Sneaking Up On Your Future With Dan Debuf

Dan: The Daily Talk Show.

Tommy: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 370.

Josh: We've got Dan DeBooth in the studio.

Dan: Hey guys, great to be here. And just by saying in the studio, you've massively understated where we are. Like, this is quite literally a studio. Like, it's phenomenal. The— this wood paneling, did you rig that up yourself?

Josh: Well, you were in episode 241. It's now 370.

Dan: In your just hideous grim bunker that you used to pretend to broadcast from. It was foul.

Josh: In comparison, it was a grim bunker.

Dan: These These are salubrious surrounds. Look at this. You've even got indoor plants. And guys, guys, guys, are they real?

Tommy: Yes, they're real.

Dan: Okay, first of all, how does that— how do they get sunlight?

Tommy: We take them up every couple of days onto the balcony.

Josh: That's why we have an intern. Actually, no, he's crippled now. He can't actually do those little tasks.

Dan: Very detailed. Yeah. Walking wounded.

Tommy: I, as I was coming in, I remembered I was triggered to the moment that I called— I think I called Totally Obsessed, your podcast. Absolutely.

Dan: Was this on the last show? It's called something like Chat 10 Looks 3 or something. I can't remember the name.

Josh: Yeah, mate, that's still in the new and noteworthy. I want to know how long can you be in new and noteworthy?

Dan: I got it back in. So what happened was when I talked to you guys, I was doing what I call unofficial season 1, and I took a Christmas break. So when I put, uh, I started up maybe 6 weeks ago, 7 weeks ago. God, no, maybe it might have been even more because it was during Comedy Festival. And I, um, kicked it off with Phil Jupitus from Nevermind the Buzzcocks, which is great. He's an amazing guy. And I just gave Apple a little heads up. I was like, hey, I don't know if, um, season 2 premieres count as new and noteworthy, but to me it's new and noteworthy.

Tommy: It could be do what you want with that, and/or noteworthy. Like, because the thing is, I've seen stuff—

Dan: Hang on, so you're saying it's only new?

Tommy: No, or just, just noteworthy. 'Cause that's what I was thinking. 'Cause I was like this. I remember when I had my podcast Josh Speaking years ago, there was fuck all out there. So you could sit in New and Noteworthy for like, I was in there for years. Yeah.

Dan: Now there's a bit of a churn, to be honest.

Josh: The phoner I did in Shepparton on the main drag, there's like a bunch of old motels. And one of them, when I say old, fucking old. One of them had a sign on it said New Mattresses and it had been there for, I think, 5 or 6 years. And I did this phoner. When can you, how long can you say something's new for?

Dan: Yeah. Or just a crazy business claim where it's like, it just assumes that all other motels have super old mattresses. Like, you know that canned salmon and the tagline that this agency cooked up for this canned salmon was, doesn't go grey in the can.

Tommy: And I didn't know that was a thing.

Dan: It's not. That's the thing. They just made it up to make all other canned salmon look bad.

Josh: You'd be always looking for the grey salmon.

Tommy: Correct.

Dan: You'd go, oh, what if I open this one and it's grey? I love that.

Josh: I'm sure there's some kind of, who's the governing body? Like the, you know, we have our ADFA or something. Consumer Affairs.

Tommy: ACCC maybe.

Josh: Not allowed to do that shit. Like we're thinking about what we can label this show. It's kind of inspired by Howard Stern.

Dan: Isn't it exactly what it says on the tin? It's daily, you talk and it's a show.

Josh: Well, we're straightforward there.

Tommy: But you studied, you did law for a period of time. Yeah, I've got a law degree, mate. Perfect.

Dan: That's right. Don't undersell it.

Josh: But yeah, so we're trying to work out what our sort of like—

Dan: Have you been injured by a bus?

Tommy: Or a French press. Oh yeah, afterwards.

Josh: Howard Stern has the King of All Media. Yeah, which he like coined him.

Dan: Yeah, Breakfast with the Stars is another really good one.

Tommy: Oh yeah, that was funny. Carl and Jackie O were doing that, weren't they?

Josh: We had one.

Dan: You guys had— oh my God, I remember hilarious one where we printed these posters and we got them back. Something like, it says something like Dan and Maz, there when you wake up, 4 to 7 weekdays. And we were just like, what? And they were like, oh, whoops, they fucked it up. They'd fucked it up.

Josh: 4 to 7 AM.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, I know, right? No, who's waking up at 4 PM? What's wrong with your life? Um, so yeah, I— it was something like when you wake up or something like that because they were like, it's not from 6 AM because not everyone listens from 6 AM. Yeah, when you wake up, it's about you. That, you know, it's so interesting.

Tommy: Like, yeah, it sounds like a Nightstand. How much shit is applied to, like, how much thought goes into these things. Like, you can create a storey based on everything.

Josh: If you can make it stick though, I think it then becomes very powerful.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: So if we're like—

Dan: So you actually, you want to do a brainstorm now, what it could be?

Josh: Well, we're thinking like, um, the only daily podcast in Australia.

Tommy: I don't know. Well, it's like the only— Well, because we're going to eventually have live streaming and all that sort of thing. And so like, maybe like, could we be the first of something? But does it actually have—

Dan: when you say, okay, so all right, what is the Guinness World Record for a podcast every day?

Josh: Oh yeah, that's a good point.

Dan: Find out what it is. Beat it.

Josh: Mr. 97, can you look that up?

Dan: I saw him. I saw him move the second I said that.

Tommy: Well, my feeling is, though, that it will never be able to beat it based on some nerd who got in on 2004. Yeah.

Dan: Or it doesn't exist.

Josh: Yeah. Or it doesn't exist.

Dan: Commercial radio's best friend. You've tried the world record that no one's ever talked about.

Josh: That's definitely— you've done it. You've put on 70 pairs of underwear or something.

Dan: No, no, it's a podcast.

Josh: No, no, but for you, did you do one?

Dan: I put on 70 pairs of underwear.

Josh: It seems like a dumb Guinness World Record that, um, Karl Stefanovic would try.

Dan: Yeah, I know what you mean. I definitely did one about trying to eat as many Ferrero Rochers as possible in a minute, and that wasn't even a client thing. That was just we found weird world records that did exist.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: To, and just to go like, how hard could they really be?

Tommy: I've done that and I wasn't even recording anything.

Dan: That's my Saturday night. And suddenly I was just really depressed.

Josh: You did that the other day.

Dan: I had Christmas alone.

Josh: Guys, yesterday I was filming an interview for a friend who was chatting to one of his friends, capturing an interview of a guy who is about to have some elective surgery, weight loss surgery. Very, he weighs over 200 kilos.

Dan: So like a liposuction or a band or a staple or—

Josh: No, I think they actually remove part of your stomach now.

Dan: Oh yes, I know about this. Yes, that way there's less room to fill kind of thing.

Josh: Yeah, and so one thing that blew my mind was he said every day someone random, a random person calls me big boy.

Dan: Yeah, that makes sense.

Josh: It's pretty fucked up.

Dan: Really?

Josh: Did you get trolled, Josh? Did you have any fat shaming?

Tommy: No.

Dan: Wait, were you fat?

Tommy: Yeah, I was 120 kilos. Which is pretty big. I'm like, how do we get onto fat 93? I don't know, but we do talk about it a bit because it is—

Dan: because I was like, what, what, geez, did I like zone out for a little bit? Just like, when do we do all those bong ribs? What's going on?

Tommy: But I think there is, uh, well, I guess it's referring to the, the, the world record, the world record, the scoffing Ferrero Rocher.

Dan: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: It's all coming out. It moves.

Josh: We do move pretty fast-paced here.

Dan: What, it's half past— not even half past 9? All right, okay. No, it's good. I said I wanted to wake up and, um This will do it for you. Delicious Technivorm Moccamaster coffee. So yeah, no, but I think definitely the same machine. It's not an endorsement. Just love the product.

Tommy: It is a very good product. Dutch, I believe.

Dan: Makes sense. Technivorm.

Josh: Yeah, we had the discussion because 3D Deal said something like, if it's— he lives in Canada and he said, if I know the product's from Canada, I won't need to wash it thoroughly. But if it's from outside, outside of Canada, I then need to wash it if it's brand new.

Dan: He's a racist. Made in China.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: Got all those grubby Chinese hands all over it.

Tommy: Do you— are you someone who—

Dan: racist? Not very much, but I mean, we are with friends.

Tommy: So how on the scale of, um, I only buy in China and Dick Smith, where do you sit on the scale in regards to Australian mates?

Dan: Could not care less. Could not care less.

Tommy: Is there anything that you would specifically only buy if it's in Australia? Like oranges, would you be like, ah, if they're from Cali, I'm not interested?

Dan: I get a vague, um, you know, frisson of excitement every time I shop at some small local place rather than some giant monopoly. So, you know, actually walking down to a bookshop, like a local bookshop, and going, hi, I would like a book, holding in my hand and walking back and going, I'm keeping the wheels of capitalism turning.

Tommy: And then, and then checking on Amazon, buy it on there, put the book back.

Dan: I'll just put them on my eBay then, and I'm just drop shipping them to Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan or something. But, um, no, I— Yeah, we are in this weird world now where convenience is the king.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: So, everyone wants everything to be as convenient as possible. And it's like, you know, how can you get a packet of chicken breasts for $4? Because those chickens get brutalised, right? So, I do kind of go, oh yes, I'll get the slightly better one. There's the one that says RSPCA approved and you're like—

Tommy: Good or bad?

Dan: Well, I think that what that means is we've gone online. We've found out the bare minimum you have to do to not get sued by the RSPCA. And we're doing just above that. Every chicken gets a millimetre more space than those recommendations. Whereas, you know, the ones that are a bit more like farmy and all that sort of stuff, and they're local, you can see the suburb they came from and you go, oh, nice. They came from Lillydale or something.

Josh: So you're like, you're talking about Lillydale chicken, RSPCA approved, right?

Dan: It's no, it's a step above.

Josh: It's a step above.

Dan: The thing is though, when you're paying more for it, you, yeah, you're paying more.

Josh: So the people that can't afford more can't be purchasing the stuff that is better for the environment.

Dan: We shouldn't be eating so much meat then. Well, Mr. 97 is severely underpriced.

Josh: You don't even eat meat.

Dan: You're—

Josh: No, I eat meat.

Dan: I just said I buy chickens.

Josh: What do you think I do?

Dan: Just buy them, laugh at them because they're dead and throw them in the bin?

Tommy: Put them in the freezer. Isn't that what everyone buys chicken for? Put it in the freezer.

Dan: I throw it at pedestrians, don't you? What are you putting in your mouth?

Tommy: Gross. Mr. 97 nearly lost his mind when 3D Dill came back and he'd bought—

Dan: Why are you naming all your friends numerically?

