THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.55 - SIMON AMSTELL

Episode Date: November 3, 2017

Adam talks with British comedian, writer and director Simon Amstell about Peruvian drug ceremonies, living in harmony with our fellow animals and narcissism.There’s also details of the new Adam Buxton app, available free NOW!Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support and Matt Lamont for additional editing.Music & jingles by Adam BuxtonAdam Buxton’s Old Bits DVD is out now from gofasterstripe.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Rosie, Rosie, I'm going to go round this way, look. Oh, look at the hairy bullet.

Maximum fly past. It's a fur blur nice one hey how you doing listeners adam buxton here nice to be with you again uh i'm just taking a rather cold and murky walk this evening with Rose. It's only five and yet the sun is down. By the time I return from this walk, it'll be quite dark. I have my head torch on. But we're definitely into that phase, the wintry phase. It's supposed to be a cold one this year. Oh, great. Anyway, let's not get too depressed by that. Before I brilliantly contextualize this week's guest, allow me to announce a couple of things briefly for you podcats. A new range of Adam Buxton podcast t-shirts, mugs, posters, badges,

podcasts t-shirts mugs posters badges and other amazing essential stuff is available now to buy online just search for adam buxton official merchandise you should find the site or you can access it via my um malfunctioning blog adam-buxton.co.uk and click on the merch button. Yeah, we got some good stuff there. Thank you so much to BSI Merchandise and to Helen Green and Luke Drozd for designing some of that stuff. And what's more, the free Adam Buxton app containing exclusive bonus podcast episodes, jingles and videos is now available to download from all good app outlets and probably some bad ones too. I'll tell you more about what's on the Adam Buxton app if you're interested at the end of the podcast. But right now, let me tell you about podcast episode number 55, which features a conversation with British comedian, actor, writer and director Simon Amstel.

Back in the early 2000s, I used to watch Pop World on Channel 4, on which Simon and co-host Mikita would uh lampoon pop stars and pop culture pop chips no they hadn't been invented at that point but that style of intelligent irreverence albeit with a slightly more serrated edge made simon an ideal host for the BBC's music-based comedy panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks in the second half of the noughties and he provided that show with many memorably funny and sometimes slightly uncomfortable moments like of course the time that Preston from pop group The Ordinary Boys walked off during the taping of a show after Simon had, with mischievous glee, read out passages from the autobiography of his then-wife, ex-Big Brother star Chantelle Horton.

As well as writing and acting in two series of the BBC sitcom Grandma's House, and acting in two series of the BBC sitcom Grandma's House. Simon has gone on to carve out a highly successful career as a stand-up comedian. He is, as I speak, touring his third stand-up show, What Is This? And his book Help, which was published earlier this year and which contains in part passages from his previous shows is described as the hilarious and heartbreaking account of Simon's ongoing compulsion to reveal his entire self on stage, to tell the truth so it can't hurt him anymore. Loneliness, anxiety, depression, this book has it all and more. I've read it. It's great.

Earlier this year, Simon's film ignorant non-vegan questions and attitudes with good humor and only slight weariness, and I do recommend Carnage. You can see it on YouTube at the moment, at least. Don't tell the Big British Castle. It's very funny, it's unsettling and very interesting, well put together and researched. And it has at least begun to modify some of our habits here at Castle Buckeleys, hasn't it, Rosie? Yeah, it's good that you stopped putting my dog milk in your tea. Well, I have. I can't speak for my wife. My wife. But towards the beginning of my conversation with Simon, he told me about the trip that he took to Peru in order to take part in an ayahuasca ceremony, which seems to have been profoundly helpful for Simon. Although it should be noted

that people do sometimes have terrifying experiences and violent reactions to the drug. So of course, you shouldn't book your tickets to Peru without thinking carefully about whether it is right for you. Now, I'm saying that because there was enough of a backlash after I mentioned the game Balls phone game to Miranda Sawyer on the podcast recently. And since then, people have been tweeting me to uh blame me for their addiction to balls so i'm trying to be responsible now when it comes to ayahuasca here we go We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la Do you covet technology at all?

Sometimes. I think maybe I used to more. I'm usually quite late to getting the thing that you need to have. I had a pager for a long time. A pager? Yeah. Like, definitely people were having phones at the point that I was still on a pager. They just used to buzz in your pocket, right? Yeah, it was fine.

Yeah. It was just fine. And I bet your pager was buzzing all the time. So that's probably one of the reasons you loved it. I like that you didn't have to call, like, if you weren't near a phone, there was no commitment to talk to anyone. Exactly.

That's the good old days, isn't it? Yeah. That's like an early incarnation of haptics, I suppose. What was haptics? Well, haptics, I'm probably getting this totally wrong. As I understand it, haptics is the thing that when you press a button on an iPhone,

there's a little yield to it or a little, it feels like you're clicking a button. Right. Even though actually you're not. It's the illusion of clicking something created by a little weird jolt that it gives you. You're going to Google this? Are you a Googler? Of course. Do you Google everything when you're not sure about it do you are you a googler of course do you google everything when you're not sure about it not during an interview i do that's how you and i

are different haptic relating to the sense of touch in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the senses of touch and and what the hell's that word proprio set proprioception i've never even heard the word proprioception before it sounds like a made-up word oh you you explained it very well then oh yeah i wasn't too far off no and then do you because you're you are um you know a person who thinks a lot about the world your place within it it. Mm. Yeah, that's what you're known for. That's me, yeah. As a deep thinker. And so do you worry about the sort of technological aspect of it,

the scenario of us all being augmented weirdos? Yes, my boyfriend, that's what he's most worried about at the moment. Right. Is the moment. Right. Is the robots. The robots. What specifically? What's the worrying scenario in his mind? That it's just inevitable that we'll build something

and that'll be the thing then and there won't be really any need for us. If anything, we're causing too much trouble. So he's worried about the Terminator scenario. And also things to do with uh various ethics morality questions yeah yeah to do with how we how we i should listen more when he speaks but there's there was some very interesting stuff that he was saying the other day i always think like you've got to have a bit of faith in humanity though right i mean there's

lots of terrible things about human beings lots of very stupid things about the way we live but at the same time people have been worried about robots since the dawn of the industrial revolution really and a lot of those fears have come true but then you have to to some degree you you have to have faith in our desire to treat each other decently. Yes. And to avoid certain massive pitfalls when it comes to new technology. I mean, as I'm saying this, all I can think of is examples where people's worst fears have become realised. Maybe it's just best to sort of, like, we're alive now.

