Stand-up, survival and saying it all: Nikki Justice Pt.2

Nikki Justice went to a bikie club house as a stripper, only to end up marrying the bikie who answered the door. From running OMCG events to doing drugs with her dad, Nikki found the Underbelly lifestyle intoxicating. But when her father suddenly died, it was the catalyst to changing her life. The comedian joins Gary Jubelin to share the reality of marrying (and divorcing) a bikie and what life’s like now.

This episode contains mentions of suicide, if you need support contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Want to hear more from I Catch Killers? Visit news.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see aside of life the average persons never exposed her.
I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty
five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
the public into the world in which I operated. The

(00:23):
guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
just like the people I talked to. Some of the
content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
me now as I take you into this world. In

(00:46):
Part two of my chat with the very funny Nicki Justice,
we carried on from where we left off in part one,
when Nicki was telling us about her stripping career. In
this part, we talk further about Nicki's life as the
wife of a bike motherhood, becoming a tattoo artist, and
how she found her true self performing as a stand
up comic. Again, this was another interesting chat with a

(01:09):
wild woman, Nikki Justice welcome back.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, good to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well part two. We made it through through part one.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, we covered a lot. Where are we up to?

Speaker 1 (01:22):
We could have gone down rabbit holes all so many
different and varied stories. Yeah we did leave you performing
your first strip teas in part one.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Okay, So this is when I first became a stripper.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
I started doing started out just wait to seeing and
then from there i'd start So I never I didn't.
I wasn't a club stripper, so I never worked in
a strip club. There was one time where I accidentally accidentally.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I worked in a club environment.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
It was because wherefore lost your clothes accidentally?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
So I thought I was getting booked for a waitressing job,
but it was at a pop up strip club inside Sexpo,
because I think they have that over here, And I
thought because my friend owned the Vodoo Land strip club
in Perth, which I did used to work out but
as a waitress, just a floor waitress before I started stripping,

(02:18):
so that was like one of my side hustles. So
I just used to do normal waitressing there and then
once I started doing the topless waitressing. Because I was
friends with her, she asked me if I wanted to
work at Sexpo and or shift there, and I just
assumed she meant as the topless nude waitressing because that's
what I did. And then when I got there, they
were like, you're up next. You got to do fifteen
minutes on the podium, and I was like, with the
pole and I'd never pulled ants before and it's actually hard.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
There a lot of skill.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
They used it as a like a gym session, and.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I kind of just thought I so I just I
gave it a crack like.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
I but I didn't know that the pole moved on it.
So when I thought the way they're flipping around is
they actually so I kind of just clunkily threw myself
around really badly, and I was like, okay, I'm not
gonna I don't know how to do this, and so
I literally just sort of pranced around the podium, apologizing

(03:15):
to everyone sitting all the people sitting around the podium
and saying, oh my god, this is my first time.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I'm so sorry. They were laughing.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
I thought it was hilarious and so we were just
like I just walked around in a couple of Benett snaps.
I was this is why I have a joke about
like I was like the ray Gun of stripping.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
It was so bad, our world famous Olympians. Yeah yeah,
let's if you should describe yourself that way, mate, I.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Think our moves were on par Like I I distinctly
remember doing abandoned snap, which is which is like the
striper equivalent of doing the bloody sprinkler or something. But
everyone was lovely there was I got my first lap
dance from that, so I did I did a lap dance,
which I also didn't know how to do, and I
got carpet burn on my knees. But that was my

(04:04):
first and early time in a strip clop all my
other stripping so I would do the waitressing jobs and
then from that led to so I was always at
like parties like so it was usually like Bucks parties
or footy wind ups and things like that, and then
I would do so I started doing dance shows, so
you would that was where you know, the stripper puts
on a show at the party. But I just did

(04:26):
the like the entry level strip show. So the tamer One, right,
so there was like the tamer One was just like
you know, you dance badly for me?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
For me, dance badly.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
There was like there's a couple of like signature stripper
moves that you get taught, and then most of it
was in the the sort of games, so you'd you know,
have some lollies and play with those, and there was
the cream so you do it was called a hot
cream strip, so you would get shaving cream, men shaving
cream and you would.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Put it on their bodies and light it up. And
I can't.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Believe we evern there's no ock health and safety in
this industry, and there probably should be, because I don't
feel like these men should be at our mercy because
I had not. I remember I remember being taught once
and just sent to a job and this is how
you got to do it.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
And I was like, if I burn this man, we're both.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Like I'd been a bit reluctant to go to the
hospital saying how did you get burnt off?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yes? Yeah, So that was just it was like a
theatrical thing. I feel a bit of a bit of fun,
and so that was that was what I did. And
then there was always there was other other other other
levels of stripping, but I never did those, but I
saw them. There was there's some some people were out there,
there's I saw. I've seeing some crazy things from strippers
like that are trying to like have a point of difference,

(05:47):
I guess, and make their show unique.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Okay, So how long did that? That career?

Speaker 3 (05:52):
So that was actually quite short lived because I came
back from America, went straight into it, and it was
only I reckon maybe six weeks into my little striper
career that I met my ex husband, and so I
continued doing it for maybe three or four weeks after
we met, and then stopped because now I had a boyfriend.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Well, so your parents were right, you need someone to
straighten you out. Yeah, okay, tell us about we touched
on it, but tell us about love at first sight
when you've you've gone to the clubhouse, because I would
imagine there'll be a bit of reluctance going to a
biking clubhouse. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, Like I was pretty wayward at the time, and
I was quite reckless.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
But even for me, why do you say that, nicking Well.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Because we didn't go into what I did in America.
But I was partying. I was, I was partying way
too hard. I was also I was still struggling with
my mental health. My mental health hadn't been good pretty
much since my teens, and yeah, I was quite reckless.
I think I had to live fast, die young mentality,
and I kind of was like probably doing things to

(06:56):
try and make that happen. And then I met my
ex husband and that'll stop for quite a while.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
It did.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
It kind of settled me down and behaved myself and
ended up. I guess I had a version of happiness
for a while, even if it wasn't perfect.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Well, yeah, relationships, yeah happened. You have some good, good
and bad.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
But yeah, exactly, there's always good and bad, so it
always starts out good.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
That's how you get sucked.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
So okay, well you're not going to start it. It's
bad that sometimes I have, but anyway, we'll move on
with the recklessness. You were really live fast, die young
type attitude. You're going for it, Yeah, and that you
put that down to mental health or just your attitude

(07:43):
to life.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Or I think so. I actually think I was a
lot like my dad.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Like my dad was really spontaneous and ye reckless as
well with some of his decisions. I think I think
it was a mixture of my upbringing and my mental health,
which was probably caused by my upbringing, I guess, but
also I guess some of it's hereditary. Like both my
parents struggled with their mental health a lot, but they
also had like they didn't have the best childhoods either.

