You mentioned it like, like writing's your realm.

It's something that if you, your, your personalities kind of develop around it and within it.

Like mathematics, for example, is not my realm.

I know that and I understand that for some people it's pretty straightforward that the equipment is set up and calibrated for that kind of for me, it's about comedy.

I've always had the ability to make people laugh.

It was actually, it was used as a defence mechanism at the beginning.

When ridiculed or made to feel out.

Comedy was always my go to.

I was the funny guy in class.

I always had a little one line of everything.

So comedy's my realm.

It's like writing is yours and I don't have too many realms that I'm that confident and appropriate, but comedy's always been so I feel like I've cheated a little bit.

And then there's the other realms, like parenting for example.

I don't think you ever get it right.

Yeah.

No, that that should.

Never do well.

Welcome to the Listen to Your Footsteps podcast.

I'm your host, Kojo Buffer.

In this podcast, I speak to Africans from across a multitude of sectors, including business, art, culture, media, design, technology, advertising, and everything in between, delving into their journeys and reflecting on the lessons they have learned along the way.

It's about gaining insight into why and how they do what they do.

These conversations offer a treasure trove of takeaways and a wide range of topics, including craft, relationships, Wellness, parenting, entrepreneurship, and much more.

And then they were, they were bands, or at least they were individuals.

Like Terence Trent Harvey, for example.

That was just absolutely legend shit.

And then all of a sudden he was just the biggest star in the world.

And then he just disappeared.

Well.

You know he's still around.

He's still around, he's still producing albums.

I looked at them the other day and but he never hit the same spot.

But he.

Took himself out of it apparently because he's what, he's Sananda Matria or something.

He actually just released, I think in the last 2-3 months, he's just released an album.

So he did the name change and didn't tell.

And we didn't have the, I mean, we didn't have the Internet, right?

So he did the name change and then carried on outside of outside of kind of the pop culture and maybe 10 years ago, I'm like always one Terence Trent.

I mean, I did a search and I came across this stuff like he's on Instagram, He's like active, he performs, he does stuff.

But just because he changed his name, nobody knows.

It's a, it just proves that how important your brand is in a popular culture space.

And Terence Derby had had introduced us to a a soul kind of space in the 80s where I didn't know what that was.

I mean, it was that kind of that genre of music was huge in the 70s and in the 80s he had just taken on and then he had this, this whole energy and those deadlocks and a vibe.

And then I mean, I was like, wow, who the hell is this guy?

Wishing Well, I think was the song Wishing well.

It was dance little sister, dance little sister.

There was a.

That that mean that whole.

Album was.

It's it's one of those you don't you don't skip a song like beginning to end.

There's the very few albums that I won't take the take the needle off the record.

I get very bored very quickly.

And I'm a, I'm a vinyl collector, so I've got, I've got plenty vinyls and I go out and I searched in my hand, pick them.

And that Wishing well album is just world class.

And actually that's that's the one I don't have.

So I have I have my father's old collection.

So my father was Ghanaian.

So he's from Ghana and then moved to Europe in his 20s.

He moved to Germany and lived there for for some years.

So and I grew up in Lesotho, so growing up and he used to travel a lot.

So he had a little sticker with his address that went on on the record cover or he'd like write his name.

So that that's my introduction to music.

And I've always loved music.

Like I'm a big consumer of music.

And those are that's the roots for me.

And it was across the board.

So from Bill Haley in the comments to fill out Kuti to he was buying, you know, he was buying Miley albums when they came out.

So he was buying what was current music for then.

And so I have that full collection and I've only added a couple of, you know, a couple of a couple of my own to that that I'm starting to kind of build.

My first one was actually randomly Jungle Book, The Jungle Book soundtrack.

Hey, always look on the bright side of life.

Exactly and super supercalifragilistic espialidocious.

There was Disney stuff.

There was.

OK, I'm going to do a quick intro and I think we've already started.

It seems like this is.

The nature of the thing.

My guest today is stand up comedian, actor, father, husband.

Indeed.

Kurt Skunrad, welcome.

Thank you very much.

Now we can carry on talking about the music.

So for me, my dad was a bit of a 70s hippie, an alternative that didn't fit into the environment that he that he lived in.

OK, of course, colored.

And I say that proudly.

There's a lot of people that would use that or say it's derogatory term that was given to us.

But it's the one I identify with.

I've had it my whole life and it's it's the community that I come from.

My dad was a Uriah Heap, Deep Purple, Janis Joplin kind of guy that grew up in Earth Wind and Fire space.

Nothing wrong with it.

I still love Earth Wind and Fire.

I'm a big fan of like 70s punk.

I collect a lot of that kind of thing.

But my dad was that alternative cat, you know, in the space that I grew up in.

It's just like you have managed to pick up a lot of the albums that he had and the most probably some of my most treasured possessions now.

And, you know, my dad passed away about five years ago.

And so more and more as I get older, I realize and I respect what he has done, what he's done for me and my family and my community.

And so it's cool to be able to interact with him in that way, you know?

I mean, what were some of your realizations?

I mean, so I always say my father passed away when I was like 45 and I became grown enough to recognize that he was doing the best that he could.

You know, when you're young, you like, I rebelled and, you know, I used to get irritated or pissed off because I can't do this or because of the boundaries that are put in place.

And then growing older and kind of looking back and having kids now where it's like, do you know what?

Like I have whatever, you know, little anger or bitterness or, you know, tantrum.

You know, the residues of tantrums that existed are totally gone because because I got to recognize them not just as my father, but as a man navigating, you know, navigating the world.

Wow.

You know parenting is hard.

Yeah.

Stuff and like you said, when I was growing up, I was irritated about the stuff I couldn't do because of my age and the boundaries that were set in place.

And it was just my parents trying the best they could to keep all of it together.

And you know, I think also there's certain age groups where you shouldn't be allowed to do exactly as you want because those boundaries are important for you to grow and understand yourself and where your boundaries are and what you shouldn't be doing, whether the people are around or not, you know?

But my dad famously said, you know, morals is what happens when no one's around, no one's watching you.

And those were deeply set in through my parents.

The things I remember most is they're very, very steep work ethic.

Do your shit, bro.

You've got to do your stuff.

You've got responsibilities in a space and you've got to do it.

And it's the kind of thing I try to impart with my kid who's 15 years old right now and was probably in the hardest part of that adolescent space where he's pushing all the boundaries.

My missus is not coping with it as well as I am.

But then also I live on the road a lot at the time so.

You actually don't have to cope all the time.

No, no, no, all the time.

But when I do cope and when I'm in the space, I try.

Someone once told me that, you know, when you're driving around and picking this guy up and dropping him off at his friends and scooping him up again and two hours later, and it's irritating and frustrating.

So there's going to be a time when he's not around anymore.

There's going to be a time when he's grown up and he's doing his own thing and he's got his own friends to hang out with and own families to start and girlfriends and the like.

So I said, you're going to miss those things.

So I try and remind myself about all of that right now.

You know, when just before my son was born, I spoke to a mate of mine who's got three kids and in a modern space, 3 kids is a lot, bro.

Yeah.

So I asked him what's, what's your advice?

What kind of advice can you give me about this dad thing?

And he said, Brutus, be present.

Just be there 'cause you're going to get it wrong.

Certain things, you're going to get a lot of them right.

But this is the only thing that you can do is be present.

Don't be afraid to apologize if you've got it wrong and the rest you just kind of wing.

Yeah, I think we're weighing it all the time.

And the the apologizing part, I still haven't got, still haven't got that right.

But the reflection on, on what I'm doing wrong.

And it's usually right after I've done it and then you kind of go, oh, I shouldn't have done that.

