Somalia w/ Tommy Tiernan | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

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All right, sorry, buddy.

No worries.

I'm an unprofessional.

Thank God.

How long have you been doing stand-up?

Have we started?

That's sort of, but not really, though.

No, I'll do an intro to it, but I just wondered how long.

I've always been telling stories.

Okay.

But I've been doing stand-up since about 95.

Where you been and where you going?

This is Ari's Travel Show.

Yeah, we're going to talk about travel today.

It's UB

Trippin, yeah.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to UB Trippin'.

It's the only podcast on the internet that's had a bidding war for it from Wawa to Bucky's.

Every week we go to a different place in the world.

And from a guest who's been there, and today it's fucking the legend, Tommy Goddamn Tiernan.

Bro, I'm so excited you came in today.

That's my confirmation name.

Goddamn.

He's doing a fucking.

Sorry, I'm squirting too much already.

He's doing a U.S.

tour, and

you gotta see him.

He's hilarious.

So I'm looking at the map here behind us, and we've got Africa, but I lived in Zambia when I was a kid.

That's where you're born?

That's where you're at?

When I was born up there in Donegal in Ireland, and then we moved on to Zambia, which is there just above

between.

See where Angola is?

So Angola, so Tanzania, so yeah, that town there, Kabwe.

KAB, that's where we lived.

Why?

And my dad was

working with farmers.

So the Irish government and the Zambian government must have had some sort of a deal where people who knew about farming would travel over to Africa.

And I don't know what they got in return.

Copper or something.

Yeah.

And yes, we lived there.

So the trip I'm going to tell you about is the one to Somalia, which happened a year and a half ago.

These countries, by the way, are so weird to me.

Central Republic Chad, the landlocked, like

inside the continent with no ocean on them it's fun and you know there's a those are the most uprisy even to refer to Africa as a single place is kind of a travesty because

uh there's people you know uh

African people or say black people talk about racist about af race racism towards Africans yeah but when you're there

they're racist towards people from other parts of the continent.

Right, which is nice.

So when I was in Somalia

and Somalia, their skin is so

it's the colour of coffee,

and they're so beautiful.

I think David Bowie's wife might have been from, it's just a beautiful, so they have a story about how when God was making people,

he put them into the oven.

And the first time he put them,

he didn't cook them long enough, and they came out as Egyptians

like

And then he tried again.

He put them into the oven and he left them in too long and they came out as Nigerians.

So then the third time he got it just right and they come out as Somali people.

Wow.

So

yeah, so it was an amazing place.

I mean, when was this?

How old were you?

When I went to Africa, I was three.

Okay.

To Zambia, when I was three years of age.

And I stayed there for three years.

I don't remember a fierce amount about it.

I was talking to another woman who'd spent her childhood in South Africa.

And I was saying to her, every time I see the African sky on television,

it triggers something in me where I just, just the expanse of it, or the type of blue that it is, or the

kind of the textural thing of African clouds, it does something to me.

And she says, that's because in Africa, the sky is mother.

It's not kind of, you know,

we're imaginative beings, and we can't help but exist

imaginatively.

So someone hands you a story like that and says, the sky is your mother.

Okay, that's going to affect you for an hour or two.

I don't know if in New York you can even see your mother.

No, we can't even see stars.

There's too much butt sex going on here.

God won't let us see it.

Yeah.

But Somalia was about 18 months ago.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

By the way, this reminded me when you said the way people describe Africa.

There's an article

by, I don't know, I think a Kenyan writer, and it's How to Write Africa.

And it's just making fun of how everybody writes about Africa.

It is one country.

It is not many countries.

The elephant is pure.

Poachers are the evil.

There's always a fat, jovial mother who wants you to eat.

Eat up your food now.

And

I got to find who that is.

I'll say it in the outro.

But like,

yeah, it's interesting now to hear about different places.

Why'd you go to Somalia?

So

it's a roundabout way of getting there.

I was talking to a friend of mine who nearly died

from a heart attack.

He said

it forced him to look back over his life and to wonder had he done any good.

And I started to think, Jesus, I mean, have I done any good?

Like,

you know, people say that making people laugh is a service, but it's also a self-serving.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nobody understands that.

Do you know what I mean?

It's kind of you do it for whatever, you know, twisted, dysfunctional blessings you were given as a child.

We do it for ourselves, we don't give a fuck about them.

Like, it's nice you're laughing, but I don't die tonight, I'd be fine.

No, and you know, making an individual laugh is as rewarding as making a crowd laugh.

So, you know, but I started to think then, okay, what the hell have I actually done?

And in my own mind, very little.

So, I contacted

they used to be called third world

agencies.

So, do you remember?

I don't know if you got this grown up, that there was the first, second, and third world.

So, the first world was mainly the America and Europe and Canada and Australia.

We were the first world.

This was the kind of the best place to be.

The second world was the communist world,

all of

Russia and China, and I guess Cuba and places like that.

And the third world was fucked.

It wasn't even communist.

Like they were just poor and broken.

And

again, it's an imaginative trope that helps people classify certain situations easily.

So, and we were always encouraged as children to give money to the third world.

And how are we going to help the third world and this kind of stuff?

So I contacted this, they're not called development agencies.

I contacted this development agency and I said, how can I help?

And so I was offering my services as a kind of a well-known loudmouth that I would go to a place and then come back and complain on their behalf.

Oh, wow.

Is the idea.

I'm not a bargain.

You know what I mean?

So I'm not going to, you know, obviously I can't.

I don't have.

I wasn't going to bring food to Somalia.

I'm not a doctor.

But if you do a joke to 10,000 people about Somalia, people are like, oh, maybe we'll go visit Somalia.

Well, it was more to come back and harangue the government.

Oh.

And harass them about their policy towards underdeveloped countries.

So,

this third world development, whatever they're called now, they're called Trokora,

which is the Irish for mercy, I think.

And they said, I phoned up this lady, I was in a car park in Ireland,

and I said, Hi, it's Tommy here, blah, blah, blah.

How can I help?

And she ran the organisation and she said,

come with me to Somalia

next week.

Damn.

And I went,

what?

And she says, come with me to Somalia next week.

I'm going out there.

The country's on the edge of a famine.

You can come out.

The Irish government are about to announce their budget for the following year, and you can hassle them on our behalf.

So I phoned my wife and I said,

can I go?

And she said, yeah.

And I went in a week's notice.

And there's an Islamist terrorist organization there called Al-Shabaab.

I've heard of that.

They killed a load of people in Mogadishu last week or whenever, you know, recently.

So I had to go on a program,

like a day's course of what to do if you're kidnapped and if the convoy you're in is attacked by militia,

what to do, where to hide,

the type of things that you need to say if you're being interrogated after being kidnapped.

Like what would they tell you to say?

I can't remember, but it was all stuff like I remember one of them was if they say this, you're fucked.

They're like, you're not coming out.

You're not coming out, yeah.

So make your peace with that.

They said it's unlikely that's going to happen.

It's like that scene in Oppenheimer where Matt Damon asks

Killian Murphy, could this go wrong?

And he says, Well, there's a 1% chance it could go wrong.

Your man's there, 1%, Jesus.

So there's about a 1% chance of me being kidnapped and shot, but it did exist.

I didn't tell my wife.

Were they saying that if they did get kidnapped, they're probably going to ransom you, or is it going to be like, no, no, political prisoner, you might kill you?

I don't know.

I mean, what do

Islamic terrorist organizations, what do they do?

I mean, you know, they're not reasonable.

They behead you.

Yeah.

They either keep you for a long time

and then you're released to great fanfare or they kill you.

So anyway, but I kind of committed to this anyway.

So I said, I'm going to do it.

Mogadisho.

So

I flew from Dublin to Nairobi in Kenya, which is just beside it there.

Stayed a night there.

Was looking forward to walking around Nairobi because I heard it's a very kind of European type city.

Got into the hotel.

They said you're not allowed to leave.

And I said how come?

And they said because you're white.

That's an amazing feeling.

