Speaker 1: Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout
Speaker 1: Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We
Speaker 1: pay our respect to their elders past and present and
Speaker 1: extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island
Speaker 1: peoples today.
Speaker 2: This episode is recorded on Gadiger Land of the Aurora Nation.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of A Life Uncut.
Speaker 2: I'm Brittain and I'm Laura and this is a.
Speaker 1: Little packaged up bonus episode from you. We are putting
Speaker 1: all these little pieces together from the live show with
Speaker 1: all of our guests. So this is part three, so
Speaker 1: obviously done Part one and two. Part three is Matt o'kine. Now,
Speaker 1: Mattokine is one of those amazing, super annoying people that
Speaker 1: can do everything. He's an award winning comedian, he's an actor,
Speaker 1: he does radio, he has podcasts. He literally is someone
Speaker 1: that he's just like, you're like, what can't you do?
Speaker 1: He was an incredible chat so I hope you guys
Speaker 1: enjoyed listening to him as much as we enjoyed having
Speaker 1: him on the show. Welcome to the stage please everyone.
Speaker 3: I'd big loud welcome Matt o'kine.
Speaker 1: Hey, why do you immediately look so much cooler thout us?
Speaker 4: I feel very underdressed. I changed my shoelaces. That gave
Speaker 4: my shoes a whole new sprits, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I did say to Matt, I was like, do you
Speaker 2: reckon you could be here at five forty five today,
Speaker 2: And he was like, nah, I've got daycare drop off?
Speaker 3: Sorry, pick up pick up, daycare pickup.
Speaker 4: And then my daughter wasn't She was eating spaghetti and
Speaker 4: thank you so much, and she was not picking up
Speaker 4: the spaghetti rite with her fork, and there was so
Speaker 4: many tears, like it was just and I'm twisting the
Speaker 4: fool I'm going, is it is this?
Speaker 3: It is this?
Speaker 4: It is just like it's not it's getting it away.
Speaker 3: Oh but anyway, we're here, Matt.
Speaker 2: We start all of our podcast interviews with our new
Speaker 2: guests by asking them their most embarrassing story. We like
Speaker 2: to really start lows, then we can build you back up.
Speaker 2: What is the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you?
Speaker 3: Do you know? In two the year basically I sucked
Speaker 3: my own dick. We've all been there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I know that was one of those things
Speaker 4: I never thought that I would ever tell anyone else.
Speaker 3: But or it was like something very much intentionally. Yes,
Speaker 3: it wasn't an accident. I thought it.
Speaker 4: Wasn't like a really the plane landed badly and I
Speaker 4: was like.
Speaker 3: Boom, boom.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like I was fifteen at the time. So
Speaker 4: I'm sorry I have Yeah, so I had taken it
Speaker 4: was in Ghana, right, I was visiting Ghana with my dad.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's necessary. Well, it's a very
Speaker 4: humored country, and it feels like I you know, I
Speaker 4: was in a bath and it was hot, and I
Speaker 4: feel like I was really in the bath for a
Speaker 4: long time and my back felt good and.
Speaker 3: And then I got an erection and then I was
Speaker 3: just like looking at it and it was looking at me.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm saying, like every guy in.
Speaker 4: This room has tried to suck their own dick, Okay,
Speaker 4: every single one of them.
Speaker 3: I can see a few of you, a few of you.
Speaker 3: You you've tried it, you've tried it.
Speaker 4: You fail, you fail. But but here's the thing. I
Speaker 4: was like, look, we all know how this ends.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to reach you, but let's just see
Speaker 3: how much I don't reach you by all. And then
Speaker 3: I got closer and closer, and.
Speaker 5: Next thing, my dick was in my mouth. It wasn't
Speaker 5: I wasn't good at it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I was like, it was just like you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, just the very top bend, just the tip
Speaker 3: did you edging? I think it's called no because it
Speaker 3: was happening. And then I was like, oh, I can't
Speaker 3: do this. This is disgusting. You thought of that after
Speaker 3: the fact. And then I was like, no, I can
Speaker 3: do this. And then I went back down. I couldn't reach.
Speaker 3: I couldn't reach the second time. The second time I
Speaker 3: couldn't reach, went back for seconds. Even if you.