(08:08):
So as much as you know, they messed up a bit,
they were doing better with us than what they had, And.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
I think that's that's important. You can't look back at
people that are brazy children the wrong way if they've
been raised the same way, like where I learned from you.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, from as I used to.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
I used to there was a period of like, especially
in my earlier twenties, I used to be quite resentful
and mad at my parents. And then as I got
older and you kind of just realized that we're all
humans and they were doing the best they could with
what they had, and they were in their own way,
they broke cycles because you know, we had a better
childhood when what they had. And then I'm trying to
do that same thing with my kids. I'm trying to
give my kids a better life than what I had.

(08:47):
But then I've still you know, still ended up. They're
probably gonna still need therapy, but who doesn't, Well, my kids,
My kids have a much more stable life than what
I had.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I'm sure your kids can come to you and tell
you anything than that.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, we have a really good relations.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Which I think is a good good thing to have.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
I have a really good relationship with my kids.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
My kids have probably like rarely seen me drink like
I have made sure like that's the thing I never
wanted my kids to experience. I didn't want my kids
to be around mum, you know, drunk or andred. So
so my kids haven't seen me in that state.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
I think it's important with kids that them we're diverging
a little bit here, but with kids that parents should
be parents first before they become friends. Like you can
be you can be friends with your kids, but your
parenting hesitate the priority. And I see a lot of
kids go off track when their parents are treating them
like friends and they're not raining the mint.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Yeah, And I think that's what happened with me, is
my parents weren't definitely like I didn't have any boundaries.
I was sort of maybe maybe some mild ones, Like
I do something wrong and they be like, oh, you
shouldn't do that, but then nothing to forget about, yeah,
which I won't be doing with my children. I will
be trying to keep my children as young. Like I've
got a fourteen year old now, and that was the

(09:59):
age where I started misbehaving and mucking up and doing drugs.
And my son is so like, he's just a regular
fourteen year old kid, and he's quite innocent, and I'll
be horrified if he was suddenly doing speed or you know,
so I want to keep him away from that for
as long as possible.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, well, you've got the experience, so it can be hard.
While he'd be hard to keep it away from.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
He's a very sensible kid, though he's autistic, and he's
very black and white, and you know, he's very sensible.
And I think he's seen he sees people. He's seen people,
you know, be drunk or whatever, and he's just like,
I don't think I like that, Okay, yeah like that.
So I think he'll probably, like all kids will, eventually,
you know, go through there, you know, experimenting phase or
drinking and stuff. But I feel like he's got a

(10:44):
good head on his shoulders.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
I hope, oh fingers crossed you lose them from I
reckon from about thirteen till coming out the other end
of about eighteen nineteen. Yeah, and you just got to
keep a close watch because they can go either way. Yeah. Yeah,
that informative period the time in their life. Yeah, they
get wrong friends and that okay, but we're not saying

(11:05):
you've got the wrong friend just because you've met your
future husband. As you've walked in to do a show
at a bikey clubhouse.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
So I was just going to be waits sing yep,
and we ended up. So he answered the door. So
because I wasn't going to take the job at first,
they rang me back because I'd already They were like,
you available, I said yes, and they said it was
a clubhouse, so I said no. Then they rang me
back and they said we can't find anyone, and they
talked me into it.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
So I went.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
He answered the door, and I guess it wasn't what
I was expecting. So in my head because I hadn't
been around barkies really, so in my head they were
all all the bikies that I had been around were
like these old, old, fat, scary looking men, and he wasn't.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
He was like younger.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
He was like early thirties, and so I was a
bit surprised that it wasn't this big dirty barkie that
I was expecting. And yeah, we hit it off and
we ended up starting to see pretty quickly after that,
and then we were living together within a few weeks
after that.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Okay, so the nikki warning signs worked up or whatever. Well,
I suppose what you've been through this doesn't seem so strange.
But did you consider what the life of a partner
and future wife of a biki Withinta?

Speaker 3 (12:23):
I don't think I considered it properly until I was
already like in it, and I was like, oh, this
is my life now because we because when we first met,
I was young, single and didn't have any kids or anything.
So we partied a lot when I first met, But
then within seven months I got pregnant, so all of
a sudden, I was instead of instead of us just

(12:44):
being young and partying, it was like a serious relationship
and we're settling down and having kids. And that's when
I realized like, oh, this is going to be hard,
because suddenly I stopped parting and he didn't.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Right. Yeah, and the old daddy the club comes first?
How did that?

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Those words?

Speaker 3 (13:01):
And here all the time, all the time, it is
still thrown around a lot. Yeah, it's something that gets
said a lot, and it used to it would be upsetting.
But I think if there was like a family emergency
or something, then the club themselves would always want their
members to go and sort that emergency out. But some
members would take it more seriously than others. Like some

(13:23):
members would be like, yeah, club comes first, but I'm
also I've got to go watch my kids footy match
or I got to do this. There were some that
would and then others were just like, no, I've got
to I've got it. Like everything was club club, club club,
So there was people dealt with differently.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
And how did you find the fellas in the club?
How were you treat that there's a partner of one
of the.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Members hit and miss for I would say for the
most part, most of them were lovely, but there was
definitely some that I despised. Yeah, there's some members that
you know, like would be sleezy and you'd be like,
how don't you be sleezy, like I'm.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Your friend's wife, brothers.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, And that to me used to I'd like so much.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
You all go on about loyalty and respect and it's like,
well that's not loyal or respectful, and you just kind
of have to, oh, just laughing off his old or Yeah,
and there was also you know, there were some members
who I knew had done some really bad things and
I didn't respect or like that.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
So it was it was, it was.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
It was definitely hard knowing that you were around some
people and it went against your own moral values.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, you kind of just had to swallow things sometimes
and ignore suppress it, I guess. But there were Yeah,
there was good and bad. It's like it's like in
any any circle of friends or any industry. I think
there's good and bads. Like even in the police force
it's got cops and bag pops, and there's actually there's
actually quite a lot of men who, you know, they
might be what society deems as a criminal, but they
were like, they were good family men, and they were

