.820 So it's – people go, how do you get into all this different music?
00:25:39.480 To me Slayer and Kate Bush is the same thing
00:25:41.460 because they just do what they want.
00:25:44.240 There's no fakeness here.
00:25:47.000 This is death metal and this is Kate Bush,
00:25:48.860 but they both go, well, this is what we do.
00:25:50.520 There was no strategy to make you like me and dress up in a way.
00:25:55.040 And so comedy, getting back to that, I always liked the comedy too
00:26:00.420 that had, there was a realness.
00:26:02.300 I liked Billy Connolly.
00:26:03.160 He had a realness.
00:26:04.320 It was him.
00:26:05.460 I liked the Eddie, they weren't all political, the Richard Price and that,
00:26:09.620 but it was real.
00:26:10.820 Right.
00:26:11.280 This guy would tell you, I took too much meth and set myself on fire
00:26:15.360 and I'm getting divorced and he'd tell you about his mess and his life
00:26:19.140 You know, he had balls, you know.
00:26:20.840 And then when I saw Bill Hicks, that was the first time that I'd,
00:26:24.340 that was like watching this kind of cross-spoken word from the punk stuff
00:26:29.300 mixed with jokes as good as Richard Pryor.
00:26:32.700 That was like heaven for me.
00:26:33.720 Oh, look at this.
00:26:34.180 This is like this merging of these two worlds.
00:26:38.140 So, yeah, I always liked that kind of comedy.
00:26:39.780 I like comedy.
00:26:40.560 I don't think all comedy has to be political or for want of a better word,
00:26:45.580 but you know what I mean?
00:26:47.680 I like Michael McIntyre.
00:26:49.140 comedy, which many people would go, how do you like Michael Mac?
00:26:51.460 Well, he's funny, mate.
00:26:52.680 He's very good at what he does.
00:26:53.700 He's fucking great.
00:26:56.240 Like, yeah, and you can do it, you know,
00:26:58.960 he gets 20 minutes out of the kitchen drawer and he doesn't say fuck once
00:27:03.020 and I can't do that.
00:27:05.720 And he has people dying with laughter.
00:27:07.420 And I watched him when he first started in the clubs, you know,
00:27:10.140 and he was kicking ass.
00:27:12.480 And so some comedy is just good.
00:27:14.680 You know, that guy can make just, you know, going on a tube funny.
00:27:18.140 I can't do that.
00:27:19.140 I wish I could.
00:27:22.180 You know, I've got a drawer with sticky tape and scissors in it,
00:27:24.760 but when I look in it, I go, how did Michael get 20 minutes
00:27:31.280 out of this?
00:27:32.800 So, you know, and some comedy is more eccentric and especially
00:27:37.020 in England they're very good at it.
00:27:38.080 I forget the words sometimes, like Milton Jones or something.
00:27:41.160 Yeah, surreal.
00:27:42.100 Surreal, kind of twisted stuff.
00:27:44.500 Mitch Hedberg was good at that kind of stuff.
00:27:46.320 You know, I like it when it's weird.
00:27:48.360 Like they had Woody Allen's early stuff.
00:27:50.600 I was inspired by the creativity of the joke structures, you know,
00:27:55.280 how much fat he would cut off a joke and it would just be this small package
00:28:01.720 of words that would bite, especially biting towards himself
00:28:06.400 but also great gags.
00:28:08.040 But I don't like comedy that's, yeah, well,
00:28:17.400 I don't like mainstream things that are made to accommodate a safe.
00:28:23.220 I understand if you're going to do a gig at the nursing home at midday,
00:28:26.900 you don't come out with your, you might accommodate the crowd, right?
00:28:32.760 But generally, I don't like things that are made to fit in so that it'll be accepted and nice.
00:28:40.360 I'd rather have something that's got to have someone go,
00:28:43.840 fucking hell, what's this going on? What's going on over here?
00:28:47.220 It's more exciting.
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00:29:55.860 and have you seen a decrease in that type of spirit well as i said i don't know particularly
00:30:03.540 i couldn't make a decision on that sense because as i said i went back to australia and had decided
00:30:08.180 to have a breakdown for five years which was intense so i was kind of out which was which
00:30:14.480 was a profound thing i could almost look at this this whole thing that's going on with this
00:30:18.700 I don't even I don't even say the word COVID I hate the word but I can almost see it like that
00:30:27.780 in in one sense it's like see now we get like we were talking about the other day see see in me
00:30:35.840 having a breakdown I knew for years that that what I had stuff to deal with usually if you're
00:30:41.740 an artist you've got some stuff to deal with but it's it's kind of a springboard isn't it for the
00:30:46.500 work because the neurosis and the pain gives you this kind of,
00:30:51.620 like John Cleese said, I didn't want to go to therapy
00:30:53.360 because I'm not funny.
00:30:56.200 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:57.960 So it gives you that kind of springboard for music
00:31:00.760 or there's this inner turmoil and stuff.