Yeah. They haven't killed us yet, So let's have a lovely podcast. Exactly. Without technology, of course, this podcast wouldn't exist. No. Then what would we do? Exactly. Having a conversation that wasn't recorded.

Right. Pointless. Pointless. So look, here's a question relating to what we were just saying that also relates to your book, Help. And you talk in the book about a kind of fairly pivotal moment that you went through in the last few years when you went to Peru and you took ayahuasca. That's how you pronounce it, right?

I think so. I mean, I probably should have done more research before I started banging on about it. But yeah, ayahuasca, ayahuasca. It's spelt ayahuasca, ayahuasca. Some people say ayahuasca. Ayahuasca. Some people say ayahuasca. Ayahuasca. I think they're wrong.

Would you have gone to Peru and taken ayahuasca if you knew that you were not allowed to speak about it in public and turn it into material? Yes. Yes. I mean, the question suggests that I only went there because it might be a material no i believe that you went there because you found it primarily interesting and you know there was a possibility that it would be enlightening and so it turned out to be for you but in the bad moments in the in the sort of bits where you're traveling there and it's boring and maybe you get there and you worry that perhaps it's going to be a bit of a waste of time or you feel a bit ill.

There's quite a lot of puking involved. Yes. In those moments, do you not find yourself cheering yourself up by telling yourself, oh, well, at least this will be a funny story? I don't think that moment comes in the moment of the puking, for example. I don't think it's that immediate for me. It definitely comes at some point. But with what happened in Peru, it was so outside of anything logical or rational,

I wasn't sure if I'd be able to talk about it at all because I couldn't find any way to discuss it in a way that would make sense to people who hadn't experienced it. And in one stand-up show I sort of pieced together some of the funnier elements and in the book I found a way to write about it that hopefully makes some sense but still is a bit peculiar because it was all beyond language and beyond anything that makes sense in this culture and also I felt like oh am I appropriating something that I really shouldn't be discussing because I don't know

I'm not a shaman I haven't worked with this medicine for decades I'm just like an idiot who came here from England with depression and is leaving having got to the root of that depression feeling much perkier but I don't really know why I think I may have seen God but I'm not sure what made you go out there in the first place well I'd been in psychotherapy for two years and we got me to cry I mean that had happened very tricky at first I went in there because I was 29 and thought I keep repeating the same patterns in my romantic life I'll be okay being 30 as long as I become a different person and And she, it turned out, was trying to get me to just be a person who could be present with another human being.

So in one of the sessions, one of the first sessions, I was being quite funny, I think. And she said, it's really good that you can be funny, but you don't have to be funny here. And I got what she was saying. I carried on talking. And then she said, let me just stop you again. You know, you don't have to be interesting.

Oh, not even interesting. Then I was really confused she said, let me just stop you again. You know, you don't have to be interesting. Oh, not even interesting. Then I was really confused and said, do you want me to tell these stories, but not as well? Yeah. And what she wanted was for me to be authentic and grounded and able to feel something. But I found that quite difficult because I was so funny and interesting. Yeah. So that was two years of eventually breaking me down. So I was able to just be a human being.

So you went in there, you were boring, unfunny, and you started crying. Yeah. I was like, oh, here I am. Finally, you found me. But I felt like there was still something, something that we're not getting to here. And yeah, then a friend of mine had gone to to Peru drunk this plant medicine called ayahuasca it was the third time maybe I'd heard about it so I felt although maybe in retrospect I'm saying that I felt this as it was calling to me when we arrived there me and the other people from around

the world all there for various different reasons mainly depression the idea was that we had we'd been called there and then there were four ceremonies where we sat in a circle in the darkness. There was a lot of chanting and throwing up. And then visions. And this is art. You sit there and you take the... What's the actual stuff? What form does it take?

You drink a kind of like not very nice tasting brew, which is made up of a couple of different plants. And that's sort of bitter. Yeah. Not nice, but you figure out who you are, so it feels like it's worth it. Can you have sugar with it? It wasn't offered. No, not even canderel.

No, sorry. So you just drink that down. How long does it take to start acting? Well, in the first seven years, nothing really happened for me at all. And I found it really annoying that everyone else was having these brilliant experiences and throwing up and I couldn't throw up. And it was so embarrassing.

And in the second one, I told myself to just really let go and stop trying to make something happen. And then things started to occur. Maybe about half an hour after drinking the thing. Yeah, I saw myself in the womb. Whoa. And had a whole conversation with my baby self and found the thing that had been responsible for my whole silly personality. And you were being attended by qualified ayahuasca professionals. Yes, proper shamans.

Yeah. Yep. I trusted them completely, even though when they walked out in that first ceremony, they were wearing identical outfits. That was the only moment where I thought, what am I doing here? This is a worry. But apart from that, I felt very looked after. What kind of outfits?

Are they like sort of modern outfits or traditional? No, like traditional Peruvian shaman costume, whatever. I mean, we were all in white, which was either something to do with some kind of purification ritual or because we were in the dark and it was easier to see us do they provide you with the white clothes no they said just bring white clothes yeah i don't really have really you should we should go and buy a white t-shirt yeah would that be enough what about my gray shorts are they gonna be okay? It doesn't sound like it's calling to you. No, it is calling to me.