Speaker 2: Didn't want it to happened, it retracted away from you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like, I can't it's forbidden.
Speaker 1: In all seriousness, because like I thought this was a myth.
Speaker 1: Can you did you actually make contact?
Speaker 4: Jen?
Speaker 3: Yeah? But look here's the thing. People are like, oh,
Speaker 3: you must have a big.
Speaker 4: But it's not like that at all. What happened was
Speaker 4: I was fifteen and it had grown to its maximum length,
Speaker 4: but I was still had the body of a boy.
Speaker 4: Do you know what I mean, so it was like
Speaker 4: it was really just a once in a lifetime opportunity, but.
Speaker 1: Really a once in a lifetime was it once and
Speaker 1: once only?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And that's it and that was just that was it?
Speaker 3: And trust me, I tried.
Speaker 2: Well, sometimes life like offers you up these opportunities.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you grabbed that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Moral of the story is never let go of
Speaker 3: a good thing.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I My next question.
Speaker 1: Was how did you know you were funny enough to
Speaker 1: be a comedian? But we can skip past that because
Speaker 1: I've got it right now.
Speaker 3: No, how do you know?
Speaker 1: How how do you feel like I'm funny? I'm going
Speaker 1: to make people pay you to come and see me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know that.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, what the actual, the actual, biggest sort
Speaker 4: of question is, at what point do you start not
Speaker 4: being embarrassed about things like that.
Speaker 3: And just realizing that that's just who you.
Speaker 4: Are and what you can talk about on stage, Because
Speaker 4: I mean, for a very long time, especially as a
Speaker 4: young guy, you would just be like I would. I mean,
Speaker 4: I swore to myself that I would never ever tell
Speaker 4: that particular story because that's so shameful and embarrassing and blah.
Speaker 3: Blah blah.
Speaker 4: But the more you get to that point as a
Speaker 4: performer or content creator or whatever, and you guys do
Speaker 4: it all the time. It's like the more you open up,
Speaker 4: the realer you are, the more you realize that people,
Speaker 4: you're not the only kid with a bathtub.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm i saying is that he also
Speaker 2: ran out of content and had to mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly literally, So yeah.
Speaker 4: So I mean that's that's where things started becoming more
Speaker 4: interesting for me as a performer and as a as
Speaker 4: a as a comedian and stuff like that, sort of
Speaker 4: hitting that truth level and honesty that I think people
Speaker 4: certainly now just want to or everybody appreciate it.
Speaker 1: This well, it's not often we do have the pleasure
Speaker 1: of being in the presence of an award winning comedian.
Speaker 1: So we're really gonna utilize that tonight by talking about
Speaker 1: micro racial aggression. So I mean, go forget, We've got
Speaker 1: We've got a comedian, and we're gonna we're gonna go we.
Speaker 2: Get to waste our time, is what we're saying. We're
Speaker 2: taking you from talking about all of your funny times
Speaker 2: in life to talking about some very.
Speaker 3: Seriously, sure, go for it. Let's go for it.
Speaker 1: But well, let's start with what is racial microaggression?
Speaker 4: Oh look, it's just little things. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: I had to pull up someone recently because they were
Speaker 4: talking about how my hair looks like pubes, right, and like,
Speaker 4: while it kind of does.
Speaker 3: You're like, you don't get to say that, you know.
Speaker 4: And so and people don't do it out of like
Speaker 4: most people don't do it out of spie or hate
Speaker 4: or anything like that.
Speaker 3: They just don't know. And so the whole race conversation.
Speaker 4: There really is a battle against you know, or there's
Speaker 4: naivity and ignorance versus wilful ignorance and purposeful hate, you know,
Speaker 4: and that and that's kind of where where where the
Speaker 4: sort of line is drawn down. Sometimes there's people that
Speaker 4: get caught in the crossfire, but most of the time
Speaker 4: and the majority of people aren't willfully out to be.
Speaker 3: To be ignorant.
