“I grew up in inner city Newcastle, Mum worked at Woolies and Dad was a travelling salesman. When I was 8, Dad was diagnosed with bowel cancer and it spread to his liver and he died when I was 10. He was a blokey bloke, but also very loquacious and very funny.
I went to a co-ed school, I was terrified of girls, and I was the little fat kid. The coach of my rugby team used me as a training tool. If I beat any kid running around the oval, they had to stay back and do laps.
I suppose I had some screwed up ideas about masculinity because when you’re a teenager and your mate starts getting pecs and you’re getting boobs, it does mess with your head. I overcompensated by having a gross sense of humour. It was a desperate plea for help, which I turned into a career.
With my work, I tend to be out of sync with my friends who have 9-5 jobs. I’m either travelling or working late cause I do stand up so it’s hard to catch up. And once you’re over 40 you don’t make many new friends. There’s that Seinfeld gag, ‘you seem like a nice guy but we’re just not hiring’.
If a mate wants to vent, I’ll let him vent. But, most of my mates don’t want to be a burden which is silly. If you’ve got a broken leg, you go to the doctor, you don’t walk around with a broken leg just to show you’re strong and coping.
Something I’ve learnt late in life is shut up and listen. Don’t feel like you can fix the problem, sometimes your loved ones just want you to shut up and listen. It’s taken me 50 years to figure the fuck out of that one.
The best advice my wife told me was from one of those celebrity magazines, I think it was Michael J Fox. If you spend your whole life worrying about the worst thing that can happen, and then the worst thing happens, you’ve already lived it twice. So stop worrying. I mean, we should be concerned about our lives, I’m not always a happy camper, but when I get worked up, I remember that.”
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