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Episode 18 - Guest AuDHD Comedian Willy Dubs
73 Plays2 years ago
Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) spend some time with indoor pant wearing comedian, Willy Dubs. We get into it, he talks about comedy, his AuDHD and there's even a surprise message from Loretta Swit, the actress who plays Hot Lips from Mash!
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Follow Willy Dubs NOW on Tik Tok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@willydubscomedy
Willy Dubs on YouTube, head on over to:
https://www.youtube.com/@opencircuittv
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See our beautiful faces on YouTube.
Put quill to paper and send us an email at: ADHDville@gmail.com
Theme music was written by Freddie Philips and played by Martin West. All other music by Martin West.
Please remember:
This is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals.
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Transcript
Introduction and Humor
00:00:00
Speaker
Size of that microphone. I can go over here and I'm invisible. Are you trying to intimidate us? Yeah, that's my goal. Yeah. Wow. It's all about the sizes. Apparently size doesn't matter. That's what I've heard. Yeah. That's a lie. Yeah. That's, I mean, I have no, I wouldn't know, but.
00:00:23
Speaker
Yeah. Okay.
Meet the Hosts and Guest - Willie Dubbs
00:00:28
Speaker
So, well, so yeah, I am, I am going to kick us off. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just going to kind of, yeah, well, you know, let's, let's kind of get all the intro stuff out of the way as fast as possible. All right. Well, uh, welcome to ADHD.
00:00:59
Speaker
Beautiful. Feel like maybe breathe deeply, slowly into your diaphragm.
00:01:11
Speaker
and breathe release and release there we are okay hello everyone i am paul tubson i was rubberstacked with ADHD just four months ago wow congratulations box fresh thanks box fresh brand new
00:01:29
Speaker
I know. And I'm Martyn West, and I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2013. And we have a special guest, which is the LD8, I'll start again, LDHD comedian, Willie Dubbs. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Cheers, Bob. Cheers, Bob. Come on. Cheers, Bob. Come on now. That's enough.
00:01:55
Speaker
Hi, how's it going? Thanks for having me on here. Yeah, thanks for coming on. I'm just going to do a little intro and then we'll get straight in there. So we're just two mates who by coincidence or not after 39 years of friendship discovered that we're code EHD is hurrah.
00:02:11
Speaker
Now,
Podcast Theme and ADHDville Metaphor
00:02:12
Speaker
it's really important to say this is an entertainment podcast, guys, about adult AGSD. It does not substitute for individualized advice for qualified health professionals. So do not take any advice from us, especially me.
00:02:28
Speaker
which is kind of an all-inclusive ADHD park bench with room for everyone, including your doppelgangers, your alter egos, your buddy doubles, your chaperones, and even your best buddies. Still here? Great. Grab your jetpacks, pedalos, space hoppers, or any other transportation methods. And let us take you to ADHD, Bill, and imagine the town that we've created in our minds, where we'd like to explore different parts of ADHD. Wow.
00:02:58
Speaker
now I know exactly what's going on that's great right well what's next in the going on thing is that we are the we are the joint mares of ADHDville and we should now get into a mares car and we're gonna squeeze in am I in the backseat yeah
00:03:21
Speaker
Oh yeah, we're all in the backseat. We're all in the backseat. It was like a cab. We've got a driver. We've got a driver. Oh, of course you do. Sorry. Bye bye. It's a mare's car. Well, let's go. Obviously. And then we'll go to the coffee place. So, so, taxi Datto as well. Nice drive, guys. There we go.
00:03:52
Speaker
Is this a town? Yes. A.J.D.ville is a town. It's a town, OK. Just making sure that I just want to be distracted by the labeling of this place. So like every week we just drive to different parts of the town and we just talk.
Coffee, TikTok, and Social Media Experience
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it's just so so we're at the coffee place. I'm drinking my my green tea. Yeah. What have you got there, Willie? This is actually just water I've
00:04:22
Speaker
I finished my coffee already for this morning and because I was up at six drinking coffee, so. Wow. Wow. I'm on to the water now, so I don't have such a dry mouth while I speak into a microphone. OK. So how how how how are you with with coffee? I love my coffee. I need it all day long. I sort of just wander over to the coffee machine where I work and just drink coffee consistently throughout the day.
00:04:53
Speaker
And then I go home. Does it make you wired? Do you get wired? Not really, no. I find it calms me down, if anything. It makes me kind of like... I heard that yesterday from someone. A little more chill than anything else. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Yes, someone I knew would have to have a mug of coffee before they went to bed, otherwise they wouldn't sleep. Yeah, because it has the opposite effect on us, right?
00:05:21
Speaker
a lot of us. I don't know if it's everyone. I don't I'm not a scientist. So yeah, contrary to a popular belief. I'm not an educator. I'm not a scientist. I don't have therapy videos. Okay, all those things. Yeah, I it's been one of those things on tik tok. You know, I know. I mean, I'm I'm pretty new to all this tik tok thing. I'm not a social media guy. I was told I was told by like my peers as a comedian, I have to be on the social medias.
00:05:51
Speaker
So I was like, okay, I guess I'm 46 years old. I don't know what to do on these things, right? I'm just bumping into things.
00:06:00
Speaker
And apparently you have to make certain content over and over again to gain followers, as you know. It has to be very... Yeah, I know, right. It sits in it.
Willie's Diagnosis Journey
00:06:09
Speaker
I mean... But then... TikTok... I don't see TikTok as... ADHD community. Yeah. But I also wanted to be a part of the community. I mean, I was diagnosed with ADHD seven years ago when I quit drinking. And...
00:06:24
Speaker
And I mean, when the alcohol left my system, it was like, who is this guy? I can't even, I can't even get dressed in the morning. I'm bouncing, bouncing around the room like a pinball. What am I going to do? I went to our like mental health or free mental health service in Canada, CAMH. And I was like, I listen, I don't know what's going on. I quit drinking and I can't function at all anymore. And they, I was diagnosed with ADHD.
