Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with Elliott McLaren,
Speaker 1: a half caste, left handed, gay Scottish Maori who was
Speaker 1: also a drug addict, drug dealer, standover man, and now
Speaker 1: pursues his passion as a stand up comedian. Elt You're
Speaker 1: a complex character.
Speaker 2: Tell me about it. I'm still trying to figure myself out.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep this podcast on track, but we
Speaker 1: just go off on little deviations all the time. But
Speaker 1: you've got so many things to talk about. But you
Speaker 1: know here on my catch Killers, we love complex characters,
Speaker 1: so I'm enjoying myself. So welcome back to part two.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Now we manage through great trial and tribulation get you
Speaker 1: through to your sort of early twenties. Yeap, okay. Your
Speaker 1: life was sort of all over the place at this stage,
Speaker 1: holding onto sem anger stemming from the victim of child's
Speaker 1: sexual abuse, suppressing your sexuality because you didn't want to
Speaker 1: come out. There's a gay man in an environment that, yeah,
Speaker 1: the community demonstrated was not acceptable. What age did you
Speaker 1: come out? What age did you put your hand up
Speaker 1: and go, hey, this is me.
Speaker 2: I was still twenty, I was just before I tuned
Speaker 2: twenty one. It was it was it was a week
Speaker 2: of Christmas, end of the year I was. I was
Speaker 2: still twenty at the time, and I just I got
Speaker 2: run over by car. I've just been run over by
Speaker 2: this car.
Speaker 1: I forgot to include that in my nose.
Speaker 2: I'd just been running and I like, I'm really excellent praying.
Speaker 2: I've been in the hospital heaps of times, but this
Speaker 2: one was funny because it was my last cigarette. I
Speaker 2: remember was sitting there. I was sitting there with my
Speaker 2: cousin at the drive. My cousin to your guys version
Speaker 2: of the Big W eleven o'clock at night in the
Speaker 2: Westfield car park. He's getting his little brother's presents for
Speaker 2: Christmas twenty second of December. And I'm sitting there. I'm
Speaker 2: swinging my last cigarette and I'm waiting for my doll
Speaker 2: to come through at midnight so I can go and
Speaker 2: get some smokes. And I thought, this is eleven o'clock,
Speaker 2: I'll smoke my last CIGGI I can hold out until
Speaker 2: the end. And I'm sitting there and I dropped my
Speaker 2: cigarette just after a little I drotted out of dropped
Speaker 2: it out of the driver's side window and it rolled
Speaker 2: onto my car. And I'm in a car park with
Speaker 2: three hundred cars. Car space is empty. It's the middle
Speaker 2: of the night, and so I'm like, okay, this is
Speaker 2: this is fine. I'll just get my CIGI and I
Speaker 2: regular under the car to get it, and I remember
Speaker 2: I just managed a pinchon in my fingers and I
Speaker 2: was so happy. I was like, yeah, I've got my cigarette.
Speaker 2: And I just saw headlights and my gut's just crumbled.
Speaker 2: I knew for some reason, I don't know why, but
Speaker 2: I knew that car was going to park on me.
Speaker 2: And they just sung into the car bight next to
Speaker 2: me and just parked on top of my They dragged
Speaker 2: both my legs underneath the car and then parked on
Speaker 2: both my ankles. And the poor girl he played, he
Speaker 2: who was driving, and I think she was on her owls.
Speaker 1: Actually I don't know what I'm laughing, but I am laughing.
Speaker 2: It sounds so funny. And I'm under the car like
Speaker 2: sort of skewing under the car, and I remember yelling.
Speaker 2: I was like, fuck, you're on top of me in
Speaker 2: this and the poor girl penned and she did mate.
Speaker 2: But the problem was that she died a fright, and
Speaker 2: she dropped the clutch to sort of get off me
Speaker 2: as quickly as she can. She didn't do a smooth
Speaker 2: gear change, and so when she dropped the clutch, it
Speaker 2: just skittered the front tires up that were parked on
Speaker 2: top of my legs, and it took the top of
Speaker 2: the ball joint out of my ankle, took the top
Speaker 2: of the bone off as a tie. I skittered, it
Speaker 2: ripped the bone out, ripped all the flesh off and
Speaker 2: then and she went over my legs and I got up.
Speaker 2: When I stood up and I leaned on the passenger window,
Speaker 2: her boyfriend was in the passenger and I looked at it.
Speaker 2: I was like, fuck there and they're like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: And the boyfriend's like, you know, okay, mae to you, okay,
Speaker 2: he's two park your kids, Yeah, okay mate, And I
Speaker 2: was like, fucking, I think I was wearing gang cars
Speaker 2: covered in gang colors. I had a blue band down
Speaker 2: and blue shorts on a blue singleer. These poor kids
Speaker 2: are like they're dying because they're like, not only run
Speaker 2: someone over, I run a fucking game.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to picture it. So they come in
Speaker 1: shopping center car park, they're probably coming in there to
Speaker 1: do their shopping or whatever. And then a bump go
Speaker 1: over here and they look down and there you are
Speaker 1: with a smoking your hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got I still holding my smoker, got
Speaker 2: out holding my smokers like that fucking and just had
Speaker 2: a drag and then looked at them and then I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm going to go home in the bed.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to get some more ice. And
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to go on the bed,
Speaker 2: and but I was like, I'm going to score my
Speaker 2: fucking legs killing me. I gotta get some drugs. And
Speaker 2: my cousin's flatmate was in the car at the time.
Speaker 2: Cousins still in the fucking in the shop and my
Speaker 2: cousin's flat mats in the in the car and he goes, no, man,
Speaker 2: we've got to take you a He panicked. He's like,
Speaker 2: we got to take get hospital. This is fucking really
Speaker 2: bad that today.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, no, no, it's all good.
Speaker 2: Just give me some drugs and I'll be fine. And
Speaker 2: he jumps in there, puts me in the passenger, jumps
Speaker 2: in the drivers. That's It's like it was taking a drift.
Speaker 2: This guy was racing, racing in the hospital. You're going
Speaker 2: to kill us on the way to the hospital, You're idiot.
Speaker 2: And and we got to the hospital and they wheeled
Speaker 2: me in on a wheelchair. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was because I had all these these gang colors on
Speaker 2: or what, but they did not want to serve me.
Speaker 2: The hospital staff took for ear. But it gets to
Speaker 2: me I sat there for an hour league bleeding.
Speaker 1: Maybe because you're off your faces off my.
Speaker 2: Face, you know, I'm off my face, I'm high, out
Speaker 2: of my mind, and I and you know, just I
Speaker 2: looked really unsavory. I had no shoes on. It wasn't
Speaker 2: even wearing shoes. When I got to the big w
Speaker 2: I had no shoes on. And they wheeled me in
Speaker 2: and they pulled this rlb toothbrush out of the out
Speaker 2: of the packet, and the guy just scrubbed the scrub
Speaker 2: the bone clean.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: And that was the only thing they really did for me.
Speaker 2: They scrubbed all the bones clean with a toothbrush, hosed
Speaker 2: it all off, got all the tire rubber and the
Speaker 2: stones and bits of glass out of my ankle, and
Speaker 2: then he banded it up and he just said made it.
Speaker 2: If you get it infected, I'm gonna have to take
Speaker 2: your leave. Go for the knee. So don't you do feet?
Speaker 2: And he goes, nah, we just do above them below
Speaker 2: the knee. I said, that's that's a pretty that's a
Speaker 2: pretty small menu, mate.
Speaker 1: It's a well. Life's going good for you. Yeah, everything,
Speaker 1: everything's going going well.
Speaker 2: It was great. I was living at this mild house,
Speaker 2: I think mongrel mob house. There was all these uh,
Speaker 2: this fellow I worked with him. His brother was a
Speaker 2: sergeant of arms of the mongrelob Some people are familiar
Speaker 2: with the movie here, not everybody, but they're really big.
Speaker 1: Very very powerful, very powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very heavy, gang like very heavy. They do a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of crimes. I think the initiation
Speaker 2: back in the day was a raper and murder to
Speaker 2: get in. So a lot of heavy characters, especially the Ogs.
Speaker 2: The old boys are real heavy characters. And I was
Speaker 2: living at this house and I started talking to this guy.
Speaker 2: I met him actually while I was still bandage. It
Speaker 2: was only about a week later. I went round to
Speaker 2: this guy's house to hook up with him, Maldi Fella
Speaker 2: from South Aukland, and absolutely loved them the best at
Speaker 2: the best time ever. It was such a it was
Speaker 2: such a great feeling. And it was not because we
Speaker 2: were at his house. It was out of the city.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel like I had any eyes on me
Speaker 2: or anything like that because prior to then I was
Speaker 2: hooking up with guys but on the secret.
Speaker 1: So okay, so this was you hadn't come out with
Speaker 1: your with your gang mates or nobody knew. I'm still
Speaker 1: deep in the closet, but you were. You would find
Speaker 1: partners and find people to hook up with, and you
Speaker 1: do that, but do it on the quiet.
Speaker 2: On the quiet, And there was times i'd go there.
Speaker 2: Sometimes i'd go to the sauna. The sauna was good too,
Speaker 2: because you could sell drugs at the sauna, so you
Speaker 2: could go there. One stop shop, yeah, one stop job.
Speaker 2: It was business and please, you're all in the same building.
Speaker 2: And I would go there and you could do that,
Speaker 2: and and I would hook up with guys. But I
Speaker 2: remember it was it was in the an area of
Speaker 2: the city where there was a lot of people who
Speaker 2: were the same colors that I did.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I was always terrified because he'd come out of the
Speaker 2: building at night, and you'd always poke your head out
Speaker 2: on the street and you'd look both ways to make
Speaker 2: sure there was nobody who you might know and nobody
Speaker 2: who might know somebody you know coming out of that building.
Speaker 2: So I was terrified. And when I was hanging out,
Speaker 2: this guy was a really nice, relaxed sort of set up.
Speaker 2: We hung out, I stayed the night. We keep messaging
Speaker 2: and I'd just been run over. Life was looking pretty bad.
Speaker 2: I didn't really have a lot of options. I had
Speaker 2: no money. I think I was about to be homeless again,
Speaker 2: and we chatted for a few months, and then it
Speaker 2: wasn't long after that I ended up staying in his
Speaker 2: house like every single night, and then I was just
Speaker 2: like and then he was His mum was like, do
Speaker 2: you just want to live here? Said yeah, I'd love to,
Speaker 2: because she knew the situation I was in. Sheid, we'll
Speaker 2: take care and it's all good, you can live here.
