Speaker 1: Good day, Tim, it's Harps, it's Melissa, it's Samuel, and
Speaker 1: what a fucking day. I'm very excited. Well, I've got
Speaker 1: to say something. Is like, firstly, let's say hi to Sam. Hi, Sam, Hi?
Speaker 2: What were you saying?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to say this, Hi, melessa, Hi are
Speaker 1: you good?
Speaker 2: Ah? So good?
Speaker 1: Now you know what I'm going to say because I
Speaker 1: told you so. I'm a dumb ass. Everyone you know that.
Speaker 1: But this is what happens. So we do a show
Speaker 1: every day and I'm doing a PhD and I'm doing corpus,
Speaker 1: but I do a lot of shit, right, But and
Speaker 1: I don't get the guests. Melissa and Tiff and THEA
Speaker 1: get the guests. And I just saw Samuel's name come through,
Speaker 1: and I went, this is what I saw Samuel's name,
Speaker 1: which is of course Samuel Johnson, but who I pictured
Speaker 1: in my mind was Samuel L. Jackson. I'm like, how
Speaker 1: the fuck did they get him? And then I went, oh, no,
Speaker 1: that's the other dude. That's oh yeah, So mate, for
Speaker 1: a moment, you were a major world, world beating Hollywood
Speaker 1: block bust a fucking superstar coming on my show.
Speaker 2: I remember in the old days, I had a weekly
Speaker 2: job at Fox FFM all of their teasers and trailers
Speaker 2: for all of their radio stations all around the country
Speaker 2: once a week, and wow, I just went once a
Speaker 2: week to have my regular gig there. And the lift
Speaker 2: opened and I walked straight into this very tall person
Speaker 2: and I looked up and it was Samuel L. Jackson
Speaker 2: and he was being looked after by a guy called Bag.
Speaker 2: He was the same guy that used to look after me,
Speaker 2: Like I knew Bag really well, and so Bag saw
Speaker 2: an opportunity there, so he went, oh, oh, Samuel Old Jackson,
Speaker 2: Samuel L. Johnson, and thought he was being really funny.
Speaker 2: And I went, ah, hi and put my hand out
Speaker 2: and shook Samuel L. Jackson's hand and he lent in.
Speaker 2: He went yeah, keep trying, and I was like, oh man.
Speaker 2: He was like, was he taking the piss? He must
Speaker 2: have been taking the piss, because he guess he had
Speaker 2: his whole team raiding the match and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, and I thought, I think he was taking
Speaker 2: the piece. And I looked back to see whether he
Speaker 2: was taking the piss just before the lift doors closed,
Speaker 2: after the merchant has gotten and he looked at me
Speaker 2: and gave me a big wink. He was clearly taking
Speaker 2: the piss by saying, yeah, keep trying. He was saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: what a wink this is. I thought for a second
Speaker 2: he was being an asshole, but he was being totally
Speaker 2: tank cheek.
Speaker 1: Who's the most famous person? Most famous person that you've
Speaker 1: had a chat with?
Speaker 2: The royal? One of the royals. I can't remember the
Speaker 2: name of the royal. It was like it was some
Speaker 2: unreal someone famous and and like I went to this
Speaker 2: event at Government House and the royals were meant to
Speaker 2: be having like they were meant to be having an
Speaker 2: hour off all of their official duties with young people.
Speaker 2: And I got invited to this thing, and so I
Speaker 2: was there with guy Sebastian and we were going, well,
Speaker 2: what are we doing here? You know, this is kind
Speaker 2: of weird, and that the royal person was allowed to
Speaker 2: spend five minutes with everybody in the room and five
Speaker 2: minutes only, and they had minders and timekeepers and all
Speaker 2: kinds of things. That was their informal get together with
Speaker 2: young people. And so I went and hid because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to talk to him, because I didn't really
Speaker 2: know what to say. And so I went and hid,
Speaker 2: and I started looking at all the paintings around the place,
Speaker 2: and so I was like three rooms away and security
Speaker 2: rushed up to me, and I thought I was in
Speaker 2: the wrong area, and they said, no, no, no, the
Speaker 2: royal wants to speak to you. He wants to speak
Speaker 2: to you personally about what you've done. Can you please
Speaker 2: come with me? And so I was made to have
Speaker 2: this conversation with this royal. And the first thing he
Speaker 2: said to me it was I think, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it was I think Harry or like it was. It
Speaker 2: was a famous, like male.
Speaker 1: Royal, You're the worst fucking monarchist in the world. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the royals.
Speaker 2: And the first thing he said to me was, Jeesu,
Speaker 2: your balls must be sore. And I thought, wow, a
Speaker 2: royal person just said balls. Because I just finished my
Speaker 2: unicycle right around the country. I've spent three hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty four days at top of one wheeler and I
Speaker 2: had to go to government House and meet this fancy
Speaker 2: pants man who wanted to speak to me because of
Speaker 2: what I'd done. And so we talked for about ten
Speaker 2: minutes about house. All my balls were.
Speaker 1: Fuck.
Speaker 2: So maybe he was the most famous person. Maybe even
Speaker 2: though I don't know his name.
Speaker 1: How were your balls after three hundred and sixty four
Speaker 1: days of smashing them on one of the one of
Speaker 1: those tiny little seats on top of what very tender.
Speaker 2: The first hundred and one hundred or so days we
Speaker 2: it was really painful because my undercarriage broke, and so
Speaker 2: I was putting all kinds of cream on and doing
Speaker 2: all those kinds of things. And it wasn't until I
Speaker 2: got to Darwin, which was after like over one hundred days,
Speaker 2: and I met this guy from the army and he said, no,
Speaker 2: you no, throw out the creams now, you're not going
Speaker 2: to fix it that way. Every time you have a break,
Speaker 2: take your pants off, point your ass at the sun,
Speaker 2: dry it out. You'll be fine. So for the next
Speaker 2: kind of two weeks, whenever I had a scheduled break,
Speaker 2: i'd go off into a field and you know, maintain
Speaker 2: a modicum of privacy and take my pants off and
Speaker 2: point my bum at the sun. And after I did
Speaker 2: that for two weeks, my undercarriage dried and it was okay.