They said

if a white person is walking on their own around here, you will be attacked.

What?

Because

you represent money.

It's not because they hate white people.

It's not a racist thing.

It's just a target.

It's a target.

You have money.

So you will be be mugged.

So that's the first time I've ever experienced that.

Nairobi?

Nairobi.

So in Nairobi, you just can't leave after dark?

This is during the day.

Oh, what?

So what were you supposed to do?

I just stayed in the hotel.

What?

This was a particular.

Now, this was a relatively.

The agency wanted to protect me.

Yeah.

So they were doing stuff that maybe they normally wouldn't do.

So they were putting me in a hotel that maybe they wouldn't normally stay at.

But it was in a posh, supposedly a kind of a posh part of Nairobi.

And they said, You, I got there, I said, I want to walk around and have a, you know, I drink a lot of coffee, so

like a Kenyan coffee and some groovy Kenyan coffee shop, and

big, brilliant, generously buxom African women walking around the place.

Who would not want that?

Yeah, who would not want to see that?

And they said, No, you are not allowed to leave the hotel.

So I stayed in the hotel.

The following day,

we flew from Nairobi into Mogadishu.

Again, we're not allowed outside the airport compound, and it's a UN airport.

Is it because they're worried about just like

their responsibility if something happens to you, or are they legitimately worried?

No, this was not personal now.

This was because of the threat of al-Shabaab in the town of Mogadishu.

Okay.

So, this was a huge UN compound.

This was like a UN airport.

So, you had all types of military planes, you had all types uh agency planes it was um

like an african mash does that make sense yeah yeah so

landed there and then flew out into

and bogadish was islam islamic oh yeah there are fiercely

all of somalis fiercely islamic fiercely islamic yeah okay guys i gotta break in real quick to tell you about tommy tiernan he's not all doom and gloom no he's a storytelling comedian uh in the tradition of irish is finest he's tommy tiernan i saw him first time in

montreal me and uh me and uh

mark marin went over to watch a show man

the guy's the best and then we watched a show together somewhere we were both like laughing about how this one comic just did a bunch of crowd work it didn't go anywhere and we're like oh i came to see his show that was in toronto um the guy rules

He's this high-level Irish comic.

I remember the first time he goes, hey, I saw you once in Montreal.

Weren't you doing doing that joke about like jerking off two guys?

That was so lovely with this Irish accent.

I forget.

Comics are just comics.

And Tommy's on tour right now in America.

You can find all his tour dates at Tommy Tiernan.ie.

IE is for Ireland.

T-O-M-M-Y-T-I-E-R-N-A-N.

Toronto is already sold out, but he's in Philadelphia, Boston.

New York is sold out.

In November, moves on to Chicago, Minneapolis, Calgary, Victoria, Vancouver, Vancouver again, Seattle, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Jose.

Then he's in San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts.

In December, January, February, he's back to Ireland at

Killarney, excuse me, Galway.

I said that pretty good.

Killarney.

That sounds like a good accent.

Killarney.

I blew it.

Galway, Castlebar, Dublin.

He's doing a residency there.

Galway, Luth.

I messed that one up.

Antion, Belfast.

Now I'm really bad.

Limerick and Derry.

Go to Official Tom Median on Instagram.

That's T-O-M-M-E-D-I-A-N.

Official Tom Medium on Instagram.

And go to his tour dates, tomaturnin.ie.

Myself, I'm on tour, everybody.

I got my new farewell to arms tour.

Farewell to Ari's tour.

Nah, that doesn't work.

It's a farewell tour.

I'm leaving.

I'm only doing gigs the first quarter of the year.

Then I'm gone.

Then I'm gone until all through 2025, all through 2026.

You won't be able to see me.

So here's where you can see me.

It starts in Austin in December, and Tahoe also in December.

And then pretty much January, February, March.

We got Anchorage.

Oh, no, Anchorage is the last gig in Alaska.

It's the last gig in Alaska.

That's in June.

But everything else is here.

Atlanta, huge one.

Austin, I think, already sold out, to be honest.

Brea, Calgary, tickets low on that, almost sold out.

Schaumburg, Denver, doing a best of week at the Denver Comedy Works, my favorite room in the world.

Edmonton, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh, the first week of January.

Portland, one night only.

Providence, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Jose, Seattle, big show.

One night only in April.

Tampa, Vancouver.

I think that's it.

Get tickets right now at ari shafir.com.

The pre-sale is over.

The on sale is now.

The best tickets are going, if they're not already gone.

Tampa's almost sold out as well.

I don't know.

It's all going fast, you guys.

That's it.

That's all for me.

And then I'm done.

Let's get back to this episode and some horrors of the Somalian life.

Also, don't forget to subscribe here.

We have fun podcasts and unfun podcasts.

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Also, subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.

Now, let's get back to Tommy Tiernan telling us about a place no one's been.

By the way, if anybody has any Somalian money, do they even have that?

I can use it for the wall.

Really bad.

I doubt I'll be able to get replicas of that.

Maybe I'll ask Tommy if he has any left over.

I doubt he handled much money there.

Anyway, let's get back to the episode.

And then, so I flew out then from Mogadishu

out into the Somalian countryside

to see it.

To see famine.

Whoa.

And it was so I don't know what it was like in America, but in Europe, so our first,

the first visual data we got of famine was around 84, 85, just before live aid and band-aid and all that type.

We are the world and that kind of stuff.

And that was

the imagery from back then was desert landscape and people

in, malnourished people in rags.

gaunt, swollen-bellied,

you know, and there's very, very famous footage of this baby dying and a vulture in the background.

Um,

you know, to just kind of

startling, yeah, startling images.

So that's what I had in my in my mind in terms of the famine, but it wasn't like that.

What it was was

the towns were functioning now, let's say towns.

This isn't like some place in the Midwest or some place in Ireland.

These are African towns.

They're shanty towns.

They are...

There's no paved roads.

It's all...

They're dirt tracks.

There's no...

nothing is level.

There's no...

Do you have any sort of like...

Is this at all like any part of Ireland?

Not at all.

Not at all.

It's...

It's...

No, it's not.

It's...

It's almost prehistoric.

And they're funny words to be using, but I'm trying to find words that

have associations for us here in the West.

So prehistoric is what is the kind of the

broken place.

So Shantytown, I think, is the closest.

But people sitting outside in plastic chairs, and there's a kind of

a mad max country.

You know,

broken chairs and plastic stuff and people selling stuff.

We arrive in the compound and what happens is that the towns are f functioning relatively okay

and the people who live in the towns have access to food.

The people in the country,

their crops are dying, their animals are dying, their children and old people are dying.

So they come in their hundreds of thousands

to these camps on the edge of towns.

You you have a town with twenty thousand people and a camp with two 250,000 people outside it.

And they're all starving.

And they're all coming in.

The men are coming in to the town, looking for work, getting paid a couple of

it might have been even been an American dollars or something, I'm not sure.

And then they can buy bits of food and bring them back out.

So that was what I went out to see.

So

there must be such desperation then.

There's that many people.

Were there like.

Do you know what the amazing thing was?

What?

I was blown away by their faith that it's going to get better that it was all God's will

so

a very clever man told me he said that famine is political

what he meant by that anytime there's anybody anywhere in the world starving to death there's the food there to feed them it's a political decision to not get it there.

So this was around the start of the war in the Ukraine.

And the Russians, I think, had blockaded some of the...

Ukraine is the biggest grain manufacturer in Europe.

So a lot of Ukrainian grain would make its way down to Somalia, but that wasn't happening.

So I'm talking to this guy

who had come from the country.

He'd walked

for

three weeks.

to get from his

ex-farm to this famine camp.

And two of his kids died on the way.

So he's he's

uh, they're Muslim, so they think there's something that they'd be buried before the sundown.

I don't know what it is.

Remember when Osama bin Adam was shot and had to throw him into the water that day or something?

I can't remember what it was, anyway.

So they have this

idea that it has to be buried before sunset.