00:06:50
Speaker
You know, a few years later, I'm trying to correct all the things that come with drinking your entire life. You know, the bad habits you pick up because I mean, it's all intertwined with all this neurodiversity that is. Um, and it was sort of like, I do, I'm doing the work and nothing's happening. I'm can't, I still getting fired from every job I've ever been in. I'm still having all these same problems. I'm like, I'm trying to deal with these things. And my therapist finally said, you know, I think there's something else at play here.
00:07:19
Speaker
And I'm like, what do you, what do you mean? Oh, something else. I don't, I'm not going to like this. I've got, I've got enough letters beside my name already on your car, your chart. Thank you. Um, and they said, I think you should go for an autism assessment. And I said, I said, no, I'm not autistic. My kid is, you know, what do you think it came from? You know, one of those things. And I'm like, and, and for many years, my kid was diagnosed with autism when he was like six or seven years old. And,
00:07:47
Speaker
And I was like, I was in, I was in denial. I was like, that's completely normal. That's what I did. That's a normal thing kids do. And, you know, and it turns out it's not.
Therapy and Relationship Dynamics with ADHD
00:07:56
Speaker
So, um, yeah, then I was diagnosed with, I mean, I just like maybe three weeks ago got the official diagnosis of autism because it takes like two and a half, three years in Canada to have that happen. Right. I mean, it's an interesting journey. That's for sure. And when you find out you're autistic,
00:08:12
Speaker
And your, your brain is like, Oh, I got to find out everything. I need everything. I have your information on myself. Right. So, I mean, by the time I went into the assessment, I was, I've read six books on autism and ADHD and all the diversities. And I was like, I was like telling the doctor, like, this is what the problem is. Here's what I have. And this is, I can tell you when I do this, when I do that, cause I've already analyzed myself for two and a half years, right? I've had that assessment 27 times in my head a day.
00:08:39
Speaker
So yeah. Oh boy. Amazing. Yeah. I mean, I'm still, as we were saying at the top of the podcast, I'm still box fresh. So I'm still, my girlfriend, she's, oh, we had an argument this week. She, she's like, I keep saying to her and I knew I'd said, look, I'm going to be so distracted for a bit.
00:09:00
Speaker
And it's obvious, right? But it's hard for her. Yeah. I must admit, it's really hard for her. I mean, the partners of people with ADHD have the patience of, um, have to have real patients. And I, I'm lucky to have someone who supports me and helps me and loves me for who I am. And, and I do the same return. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not in a neurodiverse neurotypical relationship. We're both neurodiverse, but you know, it's, it's, um,
00:09:26
Speaker
And we, we both have, like, we both have our things. We got to make sure we take care of each other and understand what, you know, what we're going through, you know? And yeah, because half the time when I'm angry, I don't say again, until you know yourself, I'm trying to learn myself. Exactly. And you know, that's the part, that's the part that you're like, um, uh, I don't, what do I do? Cause I don't even know why I'm angry.
00:09:50
Speaker
So how can I explain it to my partner, you know, when this is just a feeling of anger, it's not, it's not attached to any emotion. So I can't deal with it. You know, so it's like back and forth. And it's like, it's well, but you can't deal with it with, with, with comedy. That, I mean, well, comedy is a great way to deal with, with anger, isn't it comedy? I mean, for me, I, I see that one of the things people don't really know about me is I'm actually quite a serious person.
00:10:18
Speaker
I'm very serious. But my communication method is through comedy because I know how to communicate that way. It's not it's not because it's not because I
Comedy and Social Media Challenges
00:10:27
Speaker
I'm oh, everything is fine. Everything is fun. Let's have fun all the time. It's the topics I bring up in my comedy are serious topics. But yeah, I find having all of these we have enough serious neurodivergence on TikTok. I think I I feel like, OK, we we get it. We are serious. We have a lot to say.
00:10:48
Speaker
But I don't want to do that. And I'm being kind of pushed into that, that alley, that that lane and saying, you know, like, here's this is what you should do, because this is what's going to get you followers. But that's not what I want to do. And I, you know, I look at TikTok and I think or any social media, I say TikTok, because that's where I met you too. And and this is in this whole, like, social media as is, is not for artists.
00:11:16
Speaker
You know, it's not for the artist, it's for people sharing a message. And that's a great thing to have. But what about people who are neurodivergent, that are comedians, that are musicians, that are, you know, this is a part of our makeup that isn't being explored in these things, because we are very creative people. And it's not, it doesn't show on there, it shows that we're like,
00:11:41
Speaker
It's we're almost kind of like complaining about things and this is the problem and this is all this is what I face and I get it. It's a struggle. Everyone has those struggles and it sucks. But yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it I got to say I get a little emotional over this TikTok and social media thing because it's like, you know, I'm starting to I there are a lot of people that I started following in the community and then all of a sudden they are
00:12:09
Speaker
they're all of a sudden gurus who are charging other neurodivergent people money to learn from them, but they aren't qualified at all to do that. And, you know... Well, you can also be qualified and still not be good. Exactly. I mean, because this is all... Sharing an experience with people is different than
00:12:31
Speaker
trying to tell them how to deal with the situation, you know, and you're not these, these life coaches that are not life coaches that bothers me because
00:12:40
Speaker
I'm not going to obviously name anybody. I'm never going to do that. It's not, I'm not that kind of person, but there are a few that I've like, oh, you're now charging a fee for people to join your neurodivergent commercial community. Are you kidding me? This is an important neurodivergent. Let's be different. Let's be different than that. Let's, let's try to, let's try to grow positivity in our community and try to be, I might say this is, I'm not going to, I'll stop there for now.