Speaker 2: So I was stoked. I was really happy I started
Speaker 2: living with him. It wasn't long after that it was
Speaker 2: my twenty first was coming up, and I remember I
Speaker 2: there was something trying to stoic about it, but like
Speaker 2: it was sort of old school but new school combined
Speaker 2: where I was like, yeah, I'm gay, which is I
Speaker 2: was really ashamed of and I was still deep in
Speaker 2: the closet about it. But at the same time, this
Speaker 2: was my partner, and I didn't want to have my
Speaker 2: twenty first without celebrating my partner, and you know, that
Speaker 2: would just be such a I just found out. I
Speaker 2: just thought, of my head, that was just such a
Speaker 2: weak thing to do to keep it a secret, and
Speaker 2: I was and so I told. I told my cousin,
Speaker 2: I told a few people I knew, I told my
Speaker 2: parents trying to come out of the closet. To my mom,
Speaker 2: she didn't believe me. So that was the worst. That
Speaker 2: was the worst coming out overhead was trying to tell
Speaker 2: someone you're gay and they don't believe you in you're
Speaker 2: and you're like blue in the face, like no, I'm gay,
Speaker 2: and my mom's like, no, you're not. I'm like no,
Speaker 2: I am, and she's like I don't believe you. And
Speaker 2: then she just and then after all she was like,
Speaker 2: this isn't even a funny joke. While you're trying to
Speaker 2: I was always a funny character, always trying to do
Speaker 2: funny shit.
Speaker 1: And she's like, this isn't even funny.
Speaker 2: I don't know why you're trying to trying to flog
Speaker 2: this horse, like it doesn't make any sense. I'm no,
Speaker 2: I'm being serious. My mom gay And she just looked
Speaker 2: at me and she goes, oh, knock me down at
Speaker 2: a feather dust. I always thought it to be your brother.
Speaker 1: Just can't can't accept it. I couldn't believe it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen that no name, no pactrials, so
Speaker 1: I identify the people. But I've seen that with people
Speaker 1: that just can't accept it and they don't. It's not
Speaker 1: you can't even take offense because it's not done maliciously.
Speaker 1: It's just something that they don't even haven't even comprehended.
Speaker 2: Nah, they'd never crossed in my own one. So, like
Speaker 2: you know, I have all the kids my mom had,
Speaker 2: I was the worst one. I was the most violent.
Speaker 2: I was a forty player. I always played rugby. I
Speaker 2: was always never shy of a fight. I you know,
Speaker 2: worked in the meat industry for ages, you know, which
Speaker 2: is quite a masculine sort of environment, and I am
Speaker 2: quite a masculine sort of guy. But it was also
Speaker 2: just am attracted to two men. So yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was such a funny coming out. And I remember
Speaker 2: my twenty first turned into all of but four people
Speaker 2: was one of my my big sister, my older sister,
Speaker 2: my two parents, and my partner at the time, and
Speaker 2: that was my whole twenty first at year. I went
Speaker 2: from being a party to.
Speaker 1: Four people because you'd come out, yeah, to confronting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I just for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Oh mane, that's sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know what you mean. It was ended up
Speaker 2: just actually, to be honest, it was a really nice
Speaker 2: twenty first, I ended up just having dinner with my
Speaker 2: folks and my big sister and it was but you
Speaker 2: know it was it was really sad at the time.
Speaker 2: It was really sad. And I had I had people
Speaker 2: message me and you know, be like that, don't talk
Speaker 2: to me, and I don't want to know you. And
Speaker 2: I had cousins message me and say, don't come to
Speaker 2: family Christmas.
Speaker 1: See I just I know feelings like that can run
Speaker 1: strong with certain people, but I didn't think it would
Speaker 1: get to that stage, not this day and age. But
Speaker 1: you had people just overtly coming stay away from me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, stay away from me. I had cousins say, don't
Speaker 2: come to family Christmas. You know, I'm from a Mildi family,
Speaker 2: an Indigenousaily we have big Christmas is like forty people plus,
Speaker 2: and they'd be like, They're like, don't come to family Christmas.
Speaker 2: I don't want to eat my lunch next to a faggot.
Speaker 1: I didn't think it would be that strong, But that
Speaker 1: might be just me being naive, like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah me, and like, yeah, it could be all the
Speaker 2: years in Sydney because Sydney is quite gay. Yeah, pretty
Speaker 2: used to it. And when I talk to people over
Speaker 2: here in Sydney and stuff like that. You guys have
Speaker 2: had a gay scene. You've had Marty Grus since the age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense.
Speaker 2: Like I was in christ Juche, Christich when I was
Speaker 2: When I lived in christ Uch they didn't have a
Speaker 2: Pride march. The only pride march they had was a
Speaker 2: white Pride march. There was, Yeah, they had a white
Speaker 2: Pride march, but not a gay pride.
Speaker 1: Mane in the air, isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that just speaks volumes on the sort of
Speaker 2: city I was living it at the time. And that's
Speaker 2: New Zealand. If you want to know what New Zealand's like,
Speaker 2: it's it's an amazing country. Like I love my country,
Speaker 2: I love my people, I love it. But if you
Speaker 2: want to know what rural New Zealand's like, it's like
Speaker 2: just think about Australia in the seventies or eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just still the same culture.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. How did it make you feel the
Speaker 1: fact that you came out. Was that a big weight
Speaker 1: off your show? Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 1: It was so great.
Speaker 2: It was it was it was the initial initially, it
Speaker 2: was the first key to my release. I was I
Speaker 2: was stoked. I almost immediately, you know, within the next
Speaker 2: couple of months, I stopped doing drugs, and I stopped
Speaker 2: doing drugs. I stopped hanging out of those and I
Speaker 2: wanted to stop, especially after getting run over and all
Speaker 2: the rest of everything else that happened. I've been homeless
Speaker 2: and everything making kills.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's what my mom fucking said.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what you said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So it seems to me what you're saying
Speaker 1: here is that this whole burden that you've been carrying
Speaker 1: about hiding your sexuality has been lifted. Yeah, life's looking
Speaker 1: a little bit brighter. It's not all doom and gloom anymore.
Speaker 1: You're not living living the lie. What are these drugs for?
Speaker 1: I don't need them.
Speaker 2: I don't need them. Yeah. I like my reality. Now
Speaker 2: that's great, and it's an exciting thing. Now I've got
Speaker 2: this thing I can build, which is my life. I've
Speaker 2: got this life I get to build. I get to
Speaker 2: actually be in the same value line as what I
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, I can live that same life.
Speaker 2: I don't have to worry about what's the worst thing
Speaker 2: that people are going to say? All the things that
Speaker 2: ever held me back was in the back of my mind.
Speaker 2: I could always hear people saying fuck you gay or something.
Speaker 2: And to be honestly, you have the funny thing about
Speaker 2: that is it's like, yeah, I am. It's not even
Speaker 2: that takes a sting out of it, takes this thing
Speaker 2: out of it. It's like, funny you should say that,
Speaker 2: like what are you gay or something? It's likely funny
Speaker 2: you say that I am gay. So yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was a huge weight and and it was this
Speaker 2: exciting opportunity for me to be like, right, what I
Speaker 2: want to do was the life I wanted to live.
Speaker 2: I used to have all these fantasies as a young
Speaker 2: boy going or young boy but the young man going,
Speaker 2: I'm going to run away to San Francisco or I'm going.
Speaker 1: To go somewhere, be true to myself and live my life.
Speaker 2: I live my life, you know, and escape this this
Speaker 2: this you know situation I'm in. And then now I'm like,
Speaker 2: I can actually do that, I can actually do what
Speaker 2: I want to do. I can start building building steps
Speaker 2: towards the life that I want to live and start
Speaker 2: creating my life and not be afraid I wasn't afraid anymore,
Speaker 2: Like the scary part had been done.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting way to put it. You're not afraid anymore.
Speaker 1: That's horrible going through life if you're afraid that term
Speaker 1: like I was afraid. Yeah, just being yourself in life.
Speaker 2: Every day, just afraid of my own existence. You're afraid
Speaker 2: of afraid of the reality of my own existence. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, after coming out, it was pretty pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: I just stopped doing drugs. My partner didn't do drugs
Speaker 2: and he didn't want he didn't want any drugs. I
Speaker 2: still drank, but there was a kid, and I just
Speaker 2: worked really hard. I got an apprenticeship at a really
Speaker 2: good butcher shop and it was one of the best
Speaker 2: in the country, and I really wanted to actually get qualified.
Speaker 2: I never got you have a trade. So I knuckled
Speaker 2: down and for the next three years I just worked
Speaker 2: really hard. I did big days, you know, I do
Speaker 2: seventy five hundred hour weeks in the shop. And my
Speaker 2: apprenticeship a I did the butchery competitions in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: I got dirt equal in New Zealand as a butcher,
Speaker 2: and you know, I really loved it. I really loved it.
Speaker 1: It became a whole world. Life was going well, really good.
Speaker 2: But you know, from going from twenty years old and
Speaker 2: being run over by a car and being gang affiliated
Speaker 2: and a drug addict to being twenty three and being
Speaker 2: out of the closet, gay man, fully qualified, butcher, and
Speaker 2: I'd saved enough money to get pre proof for a
Speaker 2: home loan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, full full credit to you. Yeah well, And
Speaker 1: I'd like to end the podcast here, but I'd love
Speaker 1: that when we and you lived happily ever after that
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful story and what a great way to
Speaker 1: finish high catch killers. But sadly we don't finish that
Speaker 1: way certainly. Let's know how the song love hurts? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: tell us, okay, say the perfect life it was.
Speaker 2: It was that white picket fence. And I really thought
Speaker 2: that at the time, was like I've done it. I've
Speaker 2: built that white picket fence. I've gone from you know, sixteen,
Speaker 2: having nobody to live and been terrified and then all
Speaker 2: the rest of it, and then getting to twenty three,
Speaker 2: and I remember getting pre proof for a home loan
Speaker 2: and just going like, wow, I'm going to buy a house.
Speaker 2: You know, this house is going to set me up.
Speaker 2: By the time I'm thirty, I might have a couple
Speaker 2: more under my belt and maybe a butcher shop. And
Speaker 2: who knows, life is looking good, really good, you know,
Speaker 2: being twenty three and looking to buy buy your first time,
Speaker 2: it's pretty good. And may do where you live. My
Speaker 2: partner at the time, it was my fiancee at the time. Actually,
Speaker 2: at that point I proposed. I'd asked, as I remember
Speaker 2: messaging his old man it's Big Mauldi Feller in South
Speaker 2: Auckland game. Hey bro, I'd love to, you know, to
Speaker 2: marry your sons that are good of you. And he
Speaker 2: gave me his blessing, and so I proposed, and well,
Speaker 2: one of my cars has been repossessed. I did have
Speaker 2: fiction notice on on on my house. My phone was
Speaker 2: cut off, my internet was cut off, and my power
Speaker 2: was cut off. And I was like, what the fuck's
Speaker 2: going on here? And he goes, I'm really sorry, but
Speaker 2: I lost my job a few months ago and I
Speaker 2: didn't want to tell you, and you're working so hard
Speaker 2: and and we've got nothing. And I was like, what
Speaker 2: do you mean we've got nothing? I've got fifteen thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in a bank account. And he's like, we've got nothing,
Speaker 2: and I was like what. And then I panicked and
Speaker 2: I went and got a second job. I was just
Speaker 2: how much and I was in love with this guy.