So where they shot Osama bin Laden, like, let's make sure he got some proper burial.

Let's be respectful, though.

Let's shoot him in the face and then pay our respects.

It really wasn't lost.

It's Italian mafia, basically.

I'm so sorry for your loss, everybody.

I'm so, so sorry.

But you shot him.

I know.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

Sorry for your loss.

I know he's really important here.

I heard he did some great stuff.

Let's say with his kids, so cute.

So Sama Jr.

He's got his eyes.

He's got his eyes.

I have one of his eyes.

You can have it actually if you want it.

You want to do this?

Keep it in your pocket.

So anyway, back to the famine.

So this guy had buried two of his kids by the side of the road

and walked on to the camp.

What's he hoping to get there?

Food.

Okay.

Food.

And

menial labor in terms of

two kids on the way.

Yeah.

And I swear to God, he was smiling with me.

He was laughing with me.

What?

He

and he says to me, it's God's will.

And it's God's will that we're going through this.

And it's God's will that

it's happening.

And when God wants, it will end.

And, you mean, you know,

you're...

You know that the Russians are stopping the grain,

but you're kind of going, you're you're amazed by it because the man is so

light in himself and so full of decency, and you're aware of what he's been through.

And if you met somebody over here who'd been through that, they'd be a wreck.

Yeah.

They wouldn't be able to do anything.

They'd be, you know, their whole life would be

ruined forever.

But this guy smiled at me.

And that was the main thing I took away from that was their unshakable faith.

You know,

God, God will send a solution.

And it was, I mean, what are you supposed to say to that?

Do you know?

So anyway,

and I, so I spent a week travelling around all the time.

You were thinking while you were there, were you thinking of any similarities between like your guys's famine and how you came out of it to them?

Well, again, that the in the famine in Ireland was political because food has been shipped, the English who were who owned the country at the time, crops were being grown and were being shipped over to England.

So

it was more of a starvation than a famine, really.

And

I don't know how you carry these things in your bones for a couple of generations.

Any tribe that goes through phenomenal trauma,

it takes a long time for that to leave the bones.

Even if people who are not physically connected to it, or it's a story, or or

nobody knows anybody who went through it.

Yeah,

the Irish famine was

1845.

Yeah, we got ours, and everybody still talks about it, even though none of us were there, you know.

So, but it stays in the bone, stays in the bone for

a long, long time.

So, that's so that's the only I

like Ireland is Ireland is a lush country, beautiful, it's green, it rains, things grow.

There's ducks and rabbits and trees and rainbows.

And

sometimes you'll be standing in the west of Ireland in a beautiful valley, you know, and you just know and you're wondering, how did people starve to death here?

Yeah, yeah.

I just realized that.

How did that happen?

In Africa, you can

understand,

but in Ireland, it was because we were so poor that the only only crop that we grew was,

there was a, it was called a potato blight.

That was a kind of a

for three or four years, the crop was poisoned.

So we couldn't eat that.

And everything else that was grown was taken out of the country by the English and shipped overseas.

So,

I mean,

but the main, and I tell you something that I

still probably haven't processed, and I'm probably able to talk about it because I haven't processed it.

There was a small hospital in the town and this woman came in and it was like she was

having a slightly out-of-body experience.

She was a bit vacant, a bit numb.

No crying,

no pleading, no wailing, no hysteria, no panic.

She had a severely malnourished child with her and she put the child down on the bed, and the child was, you know, just gaunt, a gaunt-looking baby.

And we were asked to leave the hospital and found out later that the baby died.

And

what I'm struck by is just the kind of

when that

there was no screaming.

There was no she was in a ward like was there was this isn't this isn't a private room in in a posh hospital where, and you have bereavement counsellors, and you know, this was just in a run-down hospital on the edge of a town, and the ward is full of

other women with 12 kids, and two have died, and all this type of stuff.

And

they just have a, it's just a different

I wouldn't call it stoicism, but it's just

how

how do they they how it's just not our way.

It's just not our way

of dealing with stuff.

It's not in our

we're a lot more

pampered emotionally, probably.

And we're also you think it's just they're used to that amount of pain so that they can handle it better?

No,

I don't think we can define it.

I don't think that we're able to.

You're

being an individual

doesn't matter as much.

It's more who you are and your family, what you can do for the family, what the family can do for the clan, and what the clan can do for the tribe.

That's where everything fits in.

That's your reason for being.

That has dark stuff, too, because if you shame the family,

you know.

You gotta do something about it.

They gotta punish you in some way.

Were there like tribes there?

Oh, totally.

Yeah,

all tribe, it's all clan.

It's like little villages of people, yeah, but it's uh and I met some of the tribal leaders, and I you do stuff like you, you know, you go to meet some of these tribal leaders, and there's a hierarchy.

This guy will talk first, then this guy will talk, then this guy will talk, then this guy will talk.

And it's almost like you're looking at at fellas, and it's like it's so the image that comes to my head is stuff that we we may have seen of the Taliban.

Those guys with the

kind of Muslim guys with the big beards and they're sitting in the dust and they're just

the king of the town.

It's like that.

It's a bit, it's stuff like that going on.

And then you have young men, teenagers who have been taken into the Somali army,

15 years of age.

Damn.

Just lying sprawled across a wall

with an AK-47 across their shoulder and they're eyeballing you as you're walking past.

A kid.

You know, I passed by some sort of a donut shop yesterday.

There were five teenagers with skateboards all eating pizza or something.

A year ago in Somalia, same-aged kids.

With guns.

With AK-47s.

I mean, they have no sense of right and wrong at 15.

They have a sense of power.

Right, yeah.

Don't fuck with me.

Yeah.

Don't even look at me.

God damn.

You know, and just

a week.

What did you eat while you were there?

So I can't remember.

It was all fried.

It was all.

Fried like KFC or fried like...

Is it like a fried fried fried fried?

Like fried like KFC, but I'm not sure what it was.

Okay.

It was, I mean, maybe chicken or fish or something.

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It's like a fire sale.

Again,

there was a compound for the development agency on the edge of town because they had doctors there and nurses and all types of health workers.

So they had to be kept healthy so that they could go into the camp and feed people and attend to them if they were ill.

So they were all mostly Kenyans who got a job with the development agency.

And they were all mostly, even though the development agency is a Catholic one, they were all mainly Muslim.

And what I was really struck by there was the way that the

day has a religious structure.

So you get up and you pray, and then you pray again at lunchtime, and then you pray again in the afternoon, and you pray, and there's no, it's not like you know, people over here saying, Oh, I meditate, you know, if I get 20 minutes in the morning

or Saturdays, I meditate on Saturdays.

This is five days a week.

Was it the bells go off, and everyone just a bell goes off or something, and they all go.

and I think that

that does them good.

You know what I mean?

I don't know.

It's like whenever I heard about like the black experience in America and slavery and all the they took on like the Jewish you know hymns of like Moses and freedom.

And it always struck me as like that's what held you back from doing what you had to do, picking up a machete and using it the wrong way.

Is this belief that like God's going to help you in the end, or there's all a point here?

Yeah.

So you're more of a Shea Guevara

figure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, this God's not helping you right now.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

I mean,

that's

not a problem.

That's a noble, brave sentiment, man.

That is,

there's strength in that, you know.

Yeah.

You're an agitator.

Yeah, I'm a shitster.

And I tell you,

if Africa gets angry,

the rest of the world better fucking watch out.

Yeah.

Because you have a.

If Africa, say what stuff to do with the Western way of life and the way we release things into the atmosphere that heat up the world, and the place that heats up the most is Africa, and the people who suffer the most have nothing to do with the way of life that's creating the heat.

and if young African men and women the way the whole Malcolm X Black Panther thing happened in the States here in the 60s if young African men and women

just all of a sudden because they're enthralled to the white man at the moment parts of Africa still feel as if the white man is superior but if they go hang on a fucking second here now

we've been shat on

from a great height and we're if Africa gets angry if Africa declares war on the Western way of life,

as they're entitled to do.