00:31:03.140 But it has to be dealt with eventually, you know.
00:31:06.640 And usually if you've got something like that
00:31:08.120 and I've got a driven personality, you know,
00:31:10.120 I never stopped working, you know, never.
00:31:11.640 Not that I'm a – I had a job I liked.
00:31:17.580 I don't mean I wouldn't stop working if I had a shit job.
00:31:21.140 But, you know, I didn't stop touring for five years.
00:31:22.940 I was on the English comedy circuit for ten years and I did five years
00:31:25.440 of touring nonstop and it just, you know, after – and I'm hitting me
00:31:28.820 from the 40s and then when you've – you know, I was never a big drinker.
00:31:32.980 I never took tons of drugs.
00:31:34.400 I was never a drug addict.
00:31:35.200 But, you know, I've drunk and I've taken drugs and, you know,
00:31:37.800 and then you're not sleeping.
00:31:39.940 I've been sleeping at night for 30 years.
00:31:41.720 I was in bands and once this Chinese woman gave me a message
00:31:44.540 and she just goes, you're sleeping daytime.
00:31:48.900 I go, how do you know?
00:31:49.500 She goes, I can tell, not good.
00:31:54.700 And so then, you know, you're eating in service stations.
00:31:57.320 So, you know, I was 20 gigs away from taking a year off
00:31:59.460 and maybe get my then girlfriend and move him to Australia for a year
00:32:01.800 and like 20 gigs and what's the end?
00:32:03.140 I just bang, adrenal fatigue, gut problems, you know,
00:32:06.680 you blow out the neurotransmitters with the cortisol and the adrenals,
00:32:09.920 with the no sleep, with the 46, with the unprocessed trauma, bang.
00:32:15.520 Have a mental breakdown, which takes you into deep, deep, deep depression,
00:32:19.860 you know, which took me into a world which I'd rallied against
00:32:22.380 and never wanted to go in, which was the antidepressant world,
00:32:26.840 which is another world I went into, which got out of,
00:32:30.280 because I know no way I'm staying on their drugs.
00:32:33.580 I mean, I'd taken illegal drugs throughout my life,
00:32:35.380 But I've never been addicted to it.
00:32:36.520 When the doctor said, why don't you take antidepressants,
00:32:38.240 I said, I don't want to take these.
00:32:39.060 He goes, but you're taking illegal drugs.
00:32:40.400 I went, yeah, but not every day.
00:32:42.020 Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:50.060 Admittedly, there was the odd Tuesday I did some lines, right?
00:32:52.480 But really, you know, Friday, Saturday, if it was rabid, you know,
00:32:56.720 I'm not Wednesday, let's get some Coke, you know, like even drinking.
00:33:00.540 I don't really drink and weed, you know, I've smoked some pot.
00:33:04.400 But you realise, you know, it all just started to –
00:33:10.000 and then what do they say if you're looking at even in a simplistic
00:33:12.200 version of this in that Jungian sense, which is now you can get
00:33:15.300 this information.
00:33:16.200 If you listen to Peterson, Jordan Peterson, he'll tell you about it.
00:33:19.200 He likes to go into that Jung shadow work, right?
00:33:22.420 And if you listen to a guy called Gabor Marte, you know,
00:33:24.520 Gabor Marte is a Canadian – he's a psychological guy.
00:33:28.080 He dealt with a lot of people on drugs and he used to use ayahuasca
00:33:31.760 and stuff in Canada until they sort of stopped him using it.
00:33:36.180 He's a Hungarian guy who escaped to Canada when he was a kid,
00:33:41.020 but he's a very interesting guy.
00:33:43.920 Most drug addictions, they tell you, is trauma.
00:33:45.880 It's all unprocessed trauma.
00:33:46.780 What's going on with your health, your illness?
00:33:49.300 You've got to deal with the shadow work, you know.
00:33:51.180 Like Jungians tell you, you've got to walk, even in the Bible,
00:33:54.560 isn't it, you've got to walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
00:33:56.740 fear no evil?
00:33:57.560 I think, what is that?
00:33:58.560 Well, that's you, mate.
00:34:00.300 You've got to face yourself.
00:34:02.560 You've got to face yourself.
00:34:03.540 Otherwise, you keep going, well, I'm a victim.
00:34:06.440 They do this to me.
00:34:08.060 There's never, but what if things that are manifesting in your life
00:34:10.720 are because of you?
00:34:13.460 That's exactly the, how much of this victimhood shit do you think
00:34:17.700 is people projecting their shit onto the world?
00:34:20.800 Well, I think the victimhood, I think whoever this, I don't use the word elite,
00:34:25.680 whatever's going on this system in the world, I believe they've used things
00:34:29.420 like PC and all these minority separations and to create exactly that,
00:34:35.220 that victim mentality, right, which is a back foot mentality.
00:34:39.800 It's like, oh, look, I'm a victim of circumstance, you know.
00:34:44.560 Some circumstances are harder than others, of course.