Speaker 2: I went and got a second job to try and
Speaker 2: work my.
Speaker 1: Way out of the debt.
Speaker 2: I was so attached to this dream of having this
Speaker 2: life that I'd built, and I didn't want it to
Speaker 2: be a failure because of thinking in the back of
Speaker 2: my head, I was just picturing all those guys I
Speaker 2: used to kick it with, who you know, I had
Speaker 2: to come out of the closet too, and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: them just seeing my failure, and I was like, no,
Speaker 2: I don't want him to know that I failed. I
Speaker 2: want my life to get success.
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
Speaker 2: I looked like I was twenty three, and I looked
Speaker 2: like I was fifty. I looks so bad and getting
Speaker 2: more and more depressed and mentally ill because of all
Speaker 2: because of the stress and anxiety and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And then I moved all this stuff out, moved all
Speaker 2: of my stuff into my dad's garage. I didn't want
Speaker 2: to go in my mom and dad's garage. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to go and stay with my mom and dad
Speaker 2: because my dad's really homophobic. I to joke about it,
Speaker 2: but like, I don't. I honestly don't know why he
Speaker 2: was so homophobic, but yeah, and so I didn't want
Speaker 2: to just followed my pride. And I was living in
Speaker 2: this car. So there's five thousand dollars drug dealer Beima
Speaker 2: that I owned when I first when we first got
Speaker 2: to give her, and I'm living in this car. I
Speaker 2: had to move the car every night. I had to
Speaker 2: move the car every night, and it was minus twelve
Speaker 2: at night. It was fucking freezing and christy. I remember
Speaker 2: I used to used to line my car. I try
Speaker 2: to sleep at the park in my car, and I
Speaker 2: used to have bruised ribs because I'd be convulsing in
Speaker 2: the cold. It was mine as twelve, I'm dying. I'm
Speaker 2: just convulsing in the cold, just shivering and just feeling sick.
Speaker 2: It was probably the most I'd never experienced sorrow like
Speaker 2: that before in my life.
Speaker 1: It was a case you had no one in your
Speaker 1: life you could reach out to, or you were too
Speaker 1: ashamed to reach out.
Speaker 2: I think too ashamed. I definitely had people I could
Speaker 2: talk to. My mom was trying to help as b
Speaker 2: she could but I was so emotionally unstable. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was. It was quite surreal. I'd not only lost
Speaker 2: my best friend in my partner, who I loved of
Speaker 2: all my aunt you know, I loved this man so
Speaker 2: much I wouldn't got a sicking job for him. But
Speaker 2: I'd lost everything. I was financially, emotionally and spiritually destitute.
Speaker 1: Okay, it makes sense. So you've lost the love of
Speaker 1: your life. Then the betrayal adds to it. Yeah, you've
Speaker 1: lost the finances and your pretty little life with the
Speaker 1: white picket fence that you had set up and had
Speaker 1: dreamed about and finally was in reach. Yeah, it has
Speaker 1: just been blown away.
Speaker 2: Blown away. The whole thing was a lie, and I
Speaker 2: was getting phone calls ten times a day from different
Speaker 2: deck collectors. Heyomi money for this Hayomi money, for this
Speaker 2: hoo money. The bill was about thirty two thousand dollars
Speaker 2: I ended up owing, which is it's a huge loss
Speaker 2: of money. It's a lot of money for a twenty
Speaker 2: three year old kid. It's a lot of money. It's
Speaker 2: really scary, especially when you're only making seventeen dollars an
Speaker 2: hour and that was my wage. Dirty two grand was heaps,
Speaker 2: and I just thought I'm gone, Well, my hard work
Speaker 2: was over.
Speaker 1: I was so angry.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't long after that I bumped into one
Speaker 2: of my old cronies who used to kick it with
Speaker 2: actually the pills I was talking of it before.
Speaker 1: That's lessener war. I mean, this is where it goes sad.
Speaker 2: Against and again. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I've bumped into it.
Speaker 2: It was just it was this weird thing. I've just
Speaker 2: been fired from my job. I ended up bashing one
Speaker 2: of the apprentices. I think I was just gotten qualified
Speaker 2: and he was a first year apprentice, was real lippy,
Speaker 2: little shit and he'd ah, he mouthed off to me,
Speaker 2: and I just split it. I just pinned him up
Speaker 2: against the wall. Well, it's funny because all you can
Speaker 2: actually see on the cameras. I'm not so fast about this,
Speaker 2: but we can see is he's trying to leave the
Speaker 2: building to get away from me, and you can just
Speaker 2: see on the security cameras it's just my arm reach
Speaker 2: reach out. It was like a cartoon lift my arm
Speaker 2: reach out of the door, and I just grabbed.
Speaker 1: Them and just lifted him off his feet.
Speaker 2: It's a little than me. I lifted him off. I
Speaker 2: was big to about one hundred and twenty kilos, lifted
Speaker 2: him off his feet, pulled him back into the room
Speaker 2: and just and yeah, gave him a bit of a hiding.
Speaker 2: And I got fired for it. I resigned, had no job.
Speaker 2: I was in all this debt. That was the last
Speaker 2: thing I needed was to lose my job, you know,
Speaker 2: that was all I had going for me. And I
Speaker 2: bumped into this fellow. I gotten pay out from my
Speaker 2: week they'd paid me out to leave, and I've seeing
Speaker 2: this fellow and I was like fuck. I told him
Speaker 2: everything had happened, and he goes, fuck, I just put
Speaker 2: up with my misses too, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: what to do. And we were kicking it, and he goes, hey, Roy,
Speaker 2: if you want, I can get these ounces of MDM
Speaker 2: a fix amount of money. And then I did the
Speaker 2: maths and I was like, fuck, if I sell that
Speaker 2: in one weekend, I'm making five thousand dollars. And that
Speaker 2: was it. That was like fucking thumb.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting, and I appreciate your openness and honestly,
Speaker 1: but the fact that your life was going in the
Speaker 1: right direction that sat set back. Yeah, all that pain
Speaker 1: comes back on you and you revert back to and
Speaker 1: to me, it's not the person you want to be,
Speaker 1: it's not the person you really are, But you just
Speaker 1: find your way in that lay place again, and you're
Speaker 1: dealing drugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dealing drugs yeah, and taking them in high quantity too.
Speaker 2: And it's funny. I hadn't done drugs in three years,
Speaker 2: and I hadn't done anything like that in three years. Here.
Speaker 2: I wasn't a perfect person. I'd been in a few
Speaker 2: dust ups then too, especially when I come out of
Speaker 2: the closet at work belted a couple of guys because
Speaker 2: they tried to fight me for it, and I was
Speaker 2: never really shy that. But I was not a criminal.
Speaker 2: I wasn't hanging out of criminals and didn't hang out
Speaker 2: of criminals and a do criminals.
Speaker 1: And you felt fatter about yourself when you keep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, heeps better.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was felt a lot more stable and and
Speaker 2: everything was good. I was really quite proud of the
Speaker 2: person I was becoming. I still had lots of work
Speaker 2: to do, but you know, it's it's a it's a
Speaker 2: it's a process. And and yeah, it wasn't long after
Speaker 2: that I was I was back to using drugs, back
Speaker 2: to dealing drugs. But this time around, I was more
Speaker 2: determined than ever to be a high profile guy. Like
Speaker 2: before then, I was never like profile. It was just
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: It was a nobody.
Speaker 2: I was a street ruffian, you know. I was not
Speaker 2: doing anything special, dime a dozen, sort of crook. And
Speaker 2: and then but this time around, I was like, I
Speaker 2: want to be.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make a statement. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: make a statement. I want to be.
Speaker 2: I want to be somebody I want I want I
Speaker 2: want to take my power back.
Speaker 1: You said when we were chatting the other day that
Speaker 1: you were just angry, just angry and stuff. That's I'm
Speaker 1: going to take on the world. Yeah, you do this
Speaker 1: to me. I've had so many kicks in the guts.
Speaker 1: I'm angry now it's payback time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I tried my best. I tried so hard,
Speaker 2: you know, and I really did. I tried so hard.
Speaker 2: I tried my best and then it didn't work out.
Speaker 2: And all that said to me was that it was
Speaker 2: just a sign from the universe that this is not
Speaker 2: what you're supposed to be doing and the like, and
Speaker 2: I just thought, you know what, fuck could I have
Speaker 2: lost it all? I tried my best and it didn't
Speaker 2: pan out, so at least I can say I've given
Speaker 2: it a nudge. And and now I wanted I want
Speaker 2: my power back, I want what was taken from me.
Speaker 2: You've taken everything from me, and I want to back.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and that was my that was my goal.
Speaker 2: And so I just started off just selling, just selling
Speaker 2: drugs again. And then very quickly, I think, through determination
Speaker 2: and probably just the lack of I was I didn't
Speaker 2: really care about any consequences, so I said yes to everything.
Speaker 2: That really quickly developed into into a life that I
Speaker 2: never thought that I would I would be into so fast.
Speaker 1: So you got into debt collecting. Yeah, so yeah, when
Speaker 1: we say deck collecting, there's a lot of different perceptions
Speaker 1: of what deck collicked is. But you're a virtual standover man,
Speaker 1: and if the money's not forthcoming, there's usually consequences and
Speaker 1: it might be a bit of a flogging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. There's a lot different the way
Speaker 2: combank operates. But yes, and like I got into that
Speaker 2: because I'd almost had a personal vendetta because I'd lost everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah you said that, and I really appreciate your openness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you wanted to I'm going to approve of a tough guy.
Speaker 1: I'm going to approve this world. But and I just
Speaker 1: had to clarify with you. I didn't want to have
Speaker 1: a psychopath on here. But how it wasn't you. You
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't you. It was just this false bravado
Speaker 1: that you thought, Yeah, I can do this. If I've
Speaker 1: got to belt someone to collect money, I'll do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and looked, I've never I don't think i've
Speaker 2: ever had a I've never been in a dust up
Speaker 2: or I've never been in it and done anything violent
Speaker 2: where I haven't left that situation feeling worse and gone
Speaker 2: like fuck that, What did I do that for that?