And I would say my hope is that, you know, every day I do it a little bit better.

How how he talked about your father as a hippie, you know, coming from the space that she came from, the time that she came from.

What was it like growing up as his son?

That's a great question.

So we grew up in a, in a, in a space in Mitchell's plane.

That was nothing wrong with it.

It just is, it was what it was.

We grew up in a very kind of traditional colored space, big roasts on a Sunday, doilies everywhere, that kind of environment.

And it was kind of a cut and paste space where a lot of us shared the same ideas, the same ideologies, the same furniture, the wagon wheel couch and the wagon wheel Vibercly fence, fence up front.

You know, I'm trying to sculpt the scene.

And then there was my dad, who challenged me to think a little outside of the box.

He made me listen to music.

And, you know, he wasn't even telling me I want you to listen to this music.

He was just playing it in the background all the time.

So I'm, I was acutely aware of me and Jimmy McKee with Janis Joplin and, and Bob Dylan's storytelling and Uriah Heap and the rock stuff.

Led Zeppelin was part of our our daily routine.

You know, I didn't think of it as different because it wasn't different for me.

And as I grew up, I realized that in the space I grew up in, that was an unusual thing.

And it might have sparked a little bit of my interest as I got old enough to understand and respect and wanted to know more about the music.

So in my late teens, I went through a goth phase and I couldn't explain it, you know?

Wanted to do that and I never got.

There you never got there.

No, I was black nail Polish guy and Doc Martin boots and because I found a group of people that related to me and we were outcast in the space that we lived in.

When I said outcast, I mean that in not a derogatory way and it just in a social way.

We were just not understood very well.

Nobody outcast us at all when we kind of went into that, that space ourselves.

But there were motorcycles and like minded people and like minded music.

So I really related to, I mean, I went to sleep on Depeche Mode and I woke up to it, you know, and it was very unusual for the space I grew up in.

And I think I'd, I would, I would say that my dad had a huge part in me kind of pushing boundaries and understanding or thinking about music because back then music was an escape for us.

You know, music was a philosophy we wouldn't allow to think and engage with.

And then all of a sudden in like high school, I met up with these guys, Ian and Nathan, they were called Spider and bitch, you know what I mean?

And they were just the coolest people.

I was blown away by them.

And I very quickly got influenced by them.

They were by three or four years my senior, So it was easy to be influenced.

And before I knew what was going on, I had a motorcycle and I was riding around and, and one thing that came along with it that I didn't expect, it was really popular with the opposite sex, though.

There was always that rebel girl that loved a bad boy, you know, And then all of a sudden we clicked into that.

And then that alternative thing became such a big part of my life and I don't think I would have tried the stand up had it not been for that.

I mean, what was before stand up, Like if I'd met you, then that's OK.

What you want to do for the rest of your life?

Was it was it something you thought about or was it just?

Definitely my I was a drama student in high school and I just kind of there was a naturalness to, to, to finding the stage.

I was the MC at the variety show every year.

I was the SRC chairperson.

I felt, I felt that I had something to offer in the public space.

And I always felt very comfortable speaking in public.

And that was, it's an unusual thing most people fear, you know?

And so somehow I, I was just attracted to being on stage.

I love that old thing.

And then there was drama school towards the end of of my school career and standard 8, which is like grade 10, I took a lot of drama classes, weekends, which is a big thing, you know, because your weekends are very valuable to you at that age.

You would hang out with your friends and so on.

But there was there was had an opportunity to engage with Shakespeare and other people that felt the same way I did.

And then there was my first trip to Graham Style around the same end with the National Arts Festival.

And then I just, I fell in love with it.

And then when stand up popped up and early 2000, I tried out for the New Faces stage at the Smirnoff Comedy Festival years ago.

And my girlfriend at the time would come, he got a tryout for this.

I was like is but I'm sure there's hundreds of real comedians trying to do this.

And then I got in, I met an agent about the second week of the run and they said, you know, we're doing this thing called the Cape Comedy Collective at the place called the Armchair Theatre in Cape Town.

And we've got a couple of other acts that are we're trying to start the stand up scene.

And so which acts did you are you representing at the stage they go?

We've got a guy called Mark Lottering, another guy called Riad Moussa, another guy called Stuart Taylor, another guy called David Cow, the one called Kahisa Ladika, the guy called Dave Levinson.

These are all guys that were in the stable completely unknown at the time.

And today these are some of the most prolific, recognizable South African acts in the country.

So I was very lucky to find that niche very early on in a formal space where we could, you know, just cut our teeth and do our stuff, you know?

David used to come to a poetry open mic night and do comedy, and then before comedy kind of took over and left the poets languishing in, languishing in the doldrums.

I mean, what was that in your mind?

Like, that moment's OK, you're going to try out for this thing and it's early days.

Wow.

What is the thinking like you, you know, like, OK, you're going to get up the stage and do and say what?

Like, that's what I mean.

That's how I'll think about it.

I used to, I used to write poetry and I started performing poetry because I discovered that people don't want to read.

But it was never, it was never like my first prize.

And I had to learn on the go kind of things like my control, tempo, all of that sort of stuff.

When I look at comedy and I have a lot of comedy, you know, comedian friends and I have a great deal of respect for the art because when I look at it, that's like daunting.

Like, you know, I haven't like have I haven't written my jokes.

I write my poem before I I go through it and then I go up on stage and I'm basically just reciting hopefully.

Well, but I'm, I'm, I'm curious about like that, that moment where it's like, OK, there's this opportunity.

Your girlfriend's like, oh, you should try out.

There's one thing.

Yeah, you should try out.

Most of us will go, Nah, I'm good.

I can see why people feel that way because stand up is a very daunting exercise.

That is, you've got to overcome what's like bungee jumping, you know, you've got to overcome a lot of fears just to get it out of the way.

I had that experience of stage before, so that helped immensely because by the time stand up came around, I was really doing it for a couple of years.

And then I realized I was doing stand up without knowing that I was doing stand up.

I was always storytelling.

I was, it was a very famous comedian when I was great.

Well actually before I was growing up, a guy called Noel Glover, part of the Bolton and Patras group as like Mel Miller as well, still in the circuit in some way or another, which he's still in Johannesburg, he's still around.

This is guys from the late 70s.

Bro yeah, I remember.

But Mel Miller, I've seen him, I saw a couple of times.

Indeed.

Funny, funny, funny guy.

So my dad had a tape in his alternativeness.

He had to tape it like a cassette tape that he kept on his cupboard because I wasn't allowed to listen to it because it was foul as howl.

And I found it one day and then I would listen to this tape over and over and over again.

And I would recite these stories to my friends and very quickly in my circle became known as the comedian guy.

And then I started to add my own little bits in.

So when I had a tryout for the stand up show, I had already written the piece about where I come from and why I think it's, it's not fair to stereotype Pascal and people.

And these are the stereotypes and why it's wrong.

And that's the the piece I used to try out and I got in based on that piece.

I had a little bit of an advantage.

I cheated a little bit because I've had about 2-3 years experience in that piece of material before I actually did it the first time in front of an audience.

So I think I was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

But stand up is, is a challenging thing.

And here's the thing about it is the name and the reputation kind of precedes it or, and it's not as difficult as it seems.

But then again, I guess, you know, I feel like stand up chose me, not the other way around, you know?

Yeah, I mean the the fact that you're saying is not as difficult as it seems.

We all, we all hopefully have spaces where something seems relatively straightforward and you can't understand why somebody else may look at that and go so, So for me, writing is relatively straightforward.

Like I've, I've done a lot of writing over the last 30 years, but if I have to write an article or a column, I'm just like, yeah, OK, cool.

So once I find my idea, I just sit down and I hammer the thing out.