00:13:11
Speaker
We were talking about this with Michael, and this really came through with our friend Michael, a lovely, lovely, lovely man. He's one of the most supportive people on TikTok for me. He likes my videos, he loves all my things, he comments, he's engaged.
00:13:28
Speaker
I think he's a swell fella. As he was saying, we've always done things differently. Let's just carry on doing it differently. We don't live by everyone else's rules. Exactly. And we're falling into the trap of doing the thing that everyone does when they feel like they're... What's the word I'm looking for here?
00:13:56
Speaker
put out and not, they don't fit in. They're like not, we're doing the thing that people do when they want a place to fit in and that's grabbing onto just our own. And when you grab onto just your own, you're forming a group that's separate. And I want to be, and again, anyone can do what they want. I'm not the expert on any of this either. But I think that we have to look at how do we communicate
00:14:25
Speaker
to normies, as I call them, that, you know, let's show them our strengths and how we can work with them in this society and how we can change a systemic problem together. Because if you
Neurodivergence in Comedy History
00:14:40
Speaker
can't see the, I always look at it not as neurodiverse and neurotypical because I've never met anyone who's neurotypical. I'm sorry. I can't name one person I would say is normal I've ever met. That's just better at masking.
00:14:53
Speaker
I would say there's a I would I look at it as more as neurotypical as a continuous thinker and neurodiverse is a disruptive thinker. And if you can't see how those two things work together,
00:15:05
Speaker
to better this continuous flow, then you're not thinking in a business sense at all. So you're not a good businessman or you're not a good, you know, there's an opportunity here for neurodiverse people to work with neurotypical to change the system instead of yelling about what's wrong all the time. And because people don't react well to
00:15:27
Speaker
being told what's wrong. They react well to receiving that information as a partner, as an effort to connect. There's enough polarisation out there as it is, right? We don't need any more. This us and them thing I'm really uncomfortable with. At the same time, I do love being part of a... I've never felt part of a tribe before as a community ever.
00:15:50
Speaker
And I do love it. Oh, so do I. That's a great part of it for sure. But not but the us and them is I don't like that. I think the problem is us and them doesn't work for any of the strategies, any of the groups that are trying to get there there. We've been divided into a bunch of groups that are, you know, like all all all a right or politically right person has to do is create a hate group and hate a group. And then that group bonds together.
00:16:18
Speaker
and separates themselves from all the other groups. And now we've got a bunch of groups. They've become an echo room. So you want to hear each other's opinions and points of view. I don't need that opinion. I don't need that opinion. I know what I've lived it. I don't need to hear it over and over again. I want to find a way to connect that to a working method of
00:16:40
Speaker
communication with everyone, not just autistic people. I don't make comedy for autistic people in ADHD, people in ADHD, I make comedy for people. Yeah, no, I've been like, there's been some really nice stuff that you've been posting. We were just talking about that earlier. I mean, we were talking about Michael earlier. So when you did that whole skit,
00:17:09
Speaker
of him saying that you weren't interested in having followers. That was just so funny and I kind of thought he must have been so chuffed with that. I decided that what I wanted to do instead because I
00:17:28
Speaker
I don't like to play the game of TikTok or social media. I don't like that idea of like, oh, you got to follow trends to get people to like you. I'm a comedian. I'm used to talking to like four drunk people in a bar. You know what I mean? So if I get a hundred views, I'm like, oh, that's way better than four drunk people. Right. So, yeah. I mean, I look at it as sober, I guess. Yeah. They remember. They remember that.
00:17:53
Speaker
You know, there's there's I've started when I when I when I was diagnosed with ADHD after I quit drinking and then with autism, I took I went back to comedy because they drank for my whole life. And, you know, when you drink your whole life, you're you you forget about what you actually care about and you don't do it. Right. And with that comes, you know, a lot of a lot of guilt you put on your seat, put a lot of weight on yourself. You feel bad for what you've missed and all this stuff. But then
00:18:22
Speaker
You know, I grabbed my old, my old, the stuff I wrote when I was, you know, drinking and throughout my comedy career. And that was very early in the nineties and stuff like that. And I kind of drank it and forgot about it. But I looked at it and I'm like, this isn't even me. Who is this? Like I know, who is this? What is this writing about? This isn't even the guy I am. And it was the hottest thing. Like I have to start over as a comedian. I have to change what I do. And I'm, I've always been like,
00:18:47
Speaker
I'm from the generation of like SC TV and, you know, these Canadian comedy shows that are like a little more obscure and a little absurd. And they're kind of talking about things, but not directly. And it's kind of like just weird. And I don't.
00:19:01
Speaker
And that's so I I've always gravitated to that. So I've like, yeah, realized that's a great time for comedy, though, isn't it? You know, yeah, it is. And you you you actually expect to hear the opposite of that. Right. Because of this, a lot of comedians feel like they're sort of like pressured to be careful what they say and what. But I mean, as a comedian, I think that's always been the case. You always have. There's always been a line.
00:19:28
Speaker
And you could get to it and you can't cross it. That's been the rules forever. And yes, the line has moved a little closer to, you know, it's always the court. Chester had the had the the only guy in the court in the royal court that had it was able to actually deliver bad news to the king. Right. Yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
But there's, that's exactly what it is. I was looking this up, I remember it was on one of your TikTok posts, you were talking about becoming the jester in your town. Yeah. So I did a little bit of research for you, Willie, because I found this, I did a research on the famous court gestures, and there's this court gesture from the 15th century to King Henry II, it was called Roland le Fartaire.
00:20:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Translates frustratingly as Roland the Farter because that was his thing. On Christmas day, he had this, his thing was he would whistle once, jump once and fart once just before serving up dinner. And
Sketch Comedy and TikTok Authenticity
00:20:32
Speaker
the king loved him so much, adored him so much, he gave him as a gift a country estate in Suffolk with 30 acres of land.