Tommy: Oh, it's just, it's actually, that's a good point.

Dan: Ah, 37502, welcome to my studio.

Tommy: It's my slightly spectrum stuff. It's easy to remember them.

Dan: But the, ah, Friend 7.

Tommy: Enjoy a coffee with me. If only I got that high in numbers.

Dan: But I could never fill out a MySpace top 8.

Tommy: Could you? I'm trying to think with MySpace, could you bring it lower than 8? I think you could.

Dan: You could add as well.

Tommy: Do you remember the view source? So a lot of people would hide.

Dan: Yeah.

Tommy: And you could go view source and then actually see. So it was almost like a bit of a game anyway.

Dan: But I would be inspecting those elements so hard.

Tommy: Mr. 97 nearly lost his mind when 3D Dill came to the office and he had cage— he'd bought caged eggs.

Dan: Oh yeah.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: See, now that's a yowzer, isn't it?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. Not ideal.

Tommy: Yeah, not ideal. But it gets a little bit hard. We were in regional.

Dan: Where were the eggs from, mate? They weren't from China, were they? Those jerks.

Tommy: But it's actually harder. I was trying to buy eggs over the weekend and it's like they use weird language. Yeah. Like, I think there was one—

Dan: Cage adjacent.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. It is a little bit like that.

Josh: Doesn't identify what environment he lives in. Yeah.

Tommy: But, you know, the—

Dan: Well, there was one, you know, the FDA, which is the Food and Drug Administration in the US. I was watching John Oliver talk about the— You talk about gastric surgery. He was talking about body implants, they're like pacemakers, etc., right? Things like that. They have all these different devices that you can get implanted inside you. The doctor will say, hey, why don't you get this thing that shoots this chemical into this bit of your body to make you better in that way? Like insulin's an example. And there's FDA— there's two types, right? And it's like FDA approved and FDA something else, and one of them is literal garbage. Really? It's like one FDA cleared and FDA approved or something like that, and one of them is just complete garbage. It's like, like, they might not kill you. He showed it. Well, no one has actually approved it. Yeah, it just exists. Whereas the other one is like, no, this has been tested and approved. So you're basically a science guinea pig if you're using it.

Tommy: Well, I remember, you know, 23andMe, the DNA, like there's a bunch of them now, but you get your DNA to them, did you?

Josh: Yeah, he did.

Dan: Right, now you're on there.

Tommy: Exactly, on the list. Yeah, but what do you— what do we think is actually What's the worst that could happen?

Dan: That is such a hilarious question. Alright. So, when— Don't you remember like 10 years ago when we all started Facebook?

Josh: No, I can't.

Dan: When we all started Facebook 10 years ago or whatever, like 15 years ago, we were all like, "Oh, yeah, privacy. What does that mean? I mean, you know, I just won't put up any pictures of me drunk and I'll be fine." And now we've got Donald Trump. Yeah. Like that's what the worst that can happen is. Like these things work in mind-boggling ways that we could never understand and they will come back and bite us in the ass.

Tommy: Yeah. I wonder the genetics one specifically. Like, because it is, because it, I guess you could, you could use genes like to clone people, could you? Like, is that a thing?

Dan: I don't know. I don't know. My knowledge of cloning extends about as far as, I mean, I was, I was a kid of the '90s, so Dolly the sheep was huge. That was the sheep that got cloned.

Tommy: Yeah. Yeah. But they stopped that, didn't they? Did they just completely?

Dan: I don't know. I'm pretty sure there's other, you know, clonosauruses out there. But, um, the, do you want to know a fun fact about Dolly the sheep?

Tommy: Yes.

Josh: Fun fact, go.

Dan: Do you know why she's called Dolly the Sheep?

Tommy: Dolly the Sheep.

Josh: Dolly Parton?

Dan: You're on the right track.

Josh: Yeah, I don't know.

Dan: Because, and this is some classic, like, think about how woke we are nowadays, right? Because she was cloned from a mammary gland and Dolly Parton has massive boobs.

Josh: That's why they're serious.

Dan: Really? Yeah. Could you imagine if that happened now? Could you imagine the outrage?

Tommy: I know.

Dan: Dolly the sheep would get milkshake ducked in a heartbeat.

Tommy: But they also, uh, you can't clone, like, that's a rule now. You can't clone things, can you?

Dan: Says who? Yeah, I think I'm at home watching Netflix, right?

Tommy: There is like, uh, I watched a documentary on like the nuclear disaster in Ukraine, you know, like the one—

Josh: Chernobyl.

Tommy: Yeah, Chernobyl.

Dan: We all know, just call it Chernobyl.

Tommy: I literally forgot the name.

Dan: Yeah, I was, um, I was watching a documentary about the tall statue in the US harbour of a woman with a torch.

Josh: I don't know if you know You know it, but that's really— it's very popular at the moment. Chernobyl is the documentary. Oh really?

Dan: It's hot. No, the drama series.

Josh: Okay, not the same thing.

Tommy: I watched this thing on Amazon Prime.

Josh: It's not the same thing?

Dan: No, this is a drama series. Okay, but I haven't seen it.

Josh: Yeah, but there's lots of people watching it.

Tommy: Yeah, mate, we're just not up to date. But so you're not cool is what I'm trying to say.

Dan: Don't pretend like you are.

Tommy: Well, I'm not interested.

Dan: I was watching this show, you might not have heard of it, right? It's called Game of Thrones.

Tommy: And, um, I actually haven't seen any Game of Thrones. That's all right, I'm not surprised. Um, no, but I thought it was interesting.

Dan: You also have created a media empire, so it balances out.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

Dan: You didn't watch the Dragon Show, but you have your own sign. Yeah, yeah, you've got mic arms. Like, that's pretty cool.

Tommy: Yeah, that's pretty legit. Do you like the mic arms?

Dan: I actually really do. I'm— I kind of want, um, I would love— my dream desk setup would be like one arm like this and the other with a monitor, and I could just position them any way I wanted at any time because I just hate, um, my mic setup for Totally Obsessed is these little travelling tripods that are about this big, right?

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And the mics are like, not unlike these, but not these, but they're this heavier.

Tommy: Yes. Are they Rode or what?

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: Um, are they— why do they go into USB or do they go into XLR?

Dan: Uh, XLRs on the 3 prongs. Yes. Yeah, like what you'd have on a microphone.

Tommy: You sure they're not these then? I'm trying to think. Well, the PodMic is—

Dan: what are you doing, Jedi mind trick? These are the microphones.

Tommy: I'm trying to think. Rode only— Rode don't have— oh, they've got like the Broadcaster. Anyway, we're getting very technical.

Dan: That's all right. Who knows, people might love that.

Tommy: Yeah, you know, when you're like—

Dan: exactly, there's some stuff that people love and some stuff people don't. People might be like, oh, why can't they talk more about their mic settings?

Tommy: We've done that a fair bit actually.

Dan: You do some audience research.

Josh: No, get some data, email us. We talked about websites and people having a chubby.

Dan: What about digital?

Tommy: You couldn't fucking say digital chub on your show, could you? Could you say chub? Do you reckon you could say chub?

Dan: Yeah, you could, but I don't like it. I get annoyed. I get annoyed when I'm recording at about the 25-minute mark, someone drops an F-word. I go, great, now I'm going to put that explicit sticker on this one.

Josh: Oh, because you don't want to. Why is there a reason behind it?

Tommy: Well, the new and noteworthy— I wonder if they you don't like.

Dan: That's kind of a part of it.

Josh: But also, Joe Rogan has no problem being at number 1 of podcasts in the world.

Tommy: But is he?

Dan: I'm here to be number 1. I'm here to be the podcast my mum can play to her class at school. Oh, really? That's what it's about.

Josh: Fair enough.

Dan: Oh, Daniel. Daniel, the language on the latest one. We were halfway through and someone said a very naughty word. Don't let us swear.

Tommy: Well, because you actually—

Dan: No, you can't.

Tommy: Well, there was one episode that didn't go to air that you did. I think it was in the Sydney Comedy Festival. Can you— you beeped out the, uh, no, I can't say it here, but, um, you can, you can say anything here.

Dan: No, I can't because the, like, personal brand. Yeah, it was bought.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And at the same time, there are a couple of other things that I was kind of, um, I was doing like this, uh, schools presentation, like schools want to learn how to podcast, so I kind of get sort of parachuted in to be like the rent expert on podcasting. And that's kind of like, you know, a fun way to make money, I guess.

Tommy: I was literally, I was talking to a mate this morning about this who's got a podcast and I was like, the conundrum that Tommy and I are in, in some, some ways is we know we could make so much more cash teaching people how to do this than the actual thing itself.

Dan: Yeah.

Tommy: But I guess that's not the reason why you do it.

Josh: I don't know.

Dan: Are you solvent?

Tommy: No, no, we're fine. We're fine.

Dan: Okay, well then don't stress too much about making cash then. You're far better off if you don't need the cash.

Tommy: The liquidators are here in half an hour.

Josh: He's actually watching the live stream. G'day, mate.

Tommy: How many are we going?

Dan: No, he said 7. Okay, so now I issued a test, not a test, a challenge before the show that—

Tommy: I think we said it on air.

Dan: Did we say it on there?

Tommy: Yes, we did. It was on air.

Dan: Well, you said 3, 2, 1, let's go.

Tommy: Okay, it wasn't on air.

Josh: No, it was before.

Tommy: It was just— I'm so sorry, we were live streaming.

Josh: You're right.

Tommy: Yeah, okay. Yeah, you're going.

Dan: If you come at the king, you best not miss. Okay, um, so we said if the live stream on Instagram gets to 20, then, uh, Captain 65 or whatever, Chicken 65 over here, is gonna issue a, um Celebration sound. Yep. What was it, Mr. 73 or something? It sounds like someone was talking to under— like, it's like, it's like you're talking to underage kids on a goddamn chat room, you know? Like, oh, Mr. 97's back.

Tommy: Yeah, that was his enter score. Do you remember what your enter score was? It would have been good for law.

Dan: It was far better than his.

Tommy: 97 is like, you're 3 off the best in the fucking— yeah, exactly. What did you get? What are they saying?

Dan: Because you grew up in WA. It was called the TEE.

Tommy: TEE. And what did you—

Josh: out of 100? Out of 99.99?

Dan: Out of 99.95. Yeah, so it was by 0.5s.

Tommy: Yeah. And so what did you get?

Dan: I feel weird. I'm 34 years old. That was half my life ago.

Tommy: Mate, I only talk about my childhood.

Dan: Do you honestly want to know?

Josh: Yes, I honestly want to know.

Dan: Okay, 99.15. Oh wow, that's great. I even did a little smile as I said it. I feel like I remember calculating my grades online and being like, Oh my God.

Tommy: How did you do it? Like, were you just a ridiculous student?

Dan: English literature.

Tommy: Okay.