Speaker 2: Having said that, the pain started in that area, in
Speaker 2: the groinal area. The pain started after about twenty seconds,
Speaker 2: and I was spending about eight to ten hours a
Speaker 2: day on the thing. So my common mancha was, well,
Speaker 2: at least it's not cancer. I'm not dying a cancer.
Speaker 2: My sister was dying a cancer at the time, and
Speaker 2: so so I had that in my head just all
Speaker 2: the time, every day, like so there was no such
Speaker 2: thing as sortball. So it was it was kind of
Speaker 2: half denialism, and it was it was half really good
Speaker 2: reality checking that it wasn't cancer.
Speaker 1: Now, the two words to come out of that, kids,
Speaker 1: if you're taking notes, are groinal not a word, and
Speaker 1: denihalism also not a word. But thanks to Samuel, we're
Speaker 1: going to push them out of the literary nest and
Speaker 1: they're going to become words out there in the world.
Speaker 2: Hey Craig, Hey Craig, Hey Craig, Before you move on,
Speaker 2: I've got one for you. I'm ready to shabarkle a shabarkle.
Speaker 2: It's a chamozel and a debarcle. It's really bad. It's
Speaker 2: a chamozel and a debarkle a shabarkle. I'm really proud
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: What if you integrated what if you into those two
Speaker 1: with clusterfuck. I'll let you get back to me on that.
Speaker 2: As sebak or fuck, oh that's funny, mate.
Speaker 1: Who does anyone I know people call you Sam? But
Speaker 1: does anyone in your family friends circle call you Samuel
Speaker 1: these days or what's the.
Speaker 2: Years? No, we live in Australia. We shorten everything and
Speaker 2: we add o's and stuff. I'd love to be called Samuel,
Speaker 2: and Samuel is my preference, and indeed it is my
Speaker 2: stage name, but I get called Sam. I used to
Speaker 2: keep the difference because if someone yelled out, hey, Samuel,
Speaker 2: I knew that they'd seen me on the tally. But
Speaker 2: if someone yelled out hey Sam, I knew that they
Speaker 2: were a friend. Yeah. So that was why I initially
Speaker 2: liked having a distinction. I now commonly so because we've
Speaker 2: got about nine hundred thousand people in our village that
Speaker 2: hate cancer. And now I commonly sign. I commonly sign
Speaker 2: because it's very personalized. I write a lot to a
Speaker 2: lot of people, and I commonly sign it Sam now.
Speaker 2: So so I suppose I'm Sam now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it. Well, I have not I'm definitely
Speaker 1: not you, but I have. There's three levels. So there's
Speaker 1: Craig Harper, right, and then there's people around about, you know,
Speaker 1: people that know me friends, followers, listeners call me Harps,
Speaker 1: and then my family and close friends call me Craigo.
Speaker 1: You're exactly right when you say we shorten it. It's
Speaker 1: like you can't shorten Craig, so you've got to whack
Speaker 1: an o on the end of it, and you just
Speaker 1: become greg O. And like, there are people in my
Speaker 1: life who have never ever called me anything but Craigo,
Speaker 1: and if those people called me Craig or Harps, it
Speaker 1: would be completely fucking weird.
Speaker 2: Does Melissa get called mel to call you mal? Or
Speaker 2: is it a Melissa thing?
Speaker 3: I'm not that fussy. Welcome to call me whatever, But yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of people just assume that it's a mal
Speaker 3: So I get mail a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Just what do you prefer?
Speaker 3: I really don't have that much.
Speaker 2: Of a preference.
Speaker 3: Probably Melissa, just because I'm although sometimes it depends who
Speaker 3: it's coming from, because sometimes I feel like I'm in
Speaker 3: trouble if I get Melissa. So, yeah, don't really have
Speaker 3: too much of a preference.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go.
Speaker 2: I call my partner of ten years, my greatest inconvenience,
Speaker 2: that's my that's my way of telling her that I
Speaker 2: love her, and that would not be funny unless it
Speaker 2: was not due at all, Like if she was at
Speaker 2: all inconvenient, it wouldn't be funny at all, and it'd
Speaker 2: just be an awshole thing to say. But I think
Speaker 2: it's important to have, it's important to think about. Obviously,
Speaker 2: that's not all like call her like we heep adoration
Speaker 2: on each other. I don't want you to get the
Speaker 2: wrong idea. But it's it's funny, isn't it How we
Speaker 2: can play with language so much and calling call people
Speaker 2: so many different things. Like for example, when people say
Speaker 2: how are you, there are standard replies like can't complain
Speaker 2: or or people can say how I am, and I
Speaker 2: can say, oh, well, there's no justifiable course for complaint,
Speaker 2: and I'll get a laugh out of that. I get
Speaker 2: people more involved by saying the same thing but in
Speaker 2: a different way. And it's you know, like I already
Speaker 2: want to call you Melbow because because I want to
Speaker 2: be the guy that calls you Melbow. Like it's funny
Speaker 2: this whole kind of naming and making ship up thing,
Speaker 2: because I proved, didn't I Craig with the Shabako thing,
Speaker 2: that you can do what you want with what you
Speaker 2: give one.
Speaker 1: I think you know that, especially Australians, we're a bit
Speaker 1: loose with words. We're not we're not renowned for our grammar.
Speaker 2: We're not renowned for much.
Speaker 1: No we're not. We're not, you know. But but having
Speaker 1: having that silliness too, and that cheekiness about it, you know,
Speaker 1: like you've been through some shit, You've been through lots
Speaker 1: of shit, and like you know, and we've never met
Speaker 1: until today. But what I love about you. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm pissing in your pocket now, which is very UnAustralian,
Speaker 1: But is that, you know, sometimes just laughing at stuff
Speaker 1: or laughing at yourself. It doesn't mean you're not feeling,
Speaker 1: you're not hurting, doesn't mean you're putting your head in
Speaker 1: the sand, doesn't mean you're not acknowledging the shit that's
Speaker 1: going on. But focusing on and dwelling in the negativity
Speaker 1: rather than saying, all right, well, I know what's going on,
Speaker 1: this is not good, this is bad. What can I do?