Speaker 2: That person's going to go home, They're going to feel
Speaker 2: like shit, you know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I always felt bad about it.
Speaker 1: Doing the deck collecting thing was.
Speaker 2: For me. It was I managed to convince myself like
Speaker 2: I was almost on a crusade, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I was almost felt like I tried to convince myself
Speaker 2: I was some sort of vigilante in this sense. And
Speaker 2: at first it was about money, but then it became
Speaker 2: in the end of it, I started doing jobs that
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with money. And people were just
Speaker 2: paying me to enforce people just you know, some guy
Speaker 2: would just give me two and a half grand and go,
Speaker 2: can you go and flog this come for me?
Speaker 1: And I would yes, sure, I'd love to. What was
Speaker 1: your mindset before you went in and did that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all right to say when you're doing the deal
Speaker 1: and yeah, I've got that. But when you pull up
Speaker 1: and there's a blake and you're thinking, I'm going to
Speaker 1: give him a touch up here because whatever reason, what
Speaker 1: was going through your mind, then.
Speaker 2: It's funny you actually say that because it's such a
Speaker 2: big contrast of sitting down and sit down and have
Speaker 2: the meeting with the client, and I would go like,
Speaker 2: you know, what's the situation? And then they would tell me,
Speaker 2: and then I would go and then I would sort
Speaker 2: of asked for more information, like we does this person live?
Speaker 2: Who else lives at the house? What can you tell
Speaker 2: me about the house? Or I got to go scope
Speaker 2: it out. Sometimes i'd give you fuck. I remember there
Speaker 2: was one guy gave me no information whatsoever, just a
Speaker 2: photograph and that was really it, just a just a
Speaker 2: Facebook profile picture I managed to get and then he goes,
Speaker 2: this is where he lives and who else lives at
Speaker 2: the house, what's the situation? Who lives on the street.
Speaker 2: Is it a gang street? Is he in the gang?
Speaker 2: What's the He gave me fly all information, and I
Speaker 2: hated it because I had to sit outside this coun's
Speaker 2: house for a week to SI scope them out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: work it out. And and when you're in that meeting,
Speaker 2: it's really easy to be like, yes, sweet, sweet, sweet,
Speaker 2: I do that.
Speaker 1: That's easy.
Speaker 2: That's easiest. It's so easy to say yes. It talks cheap.
Speaker 2: And then when you're sitting outside that house, it's very different.
Speaker 2: It's very different, and you just go into work mode.
Speaker 2: You just go on the work mode. I just go
Speaker 2: into work mode. Don't be wrong. Almost all of it,
Speaker 2: I think, if not all of it was drug induced.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So that's taking a bit of the emotional
Speaker 1: intelligence out of your thought process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're all your well, all your empathy and sympathy
Speaker 2: is gone, so you don't feel any of that. And
Speaker 2: then all your you can all your inhibitions are gone,
Speaker 2: so you don't have any inhibitions. You just going okay, sweet,
Speaker 2: I can you know, you just go into work mound
Speaker 2: and just go I'm going to do it. And that's
Speaker 2: how you calm yourself down. You make a plan. Like
Speaker 2: my mum always said, a dream without a goal is
Speaker 2: a goal without a plan is a dream.
Speaker 1: So you may breaking it down.
Speaker 2: So you make a plan and you go, Okay, this
Speaker 2: is what I'm gonna do. The fellow is going to
Speaker 2: come out of the house. You're going to go to
Speaker 2: his work truck. I'm going to tap them on the
Speaker 2: shoulder and I'm going to have them in the legal
Speaker 2: this and then you're going to do this, this and this.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay. And so with the drugs, it helps because
Speaker 1: I know if you if you're going to go into
Speaker 1: a violent situation, you get yourself ready for it. And
Speaker 1: I think, okay, well I'm up for this. I'm about
Speaker 1: to do this. I know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1: But you've got to get yourself in the let mind
Speaker 1: mindset yourself. Yes.
Speaker 2: So I think I sat outside this guy's one of
Speaker 2: this guy's house for three or four nights scoping it
Speaker 2: out and getting as routine and stuff like that. And
Speaker 2: then then the day of the morning of I would
Speaker 2: have sat outside his house from about two in the
Speaker 2: morning onwards, just smoking balls, just smoking bowls and bowls
Speaker 2: of shard.
Speaker 1: Because I'm sensing you not the type of blake here
Speaker 1: would take the drugs aside that you'd be going, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I'm going to go give this bloke a flogging.
Speaker 1: In the times that we've spent together and talking to you,
Speaker 1: I get the sense that's not you. So with drugs
Speaker 1: here again masking the pain of what you're going to do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go and and belt this bloke. I'm
Speaker 1: going to feel like a real shithead, but yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: take drugs and that'll that'll mask it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think what drugs did more than anything is they
Speaker 2: encouraged my I didn't realize until years later after I
Speaker 2: did trauma counseling and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I remember I did this.
Speaker 2: I had to do the bunch of tests, test if
Speaker 2: you're a psychopath, test if you this and that, And
Speaker 2: I did the bunch of tests and I came back
Speaker 2: and I think I'd scored this woman who she'd worked
Speaker 2: in criminal psychology for her whole life years thirty years
Speaker 2: or something like that, she'd never seen anything. I think
Speaker 2: I scored one of the highest was not yeah, it
Speaker 2: was scored one of the highest in New Zealand for
Speaker 2: disassociation disorder. So what I didn't know until then was
Speaker 2: it wasn't necessarily just the drugs that were like numbing me.
Speaker 2: But what they were doing is when they were helping
Speaker 2: encourage my disassociation disorder, so I could disassociate in the
Speaker 2: time with what you were doing. What was doing, so
Speaker 2: you don't feel anything. It's like you're in a movie.
Speaker 2: It's all make believe. The whole world just goes make
Speaker 2: believe and you just sort of just go number the world.
Speaker 2: You completely detach from reality and you just go.
Speaker 1: Yep, is that something that flowed on from what happened
Speaker 1: to you when you were a child? Did you break
Speaker 1: that down? And yeah, because I can imagine what you describing.
Speaker 1: There is a way that you can cape with things
Speaker 1: as a child, and then even when you're suppressing your sexuality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And it worked in every element of that
Speaker 2: were like when it first started getting molested, That's what
Speaker 2: I would do. I would disassociate so I wasn't happening.
Speaker 2: I wasn't even if I was in the room, it
Speaker 2: wasn't real. I could just sort of switch off the
Speaker 2: contact with reality and they just didn't feel like any
Speaker 2: of it was real, and that's how I suppressed it.
Speaker 2: And you know, when you're five years old and you're
Speaker 2: going a guy forcing you to drink his piss, it's
Speaker 2: pretty easy to do that sort of stuff. And that's
Speaker 2: really what's engineto that zone where you just just disassociate
Speaker 2: and you just go, I'm not I'm not in the room,
Speaker 2: and then coming out and will being gay. I remember
Speaker 2: when I first started, sleeping of guys used to make
Speaker 2: me sick, sick to my stomach.
Speaker 1: Do you used to have your interaction with your partner
Speaker 1: and then hate yourself?
Speaker 2: I hated myself when I first started. I remember I
Speaker 2: used to meet me physically ill and I'd be like,
Speaker 2: what have I done? I was so ashamed of myself.
Speaker 2: But the end, again, that disassociation, we could make me like,
Speaker 2: snap out of it. I hadn't done that. I'm not gay,
Speaker 2: I'm not gay, And if somebody would say I was gay,
Speaker 2: I'd fucking club you in the head.
Speaker 1: Okay, even lie to yourself.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, my whole life was. My whole life was
Speaker 2: lying to me first, I think in the line everybody
Speaker 2: else afterwards?
Speaker 1: How did it? How did it go? When you became
Speaker 1: your second career path in the world of criminals, we're bigger, braver, stronger,
Speaker 1: your second lot. How did that game being the gay,
Speaker 1: tough guy in that environment.
Speaker 2: I think there was an element in the I think
Speaker 2: there was a combination of people respected it. I was
Speaker 2: pretty reckless and I was pretty hardcun and I would
Speaker 2: go into situations, you know, later on in my life
Speaker 2: when I was you know, that second time I went
Speaker 2: down that criminal path, I was a very different person.
Speaker 2: I was very sure of myself. I'd come out, I'd
Speaker 2: overcome that bat or. I didn't have that insecurity anymore.
Speaker 2: And I didn't give a fuck what people thought. And
Speaker 2: I was in it the winner and I was like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm I'm angry and I'm here to.
Speaker 1: Do it okay. So that might have given a bit
Speaker 1: of respect and that don't fuck with me.
Speaker 2: Don't fuck with me, Like yeah, yeah, absolutely, because it
Speaker 2: was pretty brazen. Some of the stuff i'd do. I'd
Speaker 2: do fucking drug deals and there'd be a there might
Speaker 2: be a fucking rebel in the car and I'd do
Speaker 2: a drug down. I'd be like, that guy was kind
Speaker 2: of cute a he was pretty good looking you rick,
Speaker 2: and he was gay, and the fellow look at me
Speaker 2: and like, what the fuck are you talking about? And
Speaker 2: that always always said the same thing. They've always like, fuck,
Speaker 2: I forget that you're gay. Yeah, I was pretty brazen.
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't really care about it. I was
Speaker 2: and I didn't eide it from anybody. I did. I did.
Speaker 2: I'd met up with a fellow to do a force job.
Speaker 2: Wasn't even deck collection, I don't think, just an enforcing job.
Speaker 2: I had to move this guy out of this house,
Speaker 2: setting down and he's just like, oh you need you
Speaker 2: ask me good a missus and stuff like that, which
Speaker 2: is fifty He's like, I don't know why you'd ask
Speaker 2: your dec collector if he's got a wife and kids,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like, what are you're trying
Speaker 2: to build a relationship before? But I was like, no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm gay, and he just looked at me and he's
Speaker 2: just like, I think there was this you see this
Speaker 2: look in his eyes of kind of like confusion and
Speaker 2: then terror. Yeah, you see a lot of terror in
Speaker 2: people's eyes when you're like the hardest guy in the room.
Speaker 2: Were one of the most rickless guys in the room
Speaker 2: and you're sitting there and you're being a hardcunt, and
Speaker 2: and then you also say I'm gay.
Speaker 1: You drop that. Yeah, I can. I can see where people.
Speaker 2: This guy's fucking different, you know, like this guy's even
Speaker 2: gone through hell and back and that's why he's so
Speaker 2: staunch about it. But I think there was this element too.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is true, but I think
Speaker 2: this element of this guy's like, damn, this guy might
Speaker 2: not just flog me.