00:34:46.860 And I'm not saying that any of this stuff is easy
00:34:48.800 and you could kill yourself doing it.
00:34:52.340 We're not recommending that, by the way.
00:34:53.880 I mean, you might not handle it.
00:34:55.140 Depression will make you kill yourself.
00:34:56.480 It's brutal.
00:34:57.760 Brutal depression is, I mean, I've been there.
00:35:00.960 You know, it's fucking brutal.
00:35:04.060 And it's a strange one again because you can't work out a comparison.
00:35:09.560 Someone else goes, yeah, I've had the same thing.
00:35:11.020 We don't know.
00:35:12.880 Because some people have a generally happy life and then they get a bit sad.
00:35:15.720 They think they're depressed because they're not used to being a bit sad.
00:35:18.220 But I grew up pretty sad my whole life.
00:35:20.320 So being sort of just sort of miserable wasn't really a problem.
00:35:23.220 But when I got depression, then I realised, phew,
00:35:25.800 this ain't the same thing.
00:35:27.040 This is hardcore.
00:35:28.840 And so then they will tell you this.
00:35:30.340 So what's going on in the world at the moment?
00:35:31.640 So what if what's going on in the world at the moment, you've got,
00:35:35.200 now this is radicals and stuff, I guess, but what if that great trauma,
00:35:39.980 what if we have a collective trauma within the collective conscious,
00:35:43.580 subconscious?
00:35:44.800 After 2,000 years of wars and slaveries and colonialism and separation
00:35:50.380 and just being on the planet, right?
00:35:52.760 And so what if there is this great trauma?
00:35:54.240 What if that trauma, like, which is also part of the earth,
00:35:57.080 which we're connected to, which we're not even connected to,
00:35:59.080 we are of, is coming up?
00:36:03.720 What if it's time to face this collective shadow?
00:36:07.800 And so in almost one sense, what's happening in the world
00:36:10.360 with this virus and this thing, we'll crush economies,
00:36:13.260 we'll do all this, what if they're the manifestation
00:36:16.140 of our unprocessed trauma?
00:36:20.120 So almost like we don't, we could almost thank these people
00:36:24.620 this cabal, for what?
00:36:26.160 For showing us how to wake up.
00:36:29.360 Why?
00:36:29.920 Because most people don't wake up until they've got a boot on their neck.
00:36:33.780 Simple way to describe it, isn't it?
00:36:35.600 If you hate the dentist because it's so scary and horrible,
00:36:39.940 but once the pain of that toothache overrides the fear,
00:36:44.460 you can't get to that dentist quick enough.
00:36:47.680 Why?
00:36:48.240 Because the fear has now been driven out by the pain.
00:36:51.440 And a lot of people wake up like that.
00:36:53.080 How?
00:36:53.260 because the fear, the whatnot, the fear of my business,
00:36:58.620 my country collapsing, right, but eventually or even the fear
00:37:02.280 of I'm getting a virus, that would be the one now.
00:37:04.540 But that will soon go away if there's a UN corporate thug
00:37:09.920 who's busted into your house and is taking your kids away
00:37:15.360 and you've got his boot on your neck.
00:37:17.140 Now you believe in conspiracy theories.
00:37:19.340 Oh, no, yeah, no, maybe it's not.
00:37:21.080 so the pain will wake you up won't it because because go on man crack a gag it's a good time
00:37:31.940 yeah crack a gag at the jack boot on someone's throat but so you think it's where what we're
00:37:39.680 doing is we're sort of awakening almost and do you think a lot of people are sleepwalking through
00:37:44.660 their life yeah well i was i don't blame anyone for that i think you know we're involved we grew
00:37:50.420 up as a TV generation, didn't we? Anyone from the sort of 50s, 60s and up to now, you know,
00:37:55.260 if people go, oh, you think I'm brainwashed. But we're all brainwashed. Who had, why do
00:38:00.440 you think you're so special? Didn't you grow up watching TV, listening to them, what they're
00:38:04.500 telling you is, what to believe in. Religion told you what to believe in. The news told
00:38:08.520 you what to believe in. Entertainment told you what to believe in. Sport told you what
00:38:12.060 to believe in. You've got all these movies told you. Like me and you were discussing,
00:38:15.880 if most people think about the people that live in the southern states of America, I'll
00:38:19.640 to start going, you know, little rednecks and talk like that
00:38:23.280 and squeal like a pig boy and you're like, where'd you get that idea?
00:38:26.520 Films.
00:38:27.340 Right.
00:38:28.140 Have you been there?
00:38:28.880 No.
00:38:29.220 Have you met them?
00:38:29.800 No.
00:38:30.280 They're probably the most American, polite, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am,
00:38:35.120 most certainly, yeah.
00:38:37.000 Oh, no, they all hate black people.
00:38:38.420 Do they?
00:38:41.420 They've been living with black people for 400 years,
00:38:44.180 not like the northern states.
00:38:47.200 So, you know, who's more used to it?
00:38:48.780 So where do you get these beliefs from?