Speaker 1: What can I do about it? Or what can I
Speaker 1: do to help that person? Or what can I do
Speaker 1: to help myself? Like I think Ozzie's are pretty good
Speaker 1: at that kind of dragging others up and dragging ourselves
Speaker 1: up when we want to or when.
Speaker 2: We we're also very good at told Poppy, but is
Speaker 2: important for all of us, especially during adversity. When my
Speaker 2: sister was dying, I kept going, come on, hurry up,
Speaker 2: that's been seven years, he said, six months, six to
Speaker 2: twelve months, seven years ago. You've got like my time's important,
Speaker 2: like like completely take the this out of her dying.
Speaker 2: And then when the Governor General comes to her to
Speaker 2: her palliative care center posthumously, and my sister wasn't going
Speaker 2: to make it to Australia days. So the Governor General
Speaker 2: drove himself to my sister's palliative care place and gave
Speaker 2: her a medal of the Order of Australia and get
Speaker 2: this for her services to research, which is fine, but
Speaker 2: wait this at the end and humanity. So as soon
Speaker 2: as the Honorable Sir Peter Cosgrove left us, we cracked
Speaker 2: up and we thought, oh geez, hasn't she got up
Speaker 2: in the world. Oh humanity, not just cancer research, but humanity.
Speaker 2: And then my sister kind of leaned back her head
Speaker 2: as much as she could and she said for services
Speaker 2: to research and humanity this royal wave and we laughed
Speaker 2: and we made jokes about humanitan and how grand it
Speaker 2: all was, and then she closed her eyes and she died,
Speaker 2: and we had an absolute rainbow there towards the end.
Speaker 2: I suppose. I think humor plays a valuable role no
Speaker 2: matter where we at in life. And it's great if
Speaker 2: you feel naturally light and funny and you're having a
Speaker 2: good day, that's great. But learning how to laugh when
Speaker 2: someone's dying, I've heard, you know. I remember when my
Speaker 2: girlfriend committed suicide. I remember, I remember her mum got
Speaker 2: really paranoid about her other two kids. I was going
Speaker 2: to take them swimming in a lake, and commonly one
Speaker 2: CHILDI year dies at that lake. There are mindshafts at
Speaker 2: the bottom of it. It gets very cold. Professional swimmers
Speaker 2: have been taken by this lake. This is a real danger.
Speaker 2: And so mum was really really anxious that she'd loosen
Speaker 2: another child because she just lost her daughter. I was
Speaker 2: the daughter's boyfriend, and she kept carrying on about how
Speaker 2: I can't even blink, like I can't even turn my back.
Speaker 2: Got to watch them the whole and after about ten minutes,
Speaker 2: I said, don't worry, Kim, I won't kill anymore of
Speaker 2: your kids, and she just and she went, you didn't
Speaker 2: just say that, I said, I went, I fucking did.
Speaker 2: I just said that, Oh my god, And we had
Speaker 2: a big laugh about it. Now, obviously it's something you
Speaker 2: can't say, and she chose to laugh about it, thankfully.
Speaker 2: And humor can be misused, and someone like me then
Speaker 2: could try to be funny at a time where humor
Speaker 2: is not acceptable. But I have heard lots of stories
Speaker 2: from lots of people. Because I've personally digested over one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand cancer stories, I've heard a lot of stories
Speaker 2: about people that rely very heavily on their sense of
Speaker 2: humor during dark times.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing, mate, There's see. The thing is
Speaker 1: that what one person will find funny, someone else will
Speaker 1: find curious, someone else will find offensive someone else you know.
Speaker 1: But there's that, there's this thing that you have. Like
Speaker 1: I've watched a fair bit of you and heard a
Speaker 1: fair bit of you, and I watched today, which is silly,
Speaker 1: but I watched today that interview that you did with
Speaker 1: Pete Hellier last year on the project, and I watched
Speaker 1: it about three or four times in a row, and
Speaker 1: I just thought, like, you are, You've got this high
Speaker 1: level of social and emotional intelligence and situational awareness. You've
Speaker 1: got this fucking brilliant timing, Like you said things to
Speaker 1: Pete Hellier that if it was another interviewer talking about
Speaker 1: the same stuff for the same show, but another person,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have said those things. Now, clearly he's a
Speaker 1: dick ed like you, So it's okay you can say
Speaker 1: dick ed things right, And I mean that in a
Speaker 1: loving way, but.
Speaker 2: I chose very carefully. That was my first media chat
Speaker 2: after a serious brain injury, and so the last thing
Speaker 2: that all the doctors and experts wanted was for me
Speaker 2: to seem like I hadn't recovered when I went public.
Speaker 2: So it was very careful, very carefully managed appearance, and
Speaker 2: I chose Pete Hallier to talk to, even though Carrie
Speaker 2: big Moore was much closer to our charity and much
Speaker 2: closer to me and my sister. I needed the right
Speaker 2: person to talk to at that time because Carrie would
Speaker 2: have been earnest and worried about her friend that had
Speaker 2: an injury, whereas Pete can be curious about it and
Speaker 2: pull out a gag. And as my sister always said,
Speaker 2: we vanquished cancer with joy, so we're kind of we're
Speaker 2: serially positive, but that doesn't mean that we don't take
Speaker 2: the piece pretty hard. And it is very important in
Speaker 2: moments like that because there was a lot of paranoia
Speaker 2: about going public to early, which Molly Meldrim did with
Speaker 2: his brain injury. He did interviews well before he was
Speaker 2: able to do them, and it was very important that
Speaker 2: people still wanted to hire me for work after I
Speaker 2: talked about it. So I had a conversation with Pete
Speaker 2: for a number of specific reasons, but I ended up
Speaker 2: doing his family Feud podcasts and lost my shit completely.
