A Hit Is A Hit

Happy Easter/whatever brings you food to all; I spoke about my bucks party briefly as a segue into discussing what I really think the Last Supper painting is, chatted for a bit about why I need to develop thick skin in the face internet trolls, and finished off by telling a story from my weekend, in which I attended a White Lotus party that triggered my high school demons.

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

Well, happy Easter. Happy fucking both Easters, man. For those that are of my particular ethnic slants, you know, happy Easter. Happy. Well, you know, it might not be just people that are of Christian heritage listening to this. Happy everything, guys. Happy everything. I hope that this weekend coming, because this is an early Easter episode present, I hope that this weekend coming for you guys is considerably less inconvenient than mine's going to be. It only happens once every decade or so, but... We do get the odd Greek Easter, or Orthodox Easter, falls on the Catholic rest of the people's Easters. And that just means that it's another fucking Christmas for me where I have to circumnavigate Sydney to see both sides of my divorced family to celebrate by eating way too much food. Which is like, oh boohoo, you fucking, you get two sets of food. Yeah, I get two sets of food, but, you know, I get half the day with my family on each side. I get guilted by both sides. I get, you know, the food that I get at the first place is good, but then I get the scraps at the second place, which is usually the better food anyway. I'm not going to delineate who is who and which is which. But yeah, I hope that you guys enjoy your one Easter this weekend. It's very cool. It's a nice one, Easter. He is risen! That's the thing, right? I don't want to be too disrespectful because I'm like, I love the religious iconography. I like all of it. I like the story and I like all that stuff. But I, of course, got in a little bit of trouble for my Instagram post last night at the time of my recording right now. I put an AI-generated image of the Last Supper, except I was Jesus, and all of the other WOG comedians, your Nick Giannopoulos, your Effie, your George Kapaniaris, Joe Vardis, Sushi Mangos. They're the apostles with me. And the idea is that in the lead up to Easter, my special is coming out in a couple of weeks. And, you know, I think that this special is so good that it's going to galvanize all of these ethnic comedians. And it's going to kind of be like, you know, it's going to end the war, guys, which you might not know about. But there's a war going on. It's serious. But anyway, I just thought it'd be funny. Because the last stop has been in my head for a little while, for reasons I'll get to in a moment. But, you know, some people, of course, are going to be upset by it. And I haven't really wrangled my thoughts on that. We're going to do, I don't know if it's going to be next week or the week after, whatever. But we are going to do a little bit of a What I Feel About Religion episode, which I'm excited for. And I'll probably jump on these hyper-religious people that have commented on my AI-generated image of The Last Supper, but me in a fucking denim jacket in the middle. We'll talk about that next week. Why has The Last Supper been in my head? It has. It's been in my head for a few weeks because a few weeks ago, it was my box party. That's right. I'm getting married. I don't know if you guys know that. But I'm getting married and we had my box party in Melbourne a few weeks ago. It was fucking awesome. Best box I've ever been to in my life was mine. It was hard at first to kind of figure out what my energy should be. Because I've become a master of how to act at other people's bucks. I'm just like, whatever the buck needs, I'm there. I'm bringing the energy. I'm going home later than everybody else. Going to sleep later than everybody else. Just party, party, party. But I didn't know exactly how to be at my own bucks. But I figured it out eventually. One of the highlights was, of course, in lieu of doing the strippers. We didn't do the strippers. No strippers are my bucks. I don't like it. I really don't. I don't understand the strippers thing. Why would I want to be around three strangers or whatever number of strangers it is and simultaneously around a whole bunch of my mates with half fucking erections just acting like very, very weird versions of themselves that I've never otherwise seen. I don't want that. I don't lack for female company. I got no issues, man. So we didn't do it. In lieu of doing it, we did a Comedy Central style roast for me. It was amazing. Thankfully, my best man, who did not come up with the idea, I haven't actually confronted him on this yet, but he kind of claimed the idea was his even up until now. And then I hung out with another friend of ours recently who told me that he gave my best man the idea. There's no credit... applied to this friend, and I have yet to confront my best man on it yet. Nonetheless, irrespective of whose idea it was, it was a fucking awesome idea, and my best man gave it away in the lead-up. He was saying to me, oh, bro, I've got the best idea for your bucks. And then, in the same breath, he would be like, do you know any, like, comedy clubs in Melbourne that we can go to for, like, a drink or something? Like, I wasn't born yesterday, brother. So I reasoned that it was either... We'll be right back. You know, it was just a lot of muggles trying to do magic. And some of them cast some pretty decent spells, I must admit. But then, obviously, with a bit of prep time, you're not going to fucking beat Batman, are you? I went scorched earth on... Most of my friends. I mean, I did jokes for all of them. But I, yeah, I treated it like I was Greg Giraldo and this was 2001 fucking Comedy Central roast of Larry the Cable Guy. I went in sun and it was great. Loved it. Highlight of the weekend for sure. Second highlight of the weekend was just before the roast, we went for a nice lunch at Johnny Vincent Sam's in Ligon Street. That is, of course, Sushi Mango's restaurant. It's sick. There's no other way to put it, guys. It's sick. It is... First of all, I don't know if you've seen it, but the entire decor theme of the place is that it's like your Nonna's house in the 1980s, and they just do it perfectly. They've got the doilies, is that what they're called? The doilies, the table liners, the white little shit on the table, effectively the tablecloth, the plates, the artwork, the artwork on the wall that's made out of carpet. It's like a painting, but it's made out of carpet. The wallpaper, it's all like proper 