00:38:51.460 Do you have, you know, of course films have an effect.
00:38:54.800 Why wouldn't films be used for propaganda?
00:38:58.820 They know it works.
00:38:59.740 That's what advertising is, isn't it?
00:39:01.800 Mix sex up with things that hit you subconsciously and then, well,
00:39:05.100 I'll buy that.
00:39:06.820 Well, they know it works because they do it to you.
00:39:08.720 So why wouldn't they use films?
00:39:09.900 If you've got to, you know, if you want to psychologically control people
00:39:17.740 and you've got access to motion pictures, it does make sense.
00:39:29.080 And then if you go back and you watch it and you watch all these films
00:39:31.320 and you go, yeah, and then you start asking who made them
00:39:33.280 and then you're allowed to talk about that.
00:39:34.780 And then, you know, and then we are where we are.
00:39:39.500 But do you blame young people for?
00:39:42.220 No, because I've come to a stage of going, what's the point in blame?
00:39:45.020 because I watched some young girl the other day,
00:39:51.740 my brother sent me a thing of some poor PC'd girl who's, you know,
00:39:56.080 got no shirt on and slut written on her or something
00:39:59.800 and Black Lives Matter written on her and some purple hair
00:40:02.840 and you're like, I just sat there and went, this, I feel,
00:40:05.540 no, I just feel sorry for this person because I don't know,
00:40:08.660 has she been brought up in a PC world?
00:40:11.180 Of course she has, right, to this system, this slow march
00:40:14.840 through the institutions, which I think even Douglas Murray mentioned
00:40:17.660 that, you know, it's come through here.
00:40:20.580 And did they pop her on psych drugs when she was three?
00:40:25.540 Because they brought that one up, didn't they?
00:40:27.120 Oh, they've all got ADD and ADHD and like here,
00:40:29.900 start giving your children psych drugs.
00:40:32.820 So what's the effect of these psych drugs on a three-year-old's head?
00:40:37.580 Well, maybe so now I can look at them and go, well,
00:40:40.280 this girl might be highly damaged from this system.
00:40:43.940 But also because I think they become so mental where they start going,
00:40:47.300 there's 900 genders and if you want to be a chick, you can.
00:40:49.760 Just, you know, put on a dress and call yourself Barbara.
00:40:51.940 It doesn't matter.
00:40:52.560 It's still reality.
00:40:53.760 I think eventually the silent majority will listen to these people
00:40:56.720 and go, these people are nuts.
00:40:58.580 And they'll start waking up because they go, what's going on with you?
00:41:02.600 There's a thousand genders in Avatar.
00:41:06.020 In one sense, I think maybe we can thank them.
00:41:08.660 Yeah.
00:41:10.280 Because they've suffered.
00:41:11.180 I think they have suffered to end up like this.
00:41:13.800 Like you're completely nuts.
00:41:15.760 What are you talking about?
00:41:18.040 Well, if you don't agree with this.
00:41:20.100 And you've seen some of them.
00:41:21.620 Yeah, people compile them in YouTube and make, you know,
00:41:24.560 what do they call them, snowflakes going berserk or something.
00:41:27.200 But some of them you're like, why are you throwing a bin through a window?
00:41:31.520 Because someone said something you don't like, man.
00:41:34.760 Like it's savage.
00:41:36.400 But, you know, as I said, maybe and there is spiritual sort of,
00:41:39.300 I don't know, laws, is that the right word?
00:41:41.180 But they actually, the deeper I get into it, where they go,
00:41:43.680 it's not your job to change anyone.
00:41:45.280 And it's almost like it's not your karma.
00:41:48.620 Someone else's karma, how they learn.
00:41:52.180 So don't you go in there and start telling them.
00:41:53.960 If they ask, tell them.
00:41:55.160 But if they don't, don't go in there and think you can tell everyone what to do
00:41:58.060 because it's not, maybe it's not their time yet.
00:42:02.880 Maybe they're playing another role.
00:42:04.240 I'm starting to learn that, you know, with our mind and our intellect
00:42:06.900 and my level of control.
00:42:08.440 I've started to realise I've got to let go of control of some things, I think.
00:42:12.120 Like I just made the film clip with my band, as I said,
00:42:15.080 myself and my friend, but our cameraman, he can't quite,
00:42:19.280 because he's had to go back to work during this lockdown stuff, right?
00:42:22.820 So he can't quite get the time to make, we want to make another clip,
00:42:25.960 but he's had to postpone because he's got to go into a normal job.
00:42:30.440 What was my point?
00:42:31.400 What was I talking about?
00:42:32.960 You're talking about letting go of control.
00:42:35.960 You let it go and forgot.
00:42:37.080 Now, there's a part of me that I know that could even within my unconscious
00:42:40.740 because I've looked at myself a lot, that could almost take that as,
00:42:46.880 well, who does he think he is?
00:42:47.960 He said he'd do it.
00:42:48.780 Why won't he do it now?
00:42:50.060 Why won't he do it?