00:20:41
Speaker
As inspiration, if you want to be conscious. Listen, listen, I, I, part jokes are the first joke you learn. Right. I mean, we can't take it because I mean, we still laugh at them sometimes. I mean, it's, we're, we're, brings back that childhood of what comedy was, I guess. And, and, and, I mean, comedy has become much more sophisticated over the years, but I look at, I look at it all as sort of, if, if you're, if you're a genuinely good person,
00:21:11
Speaker
And you mean well and you do your do your research and you do like you make sure that you're not offending people. It's really easy to write comedy. You're you're because my comedy especially because it's about me. I mean, I don't write about anything but myself. Right. I mean, I've had people get upset because I have I have a character that you probably haven't even seen yet. And he just loves bricks. He just loves bricks. Oh, my God. And and it's like
00:21:40
Speaker
And I had someone get upset because they were saying I was making fun of autistic people. And I was like, I am autistic people, first of all. Number two is, and this is just a reference to me in my special interests. I'm sure they're not bricks, but I'm just using something else that's completely... Yeah, yeah. It's the same with the guy that did a ball write to Connery, his name is British Guy.
00:22:04
Speaker
you know, making fun of the Jewish community. But he is Jewish, you know. Can I just jump in to point out that Paul and I worked for a company that made bricks.
00:22:22
Speaker
Seven years in the brick industry. I know nothing about bricks. I know lots about bricks. Well, I might have to chew your ear on future episodes of Ron Brickman because I'm out of brick knowledge.
00:22:41
Speaker
My first job was a photo shoot in East Germany, photographing a brick factory, a brick factory. Yeah. For, for the same company that Martin and I used bricks. Yeah. I figured it was just after the wall came down in Berlin, like two months after the wall came down. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Did they ever use any of those bricks? You think?
00:23:09
Speaker
sorry. No, no, no, no. They sold those bricks. So they would have been like gift shops. Yeah. They went to gift shops. Yeah. Just box fresh bricks. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been cool if you were involved in taking those and just polishing them up and selling them online. Yeah. Yeah. If only I'd probably be a rich man. Yeah. Should have got in there a little earlier. That's all.
00:23:33
Speaker
You know, we were talking about, you know, that, you know, getting followers, right? Because, you know, certainly on TikTok, and I think that that could be a focus for us, Paul and I next week is like, how can we cultivate some more followers for you? Because because then you can go live, right? You want to do a
00:23:59
Speaker
You want to kind of do live workshops or something? OK, so the the idea this is this is again, I I my I I work in ridiculous ideas and then chop them till they fit. That's my that's how I start every process is just like this grand thing that will never happen because it's impossible. And then I try to make it possible. Well, I started a sketch comedy show called Open Circuit TV.
00:24:26
Speaker
And there's one demo episode up. It's sort of like I was learning how to use my phone to edit and all of it's done on my phone. It's sort of like a it's open circuit TV is like a sketch show based on the true story of someone discovering who they are again, which is obviously me. And but also one part documentary about making
00:24:52
Speaker
a sketch show about a, about a nerve divergent comedy, comedy troupe. So there's like, it's just an odd ball kind of bunch of bunch of characters that don't fit in and they make weird. It's like a television station that doesn't, uh, you know, it doesn't, doesn't really know what's going
Community-Involved Writing and Encouragement
00:25:09
Speaker
on. So it's like an old UHF, if you remember that, like Weird Al Yankovic, uh, it's sort of like that in there. And it's just, it just goes on from there. And what I wanted to do, what, when I started to, I do it in real life too. I do it on Wednesdays at a bar.
00:25:22
Speaker
And I have a, there's a couple people in the, because everyone, I wanted to be neurodivergent. I wanted them to be either ADHD or autism and be a part of this community. And so there's three of us all that do the, what it is now I'm the main writer. I keep sort of like control of the show. It has, it has, it has a structure. It needs to be maintained and it has to be, you have to fit into it. And other than that, you can bring your own characters into a television show. This is how it works. So what I want to do is start a live writing room.
00:25:52
Speaker
for the show where I can get the stories and experiences of other neurodivergence in the community and sort of right along with a core group that are online and have like people throw in ideas and I want to do sort of like dress rehearsals and people can volunteer to act and come on and do the scene and
00:26:15
Speaker
I wanted to work within the community to create this show that I've been working on. I've got about four episodes written, but what I feel is missing is another and more voices, more experiences. Because I'm running out of autistic traits to make fun of. So we have to. So I need someone else's. Is that possible?
00:26:36
Speaker
No, it's not. They're so much fun. I mean, I love being autistic. If someone said, hey, I can take away your autism tomorrow, I would say, no, thank you. No, I love this brain. I love how it works. It doesn't work for the world we live in very well, but the world I live in in here is awesome. And I wouldn't trade it for the world, right?
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah. So we have to get you to enough followers on TikTok. So if anyone out there just watches us on YouTube, get over to TikTok. Yeah, Willie Dub's comedy. It's easy to spell. Right. So you did a TikTok a little while ago where I thought you were being very Canadian in your asking for people to follow you. Yeah.
00:27:29
Speaker
So I thought that you needed a bit of encouragement, right? So I reached out to Loretta Switt, who was Hot Lips on Mash. Remember that show? Oh yeah, for sure.
00:27:50
Speaker
And and I got her to to record a a encouraging video for you to to to to kind of like keep me going so I don't quit because you know what's coming right you know it's covered the quitting it's gonna happen anytime yeah right momentarily the 80s 80s she's gonna kick in I'm gonna get bored of followers all together and
00:28:18
Speaker
We're the same with this podcast, right? Martin said, right, right. You know, it was totally right at the top of, you know, we recorded the, before we started recording, said, let's just set a marker at 10 podcasts and we go from there. Yeah. It's tricky. I mean, I, I've, I have so many,
00:28:37
Speaker
So here she is right now. I'm going to play the video and then hopefully you can you can you can see it and hear it. Here we go. Here we go. Hello there Willy and surprise. Gotcha. It's Loretta Sweet here. I'm here by way of cameo thanks to Martin and Paul.