I mean, I'm being glib because it's so alien to anything that I've ever done or probably would ever do. But there was a need. It wasn't like I didn't go there because I thought it would be like a fun holiday. Like there was a real need to do it. I was really at a point where I wasn't able to even feel sad anymore. I'd sort of gone past the point of sadness because it was sort of too painful and so i was numb numb is the big word and it really uh it reset me i felt like i understood how i'd got to where i'd got to and uh felt free of a very limited identity and is there a cynical

voice in you i mean people who watched you on tv in the early days yeah much identified you with a kind of suspicious cynical snarky way of thinking about things and and it was very funny but is that voice in you speaking when you're going out to peru to take ayahuasca and what's it saying to you there's definitely a voice saying i don't know how i'm going to explain this to anyone but i was so desperate. Also, the things I was cynical about tended to be things like PR nonsense and, I don't know, the particular hat

that the pop star had chosen to wear. You know, I got into Buddhism a little bit at the same sort of time that I was doing those shows. I wasn't cynical about the, you know, the illusion of self. I was quite into that. So I think the things that I was snarky about felt appropriate to be snarky about.

Yeah. Interestingly, in the DVD extras of Avatar, there is something that looks a lot like an ayahuasca ceremony in the deleted scenes. Oh, yeah. Well, I could believe that James Cameron would have done something like that. I think he definitely has. Yeah.

Because I saw Avatar straight after I came back from Peru. Right. I was like, oh my... This is my favourite film. That's what I just did. Yeah, nature. Yes, that's how I feel about nature. I plugged my ponytail into a horse's arse as well.

Which were the bits in Avatar that made you think, oh yeah. Just the whole premise of it. I had this real feeling afterwards like the real connection to nature had a real urge to hug a tree i'd heard the phrase tree hugger before i'd never really connected what that meant but i really felt like hugging a tree oh that's what those people feel couldn't find a tree despite being in the rainforest so i found a wooden post and hugged that for about an hour. And I was kissing this post saying, thank you, thank you so much. You know, you've saved me, you've saved me.

I really meant it. And it seemed, and beyond any duty to repay nature, it seemed pretty obvious that we should live in alignment with the planet that we happen to be sitting on, not think of it as something that serves us. Like this egomania that we have as human beings is a real problem i'm not sure what the answer is but it's a problem yeah well i guess the answer is to keep talking about it and to be not too judgmental i mean i feel like that's the answer i feel like at the moment more and more people are thinking about

all this stuff but often the response or the way they go about it is to get very indignant and very angry with the people who are not yet enlightened who haven't got with the program because you're talking about implementing quite massive cultural shifts yeah you know that used to take generations to occur and now just in the last 50 years, society is almost unrecognisable. In some ways. In other ways, of course, it's the same old shit. Yeah, we had this problem when we made a film I made.

Yes. Called Carnage. Which I watched, yeah. Oh, cool. And it's set in 2067, where the idea of eating animals or consuming their liquids is so absurd and traumatizing that the young people can't quite understand the former generation and so the film is an attempt it's a pretend

documentary to show young people that the elder generation didn't really know what they were doing and we should feel compassionate towards them and that seemed to be the way of being not too judgmental about people currently eating animals. It made it something that could be watched by people who were still doing the thing that we were judging in the film. Yeah. Although it is, I mean, it's hard to watch because it's like becoming a vegan is quite a big deal if you've lived for 45 years just you know

eating dairy and eating meat and and if you've got a family and you've got children and there's a whole structure that's built up and now you have to shift that and you've got to convert not only yourself, but your partner and the children you live with, etc. And you're struggling just to convert them to do all sorts, you know, to keep their room tidy or do their homework or be a decent person. And now on top of that, one of the crutches that we all rely on, just yummy food and things that we don't have to think too much about. Right. That's been kicked away. Right, even that. By someone coming into the house and saying,

Look, guys, I've seen Simon and Scorce's film. I've actually had a serious think about what Morrissey's been bollocking on about all these years. And I think that it would do us all good to change the way we think about animals and eating them. Because, I mean, nothing in the film, you know, once you'd stripped away the satire, I didn't disagree with any of it. And I can't think of too many really good reasons to carry on being a meat eater. I mean, I really would struggle. The thing I would really miss is, sorry, this is like a meat eater. I mean, I really would struggle. The thing I would really miss is, sorry, this is like a classic thing.

This is the sort of thing I have to listen to all the time. Classic vegan conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I partly made the film just so I wouldn't have to do this one. What are the things people say? They say, oh, I'd really miss my bacon sandwich or... Those sorts of things.

I guess it comes down... I mean, I don't want to be the guy who like takes your like one bit of joy away although if your only bit of joy is a dead pig and some bread then maybe you should look at that you could say that about almost any fun thing in life you were the guy hugging a fucking post out in peru mate well he saved me that he saved me that bit of wood yeah but i've had a few bacon sarnies that have saved me Well I think there are alternatives is good news. Yeah. So that's

fine. Even in like quite mainstream supermarkets now there are all sorts of alternatives It's not a big deal. I mean what it comes down to if I was to be sitting here judging you or anyone listening. Do you think the pleasure you're taking from eating or drinking the thing

is more significant than the pain and the suffering caused to the other animals on the planet? And as I said that, I felt like, oh God, Simon, it didn't used to be funny. Wasn't there a time? We've established that you found enlightenment by not being funny. No, I have it now as a choice what she wanted was for me to have intimacy as a choice as well as um right it's funniness and it's one of the available settings yes it's not like it's not like a panic battle anymore it's not like oh god i better be funny so no one hurts me yeah but i mean the whole thing about suffering

and and creating suffering and animals living off one another that seems to a lot of people to be just a fundamental aspect of life on this planet we all go around surviving one way or another and doing what we need to do to survive and and we're not the only animal that does that we're the only animal that takes the milk from another species like if if they're allowed to calves are only drinking the milk of their mother like it's really peculiar that we do that if like calves started attaching themselves to human women's breasts we'd find it difficult right well well

and um and also uh you know just because there are all sorts of things going on out there, all sorts of violent things that other animals have to do in order to survive. We don't have to do those things in order to survive, and yet we're being incredibly violent. And on such an absurd, obscene scale, there's nothing natural about any of the meat industry now. I mean, there's nothing circle of life about it. It's pretty awful. But I'm also, you know, into telling people to just do whatever the hell they want, because I made my film, I did my bit.

