The Comedian In The Wokemine
Abridged version of a long story I submitted for a writing prize in September.
Being funny is a social passport. It’s taken me to dinners with the judiciary to mine sites in the Pilbara and everywhere in between. In December 2019, I found myself at Campbell Barracks, home of the Australian SAS Regiment for their end of year revue. At the time, they were embroiled in a war crimes scandal, centred on the son of a former Supreme Court Justice, who received the Victoria Cross. He was alleged, among other things, to have kicked a handcuffed Afghani off a cliff and ordering a subordinate to execute him. Months prior, 60 Minutes ran a story featuring two anonymous SAS soldiers who blew the whistle about events in Afghanistan. As a comedian with a socio-political bent and keen interest in military history, I was across the story.
I arrived early in the soldier’s bar, known as the Gratto- officially The Gratwick Club, but nothing Australian has ever endured in its unabridged form. It has a commanding view of the Indian Ocean and is furnished with all sorts of war memorabilia. It had the atmosphere of a mine site or a football club. Having performed in both of those environments, I knew how to work the room.
I fraternised with the soldiers and engaged them in conversation. What they didn’t know, is I was doing reconnaissance and gathering intel for my mission. The soldier in charge of the social club asked if I needed anything. I asked, “is anything off limits?” He replied, “go as hard as you want, we love it.”
And so, I began… “It’s an honour to be here… but before I start, I want to address the elephant in the room… which one of you cunts was on 60 Minutes?” The laughter was enormous and carried for over 10 seconds. No hands were raised, no fingers were pointed. This audience was entirely Spartacus.
I continued… “now I’m going to say some things, and if you don’t like it… you could always kick me off a cliff.” I tore them apart and they did love it. At one point, someone in the crowd said, “where’d they find this cunt?!”. The funniest part of that gig, I can’t tell, as it would reveal the identity of one of the soldiers.
To this day, I haven’t heard laughter like it. Afterwards, myself and another comedian stayed for their end of year revue. They appreciated I’d taken the time to do my homework and provide the catharsis of laughter. Morale in the regiment was low at the time. Above the bar, is a wall of the fallen, soldiers and dogs alike. In order to hear the story, you had to drink from the commemorative cup. For the dogs, they had bowls. I drank whiskey from a bowl, so I could hear this soldier’s story of how the dog he trained saved him and numerous others from a Taliban ambush, returning after being shot and dying in his arms. I hung on every word.
In the Gratto, there’s a wooden chin up bar called Anzac beam, where naked chin up competitions take place. I was asked to give it a go. Being drunk I had no hesitation getting naked, managing 15 chin ups, which impressed, with one soldier commenting “you’ve got a big cock for a little bloke”. When my colleague was asked, he declined, prompting one soldier to say, “only two people have come in here and refused to get naked; you and Malcolm Turnbull, and I want you to know, we hold both of you cunts in contempt”.
The boys were so pleased, they arranged to take me shooting. I had never fired handguns, and my office hands were more suited to typing than loading magazines. One soldier had his young daughter there. She was emptying clips at a moving target without missing, like a young Lara Croft. I thought to myself “Gee… she loves the Glock.” She saw me struggling to load the magazine and said cheekily “do you need help with that?” The boys laughed heartily at my emasculation, as did I. I invited them to my upcoming Fringe show titled ‘Just China Make It’. Many attended and enjoyed my comedic take on rising China, declining America and Australia’s predicament.
Fast forward to August 2020, I was suffering depression. I was heartbroken, unsure about my career path and the unresolved issues of my upbringing emerged. Nobody becomes a comic because things went well. I turned to psychology. At the first appointment, I noticed a quote on the wall from psychologist Carl Jung: “those who look outside dream. Those who look inside awaken.” The other was Nietzsche: “all truths that remain silent eventually become poisonous”. I’d been considering giving up on my dream of being a comedian and taking a job with the Aboriginal Legal Service. By October I’d decided the 2021 Festival season would be my last.