00:28:59
Speaker
friends who love and adore you, and now I'm a part of that as well. Thank you for inviting me in on this because I want to talk to you about, I guess, somebody who has been such a strong inspiration to me. Her name is Hannah Gatsby. Maybe you've heard of her. She's world famous.
00:29:19
Speaker
She is an incredible, what, comedian, storyteller, stand-up, and game changer. She changed the face of comedy as we knew it before Anna Gadsby, able to not only make you laugh, but tell you incredible, sensitive stories about her own life, share with you, and touch your heart.
00:29:46
Speaker
and reach out and be one. I mean, the connectivity, yes. She has an amazing ability.
00:29:57
Speaker
through so many glass ceilings to help her sisters. Now, a word about Hannah, she also eventually, within her success, was able to go viral about her own autism and talk about it and share intelligence and share herself. She has said,
00:30:25
Speaker
Her own sensitivities are her strengths. There you go. I mean, she really is my inspiration. And I thought I should call your attention to this incredible human being. She's a mensch like you, according to your friends. You've got it all. You've got the strength, the resilience.
00:30:50
Speaker
And I guess a loving family. And if you watch Mash Enough, you know that Colonel Potter always said, I don't care how poor a person is, if they've got family, they're rich. You have a lot of love and support.
00:31:07
Speaker
And you certainly have mine. Have a glorious life. Get on with it. Don't be. What can I say? Don't, don't shirk from your sensitivity. It's a strength as is your real strength and resilience. You've got it all. God bless. That's very sweet. There we go. I'm going to keep going.
00:31:38
Speaker
Now I'm going to get to that live and I'm going to do it. A message for you. Amazing. That's amazing. Thank you. That's very sweet. Now I'm motivated and ready to go. Take on the world. Take on the world. Me and Hannah Gadsby. Take over the autistic world.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, you know, maybe do what me and Martin did, set a target, you know, like a reasonable target. I've sort of decided to just like, just do whatever I want and just go with it. And the less pressure I put on myself, the more I do anyway. Isn't that one of the advantages of being diagnosed late in life?
Late ADHD Diagnosis Benefits
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there's, I have this, I have this debate often with fellow, you know, neurodivergence in my community. And, you know, it's, would, would I want to be diagnosed as a kid? Or would I want to go through, I mean, the struggles sucked, but they did something to me, you know, they, they, they made me who I am, you know, they, they made me much more compassionate, understanding, accepting of people, because I, I have the experience of,
00:33:01
Speaker
you know, being different my whole life and not knowing why and thinking everything is this way. And so I mean, I often have this conversation about what I prefer to be diagnosed early or have the experience I do now, because I think a lot of strengths come from the experiences. But I mean, who knows? I mean, who know? I could have been like a world famous engineer if I was diagnosed when I was a child. Maybe I wouldn't be doing comedy at all. Right. I mean, yeah.
00:33:26
Speaker
But I doubt it. I mean, I was when I was a kid, I was stuck in front of like televisions listening to records of comedy. And I was I studied everybody's moves. I mean, I'm I'm I'm like like any autistic person, a compilation of parts of people I like. Right. I mean, it's like a personality. But we build it or we were very aware of building it, you know, because because all the parts don't fit, you know, at first. So we have to try them on and see what works. And so. Yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
I mean, there's a there's a whole I'm seeing a lot of videos now and on these social media is about having how we have to completely unmask and we have to completely and I don't know if that's accurate. I don't again, I'm not saying anybody's wrong, but I don't look at it like
00:34:13
Speaker
I have a mask that I have to use and I love to use. It's on right now. It's on the show. It's how I operate. It's how I communicate. Comedy is masking, isn't it? I mean, in comedy, this works in this format, but if you take me to a funeral, you're going to be like, oh my God, don't ever go stand near Will at a funeral because he's going to make you laugh the entire time you're at this funeral because that's how I deal with everything, right? Talk to me. Comedy is just my communication form.
00:34:43
Speaker
And I forgot where I was now. The idea that we have to unmask. See, I look at the mask. I think we should get to a true sort of base mask that is the most comfortable for us. But I think
00:35:06
Speaker
I think the masks we're talking about taking off are the masks that are caused by trauma that are reactive coping masks that are negative. Everybody, I think, has a mask that is I say I compare it to what neurotypical again, whatever that is, would call a personality because it's but they just build it.
00:35:27
Speaker
naturally, and it just happens to them, right? Because they can, they can take in that information where someone who is autistic has more of a like, Oh, I kind of like what that person is doing. Let's give it a shot. Oh, no, that doesn't match the inside. So let me try another thing. Yeah. You know, when you go through your life.
00:35:46
Speaker
So the same with all of the kind of the great, you know, art movements in the world, the great artists, the great pieces of art, they've all as a consequence of difficulty, not in spite of it. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's like, that's an, I guess, an older, like, that's an idea of that has been around for many years as like, does, does tragedy equal comedy or, and like, you know, vice versa? Is there like, is there a component to that? And I think, I think in some ways, yes.
00:36:16
Speaker
If that's how you deal with tragedy, you know what I mean? If you deal with trauma with comedy, I think, yeah, you're going to get better at comedy. I think that's, but I think that's more of a, your coping skills are just getting better or not. I don't know. I wouldn't say like, you can't be funny without the trauma. Cause I think you can be. I think that if your form of humor is about you and very genuine,
00:36:41
Speaker
Because I like to think of my comedy as very genuinely me and I don't. And I'm unapologetic about that. I'm not going to bend my weird ways to conform to an audience because I don't think that's what art is. I think art is, in the great words of Rick Rubin, is made for yourself.