Speaker 2: Had a giggle fit that lasted maybe five minutes. Like
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, life's too short not
Speaker 2: to take the pisce and we've got to like it's
Speaker 2: not deliberate, but every day, like is there to be
Speaker 2: filled with laughter if we know how to find it,
Speaker 2: and if we don't get bogged down by detail, and
Speaker 2: if we don't take everything really personally, and if we
Speaker 2: control our emotions, and if we do a number of
Speaker 2: things and to manage ourselves properly, we can we can
Speaker 2: end up at the point where we can take the
Speaker 2: pierce and have a laugh. Because I'm not stressed about
Speaker 2: my marriage at home because it's not stressful, and we
Speaker 2: can take the piece and have a laugh. Because that
Speaker 2: mistake that I made earlier today I have forgiven myself,
Speaker 2: for I no longer carry around a basket full of
Speaker 2: whips and self flagellate whenever I make a mistake. Now
Speaker 2: I make a mistake, I learned from it and I
Speaker 2: move on. So that's why I think a bit more
Speaker 2: keen on laughter. As you get older is as you
Speaker 2: get better at stuff, at that life stuff. It leaves
Speaker 2: you more room to take the piss. It also helps
Speaker 2: when you get older. Have you noticed this? People don't
Speaker 2: give a buck, mate. They don't care. They don't care
Speaker 2: at all. So you go from being really earnest in
Speaker 2: your twenties and you care about everything, and you think
Speaker 2: you matter, and there's some kind of status system and
Speaker 2: you belong somewhere and you're looking for fucking some kind
Speaker 2: of fairy tale romance and you're traveling the way you've
Speaker 2: got no and then by the time you're my age
Speaker 2: on forty five, you kind of don't care anymore. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying I don't care anymore, but you know what
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: But I think you know going through the shit that
Speaker 1: you've been through it. Before I say that, I want
Speaker 1: to say one other thing that I was thinking about
Speaker 1: from a neuroscience point of view, Like you're saying on
Speaker 1: laughter is therapeutic, and it's but it literally is. Though
Speaker 1: that's not even a figure of speech or an idea
Speaker 1: like laughter, fun joy, Happiness changes the biochemistry of your brain,
Speaker 1: changes your immune system, changes your emotions, like changes the
Speaker 1: way that you think and socialize and process the world.
Speaker 1: And you know, so like some silliness and some laughter
Speaker 1: and some bullshit and some irreverence you know obviously right
Speaker 1: place person time, all of that, but it is it's
Speaker 1: not metaphorically good for you. It's fucking literally good for
Speaker 1: your body and your recovery. But literally.
Speaker 2: But then, Craig, you've got humor that you think is
Speaker 2: funny that actually just demotes and denigrates people, And you
Speaker 2: think you're just having a laugh and you think you're
Speaker 2: just being light and but you're in fact burying someone
Speaker 2: else in the process. So you've got to be careful
Speaker 2: because humor, just like everything else, can be a weapon.
Speaker 2: So so like there are things that I find funny
Speaker 2: that were funny in my generation when I was growing
Speaker 2: up that are completely not allowed to be funny.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, true, completely true.
Speaker 2: So your sense of humor has to grow with the
Speaker 2: times so that I don't end up with my nephews
Speaker 2: who are in their twenties, so that they can still
Speaker 2: relate to me and I can still relate to them,
Speaker 2: because I don't want to end up that old person
Speaker 2: that is stuck fifty years ago that still thinks it's
Speaker 2: okay to pinchy secretary on the bum or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Good, no, good point, valid point, you're honor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it is it's context dependent too, and it is
Speaker 1: you know, you're right, the stuff that we used to
Speaker 1: laugh at, some stuff can't. Now some stuff is funny
Speaker 1: when you're in a certain situation, but not in others.
Speaker 1: But but being able to create joy, you know, consciously,
Speaker 1: but realize that there's actually a therapeutic benefit to that,
Speaker 1: not just a feel good momentary thing. All right, So,
Speaker 1: speaking of your brain and your accident, how's your brain?
Speaker 2: My brain's fully recovered. So seventeen months ago, I was
Speaker 2: a pedestrian. There was a car didn't go very well
Speaker 2: at all, hit my head. There's eleven days I'll never
Speaker 2: remember because I got pta post traumatic amnesia. It didn't
Speaker 2: get the banks, never got banked. I don't know what happened,
Speaker 2: but I do remember coming out of PTA, which is
Speaker 2: a very loopy time. I think they should set a
Speaker 2: TV show or something in a PTA ward. The nurses say,
Speaker 2: what happens in PTA stays in PTA. You commonly get
Speaker 2: your phone confiscated because you call the police because you
Speaker 2: think you've been kidnapped and you require immediate rescue. The
Speaker 2: lights and everything's dimmed because you're very sensitive to everything.
Speaker 2: Wasn't alone. Apparently this is really common. I thought I
Speaker 2: was in a donut factory and they were all donut tears,
Speaker 2: and they were trying to turn me into a donut.
Speaker 2: Because the MRI machine is circular, and it's quite common
Speaker 2: for brain injury patients to go into the mr I
Speaker 2: room and think they're being turned into a donut. It's
Speaker 2: really common. The nurses were like, ah, it's another donut guy.
Speaker 2: My MRI I said limited study due to patient aggression.
Speaker 2: It took three days to get an MRI from me
Speaker 2: because I was convinced they were turning me into a donut,
Speaker 2: so it kind of I had a heavy Russian accent
Speaker 2: for a day and a half. I was a small
Speaker 2: Japanese child aged eleven for about two and a half days.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to condense it all into one so basically,
Speaker 2: really quickly. So basically, you go through this really loopy
Speaker 2: period and then you make a long recovery with a
Speaker 2: lot of rehab and a lot of doctors. I spent
Speaker 2: seven weeks seven and a half weeks inside hospital. Then
Speaker 2: I spent three months at my sister's house because she
Speaker 2: was central enough to the hospital, and I finally got
Speaker 2: home after like four or five months. I finally got
Speaker 2: home and I had my last medical appointment about a
Speaker 2: month ago.