Speaker 1: It could be worse. Yeah, yeah, I think that would
Speaker 1: have crossed his mind too. Yeah, couple of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I took a lot of I took a lot
Speaker 2: of pride and being and being openly gay sort of gangster,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I wasn't really brazen about it, but I
Speaker 2: never had it from people.
Speaker 1: You didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't hide it from people. And I think it
Speaker 2: was you know, part of that was because at that time,
Speaker 2: I never planned to join a gang. When I was younger,
Speaker 2: I wanted to join a gang and I wanted to
Speaker 2: have that inclusion, and I knew that lifestyle was that,
Speaker 2: you know, gangs would never even if I was a
Speaker 2: real hard gun, I don't think a gang would give
Speaker 2: me that I could I could do one hundred earns.
Speaker 2: I could do one hundred.
Speaker 1: Jobs for somebody and know they wouldn't patch me.
Speaker 2: Everybody in a different different organizations all around the world
Speaker 2: that are liked that, you know, I wouldn't expect to
Speaker 2: see the Pope with a rainbow aad on, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, It just wouldn't. It's just not their organization.
Speaker 2: And I don't care.
Speaker 1: So your your career as a gay gangster, when did
Speaker 1: you decide to change that?
Speaker 2: Well, some of the stuff I was doing. I was working,
Speaker 2: and it was a combination of things where I was
Speaker 2: always I was already really unhappy because of the whole
Speaker 2: relationship breakup. I didn't really have any stable place to live.
Speaker 2: It's about a year later. I was just sort of
Speaker 2: still living out of my car. I would catch if
Speaker 2: I drive around. I was just doing drug runs, so
Speaker 2: and you know, I would do a few odd jobs
Speaker 2: on the side. It was you know, a laboratory, old
Speaker 2: stopping and say hello too, and stuff like that, and
Speaker 2: you know a few other things and say, you know
Speaker 2: I was doing I was doing a lot of dumb
Speaker 2: shit and my life was going nowhere, and and and
Speaker 2: I think the whole aura of being this big bad
Speaker 2: guy was starting to get over it. He gets boring,
Speaker 2: after all, Like it gets boring. People don't talk about
Speaker 2: how boring it is being a criminal. It's the same
Speaker 2: rhetoric over and over again. There's no growth. A tough guy,
Speaker 2: tough guys. You were you going to say that for
Speaker 2: forty years? You want to skip doing the same shift
Speaker 2: for forty years. No growth, there's no intellectual discussions. Now
Speaker 2: you don't. And and that used to ship me. And
Speaker 2: then I was getting really like heavy back into using drugging.
Speaker 2: So I was starting to intraveneous drugs. So I was
Speaker 2: injecting mdmay and crystal meth and all the rest of it.
Speaker 2: And my addiction was getting pretty bad. And I remember
Speaker 2: I was working in this and I was in this
Speaker 2: gang pad and every night the fucking police trains were
Speaker 2: flying around the perimeter of the pad filming everything, and
Speaker 2: we're fucking having to talk on whiteboards. You got to
Speaker 2: write everything on a whiteboard, sheltz, you mate scribble it
Speaker 2: out and then you know, rub it out and then
Speaker 2: we have conversations like that, and it was all just
Speaker 2: getting a bit crazy. I was like, what am I
Speaker 2: doing in my life? I always wanted to be an
Speaker 2: actor or something along those lines. I always thought I
Speaker 2: wanted to be something like that in the arts, never
Speaker 2: had an outlet for it. But now I had no
Speaker 2: reason not to pursue it.
Speaker 1: You're not leaving leaving the perfect life.
Speaker 2: Nah, exactly, I had nothing. I had nothing to lose,
Speaker 2: and I just thought, you know what, I want to
Speaker 2: give this a crack before everything sort of tunes to
Speaker 2: custard and I went to I watched a comedy special
Speaker 2: on Netflix in my cousin's house, sleeping on the couch,
Speaker 2: and then I thought, this is great. I want to
Speaker 2: give this a try. And then I ended up signing
Speaker 2: up for this open mic in Auckland City just about it.
Speaker 2: I remember it was probably about a year after I
Speaker 2: watched that special. I had this opportunity to do this
Speaker 2: open mic in Auckland and I just thought it was
Speaker 2: a shitty dive bar, and I thought, yeah, I'll go
Speaker 2: and give this a nudge. I thought, he's going to
Speaker 2: be maybe seven, all of seven people, and no one's
Speaker 2: gonna laugh, and I'm probably never gonna do it again,
Speaker 2: but I want to give it a nudge. And I
Speaker 2: fucking signed up with this open Mic and it was
Speaker 2: the biggest comedy club in New Zealand. It was a
Speaker 2: two hundred seat theater and they had no idea. I
Speaker 2: had no idea about that world. I had knew nothing
Speaker 2: about it. So when they said the Classic, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: cool whatever, get there and there's a two hundred seat theater.
Speaker 1: I'm wearing gang colors. I think I just smoked a
Speaker 1: massive joint and.
Speaker 2: I walked out and I walked I remember I smoked
Speaker 2: the massive joint and I walked into the room and
Speaker 2: then I realized how big it was and I just
Speaker 2: went fucking wide.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh what am I doing it?
Speaker 2: Get on stage. The first act was really bad, and
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I can't be that helps. I
Speaker 2: can't be any worse than this. Surely it wasn't just bad.
Speaker 2: It was really weird and it was just weird. So
Speaker 2: I was like, I can't be I'm not going to
Speaker 2: be that guy. And I got on stage and I
Speaker 2: did pretty well and they go, mate, that was pretty good.
Speaker 2: Do you want to come back at the end of
Speaker 2: the month. And I always said that before I went
Speaker 2: into I said, if they asked me back, then I'll
Speaker 2: come back then it's meant to beat. So I go
Speaker 2: back at the end of the month. I did another
Speaker 2: five minutes, Holy five minutes, and they're like, yeah, that
Speaker 2: was really good again. And uh, there's a really big
Speaker 2: comedian in the room. He's on Best Male Comedian in
Speaker 2: Hes Zealand. Me ten times on Sendy on TV when
Speaker 2: I was a kid. I really loved his work. And
Speaker 2: he goes, boy, come over here, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I was like yeah. He's like, he's like, how many
Speaker 2: times you've been on stage? I said that was my
Speaker 2: second time. He goes, fuck, that was great. And the
Speaker 2: crew at the comedy club said to me, the god
Speaker 2: you know, there's a there's a competition actually you can
Speaker 2: sign up for for the best new comedian. It's called Raw.
Speaker 2: It's the best new comedian in the country. And I
Speaker 2: was like, oh cool, I'm all good. Thanks, I'm fine.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm fine. I'm still a criminal, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't really want to know if I want to
Speaker 2: be doing. And they're like, no, no, you signed up
Speaker 2: for it. When you signed up. When the first open mic,
Speaker 2: your name's in the hat. And I said, oh, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2: Whatever happens happens. And now no, we're telling you because
Speaker 2: you're you're in the semi final, you're in the top
Speaker 2: twenty four in the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was like what and they're like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: come back. At the end of the month, I did
Speaker 2: the Simis, I got into top ten in the country.
Speaker 2: And then like eight months later, I remember I was
Speaker 2: doing the Grand Finals and I was getting nominated for
Speaker 2: the Best New Comedian in New Zealand. I got nominated
Speaker 2: out of four people in the country, got nominated for
Speaker 2: this award. And when I started doing comedy, I fucking
Speaker 2: loved it. Loved it, man, I loved it so much.
Speaker 1: And did you know you had a talent for it?
Speaker 1: Did you, like you said you wanted to do something creative,
Speaker 1: something in the arts. Did you know you had a
Speaker 1: talent for a stand up?
Speaker 2: Never thought of that stand up? Never once, never thought
Speaker 2: that it could ever tickle what I was scratched the ytch.
Speaker 2: I never thought comedy would be I thought I'd do
Speaker 2: acting or maybe music. I thought something like, I'd never
Speaker 2: consider comedy. I don't know why. I'd never never crossed
Speaker 2: my mind. I'd never been a comedy close before that,
Speaker 2: I'd never watched live stand.
Speaker 1: Up, but I reckon it would have to be one
Speaker 1: of the hardest gigs because it can even be really
Speaker 1: good or it can be really bad. It can be
Speaker 1: complete silence, or it can be people killing over and
Speaker 1: dying with laughter.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is exactly. That's so it's so hard. It's
Speaker 2: not like a song. Like if you can play the
Speaker 2: guitar and I give you a.
Speaker 1: List of kit, you you've got something to present.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can play those notes and it's going to
Speaker 2: make that noise and there's a song. But with stand
Speaker 2: up it's not like that at all. It's it's so
Speaker 2: difficult and it's such a ceiling less sort of venture,
Speaker 2: if you know what I mean. So like for that
Speaker 2: for me, I love I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2: I don't even want to reach the top or those
Speaker 2: we're going to get bored.
Speaker 1: Do you think the risk associated with it too rocks
Speaker 1: your boat in a way with all the lifestyle that
Speaker 1: you've had, the fact that getting up on stage you're
Speaker 1: really putting yourself out there each time.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I love it, I love it, I
Speaker 2: don't and I find it so exciting I think looking back,
Speaker 2: you know, when I talk to classmates to do that
Speaker 2: I've got people who were in high school with me.
Speaker 2: I was a class clown. So when I got up there,
Speaker 2: it was really natural. And I remember there was this
Speaker 2: I got on stage and then I just come alive
Speaker 2: from day dot. I just come alive, and there was
Speaker 2: a person in there that that was who, that was
Speaker 2: the real meat. And I didn't realize until getting on
Speaker 2: state that's what I had to do for the real
Speaker 2: Alliot to come out. I had to get on st
Speaker 2: agent talking to a microphone and entertained a bunch of people,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, he comes out, and
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, well that's me. That's
Speaker 2: the real me. He lives on that stage.
Speaker 1: Okay. It's interesting because I see you come alive when
Speaker 1: you're talking about it. Clearly you enjoy what you're doing there,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if that's just the culmination of all
Speaker 1: that suppressed shit that you've packed away all your whole life,
Speaker 1: and now on stage, I can be me. I'm not
Speaker 1: hiding from anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not hiding. I can be exactly who I am.
Speaker 2: And I think it was the surprise of that person
Speaker 2: coming out. I didn't know that was going to happen.
Speaker 2: I didn't thought. I didn't plan for any of that.
Speaker 2: I just got up there and I just started going
Speaker 2: and then I just was like, Oh, that's me, That's
Speaker 2: who I am. Right there. He just came out and
Speaker 2: it surprised me, and I was like, it was such
Speaker 2: a beautiful girl.
Speaker 1: And did that getting the high that you got from that?