Dan: Yeah, I didn't top the state, but I got 100% in the exam.

Tommy: So, and so, because in Victoria you have to do all these specific, like you have to do maths and you have to do—

Dan: I actually had quite fun with it. So, I was never really a big fan. I enjoy the sort of sense of maths and science, but the actual like sit down and nut out some fractions.

Tommy: What does the sense, what does that mean?

Dan: Like, I love the way it all fits together and the theories and the— like, I love reading about it, you know. But I don't actually like sitting down and doing equations, right? So, I got to the end of Year 11 and, yeah, you're right, you have to do a maths and science and a humanities, at least one of each, basically. That's why all the kids who do like chemistry, physics and stuff like that also do literature or, you know, I was on the opposite side of the thing. So, I basically— I don't like rules. If someone puts a rule in front of me, I go, "Ooh, how can I tinker with this rule?" And I said, "I don't want to do any maths or science.". And they were like, but you've got to. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not going to. And they were like, okay. And they sat down and they were like, look, what you could do is you do all the subjects you want to do, which was French politics, literature, drama, and ancient history.

Tommy: Was that French politics or—

Dan: No, no, French, comma, politics.

Tommy: Okay, great. French politics is a niche.

Dan: It's fascinating at the moment. I got to vote in the EU election the other day because I'm a French citizen. And it's really fascinating stuff.

Tommy: So, really?

Dan: Yep. Drama, French, politics, literature, ancient history, right? That was my sort of, that was my dream lineup. And they were like, okay, cool. So, what you could do is do that. And at the end of the year, just sit the maths exam and that would count. Do like the lowest level maths for TEE and that would count it as 100% of your There would be no coursework in that unit, it'd be 100% that.

Tommy: Okay.

Dan: And that's what I was going to do. But then they timetabled ancient history and French at the same time and I had to choose. So, I chose French and then I decided, well, I've got to do an extra subject now. So, I just picked up maths.

Tommy: Because I was literally going to ask you a bunch about ancient history just after you said that.

Dan: Yeah, I know. It's a real— Sometimes I get so frustrated that I, you know, can't name all the you know, Emperors of Rome, or—

Josh: Yeah, the kids that you spoke to about the podcasting, what do you think?

Dan: Oh yes, cool.

Josh: So what are you thinking about? What are— What's the vibe?

Dan: Turns out there was no joy in that anecdote. All right, that's a dead end. Turn around, go back.

Josh: Well, I think about—

Dan: No minotaur here, Theseus.

Josh: I think about— So I'm the opposite. I didn't think anything about anything to do with my schoolwork, and it sounds like you actually enjoyed working out, okay, if I do this, it means this. And I guess that's what you need to do if you get 97 or 99. Um, the kids that you're speaking to at the moment, what are— what's the vibe from the—

Dan: these are VCal kids, so they're the exact— oh, they've given up. No, no, no, they haven't.

Josh: Yeah, no, no, no, system.

Dan: No, this is the thing though, like, because my brother did VOC, which is similar.

Josh: Um, I did VCal, dude, I gave up.

Dan: That's the thing, right?

Tommy: You do though.

Dan: That's the exact point, is you do give up because you have to do a trade.

Tommy: I think the issue with VCal is it's like 'Oh, you got to do something with your hands. You got to do— you got to be a fucking labourer or something like that,' rather than thinking about it more broadly, which is like, you could actually be a filmmaker doing it.

Dan: Like, yeah, or you could just have a really nice life, like being someone in the creamy middle. Like, these days everyone—

Tommy: it's like creamy middle.

Dan: Yeah, like think of an Oreo just living in the cream, no highs, no lows, just the creamy middle.

Tommy: Um, they're vegan too, by the way.

Dan: Yeah, I have heard that. Yeah, yeah.

Josh: Um, still will make you fat as fuck.

Tommy: Yeah, if you eat too many.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. How many can you eat in a minute? Let's find out. Um, so yeah, it's like these people— oh, because you're not gonna be a neurosurgeon, then you're gonna have to, you know, be the scum of society. It's like, oh, like, oh, you know, but hold this hope, you could get a billion Instagram followers. Like, oh, who cares? Like, sorry everyone on Instagram. How many out there? Yeah, what do we know? Gone down to 3. Okay, that's kind of where I thought we'd be pitching by the time we got to this point.

Tommy: If we ever get below 5, just say, I can't say the number right now.

Dan: Okay, we will talk after the show. How do you fill the show in?

Tommy: So does your, does your mum work with VCal?

Dan: No, no, my mum's in Perth. She does, uh, Year 6. Okay, Year 6.

Tommy: Yeah. And so the VCal stuff that you've been doing, that's separate to—

Dan: Yeah, this is just through me, just, um, Uh, you're gonna say hustling? No, it's the opposite. It's the opposite of hustling. It's just through me having a podcast and getting like, you know, dandaboof.com. Uh, you can go in the, you know, the forms where it's like put in your name and your email and it just comes off my inbox. Yeah.

Josh: So what do you think these kids, what, what's, what's the hope for them? What are they, what are they getting out of?

Dan: I think they've just been told that they don't fit into the society's definition of success. Where people go, and especially at school, like, I mean, I know I was just— If I'd gotten below 99, I would have been distraught. Like, I seriously would have been like, how? How did this happen? And the fact that now I'm out in the real world and it's almost embarrassing to have gotten something that high, like, people go, oh, 95, that's amazing. And I go, holy shit, I hope no one finds out. Like, you know, I had a friend who went and studied at Oxford, and then when he came back to Australia, like, and was looking for a job, people were like, maybe like just play that down on your resume a bit.

Tommy: Really?

Dan: People will think, oh, he went to Oxford, we don't want to hire him, he's too, um, highfalutin.

Josh: Where does the credit lie now?

Dan: How do you mean?

Josh: So how, how are you seen as, you know, so one, one, once upon a time, your, you know, was of a lot of worth on resumes and shit like that.

Dan: I wouldn't even put it on my resume.

Josh: Yeah, but I'm saying now, where does it lie? What, like Where does people's worth— is it in Instagram followers? Oh, you know, social fucking crowd?

Dan: I think, um, if I were to say what's important right now, I would say a sense of human contact and community and being able to actually talk and engage and think. And, um, yeah, things like critical thinking. And it's a— you know, we use the word all the time, but creativity, things like that, where it's like That— because the other thing is, right, is look at all these jobs to being replaced by machines and stuff like that. Like, God, I get nervous about people going and doing trades. I'm like, well, you could be replaced by some robot in 15 years, right? And these kids are 15 now.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: So I think, yeah, I would say what is super valuable is, yeah, just, you know, in the moment, um, person to person and critical thinking and just, yeah, that sort of stuff. That I just—

Tommy: real—

Dan: it almost— it's not tangible because like bricklaying is tangible.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: But it feels to me it's like proper, like, mental. Yeah. Tangible.

Tommy: It's a self-awareness. It's, it's the, the elements that are going to actually— when the computers are doing shit and you have to have conversations with people to make stuff happen.

Dan: I'll throw this one at you guys and see what you think. So people saying like the, the superpower of the future is creativity because machines can't be creative. And, um, there are so many jobs that'll be replaced by machines, but creative jobs won't, right? And we probably all thought that because we are all kind of in that sort of arena. Yeah, but this is my dystopian prediction, is that those skills won't be important because the market won't care about creative products. No one will care. They'll go, I am perfectly happy with something completely predictable, exactly like what I've had before, just just churn it out. I don't care, I will click like on it. And anything creative will fade away.

Tommy: I think that you've got to make a distinction between audience and what people want versus what technology will provide. So I think technology is going to make it easier to make, you know, to give repetition and to give you the same thing over and over again. And I think we're already seeing that artistry, things that are handcrafted, imperfections, having a knife maker make a knife versus having something made, you know, in a big sort of scale manufacturing thing. Those things that are unique, I think, will end up having more value.

Dan: So I think, yes, but like, do a bit of a sample, like go to all your friends' kitchens, see what they've got in their knife block. They've probably just got the generic knives bought in a set from wherever.

Tommy: I think it's based on status as well too, right? So if, if we think of life is a bit like thinking about Enterscores and all that sort of thing, all of these things are ways of Showing status, financial, you know, how much money you have.

Dan: That's another way of saying this is now— this is why you end up with this stratification. So, it's not about the 1%, it's about the top 10%. And they're, you know, you're the lawyers and the doctors and all this sort of stuff, right? Because the gulf between them and everyone else is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then everyone else is getting clumped down the other side in this bizarre world where you have to, you know, ride a bike full of hamburgers to people's houses on their demand. Like, that's the service.

Tommy: But if that becomes universal, if everyone has access to those things, then that can no longer be a thing of status. And so, and that's why, like, it feels like the, you know, that 10% or whatever, the thing that you can—

Dan: With their handcrafted knives.

Tommy: Yeah. But I think that not only that, but I think that the awesome— Why it's awesome for society is the things like handcrafted knives and the artistry and all that sort of thing can actually bleed down, I believe, to the other levels because it's not financial.

Dan: Like, it sounds like Reagan.

Tommy: It feels like, it feels like there is, it feels like there is the, uh, some of these things. So stuff, so for instance, if, if connectedness becomes the norm, then the world is going to be seeking more disconnectedness in regards to from technology.

Dan: So being able to go out into the bush, but some people can't have that. Because like, so for example, there— being able to disconnect is a status symbol as well, um, because most people, um, like they have to be always on.

Tommy: If you're an Uber driver, you have to be connected. Exactly.

Dan: You're an office worker, like you can't just go, hey, I'm doing no email this week.

Tommy: And that's what— and that's what I mean. I think that's a status symbol. So in some regards, there are— the weirdness of it is that, uh, homelessness and all those sorts of things those people are actually doing some of the things that rich people are going to be seeking, which is what?

Dan: Sleeping in a bedroll under a train station.

Tommy: Detachment, right? Like the— So, that then becomes—

Dan: I'm just nervous about— I mean, a guy saying that the homeless are as lucky as the rich. No, no.

Tommy: What I'm saying is that some of the values or the things that come out of not having much, it's like we've got the minimalism movement, all of these things, which are actually people seeking simplicity.

Dan: So yeah, but they're choosing it. They're not having it forced upon them.

Josh: Like, I met a guy on the weekend who has a successful business selling paper, handmade paper.

Tommy: Cool.

Josh: It's awesome. He's just opened another shop. And I was thinking more of these businesses, more of these ventures that people, you know, sort of the paths they'll go down to create something like this because they love what they do. And they'll find a little market to make money from it, which is the juggernaut businesses like Amazon, which is taking over the world. It's like there will be a few of these juggernaut businesses that are providing a lot of—

Dan: Americans think Amazon is a force for good in the world.