1980s, on shit like my dad walked in there properly got like PTSD Vietnam flashbacks from his childhood that's right another aside my dad was on the bucks which was a wonderful idea he's a sick dude my dad he's like he's pretty up there as far as dads go he was the life of the party man he's just talking to my mates about god knows what got off his fucking face on the Saturday night I lost him we were gonna move at one o'clock in the morning and we were at this big place and This club slash pub place. The most Sydney place I've ever been to in Melbourne. And it was time to go to karaoke because that's what I do, brother. It's time to go and let out the pipes. And I'm trying to find everybody. The only person missing is one Giuseppe Sam Locascio. Can't find him anywhere. Look all around the club for him. None of the boys have seen him. I find his jacket with his phone in it. Carrying that around with me. Lost him for half an hour. He was last seen yesterday. Him and my best man went into the middle of a dance floor. He's shoving people out of the way and doing the jumping on the spot, fist in the air move, which is a pretty dad move to do. Just loving life. We lost him for half an hour. Eventually, he resurfaced. He was in one of the vaping areas. He doesn't vape, but he was just there catching a breather. So he was the life of the party. Could not have been happier with him being there. He was getting PTSD at the restaurant, Sushi Mango. They also came up with a pretty fun idea, which we didn't end up doing. But in amongst all of the decor was three, no fewer than three, Last Supper paintings in the restaurant. Now, in the middle of lunch... We're talking about the last opera painting and how kind of intense and cool and gothic and just, it just brings up a lot of thoughts. A lot of thoughts. Thank you for watching. They very well towed the line between classic non-ness house energy and what will work commercially. Because let me tell you something, guys. We never had burrata growing up. You're not going to find burrata in a fucking Sicilian or a Calabrese or a Napolitano or a Abruzzese, like... you know, grandparents moved here in the 50s house. Burrata's a new thing. It's a tutty thing. It's for fucking, because Aussies love burrata. It's fine. But that's a business decision on Sushi Mango's part. And who the fuck are you to tell them what is a good and bad business decision? We love the burrata. It was great. It's just not reminiscent of my nonna's house, at least. But I'll tell you what was. The mains, the kotolette, the schnitzel. The schnitzel came out and man, again, like, It was the commercial version. It was the version that's going to appeal to everybody in Melbourne. But it was fucking close. Like the veal schnitzel was so close to my nonnas, man. It was just like a little bit too thick for my taste. And it also like didn't, it came in, it came in like the classic kind of woggy like tin. Like it's like a, it's not a tin. It's like a, you know, it's a dish. It's like a food bowl, like a dish where you put a lot of food in. I think dish is what it's called. Anyway, they didn't have... This is my one gripe. They didn't have the kitchen paper in between the cotolete, layering the cotolete, and also catching the oil as like a trickle-down effect, whereby it makes the cotolete on the bottom rung of the dish... fucking even more delicious right like that was that was my own like that's that's proper nonness house you know that that's why i like nonness schnitzel was the reason why i was such a fat teenager man i would plunge i reckon nine of these little pieces of cotolete when i was when i was this age man i was a monster there was no stopping me um so there was that which i thought You know, could have used the kitchen paper, even though it's not particularly appetizing. So there was that. And also the masks. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe this is the first thing that somebody can comment on because we didn't get any comments from the episode that I dropped yesterday. on was it monday i think it was monday or tuesday either way like i'm not doing this periodically as you can tell i'm dropping this whenever the fuck i feel like i'm having bursts of inspiration i'm writing a bunch of shit that i want to talk about i'm talking about it when i'm ready and then we're just going to release It is what it is. There's not a day of the week this is coming out. So anyway, Tuesday, haven't had anybody obviously write in because you guys are shy and you don't know what I'm going to be doing moving forward. I get it. It's fine. No worries. Take your time. But eventually, I want you to contact me and talk about it. Even if this is a dumb joke, a story, something that I've said that's upset you, you know I fucked up, or you'd like to elaborate on something that I said, whatever. This is a community. That's what we're building. It's a community. Anyway, the thing that I, like, correct me if you don't have these in your Nonna's house, but the classic for us was the Sicilian masks. There's masks, and they get put on the wall like an artwork, and it's just like, I don't know, they're porcelain, whatever. There's a man and a woman. I see them in every eye tie house, and Nonna had the nicest mask. I think Nonna still got them on the wall somewhere. I gotta go. I gotta go visit that dude. So other than that, pure, authentic Nonna. just marvelous experience and then of course we had the three last supper paintings which is obviously a hallmark of an italian house as well for sure and my dad suggested in the middle of lunch that we should do we should do a mock one like in front of the last supper painting where i'm in the middle like jesus and um and all of the boys are the apostles on the outside of me and i was like That's a sick idea. Why don't we give it a try? But before I wanted to just flag it with some of the boys, because I know that some of them are particularly religious and I didn't want to offend anybody. And I did. And a couple of them said, yeah, look, we don't want to be in that, but you guys go ahead and you do the photo just without us. And then I opted against doing the photo because, you know, I'd rather have the photo with everyone in there and not exclude anybody just for a bit of a gag. Not knowing that I would have the capability to make a sick AI version of me and the Sishi mango boys themselves uh in a couple weeks of the last supper and that would probably equally upset some people on the internet but um i i just my dad's idea was on point uh because right the the the last supper really it it's a box no it's jesus's box is it like how could