Yeah. And my mum, who generally doesn't pay as much attention to the thing I'm doing, as to the fact that I'm doing something, like she's excited that I made a film more than the content but after about two weeks she said that she found it like really she couldn't like take a drink or like buy um the milk from cows anymore it just seemed perverse and then when she was seeing in the supermarket just all all this flesh just in these freezers just found it really peculiar. And that was it for her. And she's, you know, 60 something. Yeah, yeah, it is. But as I say, you know, you come back to this idea of cognitive dissonance

that enables human beings to do pretty much everything in the modern world. Because there are so many crazy contradictions and weird things about how we live. What are the lies you tell yourself on a regular basis? Have you ever thought about that? Like, what are the things that don't make sense in your life? Or is there absolutely nothing that doesn't make sense in your life? Simon Amstel. Oh my God, what a question.

Do you mean like some ethical... I mean, I think I understand what you're saying, because I used to watch Mark Thomas's comedy product on Channel 4, and I thought, that's it, I can't now buy anything from gap i definitely can't buy anything from nike then i remember shopping for some shoes and i thought i'd get some converse no problem and i was telling the lady in the shop because i was so annoying about how i obviously wouldn't buy any nike train and she said you know converse are owned by Nike. And I bought them anyway, because I thought, who's going to know? That's the thing when you get into big corporations

and especially in TV and stuff, people saying, oh, I won't do this and I won't do that, depending on what channel it is and who owns the network, et cetera. But this, I feel like the food thing is easier because I think it's quite simple in my head. And I think once you make that uh shift from thinking that humans are one thing and all other animals are this other dispensable thing

there for us there's a good book called how not to die right and that suggests a fucking ass bit of a preachy already what about like nice vegan treats I'd buy that before. How not to die. How to stop being a fucking prick. It's actually more of a sort of, like, it's for your own health. It's more about, but it happens to say that a plant-based diet would be better for your health. Listen, honestly, I believe it. I totally believe it. I'm aware of the fact now after years and years and years that on days when I don't eat meat and have dairy, I do feel better and I feel less tired and I feel less sluggish.

That's nice, right? Absolutely. And I've got more energy and yeah. Here's, I would say, the first step. I don't know. I don't know really. Go on. But I think maybe like saying, like continuing to say meat and dairy, it suggests that these

other animals and the liquids that are coming out of them are still products for humans. Okay, right. I think it to say meat and dairy it suggests that these uh other animals and the liquids that are coming out of them are still products for humans okay right i think it's not meat and dairy change the terminology yeah what are we saying friends friends yeah difficult to meet your friend very friends listen of course and it is again cognitive dissonance and you make the point in your um film that you know i I, I like many people love my pet. I love Rosie, the dog very much. I talked to Rosie.

I believe that she can feel and think and understand me. I feel it strongly. And yet, yeah, I continue to treat other animals in a, in an entirely different way. Yeah. Just cause they don't live with you.

Yeah. Yeah. Is it a, it's a compulsion that leads you to explore that leading edge of... Yeah, I'm still a curiosity seeker. I'm looking at the idiosyncrasies of things. A mountain or a tree is the manifestation of forces that we are not capable of dealing with. I'm very drunk in this. There's a great bit in your book

when you talk about taking MDMA for the first time. You have a kissing foursome with your boyfriend. Oh, three. A kissing threesome. I wanted it to be four. Okay. It was just me and my boyfriend and one other person. It was just some kissing.

Yeah. Yes. It's all right, I'm not judging. Sorry, I mean, I just... It was just some kissing, Adam. Yes. It's all right. I'm not judging. Sorry. I mean, I just... It was just some kissing, Adam. No one got hurt. Everything was fine. And was it the next day, the wonderful poos? Yeah.

So I'm quoting from your book now. Then the next day, I did the most wonderful poos. They were just slowly gliding out of me like elegant canoes. And so many. I think they must have been waiting. Through 15 years of anxiety we can leave now and two days after that i couldn't stop crying i'm building up a pretty good picture of what you get up to now that sounds fun i mean the canoes wow i was actually envious when i read that sentence i was like oh that

sounds nice it was a really yeah it was really good what is it about mdma that makes you do wonderful poos then i think i was relaxed for the first time in a while okay yeah it really felt like sphincter party uh yeah i think i was relaxed It enabled an intimacy, like a deep intimacy that I hadn't experienced before. Yeah. It was just wonderful. I was able to just be present with another human being without feeling like I had to be better. Right. And I felt like, oh, this is okay.

I think it's a great teacher as a medicine. I say medicine rather than drug, either because of pretentiousness or because I think really these things should be legal. They've been used to help with couples counselling and to treat PTSD. Children should be encouraged to take drugs is what you're saying. I think what it did, it dissolved all the boundaries of my own personality and the boundaries of society in that moment. Yes, all the expectations that come into play, especially at a party. Yeah. Which is such an anxious-making scenario anyway, really.