Yeah.

Luckily, it's I mean, it's God doing it and not like colonialism.

Well, you know, so it's like,

wait, where did you go?

What city did you go to?

Do you remember?

I can't remember the names.

So was there a place called Dugourt?

D-U-G-O-R-T?

I think that's where I went.

Dugort, yeah.

No, that's in Rio.

That's in Ireland.

I got that wrong.

I feel like I know it.

Dugourt is in, but I can't remember.

I can't remember the names of the towns.

Yeah.

Did you go to re were there restaurants there that you go to?

In Mogadishu or anywhere?

No, no, you're in your.

So they just you just got the food that this this agency.

I was in the compound right in the in the development agency compound.

Um you spend the day in the camp

um

just kind of, you know, you're the white man walking around with other white people.

Were they thankful you were there?

The kids were

no,

I'd say they were thankful.

I mean, they were just looking at me like, oh, but another one of these gringos.

What did they speak?

Somali, I think, is the language they speak.

The kids were playful.

You know, the kids were up for devilment.

And

I remember I saw there's a great movie out called Timbuktu.

And it's about an Islamic organization that they take over this village.

And they're...

What's the proper phrase for ISIS and things like this?

I don't know.

Is it Islamic terrorist?

It's not just Islamic.

It's kind of...

They want to establish a caliphate.

Is that the right phrase?

But in Timbuktu,

I don't know if you want to get it up there in the thing.

They play a game of football with an invisible ball.

No, really?

God damn, that is fucking famine.

Right.

When you don't even have a fucking ball, but you're still playing.

No, no, no, no.

No, this wasn't in Somalia.

This was in Timbuktu, which is in

Morocco.

But the Islamists, terrorist organization, had taken over the village.

They had banned music.

Stunningly choreographed, having all the grace and skill of a real match.

What?

That's wild.

And

so that, to me, do you see it there now?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, football.

Oh, real football.

What?

What are the doctors?

Just play it there.

Can you play it stuff on a podcast?

Yeah, sure.

Here.

Oh, you do.

This one here.

Look, will you see it?

Oh, this is so cool.

Whoa, they got a ref and everything.

And they're awarding free kicks.

How do they all decide where that ball's going off the ball?

Because it's dead.

Look at them.

How are they?

You tell me how they're deciding.

The fake ball comes up, somebody's headed.

They all took off that way.

Instead of one, you think one guy's like, I scored.

Well, wait, you see.

There's some sort of communal agreement.

Yeah.

So the reason they're doing that in the movie is because the ISIS or whatever have banned all games.

Banned fun?

From the village.

I thought they weren't cool before.

But now they're very uncool.

Yeah.

So I had a game of football with the kids

in the famine camp with an invisible ball.

That was the only thing I could do.

Could you keep up with them?

I'd juggle it, and then I'd pass it to them, and they got it like that.

They juggled and then passed it back to me.

Wow.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

And you're like, okay.

I mean, you're probably better with an invisible ball than with the real one, which is nice.

Is that the truth?

Yeah.

There's something about where you're traveling, especially places where you don't speak the language at all.

The kids, there's like a meeting area with children.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That you can like kind of connect with them mentally or something.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Just like a high five is your currency,

yeah,

it's good, but anyway, so that was um, I spent about a week there, um, and then flew back to Ireland and started

talking about it publicly.

Um,

and that that was my job, that was my and who would you spoke to, like, the Irish government, yeah.

So, that was a funny thing.

So, um, in 1974, the Irish government made a pledge to give 0.7%

of the gross national product to the developing world.

1974, the pledge was made.

It was a kind of a few other European countries did it as well, made the pledge.

And to this day, only Germany, Norway,

Sweden, and Denmark have fulfilled the pledge.

And each successive Irish government since 1974 has made the pledge.

But we're still on just 0.3% percent or 0.29 percent so i started making a public noise about this and saying that's what you got to do that's your job really because you're yeah you know you weren't flown over for the good of your health you're there because you're a mouth yeah so work it when you come home so that's what i did and um

they would never

what was interesting was

The Irish Prime Minister was over here and he was about to go into a meeting in the UN building in New York.

And you know, there's always

press people outside these things.

And he's about to go in

to talk about what was happening in the Ukraine.

And a member of the press says, what do you think about what Tommy Tiernan said

about your

reneging on your promise of 0.7%?

And then he gave an answer.

And then I gave an answer to that.

What do you mean, how, how?

And then the news, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, so he, so he said, well, you know, bladder, bladder, blah, numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers.

And then the Minister for Finance said something.

And then I went after him.

Whoa.

And he replied, and then in the budget,

they increased it.

They didn't go to the 0.7%, but they went up to like 0.5%.

So you could never say, a government will never say it was because of the, what's the word for, it's not, um,

it's not activism, um, I can't remember what the word is, but protests or something like that.

A government will never say

that we did this because we were being hassled.

Right, the way like we decided we weren't.

So we were going to do that anyway.

Yeah.

So you'll never know if what you have done has had any effect.

But you can say this was happening

and they increased it a little bit.

They did that here.

There was a bunch of just one day there was a line around the the block of those, the blackest black people outside this church.

It was a processing center.

And then they just wouldn't, they just showed up one day in the park, hundreds of them.

And then

we found out kind of what it was.

The community gardens were like, let's help them.

Let's build bathrooms and stuff.

The government's not going to do anything.

And one person wrote an article, and then it was like, oh shit, we're embarrassed.

Now we got to do it.

Advocacy.

Yeah.

Advocacy.

So then that's great.

Yeah.

I mean.

And then the following year, then they said,

Why don't you come to Malawi with us?

Where's Malawi?

So Malawi is kind of in the center somewhere.

Yeah, Malawi is

it's near Rwanda and

the Congo and Tanzania.

With the same aid group?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's another landlocked one.

Yeah.

And they said

we want you to come there and see the effects of climate change

on the country.

I mean, is this what you want to do?

Well, I can't.

Go live in suffering?

Well, no, but you kind of it goes back to that thing of what have you done?

Right.

How have you chipped in?

You know, how have you chipped in?

Either on a local level by giving

somebody some money on the street or

you've done very well.

I get I get why you would

so but wa but but so I went to Malawi and I saw the whole that thing talked about earlier on about how you know

the world heating up and the places heating up the most have have had fuck all to do with the process of heating up.

Oh, right.

So I went there and again they said the template is the same.

We want you to go over and then we want you to come back and complain to the government about their fossil fuel consumption, their emission targets.

But

that really wasn't successful because that's a much it's if you're saying people are dying because they have no food and how dare we do this to them?

Can we please fulfil our obligation of 0.7%?

That's a real easy argument to make.

They'll be like, Yes, sure, I didn't realize.

Okay, yes.

You know,

if you go over and you say,

There are people whose way of life has been affected, who can't grow crops anymore, who are on the verge of hunger because of our way of life.

Can you please change our way of life?

No way.

Yeah, no way.

Yeah, I get it.

We're like, hey, can everybody stop driving so much?

Yeah, so that was that wasn't as successful in terms of if that's the barometer, the metric you use.

But yeah, they're the two things.

They're the kind of.

In Somalia,

what were the bathrooms like?

Were they normal sit-down shitters?

Are they just holes?

Or like, do you remember?

Oh, man.

I'm sure in the aid camps, maybe.

I think there must have been holes in the ground.

And

it kind of there.

Isn't it?

What was

remember Red Fox?

Uh-huh.

He had a great album called You Gotta Clean Your Ass.

I have that one.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

It is great.

There's always like two, you can almost hear like two fat black ladies up front just going, whoa!

It's on every joke.

Yeah, you got to wash your ass.

You got to wash your ass.

So they're big into that in Muslim countries.

Oh, washing ass.

I thought Red Fox.

Yeah,

it's a big thing.

So each toilet would have like a tap beside the thing to clean your butt.

So I remember that.

Yeah, that's it.

You gotta wash your ass.

Yeah, it was a really solid album.

The balls on Red Fox.