Tommy: I think, yeah, but I think like there's, yeah, I don't think that all these things are that black and white. I think that like these things that could be like—

Dan: Are you saying that there's shades of grey? Nuance?

Tommy: But I think that that's part of, I think that's part of the, um, even like I was listening to, um, the conversation around Jordan Peterson and all that sort of thing. And I think that I'm not, I'm not very sort of— I don't have a very strong political view, I don't think, intentionally anyway. Exactly. And so I think that that's the thing is like I've never, I never knew about like— it's only in the last 3 or 4 years that I was like, oh fuck, there's like left-leaning media and there's right-leaning media. And I think that what can sometimes happen is that based on ideologies, or I need to— based on my beliefs, I should believe that X, Y, and Z is good and X, Y, and Z is bad. And I think that like the interesting thing that I'm finding is like, oh, there are, uh, there are places for different things. You can consume Jordan Peterson, or you can consume different types of content, but that doesn't mean that you're a misogynist or that you're right-leaning or you're this or that. And I guess that's part of the distinction between not being black and white on things, is it's like I'm talking based on the very little knowledge that I have in the world, but what I'm trying to do is think about it from my perspective based on that it's not always conducive to left or right. So some things I might say where it's like, I don't think we should be getting so much stuff from China. You could say, okay, that's a national— nationalistic. It could be, yeah, it could be, uh, there is that level of like, is it racist to not take things from other countries or do all that sort of thing? But that's the interesting thing, right? But there's also the other element, which is like supporting local business, shut down mosques and doing all that.

Dan: Yeah, I am—

Tommy: well, I don't think they have to be the same. Yeah, because there's— yeah, there are those extremes, right? And so I think that that's I think that's the interesting thing about all these conversations is you— I would like to think that we can have a little bit of here, have a little bit of there without—

Dan: It's very important to get out of your bubble, right? So, and that works both ways. Yeah. So, I try and read, you know, let's say, what's a book I've read recently? Home Fires.. And then I might read, which is by, you know, I'm pretty sure Pakistani author. It's about, I don't want to give too much away, but kind of like radicalisation or stuff like that. And then like, I, you know, will go, okay, what's this Jordan Peterson about? And try to read that book because it's important to, you know, Try and get a nice wide survey of what's going on. I think the second you feel like you've got a sense of what's going on, that's when you've probably lost your sense of what's going on.

Tommy: And that's what I think is interesting is like, but it's reading those books with an open mind versus, I guess, part of the risk is you read all these books through the lens of I have a preconceived idea of what this thing is. But yeah, I think it's interesting because I think that out like, what I find really interesting about you is you do have, um, you are vocal in regards to like political stuff and all that sort of thing, whereas I guess I'm not.

Dan: I feel like I'm pretty quiet actually. Like, I, I like talking about it, but I'm not an activist.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And there have been times where I'm like, I don't know, I've got 10,000 followers on social media, why? Like, even like, remember the plebiscite for marriage equality? I put up a post of, you know, me posting away my vote and, you know, stuck some rainbows on it and was like, you know, I want to put a caption saying, I've got 10,000 followers, a lot of you, the vast majority of which come from outside my social circle. You're probably like, there's probably statistically there are some of you who are going to vote against marriage equality. And I just want to give a couple of reasons why. Hopefully that's something you can— and I gave a couple of reasons here— something hopefully you can think about. And I posted it, and then I like— it got like so many more likes than anything else I'd posted. And I just felt a bit like, almost like it kind of made me feel like it was token or something. I don't know, it's, it's hard to tell. Like, it's kind of like, if you're gonna do it do it, but don't do it like once every 3 years and, you know, get this weird outlier and yeah, and to post about these things. I don't know, I can't tell to be honest. Yeah, or like Australia Day, um, I, I went on the, the, um, the march through the city and I was, um, Instagramming all the signs that were up and, you know, and yeah, I think storeys is a little different. Instagram storeys is good because they don't like What's that? A moment in time as a trophy, you know?

Josh: Yeah, well, people who are virtue signaling— not saying you were, but do they know they're doing that? But yeah, you know, it's easy to say, oh, that person's virtue signaling, but they're probably just thinking, I believe in this, I'm going to post this. Yeah, I think it's when you have the thought in your mind of this will get me likes, which you didn't, but yeah, people out there—

Dan: the opposite. I was like, I know this is gonna get me likes, but I want to do it despite that. Yeah, because I— yeah, I mean, social media likes are a very bad way to measure anything, right? Likes are low-hanging fruit.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: Um, if you want to get likes, it's very easy. Just start stealing content from people and posting it. Eventually you'll get likes, right? So, um, so you— how many, how many people are watching right now? 4. Doesn't matter. What did I say? Doesn't matter.

Josh: He's done 97, and he fucks it. So if it's under 5, how many people are watching it? How many people are watching?

Tommy: Unclear at the moment.

Dan: No, no, we don't ask you to raise your eyebrows. He still hasn't learned. Am I doing it, boss?

Tommy: That's fine, that's fine.

Dan: 7,000.

Tommy: It's interesting, like, because the thing is, like, you brought up Trump earlier, and I think that it's one of those things where it's—

Dan: I do it kind of a podcast, I'm mentioning Trump at least once.

Tommy: I haven't— I think that I've probably like we would have mentioned Donald Trump early on in our podcast, like very sort of zeitgeist. It was the thing everyone was talking about. Yeah, but I worry that by talking about it or whatever, it's disconnected. Like, I think I like to talk about the, the thoughts or the ideas or, you know, there's that fucking quote. It's like, people, you speak about like, it's like I can't remember the exact quote, but it's like that thing of Smart people talk about ideas over like talking about people. It's basically if someone's having a breakup with their friendship, they post this on Instagram. It's like the common, common thing. But my point being that it's like by talking about it in the way of Donald Trump, we're suddenly detaching the actual issues because people are so triggered when you talk about those sorts of things. They're so triggered by that rather than all of the bad shit being specific.

Dan: But there are other ways to help out as well. Like, for example, having a meaningful conversation with a friend who lives in a, like, less progressive electorate, or, you know, at work being like, I'll say no to this opportunity and put forward a woman that I know who would do just as well, or things like that. Just like, as opposed to I'm going to tweet really angrily every day about about, um, you know, whatever my mission is, like, or just do tiny little things in the background and, and, um, try and, uh, you know, make things better. Like, I remember when I started my podcast, I made sure the first 10 episodes none of the guests were straight white dudes because I, you know, I mean, look, here we are, right? Like, a lot of podcasts, they're just straight white dudes talking.

Josh: Speak for yourself, mate.

Tommy: Straight?

Josh: Really?

Tommy: Sorry.

Josh: It was a joke.

Dan: Oh, okay.

Josh: It was a funny joke.

Dan: I was just like, oh my gosh.

Josh: Yeah, sorry, Amy, my wife.

Dan: I swear you mentioned that before. I was like, that's why I said it. I was like, oh my God, just trying to throw you off. Yeah, no, you did. I was like, oh, okay, wow, you must be really bad at picking up dudes. Um, but yeah, so I have that thing where I'm like, okay, how can I just do a little way to redress that? And the balance has gone skew-iff now just because of the, um the guests that I managed to get while I was— people were in town and blah blah. But you know, it's, it's just little things like that. And I wasn't like, hey guys, here's my noble quest. Yeah, I'm going to, to change everything about my podcast. I'm going to end like that. I just did it.

Tommy: Yeah, it felt good. Did you find when you were in commercial radio, did you feel sort of disenfranchised by the sort of the bigger media machine? I don't even think about like with No, no, no, no.

Dan: Our show was great. We were really good. I remember we, um, remember like I was the last time at a primetime show was 2015, right? So that was pre-Trump.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: Like it was towards the end of that year when he nominated. So I feel like we got out at the best time.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: Right.

Tommy: But do you think your show would have, uh, done much in that arena? Like, because I guess it's hard to tell.

Josh: Yeah, breakfast show maybe a bit more.

Dan: Yeah, drive time breakfast show would be more like, um, oh, how funny is Trump? Boing, boing, boing. And trying to be a bit like but we know racism is bad, right? Yeah, cool. Um, but I can't remember one of the big ones. One of the big ones, there were two that were really big around that time. One was marriage equality, and we did a lot of work with that. And I remember I— there was a guy who said he would divorce his partner, his wife, if marriage equality was legalized. We had him on the show, and, you know, I just went off at him. And, um, Uh, that was a really like emotionally charged moment. And I was like, you know, like there are, there are these kids out there who are literally killing themselves because you say things like this. Like you, yeah, like that kind of thing. That was intense. Um, and then the other one was, um, I think that transgender rights were being put on the sort of radar for for a lot of people, it was the first time they're learning about it. And that was because of Caitlyn Jenner. And we had a lot of talk about that on the show. We had, I forget her name, but some, she was a transgender activist and she would come on the show and we could just ask her anything. It was kind of like, you know, that show, it's on ABC. That's it. It was kind of like that with her and she could just answer anything. And it was so, um, it was so great just to have this moment being like, what if someone calls you by your old name? Like, is that super offensive? Like, is that like saying the N-word? Like, what's going on? Or is it just like if, you know, someone gets married and they change their surname and then you call them that? Like, is it— what's the— like, all these are things. Fine. And that was really cool to kind of— and we did that segment of like, basically, because she was super stoked to be able to do this, and it was always in the news, so we're like, great, let's, um and, you know, do that as much as possible. That was really cool too. But, you know, you talk about the media machine. We had a meeting once with my boss and he sat us down, me and Maz, and he went, what's going on? And we're like, what? He goes, why the hell have you guys not spoken about Adam Goodes on the show? He's like, you're the Sydney Breakfast Show, he's a Sydney football player, it is the number one news storey in the country, why aren't you speaking about it? And we were like, oh, I don't know. I mean, I don't know much about football. Like, back then I didn't know anything about AFL, so I don't know much about football. And, you know, I'm not Indigenous, and he's like, so what? Like, he's like, he goes, you guys need to talk about this. He's like, Karl and Jackie aren't going to talk about it. 'Fitzsimmons aren't going to talk about it. It's too crazy for them.' Yeah. 'You guys owe it to the market to get in here.' And even if it's just getting on air and saying, 'Hey, are you confused by all this? I don't really know what to do,' blah blah, like, and get someone on.

Tommy: Do you think that was your positioning based on the work that you'd done with the same-sex staff and sort of the transgender work? Do you think that all of those things—

Dan: No, I don't think it was. I think it was just like, this is the kind of stuff that our show is about.

Tommy: Because that's what I'm curious about is like, say for instance, like Fox News like obvious right, like they talk about, you know, being right-wing or whatever. Yeah. One thing that I find harder to understand is people talking about left media or whatever that is. What is your perspective on media's responsibility, leanings, and say those types of conversations?