Speaker 1: Wow do you have Firstly, how are the Russian days?
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy those?
Speaker 2: I reversed, engineered everything. It made sense. There was a
Speaker 2: mate I had called Juzzy, and we used to joke
Speaker 2: about a purple penis in a Russian accent for like
Speaker 2: six months when we were like nineteen. I could totally
Speaker 2: remember when I had this heavy Russian accent for six months.
Speaker 2: When I was eleven, I went to Japan as part
Speaker 2: of the Asian Pacific Children's Peace Convention. In my brain injury,
Speaker 2: I was an eleven year old Japanese girl and now,
Speaker 2: admittedly I was an eleven year old Australian boy who
Speaker 2: visited Japan when I was eleven, but I could reverse
Speaker 2: engineer everything so that all of the loopiness kind of
Speaker 2: made sense. It was just obviously my brain was still
Speaker 2: working everything out.
Speaker 1: And apparently your family greatly enjoyed that period of time
Speaker 1: and still reflect on it. The amnesia days.
Speaker 2: I got away with it because my partner, my missus,
Speaker 2: she was there the whole time, so she's traumatized by
Speaker 2: but she can't talk to me about it because I
Speaker 2: can't remember it. And so there's what the medical world
Speaker 2: says is the golden hour, the hour after your injury.
Speaker 2: To get good treatment at a hospital within an hour
Speaker 2: of having a serious injury is really important. They call
Speaker 2: it the golden hour. I'll never know what my missus did,
Speaker 2: but she got praised for making that golden hour truly golden.
Speaker 2: She answered every question very clearly. She didn't cost the
Speaker 2: medics any time, she didn't let anxieties or fears or
Speaker 2: emotions affect anything. She was very calm in at crisis,
Speaker 2: whereas I, you know that fight or freeze or thing
Speaker 2: like I'll run. It's really scary, like and I won't
Speaker 2: understand what question they asked me, like, I will just
Speaker 2: fall to pieces in a similar crisis. So there's an
Speaker 2: eleven day period that I'm sad that my partner had
Speaker 2: to go through, and that I'm glad that I didn't
Speaker 2: have to go through.
Speaker 1: What did they do? You remember what? I don't know
Speaker 1: if they gave odds, but I'm in bottom line it
Speaker 1: Did they think you would live or not live?
Speaker 2: No? No, they thought I was I was going to die.
Speaker 2: So my family got put into the dying room. So
Speaker 2: there's they give more privacy to families that are probably
Speaker 2: going to get the bad news. So because we've been
Speaker 2: in the dying room before with my sister's cancer, my
Speaker 2: sister and my partner knew what the dying room was.
Speaker 2: So they got taken to a private room with a
Speaker 2: fridge and a television and a sofa to sit on.
Speaker 2: And that was when they told that that they were
Speaker 2: told that I was tanking in emergency, that I arrived
Speaker 2: quite well and was going downhill fast. And it was
Speaker 2: a classic near death experience because many of the medics
Speaker 2: didn't think I'd make it through the night. I was
Speaker 2: touch and go. So it was a true near death.
Speaker 1: Experience, and your brain would correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: But your brain was somewhat protected because you shielded your
Speaker 1: brain with your face, So your face took Yeah, so
Speaker 1: your face took the brunt, and you broke your skull.
Speaker 1: You broke your face, and you've got fractures in your.
Speaker 2: Neck right right. And they found like the ground, glass
Speaker 2: in my lungs, which is how I knew my face
Speaker 2: must have protected my head somewhat because obviously a face
Speaker 2: planted a windscreen if they found glass inside my lungs. So,
Speaker 2: and my right side was pretty cactus so i'd clearly,
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened, I'd clearly borne the brunt.
Speaker 2: So now, so that's the accident side, and this side's
Speaker 2: pretty okay.
Speaker 1: So philosophical question, mate, how, if any like, how has
Speaker 1: it I'm sure it has, But how has it changed
Speaker 1: the way that you think or the way that you
Speaker 1: express or love or connect with others or your like
Speaker 1: your worldview? How has it changed you?
Speaker 2: It's changed me in a number of ways. I'm going
Speaker 2: to keep it really sure. It's made me more grateful
Speaker 2: for today. And I was grateful for today before the accident,
Speaker 2: and I didn't think that that could be bettered. It was.
Speaker 2: It made me calm. I was less anxious, less worried
Speaker 2: about being late, less concerned over trivialities or small things,
Speaker 2: stopped fighting with my partner, entirely, changed enough to the
Speaker 2: point where people who are close to me have said
Speaker 2: to me, what the fuck happened to you? Like like
Speaker 2: a lot of so I was really highly strungt now
Speaker 2: I'm just energetic. Like it's pressure and stress and anxiety
Speaker 2: and depression and drug use. And you know, this diagnosis
Speaker 2: of bipolar because my mum committed suicide, so that thought
Speaker 2: I might have that it all kind of built up,
Speaker 2: and this showbiz thing and then having heaps of money,
Speaker 2: it all kind of contributed towards making me pretty fucked up.
Speaker 2: And then I slowly started to address everything. I went
Speaker 2: and saw a dragon alcohol counselor, I went and saw
Speaker 2: a psych. I went and did a couple of different
Speaker 2: charity things. Before love Sis, I was a volunteer on
Speaker 2: the Open Family Youth bus every second Friday. So I
Speaker 2: started doing things that I knew would be good for
Speaker 2: me because it was a constant fight with the devil
Speaker 2: of base hedonism. And then gradually gradually over the course
Speaker 2: of two two and a half decades. I managed to
Speaker 2: get to this point, but the accident accelerated my progress.