(14:46):
really like they were nice friends and good people in
a moral sense, I guess, apart from the little crimes
they might commit.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Him.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
I know, and I've had this discussion. I'm sure some
people push back on it, but I'd like to see
good in most people. Sometimes when you identified some sleeze
bags or committed a certain type of crime, they don't
get a chance. But quite often when you sit down,
you step away and talk bikis generally here step away

(15:16):
from the bravado that they have to put on when
they're around the club. You can have quite a good conversation.
And they've got values are not that dissimilar to the
values that I have. I've seen that, seen that with them.
So what was about your fellow that attracted you to him?
Besides you said he was a hot, good looking biking

(15:37):
that you didn't expect.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
I wouldn't go that far. I guess it was like
it was an instant kind of like attraction thing there.
But I definitely think at first I thought the barking
thing was exciting, I guess, but that ended up wearing off.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Okay, to talk us through that, because I often ask
people why did you join the gang? And they said
the excitement part of belonging. You know, you walk into
a club and everyone looks at you. You know, you're
on your Harley's riding down the highway on the run,
that type of stuff. What was the glamor and excitement
from a partner's point of view.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Probably it's prettymost the same thing like it was I
don't know. There was obviously the bad boy and that
kind of thing when they would go on like the runs,
or if there was like a big like anytime there
was a funeral, like everyone there would be hundreds of bikes,
and there was something exciting about that being part of
that procession.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
And I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
I think I think a lot of young girls, well
not not not no, probably not the girls that had
good upbringings, but to see something exciting and glamorous in that,
like you know, it's just exciting underbelly kind of lifestyle.
And I think they've glamorized it a little bit as well,
like seeing you know, gangsters on TV and things like that.
It was because I used to love underbelly, which that

(16:58):
was a you're part of it as.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, yeah yeah, underbelly badness.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah, so yeah, I think it was just yeah, I
just had this idea in my head that was, did
you like.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Part of the attraction was you being the bad girl too?
Like maybe look at me, Yeah, I live outside the
norms of society.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah, maybe maybe, But I think it all wore off
pretty quickly, like like because once I became a mum,
I really like, you know, I think. I think in
my teens and early twenties, I was like quite a
little bit lost. And then when I became a mom,
I was like, I never I suddenly it was the
first time in a laugh, I never questioned my place
in the world. And I was. But that's when the

(17:37):
sort of shine started to wear off, because I was like, well,
I just want to make this beautiful family, and I
want to have a happy family. And I had this
idea in my head of what a happy family was
going to be like when I had one, or now
that I had my own, and I was trying so
hard to make it like that. But it was really
hard when you're you know, partner's are biki and he
wasn't prioritizing your family the way that you wanted him to.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
You wanted the white picket fence and three.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, and I was trying to sort of force that
and convince myself that I had it maybe, But because
for a little while we ended up with a house,
we had dogs, and we sort of had it, but
it wasn't Yeah, the club comes first.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Stuff.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
It used to get thrown around a lot because it
was not home a lot during for periods of our relationship,
so I was doing a lot of the family stuff
by myself.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Did you get included in club functions like I know, Yeah,
they have their runs and different.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Things, not the run so the runs was always men only,
but like they would always so their club had.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
They used to put on quite a lot of functions.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
So they used to do bin Doing Rock, which used
to be this huge rock music festival in Wa and
then and then it became the Dirt Drugs, so they
have every year they do the Bingeing Dirt Drugs.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
It's a huge event.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
It ended up growing quite big and they have like
a burnout competition and.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Stuff, so it's quite a big deal.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
They get like a few thousand people come in and
with women would always help out with those kind of things.
They also put on a music festival one year and
I ended up getting a job as like so I
was my job was to deal with all the bands
and book bands and deal with them actually like leading
up to it. But then it was like the stage
manager of the bands on the day. So whenever there

(19:22):
was like events and stuff, the women would always be
involved in that kind of stuff and like the parties
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
We'd cook all the food.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Okay, so for this exciting and outlaw lifestyle sounds like
the local football team getting there.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, it's very similar. It's a lot like a footy
club environment.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah. Okay, what about kids? Were they included in stuff?

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (19:44):
So a lot of a lot of the guys actually
are beyond the fan like and the club. The club themselves,
I think actually were quite well. I don't know what
all clubs are like, but this club had quite a
big family emphasis. I think a lot of the older
well I've heard not just I think, I've I heard
some of them say, like the older members, you know,
they messed up quite badly when they were they had

(20:05):
their kids growing up and so and they probably weren't
there for their kids.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
A lot and a lot of their kids ended up.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
A lot of their kids.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Ended up you know, you know, on drugs and m ding,
and a lot of them don't have relationships with their kids,
and so they ended up having a bit of a
family like. We used to have family Night, a monthly
thing where each month a different member would be in
charge of all, you know, bringing the food and have
a family night where the kids and everyone would all come.
And most of their parties. Would you know, earlier on

(20:32):
would be kid friendly, they wouldn't bring the strippers out
till later they would have they would still have the waitresses.
So I remember picking my kid up once. So I
was I was working, I was doing a fringe show.
I was in a cabaret show, and I came I
had to leave my kids with my ex husband and
they had some event on at the clubhouse, and so

(20:54):
I went to the show. I came back and I've
walked into the clubhouse and my little like two three
year old old son, I think it was like two,
was being bounced on the knee of this stripers and
boos were just bouncing up around and she's got my
kid and my kids?

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Is that this is cool?

Speaker 3 (21:10):
So yeah, different, different family orientated, but it was still
a little bit of inappropriate.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
What about where the wives or partners. Was there jealousy
with the other girls that hang around with the clubs.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, for sure, So the wives don't were A lot
of the wives didn't like the strippers. And because when
I first met my ex husband, I was the stripper. Yeah,
so I think it took a while for them to
warm up to me because they saw me as like
the enemy.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
I guess.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
So there was a bit of Oh yeah, there's a lot,
there's a lot of bitchiness.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
There's a lot of bitches the moles. That's that's one
of the nicknames for the moles, barking moles. Coles is
more the derogatory term.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
And there was a status being the partner or there was.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
A wife, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
So there's definitely there's like there's strippers, and then there's hangarounds.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
They call them onions.