00:37:03
Speaker
you the best work is made for the artist makes for themselves and then is appreciated by people who like that artists work. What you're seeing now is all these mass produced made for people. Content and it's big box nonsense and nobody likes it's all terribly because it's being made for people instead of by people for themselves.
Masking in Comedy and ADHD Perceptions
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah, the creative process is internal and personal, right?
00:37:30
Speaker
Talking of masking, you know, Jim Carrey, he used to be a fellow Canadian, right? He made a film called The Mask. I mean, if there was an example of a man that was masking, I mean, when, someone once asked, you know, when are you ever Jim Carrey? And he said, I have lots of different versions of myself. And probably you'll never meet the real one.
00:37:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's I mean, that's I mean, I'd say my goal now is more to get my myself as close to this mask as possible. So I'm most comfortable. I most myself in public. I say I'm pretty close to that. What the mask you're seeing now is about as me.
00:38:20
Speaker
As I can get in public, you know what I mean? At this point, because like I said, in this way, it works, so I don't have to worry about it. But in funerals and in situations where you're not supposed to be funny and you're not supposed to be loud and I don't work, you know, and that's so and that brought its own challenges. I mean, you think of the like when you are
00:38:40
Speaker
when you're as good at talking and as good as communicating as I am, no one thinks you're autistic. First of all, that's like, it's ridiculous. The autistic people aren't funny. Autistic people don't talk and communicate in public well. And I've always had the opposite challenge of like, I make friends very easily. People want to be my friend because they like that character that's playing at the end of the bar or whatever. And they're like, oh, let's go hang out with that guy. And
00:39:09
Speaker
that guy doesn't necessarily want to be friends with everyone. That's more of my problem. I'm like, I have only capacity for this many people. This is what I got. This is how many close people I can have in my life at a time. I'm sorry, you take too much energy
00:39:26
Speaker
or spoons as they call them now. Someone went to win up to Robin Williams. He said, make me laugh. And Robin Williams, you know, he was like, I don't know where he was. I think he said he was in Disney World or something. He was like, middle of nowhere. He said, what? He said, come on, make me laugh. He said, well, it's not written at the moment. And the guy just said, fuck you and walked away.
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my God. You know, but that's, I guess people that this, uh, it's been said, you know, of comedians that, you know, they, luckily comedians do make life just seem much, much better than it is. Well, I think, I think the importance of this, right? I think there's a real important, uh, comedy is, is needed to be used more and taken more seriously, you know, because
00:40:16
Speaker
I think the best way to learn is through comedy. And that's the way I learned everything, you know, and and and now with comedians being sort of like held to a little far or a little further this way, I do think that there's less learning happening and the less discovery of, you know, these social issues. Right. Because the way I learned about all of these things in the past were comedians making jokes about them, you know, and and I was able to make my own opinion
00:40:44
Speaker
of the comedian, you know, and not, you know, if I disagreed with it, I disagreed with it and it was fine. And then taught me not to, if I look at that and I see something that's ugly and not quite mean, I'm like, that's, I made an opinion of it.
00:40:57
Speaker
when you're now everyone's telling me how I should feel you know and that's and that's where we're losing this connect and and with comedy and comedy you had some people who said that they just thought you should make more autistic posts is that right yeah that's that's that's that is my number one um
00:41:16
Speaker
Number one, it gets me going so much. What is an autistic post where I talk directly about the experience of my life? Sure, I'll make those if I feel like I have something to say.
00:41:36
Speaker
But I'm not here to help. And I've seen people try to do it. I've seen people try to do that kind of comedy. There are guys out there that try to do that. I'm not convinced that it works, but it's a personal thing, you know? There is, I think there's a place for it. I think if you, again, it's about writing and it's all, it's everything now is about writing and being, you got to write smarter, you got to write clearer, you got to make your point more effectively because if you're misunderstood now, there are bigger consequences.
00:42:06
Speaker
Not it's very very rarely will I say something that I mean that is insulting
00:42:13
Speaker
You know what I mean? Because it's not, that's not my nature in any way. So when you write, you just got, it's a careful, it's about being careful and writing for your audience that is, but still you, you know? And I have, I look at these autistic walk and talks I call them because I do some of them. I made a series called Autist Tips that people love that it was ridiculous. This tips to normies and how to- I love the title, by the way. It was good. It was a good post. It did well. Love the title. The first one I was like, Oh God.
00:42:42
Speaker
It was autistic, whatever ridiculous name that is. I don't even say it in the video. I mean, this is just what I could think of. I just combine words. That's what happens all the time. But that gained popularity and people sort of missed the point as like,
00:43:00
Speaker
this is me talking to autistic people as giving them like life advice where it's not, it's, it's, it's completely the opposite. It's actually talking to people who are normal and how to cohabitate with us in the wild, as I say, but it's like, to what comes to mind is have you seen the series little Britain? Yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. Right. Well, Andy, he pretends to be disabled. Yeah.
00:43:27
Speaker
Can you imagine someone pretending to be ADHD just to get the sympathy? I mean, you look on TikTok and Instagram and all these, and you will see people that are pretending. And this is another thing.
00:43:49
Speaker
fighting against each other again. And now
ADHD Community and Genuine Connections
00:43:52
Speaker
it's in some ways like we're like, Oh, this, this person self diagnosed this person's I was self diagnosed before I was diagnosed. So I mean, it's completely legitimate. And if you're an autistic person, and you know that, that how your how the autistic mind actually works, because I've read the books, I've read more books than I've ever read in my life since be being diagnosed with autism. Yeah. And
00:44:16
Speaker
You start to learn like this is how I am, not like, and this is how I'm going to function. I can't do it another way. So if I want to be creative, I have to be creative on my terms. And that means, you know, these autistic videos are just when I want to make them, you know, or when I feel like there's a valid point to make.