And normally I'd be thinking, are we supposed to be in the kitchen? Now are we moving towards the living room? Yeah. And with this MDMA, I was just able to lie back and look into someone's eyes for about an hour. Right. Which is wonderful. And not addictive i mean i mean for a while i thought the only problem i have in my life now is not being on mdma but apart from that it taught me that something that level of intimacy and

relaxation and joy and bliss were these things were possible so now i notice myself if i'm getting to a place where i'm slightly anxious or nervous for no particular reason other than i'm just talking to another person uh to sort of notice that and think oh i actually i'm completely safe here this is fine there's no reason to feel like i have to host the situation or control it i'm all right here so that's good and so like have you ever thought about what's actually happening when you go into one of those social situations a party being the most extreme one i suppose where you're up against people that perhaps you haven't met before and you're trying to make an impression

you're trying to control the way that they think about you and how you come across you're trying to filter out the worst aspects of your personality and highlight the best ones and so as you're in your stand-up mode you must have unpacked all those interactions before yes like can you talk me through what happens i learned on a clown course that you uh you know you you check in with the audience or the person that you're with if they want to play with you and if they don't seem to be interested in playing with you then you move on to another person then maybe they'll play with you and if they don't seem to be interested in playing with you then you move on to another person then maybe they'll play with you and I do that now whereas it used to be why do you hate me what can I do to make you love me now you're reminding me of my father okay how can I make you love me daddy it was like that I just keep banging on at them until they had to walk away

what kinds of people are you most attracted to? What sort of personalities do you really like to spend time in the company of? People who are very open. And ideally, it's somebody who has or has had some anxiety or whatever kind of problem in their life and has maybe had some therapy so they have a language for discussing it and isn't afraid to and also i i'm guilty of thinking occasionally that i could be the therapist for this person right and so i'm i quite like it if they buy into that as well yeah it doesn't always work there's a couple of years ago the edinburgh festival right i was high from a show that I'd done. I just felt great. I felt like I could do anything. Like, I just made all these people laugh. The show had gone so well. I came off stage and I saw this guy and I sort of sensed

in him a real sadness. I didn't know him, but I got introduced to him by someone else and I said to him, in front of his friends, what's this sadness? like I was going to heal him and he looked at me did you say it with a smile on your face no I said I looked at him like like a guru yeah

great intensity totally present I said what's this sadness I used to be the host of Neverland Buzzcocks and I sense a great deal of sadness I was also on Pop World where I learned from Nikita oliver how to

sense sadness in other people and now i sense it in you my friend here in the pleasant's courtyard he was alarmed yeah how did that go he he just looked at me like he just sort of shook his head yeah and i and i thought i was being really sensitive and i thought i thought okay i get it i can't talk about it right now and i put my hand like a lunatic i put my hand on his arm looked him in the eye and said whatever it is you can let it go now whoa holy moses and then he went oh can i i was like oh shit i'm not jesus i've overstayed yeah that must happen a lot i mean you can really understand the performer ego just getting completely rampant yes wow you've really got to watch out for that stuff don't you i'm not saying you personally i'm just saying one no luckily not all the shows go that well so i'm okay yeah once they start knocking stars off

yeah yeah those guys okay i used to be a real maniac but i've got less funny and once you get five stars you're allowed to give out yeah advice sometimes it's good like it's not it doesn't always go badly that's the problem it's like sometimes it's like really good and i feel like i've made a great connection with someone especially like a like a young gay guy or something and i'd like i feel like i i know i know exactly the problem i know exactly the the shame that they're carrying and i and young gay i feel your pain i understand your pain yeah and this book as well you know when i think about it being um you know self-involved narcissistic i think about the young gay me like the 14 year old me who was like totally lost and confused and i think that boy could have done with something like this right so unpack some of the

some of the problems and it feels um you know less like a terrible thing to be doing and it feels like a helpful nice thing yes because i suppose you could play devil's advocate and say, you know, half the problem may be excessive introspection. And that if you were able just to stop thinking about yourself. So, I mean, this is all easier said than done. But if you were able to concentrate more on other people and just making the world a better place. world a better place and you know and focused less on sort of your own ambitions and your own place in society and what people think of you and all that shit that basically comes back to yourself yes that's it then you wouldn't have half these hang-ups you know and you wouldn't have half these worries and you wouldn't need to write your book yeah that's it but the that's

what felt quite good about um doing carnage the film it wasn't really about me necessarily although it's full of my opinions uh it was it felt like it was serving some other agenda than than than uh the furtherment of simon amstel the palace of amstel yeah so this is the buddhist thing that i also got in the ayahuasca ceremony. That connection to nature came about from a letting go of the self, you know, from this vision-inducing alignment with the universe, rather than like thinking, well, I am Simon and I'm this age and I want to do this and I've done this so far and all that sort of very small stuff.

And it took a while to figure out what I wanted to do after I came back from peru why why what's the point of any of it yeah right and um eventually i realized that i quite like making people laugh and although it might have come you know the ability to do it has come from a moment of fear turned into a defense mechanism that what i've been left with is quite a neat trick to be able to like pull out when it feels useful or fun and um and now I'm on stage in a very joyful mode I'm only really there because I enjoy doing it even though obviously there is still a bit of narcissism there because how you know how

could there not be in this this bloody show business yeah here we are writing books doing stand-up shows talking about ourselves on podcasts. Yes. But we're sort of talking about how we shouldn't talk about ourselves. Yeah. Right? So, I don't know. So we're off the hook. Thank you. stop it for me i keep coming back to the whole idea of narcissism and that's such a buzzword now

it's one of those things like you know people like to diagnose people as being on the spectrum in all sorts of ways right yeah amateur psychologists oh he's on the spectrum and i've done it myself you know and the whole idea of narcissism though is the thing that i hear a lot of people talking about and the other day i was reading something about it and it was a sort of checklist 10 signs that you're in a relationship with a narcissist this is going to prove that you're one or that i'm one wow should we see how we both okay go on all right while i remember has anyone asked you to do a thing where preston from the ordinary boys reads out sections of your book to humiliate you that would be a good thing don't you think funny come on that would