Speaker 3 (22:09):
The onions are the girls that will sleep with the guys,
but they're just sleeping with everyone. They don't really belong
to any particular person. That just gets sort of passed around.
And then there's then there's you know, girlfriends, and then
wives and or wives and girlfriends are the same category,
I guess. But there was a definitely a like a
hierarchy of the moles. And there were certainly some women

(22:30):
that would like not give you the time and day
until you'd earned your place here and you had to
be a part of this for because we see people
come and go all the time and you might not
be here that long, and so some of them were
really fucking mean.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Did some did some try to mentor you once they accepted.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
Your No, I wouldn't say mentor me, but I definitely
because I was like, I have no filter and I
don't hold back, and so some I got told off
a few times for being out of place and shouldn't
I shouldn't be saying this, especially when I was knew.
But I'm just like, well, you're just a person to me,
and I'm going to treat you, I actually any person,
and if you're being a dick, I'm I'm gonna be like, hey,
don't do that, because it's that like a woman. One

(23:05):
of the women was mean to my friend at my
birthday party. She was like a proper wife that had
been around for ten years, and she was really rude
to my friends. So I sort of called her out
on it and I was like, but I did it
politely as well. And then I got told off like
I shouldn't do that because she's been around for so long.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
I'm like, no, but she's been an asshole.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, I don't care how long anyone's been around, Like,
if you're being an asshole, I should be allowed to say, hey,
don't do that.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
So the structures and rules that they have in place
also sort of filtered across to the women.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
And yeah, I guess.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
So, because I'm not saying I'm seeing here laughing at Bikey's,
but where rebels were going to do this, And I'm
not talking about the rebel gang. I'm just saying rebels,
we're going to rebel against society. And then you read
all the rules that you got to work bye bye,
and you think she is It's yeah, no, I.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Laughed at that as well.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
It's like you're you're meant to be, you know, you
don't want authority, but then there's a lot of authority.
But every club is different, so they don't have a
president or like people have their roles and stuff. I
think I think there's people it doesn't go it's like unsaid,
but there's definitely people who probably think they're in charge
and are treated like they're in charge, but it's not.
There's no official president or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Did you get a sense on the functions where they
were on the piece and everything else. Did you get
the sense of menace in the air all the time,
because it's.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
A yeah, like there was definitely so.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Like a family time at Christmas is all.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Almost every party would end with someone getting punched, right, Okay,
So I was always like nervous about bringing outsiders in,
like to come to a party, because you just be
like my brother used to hang around, and I was
always worried.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
That he'd be the one who'd end up getting punched into.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah, because and also sometimes like some of these members
are just being dickheads, like because it's their domain and
they can get it do so sometimes sometimes someone might
be out of line and that's why they get punched.
Sometimes they're getting punched purely because a member wants to.
They can't really do anything about it. So, yeah, I
didn't like that.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Now, I wouldn't imagine that it's a very relaxing atmosphere.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Well I think, yeah, it was a very different environment
when you were there sober or when you were there partying.
Because if I was partying, it was fun. If I
was there sober, it was stressful.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, Okay, did you any did you ever start any problems?

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Oh definitely, I would. I wouldn't say I used to.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
I think I would have said I didn't start things,
but if someone, like if someone started something with me.
I was quite feisty, and boys dress as well.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
I'd like to strip her with a thong once, like
a foot thong.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
She stole it.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
She stole my song, so okay, but she started it.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
I'm sure you were in the rock. I'm sure that
the club would have backed you one hundred percent. She's
still your thong, a foot thong. Where we're podcasts, so
people wanted to see, Well, it's.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
In case you got any American listeners or because they
a thong to them is the G string?

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah? Yeah, okay. Tattoos when did you you start delving
into tattoos, so not only on your body but also
tatoo are they?

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (26:07):
So I was always into tatoos, like even before I
met my ex husband, because the tatoo and biky world
quite linked. But I got my first tatoo, I actually know,
my first tatoo was a little one, but then my
second tatoo I got was a big one. So I
got my whole back tattooed for my like my second
or third tatoo. Yeah, I think I got two little.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Ones in Bali and then my big one in Nikki.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
And so yeah, I've been I don't I think you
should put more thought into your tatoos because I don't
like a lot of my tattoos.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
It's not like I don't care that much.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Like I just think, you know, we're in this skin
suit and it's all gonna we're all gonna age, and
I don't think it matters too much. But in hindsight
I would choose differently, or even some of them I
just wouldn't get at all.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Do you care to offer advice on the ones that
you don't like?

Speaker 3 (26:59):
Well, because it's so tattoos are like, it's like fashion,
and there's trends, and trends change, and so now what
was cool you know twenty years ago makes.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
You look old age? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, And so you know, I think my sleeve, I like,
I think my sleeve is fine. It's nice, but I
think it's quite dated.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
And so there's that. I think there's there's trends that
go around that people are gonna regret, Like because I
became a tatoo artist and there's a lot of these,
you know, girls that didn't have any tattoos and now
they're covered in these little, tiny, fine line ones.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
But like everywhere, they're gonna hate those.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
They're gonna you know, they're gonna spread as they get older,
and they're gonna go and spend thousands of dollars and
a lot of pain getting them lazy. So I do
think a little bit more thoughts should be put into
your tattoos. And that's just coming from someone who regrets.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
A lot of So what what what would you recommend
to someone getting a tatoo? And I suppose that depends
stage of life and not all that, but what what's
the type of cautionary tail you would say?

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Don't do it impulsively?

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Is because most of mine were chosen on impulse or
like last minute sort of doubt.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
And I think I get decision paralysis.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
So I would be like, I don't know what to fine,
I'll just get that. And then I was like, oh,
I wish I got you know. But I also don't
think it's that deep. I don't think it's a big deal,
even if, like I don't necessarily like all of my tattoos.
But I also am like, wow, yeah, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
You've got the what say the butterfly on your theme?