Speaker 2: So I had already done the work. I didn't have
Speaker 2: an accident, and then I was magically different. But there
Speaker 2: are a lot of things that are at different levels
Speaker 2: since the accident that markedly like I've been stressed out
Speaker 2: twice since the accident seventeen months ago, once about being
Speaker 2: late for an appointment I didn't realize I had, and
Speaker 2: once about being in the wrong lane and worrying about
Speaker 2: oncoming traffic. And I checked that anger or that frustration
Speaker 2: or that exasperation. That was a real spike in everything.
Speaker 2: I dealt with that really well. So normally, historically that
Speaker 2: would have been enough to send me on a spiral downward.
Speaker 2: Now it's a rare occurrence and I deal with it
Speaker 2: quickly and I'll move on.
Speaker 1: Is it when you're like you said, you like all
Speaker 1: your TV stuff, movies, stage stuff, your broad massive profile around,
Speaker 1: doing all the great charity fundraising stuff, philanthropic stuff, like
Speaker 1: you know most Australians know you like you live in
Speaker 1: a country of twenty five million people, and probably twenty
Speaker 1: million people know who you are. They might not know
Speaker 1: you well, but they know your name. They know you right.
Speaker 1: And like you said, high profile, lots of dough, lots
Speaker 1: of good shit going on, lots of people love you,
Speaker 1: lots of people want to talk to you, hang around you,
Speaker 1: stroke your ego, tell you fucking awesome and all of that.
Speaker 1: Is it hard in the middle of all of that
Speaker 1: to not be a dickhead?
Speaker 2: No, because people who get swept up in that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff tend not to survive in that industry. So
Speaker 2: in twenty five years in showbiz, I only really met
Speaker 2: two cockheads, and apart from that they are a really,
Speaker 2: really good people. So the use of drugs and alcohol
Speaker 2: in showbiz is much much lower than the use of
Speaker 2: drugs and alcohol are in trades, for example. So if
Speaker 2: you want to talk about dysfunction and drugs and alcohol
Speaker 2: and that kind of scene, you'd probably be more interested
Speaker 2: in having a conversation with someone that's on a work site.
Speaker 2: It's a very professional environment and kids on home and
Speaker 2: away might do a bit of blowing the toilets at
Speaker 2: the logis, but it's not a good look. It's it's
Speaker 2: really not a good look. I'm not saying that it
Speaker 2: doesn't happen. But I don't think it's particularly rampant compared
Speaker 2: to some other industries, And I think it suffers a
Speaker 2: little reputationally because the people that do have a slide
Speaker 2: or a slip like For example, I'll use myself as
Speaker 2: an example. I was a thug for many years because
Speaker 2: at a casino a guy had done something to my girlfriend.
Speaker 2: I told him he couldn't do it. He put me
Speaker 2: down three times. I ended up going right, I've been
Speaker 2: put down three times. I've got to do something. I
Speaker 2: got the guy down. I stumped him in the head.
Speaker 2: You do not stomp people in the head. You do
Speaker 2: not hit a person when they are down. You do
Speaker 2: I was a thug for ten years because of that.
Speaker 2: You know, you are nothing but a measure of how
Speaker 2: you respond to the mistakes that you make. And I'm
Speaker 2: in a constant battle, as I said before, with the
Speaker 2: base hedonism, to try not to become that person. So
Speaker 2: a lot of what I've done in terms of my
Speaker 2: community work is so that I'm not an asshole. Because
Speaker 2: if I didn't concentrate and work really hard on the
Speaker 2: community stuff, I don't trust that i'd make the right decisions.
Speaker 2: And I don't trust that I'd be the kind of
Speaker 2: citizen that you'd be happy to have on your podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that, mate. I mean for me, that's
Speaker 1: kind of having that's part of the having a purpose
Speaker 1: bigger than yourself and a focus bigger than yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: which is what you've done for very long. We did
Speaker 1: have We have had a We have had a man
Speaker 1: on a couple of times whose first name is Axel
Speaker 1: and second seconds and the second name is Whitehead, who
Speaker 1: did make a public mistake and it's well known, and
Speaker 1: we spoke about him getting his wizzer out at the
Speaker 1: ARIA Awards or something. Well that didn't that didn't give
Speaker 1: his career any kind of positive boost. But you know,
Speaker 1: he said, I grew up in the country and I
Speaker 1: was pissed, and I'm like, Yep, probably shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 1: Though he's like, Yep, definitely should have. But he's going
Speaker 1: all right now. But I think it took him a
Speaker 1: good ten years to turn that around.
Speaker 2: I got filmed on a balcony having sex with a
Speaker 2: stripper Tuesday Times. Inside, I was rather flash that it
Speaker 2: wasn't the greatest moment, and it was about Dawn I've
Speaker 2: been up all night. I've been on a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff too. It was New Year's Eve and I got
Speaker 2: filmed on the balcony in a very compromising position, not
Speaker 2: flattering at all, and that got put on the internet
Speaker 2: in the early days of the internet, and I rang
Speaker 2: up my best friend. My best friend rang up me
Speaker 2: and said, oh, I've seen this video. I was young,
Speaker 2: I had a girlfriend at home, and I obviously made
Speaker 2: a huge error. And my best friend said she had
Speaker 2: handled everything up until that point. She said, yeah, even
Speaker 2: I couldn't watch it like it was that bad. It
Speaker 2: was that bad. So you know, like I've just talked
Speaker 2: about two moments that are completely bad. There was the
Speaker 2: fight that I got into at the casino with that guy.
Speaker 2: There was that stripper on that balcony. In the early
Speaker 2: days and for years, when I did an interview on radio,
Speaker 2: the computer would light up and they'd read what the
Speaker 2: listeners said to me, and it was, come and get
Speaker 2: this thug off air. Why have you got him on
Speaker 2: our radio station? You know? Like, and now I'm a
Speaker 2: popular cancer boy like it, just like, I don't really
Speaker 2: care what anyone thinks of me. I'm just doing my best.
