What is in each of your pockets right now?
Some poop bags. Because I took my dogs out earlier. And they weren’t as productive as I had hoped. So there’s still two poop bags in here.
What are your dogs’ nicknames?
I have two that I share with my ex-wife. They get two homes and two parents and they’re very modern dogs. Frankie and Freya. Frankie gets called a lot of things – Frizzy, Fizzle, Dankles, Danky, Griswold, Skip. I won’t get into the origins of all of these. Freya mostly gets called Frey Liottie after Ray Liotta.
I’ll say their nickname and their ears go back a little bit.
What animal do you most relate to and why?
Growing up I had this book called For The Love of Monkeys. And I took it everywhere with me. I loved monkeys and I always wanted one. But when I was in India one time, they didn’t have a lot of safety measures at the zoo. I walked up to a cage and I was like: it’s a snow monkey, I know that from my book! I put my hand in to shake its hand. It grabbed my hand and started pulling me in. It opened its jaw; it was like something out of Alien. I saw the sharpest teeth.
From that day, I decided I probably didn’t want a monkey any more.
What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you on stage?
This is classic Australia – I’m gonna say it was somewhere on the Sunshine Coast. A possum dropped out of the ceiling on to the stage and just ran off. I love those guys; I was more concerned for the possum than anything, because it was quite a drop. But he seemed like he was OK.
Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean or up in space?
Probably up in space, because at least I’d get some good views on the way out.
If you had to be a contestant on a reality TV show tomorrow, which one would it be?
I wouldn’t mind doing one where you have to survive in nature, where you’re actually just on your own and you have to figure out how to find food and shelter.
Like Naked and Afraid. Although I’m not super comfortable with nudity. So I might do Partially Clothed and Afraid. Or Board Shorts and Afraid. Or Board Shorts and T-shirt and Afraid, actually. It depends how many sit-ups I do before we start shooting.
What do you think is the ideal length of men’s shorts?
I like the knees covered. I don’t want to see men’s knees. I don’t want people to see my knees. But the style now is above the knee. So when I want shorts, I have to buy pants and then modify them myself. And I do! And I will keep doing it until the fashion industry catches up with my decree.
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What’s the most memorable first date you’ve been on?
One time I had a crush on this girl in high school. And somehow she agreed to go watch the Pink Floyd laser show at the planetarium. And I was so excited. We were gonna go out to dinner first, so I was like, here’s my chance.
When I got to her house she said, “Oh, can we just go to the early show? Because I have something to do.” And I said, “Sure – but what about dinner?” And she handed me a piece of cold chicken in a Tupperware thing. I was literally eating the chicken while driving my parents’ station wagon. It was pretty brutal. It was nice of her to offer something, I guess.
What is the most recent book you’ve loved?
The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman. I can’t understand a lot of it because he goes into such lofty discussions about evolution theory. But the general idea is that consciousness is primary, and what we call the physical world is a product of consciousness, not the other way around. A lot of science advocates the materialist view that everything’s built from atoms. But spiritual traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism – they’re more like, everything is a dream. The world is a dream.
Mainstream science wants us to believe that atoms come together and form in such a way that suddenly we’re having a conscious experience. Yet, with all our technology, we have no clue how the brain creates conscious experience – the ability to take a sip of coffee and experience that, or look at someone on a Zoom. That’s inexplicable. And Hoffman says they’re looking in the wrong place. You’re not going to get it out of the brain because the consciousness is creating the brain, not the other way around.
I find it awesome. The world is quite bleak when you have a materialist outlook. You just think this is all there is and I’m going to die and then there’s nothing. But one of my best friends passed away. I can’t just think, oh, he’s gone, and that’s it. I like to think that death is an illusion. Time is an illusion. Space is an illusion. I love all that stuff.
Your upcoming film is called The Nut Farm. Do you have a least favourite nut?
Almonds. I like the way they taste, but the little shards get caught in my throat if I eat dry almonds. I once tried to make a joke like: why does the mafia bump people off when they don’t want them to talk? They should just give them some almonds, because you can’t talk after eating them. But the joke never worked. Like many jokes.
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Arj Barker stars in The Nut Farm, out in Australian cinemas 14 March. He is touring his new standup show The Mind Field all around Australia starting 22 March, including Melbourne international comedy festival dates 28 March to 21 April