00:42:50.540 And then there's a part of me thinking, well,
00:42:51.440 maybe I'll just get someone else to do it, right?
00:42:52.960 I could drive up all these things and I think,
00:42:54.420 why don't you just let go?
00:42:58.540 Just go, okay.
00:43:00.580 I can't do it for another three weeks.
00:43:01.760 Okay.
00:43:02.340 Because it'd be a part of me, the way I operate,
00:43:04.040 it would start going, well, I'll get someone else to do it.
00:43:05.660 I thought, why don't I just for once go, okay, and see what happens?
00:43:11.380 Because I don't know what's going to happen.
00:43:14.520 He might suddenly go, that job's been cancelled.
00:43:16.460 I've got a whole week free.
00:43:17.200 Do you want to do it straight in two days?
00:43:18.380 I don't know what's going to happen.
00:43:19.400 But if I work myself up through, well, I'll try and control it.
00:43:23.520 So I thought, I'll just drop it all.
00:43:25.800 I'll just let it go and see where it takes me because I don't know.
00:43:30.820 My therapist said something which really I couldn't work out at first
00:43:34.860 And then I think he said whenever you're trying to do something,
00:43:37.720 he goes, have no desire for an outcome, which goes completely against
00:43:41.320 if you want to win an Olympic medal or become a weightlifter.
00:43:45.140 You go there, you've got an outcome, you've got a goal,
00:43:47.360 which I think in our society is something that's very,
00:43:50.680 we look at it, don't we?
00:43:51.660 And it makes sense to the mind, well, like that, so I'll do this.
00:43:55.600 And I understand it works.
00:43:57.080 If you want to get good at drums, well, hit them a lot
00:44:00.740 and eventually you'll be better than you are here.
00:44:03.500 in that linear thing.
00:44:07.580 But he said to me, he said, you know, have stuff you want,
00:44:11.540 he goes, but don't have any desire for the outcome.
00:44:17.180 He said, do the work but let go of control of any desire
00:44:21.100 for the outcome.
00:44:22.060 He goes, because you don't, he goes, this is what made me think,
00:44:24.720 he goes, when you do that, you now can put yourself
00:44:28.180 in the position of pure potential, which is beyond your control.
00:44:34.180 Not you trying to control the world.
00:44:36.380 Put yourself in pure potential where you let go.
00:44:39.880 If you're in religious, they might call it faith.
00:44:43.700 Let go.
00:44:45.500 You don't know everything.
00:44:47.140 Something may happen you don't know.
00:44:51.460 And maybe if you try and control it,
00:44:52.900 that thing that would have happened now won't.
00:44:58.780 It's a great point, but do you think we live in a society
00:45:01.140 where we're sort of taught to believe in control.
00:45:05.740 We have a five-year plan.
00:45:07.120 What do you want?
00:45:07.640 What's your ambition?
00:45:08.340 You go to university, you go do this, you do that, you do this.
00:45:12.660 We're taught to have control.
00:45:14.000 We're completely taught.
00:45:15.120 And some of it's, I think you have to learn to live in paradox.
00:45:18.400 I mean, some of it is, it's not like you just, I have no control.
00:45:21.880 I don't care about anything.
00:45:23.600 It's not that flamboyant a way to think.
00:45:28.100 Most definitely we live in a go, go, go, achieve,
00:45:33.060 I'm a winner kind of mentality, don't we, as a society.
00:45:36.700 We have that kind of, no one's kind of, yeah, man, just.
00:45:41.500 But, yeah, I think that stuff's coming to an end
00:45:45.200 because I think that there is an awakening.
00:45:48.180 I don't like that word particularly, but I think there's a,
00:45:52.620 because there's many different angles depending on how you could look
00:45:55.240 at this situation we're in at the moment.
00:45:57.240 There's the political ones, there's the conspiratorial ones,
00:46:00.120 but there's big spiritual ones of people I listen to who are like,
00:46:03.400 well, this is just happening like mystics have told you,
00:46:07.180 like Indigenous people told you.
00:46:09.960 Like it's just happening.
00:46:11.040 There's photon belts that are shifting.
00:46:12.840 You've gone from the age of Pisces into Aquarius.
00:46:17.920 You know, this is other realms that people are looking at
00:46:20.100 and what's going on on the planet.
00:46:21.440 You do have to shift.
00:46:22.640 You have to wake up because you've acquiesced over 2,000 years
00:46:26.820 to these systems, what, that came from Rome and everywhere else.
00:46:29.760 So you're responsible as well for what's going on.
00:46:31.940 Why?
00:46:32.140 Because you acquiesced.
00:46:34.440 You pay your tax.
00:46:35.960 You agreed to listen to all their stuff.
00:46:37.640 They tell you.
00:46:38.120 They tell you in the films, don't they?
00:46:39.780 They tell you all the time, look, here's a film, Robocop.
00:46:42.680 We told you in the 80s.
00:46:43.880 And you went, yeah, it's a film.