But when I look at comedy, I'm like, OK, that is, that's a different type of hammering art, and I'm not interested in that space.

I, I think it's about realms, you know, you mentioned it like their, like writing's your realm.

It's something that if you, your, your personalities kind of developed around it and within it.

Like mathematics, for example, is not my realm.

I know that and I understand that for some people it's pretty straightforward.

The equipment is set up and calibrated for that kind of thing.

For me, it's about comedy.

I've always had the ability to make people laugh.

It was actually it was used as a defense mechanism at the beginning when ridiculed or made to feel out.

Comedy was always my go to as the funny guy in class.

I always had a little one liner for everything.

So comedy is my realm.

It's like writing is yours, and I don't have too many realms that I'm that confident and appropriate in, but comedy has always been that space for me, so I feel like I've cheated a little bit.

And then there's the the other realms, like parenting for example, where I don't think you ever get it.

By no that that that should never do well.

How was your your father's parenting style influenced yours?

Man this is a very controversial thing and if any of my family listen to it I'm most probably going to get the ridiculed for it.

My mom was hard as nails.

She came from a very abusive generational alcoholism abusive space where knee jerk reactions was most of it.

She'd be the one to beat us up.

Give us the hidings.

She's still she's still around.

So place a cotton socks.

I hold no grudges whatsoever because I realized very early on that her parents functioned the same way.

So I kind of promised myself that if I became a parent someday, I would end that cycle, that abusive knee jerk response to adversity.

And thank God, Touchwood, I've never, I've never reached, I've never needed to reach out and, and, and lay a hand on my kid.

And it was a big deal for me.

It still is because it was, it was also quite normal in the 70s to go to hiding.

You know, it was normal.

I mean, you're in the same age group as I am normal.

We, we there was nothing that stood out about it.

But it's that cycle of making abuse benign that I, I find myself now very conscious about certain things based on that abuse, very cautious about approaching things that I would have been, I think normally really open to.

So I'm very cautious about becoming too much of A target in, in the public space.

Or maybe that's the wrong choice of words.

Let me try that again.

I'm I'm, I'm, I'm afraid of confrontation.

I'm Yeah.

I'm not the kind of hope to send my burger back if it's not like a I'm not the kind.

I come from a space where you lower the punches breed, you shut up and you move along.

And I might have been a completely different personality had I been given the opportunity to put my hand up and go.

I don't really like this.

This is not my space.

So I make excuses for other people's bad behavior all the time, and I find ways to deal with it.

And I think my past, my history has got a lot to do with it.

I mean, I'm not trying to blame anybody for it.

It's just what it is.

I mean, it's what it is.

So my dad was a very soft soul.

He was, he never laid a hand on us.

When I say ah, I mean my sister myself, he's he was very soft and he was the kind of lead from the front type.

We had endless conversations about the information that we consume.

So I've recently been diagnosed with ADHD, adult ADHD, and it explains a lot of my childhood because I get hyper focused on certain things.

So cars for example, I'm a big better lead by default.

So cars is a comfort space for me.

I love the information, I love the design, I love the art.

And so I've became hyper focused on it.

So I know shit about cars.

I don't understand why I know it.

I don't understand why I know the designer's name.

I don't understand why I know the fact we only produced that product for that year in that shape.

So it's, that's kind of the kind of information I consumed.

And it's based on my, my hyper focus on my ADHD thing.

And it makes more kinds, all kinds of sense to me now, my dad and apparently ADHD, which is also very closely related to dyslexia comes from your father.

There's a genetic link there.

I didn't know anything about that either.

I've only I've only recently started to understand that or get into that space where a professional has shared that opinion with me.

So a lot of it makes sense.

I'm my father's kid, Long story short, and my dad was a big consumer of the automobile thing.

It's the one thing we had.

We restored an old 57 Chevy together before we passed and I had to sell that car to start the comedy club in Cape Town that I was so desperately wanted to start, which went on to become a very big part of my life and a very big part of Cape Town comedy scene.

In 2018, it was rated one of the top ten comedy clubs in the world #9 in fact, not #10 #9 #10 was a venue that I worshipped, you know, called Comedy Masala and Kuala Lumpur a bit.

A lot of big acts have performed me, so it was a huge accolade for me and to sell that car broke my heart.

But I had to do it to live this dream.

And then when my dad passed, the car came up for sale again, man.

And I did a lot to get it back.

I have it now, so I've got a picture of my dad, my son and myself in this car.

And so this car's got a huge sentimental three generation vibe to me.

And I'm I'm a sentimental old thought, I'll tell you that bro.

I mean, and your son, how is he with cars?

Big petal it but a completely opposite sides.

I'm like an old school kind of guy.

I love the engineering and the art of it.

He's a hypercar wedge kind of guy, you know what I mean?

And he goes Papa, what do you know about Ferrari's bruh?

And then Al Hoose art, exactly where Enzo found his, his inspiration from and why the 60s Ferraris was the best of the best and early 70s maybe.

And then after that they just floundered.

He would be like, no, they only came into the only in the 90s.

And I'm like, OK, so we engage with it just like my dad and myself did, but on completely different ends of the scale.

Yeah, that's brilliant.

Why did he start the comedy club?

Man, there was a big need for it at the time.

The Cape Comedy Collective had folded.

There was nothing in between.

And then I realized that for Stand Up to exist, for me to have the stage time, very selfishly, for me to have the stage time to progress and do my thing, there had to be a comedy space.

And then I started a thing called Your Master Comedy Club.

That became a big underground movement, which was fantastic when we would put 4500 people in a venue every Thursday night and your master comedy club became a like staple diet in Cape Town.

People knew where to find comedy.

Every Thursday night it would be at the River Club in Observatory.

And I kept knocking on their door going, come on, give me a Friday and a Saturday night or one of the two and I'll blur out of the water for you.

And they were like, you know, we got our egg eaters and a Friday and a Saturday night.

And then eventually I was in the waterfront one day and I walked past this open venue where they used to keep all the the broken parking meters.

And it was this unbelievable open industrial space right in the center of the waterfront.

And I was like, I would kill to have this venue.

And then I knocked on that door for a year or two, and they wouldn't take me seriously with respect.

They didn't.

Back then, the waterfront belonged to a Dubai group who didn't want any more liquor licenses in the space, you know.

And then I heard through the Grapevine that it had changed to a growth, growth point space.

And then I went back knocking on that door, back, back on that door.

And by then I will.

I had gained a nice reputation in the comedy space.

I'd done some television work and people recognized me.

Then it became a hell of a lot easier to speak to them about opening a comedy club because I could prove that the comedy club was working already in its current form.

Then I took your master comedy club to the waterfront.

That was a big step for me, cost me a lot of time, energy, money, and all of the rest of it.

And then very quickly it became just from Wednesday to Sunday every week we had a waiting whisper.

It was packed, 180 seats every single night.

We had acts from all over the world come through there.

Some big Hollywood acts came through there.

All of Joburg was there.

As far as the acts went, all of Cape Town was there, in fact, from all over the county.

And then it became at some stage that foreigners and there was a 25 to 30% were foreign in every on every show.

And they just didn't understand what I didn't understand what your Maisie Comedy Club was.

We couldn't explain it to them.

It was kind of lost in translation.

And then we had a meeting amongst our group that ran the place.

We realized that having Cape Town in the comedy club name would have shortened its Google space and give it about higher heat rate.

And it was a very business decision.

Eventually we we moved it to Cape Town Comedy Club and it was there for 9 1/2 years.

It was an institution that this country, for the guys that frequented it, they realized it was a big part of our stand up work.

And then COVID came and it killed it.