00:44:37
Speaker
Hmm. Did you ever get to a point where you just like, okay, you shouldn't overanalyze comedy. You should just do it. It's a bit like sex. You know, if you, if you listen to Freud, Freud's analysis on sex, you would, you'd never, you'd never get under the sheets ever again in your life. It's like, Oh my God, it scares the living day. It's like, if I, I've already done, I've already wrote down here. If I listened to Freud all day analyzing sex, I'd suddenly become like Mike Pence.
00:45:03
Speaker
or Ann Widdicombe, you know, just like Omeba. It's like, oh, God, what's the point? That's actually a good question. That's a tricky question because I think there's, for me anyway, that's my favorite kind of question. I think analyzing is important. For me anyway, I think over-analyzing is how I get to the absurdity.
00:45:32
Speaker
You know, that's like the journey to what it actually is. Cause it starts, if I read about my next thing is going to be, it's going to be, you would say, that's not funny at all. That's, that's, that's, that's sad. What are you talking about? That's, that's a hard life. What led that's, it's terrible. But when you, when you analyze it enough and you make the points so, so, so far in the, in the literal direction that they're absurd.
00:45:59
Speaker
I think that over-analyzation works for me anyway. I mean, we're lucky in the UK, we grew up with some of the most amazing comedians, like Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and a guy called Tommy Cooper. Do you know Tommy Cooper? I don't know, I'm a little lucky right now. If you actually, well, with most of what Peter Sellers said, you know, Tommy Cooper, if you saw it on paper in black and white, you wouldn't, it's not funny at all.
00:46:28
Speaker
And it's not even the context. It's not even because it's not about analyzing. It's just because there's something about them performing it. They were just phenomenal. Or in Tommy Cooper's case, just his timing was just hilarious. He basically said nothing. Timing is everything, I think, in comedy, man. My father, I mean, my father was
00:46:51
Speaker
one of the funniest people I've ever met, but he never said anything funny. He never said a funny thing. His timing was impeccable. He came in at the right time. He made the right sound at the right time. It wasn't, but he never made it on purpose. It was just his natural, he's there from my, like, uh, like Michael, my, my dad is from the East coast of Canada and he's from Nova Scotia. Um, and that, that they're called the culture is very like,
00:47:20
Speaker
jolly and kind of friendly. And they're all kind of like, they have this, they have this comedic timing. And my dad's, my dad's whole family was like that. Yeah. Is it like Fargo? Is it like Fargo? It's like really, okay. They're kind of really apologetic all the time and really nice to me.
00:47:37
Speaker
No, they're really not. They're very nice people, but they're not like necessary. I wouldn't say apologetic. If you go to the East Coast of Canada, everyone's going to be very super friendly. You probably won't pay for a drink.
00:47:52
Speaker
You'll have a great time. But at the end of the night, they'll all be fighting each other and, you know, punching each other out. Yeah, it's a very, very similar. It's actually very similar to a lot of places in the UK. Yeah. I mean, they are. And mostly my background on that side is Irish and English and Scottish. So that is my family's side on my dad's side. And they all came to Nova Scotia, which is New Scotland.
00:48:16
Speaker
and uh-huh okay so that's that's where the red red hair the red hair gene came from then I guess this guy you know I don't even have red hair in my head oh boy
00:48:31
Speaker
I don't have any hair on my head now, but I, when I was, when I was younger. Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. My hair was like, my hair is like a, um, like a brown blonde. There's not a lot of piece of red in there.
00:48:47
Speaker
But we've got just like maybe just like kind of towards finishing up. We set ourselves a task, me and Martin, yesterday or day before yesterday. Remind me? Yeah. Of how many ADHDs does it take to change the light bulb? Blimey. You know what?
00:49:06
Speaker
Did you forget? What light bulb? Yeah. What light bulb? Where's... What squirrel? I have light bulbs in my house that have been burnt out for probably about six months.
00:49:22
Speaker
And I prefer the dark. My partner is like, oh, please, can we get light bulbs? I'm like, yeah, I'll get one today. I forget every day. That's when light bulbs become a luxury item. Well, yeah. Oh, we still got one up there. It's fine.
00:49:37
Speaker
That one's still working. That's fine. We can still see. It's a problem. Okay. Well, there, there you go. This, we're going to hit the, uh, the last bit, the, the last question. So we were talking earlier about ADHD is a, is a town. Um, and each of our guests, um, now that you are part of ADHDville, you, you get to open up or, you know,
00:50:06
Speaker
a new part of the town could be a building or a business or whatever. So we had Michael, Autistic Lime, he opened up a second hand bookshop.
00:50:20
Speaker
last week, the Maddy opened up a theme park. So that was kind of quite nice. Yeah. And Jonathan Tapas and Tequila Bar. So yeah, so what would you like to open up as a little
00:50:42
Speaker
Do you have a, do you have a, like a methadone clinic? No, but, uh, if, uh, not yet. Not a projection site. I mean, those are, every city should have one of those. Um, but maybe not, not for me. I maybe have the wrong, I mean, I'm the wrong guy for that job.
00:50:58
Speaker
But, uh, I think, uh, I think I'm going to open up my open circuit studio there. Open circuit TV is going to be in your town. It has a little bar in the basement. That's a comedy bar in the basement called mom's basement. Uh, where we, uh, bring out the up and coming talent. If it's next, if it's next door to the tapas place. All right. Perfect. All right. Yeah. Go to the studio, watch a recording after your, uh,
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah. After you eat up all the tapas menu and you're fine. And then
Comedy Studio Vision and Wrap-Up
00:51:32
Speaker
head on over to the safe injection. I'm thinking that I will turn up to the open circuit place too late and there's a closed sign on the door. It could happen. It could be called something else in a week.