Speaker 2: And I make a lot of mistakes, and I try
Speaker 2: and learn from them. And if people are going to
Speaker 2: call me a thug because I kicked a guy in
Speaker 2: the head in the casino once, well they weren't there
Speaker 2: and they don't know what he did. So really, and
Speaker 2: if people want to think that I'm a really good
Speaker 2: brother of the year fucking cancer Vanquisher, then that's simplistic too,
Speaker 2: because they're ignoring the mistakes and the shitty things that
Speaker 2: I've done as well. And that's why I think it's
Speaker 2: important to have role models, not idols.
Speaker 1: Definitely, can I ask when when did you stop? I
Speaker 1: don't like this term, but clean and cyber like, when
Speaker 1: was the last time you used or boozed?
Speaker 2: So so my dragon alcohol counselor called me a poly user,
Speaker 2: so as we know, that means I used everything, So
Speaker 2: I wasn't addicted to one thing. I just used everything.
Speaker 2: So I've been dealing with that my whole life. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to I'm not going to peddle some redemptive narrative.
Speaker 2: I don't think life is that simple, and I don't
Speaker 2: think there are neat little bows to these things, and
Speaker 2: I don't think I don't believe in closure, and I
Speaker 2: don't think. I don't think you went from one to
Speaker 2: the other. And I know people that would say that
Speaker 2: your storyline isn't redemptive at all, so who have had
Speaker 2: firsthand experience with said problem. So you know how alcoholics say,
Speaker 2: you know, I haven't had a drink for two hundred days,
Speaker 2: but I'm an apology. It's like I'm I started with
Speaker 2: harmonimization and a lot of therapy, and I'm very pleased
Speaker 2: with my usage now. It's very very occasional, and very
Speaker 2: social and not even a blip on the radar. I'm
Speaker 2: not worried about it at all. It took me a
Speaker 2: long time to do that, a lot of efforts. I
Speaker 2: remember my girlfriend fifteen years ago. Her name was Sarah.
Speaker 2: You know, every time I went past a BWS, it
Speaker 2: stood for be with Sarah. Be with Sarah, be with Sarah.
Speaker 2: If I went in there and I grabbed a fucking
Speaker 2: roll out of Jim beamcans, I couldn't be with Sarah.
Speaker 2: Her parents were alcoholic. She didn't need another alcoholic in
Speaker 2: the house. She had a child in that house. I
Speaker 2: had to behave. So, you know, it's something that I
Speaker 2: used to focus on very intently and something that I
Speaker 2: fortunately I don't have to focus on now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good for you man. Well, if you're in control,
Speaker 1: it's not in control. That's a good thing. Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: us give us some an insight into the lovely Uh
Speaker 1: look at you niggering.
Speaker 2: She's automatically going to be really pissed off because she's
Speaker 2: lived in the shadow. It's quite happily for ten years.
Speaker 2: In fact, she hasn't allowed me to talk about her
Speaker 2: at all. So it's not that I'm hiding the fact
Speaker 2: that I've had a girlfriend. It's just that she doesn't
Speaker 2: like it at all. So she takes when we do fundraisers,
Speaker 2: she's behind the camera and she takes photos of us
Speaker 2: out of respect. I'm going to say very little about
Speaker 2: her because that is what I believe she would prefer.
Speaker 2: But what I will say is that is that I
Speaker 2: don't think that I've met a bigger EmPATH. Oh wow, wow,
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I know who comes second, and
Speaker 2: there's there's a big margin between them. I mean, some
Speaker 2: people are compassionate and caring and some people are very
Speaker 2: I don't know whether to say empathetic or empathic. I
Speaker 2: don't know what's correct, but she cares for people. She
Speaker 2: taught me so much about how to care properly, and
Speaker 2: I call it in my head, I call it practical
Speaker 2: caring because because you can, you can think someone's a
Speaker 2: legend and they cannot know that. You have to learn
Speaker 2: how to demonstrate your care as well, and she has
Speaker 2: that down to a fine art. And her heart gets
Speaker 2: broken at the smallest of things, and I think that's
Speaker 2: that's part of the price that a true EmPATH pays.
Speaker 1: Did she without a stop talking about her after this?
Speaker 1: But just one curiosity after your accident, did she have
Speaker 1: PTSD or a version of it? You know that must
Speaker 1: have been bloody because she saw what you didn't see.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, I've given her numbers of counselors to speak
Speaker 2: to that are separate to me, because it's recommended that
Speaker 2: she doesn't talk to me about it because I'm not
Speaker 2: the best person for her to talk about it, and
Speaker 2: this whole hat before she calls that number. So she
Speaker 2: she carries around a lot of her demons privately, and
Speaker 2: she's not interested in sharing her trauma because she doesn't
Speaker 2: want to make anything harder for other people, because she's
Speaker 2: truly empathic. So I don't think she's doing herself the
Speaker 2: world of good because you know how Atlas carries the
Speaker 2: whole world on his shoulder, like it's I think I
Speaker 2: think some empaths end up doing that, and they end
Speaker 2: up they end up tired and sore and broken because
Speaker 2: they forgot to care for themselves. But they refuse to
Speaker 2: care for themselves because other people are so much more
Speaker 2: important to them. So it's it's so all you can
Speaker 2: do is is admire and love people like that, because
Speaker 2: they're always going to carry kilograms differently to the way
Speaker 2: that you carry them. I'm quite good at carrying Makilo's
Speaker 2: i've got fuck or baggage. It's great. But I imagine
Speaker 2: that she's the up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well God bless her. Hey, just before we let
Speaker 1: you go, mate, so what are you doing now? What
Speaker 1: are you up to? What's on the work schedule? What's
Speaker 1: what's exciting you? What's lighting you up? What are we
Speaker 1: going to see?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 1: Be creating the future?
Speaker 2: All right, I'm going to keep this real quick A promise.
Speaker 1: No, I may take your time. We fucking love you.
Speaker 2: I've already taken too much of your time. Okay. So
Speaker 2: when my sister got sick ten years ago. We put
Speaker 2: her on the traditional treatment. It's the way we treat cancer.
Speaker 2: We put them on the drug most likely to work.