be like a karmic rebalancer but i feel this the book is so self-deprecating it would be very very difficult to uh he'd find a way yeah all right let's take our narcissism test okay conversation hoarder narcissist loves to talk about him or herself doesn't give you a chance to take part in a two-way conversation well certainly in this moment in this context but actually i find i used to enjoy the interviewing much more than i now enjoy being interviewed right yeah yeah i used to like i i feel more comfortable if i'm asking questions which might be a controlling thing which may be on the list probably rule breaker narcissist enjoys getting away with violating rules and social norms such as cutting in line chronic under tipping stealing office supplies uh what are you guilty of no i don't

think any of those but you've never stolen office supplies come on who's gonna miss a pack of hbs i think in the book i read about buddhism years ago it said any kind of stealing is very bad karma yeah and so that was it for for stealing things even toilet paper well you steal toilet paper from the office i used to ah well maybe you needed to at the time like when aladdin took that bread yeah that's right that's what i tell myself boundary violator this is a bit like the other one shows wanton disregard for other people's thoughts feelings possessions or physical space oversteps and uses others without consideration or sensitivity borrows items

or money without returning i don't feel as if i'm guilty of these no but the boundary bits i mean when i try to heal that boy in edinburgh that was massive boundary violator false image projection many narcissists like to do things to impress others by making themselves look good externally. Now, that's quite interesting, isn't it? The idea of doing something that makes you look good. The whole signaling culture. Be honest. Have you ever done a tweet or something that you know is just designed to make you look good?

I don't tend to do anything personal. You've never self-consciously retweeted an article about some sort of super right-on subject that reflects well on you. It generally tends to be... Because I have. OK. Yeah, but I think, yeah, if I was on it properly,

I would probably do that sort of thing. I think still on chat shows, there is this idea that we feed people that uh success is the most important thing and these are the most shiny successful people and if you were like them you would be happier when actually the chat shows but really it should be hello welcome to the show as you know life is suffering the self is an illusion please welcome my next guest whose face is just a mask covering an unknowable void. That's what it should be, really. That's what podcasts are.

Right. Oh, that's why I don't like them. Podcasts have taken the place because I agree with you. That's the frustrating thing about TV and so many other media is that you don't really get to the nub of anything important and it's just this kind of junket culture and also it doesn't seem like the people who interview people are that interested no in the person everyone's just doing their job they're turning up they're contracted to do publicity for the film and then there's a reporter who's like i don't fucking yeah i haven't even seen the film if i did it wasn't very good i'll ask you what your favorite socks are and there you go that's the end of that

yeah maybe ruby whack should be back on tv doing things yeah that'd be good wouldn't it she was a hero of yours yeah i loved her oh my god have you read her because she's had her struggles with uh yeah i went to see her show actually i took my mom i took my mom to see not her last show but the show before it, where she spoke about having depression, I think for the first time on stage. And there was this really definitely vulnerable story that she told. Like definitely, clearly Ruby Wax was the victim of the story. And like, it was bad.

It was like a bad story about her going to her kid's sports day. And whilst her kid was running the egg and spoon race or whatever it was, she just couldn't take the tension of the drama of it or something to do with a flashback to her own childhood. And she fainted. And her husband took her to the priory. And definitely everyone in the audience thought, oh my God, imagine just fainting. And I asked my mum how she felt about the show and what she thought. And she said, I would have loved to have fainted.

If I'd have had a husband who could have taken me to the Priory, what a luxury. So did she, by saying that, was she sort of saying, pull yourself together? She kind of was a bit, which isn't how I feel about things. I often have to, often I'll write things like I've written in this book and she'll go, it was 15 years ago. Why are you still banging on about it? What's the problem?

But that's another way of dealing with things, I suppose. This totally denying that anything can have any effect on you ever. But she had to be. I mean, what she was saying there was that she had four children to raise. And if she'd have fainted, then what would have happened with those children?

You know, who would have looked after them? And I now have the luxury of being able to think about myself all the time because that is my job a bit. Yes. Hello, my friend. It's good to see you again. I've got to say you're looking great I love what you've done with your nipples and your knees

And your shiny bald pate Here's a funny line from your book When my aunt would say What did you get up to last night i'd say i went to a big gay nightclub and she'd laugh this went on for a month until it was clear that i wasn't joking and she summoned me to her house yeah that's me not being able to deal with actual conversation without it being funny that was when you started to sort of embrace a gay lifestyle. As it were. Yeah, I guess I, yeah.

And she just thought, did she have no clue that... No one had any clue. It was very upsetting. I said to my mum just after I came out to her, and I was quite angry because she was really troubled by it. And I said, didn't you know? Like, I went to this saturday morning drama club i did tap dancing and she said don't stereotype right back in your face what it was very difficult

for my it was just so out of anything that they had experienced it was just not in their their world and it took some time for everyone to sort of be okay back to the narcissism question oh yeah god grandiose personality thinking of oneself as a hero or heroine prince or princess i think we've established that you have done that or a special kind of person some narcissists have an exaggerated sense of self-importance believing that others cannot live or survive without his or her magnificent contributions yeah you've got to think of yourself as a hero don't you so are all the people walking down the street as i used to do as a youngster listening to music on their walkmans walk people and imagining themselves as the star of their own

film did you ever do that yeah i guess i did but probably because of the advice in that book right yeah top tips for being successful. Imagine yourself as the star of your own film while walking down the street. Yeah. Carefully plan a playlist that is like the soundtrack of the movie that stars you. Yeah. I mean, I guess I know that a lot of people did that, but were they all narcissists? Here's what I think about that one.