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, so this is one of the ones I regret.
This is going to be the first one our laser When.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
When did you get that? And what were you what
were you.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
So I got when I got this, so I became
a tatoo. I was still in a tatoo apprentice and
at that point, like I'd started doing comedy, but I
was very new to comedy and I never really at
that point didn't picture myself being able to do it
full time like I am now. So at the time,
I was a tatoo apprentice and I thought that was
going to be my future. So I was like, well,
my mom as well, just cover myself in more tattoos.
And so I got this one and I was kind

(28:53):
of talked into it, and this is the first one
old laser because it's actually not a bad tatoo, but
it is slightly.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
It's slightly tilted on the wrong angle. You can see it.
It's not straight.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
And we had an argument over this during the placement
of it, because he was putting it on my neck
and I was like, oh, it's not straight.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Can we change it?

Speaker 3 (29:14):
And he got mad at me because I was the
apprentice and he was like, don't question me.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
I'm like, but it's not straight.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
And then so we got someone else involved, and you
could tell he didn't want to question him either, and
he was trying to be like. He's like, oh, I
can sort of see what nick he's saying, but you know,
he's also right, it's not that big a deal.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
I'm like, it's my neck. It will always be seen.
And so he.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Moved it, but they ended up pretty much in the
same spot, and so then it was like, do you
want it or not? And I was like, oh, fine,
just do it. And I regret saying that I should
have either made him change it and move it again
or not done it. But I just went through that,
and I regretted it ever since because it annoys me
that it's on the piece of it. And I also
I think I think it was the fact that it

(29:54):
was not a good day. We didn't we didn't get along,
we were arguing, and so I just like, I would
like it gone.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Okay, just bad memories.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Yeah, and he was a dick. I don't need any memories.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Get rid of it.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
He's like the most embarrassinglypon my relationship history.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
No wait, I can't give the guy a paul chance
of response, so I won't delve into it.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
No, no, no, we don't need to go.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Okay the other street, were you into art?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Yeah, So I always was into art, and so it
was actually when I was in America, because I've always
loved drawing.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Oky, we're going to fight. What happened in America, Well, it.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Was while I was over there that I started drawing again.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
I hadn't drawn since, like my earlier teens, it had
been a while since i'd put a pencil of paper.
So I was doing a little bit of drawing over there,
and and I was like, Okay, when I get back,
I'm going to try and become a tatoo artist. Then
I met my ex husband, and obviously there's a lot
of crossover with Barkie tatoo shops and Barkie, so I
was like, oh, that'd be easy to get a job,
but the reality of a tatoo apprenticeship is very long hours.

(30:55):
And because I'd started a family that my ex husband
didn't really want me spending that much time in an apprenticeship.
So it was always like, you know, one day, one day,
one day, and then it never happened. But I still
kept so I used to do. So I studied art
for a little while. So when I when so, so
after we got married and I had a kid, I
went back to work and I was. That's when I

(31:16):
started working in project management in a for a construction company.
And it was while I was there I started studying.
I was first I was studying. I was trying to
get into law. Actually, I actually I've studied a lot.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
So there's many jobs as I had.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
I've probably studied just as many degrees and they never finished.
But the very first one I ever studied was security,
terrorism and counter terrorism. And then I quit when I
realized the only outcome of this is to become a cop.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah. Well, in hindsight, I look back and go, maybe
I shouldn't been a cop, but.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Well I joined.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
I signed up to that one because I, in my
silly little hair, I wanted to be a spy. I
was like, I want to become like a secret agent
spy because I watched some spy movies and thought it
was cool, and I was like, how do I become one?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Like I wanted to be an assassin. So I signed
up for that degree.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Spy, Spies, spies, artcle and I keep talking about Jack Bowman.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
I mean, if you're out there you need one, I'll
still know it. Good cover comedian.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
I want to be that law What was what was
law even more, I.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Think because being around a lot of crime and they
needed lawyers all the time, it could be lucrative for
me and I could also help out a lot. But
I actually really enjoyed studying law. So one of my
ex husband's the club's lawyers, I got along with her
quite well, and I got and she was their criminal lawyer,
and I just had a big interest in it, and.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
I actually did really well. So I was studying.

Speaker 3 (32:42):
I had to sign up first for a different degree
to get into law, but I only had to finish
four units and then I could have got in it.
I was able to use due to electives in law,
and I've got hard distinctions on both.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
And I really really easy subject.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Because despite as crazy as I found, I was always
a nerd at school before I went off the rails.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
I was a nerd.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
I was always top of my class in primary school
before I started going off the rails in high school.
But I actually like I was always a bookworm and
I loved I loved studying, so I would study, but
I study last minute, so I would stay up all night.
The night before it was Dubi du at eight am,
and I'd stay up all night and i'd like, just
get this rush and I'd just do my assignment and

(33:24):
it would be and it would be great. So I
was my written assignments, I'd always nail, so i'd always
get like top marks. For those exams where I had
to remember stuff, That's where I struggled.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Okay, yeah, all right, Well if I had a look
at a lot of different stuff.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Yeah, But then so I digressed. We were talking about art.
So I was studying law, and I was going to
be a lawyer. I want to be a criminal lawyer obviously.
And then and that was where my dad passed away.
And it was when my dad passed away that I
gave up on that because I decided instead I would
follow my heart and be a hippie and do art.

(33:59):
And so I changed to an arts degree and I
did maybe four or five units of an arts degree
before I gave up on that as well, because I
was like, I don't feel like I need to spend
twenty grand to learn how to do ar.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
I'll just watch it on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah. Yeah, you can pick it up with your father
dying and it's always a war the shed moment. But
that's changed your outlook on life.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
So my little reason. So my dad passed away twenty twelve.
So by then I had been married for one year
and with my ex for almost three yeah, three years,
two and a half three years. So by then I
had I had a toddler, and my dad and I
were quite close. But my dad had so my dad.
My parents, like I said, they got on the straight