Dan: I mean, media is a, like a media company is owned by a person, right? Media isn't some benevolent public good. Media is where someone with a lot of money has decided to monopolise communication in order to push their words out to people louder than everyone else's. That is what a media channel is. I mean, it's at the very— it's kind of like what you guys are, it's what I do on my podcast.

Tommy: We're a big media company, so we're very much like that.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: It's, I mean, it's in the name.

Dan: Yeah, I thought it was up there for a second.

Tommy: We've got multiple brands at a big media company. Yes.

Dan: So what do you think? So an umbrella corporation, it's a real portfolio of assets.

Tommy: But do you feel that, that, you know, when something— I'm saying there's no, there's no media company— is a publicly listed company. So based on that, like, how does, how do all these things— I'm talking about this because I have no idea.

Dan: Something called The Stereo just chases the dollar. Like, that's why no one is being left.

Tommy: Is there more money in the left versus the right, do you think?

Josh: I think so.

Dan: Fox News seems to be doing all right.

Tommy: Yeah, I guess that's part—

Josh: but maybe there's something in extreme, like, is there something natural lean for most media outlets to being left, being progressive?

Tommy: It's probably just if you're on E!

Josh: Radio.

Tommy: But if you're on MTV, I guess you're more likely to, uh, if you're watching MTV, the types of people who are in that company or in that brand are going to be young people who are potentially traditionally progressive demographic.

Dan: Yeah, but, um, yeah, I just think people do what they want to do, like, because that's what I thought.

Tommy: But based on that, but that then doesn't play into the narrative that Fox News produces right right-wing content, but the people who work there want that content. Yeah. And so do you think that that's a hiring thing? Do you think that based on a value set, it's like, yeah, we know that Waleed Ali isn't going to put his resume in at Fox News.

Dan: Yeah, you know what I mean?

Tommy: Yeah, sure.

Dan: Like, that's just— but you know, someone, you know, Sean Hannity or someone, I don't know who's on Fox News, but like, they would want to work there.

Tommy: Yeah. It's interesting. I look at like The Project and I think like it's an example of a show that tries to do big meaty issues, but then also does the comedy sort of stuff. And it's sometimes Bree always, my girlfriend, gets annoyed at me because I, whenever something I find uncomfortable happens on TV, I straight away switch. And it's normally she loves watching The Project, but I tend, I I get close to pressing that button whenever I'm seeing like a transit, like an awkward transition or whatever. Did you find, uh, talking about the big issues and also having fun those transitional points hard? Or I guess within radio you've got—

Dan: well, I mean, talk breaks, and you can put it— if you're good at it, it's easier. Like, I'm not saying I'm a superhero, but like, we did spend like 10 years working out like how we do those sorts of things. And it is super tough. Like, I remember, um, shootings. Like, when everyone's talking about something these days, people don't really talk about shootings in America because they happen so much. But 5 years ago, if there was a school shooting, it was like, oh my Lord, like, what do we do? Do we change the whole show? But another example is like, you know, Robin Williams dying. Like, I remember that. Like, we were doing Drive Time and we're well, like, he—

Josh: we can't get on air and just, you know, talk about it for the sake of talking about it.

Dan: Well, no, it was more just like we can't just do our normal idiocy. Yeah, right. So we can't get on air and just be like, whoa, pretending like there wasn't like this— in my mind it's like this ghost shaped like the genie from Aladdin just in the room.

Tommy: What the fuck you guys doing?

Dan: Yeah. Oh, hey guys.

Josh: Um, but, um, So I mean, or can you be based on majority of the people not feeling the way you did about it?

Dan: But like, I think majority of people did.

Tommy: I think that's a huge—

Dan: I think our audience, people grew up with that guy. Yeah.

Josh: So, but I mean, yeah, it's a, it's a decision to make whether it's the thing you lead with or the thing that you don't, you're not choosing to talk about.

Dan: It's just a programming decision. It's like if you're feeling annoyed, it's a personal decision.

Josh: So for you, that was a personal feel Which in result, because of the show, it becomes a programming decision whether to put it on or not. Yeah.

Tommy: And so did you feel as talent, as they call it, you don't have to put that in air quotes.

Dan: No, I think because I think it's, I think it understates as a radio presenter, if you will.

Tommy: No, I think the thing with talent, which I don't like, is that maybe sort of it feels very one-dimensional. Did you feel that you're making those programme decisions?

Dan: Yeah. Yeah, I did. A lot of people have all these storeys about, oh, media and, you know, you'll just be a pawn and and they'll change who you are and all this sort of stuff. But honestly, I don't know if I had a charmed run, but on the whole, I mean, there are some things where I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe we did that. But, um, yeah, generally, like, working with Maz and having the bosses we were lucky to have throughout our show, I never really had that moment where, like, occasionally there would be a bit of like, wouldn't it be great if you two thought the opposite about this issue?

Tommy: Sure.

Dan: And we'd be like, but we agree. Yeah, but we'd be able to figure out a way to make it more more interesting.

Josh: It is, it is a good thing about radio. I mean, other than I remember being suggested you should talk about this, it's just happened, you know, somehow bring it up. Don't have to bring some personal storey about it.

Dan: Yeah.

Josh: Or like actually have to say this is what's going on.

Dan: It's always great when people, two people think differently, but me and Maz as well, very sympathetic people. Like we like to figure out what the other person is about and, and get on board with it. So when we, we would often disagree and be like, But we'd be trying to find each other's point of view and we'd actually end up switching.

Tommy: Yeah. Do you think that makes for good radio?

Dan: I mean, I think I try to make everything make for good radio. It's like a puzzle. You've got to figure out how to make it good radio. But I think like, I think as well, listeners have learnt to see through that bullshit. And it's like I look at, I don't know if you saw, so Richmond played Adelaide And Eddie Betts, star of the game, kicked an amazing goal. And Sidney Stack, first-year player for Richmond, who'd been playing on Eddie Betts.

Tommy: Did you say before that you didn't know anything about football? Because this is the most football thing we've ever done.

Dan: Yeah, I know. I didn't know anything.

Josh: That's his name, Sidney Stack.

Dan: Sidney Stack. So, I started following AFL in 2016.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Really? Okay.

Dan: Yeah. So, now I'm so across it. So, Eddie Betts, star of the game, kicks this goal. Sidney Stack, young defender, playing on him all game. Game. He's being like, Eddie, I'm not gonna let you kick a goal. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna get one. And sure enough, Eddie got one, and all the Adelaide Crows, they all got around him like, well done. And then Sidney Stack just comes up, they do high five, hug, and Eddie looks at him like, yeah, I told you. Like this beautiful moment, right? And everyone in the game is going, how good is that, right? They're two Indigenous dudes too, as well. And like, it's just such a great story. And of course, Gary Lyons on The Footy Show, whatever his show is, just goes, oh yeah, you know, it's not bloody on, is it? Oh, if you want to have a cuddle with someone from the opposition. And everyone, everyone I've read was just like, mate, like, you don't need to create this fake drama. Like, no one— like, it— but you can tell, like, they're like, well, someone on the panel has to bring a bit of spice, you know, that kind of vibe. People can spot it.

Josh: Yeah, because if he— I mean, he probably couldn't give a fuck about that.

Dan: Yeah, I don't think so.

Josh: No.

Tommy: Yeah, well, I guess I think that it's probably— it's an interesting time to have an opinion anyway.

Dan: He hasn't been like a bold campaigner for like battle lines being drawn, you know. So yeah, I think, yeah, people— the point I'm making is that people can spot when something is confected, when something's been done on purpose, when the passion isn't in it. So So when Maz and I were on air, we'd always make sure that we could find that passion point. And if we couldn't, we'd get someone on who could.

Josh: The VCal kids are probably saying through everything, this is what I mean, a lot of kids don't listen to radio now because they think that.

Dan: That was one of the toughest things about, you know, presenting to these kids and trying to stoke their fire around podcasting is that like the vast majority of them are like, All right, mate, whatever.

Josh: What do they do, watch YouTube?

Dan: Pretty much, yeah.

Josh: Any of them listen to podcasts?

Dan: No, I mean, as in while I was up talking to them, they're just sitting in their chairs just watching YouTube. Yeah, it's crazy. And like, um, I mean, I'm, you know, I've been on stage before, I can sort of work a tough room, you know what I mean? Yeah. So I'll be kind of like, hey man, cheque this guy out, you know, like kind of trying to— yeah, like lightly neg them a bit. Just so they realize, hey, this guy's all right. But, um, yeah, I don't know, that's— yeah, that's it. You kind of, you know, if you get out of it— like, someone came up to me afterwards and asked me this, like, really nice question, and I was like, oh, there we go.

Josh: What was the question? What's your ETA?

Tommy: What's your interest?

Dan: I know it was, um, what did I say? I was talking about, like, the idea of sneaking up on your future rather than like chasing after it. And so, she was like, what does that mean? And I sort of just told her.

Josh: What does it mean?

Dan: Well, think about it, right? Like everyone looks at their goals and they're like, I'm gonna get that, like that. Whereas instead, you should be like, that is something I would like to do one day. I wonder how I can catch it. And so, like, instead of being like, you know, let's say you want to do a radio show. Instead of being like, I need to have a radio show by the end of this month or else I'm a failure and I'm gonna do this, just go, I might start a podcast.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And I might start to meet a few people who work in radio, and I might just put my podcast up on social media and maybe people will interact with it. And I might try and contact some of those radio people and see if they want to be guests and just slowly like, you know, kind of—

Josh: what do you think about people who want a career? They think they want a career in broadcasting, meaning radio. What's your take on someone, 17-year-old kid in that audience, says, I want to do radio? And what's it going to be moving forward? Understanding automation, understanding creativity. What do you think from being in the trenches?

Dan: Yeah, I just say, why? That doesn't sound— that sounds really bad.

Tommy: Why do you want that?

Dan: I'll be like, but why? Genuinely, what do you— what draws you to that? Um, I just think, like, I know from personal experience I've had a lot of success with radio, but I don't think I could depend on it. Like, if I wanted to, I could, I could go and get a job, you know. Um, like, where you— like Shepparton or something? Yeah, like something like that. I could probably— and, um, I could probably stay employed in radio for a long time, uh, I reckon there are— there's, there's things out there that can scratch the same itch that aren't the same thing. So, and that's, um, but also like, I don't know, maybe you just love microphones and, and panels.

Tommy: Yeah, I think there— is there an implied— like, if you are into radio and you want to pursue radio, do you think there's a distinction between that and podcasting? People who want that versus want to start a podcast?

Dan: I reckon they both come from a similar place. I think, like, I mean, there's definitely differences in the form. Yeah.

Tommy: Like, this would be like music.

Dan: This would be a terrible radio show.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. Music isn't on podcasts, is it? Except for maybe like a Song Exploder.