It not only killed it, it killed just about every other stand up club in the country.

So we had three stand up clubs, three 2020 and now we've got that.

Yeah, because Jason and them also.

Exactly.

Joe Parker also folded.

Yeah, because it was at Monty.

Yeah, I remember.

Yes.

And Cape Town Comedy Club.

Those were the only three comedy clubs in the county and then all of a sudden they were gone.

There was none.

And then there was this big vacuum, comedy vacuum where we lost two tiers of comedy.

We lost the the NT level guys and the middle level guys.

So the only guys that actually stuck around were the same old ninjas that were run from the get go.

There were ten of us left.

And of course now there's there's, you know, you can't hold the good thing down before you know what's going on.

These little open mic nights here and there and we've got a whole new generation of comics coming through and there's some spectacular acts in there as well.

How did you how did you manage the you're a comedian now you're running a venue.

Those are, those are two different to a certain extent, two different hats.

And so I mean, I, I know Jason and, and Donovan quite well, Nicholas to a certain extent.

But what I realized with them is like Jason is Jason's the business mind.

And because as a collective, they had, you know, they each had a particular role that they're playing, the business side, like the the boring bureaucratic admin side was covered.

And then Kate, you know, Kate's, Kate's, Kate's behind the scenes.

So I am curious how you then, you know navigate now you haven't split yourself because you're running a venue and.

That's a business now.

It was a it was very complicated.

And the truth of the matter is that it was a blessing in disguise that the business folded, you know, because had it not fold, I almost probably wouldn't have seen 50.

Dude, honestly, I was burning the candle on both ends.

There I was performing at night.

I was the business mind there.

I always have been.

I've been a businessman.

I've never had a solid job in my life.

You know, I've been an entrepreneur.

I've been on Arsenal my whole life.

I had AT shirt business before comedy.

I had a Courier business at one stage, all very small, one man show type of stuff.

But, you know, it sustained me and kept me alive.

Yeah, but I always, I, I had a problem with having a nine to five job.

I, I never understood why I needed to pretend to be busy when I wasn't.

You know, I, I, I couldn't cope with that.

And at some stage I became a sales Rep because that's the best entrepreneurial space I could be in, because I actually work for myself through another company.

But targets are mine and one side reached them.

Just leave me alone, bro.

You know, So my missus Katherine Bolander, who is a German national, we met here by 25 years ago and she's she's the centre of my universe.

Had it not been for, I don't think I would have been able to do it.

She's the logistics person.

She covered all of the bases.

She took care of the corporate gigs, she took care of the marketing, she took care of that stuff.

Then I had another, another person called Des Mackay who was a big custodian of South African comedy.

She's my Kate Goliath.

She takes, she took care of the bookings and the comedians and relationships with comedians are very important at that stage.

And then towards the end there, there were 36 staff, you know, and it's 3 different businesses.

Most people don't realize this is the theatre business and that that employs 10 people in a night, including the three comedians and the club manager and the sound and the lighting technician in the spotlight operator.

Then there's the, the, the, the restaurant, which I didn't really want, but it comes with a liquor license, you know, And then that business comes with behind the scenes staff, gorillas and, and chefs and waiters and managers.

And then there's the bar, which comes with another group of people.

So there's 36 people working in that space.

And I was performing at night as well, because this was all about stage time for me.

But what I did was, and like, I'm a little, a little bit sore about it, is that I sacrificed a big part of my career for it to help young comedians to help foster business in an industry that I felt that there was a certain group of people that I found were antiquate.

After that, they thought I was making millions.

They thought I was taking this, that was taking the piss out of it.

And I was scoring all kinds of deals that I wasn't scoring.

The truth of the matter is running in a theatre is difficult.

It's, it's hard as nails.

I wasn't shooting the lights out.

Yeah, there were months we were shooting the lights out.

But that had to compensate for all of like February, March, April where there was nothing going on.

So we had to be very careful and very cautious about how this business.

But thank God I had good business bones.

I still like to believe that I'd still love to own a small pub that does stand up in the future.

There's a time and a place for that.

Right now I'm on my own horse.

I'm doing my own thing again and I'm absolutely loving it.

Absolutely.

Would you say that that that possibly make, because I also, I mean, I truly believe that like that experience will make certain things clearer for you?

Absolutely.

So there's never, there's never really any regret because it's like sometimes you don't realize it at the time.

Then down the line you kind of look back and go, Oh, that's why I, I went and did that and it wasn't as pleasant, but I can now make this decision today because of that experience.

So my question is, would you say that that experience kind of reignited your your, your drive and your commitment and your intention with your work as a stand up solo?

Great question.

So yes, Ando, let me give it some context here.

So as as an act, sorry, as a, as a business owner, as a stand up comedy promoter, for example, I would never have gotten over it had I not done that business.

It was a big tick on the bucket list that I had to do.

I wanted to start when I thought there was the right time, the right place, and then I had the right venue.

And if everything matched the the planets aligned for lack of a better term.

So I had to do it at huge sacrifice to myself and my family.

And when it folded, there was a, there was a mourning, there was a, an, and feeling of absolute loss where men, you know, there were times when you're like, I don't know if I'm ever going to get out of this, you know, because it feels so shit like now.

And somewhere along the line, I recalibrated my instruments and found out and realized that this is just all part of life, bro.

This learning curve, taking care of yourself is an important thing.

And I was out of love with comedy for a long time, a good couple of years trying to recover from all of this.

Because I mean, what most people will never know, That's lawyers, bro.

And shit loads of them.

And these big organizations have lawyers on retainer, dude.

So every time they send me a letter going in breach of contract and like, but I don't have bums on seats with the country's in lockdown, I can't put bums on.

In fact, it's illegal to do so couldn't care less.

But if you go through the machine, you go.

So in that way, there was a lot of Ana there, a lot of saw, but I managed to hold on to my, my, my home, my properties, the investments that I've made and managed to get through the other side.

Huge expense to myself and my family.

And then something happened, you know, I went on stage, started again, stage time again, writing new material and conversing with other comics and then realizing that the reason I got involved in Stand Up in the 1st place was to be honest and to share and to share my truth.

And then all of that just started to come through again.

And then recently, last year, the end of year, my family was away at a farm with some other friends and I had some gigs, so I couldn't go with him.

And then Dave Levinson, a very good mate of my old South African comedy Ninja as well.

We were sitting in my pool and I was telling him some stories about my dad and he's like, bro, why isn't that on stage?

I said, but that's personal.

I can't put that on stage.

That's just like what really happened.

He says no, bro, that's what you got to put on stage.

Not the stuff that you think's going to be funny, that you wrote that you thought was going to be funny.

Tell the truth.

Tell him about your dad.

Tell him why your sense of humor is the way, because that's interesting.

I'm finding this hilarious.

Do that.

And then I mean, will you direct it?

Because I know I love him for a long time.

He's a very good mate, man.

And I trust his sense of funny, you know, because when you're writing a new show, you need somebody who's sense of funny, you trust that's not too close to the picture when I'm going, is this actually funny?

Because no, actually that's not.

I think it needs a little bit, a little bit of this and I need a little bit of that.

And then it'll be funny.

And then I try to go, that's funny.

And then we, we chatted about that for a couple of months and then I said, OK, I'm going to commit to writing this.

And then I wrote it and I shared it with him.

He directed it from Cape, from Joburg.

And I was in Cape Town.

We did it via Zoom calls and then the first run of it was in May this year at the Baxter Theatre, which is like, it's weird because it's the first place I did my first one man show 20 years ago.

So it was like full circle for me.

And I remember being backstage on press night because now it is Chaka Block.

The room is full of comedians.

It's full of journalist pressed ET VS got a camera over there.