(34:41):
and narrow pretty much after the circus. For quite some
time they were doing quite well. They both ended up
having good jobs. They made this like new life for
themselves and they'd really settled down. And then my dad
was definitely still a dabbler, so he used to party
with us at the club like he I think he
was quite enamored by the barking thing.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Mum would all a joke at last, my daughter's finally.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Mom used to say, I think dad always wanted to
be a barky and he was in a Christian biker
group when.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
When I was a kid, he joined a Christian.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yeah, yeah, so I think it was something he'd probably
would have liked to have done, and he was he
was probably around it a bit.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Well you made your dad pray out, Yeah I did.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
And so he's a party with.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Us and occasionally, and so I actually have like some
great memories of doing acid with my dad, which I
am glad I have those memories, because you know, you
laugh NonStop and you have silly, deep conversations when you're
high that you wouldn't have when you're straight.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
So I've had some very good or very bad.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, but for me.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
It went good, and I am glad I have those
memories with my dad. And then so so my dad,
he's still parted a little bit, but he had he
had had a good job. He was mostly you know,
living quite stably, and then he had an accident at work,
which meant he could no longer work, and I think
that was his downfall. So idle hands became the devil's playground,
and he got back into drugs quite heavily, quite quickly,

(36:11):
and then he went downhill really fast after. So I
could think he had the accident in October, and he
was definitely still Leading up to the accident, there was
you know, maybe some problems.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
He was maybe dabbling a little.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
Bit too much sometimes when he would because he was
five four, so it was when he come home. But
then the accident just meant he had nothing to stop
him from because usually he would have to you got
to go to work, you got to not take drugs
because you've got to get drug tested. And then as
soon as that was gone, he just Yeah. So by
December he had things got like really bad. There was
so many like messy family problems. Yeah, December twenty twenty twelve,

(36:50):
he ended up taking his own life, which sucked. Yeah,
we had a complicated relationship. We were close, but I
also was at the time, I was not very happy
with him, Like I was telling him he needs to
pull his head in. Yeah, and I wanted him to
pull his head in like he was even for even
for the bikies. He was doing too much because my

(37:11):
ex husband's club sort of had a rule about meth
heads and stuff like that they didn't associate with them
and you weren't allowed to do it. Their associates weren't
allowed to do it. And I think my dad was
on thin ice like with my ex husband as well,
because he knew what he was doing.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
And yeah, so we did.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
We did have many chats, Like I think we spoke
a few days before he did it, and he knew
he was struggling, and he told me he was struggling mentally,
and you know, we sort of thought it was in
part because of his job, but he was also you know,
he wasn't perfect before before that. But yeah, we had
we had a big chat about everything because there'd been
a big family argument and I had to go over

(37:48):
there to try and sort of settle it down and
sort it out. And so we had a huge chat
a few days before he died, and the end of
the chat, like, he definitely I remember him bringing up
suicide or having suicidal thoughts. And and because I have
also had suicidal thoughts where we talked to you know,
you know, yeah, we have these thoughts sometimes, but we
will never do that to each other. Because we actually
had a family friend whose son committed suicide a few

(38:09):
years earlier, and we saw like just how devastating it was,
and so because that was only quite recent as well,
I thought we left the conversation on the same page that, yeah,
we get these thoughts sometimes, we'll never do that to
each other. We love each other and you know, always
be here for you, blah blah blah. And then a
few days later he was gone, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
I can see why, that's that's painful for you.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Yeah, so it definitely sucked, but it also was the
catalyst for changing my life because that was it took,
It took. It was a long process, but that was when.
So losing my dad is what sort of put me
on a path of wanting to have a better life,
I guess, and I was. I became a little bit

(38:51):
spiritual during that time as well, and I didn't want
to I didn't want to party, and I didn't want
that lifestyle anymore. And it also, I think because I
became a little bit spiritual and startup folks, and I
think I was trying to heal myself from losing him,
but what I ended up doing was also heal myself
and make me realize I don't want to be in
this situation anymore where you know, I wasn't in a

(39:12):
happy relationship and I didn't like I didn't like the
boundaries that you know were always been crossed and stuff.
So eventually that's what led to me not wanting to.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Be married anymore.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
And so yeah, all these things a domino effect. But yeah,
losing my dad was awful and hard, but it also
taught me a lot and made me grow a lot
as a person.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, well, you still feel like a kid when you've
got your dad to sound things past and once they're gone,
it makes you reflect. Yeah, so okay, we've gone through that,
the relationship eight years you were married, separation that that
would be, well, any separations hard. Is it hard separating

(39:56):
from a biking you have to get approved from the
club or no.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
The club's not involved in it in any way really,
But it was real.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
It was a really messy breakup. It was.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
It was quite difficult, and it was quite hostile as well,
and uh, yeah, it was. It was up there with
one of the worst things I've been through, like losing
my dad and that initial.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Breakup it was.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
It was pretty brutal and it took took a long
time for things to settle down, but eventually they did.
And now fortunately we actually get along and we co
parent nicely and the kids, you know, get to see
both parents at you know, functions and events and we
all we've even been on holidays together and stuff.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
So full that.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
The way, yeah, and the difference it made on my kids,
Like once we started getting along, you could see it
was huge. So I think that's really important for families
and for kids to see their parents getting along and
you have to.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
You have to forgive things that people don't say sorry for.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
You got it. You've got to suck it in. Yeah,
you really really do for the sake of the kids
if you can.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
And also, in hindsight, I didn't handle everything perfectly either.
No one's faultless.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
No, I don't think anyone anyone does. But if you
can give that priority to the kids. So congratulations to
both of you.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
And we're very lucky to be in a situation we
are now.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
So this whole life that you've lived is just to
give you stories so you could be a stand up comedian.
I've been working under cover all these years.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
It kind of made it worth it, doesn't it.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
At least I've because I've always had these crazy stories,
but like just sitting around, you know, having a drink
with someone and oh wow, now I actually have a
platform to tell them and make them into jokes.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
And so how did you find your way there doing
stand up comedy? So because you've tried a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah, yeah, So after I left my ex husband, it
was twenty twenty one when I started stand up. So
by twenty twenty one, I'd gone back to stripping as
soon as we broke up because we had a business
together but closed it down. I started closing the business,
so I knew we were going to break up before
he knew, but he probably knew as well because he

(42:14):
was also I was, we'll both make a moves. He
got a new girlfriend. I closed down our business so
I could go with Chess.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
So I think we both knew we were on the rocks.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
And so my therapist had actually suggested closing the business
down and starting to get my ducks in a row
because I talked about wanting to leave.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
And then.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
So we had a memorial business. We used to make
headstones and photo engraved memorials and stuff. So I went
back to stripping as soon as pretty much as soon
as I became a single arm because I suddenly needed
income and it was the easiest and quickest thing I
knew I could get straight back into.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
And fortunately I also lost a lot of because I
only just had a baby.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
But I lost a lot of baby wait, because I
going through a heartbreak.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Does wonders for the figure I've.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Seen that the breakup dime.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah, everyone're like you look great. I'm like, yeah, I
got by.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
So much.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, So I went back to stripping.