Yeah, yeah.

There was okay, so they just take water and like what?

Wipe it out, you wipe it, yeah.

And isn't there that thing of you don't um you eat with your left hand, you kick your ass with your right or something?

I can't remember what it was.

Um, I don't remember too much about that, but I think the one thing that I took away from it, one of the things

was their faith

I was floored by that idea of it's God's will floored by it

absolutely just

it wasn't that

it was a a sense of surrender to a kind of a fatalistic surrender but not an abandonment of hope

because they were saying when

when it turns around it's God and it actually did turn around the following year it started raining raining the following year.

Really?

Yeah, so I'm sure that they're kind of going,

God is good.

How did we ever...

You know,

the history, I think, of,

I'm not sure about this, and I'm sure some of your listeners will know, but the history of doubt in

Islam,

I'm not sure is the same as the history of doubt in Christianity.

What do you mean the history of doubt?

As in, there's kind of, you know,

in Europe now, well, I'm not sure, do I believe in God?

Well, you know,

we've had kind of 200 years of rational thinking.

We've had the whole,

we've had scientific thought, we've had, it doesn't make sense that there's a man in the sky who loves us.

It just doesn't make rational sense.

And I'm not really sure if I

go into that God's will thing.

I mean, it's possible, but I'm not sure.

I'm not sure they've had the same adventures in African Islam.

I don't know.

They didn't, these guys were just,

you know, say the most believing.

That makes sense.

The most believing people here in the States are probably the fundamentalist Christians.

Do you know me?

They're the ones who kind of go, you know, this is the way it is.

It's all

doubt in them that that's

right.

I grew up with...

R really religious Jews.

Okay.

And the same thing, like, do the women care that they're in their house?

Like, it's not even a thought of other options.

Yeah.

You don't even think about that.

You're just

the way of life.

So, I don't know where, I don't know where doubt comes in there.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

You know, right.

If it's going to turn around, it's going to be God, of course.

Totally.

So, anyway.

Did they have a government there in Somalia?

Yeah,

it's a government that is

trying

to

accommodate al-Shabaab.

It's trying to, in some way, live with them, but it's a very fractious relationship.

is al-shabaab like a type of the government no no al-shabaab al-shabaab is the kind of is the uh al-qaeda isis of that particular part of the world but like isis is the government sort of no no no no no some parts of of the world like they become the ruling class

but not not in um not in somalia just yet you know

um was there any stuff about the pirates and stuff when you went there were they talking about that or does that is that just like people trying to make money on their own yeah that's more

are the pirates more

kind of off the...

They are, isn't it?

It's kind of, yeah, it's around there, it's around that ocean, yeah.

Not too much.

That's what I know of Somalia, not this famine stuff at all.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the press they got.

From Tom Hanks, that movie?

Captain Phillips.

Yeah, they really put him on the map.

There's another Danish movie, which is about the same story, but is much better.

I can't remember the name of it.

But yeah, I don't know if I'd been...

I mean, I loved being an artist.

The thing that kind of struck me was how at home I felt there in terms of the heat.

What do you mean?

Like, I'm a man, I'm a man for damp shelter.

I love, like, it's slightly, yesterday was hot in New York, and I was very unhappy.

But today is a nice Scottish.

It's a kind of a dry feels a little bit.

It's a drizzly.

It's perfect for my people.

Oh, yeah.

How did you and your Irish skin do out there?

That's great.

That's a death sentence for you.

It should have been.

But I loved it, actually.

Really?

Yeah.

It was just, it was so hot I gave up.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

I went to Glastonbury for the festival.

Yeah, yeah.

And I was hanging out on the Wednesday with an Irish guy, and it was just a really good weather one.

And it was like

mid-20s, 22,

20, 26, 27.

And this guy was like, ah, fuck.

And I'm like, yeah, it's nice out.

And he's like, ah, we're in the shade.

This Irish guy was hanging out with.

We had a heat wave in Ireland last year where I think it was 31 degrees yesterday here in New York.

Oh, yeah.

Right?

So we had a heat wave in Ireland where it was 31 degrees.

And we were being warned for days it was about to happen.

We were told to check on all the old people,

make sure the dogs have water.

It was like some kind of end-of-the-world event.

A blizzard of sun.

The whole country was going to get a heat stroke.

But yeah, so I was really surprised.

I felt so solid in the heat.

And

it goes back like the women there

are

like the ones that weren't in the famine camp, but even some of them hot, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Like

it's that coffee-colored skin thing.

It is Iman is her name.

Oh, my God.

Good boy's wife.

Yeah, it's like it's not.

She's single now, isn't she?

Both push each other to go make a phone call to her.

I'll call her.

Yeah.

Oh, she's.

So

I just got it.

Do you think she's

the grieving process is done?

Is she immune to a bit of Jewish-Irish charm?

The two of us double act.

We can't handle you alone, but we can split up our time.

Together?

We're half a man.

Yeah, it is that coffee.

It's a different.

It's so beautiful.

And they also, they're mad into the hand tattoos.

So they get these

henna stuff.

If they're going to a wedding or

if some big event is coming up, they have this.

They're so beautiful and intricate and gorgeous.

And they last for three or four months so they have this kind of um

uh there's a there's there's a kind of sultriness to them i've always been attracted to religious women wow um

damn and it is a kind of isn't it amazing wow and they wow and it's like colorful too yeah

damn badass

and they they last three or four months like really that's why i need a tattoo that lasts like that long um

What is that from?

Is that religious or is that just like cultural?

Tribal, I'd say, but it's also

I think they have and now they go modern,

yeah,

religious women won't flirt with you.

Oh, yeah, so they have this um

inner seriousness,

this discipline

that I find really attractive.

It's like a n it's like, you know, sexy nuns

Is there such a thing?

I'll take your word for it.

I ain't even heard of them.

And other women would flirt with you?

I just think, I think we, I think we live in a, I think we live in a flirtatious

culture.

I think everybody's trying to look good and is proud of looking good.

And, you know, everybody tries to make themselves attractive.

So they are going to attract.

And it's kind of like it's part of someone's power.

It always seems more beautiful in women than it does in men but say a woman is you know she puts on her makeup and and uh

dresses in a way that that she kind of feels strong

but it's it's part of it is connected to display

isn't it part of part of it's kind of

kind of look um you know makeup big bright it's like you look

like a penal joker and and of course in every culture there's the opposite there are women who who don't play by those things at all.

But, you know, it definitely exists in our culture, that idea.

Yeah, feminists, sir.

In

Islamic countries, that is not part of the deal at all.

So the women, because it's a kind of a brutal patriarchy,

just operate on a different level.

It's a different level of

they still have power, but it's expressed differently.

And I'm putting this together in a very kind of ham-fisted type of way, but there is a difference.

I can't separate it from patriarchy, but I can testify to its strength.

So it's a funny thing that's going on, but

they're so, my God, they're beyond gorgeous.

You'd follow them into war.

They're just amazing.

Amazing.

There's a lot of the hijab there.

No, not many.

No.

No, okay.

No.

Different kind of of Islam.

Yeah.

Although the hijab must have been somewhere, but no,

it was mainly open-faced stuff, you know.

And very serious swimming as well.

But great.

Very good.

Yeah.

And did you, when you go back to Mogadishu, when you went back, you stayed for a day and then flew home?

No, flew into Mogadishu and stayed for just two or three hours in the compound.

Oh.

Like I took.

Totally unsafe to go around wherever you want by yourself.

Sometimes they bomb the compound.

So you're seeing m it's it's a military it was a kind of not a fully fledged Taliban military situation, but it was a military tension.

So they had guards everywhere, they had lookout towers, they had

like holes in the in the runway from bombs and stuff like that.

So you're military cargo coming in and you had

small little planes and had not so I took about it took me about six flights to leave Somalia.

What do you mean, six flights?

So, so whatever regional part of the country I was in, small plane, land, pick people up, small plane, land, pick, you know, that kind of thing.