Speaker 2: But it takes three months of administering that drug before
Speaker 2: we can see how effective it is, before we can
Speaker 2: see whether it's having any demonstrable effect on the size
Speaker 2: of the tumor. If it's not working, we call it
Speaker 2: a false line of treatment after three months, and we
Speaker 2: move on to the drug next most likely to succeed.
Speaker 2: In my sister's case, the first line of treatment failed,
Speaker 2: the second line of treatment failed, the third line of
Speaker 2: treatment failed, and on her fourth line of treatment we
Speaker 2: found the right drug, but it was too late by then.
Speaker 2: Now I rend Treasury. Do you think they could tell
Speaker 2: me how much we spend on false lines of medicine? No, no,
Speaker 2: they couldn't tell me. So precision medicine and the whole
Speaker 2: world's moving towards this, not just for cancer. The proof
Speaker 2: of concept is well and truly past us. Precision medicine.
Speaker 2: It's a genomic thing. We start treating the cancer instead
Speaker 2: of the patient. I don't care whether your cancers in
Speaker 2: your breast or your testicles. I really don't care where
Speaker 2: it is. It's no longer specific, So the nature of
Speaker 2: research now is non specific, so all of those colored
Speaker 2: ribbons don't mean much to scientists and researchers now. Now,
Speaker 2: if we had taken a tissue sample of my sister's
Speaker 2: cancer when she was diagnosed and tested it in a
Speaker 2: petri dish with all the drugs that we have for it,
Speaker 2: we could have put her on the right drug first time,
Speaker 2: every time, saving US squillions of dollars on money on
Speaker 2: medicines that don't work, and saving lives like my sisters.
Speaker 2: It's called precision medicine. The whole world's moving towards it,
Speaker 2: not just for cancer. Our rollout for it in Australia
Speaker 2: is painfully slow. The government suggests that by twenty thirty
Speaker 2: they might have thirty thousand people to get this. I
Speaker 2: was told by someone in the know recently we've got
Speaker 2: a different kind of belief system that we would not
Speaker 2: get all of our cancer patients genetically mapped in my lifetime. No,
Speaker 2: I say bullshit, I say bullocks, and I say bulld us.
Speaker 2: You watch us. So rather than wait another ten years
Speaker 2: for precision medicine, because my sister should have received it
Speaker 2: ten years ago and didn't. And if you get it now,
Speaker 2: you're still still not going to get off of it.
Speaker 2: So if you're rich and you know the right people,
Speaker 2: you'll probably get it. But I've decided that I'm not
Speaker 2: going to wait another ten years for it, and that
Speaker 2: I'm just going to roll it out myself. So I'm
Speaker 2: no longer a compliant little cancer funder. I'm the first
Speaker 2: ten towns have been decided. I've teamed up with a
Speaker 2: really really smart guy called David, I'mic Garvin, etc. That
Speaker 2: they know exactly how to roll this out. There's much
Speaker 2: smarter than me, But I dug a huge ole. I've
Speaker 2: dug them before too, but maybe none of this. I
Speaker 2: need to take Love His Sister from one point five
Speaker 2: million a year to a million a month yesterday. So
Speaker 2: to play my part in this roleout, so I've abandoned
Speaker 2: my touring model completely. I no longer visit, you know,
Speaker 2: hundreds of schools and hundreds of towns, and I focus
Speaker 2: specifically on getting businesses to hold hands with the thousands
Speaker 2: and thousands of individuals that I've got that support this
Speaker 2: right now and to help us at this very time
Speaker 2: with this very rollout. And it's early days. The campaign
Speaker 2: officially launches him much. But I've already got a bunch
Speaker 2: of signups, a lot of interest from businesses. Businesses are
Speaker 2: very happy to step in and help at this point.
Speaker 2: So it's a long answer to a short question. I'm
Speaker 2: abandoning my model of the last ten years entirely because
Speaker 2: I need to get to a million a month, not
Speaker 2: one point five million a year. I'm relying on businesses
Speaker 2: to help me get there. If there's anyone listening that
Speaker 2: thinks their business can contribute, I suggest that they email
Speaker 2: me personally, Samuel at Love your Sister dot org. Samuel
Speaker 2: with an E at Love your Sister dot org. Email
Speaker 2: me your phone number. I'll call you. We'll sort it out.
Speaker 2: So it's called Sam's one thousand and it's it's not
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll try to make this work next year. This
Speaker 2: will work next year. It has to work. It will happen,
Speaker 2: and you'll see me go public, go sixty minutes on
Speaker 2: it once. Once I know it's real. I need to
Speaker 2: have a lot more of this pyramid belt before I
Speaker 2: go public public within in terms of the sixty minute public.
Speaker 2: So if there are anyone listening that thinks their business
Speaker 2: can help, email me your phone number and I'll call
Speaker 2: you back.
Speaker 1: You're the best. You make me feel like a fucking lazy, fraudulent, underachieving,
Speaker 1: fucking want to be.
Speaker 2: You know great, you forget you forgot that I just
Speaker 2: do this shit because if I didn't it would be
Speaker 2: worth Come.
Speaker 1: On you all right, Hey, you're the best. We appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Will say goodbye a fair mate, but thank you for
Speaker 1: taking an hour out of your day. You're a superstar.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on all the work you did You've raised over
Speaker 1: thirteen million dollars so far for research. Congrats on your
Speaker 1: recovery and your mindset and everything like you. I know
Speaker 1: you don't like people pissing in your pocket, but you're
Speaker 1: an inspiration. You're a good dude. You're a fucking knock
Speaker 1: about bloke and you know people. You're the bloke that
Speaker 1: everyone would want. Everybody wishes you were their mate because
Speaker 1: you're just a good dude. Yourself aware.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got friends, so that's funny.
Speaker 1: You know, you're aware of your faults and flaws. You
Speaker 1: know what you do well, you know what you do bad.
Speaker 1: You're practical, you're realistic. But we'll say bye, are fair butt.
Speaker 1: Thank you mate, Samuel, Thank you Samuel L. Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson,
Speaker 1: thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll keep trying right so yah