This one's got another camera over there.

Doing the first few minutes because listen, you need as much press as you can to get the bums on seats.

And I'm at backstage thinking now, what the hell am I doing this for again?

Because this is too stressful.

You don't want to throw myself into a bus now and then.

I went out there just, I mean, I've got Comedy Bones, but I've been doing this for a long time and I pulled up my boss tool and I just climbed into it, bro.

And at the end of it, everyone was standing up.

I was like, dude, the reviews were great.

People loved it.

I ran it there for a while.

Every night just got better and better and better.

And for the first time in about 10 years, I was like back.

You're listening to the Listen to Your Footsteps podcast, a podcast in which I chat to Africans from a cross section of society and sectors including art, culture, design, business and creativity to name a few.

We delve into their journeys, the decisions they have taken to get to where they are, how they do what they do, and everything in between.

Essentially, we go wherever the spirit takes us.

Now let's get back into the conversation.

It sounds like you levelled up.

And if you're bringing, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm finding it interesting that like you've been doing it, you've been doing it for this long and then you have a conversation about the stuff that you consider extremely personal.

And now that's coming out.

I mean, you basically probably have material for the like for the rest of your life because if you've got to where you are not being inauthentic, but kind of ring fencing, ring fencing what what you'll talk about and you know what you'll perform.

And now it feels like you've had you have a whole you have a whole aspect of your life that you've lived with a richness of material.

What?

I'm immemorial.

But I feel like Prince dude with unreleased.

Shit, Yeah, exactly.

So now you've got you've got this vault.

I've got a vault and I tell you I've got, I've got shit loads of stories in there because I've lived this life.

It wasn't just in my head.

So here's the analogy I'd like to bring forward.

For 20 years I was on the inside looking out.

I was observing people, their body language and their vibe and politics and having a girlfriend and going to gym and all of those things.

And I've made poked fun and create stories around that.

But I was in the inside looking out.

So this show, this one, it's about our outside looking in.

And it's, it's given me this very different perspective because, you know, as an artist, no matter what art you practice, whether you're a sculptor or a poet or a visual artist or a whatever it is that you choose to do as an art form, there's a moment where you've got to be vulnerable.

You've got to open your soul and you've got to trust that'll end up where it needs to end up.

This is what it was for me this time.

It was about being vulnerable, being where I don't know where it's going to land and it's putting 1 foot in front of the other with nothing else but trust and I am blown away by where it's ended up.

It's.

Amazing, like it's, it's amazing to be able to go on a journey and, and just kind of find, you know, find something not necessarily another level because then it's, it's like it's measured the competitive way of measuring, but just kind of finding a new space, which, which for me, it's just sounds like as a human being, it sounds amazing because I think a lot of us are looking for that.

A lot of us are looking particularly at our age now, where I spend time kind of going, yeah, like I've been doing this thing and I'm, I can do it and I'm going through the motions to a certain extent.

And I'm, I'm thinking about, OK, what's next?

So I have a podcast or have, you know, I do writing for clients.

OK, what's next?

And is looking for the thing that'll just be a Oh wow.

It feels like I stepped into an A cave of wonderfulness that I didn't know was there.

I didn't know was there.

But you know, there are times when it surprises you in a different way.

So a few years ago there was a show called it was ABBC Spin of Gold.

Who do you think you are?

It was done by Emnet and I was chosen as one of the South African celebs to feature in that show where they literally go into your family tree in your genome and where you come from, really.

And a lot of the time it's a surprise to the celebs and the likes of now.

Agent approached me with this and said, OK, would would you like to do it?

I said yeah, like a Free Press, Bru, national TV.

Why not sign me up, bruh.

That one decked me dude.

It took me months to recover from that.

I found out shit there that I didn't know was their guy.

So we found out about my family tree.

I found out that I have.

I had an English ancestor and an Afrikaans ancestor.

So the Afrikaans ancestor married a colored woman and was disowned from his family.

So he lived in his own with his wife, a colored woman and his father and my other great grandfather Campbell was a tailor.

They both got killed in the same battle in the Anglo Bull war.

The stuck days apart.

So now you go, hey, I had no idea I was even involved in that, You know.

Then my grandfather died very young, at like 33 years old.

He left my grandmother with big boys and he owned a big chunk of Landing, Cape Town, and it was confiscated from her.

I used the inverted commas here slowly because she was a woman in the 50s and 60s.

She didn't have any rights then.

Colored woman.

Then I find that I've got ancestors or cousins that live in Cape Town that are now huge Jewelers, very very very rich people, brothers that share the same Zenit.

I will never go there.

It's none of my business.

Interesting to find out.

Then I find out that my grandfather who died, we were told because he he was over neither sized on a appendectomy.

Yeah, an appendix issue in the formal, we go through the archives with a formal cause of death is TB.

I'm like BSTB.

My grandmother was the most pedantic person I've ever met in my life.

Had he had TB, the other people in the house sort of had TB.

She would have known about it.

So to me, it was a big cover up.

Somebody effed up and they over anethicized this young man and he died.

So you find that shit out.

And while I'm doing all of this I find that my missus is pregnant bro with my son dude.

So this free priest thing turned into one hell of a life changing exercise.

A mild existential crisis.

No, A very serious existential crisis.

All of a sudden I needed a support group.

I mean, it's interesting.

I mean, we talk about ancestors because my mother's German and I have pictures of my grandfather in Russia during World War 2.

Wow.

And I think, I think he got married in uniform.

And from what I understand, it was estrangement between my mother and my grandfather because of my father.

Because you're talking, what, late 60s?

Different world in.

Germany and she's not going out with an African man.

So I used to joke, you know, when I did history at school and you do World War One, you do World War 2 and we're like, yeah, my grandfather fought in, in, in Germany and people go, oh, OK, I'm like, yeah, on the losing side.

And it's like, what do you mean?

I'm like, yeah, my grandfather was German like and he fought on the losing side and took me a while to but also because because I knew it from young it, it kind of it had no real impact on like my sense of identity and my sense of of the world.

But I also grew up very separate from that side of the family.

Very random question.

I was looking at your Instagram and I was seeing that you sent your son had gone on a plane to Germany alone for the first time.

Yes.

How?

How did that go?

Very well he is.

He's a very independent art man.

I'm very proud of him.

Jack is so he's, he's a Dario racer.

He's into this down the mountain thing on a bicycle I couldn't possibly afford at like 70 KS per hour type of deal.

And he is in the Western Province side.

So he's a very serious racer.

He wants to do this for a living at some stage.

Whether that materializers or not is unimportant to me.

I encourage it as much as I can.

So there was this big meeting in Museum France in the French Alps there because it literally is a a ski resort during winter and in summer they've got all those lifts that take you right up to the and you could go down.

And he really wanted to go there with his mates.

And because my Mrs.

has appearance to live there, it was a no brainer for us.

She could go and visit her parents.

My son could write the Daniel courses in museum.

And that's what that was about.

The guys get shipped.

I used to get shipped off from the age of like 5-6 years old and be put on a plane alone in Minnesota to to relatives in to relatives in Germany who most of the times I didn't even know who was picking me up like, and like the last trip I did, I was probably in my early teens.

So, so when I saw that, because I loved, you know, yeah, I was, I was researching.

I'm very impressed about that.

I was scrolling Instagram and, and when I saw that clip, I just, it just kind of gave me flashbacks because I mean, also as as a nine year old, you've got this pouch, nobody talks to you.

Everybody engages the pouch handed off from one person to the next person.

And even though I've gone through that experience for me to put my children on a plane alone, I still, I still haven't gotten my head around it, you know?

I try and challenge young Jack as much as I can.