You're just flying from town to town, picking people up, then get got to

Mogadishu

and go but it's also, you know,

that thing of when I was in Nairobi, of being told it's not safe for you to leave the hotel because you're white.

Yeah.

That's an interesting place for a white person to be in.

Yeah, well, yeah.

And because you kind of feel, hang on a minute, my skin colour

shouldn't matter.

And you, I mean, Irish, you never...

It's just that.

You're the same skin colour as everybody.

Would you even think about it?

Your skin colour until then?

No, no, no, well, no, but no,

I

was never conscious of myself as an outsider in that way.

I mean, I supported D.L.

Hewley in Caroline, so I was aware of myself as an outsider to that crack.

Did you really?

I did, yeah, yeah.

He flew you over to fucking feature for him.

No, no, no, I just was in town, and

somebody asked, Would you mind if Tommy did 10 minutes in front of you at Caroline's?

And he says, No problem.

And that was it.

That was, I do think there's a connection

between tribes that have suffered.

So I would

see a connection and would have a desire to make contact with

Jewish people, with black people, with any tribe basically, with South American, Mexican people, Aboriginal people.

Because I think

once

suffering is in your bones,

you kind of have something in common with people.

You know, I wouldn't have...

I have no time for the Swedes.

or

the Icelandic, fuck off, yeah, the Norwegians, you don't even abuse anyone else, or Protestants, I have no time for any of those people, but

generally speaking,

tribal cultures I would have

you know you should share stuff with the Italians and the Spanish through

Catholicism.

As an Irish person, you wouldn't share too much with the Germans.

You'd start to share stuff now with the Eastern Europeans because what have they been through?

Yeah.

You know, nobody really is too informed on the Russians.

There would be a natural affinity between Irish people and Palestinians

because of the history of the Spanish people.

There's always been a link up there, huh?

What?

There's always been a link between the Palestinians and the Irish people.

Totally.

And it's funny because

there would also be a link between Irish people and Jewish people in terms of suffering.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's such a funny,

it's a kind of odd one.

But anyway, that was

Nairobi was the first place where I was told, no,

you cannot leave the hotel.

And I says, why not, man?

I said, because when they see you, they will attack you.

I said, you will be mugged on the street.

You will not last five minutes.

You must stay here.

I was going, dude, I just want to go for a coffee.

I will send coffee to your room.

You sit there and you do not leave.

Whoa.

So that's, I mean, what white people get to experience that, you know?

So anyway, yeah.

Do you feel lucky to be able to go there?

Was it like

you're back seeing all the suffering, telling people about it?

But is it like, that was a fun trip?

I feel more fulfilled or more lucky.

No, not fun.

Not fulfilled.

And do you know sometimes when you

say you're being chased by a dog, okay, and you come to a 12-foot wall with broken glass and barbed wire on the top of it, right?

And in the adrenaline, you make it over, you don't give a fuck, you cut yourself, and then you jump into a a river and you swim across, and you're safe, okay.

And you're full, you go, Brad, it was amazing, I'm full of adrenaline.

And then someone says to you a year later, Hey, do you want to do that again?

You go, No.

So that's the way I feel about Somalia is that I was I was swept up in the adrenaline of the moment

with the oh, because it all happened so quickly.

Um

but

I

I probably find the second trip tougher because I know what's in store for me.

I did I had no idea what I was going to see.

Damn.

And which means that the people who work there on behalf of the development agencies are remarkable people because they they work there for six months and they go home for three weeks and then they know what they're going back into for six months.

Damn.

Was it hard to sleep and stuff?

Like just seeing it all, were you just like

No, it was too it was too much information.

I'm still processing stuff about it.

And I never really talk about the kids that were dying because I still that's like

I don't know how to do that.

So what's it?

It's easier for me to hang on to the faith thing and go, that guy kept pointing towards God.

And you know, I can talk about that because it's comfortable for me.

But there's other bits that I don't, um, I don't have nightmares about it.

I don't have anything.

I maybe

a self-protective thing of not actually absorbing it.

Maybe, you know.

I don't talk about it in my stand-up.

It's not funny.

Yeah.

But I mean, it would be great if you could make it funny.

But you have to make people relate, like, see it and then

move away from it.

That's a tough one.

So that would be inappropriate, unless the joke was on me.

Yeah.

But

there's a thing in storytelling of if you

and it's kind of

it's declared in storytelling I've never heard it declared in stand-up

which is

if you bring people to a dark place it's your responsibility as a storyteller to get them out of there you can't leave them there you can't talk about death and go get night

yeah yeah yeah there's got to be some happy ending yeah so I feel a responsibility now in this podcast

okay

well here's okay okay well this is what I usually ask everybody that we'll do something like that.

Damn.

Oh shit.

First of all, was there any last thing, but did it have a smell there?

Yeah.

The smell

was

you get really used really quickly to the smell, the comfortable smell of body odor.

Oh, yeah.

New York and in Ireland, that is a cultural offense.

Yeah.

That if somebody gets a whiff of your dirty body, you're like, what the fuck's with this guy?

Get him off the train.

He has no manners of respect.

But over there,

the first day I noticed, I went, oh, wow, Jesus, everyone is humming.

Everyone is humming here.

And then you just get really...

It just becomes, this is the way people are supposed to smell.

This is the way we smell.

It's not like...

I mean, if they're not, if there's no fucking apples growing, there's definitely not Reichard growing.

Yeah.

It's not like farting in bed where you kind of can cope with it.

Yeah.

It's it was more like this is

you kind of

in a weird way found it very comforting.

You know, it was a very it was a human smell.

It was it was being you were part of the herd.

You got your your western nose and the way it's been

protected and over ponsified.

You just that went after a day.

And so that's the smell.

I remember the wonderful smell of people.

Did you put the aura on?

I think I did for the first day or two.

Yeah.

And then I just got

these are my people.

Yeah.

These are my new people.

I want to be free.

All right, this is what I ask everybody too, if you have any tips for travel in general.

And then also like what country's calling you.

But do you got any tips?

You travel a lot.

I think the main thing is to travel light.

That's the big one, isn't it?

Just go light, as light as you possibly can.

I have two pairs of jeans all around Southeast Asia until I realize it's been two months.

I haven't worn one of them.

And I just like, just give it to a fucking thrift store.

Yeah, yeah.

Overpacking, it just sucks.

You're just carrying shit.

Yeah.

For something you could just buy when you get there.

I think that would be the key.

There's a huge thing now.

I don't think you guys guys have it over here.

But in Ireland now,

school shootings?

We have those here.

School shootings now.

We don't have them.

Yeah, we have plenty of kids.

Kids traveling cheaply.

So once kids hit age about 17 or 18, they're finding all these cheap flights from like my daughter last week, 22.

I don't know the flight cost her a hundred Euro to fly from Dublin

to somewhere in Croatia.

Oh, wow.

So they're they're traveling all the time now because the flights are so cheap.

But I think to travel light

is the key, really,

I think.

Yeah, it's good.

So, yeah, now what's calling you?

I'm a big fan of.

I'm going to stay somewhere to go for the first time.

You've always wanted to go.

Do you know what I'd love to do, and it keeps coming up?

There's this kind of tradition in India

where once your children are reared,

your job is done

as an earner and a provider and as the head of the household so your job is done now you have to concentrate on your soul so wander

wander

say farewell to everybody have an owl cloak and a pair of sandals and a stick for beating bad dogs and wandering bad dogs, yeah.

And I'm very much in love with the idea of that.

What are you going to do?

I would love,

It's never going to happen, but can I indulge in the fantasy of it?

Yeah, yeah.

I want to walk across America.

I want to walk from Ireland to India.

Tommy Gump?

I want to have a gun instead of a dog.

Tommy Gump.

Tommy Gump.

Yeah.

That's what I want to do.

You want to walk across America?

Yeah.

How long would that take?

What is it?

About 3,000 miles.

Six months, maybe.

I'd love that.

That would be very cool.

You know,

I'd love to walk from Ireland to South Africa.