Speaker 3 (43:16):
So I was still stripping when I started comedy, and
I think it was one of the lockdowns had sort
of triggered it. So we were in a lockdown and
I posted like a parody song making fun of my failures.
It was it was to the sound of silence, but
I called it the sound of failure, and it was
about my failed marriage and my failed only fans and
my fail because the only fans didn't.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Actually end up happening. My joke was that I only
had one fan.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
He was my only fan, and anyway, so I made
up this silly little thing, and I was posting. I
was always posting silly stuff on my stories. And a
comedian because I'd been to a few comedy shows, and
a comedian followed me and he commented on one of
my things hashtag comedian and that I think that's what
planted the seed. And then not long after that, I

(44:02):
the seed had sort of been planted, and then I
just made that parody that people thought was funny, and yeah,
so I started. I think I started like thinking, oh,
maybe I could do some jokes, and then they kind
of just came to me naturally. Like I remember being
in the bathroom doing my makeup, and then I just
started laughing at my thought process and I was like
just reliving stories, but I was making them a bit
funnier and throwing on a punchline.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
And so I recorded myself. I pretended I had an audience.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
I recorded myself doing a couple of these little ideas
in my head, and I sent them to some friends
and I was like, is this funny? And look, they
were probably just being nice to me, but they said yes,
And so I was like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
do an open mic. And I got onto an open
mic like a week after that, and I was really
fortunate because I got onto like one of the best
open mics in Perth. So the best club in Perth

(44:47):
is the Comedy Lounge, and they used to have a
Wednesday open mic night and they stopped doing it like
about two weeks after I got on, so I was
quite lucky. I got a really good gig for my
first one, and it went quite well. Hindsight, I have
watched that video. It is so cringe. It was so bad.
I was the audience was laughing, but also a good

(45:07):
chunk of the audience were my friends. So I had,
I had a support crew. I was also a little
bit high. I had my friend who I hadn't seen
in years. It was just this chick who saw that
I posted about doing it, and she came along and
I hadn't seen her in like eight years, and she
had mushrooms in her bag. And this is like, because
I was on in the second half, and so we're
just watching the first half and she's like, I've got

(45:30):
some mushrooms. Do you want a mushroom? And I was like, okay.
So I just had one little one, not enough to
like trip balls, but enough to make me laugh at
my own jokes.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
I thought I was hilarious.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
And so I was on stage and it gave me confidence,
I guess. So I feel like I'm glad I had
the mushroom because of very differently.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah, what you just said there. If you've got confidence,
like I felt good, there's nothing worse than someone on stage.
It's feeling yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
And then I because I do struggle a lot with
anxiety and nervousness, and sometimes it does come through on stage.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
I get the shake, so like.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Sometimes I can I can control I can calm myself
down enough to control what's coming out of my mouth.
But there'll be like physical signs, like sometimes my hand
will be shaking, and the hand I'm like, fine, people
notice it, but it's not that big deal.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
If my legs start shaking, I'm fucked because it's all
so obvious.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah that's that sucks when but that hasn't happened in
a long time.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
Touch with it.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
But the handshake, I get the handshakes.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
But you're as good as without putting pressure on you.
You're good as your last performance. Like you're doing stand
up comedy. You're out there, this crowd there come to
pay to see you. Yeah whatever.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Yeah, You're always feeling like you're trying to get good enough,
and then when you finally feel like you're good enough,
you get you do another gig after and you're like,
oh fuck, I just because my show at Perth Fringe,
well this year I won Best Comedy and I thought
that was my moment.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
I was like, oh, now I'm good enough.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
And then I went to the next festival and it
didn't do as well, like it was just harder, and I.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Was like, ah, I still, well, I think you've always
got to look for that improvement, Like it never be satisfied,
because if I think you went out there without the nerves,
you're going to crash. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Sure, And I'm actually excited knowing what I know now.
So when I first started comedy, everyone would say, oh,
you've got to do it for at least three years
before you've you know, before you're actually any good. And
I was like, I'll be fine, and that was so right.
It takes it takes years and to develop. And you know,
there's a few exceptions to the rule, who you know,
take off quickly, like Andrew.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
We'll talk about Andrew later.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Here's an exception to the rule, but most people do
have to.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
And so even though I know I've got heaps of
room for improvement, and I always feeling like I'm not
quite good enough, but I know I'm doing pretty well
for where I'm at and how long I've been doing comedy,
and I'm excited to see where I'm at in another
three years, four years, five years, because you can only
keep getting better.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
The more stage time you get, the better you get.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
Imagine, like stage presence is crucial. You've got to have
that d be funny, but if you're not delivering them,
and I.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Can feel the difference.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Sometimes sometimes you just have a set and you're just
like that was really like you just felt really present
and grounded, and it was like a really flowy set
instead of just reciting things. And I know that once
eventually that'll come naturally and it will happen all the time,
whereas now it's like, I'm still I'm still battling with
my nerves a lot.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Do you go out there with and I'm curious because
I think I can understand the challenge of getting out
there and trying to make people laugh. Do you go
out there and know you're at the bathim like the
timings and all that. Or do you go out there
and you've got a rough idea and then you look
at the audience and go, Okay, this is working. That's
not How do you prepare?