how could you not like how could you not think that it's it's it's jesus's bucks party it's the last supper i mean okay he's out with the boys that's one he knows that it's the last supper okay he's the son of god he's fully aware that he's about to transition into a new into a new phase of his life or lack thereof in his case because um you know he's he's he's kind of getting married the next day he's ascending to heaven and His life is going to completely change. He's never going to see the boys again until the last time he's going to see the boys properly. He's going to be at his wedding slash crucifixion. It's a box. And he knows it. And the biggest reason why the Last Supper painting is clearly a box, there's fucking hoes there, bro. Okay, you can count at least two women in the Last Supper painting and three depending on the version. But there's... There's chicks there, man. There are women in the Last Supper painting. And the story is that, nah, it's just, it's the apostles. It's all the boys, you know, just some of them. Some of them look like women a little bit. A lot, actually. Some of them look like women because, oh, I guess Leonardo da Vinci just wasn't a very good painter, right? That's the story we're going with? Obviously not. It's chicks, man. There's chicks there. The hoes are there at the Last Supper because it's a Bucks party. Officially, here's what we got. Here's what we got. Officially, right, the characters in the Last Supper, if you go from left to right... These are the characters as per what the story is, right? So all the way on the far left, you've got Bartholomew. Then you have James the Lesser. James the Lesser. Because there is, in fact, on the table, a James the Major. James the Greater, as he's sometimes called. So Jesus has got two mates called James, but one of them is a sick cunt, and the other one's just there because, like, I don't know. He's mates with Bartholomew. He always comes with Bartholomew. We're not going to not invite him now, but he is very much James the Lesser. I've got a few mates in my friendship group that have got the same names as some other guys in my friendship group. I would love to start Institute calling them the Lesser. I'm not going to say the name here because I shouldn't be doing that on this thing. Then we have, after James the Lesser, we have Andrew. Then we have Judas. Now, Judas is seated. Judas is being kind of like Peter is kind of leaning over Judas. So Peter's sitting... behind Judas, but his head is in front of Judas and he's whispering into the next interesting person. Judas, depending on the painting that you see, they were not in Melbourne at the Sushi Mango restaurant, it was not this, but in many, many Last Supper paintings, Judas is black. Like, Judas is proper, like, Like, he's the only black person in the painting, despite the fact that these are all Middle Eastern dudes and they should all look like that. In some paintings, Judas, and we all know who Judas is in the story. Judas is black. God bless the Renaissance, guys. God bless the Renaissance. But also God bless Melbourne because fucking you better believe that Judas was not black in the Sushi Mango restaurant in Melbourne. They got work last suppers in there. There's nothing but gender neutral bathrooms and white Judas's in there. White suppers. in their Last Supper paintings in Melbourne, bro. It's Melbourne. So then we got Black Judas, then we got Peter, and Peter is whispering, we think, or maybe giving a little peck on the neck to somebody who we call John. John is seated to the right of Jesus. John is is the most visibly feminine person in the whole painting. John is so clearly a woman. Okay, I don't know which woman it is, but there was no John at the box. I'm telling you that. And there was not a John the Lesser or a John the Greater. There was a John the Sex Worker from the Central Coast. That's who was in The Last Supper. They got Jesus in the middle. The closest person to Jesus sticking his finger up for some reason is Thomas. Then you've got James the Greater. James the Greater sitting next to Thomas with a sick-ass beard, a much better beard than the other piece of shit, James, on the other side of the table. Then behind James the Greater, you've got Philip. Philip is also a chick, for sure. Nowhere near as attractive as John. That's why Philip is stuck in the mush away from the buck. Philip is stuck in the middle of all the other apostles because, you know, it's the buck. We've got to give the buck the best one. So that's why John is right next to Jesus. Philip, the other chick, is there in the middle. And then we pad it out with Matthew, Thaddeus, And Simon, that's who fills out the rest of The Last Supper. Now, I'm sure some of you are listening to this like, this guy's fucking great. He's going to hell. He's going to hell, this guy. And I won't listen to this anymore. Some of you are like, ha-ha, that's funny. It is funny. It is funny. If you don't think it's funny, you're a fucking idiot. But yeah, all it is, The Last Supper painting, all it is, is one of the oldest... Most classical pieces of Renaissance gaslighting. Because the story, like Da Vinci just painted, it was like the boys, he may as well have been there. This Bucks party is legendary. It was sick. And then once he painted it, you know, all of the wives are like, excuse me. Who the fuck is that? Who is this bitch next to Jesus? Who the fuck is that? You said it was just going to be the boys. Who is that? And all the story is from the apostles in the Bible, the last supper, whatever, like all the iconography, all it is, is history's biggest gaslighting. Who the fuck is she, babe? What do you mean she? It's fucking, it's fucking John. You know John. He's one of my oldest apostles. What are you talking about? You're always paranoid about this shit. I told you. I love it. I think it's amazing. It's a painting of gaslighting. For sure. It's sick. I legitimately want one in my house. Not for religious purposes. I just think it's a sick historical painting. It's really, really cool. All of these things that I'm saying now, we were kind of talking about at lunch today. because it's just so thought provoking. It's so thought and feeling provoking in so many different ways. And I'm sure, you know, I'm sure that there was a few people that liked the last episode that are going to be listening to this episode and I just lost them forever. Not only in terms of like listening to the podcast moving forward, but in terms of like ever buying a ticket to my show again. And that's fine. Like I said to you last time, all I want to do is just be honest and funny and stupid. And that's what's happening right now. So if anybody's enjoying it, If anybody liked it, fucking good for you. Send me a compliment. Why not? I like compliments. I like compliments a lot. Much better than insults. Insults are shit. Case in point, got a few more. Got a few more social media comments this week. Now, look, I'm not going to turn this into a podcast purely about me complaining about, you know, people being mean to me on social media. We're not going to do that every single week. I thought about doing a segment called, you know, fuckhead comment of the witness. We're not doing, it's not gimmicky. This is not going to be gimmicky. This is just going to be me. I'm going to take some notes about some things that happened to me during the week. I'm going to have some feelings about it and I'm just going to have some caffeine and just, just yap for an hour. That's what it's going to be. However, because, Because I'm on the promo train for my special. Oh, yeah. That's right. 