Yeah, of course you can, yeah.

You get the boat to London, and then you get the train to there.

And once you hit mainland Europe, you're all the way down.

You might have to...

You'd have to have, yeah, all the way to Syria, Jordan.

And it's never going to happen, you know, but that would be my dream.

Just keep walking, just like David Carradine.

Yeah, kung fu.

Totally.

What a dream.

We were so influenced by those programmes.

Bill

Bixby.

Yeah.

The incredible hulk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just walked alone.

He just walked alone.

Don't make me angry.

Please.

Leave me to.

I'm telling you.

It's not going to be good for anybody.

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

That was so good.

And Kung Fu and what were the other one?

They shaped our imagination.

Didn't so much buy the whole Michael Landon coming back from heaven to help people.

What was that one called?

The Angel or something.

He was an angel.

Yeah, he was an angel.

Stairway to heaven.

Stairway to heaven.

No, it wasn't.

It was touched by angels.

Or is that a.

No, that's stereotype.

All right, that's that a court case yeah

yeah yeah wait wait what was it do you know what was

like a landed michelle where he was and the the guy from the beard the guy with the beard from little house in the prairie followed him

uh

heaven highway to heaven highway to heaven that's it that's it um so yeah walking uh you've great walks here i know the appalachian trail and you have the great one on the west coast of walk town to town that's like a different vibe walking town to town and just seeing what adventure hits you.

Yeah,

but it's best to do it off-road because the roads are dangerous.

I'm afraid of dogs as well.

I was bitten when I was in Africa as a kid.

I remember my dad, so we lived at this place called Ben Kapufi Avenue in a town called Cabui.

And I remember, so we would have six months of good hot weather, and then we'd have six months of monsoons.

So in the hot weather, you went to school.

School started at 6 a.m., finished at 12 because it was too hot to be in school in the afternoon.

And then like all the other white people, you go to the swimming pool for the afternoon, like some kind of scene from an awful movie.

And then I remember one day the monsoons had just started

and I remember my dad coming at the front of the house and I was down the bottom of the road and he shouted, Tom!

Tom!

The Lone Ranger is on!

He wanted me to come back to the house.

So I wanted to to get there as quickly as possible.

So I started running through the neighbor's front gardens and hopping over the little fence.

And two doors down from us, there was these Swedish

who owned an Alsatian.

And when I ran through their front garden, their Alsatian came after me and attacked me.

Oh, no.

So I'm afraid.

I've been afraid of dogs ever since.

So

I wouldn't be able to walk from town to town for the fear of walking past dogs.

But the trails would be okay, wouldn't they?

Yeah, I guess so.

I was in

Vietnam, in the south-south, and there's some mountain you could look up into Cambodia.

And I was walking down, my cab driver said he'd be back in a few hours, and then he was just like, I'm gonna meet this guy.

And so, halfway up the mountain, he's on the road,

and I see him, and he's like, Oh, yeah, come in, I'll give you a ride.

He goes, What's a stick for?

And I'm like, Oh, he goes, You're afraid of dogs?

And I'm like, Yeah, man, I'm afraid of dogs.

They run right at you.

I don't know when they're going to stop.

And he just started laughing, but some of them are nice, and some of them are fucking.

I met this guy one time in Dublin.

I'm walking down uh

the kind of a slightly well-to-do part of the city and there's this guy standing with his back against a wall

and he says

he's not homeless or anything he he says can you help me?

And I says I'll try.

He says um

could you walk with me uh just twenty yards down down the road and I says yeah I says how come and he says I'm afraid of birds and that seagull is looking at me

and there was a seagull on the road fucking staring at him

he's like this one is afraid so can you imagine that to be afraid of birds

he had his back to the building and he he wasn't he was frozen so we couldn't get him from behind so that it's a it's a the should not go to australia in magpie season when they fucking swoop at you oh really yeah yeah damn that's so funny did you get him okay of course i did i said i would would have walked him halfway there, and I'm like, get him, and then just bolted.

You're on your own.

He's vulnerable.

Then I went to my friend's house to watch Cujo when I was little, and then there was a dog in between his.

It's a two-minute walk to my house, and there's a dog in between in a yard, and I just, I walked an hour and a half around, so I didn't have to walk past that thing.

I've been there.

I know.

Yeah, you got attacked.

So you're fully afraid of him.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

We have two dogs now.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

I was going to bring my dog here today.

I'm glad I did not.

Yeah, but so I don't know what it is.

It's not.

It's

yeah, it's real.

But I have that exact same thing.

I would walk a long way around home, walk through fields because there's this bastard of a dog that Joey Gorman owned that would come for me.

They know it.

They know if you're upset.

That's a stupid thing people say, oh, they know if you're afraid.

So not only am I afraid now, I'm paranoid about being afraid.

Yeah, and I'm doing it wrong.

I'm also feeling like I'm a failure.

Yeah, yeah.

But we survived.

Anyway, Tommy Tiernan's fucking long-awaited United States United tour is on, starting right next to it.

October, I think, we start in Toronto.

That's still in America, isn't it?

And then we go East Coast, West Coast.

It starts.

Okay.

Boston, the Wilbur Rules, bro.

You're going to love that.

Town Hall.

Oh, I got a concert that night.

All right, go.

I'm going to see fucking

Cindy Lauper for the first time.

She's an MSG that night.

You were at Town Hall.

Tell me about that.

Cindy Lauper?

Yeah.

She's a musician.

No, I know, but what's the.

I've never seen it.

I'm trying to cross these people off my list that I loved when I was little.

That I went to see The Cure last year, Dolly Pardon last year.

I'm just trying to get these people before they lose.

You loved when you were a kid.

Yeah.

Yeah, slow dancing to true colors.

Oh, my God.

You know, like this with a girl.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, great.

Shining through.

The Vick Rules.

Oh, you got some great fucking venues.

Minneapolis, Calgary.

Where do you got Pat?

I don't know that one.

The Vogue in Vancouver is great.

The Aladdin.

I was just talking about how cool the Aladdin is in Portland.

The Neptune.

Hell yeah, man.

It's a nice tour, isn't it?

Palace of Fine Arts was one of the favorite shows I've ever done.

You're doing two days there.

Bro, you got to walk around.

It's so pretty.

It was like in Vertigo.

Like all the stuff in Vertigo was out in front of the Palace of Fine Arts.

You got to walk around there.

Well, let me know if when when you're back in New York, if you want to go take a Schwitz or something.

Take a what?

A Schwitz.

What's that?

It's a Jewish tradition of going to sweat in Asana.

Oh, I went to a Russian one.

It was phenomenal.

Yeah.

The self-loathing was.

Oh, yeah.

Like, there's no sun

like there's sun.

So my Irish is.

Oh, it's fantastic.

A Russian bathhouse.

And just where you sit on the steps of the dungeon and you sweat, and then there's a bucket of cold water that you pour.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's slight reprieve, and then back to just like raising your body temperature.

Oh, wow, that would be a pleasure.

Yeah, all right, all right, okay, well, buddy, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Harry, so so glad you took the time out to listen to me.

Yeah, no, he, they, O'Brien's always uh sending me like, uh, or all these people are like, How would you feel about this guy?

I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, and then he's like tearing it.

I'm like, oh, yes, let me, I will clear my schedule.

Thank you.

We gigged together years ago in either in Montreal or New York or someplace, but remember we did some together way back.

No, I remember going to see, I was telling somebody about crowd work comedy or something, and I was like, in the Toronto Festival, I went to go see this, this, this big English comic, and I got a shuttle.

You went on it too.

This guy, I'm not going to say who, but he just did crowd work the whole time.

And we were sitting next to each other in the back of, I think, the comedy bar or something in Toronto.

And you're like, how'd you like it?

And I was like, yeah, all right.

He was just fucking crowdwork, though.

I wanted to see his act.

I'm like, yeah, I wanted to see his fucking act.

He didn't even do his act.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I was like, all right, this guy gets it.

Yeah.

Anyway.

All right.

