Watch or listen to the stand-up comedy special 'Organic' (2019) by Arj Barker on Comedy Buff. Transcript available. Tracks include: Spoilers, Shit Sayings, Getting Married, Uber vs Taxis, Organic, and Airline Safety.

Arj Barker

Organic

I got to have a sip of this beautiful water that has its own stool. Normally, I wouldn't just, you know, I wouldn't, I don't even like to drink during my shows, but I'm really, like I said, I'm really giving it my all tonight, and my throat feels dry because, to be honest, I feel like I'm doing all the talking. And that's okay. That's what I want, right? That's what I asked for. That's why I'm here.
But I want to also thank you because I'll never forget this. Without you and your being here, my job doesn't even exist. And that's something I try to remind myself every day because it's really important to have gratitude. And I believe honesty is the most basic form of respect. So I want to also, you know, strive to be honest with you, and I want to say what we all know and what we all understand.
I get it. I get it. None of us here, including myself, really want to be here right now. And they say, shut up, Arch. Why are you saying that? Come on, let's be adults. It's the elephant in the room. Let's be adult about it. I get it. We're all basically just killing time until Game of Thrones comes back on TV. And until then, we've got to do whatever we can do to run the clock down, and leave the house, put one foot in front of the other, you know.
Let's go to the comedy show. Let's sit in the front row and not get to answer a couple questions. Whatever it takes, and the time will pass. It's going to be a long wait, but eventually it'll come back on TV, and our lives will feel complete again because it's the best show ever. Are there any Game of Thrones fans here tonight? That's a lot. It's not 100%, but it's enough to warrant a brief discussion.
However, and this is really important, before I start discussing it in detail, please let me know if anyone here isn't completely caught up on the episodes. Is everyone 100% caught up? Everybody? You're not? Did you shake your head? You're not caught up, sir? Oh, geez, okay. And what's your name? Chris? Hi, Chris. You know what? I'm glad that you spoke up. And you didn't say it very loud, but your partner ratted you out there pretty good.
But you did speak up because I heard you. And you know what, Chris? On behalf of yourself and anyone else that's not caught up, I'm just going to skip over that fairly inconsequential part of the show because, Chris, spoiling popular television is a huge taboo in our culture, and far be it from me to break that taboo. And yes, that's how I pronounce taboo. So you have nothing to worry about, Chris.
On the other hand, yes, please, at some point, a wider discussion about implementing a statute of limitations with regards to how much authority the spoiler police have in our world. Because at some point, I would like to freely discuss the movie E.T. in public with my friends without getting my head ripped off. Like, shut the fuck up, Arch. Shut the fuck up. I haven't seen E.T. yet. I haven't seen E.T.
yet. Oh, you haven't? You haven't seen it? When he goes home, he goes home. He goes home, Chris. Maybe you ought to go home. And start watching some shit. God damn it, Chris. It's only called must-see TV. Is there something unclear about that? Guess what it's not called? It's not called see whenever the fuck you get around to it. And maybe I'll slap a gag order on the rest of civilization. I feel bad about saying this, Chris, because I don't know you that well, but you seem like an all right guy.
But the truth is, you're the spoiler. You're a living, human, breathing, walking spoiler because you spoil enjoyable conversation for other adults because you're too goddamn lazy to sit around and watch TV all day like the rest of us. Forgive me. Please. Forgive me. It's just gluten rage. It'll pass. And I can see Chris is still smiling, and that's the important thing. Because first, I want to publicly applaud your courage to speak up.
He didn't speak up very loudly, but it was enough that we figured it out. And that takes courage because you're attracting attention to yourself from a comedian. And for all you know, I might be the type of comedian to try to get last at your expense. Okay? Luckily, that's not my style. And also, I want to thank you, Chris, because you helped the show. You know, this is part of the organic tour. I don't do it every night, but on many nights, I'll ask the audience, is everyone 100% caught up on Game of Thrones?
Can I talk about it? Is everyone 100% caught up? Now, it hasn't happened yet, Chris. Where'd he go? There he is. It hasn't happened yet. But if on any given night, the entire audience responded like, yep, we're all caught up, Arch. We had a mass screening right before you got here. So you're good to go. Guess what, Chris? I'm fucked. Because I would have just lost two minutes of some of the strongest material in the whole show.
And I'll be real honest with you, I've never even seen Game of Thrones. I mean, not technically. I've jerked it to the Dragon Lady a couple times. I don't know if it counts as seeing it. I have my eyes closed. Winter's not the only thing that's coming. I'll probably cut that one. Probably cut that one. I'll probably cut that one. The taxi industry hates Uber. And again, I would not blame them because Uber takes probably 10, 20, 30, maybe more percent of their work away from them.
To an outsider, they might just say, well, Arj, that's just a dog-eat-dog world that we live in. Because any time in my life when the world seems unfair, somebody jumps to explain it like that. It's a dog-eat-dog world, Arj. Dog-eat-dog world. I've been hearing that my whole life. Dog-eat-dog world, Arj. Dog-eat-dog world. And yet here I am in my early to somewhat mid-ish 40s. And I have yet even just once to see a dog eat another dog.