1st of May, 2025. Just a couple of weeks from now. My special Papu is dropping. Filmed at Enmore Theatre. That's right. The Big Dick Big Boy Theatre. It's going to be sick. If you never came to see the show, or if you came to an early last year version of the show, it's totally changed. It's totally sick. And there's a surprise in... this video that like at the end that you know you you're not gonna get uh at any other time so watch it it's coming out soon i'm gonna be screaming about it for a little while so anyway because i'm on my promo train i'm you know i'm posting reels pretty much every day which means i'm getting i'm getting a lot of comments and um you know a lot of them are mean A lot of them are nice. A lot of them are mean. And the dichotomy of the mean comments that I get is just so baffling to me, right? This week, I did a video, an old one, another old one. I don't have any new shit. The new shit's coming in a couple of weeks. It's old shit. And I'm talking about like how my Greek uncle kind of raised me a bit in my teenage years. And, you know, he made me a bit too Greek. And we're like up at... Three o'clock in the morning with a bootleg cable antenna box that is streaming the Panathinaikos game. And we're frying Kefalogaviera to Moe at three o'clock in the morning while watching the Panathinaikos game. And that's like pretty much as Greek as you can get. Is the... Like the premise of the joke. Now I've got to tell you guys, I was saying Kefalo Graviera the whole tour and it was not getting a laugh. So I changed it to Haloumi and then it started getting a laugh because I perform in Australia. So I changed it to Haloumi and it became Haloumi for the special for the video. I put it out there and then of course, what are we, what hill are we dying on this week, dumbasses on the internet? He said Haloumi, Haloumi's not even Greek, it's Cyprian. Yeah, okay. congratulations to you bro you know i'm sorry i'm so sorry i'm here's the thing right i i can't help myself i gotta i gotta respond man i've got that i've got severe adhd i i satiate my dopamine deficiency by starting fights with people on the internet we're gonna talk about my adhd diagnosis in a couple of weeks but dude i can't help myself what do you want I try and smash them as hard as I can, man. You know, I'll stalk their profile. Sometimes they're on, sometimes they're on public. I'll stalk their profile, find pictures of their wives and children and goats and fucking the fish that they just caught or whatever. And try and, you know, try and figure some shit out to say back to them. But the reality is that I'm not going to beat these guys. These guys are just angry, horrible people. So the tactic that I've taken instead, instead of just like insulting them and getting them angry is I'll shame them. I will shame them. I will not even try and be funny about it. I will just say things like, you know, shame on you. Why are you leaking your insecurity on the internet on a stranger who's just trying to make people laugh? This says a hell of a lot more about you than it does about me that you feel such hatred in your heart that you feel the need to spread such evil, such negativity into the world. That's what you're doing. You're putting negative energy into the world. I know it's not about me. Of course I know it's not about me. You don't know me and I don't know you. I just say things like that to them. I say things like, I threaten to report their comments for hate speech and say things like, you know, I shudder to think what other comments you're leaving on other people's videos that you don't like or you don't understand. People with significantly less self-esteem than me, your comments and things like what you're doing can lead to serious adverse mental health issues, sometimes suicide, things like that. And I make them fucking feel bad about it. They come back and they're like, because they're always going to come back. They're always going to come back. They're always going to have the last word. There's no last word on Facebook and Instagram, baby. There's going to have the last word. They come back at me and they're like, it's not hate speech or you need to grow a thicker skin. Now, I find the thicker skin thing so funny because it's like I have penetrated their guys so much that they're upset and they're telling me I need to develop thicker skin when I've just come back at them for just being assholes to me. That's very funny. I don't have thick skin. I'm a very sensitive boy. And we'll get to that in a moment. But... I really, really think the shaming is the way to go. If there's anybody that's listening to this that is in a similar situation to me, where you're like, you're an internet creator. Sorry, I vomited in my mouth a little bit at that particular appellation. But if you're a person that puts things on the internet and you get comments and stuff, don't. don't like ignore is obviously the best way to go about it but if you can if you cannot ignore it if you have the same kind of dopamine deficiency as i do and you have to go back at them then just shame them it's the best because anger like if you insult them for a moment anger is temporary they get angry they cool off whatever but shame shame shame lingers for a long long time shame lingers so do the shame shame's good if i learned anything from my Wog family. Shame's good. I am sensitive. I do need to develop thicker skin. Or do I? I don't know. I don't know. It's working pretty well for me thus far. I think my sensitivity makes me who I am. You know? I love. I love people. I love things. So very deeply that it hurts me sometimes. And that's okay. And I get