Josh: Then how much music do you have involvement in when you're on radio anyway? I just see the hard bit from the jump. Say if you go, I want to be in radio and I get the jump. So, if I go, the goal is to be on radio. But then I say that I look towards the future and go, the future isn't in that.

Dan: It depends. It depends if you like music or if you like, um, the music that you like. So if you love the music industry, yeah, and if you love, um, the concepts of festivals and charts and bands and the media machine around it and all that sort of stuff, which is exciting, then great. But if you like only like the Arctic Monkeys, yeah, then you probably won't do too well in radio.

Tommy: Or maybe you could get a community show. Like we bumped into one of Tommy's friends the other day. She's been doing a community show for like over 10 years and she was, you know, you can play the music. You are your music director and all that sort of thing. Yeah, well, I guess that's a different podcast.

Dan: Well, like Short, Fast, Loud, you know, that's like a triple J show all about punk rock, I think.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: That might not even be on air anymore. That might have been my youth.

Josh: But yeah, hearing people's goals, young people or anyone for that matter, is like when you have an idea, a thinking around what their goal actually means versus if they get halfway to it and they realise there's no life in radio for me. But I have—

Dan: that's okay though, you still managed to spend some time in it.

Josh: Yeah, that's why it's very hard giving advice. How did you think about going into those VCal kids and what you're going to talk to them about?

Dan: Like, the main thing I wanted those kids to feel was like, you know how he said like about giving giving up, like, that, that's not your only option. Because yeah, I thought a lot about my brother basically, because yeah, he did VOC, which is the similar thing in Perth, and I just thought about how he felt at the time, and I thought about like how happy he is now. Um, and like, he's 31 and he's only just done his apprenticeship. Like, he went overseas, he did personal training, he played rugby in, in France. Like, he did all this crazy stuff. And now he's, you know, he's got his house in the— not in the country, but not in the suburbs, like Healesville. And, um, he's got his house, got lovely kids, he's got his job, like his family. So I'm like, you know, he's found something great, but, you know, he had to find that. And I remember, like, you know, his rugby coach, for example, someone who really brought something out of him back in the day. Now Tom's a great rugby coach now, He coaches the local team. And so I think, yeah, you need that person to kind of break through all the, um, year 12, year 10, whatever bullshit which is telling you like, oh, if you don't get number 1 in your 2-year, you're a loser. And it's like, well, it's not. Yeah, like I always think, like, I love this, um, quiz show called University Challenge. And it's this British quiz show, and it is the most British university thing you've ever seen. Like, honestly, watch an episode.

Tommy: What is it on? Where is it?

Dan: It's on YouTube. They're all on YouTube. Yeah, it's like BBC, but the BBC lets people upload it to YouTube. And there's just— these kids are just so intensely smart about everything, right? Like, you play a random piece of classical music and like, Debussy. Or like, you know, like they know like all, like everything about human biology, everything about physics, they know everything about literature, they know everything about fine art, like all this stuff, right? But none of them, if you go back 30 years, none of them go on to be, I don't know, let's say Prime Minister or heads of major corporations or whatever, right? None of them, like, they just go on to be like ivory tower academics or whatever.

Tommy: Well, they're playing a game.

Dan: They're working in think tanks or whatever, you know.

Tommy: And do you, I mean, what do you think that you're good at? And what do you—

Dan: I'm so glad you asked.

Tommy: No, but what do you think you're good at? And then what do you wish that you were good at? What do you sort of seek? Do you think, what are you constantly like? Because I feel like I spend a lot of time focusing on, I need to improve this, I need to do this. For me, it's a lot around food. What do you mean? Well, food, like, for me, it's always been like the struggle of like—

Dan: Oh, I thought you meant more you want to master some fancy recipes.

Tommy: No, no, no, it's just cooking in general.

Josh: Eating disorder.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly, eating disorder. But yeah, so for me, a lot of my life, even though I'm building all this sort of stuff, it's constantly like, you know, Sundays are always like last day of eating bad. Mondays are the worst days based on you feel a bit shit from all the stuff you've eaten on the weekend.

Josh: That's what happened yesterday?

Tommy: Yes. Okay. Yes.

Dan: So what happened yesterday?

Josh: I just, just on the weekend, he thought he wasn't going to be able to eat for a week.

Dan: Scones aren't that bad, man.

Tommy: Now you want to go through the list? No.

Dan: Oh wait, that was the top of the list. It goes deep.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, there was a few things. But anyway, what is it for you? What are you what do you think that you're good at and what is the thing that you're constantly seeking that you wish—

Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting because, um, I have this theory that strengths and weaknesses can actually, uh, be tied together, kind of like, uh, you can't have one without the other. So I remember once I did this exercise with some of my friends, we were sort of working on a project together, and to make it a bit easier, we decided to write down like what our— in one column our strengths, another column our weaknesses, just so we could all be on the same page and know like kind of, um, you know, what we're excited about working on, what we're looking to learn right from the outset of this project, which is kind of cool. And we all had this revelation after doing that and sitting down and talking through them, um, and we're allowed to add to other people's columns as well. So I say, actually, no, here's something you missed out, or whatever, right? Um, you're getting a phone call.

Tommy: Yeah, it's fine. It, it literally comes up on every single, uh, device. Device. It's a +1 number, which is exciting. It's— that's America.

Dan: You can, um, I'm not going to answer it, but also you can put your phone on silent. That's another little—

Tommy: and I think it was on silent on 6 of them, but one of them—

Dan: oh, okay.

Tommy: All right.

Dan: I don't understand that either, by the way. That whole ecosystem—

Tommy: have you noticed, just quickly, on the laptops, whenever my phone rings, it turns the volume on, and then if there's a video playing—

Dan: yeah. Oh no, I haven't had that.

Tommy: Oh, if you've got any audio playing, it just starts playing, and then you can't fuck It was that '97 has seen me work through like that.

Josh: For a guy as technically savvy as you, it's—

Tommy: yeah, it's a clarity.

Dan: Anyway, so, uh, so yeah, you can draw a line between them and match them up and be like, oh, that strength actually gives me that weakness and that weakness gives me that strength. And so the one I always come back to is I'm quite good in the moment, quite good at just thinking quickly, um, you know, I think of things like, um, commercial radio and improv and stuff like that. I'm, I'm good, right, at just— and I really worked hard on that. I remember when I first started doing radio, I would listen to Hamish Dandy podcast and be like, why aren't I making jokes that quickly? And I mean, you know, probably because Hamish Blake was far better than me, and also because, you know, they worked a lot harder on their show than I do on a conversation at the pub, you know. But even like in Perth, I would listen to Nathan and Nat and think the same thing. Why aren't I as quick as Nathan? And, um, because that's where I was working. And I remember probably, yeah, by the Austereo days, National Drive and that, going, I think I'm getting there. Like, I can reliably get super funny super quickly. Like, if someone comes in and they say something, I can get to a joke within 3 seconds. And make it a good one. And so yeah, I was like, that's a really cool talent, something I've really got. But something I— the flip side of that is I like sitting at home with an empty piece of paper and like creating something really big and awesome and substantial and useful and wonderful is really hard. And I've been doing a lot of really specific work to try and, um, get better at that solo work, that long length work, um, and, and really, you know, trying to figure out how to do that. Like, and all sorts of things. Like, I read this book called Deep Work by Cal Newport.

Tommy: Great book.

Dan: Yeah, I thought it's kind of 50/50. Some of it is a little bit, uh, some of it's fantastic and I've adopted into my life and I've highlighted it and I write on pieces of paper and I put on the wall. Other parts of it, I'm like oh, you can tell this is written by a coder, bro. Yeah, you know, so what was the bits? I can't remember. There were some bits where I was just like, it's talking about like how to optimise your life and like say no to checking your emails and like all this stuff. And I'm like, but man, come on, like, as if you can do that when you first start in an office, you know. He's very— he's ivory tower and he's a programmer. Those are kind of two things where I go, I'm gonna see what thoughts you come up with.

Tommy: Because yeah, but I think it's that, it's the, it's the aspirational emotional stuff too, I think.

Dan: Right.

Tommy: Which is like, it's like, okay, because young people hearing that might hear, I've got to say no, I can't check. Correct.

Dan: Yeah.

Tommy: Which is not the right advice for someone who's just getting— you need to say yes to everything.

Dan: Yeah.

Josh: And that's it.

Dan: And he's made it, you know, this guy's made it.

Josh: And so you focused in on trying to get better at that weakness.

Dan: Yeah. And I mean, I think of like something I've specifically done, right, is some of the best work I've done has been when internet has been absent. I think of, I don't know if I told this storey to you guys last time, but when I was writing the musical that I wrote last year, it, the thing that—

Josh: Is that the one that sold out?

Dan: Yeah. Thanks.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: And then we added more shows and they sold out too. Tony Gilardi the musical.

Josh: Yep.

Dan: So they—

Josh: Tony went, didn't he?

Dan: Yep, he did. He came to opening night. It was really funny. And then the, like the reason that got started, like there were many things that got that started, but the first day where I really did some really good work on it was when my internet dropped out at home. And I said to sit down at my dining table with a big piece of paper, and I wrote the, the core song of the show. And I started from nothing. I went through brainstorms, I went through rhyming dictionaries, I got everything, I got it done. And I was just like, oh my God, I couldn't believe it. So now I'm just like, if I need to get some real solid work done, I literally— like, this is from Cal Newport— I literally write down the time when I'm allowed to look at my phone or computer again. Phone in one room, computer in the other, just sit at a third place, the dining table, just with blank pages of paper and a pen.

Josh: I just, I think about weaknesses that I believe that I'm weak at, and sometimes I prove myself wrong.

Dan: Yeah.

Josh: And then I'm like, but my belief is that it's a weakness, doesn't play into the story.

Dan: Well, the other thing to remember, right, is that your strengths Strengths are the things that you are, let's say, 150%, 200% at, whereas your weaknesses are things that you're 60% at. It's not like your strengths are what you're 80% at and your weaknesses are what you're 0% at.

Tommy: But I think it's probably— that's all based on perspective and the storeys we tell, right? Because we're probably not as good as we think in certain ways, but in the same way, we're not as bad as we think, which I think is the interesting bit too. Like, you have moments where it's like, what does Sean McCallum say?

Dan: The truth lies somewhere between two extremes. And how ironic that the truth be found lying somewhere.

Tommy: Yeah, I think it's like, yeah, there's a— I did enjoy that. Is that a thing that he does?

Dan: No, I was just being a bit rococo.

Tommy: All right, it's good to— you got to watch the, uh, the video if you see the gesture.

Dan: Exactly.

Tommy: Um, so what, what's on the horizon for you for the next—

Josh: What's next? Yeah, what are you gonna do when your internet goes down?

Dan: I've been, uh, I've been doing a course at Award School, which is a sort of creativity, copywriting, advertising kind of school. So that's been monopolising my time at the moment.