Yeah. I was very shy as a child and the way i felt safe was performing in front of people which was a special thing to be able to do right like it isn't everyone that can get up on the stage and perform in front of people so you are therefore at least different or doing a specific thing that other people can't do that's a bit special right so i felt very safe if i if i was special and because i still wasn't very good at one-on-one sessions i got over my shyness through going to the saturday morning stage school yeah and uh then i still wasn't that great at going to parties and things so but i felt safe i was on a stage you know and i felt that at times that uh like i was on a holiday with my boyfriend

and some of his friends and there was a lot of like insistence that i would get involved in the washing up and i didn't like it because i thought i'm an artist i can't do this but i you know i had to get involved because i'm also how dare you ask me to washing up me i've just had some very funny thoughts which are going to be in my next stand-up show i can't wash those plates i'm important that's the kind of thing that dullards like you without any funny comedy. Yeah. Negative emotions. Many narcissists enjoy spreading and arousing negative emotions to gain attention. Never.

Never. Oh, hang on. Oh, you mean this book? Those are, but those are, those are about negative emotions from the past and how I've overcome them. I mean that most people would say that that was, never mind the buzzcocks, Simon. Yeah, but he was very, you know, he was just very angry with his father, that guy. He didn't know.

Do you still find yourself getting interested in the pop world, as it were? Have you watched Taylor Swift's new video for Look What You Made Me Do and thought hard about what it means? I haven't, no. I mean, I suppose I'm aware of the things that are so visible that you don't have to necessarily go onto YouTube to watch the video. So I'm aware of the various pop stars, but not really. 45 million people watched Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift in its first day on YouTube. Highest ever debut for a music video. That's a lot a lot isn't it and i mean it is quite a spectacular video

directed by a guy called joseph khan i'll watch it then should i watch it it's worth seeing okay it's not a great song you know they paid right said fred some money before they released it because they were worried that right said fred we're going to get in touch and go come on that's just a rip-off because the chorus is just oh look what you made me do look what you made me do look what you made it's like she's found every single possible permutation of how to fit those words into uh the available bars look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you made me do.

What does she do? She is reinventing herself. And at the end of the video, there's all the previous incarnations of Taylor Swift lined up beneath a plane that has the word reputation sprayed on the side that's the name of her new album okay at the beginning there's a gravestone a tombstone that says taylor swift's reputation on it wow makes me think of jerry halliwell's video for look at me right where

she buried ginger spice there you go there you go um But it's a sort of fairly standard trope for particularly female pop stars, it seems, that they have these slightly lame reinventions at a certain point. And invariably it's like, oh, the old me was vanilla and boring. And now I'm dirty and slutty and I don't care. And I'm going to bury them all. Yeah. But I'm powerful as well. That's the other thing.

It's like, I'm making these decisions, so fuck you if you don't like it. And you've seen Britney do it before and you've seen a lot of people and it doesn't seem to have gone necessarily that well for them. The paternal part of me wants to... Put them in a nice dress. Give them some long-term perspective, not put them in a nice dress give them some long-term perspective not put them

in a nice dress this is the last one manipulation using others as an extension of self making decisions for others to suit one's own needs the narcissist may use his or her romantic partner child friend or colleague to meet unreasonable self-serving needs, fulfil unrealised dreams. If my son doesn't grow up to be a professional baseball player, I'll disown him. Aren't you beautiful? You're going to be just as pretty as mummy.

Oh my goodness. Oh my God. That's pretty full on. I don't really know too many people who are like that. Okay, so we're okay maybe. Well, on this test psychology today this is on okay we're not full blown i would say no that's good news isn't it party time we can go a little bit further

you write in the book about being in a relationship in which you're allowed to talk about how you find other people attractive. Is that still the case in your relationship now? Yeah, yeah. Is that a useful paradigm? Is that not ultimately, does it not sow the seeds for discontent in a relationship? It's sowed seeds of more intimacy. It means that we're both revealing who we are to each other and accepting each other.

that we're both revealing who we are to each other and accepting each other and it's just true that if you're in a relationship you're you know your eyes don't suddenly go somewhere else you're still out there in the world seeing people come towards you or walking past you nothing really can be done about that and so to sort of discuss that with the person that you're with and for them to say thank you for telling me I guess what you're saying is you're a human being I feel that way too then it's it's such a relief to not have to like hide who you are because I was in a relationship years ago and there was such jealousy I end up having to say I don't think anyone's attractive I don't think and it's weird because before I met you but they must have all moved so it's a wonderful thing that we're both i guess i don't know maybe

just mature enough and intelligent enough and secure enough that that's all fine and not a surprise not a surprise you know yeah and that you trust each other enough yeah i suppose is the thing because i think it's a difficult trick to pull off we know we both know the priority is the relationship yeah like this like this this really... This is the most meaningful, fulfilling, wonderful thing. And I feel, like, really lucky that this particular guy wants to spend time with me and live with me and seems to love me and all those things. So I'm not going to screw that up.

But it helps talking about how I felt like I was about to screw it up in one particular story that's in the book it helped telling him that because if i hadn't have been able to tell him that i think i probably would have screwed it up right it's a sort of pressure valve yeah and i guess for a lot of blokes that comes out as kind of uh bants with your mates right about who you fancy or whatever things that you would never say to your partner necessarily i think the the thing with a lot of heterosexual relationships particularly is that i don't think you would get away with it or there's an assumption that it's probably not going to be useful that actually it'll it'll just be the seed of discontent or it'll just eat away at you and i'm talking about both people in the relationship yes it's not exclusively a heterosexual thing of course but

that's the thing i would just i don't know like sometimes my wife has mentioned to me that she finds certain people on tv attractive or whatever and was it me no you're too good looking oh i don't know if she's saying it i don't know if she's saying it to make me feel better but the ones she points out are like real pounds right really rough like oh yeah i quite like him and it's some really grotesque but does that make you feel better doesn't It doesn't make me feel good. I'm like, oh, thanks. Yeah. So now I see the pattern here and I can't figure out if she's just lying to make me feel better.