deeply, deeply offended by things. Possibly when I shouldn't. Case in point. I had a really weird thing. This past weekend, weekend before Easter, I attended a party. I attended a party which can best be described as my first ever rich white people party. The premise of the party was that this person who put the party on, their parents didn't, they wanted to move out of their parents' place. And in lieu of sending them into a share house or to be at the behest of real estate agents, the parents just decided to cut the middleman out and buy this person a$5 million property in Maroubra. And that's where the party was. And this party was effectively a celebration of that purchase. So that just gives you a little bit of an insight as to the kind of people that this party was targeting. hosted by and for I'm not going to say any I don't want to like disparage the people like I'm grateful to be invited and the people are connected like I'm just going to talk about something that happened at the party I'm just giving you a little bit of context the party was absolutely chock-a-block with white dudes like white like you know I know I'm European, I'm a white dude, but you know what I mean when I'm saying white dudes? I'm talking proper, first fleet, slip, slop, slap, white dudes, you know? There was three men at this party whose first name was Darcy, you understand? This is like, yeah. This is white dudes. And the whole setup, the whole shtick, it was a white lotus party. It was nice. It was year 10 formal themes, which was kind of cute and kind of weird. And, you know, everybody was in suits and dresses. And I was in a nice suit. You know, my fiance was in a nice suit. It was great. Really enjoyed it. The whole setup was like very white lotus-y. Very like, you know, I don't want to knock anything over here kind of energy, which is fine. I've been to parties where there's, and events where there's, you know, expensive shit around before. I'm not a Neanderthal. I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a, you know, a low, I'm not, I'm not Aladdin. You know, I, I like, I liked it for the most part, but there was something eerie the whole time I was there. There were three long tables for the dinner. We're all seated at the three long tables. There was only one of those three tables that had anybody remotely ethnic or their dates on it. Obviously I was on this table. The other two tables totally different. Bianco, you understand? Food was good. A lot of like nice snacks, you know, microwave, whatever. And then the main event for the food was they had on the balcony. They had the paella guy, the paella, paella, paella. I love me a paella. There was a paella guy outside. He was doing one seafood, the other one vegetarian. He's sitting there. And he's just making the paella in the two big pots. You've seen this shit happen before. We go, he puts us too much and got so full. I was pretty drunk as well. We had pre's and I was pretty drunk because, you know, you got to have pre's with year 10 formal. So that happens. I was pretty drunk going into it. The paella kind of like absorbed a lot of the drunkenness. So by the time it got to the situation that I'm telling this story about, I was somewhat lucid, but still a little bit drunk. Dinner wrapped, and then we all kind of dispersed throughout this big fucking house. And we were considering whether to kick on, but people that were in the know were saying, don't go anywhere because there's a surprise. There's a surprise coming, and the surprise is going to happen at like, you know, 10.30 or whatever. So make sure you're around for that. At a certain point, we were all asked to be seated together. Back at our table. And they told us that one of the Slip, Slop, Slap dudes was going to be reading a poem. He gets up. This dude stands on the table. No, sorry, stands on a seat. And there's nothing wrong with the poem itself. The theme of the poem was basically... This person's family bought them a home and we're doing a party and we're all in suits. This person was clearly educated, quite intelligent. The rhyme scheme, great. He kept saying that he wrote it two hours ago, which is probably a lie, but whatever. That's fine. Whatever you got to do to satiate your insecurity, bro. It's fine. I do it all the time. I've built a career on it. It's fine. The way he delivered it was a bit weird. He was like among the whiter of the white dudes wearing a tuxedo. And he's on the table. He's on the seat. And he's delivering it like Sir Ian McKellen, you know, in the West End. Like... In terms of baritone, in terms of grandiosity, in terms of overacting. Not that Sir Ian McKellen would ever overact, but it's like watching a guy pretend to be Magneto delivering a speech about a party happening. The way that everybody was kind of enjoying it, it was kind of like a big... a big in joke because all the dudes they were all friends they've all been to school I think they're around my age around like 30 but they've all been to school together since like 8 years old so they're like properly entrenched in each other's bullshit and it's fine you know when I have parties with my friends that I've been friends with forever we're all entrenched in our bullshit and if there's you know extras or other people invited they might be forgiven for thinking that it's a little naff or it's like okay well we feel a bit excluded but it's just how that shit goes that's fine none of these things Things implicitly made me feel weird, but there was just a lingering foreboding about everything that was happening. And sure enough, it was revealed what my foreboding feeling was about because the surprise was a mariachi band. Yeah, they had three Mexican people dressed in the full, all of it, the sombrero, the vest, all of it, playing musical instruments, singing all of the traditional Mexican folk songs that everybody knows and loves, like the Macarena and Despacito and Tequila. And fuck, man. Fuck. Like, tequila gets handed around at this point, per the request of the host. Everyone has to have tequila now. And that's when it kind of dawned on me. It was like, oh. They're not being explicit about it, but this party is Mexican-themed, which is why they're doing the tequila and the mariachi band, and it's why they had the paella, even though paella is motherfucking Spanish, which I don't know if you know this, but Spanish is not exactly Mexican. They might speak the same language, but it's not. But it's fine. It's all in good fun. It's all in good jest, right? Even though all of the white dudes are just up laughing and dancing like idiots. They were breadsticks. They were picking