Speaker 1: Did that push aside you need for drugs, you need
Speaker 1: for being the gay gangster?
Speaker 2: And yeah, all of that whin all of that actually
Speaker 2: just became funny jokes because I just looked. I started
Speaker 2: looking at everything differently, and I was like, that's fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 2: It's like, what are you doing walking around? You know,
Speaker 2: what are you out to? And so I just started
Speaker 2: making jokes about it, you know, and they started making
Speaker 2: jokes about how I went from OG to LGBT and
Speaker 2: like that, and people loved it. They thought it was
Speaker 2: funny and they thought it was so funny. And then
Speaker 2: I just started finding the beauty and everything after doing comedy,
Speaker 2: I started finding the beauty and everything and the funny
Speaker 2: and everything. It's funny and everything. And I think because
Speaker 2: I had so much suffering and so much loss and
Speaker 2: so many bad hands dealt to me. I just mean,
Speaker 2: you're ever gonna laugh or cry about it. I remember
Speaker 2: saying like, this is a joke. This is a joke
Speaker 2: out there everything I've been through, this is a joke.
Speaker 2: And then I started saying it so many times. I
Speaker 2: changed the tone of my voice and going this is
Speaker 2: a joke. I was like, this is a joke. This
Speaker 2: is actually a funny. You know, this is funny.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how you look at setbacks in life, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's the way you can you can deal with it.
Speaker 1: You can hang on to that anger and just have
Speaker 1: the shits about it and hate the world. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: just laugh at yourself and go, oh who would have thought?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And then and then and laughing at yourself. And
Speaker 2: so that was another thing I said. I started learning
Speaker 2: how to take accountabilit for my behavior. It was going like,
Speaker 2: you're a dick, mate, Like everything you're doing is bad.
Speaker 2: You're creating your own shitty environment in your life because
Speaker 2: you're bitter and you're twisted and you didn't like what
Speaker 2: happened to you fucking.
Speaker 1: Tough titties, So you had to own that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's the only way to get out of that.
Speaker 2: That's the only way to get out of this, the
Speaker 2: only way to get out of addiction. It's the only
Speaker 2: way to get out of not the only way to
Speaker 2: get out of addiction, but it's one of the key
Speaker 2: elements to get out of any of their lifestyle. Whether
Speaker 2: you're being a criminal or a drug addict or whatever
Speaker 2: it is that you're doing. If you're being a bad person,
Speaker 2: that's you.
Speaker 1: Stop blaming the world.
Speaker 2: Stop blaming the world. It's all you, mate, that's what
Speaker 2: you're doing. You know, you know you're in so much.
Speaker 2: You've got so many things that you can control in
Speaker 2: your life. Focus on them and control them, you know,
Speaker 2: control what you can can control. And stop trying to
Speaker 2: say that it's out of my hands. What just because
Speaker 2: somebody did something bad, so now that it gives you
Speaker 2: the opportunity to do something bad to someone else.
Speaker 1: That's just stupid.
Speaker 2: And it's easy for people to think to get into
Speaker 2: this mindset of like being a victim and gain I'm
Speaker 2: a victim here and I'm a victim and that's why
Speaker 2: I'm doing this, And it's just like, no, they have
Speaker 2: a little bit of money, have a little bit of
Speaker 2: a self control, and have a little bit of accountability
Speaker 2: because now you're a deck I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the life lesson that you're giving to people there
Speaker 1: is just so important because time and time again, even
Speaker 1: things where people are victims of situations that it wasn't
Speaker 1: there recklessness or anything that caused it. But yeah, do
Speaker 1: you hate? Do you just keep why me, oh meom
Speaker 1: destroying your life or you turn it into something something positive?
Speaker 1: I think, And that's what fascinated me about about you
Speaker 1: when I was doing the prep for it and the
Speaker 1: people that recommended you that. As I said at the start,
Speaker 1: most people we have here have turned their life around
Speaker 1: because they've been caught and they think, hey, this is
Speaker 1: not cool. I'm mocked in the sale eighteen hours a day.
Speaker 1: Oh duh. But you're just decided, through life's choices to
Speaker 1: turn your life around. Yeah. No.
Speaker 2: And that was a combination of always being not a
Speaker 2: really combination of anything, but it was, you know, a
Speaker 2: combination of always being miserable. What was always missing? Always
Speaker 2: I was always unhappy, I was always miserable. And it
Speaker 2: turns out I was the one making making all of
Speaker 2: those choices. No one was forcing me to do any
Speaker 2: of that, and all of the stuff that happened, happened anyway,
Speaker 2: Like they called me a faggot anyway, regardless of what
Speaker 2: I've done, regardless of how tough I was, regardless of
Speaker 2: all the bad things I've done, all the people that
Speaker 2: I hurt and all the people that I disappointed in
Speaker 2: my life, I'm still going to get called a fagot.
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, and just always being miserable, Like I
Speaker 2: was always unhappy, I was always broke, I was always
Speaker 2: strong up. I mean, every fucking Christmas, I'd never have
Speaker 2: money to give presents to anybody. Felt horrible about it.
Speaker 2: But I always had drugs, and I remember, going next
Speaker 2: year is going to be different. Fuck, you do that
Speaker 2: ten times and a decade slipped through your fingers, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, I'm looking in the mirror and
Speaker 2: I'm twenty seven and I'm gone, Fuck, I've been using
Speaker 2: drugs and alcohol for the last fifteen years and I'm
Speaker 2: twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Can slip by? I can't it slips by?
Speaker 2: Mate? You know? Like that's the thing. Yeah, I had
Speaker 2: a fifteen year addiction at twenty seven. That's not that's
Speaker 2: not that. Those are not good statistics.
Speaker 1: No, definitely not. What's we haven't got you to Australia.
Speaker 1: Why are you coming to Australia.
Speaker 2: Why? Why to take back the pavlover that's books, to
Speaker 2: take back all our sports players. Now, I came to
Speaker 2: Australia for an opportunity. I got to the point in
Speaker 2: in in my life. Look, even when I first started comedy,
Speaker 2: I'd love to tell you it was it was open
Speaker 2: and shut case where I just started in comedy and
Speaker 2: my whole life changed that to day. But we all
Speaker 2: know that's just not how reality is. This just not
Speaker 2: how life works. It takes years. So when I first
Speaker 2: started doing comedy, also started going through trauma, counseling and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and it started to develop myself as
Speaker 2: a person because I was still a very angry person.
Speaker 2: When I first started doing stand up, I was still
Speaker 2: dealing drugs, I was still doing There was still a
Speaker 2: lot of bad things going on in my life and
Speaker 2: I was still just slowly fixing things bit by bit.
Speaker 2: And I was in a relationship at the time a
Speaker 2: different person. This person to death. He's my best mate.
Speaker 2: Aastually love them to bits. But I ruined that relationship
Speaker 2: because I wasn't ready for it. I was still very
Speaker 2: hurt person. And I still had a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: to work through. And yeah, I stopped doing ice, but
Speaker 2: I was still a heavy drinker. I'm talking fifteen beers
Speaker 2: on a Monday heavy drinking. Yeah. And it was really
Speaker 2: that exploded because of comedy. My head exploded, my ego
Speaker 2: exploded because I was immediate success.
Speaker 1: That's that's interesting too.
Speaker 2: That's something that I and I talk to a lot
Speaker 2: of people about it where I'd like, see, you know,
Speaker 2: comics getting good gigs early on, and I just don't
Speaker 2: let it get to your head because it's a long road.
Speaker 2: It's a long road to good top, long road to
Speaker 2: the top. I started drinking really heavily at the start
Speaker 2: to replace the ice, smoking a lot of weed and
Speaker 2: drinking a lot, and I just became a massive alcoholic.
Speaker 2: And through their alcoholism, I ruined my relationship. I lost
Speaker 2: my fucking job again, I lost my I lost everything again.
Speaker 2: I ended up living in a car again.
Speaker 1: I love these cars.
Speaker 2: I love these cars. Yeah, I know, I love these cars.
Speaker 2: I'm I couldn't believe I was back back to this situation.
Speaker 2: I was fucking spewing myself and like and I just
Speaker 2: remember thinking in my head, like just you just got
Speaker 2: to do what you love, you know what it means,
Speaker 2: Stop trying to pander around this situation like this is
Speaker 2: this path? As were you goot to go? It was
Speaker 2: funny with comedies the only thing in my life really,
Speaker 2: and I hate to say this because I fucking let
Speaker 2: some people down who really didn't deserve it, and you know,
Speaker 2: like my last partner and stuff like that, my mom
Speaker 2: and my dad. I've disappointed a lot of people because
Speaker 2: of my behavior. And I would love to sit here
Speaker 2: and tell you that those people with the drive was
Speaker 2: the main driving force for me to sort my shit out,
Speaker 2: and they were in a big part. But it was
Speaker 2: also comedy and a big part. It was never just
Speaker 2: one of those things. And when comedy got introduced into
Speaker 2: my life and my behavior started to affect my stand
Speaker 2: up fucking straight away, I cut it out of my
Speaker 2: life straight away. Nothing and nothing in my mind could
Speaker 2: even jeopardize stand up comedy for me. There was not
Speaker 2: a single high worth it. This is and I remember
Speaker 2: started doing comedy, I was like, this is better than meth. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is great, you know, and I didn't want anything
Speaker 2: to geopardize it. Yeah, natural high. It was amazing and
Speaker 2: just the amount of release and and and fulfillment that
Speaker 2: I got I got from doing stand up was so huge.
Speaker 2: It was so fulfilling because everything I ever wanted out
Speaker 2: of life. I was like, I'm five founder. I found
Speaker 2: my thing and see anything that jeopardized that, I instantly
Speaker 2: cut it out of my life. And so you know,
Speaker 2: my alcohol was terrible and stuff like that, and I
Speaker 2: just go and remember I started to pick my comedy.
Speaker 2: I just quit open had a drink nearly two years.
Speaker 1: And you feel good for it? Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's been great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: But see you now, I was living in a car,
Speaker 2: had had fuck all going on again.
Speaker 1: I was they got these things called camp events.
Speaker 2: Yeah you should, that's just you know, it's so funny.
Speaker 2: I remember getting more involved into into mainstream media and
Speaker 2: what people get up to on Instagram and the stuff
Speaker 2: like that. I've known the TV in years and and
Speaker 2: and open up Instagram. I'm making Instagram and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and and and check it out. And I see all
Speaker 2: these parking, all these white girls and Byron Bay driving
Speaker 2: around going fan life, fan life, and I was like,
Speaker 2: fuck you, lady, aunt. That was my reality, like until
Speaker 2: my van life to me like I used to live
Speaker 2: in a car. I mean holmost three times in my life,
Speaker 2: Like I do hear you?