I try to put him in situations where we practice his independence, put him in places where he learns he needs to learn how to take care of himself.

I think a lot of the time we we don't give our kids enough credit.

Also, we don't give give them enough space to learn things.

We spoon feed them.

The last thing I want is somebody who's inadequate at self preservation, you know so I want to give him the opportunities as many of them as I can and those of independenceless and adults that I know that soon enough he's not going to want to hang with me anymore.

But it's inevitably going to happen.

He's going to want to hang with especially once they get a girlfriend bro that's it.

See you later, guy.

And that's fine.

And let's par for the course, but we've got a great relationship.

We I'd like to believe it's very similar to the one I had with my dad where we talk a lot and he tells me, oh Papa, I can talk to you about anything and that's great.

And there's some stuff where I try to we're like we're trying to start a conversation.

He's like, I'm not willing to talk about masturbation breath.

That's not that's the line.

OK.

And so, but I mean, everything, everything's like open for discussion here, you know, And the The thing is, is that if I know this for sure, I don't, he doesn't belong to me.

He comes through me and through his mom.

The best thing I can do is equip, equip him the best I can for him to be as independent and self-sufficient and a proper Mensch on that side of things.

And sometimes it's not easy.

Sometimes I'm going to tell him, no bro, I can't allow you to do that.

So this whole especially this thing about feeling guilty that he's not living up to my standards, I'm very cautious about that.

I try not to set the standard where he's feels like he's he's, he has to be guilty on my behalf.

Where it's OK to not reach the goals that you set out to from the get go.

Some of them are OK just to keep trying all the time, keep moving forward.

And I think too many times a week we put too much pressure on our kids bro, or no pressure at home.

I mean, do you?

So the challenge was, it's a challenge.

And I mean, it's related.

So with my kids and especially with my son, I know a lot of people.

I have done quite a few things since I moved to Joburg like over 20 years ago.

And I've worked in different spaces.

So in some instances, you know, I can be somewhere like the one day he was like, you seem to like, you know, everybody.

And it's only recently I've been thinking about the pressure that he possibly, I don't know whether he does, but I'm, I'm setting a standard without intentionally setting a standard.

Like I'm going, you can go do anything you want to do.

You can pursue anything you want to do.

I don't want you to.

I'm I'm not trying to push you to live, you know, live my dreams and that sort of stuff.

I have a business.

I'm, I grew up in family business.

I was supposed to take over the family businesses.

I have a business now.

I'm like, it's, I'm not creating a legacy in building this empire for my kids.

Like if they want it, cool.

If they don't, it can be shut down and I'm gone.

Like I collect books, I collect comic books, I collect figurines.

I'm like when I'm gone, like if you want to get rid of it, get rid of it.

I got it because it gives me pleasure.

But every now and then I like.

I get the sense just by being how I am.

Sometimes that puts pressure on it.

Dude, you you.

And I'm trying to make sense of it, right?

So I'm in the middle of that realization is, is a recent realization.

And I'm in the middle of just trying to make sense of it and going, but then, OK, how do I like, how do I say, listen, dude, like there's opportunity and you have X, but don't feel pressured to.

And I had that.

My father was the same, right?

But I found a way to to navigate it and just to understand I've become my father in a different space.

It's, I think you eat the nail right on the head there.

You know, I've got a family member that I don't get along with so well.

You just have different opinions of the universe.

And I kept wondering why I keep trying to make build bridges with this person.

And I could never do it.

I was never successful at it.

And then my Mrs.

June, me the other day, she goes, have you ever thought about why that's possible?

Why it's not possible?

Sorry.

And I want you.

I want to keep wondering why she goes good.

I don't think you understand the big shadow you pose in your family.

I don't think you understand it.

And I never thought about it before because when I'm not under any illusion, bro, I am not Michael Jackson.

I'm not that kind of famous.

But in the space that I take up, people know me, especially in a Cape Town space, you know, especially if you've you've you've been ATV face for many, many years and now they know you in the newspaper regularly and you were comedian and you had a business in that space.

You, you tend to to know people that you don't know or people know you right.

And that's fine.

That's that's part of the the job.

And it's like, I enjoy it most of the time, but then my missus tells me this like, and then I'm like, shit, I never thought about that before.

I never thought how about how intimidating that could be or somebody that's in your space that shared your space your whole life and then all of a sudden all they are.

He's Kurtz.

Yeah, person Kurtz, other person Kurtz.

And my missus feels it as well, you know.

So when we go walk in in the shopping mall, for example, so now I take a selfie and I do a chat in a quick, she goes, I hate going to a shopping mall with you.

It's a waste of my time.

I end up stealing standing around like a third wheel most of the time.

And it's I don't enjoy it.

So I go, OK, now I get it, 10-4, I get it.

I get it.

So we do other things together as a family.

You know, we love hikes in the we go.

There's a there's a very famous spot in Cork Bay called Dale Brook Pool.

My missus loves the cold plunge thing.

I hate it, but I love it and I hate it.

You know what I mean?

So I go in there and I lose a nipple occasionally trying and I'm like, hey bookie, this is so cool.

And like, I so don't want to do this, but apparently it's fabulous for your central nervous system and your vibe.

And so I'd do it, you know?

Experiment to do it, yeah.

Yeah, and.

I, I still haven't got like fully there yet because I read, I don't even know Vim Hof, of course, the breathing.

So so I read his, I read his book and then I started, I started doing it in the shower.

I haven't done proper cold plunge, but I I actually got to the stage where I was only doing cold water into the middle of a July and then I got a cold and I just wanted out.

I know the feeling, bro.

So my missus, I don't know what it is about Europeans.

They just love this kind of alternative, holistic approach to the universe.

But Missus also has celiac disease, so she's fiercely allergic to gluten, you know, and not, but in the fashionable sense I'm talking about, listen, if she has a, if we're cutting the bread with the same life, the gluten free bread and the, the non gluten free bread, someone's not having a like a evening, you know.

So I'm, I'm acutely aware of things like diet and fibre.

And I now read ingredients of a product at the supermarket before I'm allowed to put it in the trolley.

My brew.

So it's they've changed my whole vibe.

Guy, I come from a Gatsby space route, now I'm checking.

From one extreme.

To the other, I use a piece of it in my material, like I used to go from lassing where lassing is like joining pieces amongst 4 Oaks.

You club together for Gatsby as a kid.

Now I'm checking the pH level on my pool.

My route, you know, it's, it's worlds apart, but it's, it's this makes for great comedy, dude.

I want to talk about going nowhere slowly, because that has become part of that phrase, has become part of my lexicon.

Wow, since then, and that's where I actually engaged with you and your work the most.

And I just love like I love that phrase.

And, and so in my writing, like over the years, I've, I've just always used it and thinking about it before when I knew we were going to have, you know, have a conversation, thinking about it now where I am and kind of going, you know, mindfulness, being able to experience life and not, not be in a rat race.

But at the time I was, I mean, I had AIT company and I was trying to make lots of money and I was in that frame of mind.

How did that come about?

And where did the where did the name come from?

Well, that's let me reboot the system and try and get to the bottom of this.

You know, it's firstly, I was immensely lucky and fortunate to be part of that whole exercise going nowhere.

Slowly it became almost a genre of South African television after a while.

At the time it didn't exist.

Yeah, I'm an old car guy.

I mentioned that earlier.

The director guy called David Moore from a company called Big Blue.

We ran into each other at a garage and I was driving an old car.

So was he like, ah, let's go, let's go, let's go.

So we got chatting and you went, listen man, I know you're a comedian.

I've seen you do your stand up stuff.

I'm shooting a pilot for a new show.

I'd love to get you involved.

We swapped numbers.