up breadsticks and twirling them in the air on top of their heads, which is a thing, I guess. I just felt like they were enjoying it in the wrong way. I don't know. There's no malice here. in any of what they were doing. Like, it was just purely ignorance, you know? As much as it was just a fun thing for them to have at this party, it is in no uncertain terms a room full of white people that have hired brown people to dress up and dance and sing for them in the middle of their living room. And guys... That's a couple of steps removed from hiring midgets and throwing them at the target. You know, it is just like, look at these other kinds of people. Well, like we're bringing the zoo to our house. That's what it is. You might be thinking that I'm saying something that's extreme. I'm not. I'm not. Like, I'm not. Sure. The artists, the guys, okay, the main guy, he was a performer and a half, man. He did not let nothing slip. The other two looked like they wanted to kill themselves. Genuinely, the other two looked like they wanted to fucking kill themselves. And my solace came, you know, as a fellow artist, I'm like, these guys are getting paid. And I'm sure they're getting paid a lot. But it just stung me, man. It just stung me. And then after the performance, the performance went for like, I don't know, half an hour. And afterwards, the main guy and they were, you know, they were like packing their instruments away and they were talking to some of the people. And they said, oh, you guys are such a wonderful crowd. We love how much energy you guys put into enjoying our performance. But what are they going to say? Of course, they're going to say that. That's what you got to do. Like my friend, I don't know if we're friends. He's a comedian that I really like. You know, we're friends. Tom Cashman. Love Tom Cashman. He's one of Australia's best comedians. I think he said on his podcast, having opened up the TikTok Awards a few years ago by being told to do stand-up on stage in front of a bunch of weirdo TikTok executives and people that have become famous on TikTok. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to say anything about them. I don't need to. He was asked to do comedy for them Before the TikTok Awards started and it was just a fucking nightmare. The show started and he was mid-joke and he just had to stop and run off the stage. And I think when he was talking about this in his podcast, he said that as comedians, we got one of two things. We're either getting laughs and doing well or we are just enduring embarrassment. And that could not resonate with me anymore. There's a lot of times where people go... We're going to get comedy, and it's not a context that comedy should exist in, and you just do your time, and you go home, and you get your money, and that's what happens. It's life as a performing artist. So I'm sympathetic for the artists, but yeah, they got paid, and that's what you got to do. Clearly, this is not their full-time shtick. I would not imagine that there's a lot of people that are, what do you do, in Sydney to survive. I'm a full-time mariachi accordion player. No chance. So, you know, for their passion, for their ability to be able to explore their culture musically and to get paid for it, cool. But... I don't know if they grew up dreaming of this context, and I certainly would imagine they did not grow up dreaming of playing Despacito, which is a Puerto Rican song that has Justin Bieber in it, and the Macarena. Like, come on, man. I, um... I was pretty upset. I was the most visibly appalled person in the room. I know that there were other people in the room that didn't feel great about it because I was drunk and spoke to a few of them afterwards. I had to leave. I couldn't hack it anymore. I had to get out of there. But yeah, I was visibly appalled and I haven't in the days since been able to 100% understand why I was so upset by it. But this is my best experience effort at trying to reconcile it. Um, it triggered something in me, uh, because I had a lot of dudes like that at my school. And again, I want to point out that this was a, this white Lotus party, like I was there. I won't, I don't want to say how I was invited because I don't want to compromise anybody, uh, like people that I know. Um, but I will say that, Uh, you know, it wasn't industry or whatever. It was, uh, you know, it was a group of people who all went to the same kind of private school again, that they were like, it was a, it was a friend. It was a friendship thing. Um, that was the kind of the main, the main, I was invited not as a part of that friendship group. I was invited through, through extra means, but the bulk of the people that were there were high school friends, dudes that were high school friends. Um, I've been around packs of these kinds of dudes before, and I've been around them on their home turf, and it's a little intimidating. Now I was on their home turf with 10 more years of life on them. Obviously, I didn't know these guys, but I'm getting to experience

UNKNOWN: 0:00

...

SPEAKER_01: 42:09

I knew them at my school. And I'm getting to experience them with 10 more years of life under their belt and more money than they clearly know what to do with. I mean, the organizer, we all paid 60 bucks and there was a lot of people there. And I'm quite certain that the organizer pocketed some money for the event. But whatever, like who cares? I'd do the same thing. That's the woggiest thing about this fucking guy. That's fine. But yeah, I was triggered. I was triggered because... Yeah, I went to school with a lot of dudes like that. I'm not saying that all of the Anglo-Saxon white kids that I went to school with were like this, because they weren't. For the most part, they were not. For the most part, they were great. But there was a sect, you know? A sect. And you can guess the stereotype, like... The rowers, the fucking, the first 11 for cricket, like these guys, the guys with very rich parents. I was always made to feel othered by those types of dude. They made me feel like my culture, my food, my slight accent was something weird and something that they laughed at, not only to my face, but even more so in private. This is a very, very real, real experience of mine. You know, things like, you know, the running joke was that my dad was in the mafia. Ha ha. Ha ha. I've turned a lot of these into comedy. So I'm over it, man. I really, really am over it. And it's like very lukewarm bullying regardless. But things like that. Things like another one that I've spoken about in my comedy. I was doing Death of a Salesman in year 10. I was given the role of Biff Loman's