At the time, I was following two stories, similar in nature as they both involved a whistle blower, a resource company and a power imbalance. The first involved a client I advised who blew the whistle about Twiggy Forrest’s company FMG and their duplicitous dealings with traditional owners in the Pilbara. I cannot disclose what happened to him, but it involved high level corruption. I was also aware of the intergenerational theft which characterises our mineral wealth. WA is a first world economy with a third world resource management policy. I remembered the way Twiggy and the billionaire press behaved when Brendon Grylls, proposed a sensible increase in the iron ore royalty. Like Kevin Rudd, he was deposed in a disgusting display of oligarchy. As Twain said, “history doesn’t repeat but it does tend to rhyme”.
The second story involved Bernard Collaery and the prosecution of Witness K, who blew the whistle about the spying operation in Timor-Leste. Collaery represented Witness K and found himself being charged by ASIO for doing his job, in a frightening attack on democracy and the law. Reading Collaery’s book, I was disgusted at the treachery done in our name, to an impoverished country who was our war time ally, where Australians fought and died. Key public servants corruptly benefited, through subsequent employment with Woodside. Neither of those stories ever made The West Australian.
The principal sponsor of the 2021 Perth Fringe was…. Woodside. Adding insult to injury, a clause in the performance contract, prohibited jokes about the sponsors. I was disgusted artistic freedom could be stifled by Woodside, who weren’t satisfied with just destroying indigenous rock art on the Burrup Peninsula. Honestly, that there was a restriction of speech in a Festival designed around the concept of free speech, should have been front page news, but these are not normal times and just like the Collaery case, this attack on our vocation was not of interest to most of my colleagues. In protest, I decided to donate part of the proceeds to a charity in Timor-Leste.
That adage about letting go came true. My jokes were better than ever. Pathos and punchlines set the festival ablaze. At showcase gigs, no comedian wanted to follow me. I had stellar reviews from performances in a new venue called The Rechabite. Everyone was talking about my jokes. I could see comedians up the back laughing and taking notes. I was being called the “Australian Dave Chappelle.” After 10 years of toil, of being overlooked by the industry I was finally emerging, and everyone knew it. One night, in my audience, I had Brendon Grylls, the opposition leader, SAS boys, defence lawyers, prosecutors and a convicted drug dealer all in the same room laughing. Isn't that diversity? In the spirit of Aristophanes, it felt like I was changing the view of the city.
Whilst telling my psychologist one afternoon, she relayed sentiments her female patients had about the MeToo movement. How they didn’t feel represented by upper middle class white women who hijacked the narrative of sexual assault and trauma to further their own vanity. But then she said, “Corey, your issues aren’t X or Y. Your problem is accepting yourself. Your archetype is the jester and that is your true self.” I left feeling harmonised, but what happened that night would change my life forever.
After my show, I went to The Rechabite Underground Comedy Showcase. I walked on stage and was immediately heckled by a group of young girls. Do comedy long enough and you learn hecklers are almost exclusively white women. I was playful and tolerant, but they continued throughout. The audience grew tired of their persistent interruptions. In closing, I’d had enough:
Me: “Anyway, I’ve gotta go”.
They/Them: “Good, FUCK OFF!”.
Me: “That’s ok, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m a criminal lawyer and I might get a rapist out on bail next week, so get home safe”.
The room erupted in laughter. Then a portly man up front said, “you need to punch up”. After a month of joking about corruption, to benefit a charity in Timor-Leste, it annoyed me. I replied, “Have you seen how short I am? Everyone is up for me”. He continued so I responded with a savage riposte, generating laughter so raucous, no comedian could follow.
“Look mate, I know you’re upset COVID cancelled your yearly sex trip to Asia and you can’t go and empty your balls into a ladyboy in Thailand, but it’s not my fault”.