Speaker 3 (48:39):
So when you're first, right, like when you're first writing
new material, it's more well, for me, it's more of
an idea, like I'll sometimes try and write it out,
but often it'll just be like, I've got this idea
and sometimes it's better to go You've got to go
to open mics. You don't do this when there's a
good gig. But so you kind of just work it out,

(49:00):
and you'll say it the first time and be like, Okay,
this bit work, this bit didn't, and you just have
to keep going to open MIC's risking that it's going
to not work and bomb.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Until you get it right.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
And then once you get it right, you kind of
you kind of you can change it up a little
bit sometimes, and sometimes things will happen naturally on the spot.
So sometimes even though I've got my set sort of verbatim,
a new thought will pop in or something might have
happened that night that you can call back to and
work it in, and so it does sort of become
a little bit fluid, but you sort of know what

(49:31):
you're going to say.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
That's a real talent, but there isn't going out there
with the confidence that you know you've got something that
can become fluid and I'm going to nail it. Now
is my time? Yeah, and annail it. What's your what's
your big crash and burn story?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
If you had one story, I've definitely bombed. We're all bombed.
We've all bombed. I had so I've.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Got a very bad memory, probably partly from ad D,
partly from all the drugs I talk when I was younger,
but my memory really bad, and so when if something
throws me off on stage, it's really hard for me
to find my way back to where I was. And
there was one time, it was only one time, but
I couldn't remember. I just could not remember where I was.
I couldn't remember what to do next. I just went blank,

(50:13):
like complete mental blank. And I get mental blanks in
life a lot, but on stage it was the first
time it happened where I went blank, and I just
couldn't dig myself out. And I had because normally you
have a mental blank and then you might, you know,
you might delay things a little bit without the audience
really knowing, and then you will find a way out
of it. But this time I just couldn't, and I

(50:33):
had to literally just say I've gone blank. I don't
remember what I was what I was saying, and it
was so awkward, and it was at a gig where
it was already I was quite nervous. I think that
was probably partly why I had a mental blank. I
was really nervous because it was like a sea of
older people and I thought, oh this, I'm a lot
for these My stuff's going to be a lot for

(50:54):
these people.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
So I was really nervous.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Already and yeah, that was that was I did end
up continuing, so I eventually changed tech, went to a
remembered a joke that I could tell and went on
with it, but because it just ruined by set, because
I was like, I was halfway part way through a joke,
couldn't finish it, and then had to do this awkward

(51:16):
that that's so yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
I've had that moment once and it was terrifying, and
I was doing a live show and I had a
monologue to know twenty thirty minutes, lights were too low
or whatever, and I've just got I was like a
deer in the sty Yeah you do. And as you
describe that, that's exactly who am I. It just went

(51:40):
blank and then saw the real gathered. But it sticks
with your mind for the rest of the rest of
the rest of the time.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
So it was always It's always been my worst fear
to go blank, and then it happened. Yeah, But I
think what I like to say is when people you know,
afraid of things, because one of my mottos is feel
the fear and do it anyway. And when the worst
happens at the end of the day, it's actually not
that bad. Like, yeah, it sucked, it was embarrassing. Those
people probably think I suck, and you know, I don't

(52:07):
know if they ever see me again, and they probably think, oh,
she's terrible. But that's I mean, that's the worst of it.
And then you can go on and have a really
good gig. And I think everyone's had a bad gig
as well. I don't think you've done comedy properly if
you haven't had a bad game.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
And I would imagine with it, it's about and you
said you at the game of the open mics, and
it's about paying your dues, isn't It's about taking those
knocks and getting those laughs and getting the field, getting
the room and all that. I just think it's fascinating.
I think it's a real challenging career. You put yourself
out there, more confronting than stripping.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
I think, oh yeah, way easier.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
So with the woke society today, how do you navigate
the way through there? Because sometimes I always laugh at
People's probably the wrong way to say it, but when
people go to a stand up that's there to shock you,
and then they complain that the comic has said something
that's offensive or someone takes afense to it. How do

(53:07):
you navigate your way through that.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
I generally, if I come up with a joke that
I think is funny but I know it might be
a little offensive, I'll still try it.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
Like I have one joke that I got rid of
because I was like, okay, it is funny and most
people do laugh, but then a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Like you shouldn't say that.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Yeah, and then and I'll probably still pull it out.
If I can tell we're in a kind of crowd
that will be okay with it, I'll probably still do it.
If we're in like a big browdy, you pub kind
of crowd where they're full of bogans, they would love it.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Just a way of getting through. Like some could say,
you've had a traumatic life in different things that's happened,
But to be able to laugh, doesn't that make a difference. Yeah,
you're talking about your childhood. Others could be saying, oh,
my parents did this and hide behind that. You embrace it,
deal with it and take some humor from Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Well, I think you know there's are my own last
people we laugh at our traumas and our misfortunes all
the time.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
I think that's a human thing to do.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Keep it up because I think I know through time
in homicide and not just from the policing point of view,
the victim's point of views, and that you've got to
find some brightness in the darkness, Like the world's dark enough.
So yeah, let's have a laugh, laugh at there. Like
a lot of your jokes, I would imagine the laughing
at your own expense. So yeah, that's a good attitude.

(54:26):
Speaking of laughing at own expenses that I'm not sure
if they put it in the love category, but you
are seeing a person that's known to I Catch Killers,
Andrew Hamilton, that we are allowed to mention these names.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yeah, that's fine, Okay.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Andrew Hamilton, who's appeared on this podcast and people might
remember him as the man that got locked up for
selling mushrooms, and he also hosted our Christmas special last year,
which was quite funny. He turned the microphones on me.
I just want to ask you a question without putting
shit on Andrew. He told me what I thought was

(54:59):
one of the funniest to rest stories. And I've heard
a lot, seen a lot where he was on the
back of a three day bender and the cops have
knocked on the door, they've come in. He's run up
up the stairs to get rid of his get rid
of his stash, and was complaining about how long it
takes to flush stuff down the toilet when the cops
are running up the stairs. And then Andrew and his

(55:22):
drug fucked mind at that point in time decide to
hide behind the door like a little kid playing hide
and seek, and when the cop came in, he claims
Andrew claims, and we haven't been able to verify that
the cop knocked him to the ground and called him
a fat fuck with a small penis. Should Andrew sue

(55:44):
the police over that? Or is it because part of
the defense is well.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
It's true some people that growers not showers.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
At that. Well, look, I reckon you to together would
be hilarious, hilarious combination and thank you for coming on
here and sharing your stories. It's been fascinating. I wasn't
memory lane, I wasn't sure where or how the prepared.
I think we've discussed things on eye catch killers today
that we'll probably never discuss again. But it's all about

(56:18):
having a bit of fun, all the best for your future.
For people that want to see your act, where can
they find out what you're doing?

Speaker 3 (56:26):
So I'm touring at the moment. I'm always adding new
tour dates, so if you just follow me Instagram or Facebook.
So Nikki Justice Comedy on Instagram or Facebook.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Also Nick Justice Comedy.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Good stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Thanks Nikki, thank you, thanks for having me.