Speaker 1: So when you came to Australia, did you have it?
Speaker 1: Have a plan? Nothing?
Speaker 2: No plan?
Speaker 1: So that's cutsy in itself.
Speaker 2: Yes, essentially just I quit drinking on the first of July. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then sixteen days later I was on a plane
Speaker 2: to Sydney. I had a sister, my big sister, older sister.
Speaker 2: She lived here and I slept in his spare room
Speaker 2: for a month or so. She lived about four doors
Speaker 2: down from a butcher shop. I walked in and I said,
Speaker 2: did they follow? I said, on and try some of
Speaker 2: your sausages of a butcher and he goes, fuck that.
Speaker 2: You just want a job, I was like. I was like, yes, sweet.
Speaker 2: So I got a job in about two days. Then
Speaker 2: he got my found my own apartment, and then he
Speaker 2: just started doing it. And I really started doing standing
Speaker 2: up a lot in Sydney probably about a year and
Speaker 2: a half a year ago, and it's been such a whirlwind.
Speaker 1: If people want to catch your act or follow you,
Speaker 1: where can they follow you?
Speaker 2: You can follow you an Incia Elliott McLaren on instant
Speaker 2: Graham Look, I'm I suck.
Speaker 1: At social media. I share it with your brother.
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I feel bad saying it to
Speaker 2: anybody who's who's slightly older than me, because you're only
Speaker 2: slightly older than me.
Speaker 1: Gary, Yeah, just I think so.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I struggle with it a lot, but you
Speaker 2: can follow me on Alian McLaren. I'm trying to figure
Speaker 2: it out, man, you know, like I was fucking strung
Speaker 2: out drug addic for years, so trying to figure out
Speaker 2: all this, all the social media stuff. And I hate
Speaker 2: that because I'm twenty nine. Yeah, you know, and I'm
Speaker 2: the only guy I know.
Speaker 1: You should be Yeah, you should be going blah blah,
Speaker 1: I thought you game blah blah blah blah blah. I
Speaker 1: get a right, no idea.
Speaker 2: I've got all of like seven hundred followers. I've got
Speaker 2: no idea how to do social media. But follow me
Speaker 2: on there because I'm learning how to do it and
Speaker 2: I'm going to be putting up a lot more content.
Speaker 1: And that's you're clearly working very hard, hard on it,
Speaker 1: and it's something that you continually refine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a funny thing. When you first start, you
Speaker 2: do type five. If you can get five minutes and
Speaker 2: material you're stoked. I was thinking about this last night.
Speaker 2: I remember having to do five minutes at the start
Speaker 2: and being terrified of not having enough content.
Speaker 1: For five five minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then all of a sudden people say ten
Speaker 2: minutes and I'm like, fuck, that's not enough time.
Speaker 1: So that's when you got your life on track. And
Speaker 1: then you've contracted HIV, which is yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ignorance about HIV and how you live with it.
Speaker 1: What's your experience?
Speaker 2: Just look it's at the start, I was really quite
Speaker 2: solemn about the whole situation. I would imagine that it
Speaker 2: was really quite sad, and like you said, Gary, it
Speaker 2: was funny. And now I've come over to Australia, I'm
Speaker 2: doing really well. And then all of a sudden last year,
Speaker 2: towards the end of the year, I remember I got
Speaker 2: really sick. Fuck. First my jaw ballooned up. I had
Speaker 2: this abscess in my tooth and I've ballooned right up.
Speaker 2: I've got some antibiotics and I fixed it. And then
Speaker 2: after that I got I had this cough for months.
Speaker 2: I had so much going on. I had to I
Speaker 2: had to, you know, Thursday morning, and I had this
Speaker 2: in fiction and on my ask you. Actually, it just
Speaker 2: started growing and grind over the period of about two weeks. Fuck.
Speaker 2: I just kept carrying on of it, and I thought,
Speaker 2: it's nothing, it's nothing. It's a spider bite. Originally, spider
Speaker 2: bit me in bed, and I didn't think too much
Speaker 2: of it. And I just because it wasn't a deadly spider,
Speaker 2: it wasn't a white so or anything like that. I
Speaker 2: didn't know.
Speaker 1: I'm talking shit, I don't know nothing about spider. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize you whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've got no idea, but I'm pretty arrogant
Speaker 2: and pretty reckless, and I just go, it's probably nothing,
Speaker 2: It'll be all good. I woke up on Sunday morning
Speaker 2: and there's infection. It was like the size of a
Speaker 2: fucking grapefruit now is massive, and my fever had a
Speaker 2: really high fever from the infection. I had a sore throat.
Speaker 2: I was getting sick from all the bacteria in my body.
Speaker 2: And I remember I fainted, got up in the morning
Speaker 2: and go to the toilet and I fucking just dropped,
Speaker 2: and I was like, this is not good. I don't
Speaker 2: feel good. You know, I'm a little bit concerned so
Speaker 2: I booked an uber. I remember I walked in there
Speaker 2: and the ladies I take your trousers off, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh'm I used to doing this lady and
Speaker 2: she looked at the infection and she goes, holy fuck,
Speaker 2: she dropped in clipboard. She didn't swear, I don't think
Speaker 2: she dropped in clipboard. And then she picked the clipboard
Speaker 2: up and fucking hit me on the shoulder with it.
Speaker 2: And she's like, what are you doing? You're an idiot?
Speaker 2: Like what's wrong with you? And I said why? How
Speaker 2: bad is it? She's like, you're going to die. She said,
Speaker 2: you're going to die. You're going to die, mate, Like
Speaker 2: you're going to die. You're so lucky you're here right now,
Speaker 2: Like I can't believe you're still standing. They put an
Speaker 2: IV into me straight away. I had about four bags
Speaker 2: of antibiotics in an IV, which is an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: I will say, even now with all mause, I get
Speaker 2: a lot of blood tests and stuff having HIV, and
Speaker 2: I still get I still get flashbacks from it from
Speaker 2: shooting up right right, Yeah, I still get flashbacks. When
Speaker 2: they put their needle in my arm, I'm like, I like, yeah,
Speaker 2: here we go again. I got to go to a
Speaker 2: different place because it's fuck it. It just brings back to
Speaker 2: many memories. And so they put that in my arm
Speaker 2: and then they just did an emergency surgery and they
Speaker 2: just they put me to sleep straight away. They give
Speaker 2: me generatorsidic put me to sleep and then cut doesn't
Speaker 2: fiction out of my out of my out of my
Speaker 2: butt cheek. And I woke up the next morning and
Speaker 2: I felt was like real groggy. I got a phone
Speaker 2: call and they're like, oh, this is this is the
Speaker 2: Blood's department and I said, oh yeah, sweet yeirs like,
Speaker 2: how is everything you know, because like we got your
Speaker 2: blood test back? And I said, how is everything? Goes? Everything?
Speaker 2: All good?
Speaker 1: Is the in fiction gone? Is?
Speaker 2: You know? White blood cell count? All good? Is everything okay?
Speaker 2: And they're like, oh, mister McLaren, were very sorry, but
Speaker 2: you've you've come back reactive with HIV. And I was like,
Speaker 2: what does that mean. They said, it doesn't mean you've
Speaker 2: definitely got it, but when you did come to Sydney
Speaker 2: Sexual Health in Sydney Hospital for retesting. And so I
Speaker 2: got on the train, I limped into the thing and
Speaker 2: by the time I got there, they'd retested all my
Speaker 2: bloods and they go, look, we're really sorry, mister McLaren,
Speaker 2: but you've got HIV. And I just broken the tears.
Speaker 2: I just started crying. I was so sad. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: was so sad, and again a lot of shame, again,
Speaker 2: a lot of shame. I felt really embarrassed, felt quite dirty,
Speaker 2: you know, it felt quite dirty. There was still you know,
Speaker 2: there's still a lot of stigma about HIV and which
Speaker 2: you're contracting it as a gay man.
Speaker 1: You do feel quite shamed and quite dirty.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think a lot of those comments
Speaker 2: as a young fellow, they came back up when I
Speaker 2: used to you, I used to hear it.
Speaker 1: That's when, Yeah, they were talking about AIDS and the
Speaker 1: Grim Reaper and and.
Speaker 2: I used to hear people say, fuck them, fagus, they
Speaker 2: deserve to get AIDS and die. What are they doing
Speaker 2: with their lives? You know, fucking sick caunt. So you know,
Speaker 2: when when I got HIV, that really really rattled me,
Speaker 2: and they sort of thoughts of resonating in my head,
Speaker 2: and I was just I was just really sad and
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful Sydney. I think it really needs to
Speaker 2: take it. It's it's head off to itself and really
Speaker 2: pat itself on the back and Australia in general. But
Speaker 2: because I know it's not like this in New Zealand,
Speaker 2: but Australian general, but really Sydney, I'm so grateful. I
Speaker 2: think it's it's such an amazing thing what you guys
Speaker 2: have done here with the level of care for people
Speaker 2: with HIV. It's it's incredible. Like they sit you down,
Speaker 2: the doctor talks to you. I mean you, I saw
Speaker 2: cry my eyes out for about two or three minutes
Speaker 2: and then pulled myself together, and then they offer you
Speaker 2: free counseling every We can go to accounset every week
Speaker 2: for as long as you want to sort of just
Speaker 2: comprehend it. They've got all these great groups you can
Speaker 2: go to, like Acorn and stuff like that, which a
Speaker 2: little groups of people consider. And Acorns really good, so
Speaker 2: because it's full recovering drug addicts as well. So you say,
Speaker 2: it's because a lot of those things come hand and
Speaker 2: hand it introvenious needle use in the HIV, so really
Speaker 2: good things. And they put me on medication and I
Speaker 2: think the first week I listened to streets of philadelph
Speaker 2: first day I go home and I listened to Streets
Speaker 2: of Philadelphia. If you're not familiar, it's the theme song
Speaker 2: for Philadelphiahia fucking cried my eyes out, and then about
Speaker 2: the next day I felt a bit sorry for myself again.
Speaker 2: I went to the library and wrote some jokes, and
Speaker 2: then the next night went to a comedy show and
Speaker 2: I tried to do some jokes about having it, and
Speaker 2: that was it, and I got over it really fast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I know when we talk the other day
Speaker 1: and I said, can we talk about it? And you
Speaker 1: said you're happy, happy to talk about it, and you said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm living my life. I've come to terms of it.