Speaker 4: But if we're actually talking about in terms of the
Speaker 4: way that society is changing or change when it comes to,
Speaker 4: you know, the way people look at race, it's a
Speaker 4: couple of things that are point that happened to me
Speaker 4: recently having a daughter she's three years old, right, and
Speaker 4: she's got curly hair, and I'm really getting scared of
Speaker 4: the day that she comes home and wants to straighten it,
Speaker 4: you know, because she's just so like I saw my
Speaker 4: sister straighten her hair for her whole life and being
Speaker 4: called you know, a pupe had made fun of pew
Speaker 4: like hair, and we can put velkan on the roof
Speaker 4: and you again stick to the roof and all that
Speaker 4: sort of stuff. It still sticks to you for a
Speaker 4: long time. So seeing my daughter, you know, hopefully embracing
Speaker 4: the curly hair is a big one.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: When my partner and I just recently were showing my
Speaker 4: daughter the.
Speaker 3: Bananas ad from the nineties. Do you remember that one
Speaker 3: ban Na Na Na Na Nana.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I mean classic ad, right, And my partner
Speaker 4: was like, oh, let's go and watch this Banana's ad.
Speaker 3: You know, and she was singing the song and my
Speaker 3: daughter was like, what is that? What's that song? And
Speaker 3: my partner's like, we'll watch the ad.
Speaker 4: So we sat down and watched the ad and after
Speaker 4: the ad, this was the classic nineties ad.
Speaker 3: After the ad, I looked up and my partner was
Speaker 3: literally crying, right, and I was like, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 3: what's what's what happened with the banana? I don't know,
Speaker 3: like what happened?
Speaker 4: I know, I know, I know, like, well yeah, but
Speaker 4: she was like, I just realized that there's only white
Speaker 4: kids in that ad, right, which is fine. It's the
Speaker 4: nineties and that's what. But then she was like, now
Speaker 4: that I you know, our daughter is part African and
Speaker 4: and now I'm with you, I'm only realizing that that
Speaker 4: you would have grown up watching that ad and seen
Speaker 4: a completely different ad. So she only realized that now,
Speaker 4: And that's absolutely fine. Everyone takes the time to learn
Speaker 4: that sort of stuff. But this afternoon, literally Asavo, when
Speaker 4: I was doing that daycare pickup, my daughter walked past
Speaker 4: this sign that said that that was just had a
Speaker 4: it was just like a community sort of sign. You know,
Speaker 4: they've got them in daycare, put you away things, blah
Speaker 4: blah blah. But it had a like a young brown
Speaker 4: girl in this sign. And my daughter, Sophia, out of nowhere,
Speaker 4: completely unprompted, walked up and said, Dad, look that girl
Speaker 4: looks like me, right, And I said, yeah, she does.
Speaker 3: She's got curly hair and she's got yeah and brown
Speaker 3: skin like me. And I felt so.
Speaker 4: Like thankful that it has changed, because I think when
Speaker 4: we talk about race and everything, it's like it gets
Speaker 4: blurred to this line where us as adults understand it,
Speaker 4: but kids don't. And the best example I always sort
Speaker 4: of use in this scenario is when I was ten
Speaker 4: and I was watching the you know, Pauline Hansen was
Speaker 4: making her biggest rise up through the ranks, and she
Speaker 4: was all over the news, and she was talking about
Speaker 4: immigrants and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And I remember, you know, looking at.
Speaker 4: At the news and thinking about and hearing her talk
Speaker 4: about how bad immigrants are and blah blah blah. And
Speaker 4: then I remember going into my mum's room and asking
Speaker 4: her his dad an immigrant, and my mum said yes,
Speaker 4: And I remember feeling really embarrassed about that and ashamed
Speaker 4: and like scared.
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, no, I can't let anyone know. I
Speaker 3: can't let anyone know that my dad's an immigrant, you know.
Speaker 3: And that's so like, it's quite evil what.
Speaker 4: Can be done and the way that kids can be
Speaker 4: manipulated through the media, And so as adults, it's easy
Speaker 4: to say, oh, well, shouldn't everyone have their say and
Speaker 4: have their opinion and blah blah blah. But we're forgetting
Speaker 4: who actually gets access to that and who gets to
Speaker 4: and who suddenly feels like they're not one of us
Speaker 4: and not allowed to be here, and whose parents are less.
Speaker 3: Valued in society.
Speaker 4: And so that's why, you know, just my daughter seeing
Speaker 4: someone that look like her on a sign to me
Speaker 4: today felt like we're going in the right direction.
Speaker 3: How does that for you?