00:46:45.000 Well, we're going to bring them for you.
00:46:48.240 And we're getting you used to them.
00:46:50.380 Here they are.
00:46:51.580 And also what that then is that goes, well, we didn't lie to you.
00:46:54.980 In fact, you're so stupid.
00:46:56.200 but this is almost satanic.
00:46:57.160 We showed you and you didn't wake up.
00:47:00.560 Is it our fault?
00:47:02.900 See, that's satanic thinking.
00:47:04.040 That's predatory thinking.
00:47:05.400 That's how satanic thinks.
00:47:06.580 That's how Satanism will think in the level of, well,
00:47:09.760 Levain Satanism at least in the sense of, well,
00:47:12.060 if you're too stupid to understand that I'm psychologically
00:47:16.180 manipulating you, then that's nature.
00:47:20.140 Steve, it's an important point you made earlier as well,
00:47:22.360 which resonates with me, which is about the importance
00:47:25.160 of confronting the fact that you have that shadow,
00:47:29.540 that we all have a shadow, and recognising that
00:47:33.480 and not pretending, oh, I'm this perfect good person.
00:47:36.720 Because everyone nowadays runs around thinking they're a good person, right?
00:47:39.880 You tweet the right thing, you say the right thing,
00:47:42.320 you have the right opinions, you're on the right side of politics,
00:47:45.400 you criticise certain politicians.
00:47:46.520 You're on the right side of history.
00:47:47.780 You're on the right side of history, right?
00:47:49.760 That's the phrase they use, you're on the right side of history.
00:47:52.340 And you brought up Jordan Peterson, who I have mixed feelings about
00:47:55.780 on some things.
00:47:57.320 But I think he's right on this, which is if you don't recognise
00:48:00.420 your own imperfections, your own evil desires, your ability,
00:48:06.020 your capability of being evil, then you will find yourself running
00:48:09.640 around claiming to be a good person and doing a tremendous amount
00:48:12.800 of damage to the world.
00:48:13.180 This is your big time.
00:48:14.180 What's the old saying, isn't it?
00:48:15.780 All the road to hell are paved with good intentions.
00:48:18.220 That's an old one.
00:48:19.060 Right.
00:48:19.340 I didn't always understand always throughout my life.
00:48:21.800 Yeah.
00:48:22.700 But most definitely because also then you – and it's not easy.
00:48:28.580 I mean, my personality is – I mean, see, then we can look at it
00:48:31.620 from this perspective.
00:48:32.320 Then you get the, you know, non-dualism, you know, non-dualism.
00:48:36.100 Explain it.
00:48:36.720 Okay.
00:48:36.980 Well, that's when you're getting to sort of the enlightenment
00:48:39.640 within Buddhism, right?
00:48:42.640 Now, there's a guy, an English guy called Tony Parsons
00:48:44.600 who's a radical non-dualism.
00:48:46.340 He's even too full on for some non-dualists.
00:48:48.320 So what this is is in that sort of mysticism, Buddhist sense,
00:48:52.560 is that you're living in duality, right, like in the yin and yang,
00:48:59.580 black and white, right?
00:49:01.140 There's a mind and a personality in a subjective world and it lives in there
00:49:06.600 and it looks out at an objective world and thinks that things
00:49:10.140 in the objective world can come at the subjective world
00:49:14.500 and that these two things are separate.
00:49:15.860 They're telling you, no, well, they're not separate,
00:49:17.520 but they are dualistic.
00:49:21.720 So you have up, down, black, white, wet, dry, hot, cold, male, female.
00:49:26.940 You have these dualisms.
00:49:29.360 But the real reality is singular yet the dualism is part of the singular.
00:49:37.820 I'd love to see your comedy after all this.
00:49:39.680 It sounds like you've been on a journey, man.
00:49:41.980 Well, I used to think back then how could I get some of this stuff
00:49:44.800 into comedy without taking the piss out of it.
00:49:48.300 There's a certain part of me that doesn't like to take the piss
00:49:50.360 out of topics like.
00:49:53.980 That you care about.
00:49:54.880 Yeah.
00:49:55.380 Yeah, I get that.
00:49:56.080 Even though I can make comedy out of them.
00:49:57.880 Yeah.
00:49:58.240 But I've got to make sure that I'm not taking the piss out of them.
00:50:00.400 Right.
00:50:01.160 You're not going for the easy, cheap gag.
00:50:03.140 No, no, no.
00:50:03.680 If I want to discuss something like this, it's.
00:50:06.240 Yeah.
00:50:07.040 Well, there's an old saying with heavy metal, I go, you know,
00:50:09.920 well, people into heavy metal can laugh at heavy metal.
00:50:11.960 It's just that if you don't understand heavy metal,
00:50:13.820 we get upset if you laugh at it.
00:50:15.060 Right.
00:50:15.560 But we can laugh at it, right, because we know, you know,
00:50:17.640 because we also respect it, you know.
00:50:19.540 Yeah.