He gave me a call a few days later and he said, do you have some time?

Two weeks from now, we're going to go to our miners.

I've got an English comic, an Australian comic and yourself.

We're going to shoot a show called The Working Title is Going Nowhere Slowly.

This is all his idea.

And I went, yeah, OK, cool, let's do it.

I got nothing to lose.

We shot Pilot and it sat on a shaft for about almost three years, bro.

Nobody wanted it.

Nobody wanted.

We went to all the television stations.

We'd all tried to help sell it and get it in the right place.

And everyone went, that'll never work.

It'll never work, It'll never work.

And then it slipped to the back of the memory and the back of the on the on the back plate of the stove, so to speak.

It wasn't even sizzling anymore.

Or it, it, it was cold, ice cold.

And then some young commissioning editor called up and went, wow, we just saw this pilot.

This is unbelievable.

This is the stuff we want to do.

Don't you want to do this anymore?

I said, of course we want to do.

That's why we shot it and we got together in a week later.

We were on the road shooting the first season.

But we changed.

They changed the formula a little bit.

They didn't like the theory of three comedians from different parts of the world.

Instead, we're two comedians from South Africa and an information person about the environment we were in and the towns and the history and the likes, right?

So there was an anthropological part of it.

And the two comedians that were the secret was that there was no script.

We were just introduced to people in spaces and when we had to wing it.

And they're no better people in the world for that than stand ups, you know, And remember, keep in mind, this is pre Top Gear.

This is and that's what became special in the Top Gear space.

It was not scripted, these people.

And and most people think it's a car show, but it's not.

It's actually a lifestyle show.

The cars were just little.

Ewan McGregor with the motorbike.

Exactly.

I I watch the Tour de France every year.

Me too.

What's beautiful about it is you get taken on a Tour of France and you get to see the old churches and the history and, and you know.

And the vibe and the topography and all.

So it's the same thing.

So going nowhere slowly.

I left quite a skeptic actually.

You know, I was like, I don't know if we've actually got enough shit to shoot you right?

But I was so dead set on getting my career off in the light on the right path.

And this was an opportunity.

It was a conduit, was an opportunity for me to do that.

And then we went and it, dude, it changed my life.

What do you learn about yourself?

I mean, you're going into, I'm sure not every place was, every space was pleasant.

No, particularly within context of this country.

Dude, I I remember a space where the cast and crew of colour were not allowed to use the toilet.

This was early 2000s.

Yeah, You know, so there's certain parts of the world or South Africa that hadn't changed yet.

And there were days where we.

I'm also fiercely arachnophobic, you know, I don't like spiders.

I can't explain it.

I use it as some material.

Somewhere in the past, some ancestor of mine had the Poloni scare out of it by an Arachnon somewhere, and I can't explain why that makes my palm sweat and I want to run.

And then we ran into spiders the size of small cars, you know what I mean?

And I had to deal with all of that crap.

But in that whole process, the learning curve for me was I found out that I was a peoples person, no matter which people they were.

My real talent is people.

Comedy is a part of that.

Yeah, but my actual talent is, is communication with people, learning, interacting.

And you know, it's such an important thing.

I keep telling my son, you can't be communicating effectively if you're talking all the time.

Yeah, because for half of it is about listening.

And I encourage that kind of behaviour from him.

It's like listen more.

And part of it is even watching.

Exactly, just observing, consuming, understanding, because you know, there's a whole lot of non verbal communication that cannot be hid.

I mean, I don't know if you know what NLP is.

So neuro linguistic programming is a very powerful way to understand the human condition.

You know, it's not flawless, it's not perfect, but it does give you an insight to how people behave in, in an environment, you know, and, and what triggers them.

I'm immensely interested in that human condition.

It's what makes me a stand up, you know, and, and I've really, I've literally realized that being a stand up is such a like an onion, bro.

It's like multi layered.

And the more I get into it, the better my stage stuff gets because I'm able to include more parts to it.

And when an audience sees it, they just see one thing.

They just go, I'm immensely entertained, but I'm not sure why.

But it's pace, it's tone, it's pause.

Like, you know, good jazz.

It's not only the beats that the pauses do, dude.

It's the, the questions, the the body language, the use of the stage.

It's the asking the questions.

It's and when it's all put together, it looks like one thing, but it's not.

And even what's not said and, and what I'm creating in my head, like I've known Yusuf, Joey Rustine for a while.

And I'm, I mean, he was, he was friends with my wife.

So he was MC at my wedding.

I got married like 23 years ago when he was still in banking and insurance and wore pinstripe suits before he went into comedy.

And because I know him, I know that he'll say something, but it's the stuff that he hasn't said that is the funny for me.

And I'll sit and look at the room and you'll see who gets who get the joke.

Because the joke isn't what was not said.

Yes, it's is the joke isn't what was implied.

It's that innuendo, yeah, that makes it powerful.

Sometimes.

I don't know, you know, what a callback is in the stand up space.

So if I go, I do something about ADHD, for example, that doesn't make me concentrate on one thing any less or more.

It just slows everything down.

If I go, I'll be mid sentence.

I go, this is a lovely coffee.

Look a squirrel.

The only difference is now I go, Oh look a squirrel.

But I'm able to concentrate on more things at the same time.

And so I will mid story in the next story.

I'm out in the shopping mall and I'm running like, oh look, a squirrel.

So that's a call back.

So and it's a very powerful comedy mechanism.

So I didn't know what it was called, but that's what I love.

Like I love being taken on a journey and then all of a sudden I've, you know, you feel like somebody is kind of rambled off and then you're just brought back to the initial thought.

And so I do that when speaking also because I it's not, I mean, it's not comedy, but because I like telling stories and my friends are always on my case about it.

I will I veer off because, you know, one thing reminds me of another thing and reminds me of another thing.

But then all of a sudden, like 10 minutes later, I'll bring it back because something goes.

You're telling all of these things because you wanted to emphasize this point.

Now, that's something I can't teach a young comic to do.

You can't.

Either you have it or you don't.

So what happens is is you a storyteller just like I am, and that inherently is built into storytelling.

Yeah, I can't teach anybody to do that.

I've been training young comics forever.

What, in my opinion, forever feels like forever, and I keep telling him, you know, the story becomes interesting is when you are able to veer off it and then come back to it and finish it off with a nice little bow on top of it.

It seems complete.

It's Concorde.

And even the detour makes sense at the end, it's in the middle.

It's like such a random detour.

So the most powerful callback I find is when it's not even a word, it's an action.

So when I go here's a good example, I'll go when something goes wrong, you're like oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

So something goes wrong in another story later on I go oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Later on I'll end of the show.

So, ladies and gents, in closing, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, good night that it's perfection when it comes to.

Brought everything together.

I just pulled everything together that just oh, oh, oh, just did that.

And sometimes it's even more simple than that.

Sometimes it's just a breath.

It's like, because that's frustration then, and it's emotion and people feel that they know it.

They do it every day.

So when you're able and you understand the context of the storytelling mechanisms and you bring it together like that, the audience feels like they part of something they don't even understand.

But it's so lacquer to be present with it.

And I'm pretty sure you do that without even knowing you're doing it because all storytellers have it, all stories.

I've seen poets do it, I've seen motivational speakers do it.

I've seen priests do it.

Pastors, they don't even know they're doing it.

But so I've become acutely aware of it and the mechanisms of using it in a stand up kind of context.

So I I'm acutely aware of it.

But orators, people who speak in public, people who tell stories, whichever stories they tell, for whatever reason they tell it, they are able to involve and engage with it without even knowing they're doing it.

Even visually like I've I've and especially in this day and age where you look at a be an Instagram picture, a static picture, but somehow you look at that picture and you get that full, that full experience.