Speaker 2: How does that impact you growing up? Like seeing that
Speaker 2: ad on TV or seeing seeing Pauline on TV and
Speaker 2: seeing that conversation and then having speaking to your dad
Speaker 2: and connecting the dots, like, how does that impact you
Speaker 2: long term where you are now in your life?
Speaker 3: Well, the reason why I do stand up comedy is
Speaker 3: because I.
Speaker 4: Didn't think that I was going to get any acting
Speaker 4: jobs because there was no brown people on austrain and TV,
Speaker 4: and so I felt like if I connected with audiences
Speaker 4: by being myself as much as possible, that they'd see
Speaker 4: and hear someone that they could relate to without needing
Speaker 4: to go through any higher up powers, et cetera. So
Speaker 4: that's actually part of the reason why I guess I'm
Speaker 4: even sitting on this stage is because understanding that there
Speaker 4: were gatekeepers at the time, and that they're still to
Speaker 4: an extent is but doing my best to sort of
Speaker 4: get around that. As far as what it does to
Speaker 4: you when you're growing up, this has gone so far
Speaker 4: away from sucking my own dick. I'm going to tell you,
Speaker 4: oh my Lodi, you got to do a bit of both, right,
Speaker 4: you got to have a bit of light and shade.
Speaker 2: I think this is really important though, so that one
Speaker 2: Moment of the Year at the Podcast Awards last year
Speaker 2: for speaking about this, and that's when we listened to
Speaker 2: that section that audio that was put forward for the
Speaker 2: Podcast Awards. That was why we were like, this is
Speaker 2: the conversation we want to have on stage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, it's a really important one. It's very difficult.
Speaker 4: People get very defensive when they talk about it, feel
Speaker 4: uncomfortable and it's like you just don't that's not that
Speaker 4: doesn't help anyone. You know, You've just got to kind
Speaker 4: of try and be as open as possible about it.
Speaker 4: So what what I was gonna say is, you know,
Speaker 4: you feel like, I mean, growing up, you feel that
Speaker 4: you do.
Speaker 3: Feel a little bit like embarrassed about being brown.
Speaker 4: You're making all the sort of jokes to try and
Speaker 4: you know, cover up, you know who you are and
Speaker 4: what you are, you kind of reject there's a lot
Speaker 4: of cultural rejection and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: And you feel like, I look back on some of
Speaker 3: the stuff that I used to say and do.
Speaker 4: To my dad because I was kind of a little
Speaker 4: bit embarrassed by, you know, him being African and stuff
Speaker 4: like that, and it's like it's shameful, you know, because
Speaker 4: this is a guy who like worked his ass off
Speaker 4: to you know, get his university degree out of Ghana,
Speaker 4: to move to Australia, start in your life, set up
Speaker 4: a family, you know, and everything, and and then you're
Speaker 4: making fun of him for the way he says ms
Speaker 4: squee to instead of mosquito, you know.
Speaker 1: What I mean.
Speaker 4: And I mean he still does it, and I still
Speaker 4: make fun of him, but you know, I'm allowed to now,
Speaker 4: I'm allowed to.
Speaker 3: But yeah, but like things like that, you know, so
Speaker 3: you look back on it, you're like, what was I thinking?
Speaker 4: But that's you know, you're you're you're such under the
Speaker 4: influence of the powers outside of you that you kind
Speaker 4: of don't realize the Yeah, the effect that you're having
Speaker 4: on not just yourself but others are the others people
Speaker 4: are important to you.
Speaker 1: Do you find that you still experience it, these these
Speaker 1: microaggressions in your day to day life with people that
Speaker 1: are in your life. So maybe they're friends, because maybe
Speaker 1: it's a level of ignorance or not being educated enough
Speaker 1: on the topic, because I sometimes.
Speaker 2: Been casual, I think educated on it. But they're like, oh, like,
Speaker 2: we're mates, so you don't mind, do you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, I mean racism is one of those things
Speaker 4: that hides very well behind discrepancy, and so you know,
Speaker 4: in a way you can never really racists in the
Speaker 4: same way that abuses are very good at hiding what
Speaker 4: they do, and they're very good at making it impossible
Speaker 4: to prove it, right.
Speaker 3: So that's why when.