Tommy: How old school does that feel? Because I know some friends have done it. It's one of those ones, it's a, it's a discipline. It feels like it plays very well into that sort of like focus, deep work.

Dan: Yeah, 100%.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And it's also one of those ones where I love that metaphor that like, let's say there's 100 different doors in your mind, you've got to knock on them all.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: Before you find that idea, you can't just like knock on 3 and go, oh yeah, there's a good enough idea in there. You've got to knock on every door and it just takes so long. And it's, yeah, like you can lose— like essentially for this course, you do, uh, by the end of it you have a portfolio because you've made 10 pieces of work across the sort of 3 months.

Tommy: Like a lot of creative directors in big agencies and stuff have all come from that.

Dan: Correct. Yeah. And they do the lectures and they also tutor you as well. So So that's, that's been kind of monopolising my time at the moment. Yeah. And that and my podcast have been the kind of like the two things I've been working on. I've been trying to, we've been applying for grants to get Tony Gilardi the Musical up and running again. It looks like, I mean, I don't know, I'm the kind of person who hates talking about the future until I know and then being able to like announce it really happily. But we're trying to gauge the demand in regional centers. We've had reasonably good feedback from a few places.

Tommy: So much to be said in the regional market. Like, I've, um, yeah, I worked for a company, Instinct Entertainment, and they did Strange Bedfellows, and which they did a musical, and they did it in Albury. And these like hubs where you can get sellout crowds and huge—

Dan: And the show is about a West Australian farmer. So I like, if we took it to these places, like that would be a really cool thing to do. That's a bit far off though. That takes a lot of admin.

Tommy: Is the grant stuff, does it feel, obviously it feels worth it based on doing it, but I was even looking on the, I was watching a documentary on the weekend and saw at the end it sort of, there was low budget feature film grant or whatever. And I just Googled it and then was reading up about this distribution grant. What's your experience been in getting grants? What's that whole process? What's the process? But it's just about—

Dan: it's tough. It's just about— I mean, people are good at it. There are people out there who are very good at it and they like—

Tommy: and is that who you're talking like?

Josh: Do you have writers?

Tommy: Yeah, I'm gonna go to a grant writer or—

Dan: well, I mean, it's a producer is the title, but yeah, so we've worked with a producing team to sort of Um, but also like, so my, my girlfriend Sonia was the producer of the original show and I was the writer, and both of us said we don't want to spend more of our work hours, yeah, like writing more stuff about this show. Like, it's been so— like, we, we want to work on it again, but you know, there are people in Perth who would be willing to produce that, and it's like, oh cool, all right, great, well let's form a super team then.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And we're happy to, you know you know, essentially give these people that opportunity and hopefully that money.

Tommy: So yeah, it's interesting.

Dan: Um, but yeah, I'd really love to see that up again. I guess pretty soon it's time to put in applications for the next Perth Fringe and they'd hopefully have us back because like you said, we sold out multiple shows, so there's a market for it. Yeah, and a lot of people missed out too.

Tommy: You've been dabbling in agency stuff for like a little bit, a little bit.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: Um, but that's more like, uh, at the moment that's more like freelance kind of, you know, you know, you like, you got to pay your rent, so you find like freelance work. Um, and but it'd be interesting because I've really— doing this award school thing has really made me, uh, excited about it. I'm also excited about the idea of having access to some really good clients. I feel like, um, freelance work you are always adjacent. Yeah, it's like if something really cool comes in, the agency are gonna go, oh well, we'll do this. Oh, but now we don't have the resources. Oh well, all the stuff we don't want to do, give that to the freelancer, and then you just do it from your home in the laptop. And they go, thanks, and the money arrives in your bank account.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And I would like to get back to that commercial radio vibe where you get really big clients wanting to do really interesting stuff, and they've come to to you.

Josh: Yeah.

Dan: And I think that, that's kind of what I, I like. Um, but the other perk of the, uh, agency existence would be that it wouldn't rely on my personality or my sort of, um, you know, um, me as a human. Yeah, it'd be more about my work.

Josh: The agency's done the hard work in getting the client, so then it's—

Dan: that is a piece of heart. That was what's really good about commercial radio as well, right? I didn't have to go down to ANZ and knock on the door and go, hey, do you want to be on my podcast? Like, they would be like, oh, I want to be on the Dan and Merch show.

Tommy: It is a— there's a trend, I think, of radio people doing— I think they make great agency people. Sam Cav is an example. Even Corey Layton, that's where he's back now.

Dan: He's back at radio now. But yeah, yeah. And I have a real— another one who— and a person who I've worked a bit with and been talking a little bit about this— Wade Kingsley as well. He's another guy. But yeah, I think Uh, I have a real soft spot for people who do well in radio and then go, cool, what else is out there? Because that's inspiring to me as someone who had a great moment in radio, uh, that didn't quite have the longevity I was after. Uh, and now I'm like, cool, what else is out there? But it's like, I don't know anything. Yeah.

Tommy: Would you ever go client side? Could you imagine being sort of in-house crew. Like, I'm, I'm wondering, in-house creative kind of thing, yeah, within like a Coca-Cola. Maybe.

Dan: But I think, I, I think I'd prefer to— like that, I could see that in the future.

Tommy: Diversity in age— there's something— I mean, agency people work so fucking hard. That's the one thing. Like, every age—

Dan: I'm okay with that though. I have been living my exciting freelance life for about 3 years now, and I don't know, like, anyone who's worked on a, um, big-time commercial radio, TV, like production knows how hard you work. And you— but the reward is great too. So I've been, I've been, um, I haven't had that in a while. So I'll be more than happy to spend a fair amount of time just working with some super smart people on some super cool stuff.

Josh: Yeah, well, it's a different mindset, right? The freelance lifestyle, if you increase your output, you can increase your revenue, whereas when you're working internally You increase your output, you're just getting the same amount of money.

Dan: So much of your time is spent on trying to find work, not doing work, not in billable hours. Yeah, and it just really annoys me. Like, you have so many coffees and all this sort of stuff, and you might get what, like a, you know, a day's worth of work or something, and it's not really super awesome work. I want the, the level of thrill that I had with the musical, um, but with the level of like client that, you know, you can only like— like, I'll write something for, you know, Commonwealth Bank or something, and I end up writing these little, you know, 8-second bumpers or whatever, right? And it's like, okay, I want to be doing musical level stuff for that level client. Yeah, you know, that's—

Tommy: well, yeah, you're doing the tactical execution versus— and the strategy's already baked in, whether it's something beautiful.

Dan: Yeah, understanding the strategy. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: I think the client side, like what TJ and I have sort of developed over time, is the power of directly working with clients. Just even, I guess, within that agency stuff, it does feel like if we're thinking about audience and we're thinking about what do they want, it's sometimes very hard to distinguish between, you know, you could do— we could do 5 edits of a video for an agency that's for a client for their client, but they won't show any of those 5 edits and then they'll show it to the client. And so all of that friction, the creative friction, the excitement in developing is actually not happening. So true.

Dan: You've got to really build a fortress around your ideas, you know what I mean?

Josh: Like one of them is just don't work with agencies.

Tommy: I mean, that's what we've been lucky, I guess, into. That's been part of the thing, which is like if we can do direct to clients, yeah, that's true.

Dan: That's how agencies work as well. And it's like if you anytime you have a middleman, Like, but I think this is where freelancers' problem— it's clashing.

Josh: No, yeah, the agency's business model is clashing with the freelancer.

Dan: And like, it's great just, you know, as a, like, a lifestyle and a, and a moment in time, but, you know, is, is this what— this how you want to work for two decades?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: Um, but yeah, I think when everyone involved in an idea chain wants to know that a bit of their DNA is in that idea. Like, I always got taught that, um, for example, if you are putting together like a grant for, say, like a short film that you're talking about—

Tommy: you're 23andMe—

Dan: no, like, as in, like, you, um, you, you wouldn't present them like, here is the fully finished idea, all we need from you is the money. Yeah, you present them the outline and go, do you want to go on this journey together? You know, you let— people want to be invested in projects and stuff like that. It's always like, you know, you get that investor and all they want to do is tinker with your product, well, embrace that because they deserve to.

Tommy: Well, you know, Dan Ariely, the organisational psychologist, he's got the book Predictably Irrational, and he talks about the IKEA effect, which is people value things that they have hand in making.

Dan: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: And for us, like, from a client point of view, that means that, like, we show clients versions so they can see it. They can see if they don't understand, oh, this goes there and this is why we've done that, that, there's no buy-in. And I guess that's the, the thing that we've learned from having the middlemen is it's like we might be on the same page from an agency side, like, you know, we're all across it, but then we haven't, we haven't interfaced. Like, this, the shorter we can make the gaps between when we create something and feedback, that's where I think the, the magic is.

Dan: And sometimes I'm doing this freelance stuff, I silo myself away so much to the point where I forget that I should be, you know, making a connection with the people who I'm working for and saying, hey, what do you think? Like, I go, cool, I'll get it done. And then 3 hours later, I go, there's the work done, thank you.

Josh: And that's, and that's up, that's playing the game.

Tommy: But yeah, but it's just, I think that that is the, that is the unsexy or unexciting bit of this sort of remote work digital freelancer is it's just like commodity because you're commoditising what you're doing. Because whereas if you actually say, hey, I'm applying my thought and communication and all that sort of thing into that, that becomes more than just like you're acting like a machine at that point, which is okay to act like a machine once in a while if it suits you.

Dan: You know that whole idea of embrace the suck where it's like, what's the kind of suffering? Like, don't go like, I want to do that job because the highs are so high. It's instead you go like, what are the lowest points of that job? Are they okay? And I look at like the lowest points of freelancing, and I go, I don't like that at all. Yeah, right. I don't like just messaging lots of people saying, hey, can I get some of your money please? I don't like, um, you know, maintaining a website. I don't like, um, like all the different stuff that gets in the way of actual work. Whereas I look at something like, um, I mean, I've never worked like full-time in an agency, but I compare it a bit to the vibe of a radio station. Admittedly, I know like, my job was a weird fantasy camp sort of job, right? But the, the organisational stuff, yeah, that gets in the way of a lot of people in those companies, like meetings and clients and, um, you know, no, you have to do this, not what you want to, and all this stuff.

Josh: If they're—

Dan: if that's the lowest point, I'm like, I can deal with that. Yeah, like, I kind of like the business side of it all. I like meetings.

Josh: Yeah, there is structure. It's, it's—

Dan: I like having a boss. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: So, I mean, the thing is whether that's the— is that leaning towards the future of work? I don't know. I think that there's a— I know, like the, the— I think that the risk—

Dan: nothing will ever replace the feel of a genuine horse and buggy.