00:50:20.000 But that guy's dressed in a loincloth.
00:50:21.500 Yeah, but.
00:50:24.780 Yeah, yeah.
00:50:25.560 But it's kind of cool.
00:50:26.540 Yeah.
00:50:27.740 You've got another tradition of the loincloth.
00:50:29.640 We know it's ridiculous, but, you know.
00:50:30.460 Yeah.
00:50:32.080 But if you're just laughing at it and think it's stupid,
00:50:34.020 no, no, no, it's not as stupid as you think.
00:50:35.860 So are you going to, are you doing,
00:50:37.560 or are you going to be doing comedy about this sort of stuff,
00:50:40.280 spirituality, which is personal growth,
00:50:43.360 whatever you call it?
00:50:44.420 I don't know yet how to do it.
00:50:47.080 I'll do it if it comes.
00:50:49.440 Yeah.
00:50:50.280 So what are you talking about on stage now?
00:50:52.480 Well, the last show was very about sort of just PC and feminism,
00:50:56.360 especially feminism.
00:50:58.420 I don't agree with it.
00:51:00.820 Why don't you?
00:51:02.260 Because it's become too fundamentalist and radical.
00:51:04.840 Before back in the day, you know, it was fine, you know,
00:51:06.720 but now it's just too, now it's radical.
00:51:08.540 It's just too out of control.
00:51:09.460 It's man-hating.
00:51:10.160 I don't care what you say it is.
00:51:11.100 It just is.
00:51:13.360 Do I now have to go into a long-winded reason why I'm supposed to believe this
00:51:16.880 to make sure that I don't get bad comments or people try and...
00:51:19.360 I don't care anymore.
00:51:21.060 To be honest, man, on this show you probably get good comments.
00:51:23.700 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:51:24.480 So I don't care what they say anymore.
00:51:26.340 Loads of the women who watch our show are massively anti-feminism
00:51:29.580 because, as you say, it's become a completely different thing.
00:51:33.380 Second wave feminism was about making sure that women had the same rights as men, right?
00:51:37.800 And it seems like Douglas Murray says, who you watched on our show,
00:51:40.900 we got to the train station
00:51:42.660 and then we went
00:51:43.900 you know what
00:51:44.240 fuck it
00:51:44.700 and just
00:51:45.640 we keep going
00:51:46.480 yeah
00:51:46.840 last stop
00:51:49.520 not for us
00:51:50.300 yeah
00:51:52.780 mate we could talk
00:51:54.820 for hours like you say
00:51:55.780 but unfortunately
00:51:56.420 we're out of time
00:51:57.220 oh already
00:51:57.780 yeah absolutely
00:51:58.860 the time flies
00:51:59.840 we've got
00:52:00.620 we've got one more
00:52:01.600 question for you
00:52:02.180 which is
00:52:02.680 as always
00:52:04.060 what's the one thing
00:52:04.780 we're not talking about
00:52:05.760 but we really should be
00:52:06.820 I'm not talking about
00:52:08.660 what we really should be
00:52:09.420 how amazing
00:52:16.140 Kate Bush's drummer is
00:52:18.700 nah
00:52:20.820 but he is
00:52:21.700 that would have been
00:52:23.640 very on brand
00:52:24.340 Steve
00:52:24.660 I would be honest
00:52:25.240 that would have been
00:52:26.260 very on brand
00:52:26.980 that last question
00:52:27.860 on brand
00:52:28.380 yeah
00:52:28.780 as in it matches
00:52:29.860 who you are
00:52:30.820 otherwise
00:52:31.260 yeah
00:52:31.620 like your brand
00:52:33.160 like how people
00:52:34.120 would perceive you
00:52:34.960 it matches that
00:52:36.360 oh right
00:52:37.220 well it certainly does
00:52:38.600 Well done, mate.
00:52:40.940 Good one.
00:52:41.560 Well, why are we not talking about that should be talked about?
00:52:45.020 I wouldn't these days bother to tell anyone what they should think
00:52:49.600 or what they should do anymore.
00:52:52.140 All I would suggest, see, as I was going to say before,
00:52:54.780 things are very easy for me because I get a little more radical
00:52:56.820 than some people because of the – so people go,
00:52:59.620 do you watch the news?
00:53:00.260 No, I haven't watched the news about this coronavirus once.
00:53:03.600 The only time I've heard it was in the taxi coming here today
00:53:05.800 because the guy wouldn't turn it off.
00:53:07.580 And people go, why?
00:53:08.540 Because I'm not going to listen to liars.
00:53:10.060 They're liars.
00:53:11.560 They told you there was weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
00:53:13.480 They told you cigarettes were good for you in the 50s.
00:53:15.240 They told you this.
00:53:16.220 They're liars.
00:53:17.420 They're bought out.
00:53:18.280 They're corporatised.
00:53:18.980 I'm not going to listen to them.
00:53:20.220 They're good to watch if you want to see what your enemy's doing,
00:53:23.720 psychological strategies your enemy's doing.