Speaker 4: You know, you have to be really lucky to catch
Speaker 4: with video a police officers choking a dude to death,
Speaker 4: and even when the video exists, they're still room for oh, well,
Speaker 4: actually I'm not that person. And so it's the same
Speaker 4: with abuse. These people work so they're masters of covering
Speaker 4: their tracks and their trails, so they very rarely get caught.
Speaker 3: You know, I remember applying for a job on at a.
Speaker 4: Video store, and I remember putting my photo on the
Speaker 4: video store on the CV because I wanted to make
Speaker 4: sure that when people saw my last name, I kind
Speaker 4: of my middle name a Jetta, they looked at my
Speaker 4: photo and they saw that I wasn't that black. Right now,
Speaker 4: it's I am embarrassed that I did that, but I
Speaker 4: also did that because studies had.
Speaker 3: Proven and still prove, that you're less likely to get
Speaker 3: a job interview in that instance. So these sort of things,
Speaker 3: unless you really get busted, they just happen all the time.
Speaker 4: And it's the same way so often where you go,
Speaker 4: I got a feeling about this person, or I don't
Speaker 4: I really don't trust this person, or I wouldn't trust
Speaker 4: this person making a decision on my behalf because I
Speaker 4: actually don't think that they're an ally. It's the same
Speaker 4: way people of color do that, same way the women
Speaker 4: do that. The same way that you have to sort
Speaker 4: of you kind of you know, you just know when
Speaker 4: it's happening to you, but of course very difficult to
Speaker 4: prove it more often than not, so you just have
Speaker 4: to sort of suck it up and get on with
Speaker 4: your day.
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's I mean, that's the thing. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to suck it You should suck it up,
Speaker 1: because we do.
Speaker 3: But you should have to suck it up and get
Speaker 3: on with your day. And I guess that should.
Speaker 1: That's why we want to have these conversations and just
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 3: I when we did our due.
Speaker 1: Diligence, I was reading an article from somebody with an
Speaker 1: ethnic name that went for a job, like put their
Speaker 1: CV down twice. They went for the job twice. They
Speaker 1: didn't have photos, it was just their name, but they
Speaker 1: changed their name with the same CV, so they had
Speaker 1: their ethnic name and then they had you know, John
Speaker 1: Smith and John Smith got the interview.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the fact that that is happening now, I mean
Speaker 1: it's very upsetting, which is why we want to have
Speaker 1: these conversations. But part of the moment of the year
Speaker 1: that you did win was talking about racism and Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter the movement. Do you think there has been
Speaker 1: have you noticed in your life since the Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter movement? Have you noticed a big difference in society
Speaker 1: in things that are happening to you in the day
Speaker 1: to day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's I think it's great.
Speaker 4: I think it is something that has Definitely there's there's
Speaker 4: levels of overcompensation at times that I feel, which I
Speaker 4: which I think is fine because it's kind of long overdue.
Speaker 4: There's also, you know, instances of people where you know,
Speaker 4: you know, there's people who will I'm trying to figure
Speaker 4: out how to say this about pointing at particular fruits
Speaker 4: or names, but essentially there will be people or companies
Speaker 4: who are very much on board.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah we did this, and you look back
Speaker 3: just like two.
Speaker 4: Years ago and you're like, well, you didn't represent any
Speaker 4: people of color, and you had like how many people
Speaker 4: on your books?
Speaker 3: One hundred people on your books.
Speaker 4: You didn't care about people of color, but now you
Speaker 4: suddenly care because you need to. That's sort of people
Speaker 4: that I don't. That's that they're the people who I
Speaker 4: get really kind of frustrated with. But I mean, it's
Speaker 4: it's it's definitely. It's definitely changing, and I'm and I'm stoked,
Speaker 4: and it's always it's changed a lot since.
Speaker 3: The banana's ad in the nineties, and it's going to
Speaker 3: keep changing.
Speaker 4: And I have faith that the majority of people are
Speaker 4: doing the right thing and that you know, it's it's
Speaker 4: you know, we're all trying our best.
Speaker 3: I think most of us are trying our best.
Speaker 2: Matt, thank you so much for joining us, Thank you
Speaker 2: for sharing your experiences. You are literally the fucking best.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you so much. Matt.
Speaker 4: Kamba kaabaaaaamba