Tommy: Well, I guess the thing is there is something really nice about— like, I was talking to a friend this morning about, uh, business travel it's like with Skype and Zoom and all the ways that you can communicate now, getting on a plane makes less and less sense for certain things. Yeah, but there is a romanticism to 100% getting in business class and going to North America to seal the deal.

Dan: Oh, I remember when I was, I was, uh, I would have been, I would have been, how old would I have been? I was about to get into radio, I would have been maybe like 20, 21, and I was living in Melbourne but I was going for the job in Perth, which I got it. It was my first radio job. But I remember being— going to the airport and they're like, are you going to Perth? And I said, yeah. And they said, business or pleasure? And I went, business. It was so amazing.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And there is something, I guess it is a— but these are all pacifiers and stuff that actually, do they lead to great work and fulfilment and purpose and all that sort of thing? You know, I guess part of the thing is with when I worked as a digital content producer at the radio station,. And I think the thing that a lot of employees don't get, which I think is a missed opportunity, is the connection between what, what you're doing and the benefit that it's having, having from a business perspective.

Dan: But also like find where your mojo comes from. Like we were talking about how you guys have decked out this brand new studio, right? Like, I'm sorry, it probably cost you a lot of money, but like, hey haters, like, don't you feel better broadcasting in here?

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: Like, and we were saying like people are like, oh, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper and I can create poetry. It's like, yeah, but when I've got my really nice pen and my really nice book, like I just go, fuck yeah, I'm doing it.

Josh: I'm doing it. There's a piece of work most employees can do, which is to work out if they actually want to be an employee. Because if there's some— so you say, I want to, I actually like having a boss.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Like this is really empowering to go into those roles and fucking nail them.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Versus what I was like when I was working for someone. I'm just like, this is fucked.

Dan: Well, I think that's like, that's probably why you're thriving in this environment.

Tommy: And there's probably a lot of people who would actually, who are more like you, who have been told the narrative that the future of work's in front, like, and fucking hating it because they can't do sales.

Dan: My dream is to be a baby boomer. That is my dream. Like, if I was this age, I was this age in the '90s. Yeah, like imagine that, man. That would be phenomenal.

Josh: Oh, if you had a chance to do a lot, do it all over again, what would you do? What career?

Dan: Oh, I think I nailed it. Honestly, I was going to be a lawyer, man.

Tommy: Yeah, I think I nailed it. Do you do much on intellectual property? Yeah, because what I'm trying to work out is I just put in an application for the Daily Talk Show trademark. Yeah, I don't know, like we were on the fence of applying for it based on it feels like a common phrase.

Dan: Yes.

Tommy: What do you reckon the likelihood is?

Dan: Well, it's not a daily talk show, it's the Daily Talk Show. And I think there's enough words in there because there's like 3 words. Like if you just called it the show, you'd probably struggle. But I think that those 3 words in that order, I loved intellectual property so much because this is what it was all like. Like think of an exam where all you have to do is this.

Josh: Can I ask what happens once we get a trademark?

Dan: You're going to defend it.

Tommy: We have to defend it. We have to. And that's it.

Josh: So I can fight. Well, so yeah, kickboxing, I got Muay Thai skills.

Dan: Yeah. So you do that, but with your words.

Josh: Yeah, true.

Tommy: I'm fucked. Like, I mean, I think that's the interesting thing about it because I was talking this morning to my mate about the fact that digg.com, which was a big sort of social bookmark site in the mid-2000s. D-I-G-G. Yeah.

Dan: Similar to Reddit.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly. And Kevin Rose, who founded that, that he got a bunch of shit from going after all these people because of trademark infringement. And he did a great job of explaining it's like if he doesn't defend his trademark, then when they actually need to use a trademark, then if a competitor is starting to use it, they could say, hey, there's these 3 cases here, which is something.

Josh: But what does it mean for in terms of the value? The value. What is it? Why would we get a trademark? Why would someone try?

Dan: So that no one else can use those words to describe their show. They can't create a I reckon you can answer that question yourself because think about it, right? Yeah. If you saw another podcast from say Canada climbing up the— don't you dare— climbing up the ranks called The Daily Talk Show, how would you feel?

Josh: Yeah, good on them. I don't know how hard it is. No, of course it'd be— we created this shit first.

Tommy: Yeah. And part of it, yeah, I guess part of it is that then you have legal grounds to stand on to then be able to say—

Dan: but to be honest, there's also like, I don't know what it's like overseas, but in Australia there's also part passing off, which is called common law trademarks. So you generally say that someone is passing themselves off as your product. Yeah. And that is— that exists outside of trademarks.

Tommy: Sure.

Dan: Right.

Tommy: Because you can put the little TM without it being trademarked, right?

Dan: Yeah, I know, but that's—

Josh: people do that.

Dan: Yeah, but hey, I don't know, like, we're talking about judges.

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Dan: Like, they're gonna go, all right, mate, that's— come on.

Tommy: And because I, I guess the interesting thing is You can have a business name, company name, you can have the domain name. It actually doesn't meet from an intellectual property point of view. That's why I think like if we can get The Daily Talk Show as a trademark, that means that we actually have equity. Like then it actually becomes something. Like the .com is something, sure, the Instagram, all that sort of shit, but they're not really.

Dan: Well, I'll tell you a story. When I started out in radio, it was me and my friend Matt, and both of us were law students. We were studying during the day and doing our Nova night show at night. Night, right? And as you can tell, we studied intellectual property. This is the kind of stuff we're into. And so we were like, we want to own the trademark for Action Battle Team. It's the name of our show.

Tommy: Yeah.

Dan: And we did exactly what you're doing. We went and we made a trademark application. And when we were negotiating with NOVA, we were like, well, you can do whatever you want, but we're going to own the rights and the name. Name, and we were so excited about it. We thought it was so cool. And pretty much when we got promoted to our first big job, which was Adelaide Breakfast, after 3 months we're like, hey, it's just called Matt, Dan, and Maz now. And we just put that piece of paper in a drawer and never looked.

Tommy: So it actually—

Josh: you got it.

Tommy: If we, if we search, it would have been lapsed.

Dan: I don't know, actually. Yeah, but to be honest, so my— I mean, there might be a little— you know how we're talking about like, uh, be your own boss? Yeah, if we were our own boss, we wouldn't have had that taken away from us. But at the same time, I was like, yeah, it's a— it felt like an old, old show. We need a new name. Matt Danimaz is so much better. But, um, it made sense. Do it. Um, I'm not very, uh, what's the word, sentimental about that sort of stuff. It's business. Come on, I want to get to number one. But, um, the— I think for you guys, I would say it's a little different because this is something you literally own 100% yourself and no one's promoting it. So, but what do you pay, like $1,000?

Tommy: No, no, it was But look, how much does an orange cost?

Dan: $200?

Tommy: $200 plus we paid the extra $130, so $330, which gives you an examiner.

Dan: Yeah, that would have felt like $1,000 when I was a student.

Tommy: Yes. But it was good having that. We've got that extra layer. So, they'll actually come in and they'll say, hey, because you've got to do classes, that's where it gets hard. And so, where I fucked up initially when I was put like going through the application initially, a few months ago, but we decided not to do it because I went down the rabbit hole. I was like, I think it's gonna be too generic, blah blah blah. But then I'm like, fuck it, let's just try it.

Dan: But that's, that's another one I really love at law school.

Josh: Yeah, fuck it, let's just try it.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: But the, uh, the distinguish between, uh, goods and services. So I was picking services like podcasting production versus being a podcast which is interesting because we're not going to be in the business. No one's going to use the daily talk show as a brand to make podcasts. Yeah.

Dan: Okay.

Tommy: It's going to be the brand.

Dan: Yeah.

Tommy: So that was interesting. But I only did like 3 things like webcast, downloadable podcast, but it's all in there.

Dan: Don't you see?

Tommy: I want to do streaming. Like I hopefully when we speak to the—

Dan: Why not? We're streaming right now.

Tommy: Exactly.

Dan: So from there we're not actually. Looks like you've put it away.

Josh: What happened?

Dan: Instagram actually has a time limit on Instagram Live. How long have we been talking for? Uh, we're at about an hour and a half.

Tommy: Okay.

Dan: Oh my God.

Tommy: Uh, well yeah, if Instagram takes us down— where did we peak? We definitely got 40, Coombes. Did you get to do—

Josh: we got 50 in total.

Dan: Oh shit, there we go. So funny. Yeah, it's a single clap, but we did go a bit longer than we thought we would. Um, if someone's listening right now, can they like tweet us and say, well, I listened all that way?

Tommy: Oh yeah, that would be great. Yeah, you know what people could do? This would be the, the best thing. Screen— if you're using a podcast app, screen grab it, do an Insta storey and us.

Dan: And @DennisWolf.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly.

Josh: If you have any energy left.

Dan: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because I wonder about that. I wonder about that. Um, like, I feel like podcasts, you'd be pretty smart to just skip the first 30 minutes because people warm up. Yeah, you realise what the podcast is actually about and then you really get into it. Like, um, Um, whereas like commercial radio was like, get them in straight out of the gates, right? So yeah, I wonder about how people listen to podcasts or just on, just listening, doing something else.

Josh: It's just a part of—

Tommy: you think about a radio show, even though it's like not talking the whole time, but I was looking at Wikipedia pages of old, uh, radio shows over the weekend. It's like 3 to 4 hours. Like, radio shows go for a long period of time. There's heaps of fucking songs and stuff in there's probably 50 minutes or an hour of talk. How much would you talk on a drive show that goes for 3 hours?

Dan: 4 hours? 4 to 6.

Josh: We've done a week's worth of drive shows.

Dan: It definitely depends on the time slot. They probably talk for about 25% of a night's show. Yeah, it'll probably be closer to 50%. Breakfast show, maybe even over 50%.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: We used to play a lot of music.

Tommy: Uh-huh. Is that— does that come from the 2 songs out of the top hour? Music director, does that come from the CD? Like, who does that?

Dan: Uh, just depends on the company. Yeah, someone more important than me, you know.

Tommy: It's a good title. Yeah, for, for a podcast. Thanks for coming in, mate.

Dan: Thanks, buddy. Good to be here, guys. I really like, uh, starting off Monday morning straight out of the gates with something, uh, vibrant and dare I say it, intellectual.

Tommy: Yeah, with, with, uh, brought to you by Moccamaster.

Dan: Yeah, other coffee pots are available. Yeah.

Tommy: Is there any outside of Mockermaster? I couldn't think of any.

Dan: Yeah, there are. If you go to The Wirecutter, there's actually some that rank higher. Okay. But the Mockermaster is a— probably belongs in a bloody design museum.

Josh: Chance of cutting your finger low. That's what we like around here.

Tommy: Remember, screen grab and @us and Dan de Booth as well on Instagram.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, I'm genuinely interested.

Tommy: Yeah, that's a good idea. We'll see you tomorrow, guys.

Josh: See you guys.