00:53:26.280 But I'll let other people do that.
00:53:27.520 I'm not watching them because it's psychological warfare.
00:53:30.980 You know, when I watch the news, I just go, well, this is a cultic
00:53:33.860 and it's military-grade psychological warfare.
00:53:37.600 Even the simple things, you watch some guy comes on,
00:53:39.260 he says something that they want you to agree with
00:53:41.800 and it flashes back to the news girl and she's going like this as he speaks.
00:53:46.420 Most people wouldn't notice.
00:53:47.240 Well, what's she doing?
00:53:47.720 She's going, yes, see what he's saying?
00:53:49.840 What he's saying is true, isn't it?
00:53:52.100 So it's just there.
00:53:53.040 So that stuff.
00:53:53.820 And I think if you're one of these people that's still running around
00:53:56.280 calling everybody who doesn't believe in narratives a conspiracy theorist,
00:54:00.580 I think what we should be talking about is that you're,
00:54:03.960 see, I could get a little radical and say what you are is an enemy
00:54:07.040 of the people and you're colluding with the enemy.
00:54:14.580 And what we're not talking about is obviously just to just do some research
00:54:19.220 because we're not talking about it.
00:54:22.340 Because why?
00:54:22.720 Because now everything's just a right-wing conspiracy theory,
00:54:25.360 and at the mainstream, love to throw that out there.
00:54:27.160 So I think what we're not talking about is the fact that stop being a victim,
00:54:30.340 get off your own ass, do some research and have your journey be what it is.
00:54:36.240 I'm not going to tell you what to do.
00:54:37.360 Maybe you want to give it, maybe you're calmer to be
00:54:40.360 in a UN concentration camp.
00:54:42.160 I don't know.
00:54:44.120 And from that, super positive knock.
00:54:49.960 I don't think that's going to happen.
00:54:51.500 No.
00:54:52.620 Because I think, you know, the spirit is bigger, light is bigger.
00:55:00.240 See, this is death.
00:55:01.220 Where are we getting this system?
00:55:03.160 It's death.
00:55:03.980 It's on its last legs.
00:55:05.480 Why?
00:55:05.700 That's why it's doing this radical thing.
00:55:07.020 And it is death.
00:55:07.900 It doesn't exist.
00:55:08.680 That's why you have to sign a birth certificate and sign
00:55:10.520 and register everything and they create the fake you.
00:55:12.800 That's why you have a mortgage.
00:55:14.540 Mort.
00:55:15.620 Death.
00:55:17.160 You have a death loan, don't you?
00:55:19.140 He doesn't.
00:55:19.900 No.
00:55:20.160 He can't afford it.
00:55:20.620 Neither do I.
00:55:21.060 No.
00:55:21.580 Neither do I, thank God.
00:55:22.580 I'm fucked, aren't I?
00:55:23.840 Yeah, right, right.
00:55:24.780 Steve, we got her up on, man.
00:55:26.120 I'm sorry.
00:55:27.180 Don't stand up yet.
00:55:29.920 Thank you so much for coming on.
00:55:31.120 I hope this was interesting.
00:55:32.080 I know it was a little all over the shop.
00:55:33.680 No, it's great, man.
00:55:34.520 It's great.
00:55:34.900 We're not done yet, so don't do the off-camera part
00:55:37.040 before we've gone off-camera.
00:55:38.720 Where can people find your work?
00:55:40.840 You've obviously got a YouTube channel.
00:55:42.900 Yeah, I've got a YouTube channel now, yeah.
00:55:44.580 What is it?
00:55:45.700 I guess it's just called Steve Hughes.
00:55:48.080 All right.
00:55:48.900 Well, you can see Steve doesn't know what brand is
00:55:50.960 and he doesn't know what his own YouTube channel is.
00:55:53.140 He says, don't watch the news, watch Trigonometry
00:55:55.680 and watch Steve's YouTube channel.
00:55:57.760 So I've got a YouTube channel
00:55:58.780 and there's music, comedy on there.
00:56:01.160 Perfect.
00:56:02.340 There's Everson if you really want
00:56:03.760 on the internet now, isn't there?
00:56:04.820 There is.
00:56:05.400 But let's not go there.
00:56:06.700 No, let's not go there.
00:56:07.660 Anyway, Steve, thank you so much for coming on.
00:56:09.540 Thank you.
00:56:09.980 And we will see you guys very soon
00:56:11.980 with another brilliant episode like this.
00:56:14.140 7pm UK time on Wednesdays and Sunday.
00:56:16.720 Or you can catch us on a live stream.
00:56:18.640 Absolutely.
00:56:19.200 And they go out Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
00:56:22.420 Always 7pm UK time.
00:56:24.300 Take care and see you soon, guys.
00:56:27.660 We'll be right back.
00:56:57.660 boys and beautiful the next musical mega hit is here the neil diamond musical a beautiful noise
00:57:03.900 april 28th through june 7th 2026 the princess of wales theater get tickets at mirvish.com