00:51:56
Speaker
You know, whatever I've, I've, my new, my thing is kind of like, I've, I've, I make series a series for everything. So now I've got about 400 series and they only have one video in each of them because I just make new series. I don't, I don't want to continue with the same thing over and over again. It was boring. Give me some excitement. I don't want, I don't want to do the same thing over and over again. Give me a, give me some, I want, I want it to vary. I want my content to be.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah. I want you to, I want you to come onto my page and say, what the hell is happening here? What is going on? Do you have, do you have a weird cycle? Uh, Willie, do you have a, like a, I have a four year cycle where I just crash, I start something and then I crash and burden, you know, burn bridges and self sabotage. Oh, I do that weekly.
00:52:41
Speaker
I'm weakly weakly. Yeah, I just change it up. Keep it keep it fresh. Yeah, I I've you know, I look at the even like as far as like I guess relationships I would say take up the most of my energy and like work. Yeah. I look at I look I look at relationships sort of as like every person that I ever
00:53:02
Speaker
I have so few close relationships because I have to move them into my like, mental rental apartment in my head, you know, and work it and like, live through situations with each person difficult situations. So when I read them, and when it comes up in public in real life, I can I can deal with it, you know, and so there's only so many vacancies in my apartments. So I try to I have to like, choose people
00:53:26
Speaker
who, you know, are good tenants. That's a really nice way of putting it. I love that. Yeah, I don't. It's much better than now. We've got a cupboard.
00:53:40
Speaker
We've got this cupboard where we come like, because we're just really crap friends. We're just like, Oh, I mean, you know, I don't think people who take less energy are great. You know, there's, there's, there's, I've, I've, I've come to a point where, I mean, again, I've been very, I've been very lucky as a person with autism to be sort of popular. You know, as I, in high school, I was popular. I was the worst student.
00:54:06
Speaker
And I was kicked out of every class. I never was in every school I was ever in, but I was a popular kid. So I've always been able to choose my friends. And that's given me a real like close knit group of people that I know that I can just be myself with. And that's what I'm trying to do more than I am unmasking. I'm trying to surround myself with the people I don't have to do that with. And I think that's what community-
00:54:37
Speaker
Yeah. And that's what I think community on TikTok is trying to do, but kind of failing because we're doing that thing where we're separating each other again and look and scrutinizing. And, you know, everyone's worried about, is it, are you really autistic? Are you, do you really have ADHD? There's going to be people that pretend. Of course there are, because that's what people do. If not, if it's not that, it's going to be a back injury. It's going to be, those people exist. And I think, and this is going to sound really weird. You have ADHD, so you might actually relate to this.
00:55:07
Speaker
But I think there's, the people that are pretending, I think I can tell. You know what I mean? I know when they're being, I may not be able to tell they're not autistic or they don't have ADHD, but I can tell they're not being genuine. You know what I mean? There's definitely, because I mean, growing through life with ADHD, you know, you process people so quickly and you watch what they're doing over and over and you get a good idea of what people,
00:55:33
Speaker
people very quickly and no trauma you have. I haven't looked out for that at the moment. It's not something, Martin and I talk sometimes about our radar and how sensitive it is and how we can tell quite easily. It becomes more and more efficient. I haven't looked out, I haven't thought about people who are faking it yet. I haven't seen them.
00:55:54
Speaker
For me, I'll just be going through it and I'll be like, oh, whatever this person is saying, it doesn't seem genuine. It's not even that I'm saying they're lying about what they're saying. It's not connecting. The visual is not connecting to the audio. You know what I mean? And I feel that a lot in life. All right. Cool, right? Well, I think that's kind of like...
00:56:16
Speaker
What an interesting chat. I think we'll just head on into the outro part before we say goodbye. So we need to get back into the taxi because we need to go back to the town hall. So let's just jump in the back. I don't want the middle seat this time.
00:56:41
Speaker
All right. You're so shy. You're so shy. Come on. You guys, it's all good. I'm back here. I'll be in the middle. This is the most uncomfortable seat. All right. Let's go.
00:56:57
Speaker
Definitely sitting on a seatbelt. Yeah, right. All right. We're back in the town hall. Okay. So this is just to say ADHD Ville is delivered fresh every Tuesday to all purveyors of fine podcasts. Please subscribe to the pod and rate us most magnificent and feel free to correspond with us at will, but wait, there's more. If you want to see all three of our beautiful, beautiful faces, then you can Sally forth to YouTube.
00:57:26
Speaker
or sally fields to youtube and if you pick up a quill you can email us at adhdville at gmail
00:57:40
Speaker
Alright, let me click on that outro button. So that just leaves me to say thanks so much, Wooly Dubs. That was a really great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I go to Wooly Dubs Comedy.
00:58:00
Speaker
Check me out, I'm not gonna do what you want, so don't tell me you want autistic videos. I'm gonna make whatever I want. Like it or not. I'm gonna do it. That's up to you. Don't tell me what to do. And talk about housepads. How do we miss out on housepads? Indoorpads? I don't have pets. I don't like to touch animals. I love animals, but I don't like to touch them.
00:58:27
Speaker
Yeah, they have different hygiene standards than I. Yeah, you don't know my talk though. I know the dogs, they don't wipe. They don't wipe after the bathroom. They run around in dirt.
00:58:44
Speaker
I don't even like, my feet haven't even touched the floor in my entire lifetime. I have like, I have inside shoes, inside little sandals. The toxic of the licking thing, they've got that down. They've got that down. Where are they licking?
00:59:00
Speaker
Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so that just leaves Martin to say. Be. Be fucking kind to yourself. Be fucking kind to yourself. Yeah. Yeah, be kind to yourself. And I would say, I beseech you, fellow ADHDers, know thyself, sons of the hounds, come hither and get the flesh.
00:59:27
Speaker
And I'll say, and I'll say, do whatever you want. Stop being, stop, stop being a follower. Stop dilly-dallying. Stop being a follower. Can we change the name of those things to fans instead of followers? Oh yeah. Followers. It's not a cult. There, says the mayor. That's that.