And actually she just fancies, you know, Tom Hiddleston like everyone else. But it's weird. But there have been one or two like every now and again, maybe she's had a glass of wine or something and she'll be honest. And it'll be someone that looks very different to me and then i do feel a little bit threatened right like i think maybe i would feel threatened if my boyfriend said i really fancy that short-sighted you over there and i think oh well you could you've got one yeah i'm already here anyway i think try it yeah try saying i have tried it and it hasn't gone well i have that's the thing yeah and it's been like oh yeah it doesn't go down that well okay but now she'll listen to this podcast not necessarily no she generally sometimes she says let's listen to this podcast not necessarily no she

sometimes she says let's listen to a podcast but if she is listening to this now I will be awkwardly shifting in the seat in the car and probably will have been thinking about reaching across and putting radio 1 on well that's interesting

not radio 4 obviously I think you and your wife should both take some MDMA ok Radio 1 on. Well, that's interesting. Not Radio 4, obviously. I think you and your wife should both take some MDMA. OK. Problem solved. Wait. This is an advert for Squarespace. space. Every time I visit your website I see success, yes success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional.

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Yes. Yes. Continue. Yes! Hey, welcome back, listeners. Hope you enjoyed that conversation with myself and Simon. I like Simon. He got me on Nevermind the Buzzcocks years ago when he was hosting. Funnily enough, I talked about one of my drug experiences that time

when I took mushrooms when I was at university and had a pretty bad time. I think that clip is probably still on YouTube floating around somewhere. Adam Buxton talks about mushrooms on Nevermind the Buscocks. Anyway, he was nice to me on that show, which was good because the first time I went on Nevermind the Buscocks,

Mark Lamar was hosting and he was less warm. But that was his style, I suppose. Anyway, thanks very much to Simon for his time. Now look, the Adam Buxton app is finally available to download for free in order to enhance the quality of your life immeasurably. Let me tell you about what you can expect on there. The app enables you to stream all episodes of the podcast so far and contains exclusive bonus episodes

and extra audio that will arrive every few weeks and won't be available anywhere else. The first bonus episode, the only one on there currently, features more conversations with Johnny Marr, recorded before Johnny and I settled down for the chat that you can hear in episode 51. And it's quite good, that one, if I say so myself. When I listened back to it, I was pleased with the stuff that we recorded beforehand me talking to Johnny in his car when he picked me up from the station and then Johnny giving me a tour of his new studio chatting to me about some of his guitars and the equipment that he has in there and we talk a bit more about music Brian Eno etc if you enjoyed the podcast with Johnny, I really recommend this one too. It's a good companion piece. And there will be other new podcast episodes that will be exclusive to the app. They won't come out as regular episodes of the podcast through iTunes, etc. You'll only be able to listen to them via the app and those will be arriving in the forthcoming weeks.

If you're a fan of the podcast jingles, many of them are available to stream individually via the app. All the big ones, all the big hits, the podcast theme, ramble chat, like and subscribe. The sort of twinkly one that is in this week's episode that I think a lot of people like and they're always saying what's that piece of music in there anyway you can hear that on the app and if you are sufficiently in love with the jingles that you'd like to download them to keep you will find a few in the merchandise store that you can access via the app or via my blog.

And I've bundled some of the jingles into EPs available to download for 99p each, including, for example, a Ramble Chat EP. That one has various versions of the Ramble Chat jingle for you to keep and listen to and treasure for the rest of your life. And I've edited a special version that you can use as a ringtone if you want. And there's also some of my old songs, Party Pom Pom, The Counting Song, Royal Wedding Song, etc. available on one of the other EPs. And I'm going to release more every now and then. At the moment there's four EPs with jingles and songs available. Also if you choose you can support the podcast and help pay for the app and its upkeep by purchasing access to a brand new specially made video for my like

and subscribe jingle which you'll be hearing shortly. And that video has been made by animation genius Cyriak. It's really good. And the app is the only place online that you can see it or anywhere else for that matter. And once you get the app, you'll be able to find that in the video section of the app, which also enables you to stream some of my YouTube videos from over the years. There's Rosie bouncing in a field. There's Cobbler Bob, Chris Salt's Lego animation that is part of my Bowie bug show. There's the You Say We Pay video that I did years ago, Countryman videos, all sorts of bits and pieces. There's also, I think, a few private links to things that the average YouTuber will not be able to find. Exciting!

So as I speak, the app has only just gone live. I am aware that there will inevitably, over the next few weeks, be adjustments and improvements that will need to be made so any constructive feedback from you guys would be extremely welcome i stress constructive thanks very much my soundcloud page is still a good place to leave those or any other kinds of messages for me. Very grateful indeed to Toby and Kevin from Really Quite Something Limited who designed and built the app and who I think are going to help overhaul my blog

which is currently being subjected to occasional attacks from a spam bot. Spam bot? Which uploads posts randomly, mainly about American sport, as far as I can tell. Almost as if it knows what bores me most. No disrespect to American sport fans.

Anyway, do check out the app, and I hope you enjoy it. As I say, it's free, unless you want to pay a small fee to see that Syriac video and support the podcast. Either way, I hope you enjoy it. That's probably enough waffling for this week. Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support. Thanks to Matt Lamont for additional editing. And thank you for downloading and listening right to the end.

You're special. Rosie, where are you? It's dark now. I can see little glowing dog eyes in the distance. Rosie, come here. We're going to head back. Come on, doggles. Wow, you look quite freaky.

I've got my head torch on and all I can see is these little points of light in the darkness up ahead. There we go. Come here. Hello, dog, dog. How are you doing? Do you like the dark? Yeah, I love it. It's brilliant.

It's so exciting. It's an ideal environment for um dogging that's just a joke hey yeah okay all right let's head back rose take care stay out of trouble i love you Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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