Unbeknownst to me, he was a “journalist” from The West Australian, which Paul Keating once labelled “the worst newspaper in the country”. Afterwards he confronted me, threatening defamation, telling me to “punch up”, and accusing me of racism- an accusation which has only ever been made by middle class white people. What he didn’t know, is the girl accompanying me filmed his ignominious tirade on her phone.
The next day, I was informed the rest of my shows were cancelled. I responded by publishing footage of the journalist on my Instagram. Ironically, on the Sunday, I was performing for the SAS again, when the co-owner of the Rechabite published a statement about me. He claimed I told “aggressive, racist rape jokes”, accusing me of being a bad comedian, a bad person and when it comes to comedy, I should “punch up not down”. He was unaware of the pro bono work I did for climate change protestors or that I was raising money for charity. I was unaware he was the former CEO of the Festival, architect of the Woodside arrangement and acquainted with not only the journalist, but the Forrest family. (Did I mention he won the West Australian of The Year Arts & Culture Award? It was presented by… Woodside).
His statement mirrored the language used by the journalist, including all the trigger words to ignite a particular kind of online response. And it worked. The reaction was insane and the whole town was talking about it. On social media I was under siege from the Nancy Woke’s, who were demonstrating their slave morality and tolerance by cannibalising one of their own. On the Monday, Triple M radio mentioned it, saying I had been shredding prominent Perth identities, notably Twiggy Forrest.
They contacted me asking to appear on radio the following morning, to which I agreed. I was so nervous I didn’t sleep. It seemed I was being setup for a hatchet job. Beware the Ides of MMMarch. The host worked for Kerry Stokes by day and Rupert Murdoch by night, and I knew she would see it as an opportunity to further her vanity in the media by appropriating the narrative of trauma. I felt it wasn’t about the admittedly insensitive heckler retort; but silencing an emerging critic of the resource industry. Now I was Spartacus.
I was prepared and it backfired on her, spectacularly. I wouldn’t be lectured on morality by the billionaire press and as I had a recording of events, I would let the court of public opinion decide. Her emotional whiplash was audible. It was clear she didn’t care about rape, other than when she could use it as a political weapon or to advance her career. The venue owner, in an act of utter cowardice typical of men like him responded by lying through his teeth and using his wife as cover (hot tip for young players- if you want to upset a man with no talent, a big ego and things to hide, make his wife laugh about his conduct).
The next day, the Parliament House rape scandal broke. I published this joke: “if there’s a prohibition on rape jokes, how are we supposed to make fun of the Liberal Party?” I was acquitted, particularly by women, infuriating the cultural forces opposed to me, underlining the ideological schizophrenia which has taken root in the so-called “progressive left”.
She smeared me in her newspaper column, saying I “willed members of the audience to be sexually assaulted” while praising the spineless and taxpayer funded art tsar, who also happens to be in business with not one, but two shady property developers. I published an open letter in response, laden with pointed jokes compounding her embarrassment. I published the recording and actual, incontrovertible evidence fatally wounded her credibility. Triple M deleted the interview, and my professional life was upended, but my true self, the jester had emerged.
Fellow surfer Tim Winton later echoed similar sentiments when speaking about the “colonisation of the arts” in WA. People are conscious of something they weren’t before, and the poisonous truth is silent no more. Looking inside, I’d awakened, and my emergence revealed a power structure cloaked in empty platitudes, which having captured politics, now seeks to capture culture and silence artistic dissent. As Aristophanes said, “I am a comedian, so I will speak about justice, no matter how hard it is upon your ears”.
My open letter is now read in the Year 10 satire unit at the school I attended. I’m ostracised from the industry. I no longer do pro bono work, but …. I’m still welcome at the Gratto. They know what Woodside I’m on. So, to the oligarchs, cultural elite, journalistic moral police and intellectual pissants in the Arts community, I invite you to join me. 15 chin ups is the score to beat.
Otherwise, get home safe.
So the industry ostracises you - law or comedy?
Interesting read.
How is the ‘jester’?
Great read. Any chance you’ve reconsidered that decision about the “last festival season”?