Exact.

Exactly.

Yeah, That's, that's awesome.

It's, you know, I haven't had a conversation like this for the longest time, where we, we, we actually, because communication is a hell of a lot more than just speaking.

It's sometimes it could be a simple gesture of kindness to somebody you've never met in your life before.

It could be a split second.

But that's the humanity in all of us.

You know it's what solves wars, so it fixes all the problems if we just allow it to live and breathe bro.

I was an exchange student after high school.

I was a Rotary exchange student.

My father's involved for many, many years.

I ended up in Germany.

I was like, you know, go get in touch with my roots on their Dame.

And so you stay with three different families.

So you do four months, four months, four months.

And my second family, my house father was, was, you know, very boyish.

He's a lawyer to speak in like quote in Latin.

And he had that that voice.

And I connected with that family and and around that time, that's when 21 Jump St.

was big.

So I get to Germany in the north town called Oldenburg.

And now 21 Jump St.

is on television, but it's all in German.

And there was, there was an episode where I think it was Johnny Jeb's character was calling the captain brother and the Germans Buddha.

I used to call my host father Buddha, but my host mother kept the family together.

And the, the, the time I was with the family.

And you know, I'm, I'm more, I'm, I'm an introvert.

And you?

Would have shocked me completely in that way.

I like my own space and that sort of stuff, but it also forced me to, I mean, one, sleeping in a room that's not mine.

And then after four months having to move with my first day in, I would literally set up my bedroom, put up my posters.

I'd spend my first 2-3 hours in the house doing that just to make it mine.

But my host mother had this thing.

We could be at a dinner, lots of people, lots of stuff going on.

I'm sitting at a table with, you know, all the German men.

I'm an exchange student, so I need to be in my best behavior.

And she would look at me across the room.

And that look was my home.

Like it was like A and she'd always do it when I'm getting to the point where it's like, this is a lot like, you know, I've code switched, I'm performing, but now I'm tired.

I just want to go home.

And I'd look up and she'd be looking at me and be like, OK.

My brother, so we have a lot more parallels than I think we understand here.

So I spend at least every year a couple of weeks I spend in Germany with my in laws with my friends, because after 25 years of my, my spouse literally being being German, I've gathered a lot of friends in that particular space.

And I spent a lot of time in Germany over the years.

In fact, I wrote a show, the previous shows called Living with a German.

And it's all of those anecdotes and culture swaps and misunderstandings and body laying language being completely different because we speak a different kind of body language, you know, So they would go now, you know, yes, yes, it's just, it's a beautiful way to and I know canal now, you know, and I mean, you would know it because you and you understand this just German thing and and my friends are called Bashlaten, you know, because it's an internal endearment.

I know them.

They're my friends, they're my brothers.

I love them to birds, you know, but you earn that.

You never meet the okaga, eh?

Vashlapidu, get a clap.

You know what I mean?

Vashlapid just means washcloth and just for context to the listener.

But that's the kind of term of endearment that comes with years of friendship and understanding and love and warmth for these people.

And, you know, the truth is that I find Germans have a great sense of humor and it's a misconception that they don't have a sense of humor.

So I'm acutely aware of of of that space.

And so a lot of Germans come to South Africa and spend time with us over here as well.

And over the years, some of them have been back 15 times, you know, and they love.

It there's a particular type of German who finds comes to Africa and then just finds a home there's and if he's still alive.

I was a friend of my father's in the Free State, in the middle of farmland.

And my father used to every time we drove on this particular Rd.

he's like, yeah, a German guy stays there.

And it's like, and he'd been there from the 80s.

I never met the guy.

He's just my father's friend.

I'm like it.

It takes a special kind of person to just kind of go, OK, I'm here.

I like it here.

And that's it.

I'm done.

I'm never going back home.

So for all the history, like there's, there's the other side where it's just like you find these people just kind of find a home in a space that is supposedly not, you know, rigid and, and, and I have that, I have that.

I never, I mean, other than as exchange student, my mother passed when I was 1.

So I didn't live with my mother and I've lived outside of like I, I lived in Lesotho my whole life.

So other than a year in Germany, but when I went, there are things that are very German about me and and one of the things is yo like things must operate a particular way.

You can't be.

You know, my missus, we had this conversation just a few years ago.

Why did why did you end up settling it other than the obvious?

Well, and she had a very interesting take on.

And she goes, and let's be honest, German people, they do have a sense of humor, but they're very straightforward.

Very straightforward.

They don't mince words.

South Africans, she says Germans play the situation of the person.

So if I have a problem with you, with what you've done 20 minutes ago, I'll come to you and they'll go.

You know, I don't like where you are tackling this over here.

And perhaps we could fix it.

Yeah.

And then we'll sort it out and then we will be fine.

We'll be able to have a beer later and everything's cool.

South Africans take things very personally.

So if I don't like what you've done, I don't want to speak to you ever again.

Now, Germans don't function like that.

They don't, they don't feel the same way.

So so I go, why do you?

Why did you end up living in the society?

And she goes, S Africans are very sincere creatures.

We, we, we live with our hearts on our sleeves, you know, you know, exactly how S Africans feel about things.

We also, there's a, there's an interest in there with S Africans.

Then it's different than Germans.

We like the five year olds at the 8 year old birthday party, you know, we're just happy to be there and involved, you know.

And I thought, oh, that was a very interesting take on it.

And she loves South Africa, she loves the people.

She loves how things are quite simply solved in South Africa.

A lot of the time when it comes to a social space, Germany's a lot more complicated.

It's a lot more emotionally driven, where South Africans are driven by happiness.

You know, we're seeking, we're all seeking out for the relief, the the, the, the, the open parts where we can live like A and because Saleh and I5 and group argue each other, Germans are very kind of about what process is required to do it and who's going to be responsible for it.

And listen, things work in Germany.

I do.

I mean, I'm preaching to the choir.

But when the train, when the schedule records is going to be there at 3 minutes past 8 bits, your bottom back China, it's going to be there, 3 minutes past eight, it's there.

Yeah, I mean, I that that's been years, but I remember connecting trains and having 5 minutes between between, you know, the train I'm arriving on and the one I'm leaving on and being worried that I'm going to miss my train.

If I have 3 minutes, then it's going to be on the platform across.

If I have 5 minutes or more, than that's enough time for me to come out, go down the stairs, find the platform, go out.

But yeah, what's exciting you right now, just in general?

I'm just really happy to still be doing what I'm doing.

I'm blessed, brother.

I really am.

I'm, I'm 52 years old and I'm still able physically, mentally, emotionally to engage with the people, engage with my family, my community, my friends.

I'm, I'm blessed.

I'm excited by that.

I'm excited by the fact that I still have the ability to work on an old car project.

That makes me happy.

I'll go into that garage and sit there for hours and just stay at old car parts and be very, very happy with that.

I'm excited about meeting new people, prison company included, engaging in meaningful conversation about what we feel the universe is and how we interact with it.

And and I'd like to believe that my opinion still relevant.

I'm also aware that there's certain realms of I don't engage in social media is difficult for me.

I'm excited about that too, in one way.

And then I'm I'm in and out of love with it.

You know, I love what it can do to put bums and seats on my shows.

And then in other ways, I'm very frustrated with it because I don't speak the language.

It's not my realm, you know, and I'm learning and it's like learning a whole new skill set.

Editing a video irritates the polonia to me, but I hate it.

But I love it and I hate it And I'm I'm still excited about being human right now.

I'm I'm excited about being alive.

I'm excited about learning new things, being a father.

But I'm I'm blessed, dude.

I really AM.

Thank you very much.

No, the contrary.

Thank you very much my friend.

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