Speaker 1: Because I understand you're saying. You're crying first up when
Speaker 1: you've the diagnosis or the tests come back, and you're thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: does this destroy my life? But you can still live
Speaker 1: a life now, can't Yeah, because that's what I'm sure
Speaker 1: the listeners are going. Okay, I carry asked the question,
Speaker 1: asked the question you can still live a life and
Speaker 1: have a partner and everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can, Like you can live it. I almost
Speaker 2: felt embarrassed after everything. I mean, Truce, you're going to
Speaker 2: cry and it's only natural, and that's a normal thing
Speaker 2: to do, but you almost feel embarrassed. After I had
Speaker 2: a big cry about it, I was like, the fuck
Speaker 2: am I crying about? Like it's totally manageable. I take
Speaker 2: one pillar day that I don't pay any money for,
Speaker 2: totally free, Like if I didn't have that, if I
Speaker 2: didn't get those pills for free. There are thousand dollars
Speaker 2: for a month's prescription, so they're not cheap. They checked
Speaker 2: my blood's all the time. I've got a normal life,
Speaker 2: expect to see. The medication itself is so remarkable. Drops
Speaker 2: the viral load down. I don't know who fucking named
Speaker 2: it gay disease viral load, but what they were thinking of?
Speaker 2: What fourteen year old named that? But as I bring
Speaker 2: your kids to work and something, he's like, call it
Speaker 2: a viral load. They drops it down to under two hundred.
Speaker 2: So if it's under two hundred, then they got this thing.
Speaker 2: And age of the community is called you the leader.
Speaker 2: You equals you, So that's undetectable equals untransmissible. So you
Speaker 2: can't even see it in the buds yest. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: so you can't see it in any of my bloods.
Speaker 2: I can't give it to anybody, which is you.
Speaker 1: Know okay, and that that's the question. Like everyone that
Speaker 1: what we were schooled up with when it came out,
Speaker 1: it was just be so careful, you can catch it anywhere,
Speaker 1: drink out of the same glass, that type of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean remember in Princess Die kissed that AIDS
Speaker 2: guy and there was Yeah that was radical, radical your time.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's comes so far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it comes so fast. So like you know, I
Speaker 2: live such a normal life and I've only had one
Speaker 2: bad thing happened, and that was I ran out of
Speaker 2: medication once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I was in Melbourne section when I was in the
Speaker 2: comedy Fish, I got really sick.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, really sick. Really, you're going to stay on
Speaker 1: top of it.
Speaker 2: You've got to stay on top of it. And and
Speaker 2: if you don't take your medication and you lapse on
Speaker 2: it and you haven't taken it, what can happen then
Speaker 2: is the virus can then develop.
Speaker 1: Full blown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well can full blonde, but it can develop
Speaker 2: resistance to the anti viral medication. You do yourself a disservice, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because now there's medication. I've got one pill a day.
Speaker 2: It's really good and you want to stay on that
Speaker 2: for as long as you can, but if you stuff
Speaker 2: it up, then the virus can become stronger than that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you've talked about your recovery or steering your
Speaker 1: life in the not just with the HIV but your
Speaker 1: life in general. I want people to understand you've got
Speaker 1: to be able to have a laugh at things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how much does that help in life, going through all
Speaker 1: the battles that you can go through life, that you
Speaker 1: can have a laugh at yourself? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Only does it just not only does it help you
Speaker 2: you and your mental health, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: because you can have a laugh about it and it
Speaker 2: sort of just doesn't make it feel so heavy, but
Speaker 2: also helps you learn a lot more because then you're
Speaker 2: being a little bit more vulnerable, you're being a little
Speaker 2: bit more like clear hitted about everything, and you know
Speaker 2: you're not so Like I learned a lot of lessons
Speaker 2: by being able to laugh at myself and be able
Speaker 2: to see this like the sarily sort like I was
Speaker 2: saying before, and I look at myself and be like,
Speaker 2: what a fucking joke? Like what was I doing? Who
Speaker 2: do I think I was?
Speaker 1: So? Who did I think I was?
Speaker 2: You know, doing dumb shit and being and like, you know,
Speaker 2: especially like when you're a teenager and you're wearing all
Speaker 2: these gang colors and you're graffitiing and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and you think you're the man and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And like when I look at kids like that, and
Speaker 2: now especially you fellows, I've got those essays and oh
Speaker 2: my god, I guess, like how embarrassing you know when
Speaker 2: you're when those kids thirty, Fuck, I hope that. I
Speaker 2: hope that they've because you never know, somebody will never
Speaker 2: grow up. Yeah yeah, but you know when they get
Speaker 2: to like thirty, they're going to be like what dick?
Speaker 1: They look back? Well, yeah, as you grow too, you
Speaker 1: look at life and you learn so much. What you
Speaker 1: thought you knew in twenty is fuck all compared to
Speaker 1: what you know at thirty, and it just keeps going.
Speaker 1: Oh I did that, I.
Speaker 2: Did that at twenty twenty four, twenty seven, and now
Speaker 2: I'm twenty nine and I'm still like, oh man, I
Speaker 2: don't know shit.
Speaker 1: Are you will wrap it up? But are you you
Speaker 1: happy with what's happened in your life?
Speaker 2: Fucking interesting question? I And you know what I think
Speaker 2: about this a lot. That's a That's a really tough question,
Speaker 2: because to say anything other than I am what I
Speaker 2: am would be ungrateful. In reality, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: if you look at it, you know, good, bad, and ugly,
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter. But to say to say that
Speaker 2: I wanted anything else than what I already am, now
Speaker 2: that'd be incredibly ungrateful. You know, I've I've had I've
Speaker 2: had a I've had a lot of bad, but I've
Speaker 2: had a lot of good parts of my life. I've
Speaker 2: been showing a lot of love. I had a really
Speaker 2: loving mother, you know, and I had I've got great
Speaker 2: siblings and and all the rest of it. So like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it sucked, Yeah, I would I would have rather not
Speaker 2: probably not gotten molested.
Speaker 1: It probably would have helped a lot in life.
Speaker 2: I would have loved to grow up and accepting inclusive environment.
Speaker 2: And I would have loved to be able to come
Speaker 2: out of the closet and an appropriate age, and and
Speaker 2: also at any age I've felt I could have but
Speaker 2: just in a safe space and not have to hide
Speaker 2: myself or do anything differently. Yeah, and yeah, it would
Speaker 2: have been great. I probably would have. I think it
Speaker 2: would have been too easy. I would have gotten board.
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful for the life I've got. I'm very,
Speaker 2: very grateful, and I'm very grateful to have such a
Speaker 2: good life. So many of us still don't have good lives,
Speaker 2: and there's so much there's so many atrocity is going
Speaker 2: on in the world right now, and it's all part
Speaker 2: of the beautiful adventure, you know. I really changed the way.
Speaker 2: I had an overdose, really bad overdose. One time. I
Speaker 2: took about seven meals of GHB and a shot classes
Speaker 2: I had a bad day and that'll help, and my
Speaker 2: heart stopped. I was alone in my house and my
Speaker 2: heart stopped. I couldn't breathe. I remember I was slipping
Speaker 2: into this, into the into the ether, and and I
Speaker 2: remember thinking in my head at the time, I was like,
Speaker 2: if I don't start breathing now, I'm going to die
Speaker 2: and I'm never going to come back. That's all I knew.
Speaker 2: And I started breathing. I got my lungs working. I
Speaker 2: pretty much had to manually breathe for about four hours.
Speaker 2: Just had to like convinced, like just remember to breathe,
Speaker 2: because you're not breathing. You have to remember to breathe.
Speaker 2: It's not on it's not on autopilot anymore. So I
Speaker 2: had to manually breathe for about four hours to keep
Speaker 2: myself alive. And I remember after that whole ordeal, I
Speaker 2: look back and I was like, Wow, you know, life's
Speaker 2: actually just just a beautiful, crazy, fun adventure and that's
Speaker 2: all it is. Like, it's so limited. We've got something
Speaker 2: like hardly any time on this earth, you know, we
Speaker 2: get fuck. All goes so fast, you know, it goes
Speaker 2: so fast, just like that, you know, like you can
Speaker 2: And I remember that as a criminal. I remember saying
Speaker 2: to myself, that is a criminal. I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: they can. You can lose everything just as quickly as
Speaker 2: you can say I wish I never did that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that same amount of time with me saying, man,
Speaker 2: I wish I never did that. I could my whole
Speaker 2: I could be incarcerated for the rest of my life,
Speaker 2: I could be dead. It gets so fast. You never
Speaker 2: got such a limited amount of time on this earth.
Speaker 2: And and because of that, it's a balance of not
Speaker 2: taking anything too seriously because it is all going to
Speaker 2: be over one day and it's all going to be forgotten,
Speaker 2: it's going to be dust in the wind, but then
Speaker 2: also not being nihilistic at the same time and going, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's still matters. You should still do what you love
Speaker 2: to do, and she's still you know, essions and stuff
Speaker 2: like that in life. But you shouldn't be so worried
Speaker 2: about your failures. You should just pick yourself up and
Speaker 2: carry on because you know.
Speaker 1: If you get through life without failing and anything, you
Speaker 1: can't build your character failure. I learn more every time
Speaker 1: I stuff up on something than any success. And if
Speaker 1: I just got success, then, as you've said, when you've
Speaker 1: got it in the stand up comedy at the start,
Speaker 1: you just take it for granted. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: lose what made you that good to start with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, Yeah, my life's of life is
Speaker 2: a beautiful adventure. It's all going to be over one day,
Speaker 2: so you're just going to You're just gonna have fun
Speaker 2: with it, man, that is what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Well that's that's a nice way for us
Speaker 1: to wrap up. And I just want to thank you
Speaker 1: for being so open and honest with discussing your life.
Speaker 1: And when I'm laughing at certain aspects of your life,
Speaker 1: I'm laughing with you, not at you. You do either.
Speaker 1: I don't look I think you've given a good insight
Speaker 1: into how life can go off track, but how you
Speaker 1: can turn it around. And yeah, just being honest with
Speaker 1: how long life can impact on people.
Speaker 2: It can. Yeah, you know, things happen in life, but
Speaker 2: never give up on yourself and never get up and
Speaker 2: give up on your dreams. You know that's the only
Speaker 2: way you're really a loser in life.
Speaker 1: Good advice, Good advice, Thanks Elliot, no worries. Elliott McLaren
Speaker 1: jess open about his life with an interesting chat. I
Speaker 1: still can't believe he turned his life around. He had
Speaker 1: some highs and lows and very complex life. It also
Speaker 1: makes me reflect on the insidious impact that the child's
Speaker 1: sexual abuse has and the pain that that carries people
Speaker 1: throughout their life and the way that they lived their life.
Speaker 1: That I came away from that with a real positive
Speaker 1: attitude and I like to see people turn their life around,
Speaker 1: and he seems to have done it, and he has
Speaker 1: found these passion as a stand up comedian, and I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the chat.