brother. We were all, you know, we're reading the play out loud. I was tired. The brother barely had any lines. It came to me. The line was, give him the left biff. I guess I mumbled it. I guess I had a relatively new, deep, post-pubescent voice, whatever it was. For some reason, I said, give him the left biff. The cohort, my classmates all heard that. fucking Habib from El Janna and they heard it as and so for the rest of my schooling experience I would walk down the corridor anywhere near one of these aforementioned dudes and they're just screaming in the most exaggerated fucking fat pizza voice that they could do. Fat pizza, of course, was another big source of fodder for these guys because they're calling me Yulet and Habib because, of course, whether you're Greek or Italian or Lebo or Maltese or whatever, it's the same shit to them. So Yulet. One time I was playing indoor and I was playing indoor with some schoolmates and the guy who said this is actually not Like, he fits the profile, but he was not a hyper-antagonistic version of this. He was a guy who, like, I'm very friendly with him now when I see him. It's totally fine. He probably doesn't even remember this. He was not, like, openly antagonistic about it when we went to school together, but this is what he said. Like, we were playing, and he's like, someone's got BO. Who's got BO? And then he looks at me, and he's like, it's got to be Lukash here. And I'm like, fuck you, man. Like, why would it be me? And he's like, well, it's just a process of elimination, man. You have to admit, obviously, that your people... uh just perspire more and the more pungent like you're a wog and you stink and like well it's it's shit like that you know it's not direct bullying it's not direct bullying um it's not like i was getting like it's not like you to you picture in a in a caricature uh fucking tiktok reel or whatever where i like the wog kid brings the fucking leftover euros from um from Easter, from the weekend, and the white kids beat him with it, or they put him in his locker and, I don't know, filter tarama through the hole in the locker so that he drowns or some shit. It's not like that. It's just little things. Little things that build up. You know what it is? It's shaming. I was being shamed for my difference in my culture. I was being shamed by these kids. And shame... Shame lingers. Evidently, shame lingers a long time. Shame lingers over 15 years because I felt terrible watching this mariachi band. And that's what this was, man. That's all this was. They hired the weird, funny culture and brought them into their den to have fun with them. And in their minds, as in the minds of the kids that I went to school with, just a bit of fun. Just a bit of fun. Ha ha. It's all ostensibly good spirited, but it should not happen, man. It should not happen. If you look, if you want to embrace or experience Mexican culture and music and that's your shtick and you're not Mexican, love that, man. Please do it. Go to a cantina with live music. Go to a Latin music night. Go to fucking Mexico. You clearly can afford it. But it wasn't about that. It wasn't about that. It was about, you know, it'll be really fun. Let's just get a mariachi band. Yeah. Oh, my God. That'd be so funny. A mariachi band. Fuck how those performers feel. Fuck how anybody that's ever been made to feel a similar way feels. It'll be so fun. I, uh, I get, I get asked, uh, I have been asked in my, in my career, uh, to do, uh, to do gigs where I am asked to just do quote unquote, wog jokes. Um, you know, I have many times in the past, uh, where I've been asked to do those kinds of gigs and it's, it's more on like, sometimes it's at private things. Uh, sometimes it's at weddings. Sometimes it's at, At corporates, but more often than not, it's at what is called a quote unquote, wog comedy show. But at least in these contexts, the audience is like, that's what they're there for. That's what they've paid for. It's the equivalent of going to the cantina. Or the, you know, the Mexican music night. You know what you're getting. You're going there. You know, the audience is sitting there expecting every joke to be an impression of an old Italian person reacting to a contemporary concept. Like, oh, well, what if I asked my nonno to write something on chat GPT? It'd be like, oh, the chat, the GPT. It'll be that. Or, you know, somebody dresses up like a yaya and mops the stage and the audience is like, oh my God, that was what my thing did. And it's great because you know what? That's what they've paid to see. The audience identifies with it and they fucking love it. And, you know, I am able to do my version of that without being fucking Timu Jovati tribute band. I can now do that. Like a 10-15 minute set that is all about my ethnicity but that I feel is nuanced and clever and exhibits a level of stand-up comedy that I feel represents what I do and who I am best. But it's taken a long time and there was a lot of Joe Avati tribute act performances from me along the way. When you do that kind of stuff, when you gain money, you lose in dignity a lot of the time. But people love it. and you know what i take that back i take that back that was not that that's not right you don't lose dignity you you you don't feel the best when you're any kind of artist and you are not performing you know your your newest stuff that you feel represents who you are right now you do feel a little icky but that's that's that's on us that's not you know like our job is to entertain so we entertain that's what it is so i take that back It's not about the dignity. But having said that, I will be very selective about gigs that I do where I get asked to do quote-unquote wog shit because, yeah, I want to do whatever the fuck I want. And if it is wog shit, sometimes I go to gigs like I just did a gig last week at the Oaks on Monday night in Neutral Bay, widest fucking room I've ever performed to. I decided I wanted to do 15 minutes of wog jokes, bar a couple. So just do whatever the fuck I want, man. That's what being an artist is. It's being free. And those poor mariachi performers were not free. So yeah, I'll be very discerning about what kind of gigs that I'll do when they ask me to tailor my set thematically. Uh, I won't, I won't do them not on the, not on like a moral ground. Like I've always, I've always felt exactly the same way about it, but on a financial and career security level. Now I think that I, I am generating enough hype for myself. I have enough of a kind of inherent fan base, uh, and I am secure enough in the path that I'm following that I don't need to take those kinds of compromises.