Thanks, buddy.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, that's it, everybody.

That's the episode.

And what a good one.

What a good one.

And what a good time to be alive as a New York Yankee fan.

At this point, we should know already if it's a Subway series.

Obviously, the Yankees are in it.

It's our year.

No doubt about that.

I'm rooting for the Mets.

I'm rooting for the Mets because I want to see the city come alive.

And I don't mind Mets fans.

And I don't mind the Mets.

Good three wins in the World Series.

I'm rooting for you guys.

Get your three wins.

But everybody else,

it's about Judge Googe.

Aaron Gouge.

That's the episode.

Don't forget to check out Tommy Tiernan on the road.

He's in America right now.

Toronto, the Americas.

Toronto, Philadelphia, Boston, New York.

That sold out in November.

We got Chicago, Minneapolis, Calgary, Victoria, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Jose, and finishing up at San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts, which was my favorite show of last tour.

What a fucking glorious time there.

San Francisco, you're coming back.

I know.

Tech went in there, changed who your city was.

They abandoned you and left you for dead.

But I believe in San Francisco and I believe it's coming back.

Now that all the tech bros are gone, fashion, style, class can regroup into San Francisco and it can become the city it once was.

An American city an amazing place an amazing bar hopping city san francisco will be back i believe in it don't believe the hype it's going through a rebuilding sure so did the rangers a few years ago and now they're in the title hunt san francisco will be the title hunt for best cities in america in just 10 years that's my prediction don't give up on it by real estate uh go to tommy tiernan.ie for all his tickets he's doing a residency in uh well he's going all through ireland december january february uh killerney galway Castlevar Dublin is doing a whole residency in Dublin Galway Luth Athlone Belfast Limerick and Derry official Tom Medium on Instagram today's podcast was produced by your mom's house network it was edited by Alan Caffey and the boys over there chad and Chris helped as well

they rule This podcast rules.

Please subscribe.

I'm almost at 100,000 subscribers, which I thought was unreachable in the first year of a new YouTube account.

And I'm at over 95,000, so I'm right there.

Will this be the episode?

Next week's episode,

Russell Peters, who is on the Mount Rushmore of traveling comedians.

I'll tell you who they are as I see it now.

Russell Peters, for sure.

Jim Gaffikin, for sure.

Please, Jim, I got to get you on this podcast.

It's incomplete without you, without you and Russell.

Now Russell's doing it.

Now it's you, buddy.

Me, but I've been on the podcast before.

Who else is a great traveler

comedian?

You got to be a good comic, too.

I mean, Geo's up there, and he's coming on.

But you don't know him.

So can you put him on the Mount Rushmore if you don't really know his stand-up?

He's a great stand-up, but you don't know him like, you know, Gafikin or Russell.

Not Rogan.

It's me.

Those are three.

How many people on Mount Rushmore?

I guess you don't have to follow those rules.

You can carve your own note.

Oh, Tom roads sorry maybe probably the greatest tom roads and he's got to come in too so this podcast is incomplete without tom roads gaffigan and russell peters will be next week guys my on sale for my tour the final tour i'm doing for two years uh it's pretty much just january february march a couple gigs in december go to austin which is i already sold out uh and lake tahoe on december 21st at valleys casino in tahoe nevada um and then in

I'll go in order.

Pittsburgh.

Let's see if I know the whole thing.

Oh, that's off.

Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City.

These are all

December ones.

Providence, I believe.

I don't know.

I'll go in alphabetical.

Well, here are the theaters.

Atlanta at the Tabernacle.

That's at the end of March.

Then Portland.

That same weekend.

Big theater.

These are the theaters.

Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton.

I don't know if it's up or down.

That's the first weekend of April.

And then I'm done.

I got Anchorage, Alaska in June.

And that'll start me off on my sabbatical.

You won't see me for a while.

This podcast will keep going.

Don't worry about that.

It's going strong.

The whole dates, all available at arieshafir.com right now.

Anchorage, Atlanta, Austin, Solar, Brea, ooh, a big word.

Calgary, Chicago, not Chicago, Schaumburg.

Denver, that's a best of week in Denver.

Edmonton, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Jose, Seattle, Tahoe, Tampa, and Vancouver.

And then I'm gone.

You won't see me.

So if I'm going to be nearby, you go ahead and want to get a ticket.

There will be no cities at it.

There will be no cities at it.

It's possible I might do one more gig in Austin, but that city's already on there.

The farewell tour for Ari Shafir.

You're going to miss me when I'm gone.

You're going to miss me when I'm gone.

when I'm gone, when I'm gone.

That's it.

Please subscribe.

Don't forget to sign up for the Patreon, patreon.com slash you be tripping.

I've decided to do something new.

I'm gonna bring in some other people.

Column is gonna help me.

Hopefully, Sagalow, hopefully Canada.

We'll see some other people.

The one-on-one alone is not quite there, but I am still reading out your postcards on air.

Regardless if it's me or with somebody, I'll still do plenty alone.

But we'll read them together.

Just something to riff off.

And that's it.

Three a week, three a month, every month.

I got nothing else to say.

Oh, I do have one recommendation before we go.

New specials out by Sam Tripoli, Ryan Long, Paul Versee.

Go check those out.

But what you really want to check out is a new album

by Billy Strings.

Oh, it felt fucking good.

I forgot the name of it already.

It's so fucking good.

It's perfect, dude.

It's perfect.

It's It's exactly what you want from a Billy Strings album.

Billy Strings, artist, Highway Prayers.

God damn, it's good.

I'll tell you my favorite tracks.

First of all, I've never heard someone play the bong as a musical instrument before.

That's a first.

That's a first.

Where was it this whole time?

Playing the bong as a musical instrument.

It's party music.

It's weed music.

It's fucking woods music.

Tell you what, they're going to be a

cabin song will be an anthem for people going to the woods.

that's my prediction um

be your man is a great one leadfoot obviously leadfoot lead foot richard petty is a great one

let me see what else i think the one right before cabin song i think stratospheric blues anyway guys it's great go out and listen right now you can go to spotify if you want if you have the album

If you find it, the vinyl, send it to me.

Along with all your postcards and your money.

Of any place we've been, send me your money, or any place we probably will go.

Please market.

The guy who gave me a stack of bills, I went through them before I read your notes saying that they were stacked in order.

So I'll be looking those up.

But I got a few new ones.

I need a Somalia.

I need a, for next week, Russell Peters is on talking about Lebanon.

If anybody has any Lebanese money, please send it to 151 First Avenue, number 49, New York, New York, 10003.

The deal is the postal box is about that thin.

So if it can fit in that thin, it'll get in there.

If not, they do return to senders.

But that thin is any letter,

definitely any postcard.

Go on the road.

Whatever you're traveling.

I want to live vicariously through you the way the listeners do to the guests on this episode.

Like Tommy Tierner.

Not all of us can go to Somalia

on an aid trip.

By the way, Ireland, do your part, bro.

Do your fucking part.

Do what you pledged.

That's it.

Let's go, Yanks.

Next time

I do this podcast with Russell Peters from Studio West,

will the Yankees be World Series champions?

My last fucking season in New York.

Root with me.

Root with me.

Don't root against me.

Root with me.

It's a dream.

I've been here for 10, 12 years.

They've never gone this far.

They didn't even make the playoffs last year.

I'm going to every single home game.

I'm going broke doing it.

Please sign up for my Patreon, patreon.com slash UBTrippin.

I'm literally going broke.

It's costing me way more than I have.

Anyway, that's it.

Please get tickets for my

tour right now.

Anchorage, Atlanta, Austin, Breaunt, Calgary, Chicago, Denver, Edmonton, Dania, Nashville, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Jose, Seattle, Tahoe, Tampa, Vancouver.

I'll see you later.

Till next week.

Goodbye.

How do you say goodbye in Somalion?

I don't know.

I'm going to have to start looking these up ahead of time.

Bye, everybody.

Yes!

How about the video?

All right!

Googe!

It's our year!

Googe!