And I just feel like for something that supposedly defines the world, that's a pretty low rate of occurrence. I haven't even seen a dog take a bite of another dog. I mean, I've seen a dog bite another dog, but I don't think he was trying to eat him. But if he was, that's the most wasteful dog I've ever seen because he pretty much left the whole dog. I've seen dogs eat a lot of other stuff. And it's definitely a dog-eat-dog shit world.
I think that's the original saying. Because that makes sense. If somebody turned to me and said, it's a dog-eat-dog shit world, Arj. I'd say, you're fucking right about that. And I can't get my dog to stop. I finally just gave up and stopped buying dog food. Now it's just the circle of life. I think somewhere along the way, somebody said, yeah, but wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We can't put the word shit in a saying.
Although I don't think that happened in Australia. Because I think a lot of your sayings have the word shit in them. That's bloody bullshit, Arj. Now don't get me wrong, mate. I think you're funny as shit. But that's bullshit, Arj. Mate, you're hanging shit, mate. You're hanging shit. Arj, you're shitting me to tears, mate. I'm cracking the shits. Skipping shit across a lake, mate. Skipping shit across a lake.
Arj, shit on a stick. Flick it at a barn. Bloody shit flicker. Shit flicker. Arjie Badjie, shit on your head's not a hat, mate. Shit on your head's not a hat. A couple of these are new ones that I'm trying to kind of get started. Damn it. All I want to do is just invent one saying and for everyone to use it. And I thought, here's my chance. I'm coming from another country. I'll make up some, you know, legitimate sounding sayings.
And then I'll just ease them out there. And then people will say, well, I've never heard that before. But it must be something they say all the time down in America. And I'm going to start saying that too. But the Saturday night Brisbane audience was a little too switched on to fall for that shenanigan, weren't they? And ultimately my plan failed, sir. But what am I going to do? I'm not going to fall apart just because my plan failed.
You know what I mean? The way I look at it, you can shit with the lights off. It still smells. That's what my grandma used to say all the time. So you can start saying that too if you want, I guess. Okay. And while I may be the king, I am certainly no longer the ruler of my own castle because on May 27th of this year, the queen took over, you guys. The queen took over. I got married. Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much. Yeah, it's okay. I had a good life. And now it just got even better. Don't let me finish my sentences. Unbelievable. And I would like to tell you that my life has been transformed by marriage, but the truth is we already lived together for nearly three years before we got married. So really the only difference now is we had this wonderful ceremony and a great party and we both have metal on our fingers and we have some paperwork that we didn't have before.
But you know what I mean? I'm not ever looking at the marriage paperwork. If you're trying to find your wedding paperwork, then it's probably not going that well. Because the real change for me was when she moved in. Because I had been a bachelor for pretty much my whole adult life and then we dated for a year and it just came out, hey, you want to move in? Yeah, that'd be great. So she moved in and that was the real big change in my life.
And I want to be honest, living with my partner has been a huge eye-opener for me. It really has. It's like the first time in my life I feel like I truly understand why murder happens. I'm serious, because up until now I would always just think, why would somebody kill somebody? That's like so extreme. But these days, at least once a week, I think. Well, I can't rule that out completely. There's going to be a lot of cleanup, which is ironic, given that the fact that I hate cleaning is what started this argument.
Not that I would, and I promise you, if anyone's troubled by that part of the show, I assure you, I give you my word, my oath, that I will never kill anybody, nor will I use violence ever, if that's possible. I'm a non-violent person. I don't think violence is the answer, and that's really who I am. And I would be mortified and saddened if anyone here thought that I was in any way trivializing the serious issue of domestic violence and violence in general during my show.
And yet, as I'm saying that, I admit, I'm replaying what I said in my mind, and I'm feeling like, well, you know what? Maybe I haven't been as eloquent as I'd like to be with what I'm trying to share, so with your permission, I'll try again. All I'm trying to say is, living with my partner has introduced me to new levels of anger within myself that I just didn't know existed before. You know what they say?
When you meet the right person, it completes you. Have you ever heard that? Well, it turns out the missing part of me was the really pissed off part. So that's what it's like. It's like I've been walking around my whole life kind of cheerful and in a good mood, like, I just don't feel like I'm complete. And suddenly I was like, oh, there you are. Well, get on in here, you big red-faced son of a bitch.
Let's do this. Let's do this. I noticed you guys have Uber here now. That's spreading everywhere just about. Has anyone used Uber? Yeah, and you enjoy it? Generally, it's a good experience. Probably not always, of course, but for the most part, the driver's really friendly and chatty, and also the passenger's really friendly to the driver. And this is not a coincidence. Both people are trying to get a five-star rating off the other person at the end of the trip.
That's why it's a perfect system because it's based entirely on mutual fear. Nobody wants to fuck out. And you know what? There's two things that, for the people that haven't used Uber a lot, when you take your Uber, there's two things the driver will offer you. Does anyone know what those are? Water and mints, right? And when I say mints, I mean like a Mentos or a lolly, not mints like chopped meat, okay?
Some people are like, shit, I'm gonna save on my groceries. Take an Uber, get half a pound of chuck. And s