UNKNOWN: 51:59

Uh,

SPEAKER_01: 52:01

There's probably a price. There probably is. There's certainly a price. What am I talking about? I'm paying for a wedding in a couple of months. There's definitely a price. It's just not what I used to get paid. I'll just say that. But at least, here's the thing. At least with the WOG shows, like I said, you're performing to WOGs. That's what they want. They want to see their... They want to see their shit. They want to see a representation of an element of their culture that they may have forgotten about for some reason. And that's, again, I said it on the last episode, I'll say it again. These stories are important. It's not, it is rehashed premises, sure. But that's what storytelling is. Storytelling is the same story being modernized, being tweaked, but being retold again and again by more and more people. like contemporary storytellers. That's what's important. My nonna's sick right now. My nonna passed away a long time ago. In five years, in 10 years, I don't know. I would love to watch Sushi Mango videos that basically picture my whole childhood And I'll cry because I am the sensitive little bitch and I'll be happy because I don't want those stories and those people to ever be forgotten. So I'm not criticizing the WOG shows or anything like that. I'm just saying it can feel a little like the microscopes on you when you do this kind of stuff. But at least, again, you're performing to WOGs. But what if I did get an offer? What if I got an offer? That's too good for me, an artist with a wedding coming up, to turn down. What if I got an offer to come to a similar White Lotus party and I was asked to stand in the middle at 10.30 at night In the middle of all the tables of all these people in tuxedos and I was asked to wear a Forza Italia tracksuit and I was asked to do my woggiest, most Joe Avadi adjacent material to a room full of dudes that at my school who told me that wogs smell and literally not one person of my ethnicity because that's kind of what this fucking was. You know? And they're serving kebabs, you know, doner kebabs in the other room because they're like, Lebo is basically Greek. We got a Greek knight. We got doner kebabs. We got a Greek comedian. Two for the price of one. He's Italian too, but not that we give a fuck if there's a difference or what the difference is. These people all smell. Doesn't matter. What if I got an offer like that? What would be my price to do that? I don't know. Make me an offer. Make me an offer. We'll see. You know, there's definitely a monetary price for sure. You know, the price of my dignity, the price not in dollars but in shame. Yeah, that's something that you can never quantify. But fuck, I'd rather have an extra long honeymoon. I can grow my dignity back, man. And I certainly am not unfamiliar with dealing with shame. So maybe, maybe the mariachi boys and I think there's a woman, maybe the mariachi people, maybe they have the same kind of thick skin that I do. And they're just like, I'm going to take these people's money. I'm going to do some semblance of the art that I actually want to do as an artist. And I'm going to go home and I'm going to have, yeah, a week where there's more money than there would be otherwise. That's, that's, that's pretty much it for today, guys. I don't even know, man. I don't even know. Like there's like the balance of it. Like we're talking about, I was, I was being totally tongue in cheek about the last supper shit before. And then I got a little bit, I got a little bit intense here towards the end. I realized about this white load of shit. Cause yeah, man, it's I don't know. It bothered me. Bother me. But yeah, it's been two episodes now. If you're still with me and you get the gist of what I'm trying to do here, if you're digging it, if you have feelings, if you have similar stories, if you have a rebuttal for me or, you know, a different perspective, something you want me to explore next time, shoot me a message, please. DM the Instagram. That's all we got for now. And yeah, I'll do an email. Maybe an email is less... What do you call it? Less invasive? I don't know. Anyway, just chat to me, guys, if you're still there. I know that the last episode got at least 10 downloads because Buzzsprout told me. At least 10. It'll next notify me at 100. We've not hit 100 yet. That's fine. Like I said before, I'm doing this for me, man. I really, really am doing this for me. I'm not doing guests at all. It's a pain in the ass to organize people. I don't want to invest in better equipment. And it's not what I want to do with this, man. I just want this to be, yeah, I just want this to be me and kind of just like an outlet for me to express myself as best I can in ways that don't directly rely on getting laughs immediately. And it's, yeah, I'm having the time of my life in here, guys, in case that was important to you guys. But yeah, you're all guests, you know? Shoot me a message. Jump in. Let me learn from other people. Please broaden my perspective. That's what this is all about. You know, if you're listening to this and you are too shy to message, but you do want to do me a solid, one last time, Papu Special drops 1st of May 2025. Papu YouTube, 8pm Australian Eastern Time. Watch it. You'll love it. It's very good. It's the first, like, actually good thing that I've done watch it send it to your friends and family and yeah just like yeah just talk let's talk I don't know what it's going to be just talk there'll be another one next week for sure might even be another one sooner don't know what we're going to be talking about we'll figure it out if you're still with me thank you so much we got under an hour this time of just me yapping Let me know. Let me know if I'm too... Am I too sensitive about this mariachi shit? I don't know. I'm not Mexican. What do I give a fuck? But you get... You get what I'm saying, right? You get what I'm

SPEAKER_00: 58:51

saying. I feel like Corleone giving testimony While I walk around like, do they even know me? Imposter syndrome eating macaroni But I'm feeling jaded, so am I the phony? That's okay though, I'ma cross a Play-Doh minister In this prom just like Berlusconi In high school I was a fly dude But that was back then, now they waiting on me Ay I fuck with your gimmicks, don't critic the lyrics, just listen My image is never satiric, it's human condition Ay, Joe Pesci with the good fellas A little messy, but a good dresser And I could paint houses with the words that I'm bouncing That's why the allure's better I could not dumb it down and go treat my fans Like a bunch of clowns, that's real I feel like I run this town, Liam Meachie and me Have to run it down, that's ill I became who I intended and that's my perspective Whoever that wanted can get it This energy really kinetic, so buy out the tickets Cause this ain't a show, it's a message This wasn't the plan, I am what I am I cannot fit any of your frames in the gram So call me the man, I'm so in demand I turn all my enemies into my fans Don't call me a fraud or call me a wog Or tell me about all these numbers on the board Don't call me a god or call me a pawn Or try to just fit me to your little squad This wasn't the plan, I am what I am I cannot fit any of your frames in the gram So call me the man, I'm so in demand I turn all my enemies into my fans Don't call me a fraud or call me a wog Or tell me about all these numbers on the board Don't call me a god or call me a pawn Or try to just fit me to your little squad This wasn't the plan, I am what I am I cannot fit any of your frames in the gram So call me the man, I'm so in demand I turn all my enemies into my fans my fans