Okay Rosé With Jordan Michaelides

Tommy: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 588.

Tommy: Jordan Michaelides, welcome to The Daily Talk Show, buddy. Welcome.

Jordan: I'm finding myself in.

Tommy: You sure?

Josh: Well, Tommy had his hands in his hoodie, which made it hard.

Tommy: It was nice and warm, and I found a piece of egg in my— no, no, eggshell. Sorry, the— if it was the egg bit, it would have been disgusting. But no, I've got a bit of shell in, uh, In my, um, my hoodie.

Jordan: You're a real mess today, aren't you?

Tommy: Absolutely not.

Jordan: Milkshakes.

Josh: It was not about— it's a smoothie that was on his thing.

Tommy: I mean, yeah, how's your food going?

Josh: Yeah, from one milkshake guy. So, uh, Jordan is from, uh, Uncommon, the show, uh, podcast.

Jordan: Yeah, last time we— when I had you guys on, I wasn't eating food properly.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah. What, um, 153, you're up to Episode 143. What, what was our episode? What number was that? Under the 100 or—

Jordan: It was over the 100. We filmed you guys, it was definitely over 100. I actually, I didn't actually check.

Josh: 120.

Mason: 120.

Jordan: Around that.

Tommy: That's fine. But yeah, when we, when we did meet you, that was for the first time. Now we've, you know, formed a bit of a friendship, had some Friday night drinks. It's, you know, we're going strong. You first had gotten off the food and gotten onto the smoothie food.

Jordan: Yeah. That was not fun.

Tommy: Well, it wasn't, uh, it's not like you did it on purpose, like you didn't want to do that.

Jordan: No. So, so long storey short, I had anxiety, which was, it was mainly panic disorder. Um, it sounded so ridiculous. I just remember when we spoke about it and, and you said to me, oh, come in on, uh, Fat Friday and, uh, we're gonna get you to eat a burger.

Josh: Well, the funny thing is that like we thought about it, but we're like, we didn't want to be too gimmicky with you because obviously like a panic disorder is probably not something that you—

Jordan: but I said I spoke to my psychologist about it and I, I just, I said to her, I'm like, it just highlights how ridiculous this thing is.

Tommy: Oh, so you're saying Josh is, was the reason you have now been able to start eating?

Jordan: No, it's just one of many catalysts that helped me get along the way.

Josh: Did she subscribe to the pod? Did you say the Daily Talk Show?

Jordan: I didn't, I didn't plug it for you. Okay, I plug it enough in the show, I feel.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And your guests too.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah. Um, but But yeah, I had panic disorder and basically it got down to— it was so bad that the anxiety would make my mouth dry and then that would create this weird tick and sort of panic around eating solid food. I can't explain it other than how she explained it, which is it was a panic disorder and the way it manifested for me was in your digestive tract. So they call it— they call it like visceral hypersensitivity.

Josh: Mine's breathing. I get into like a sub-yawn as well where I can't like get Oxygen in. And so I just keep going and it's—

Tommy: I think that's a real— that's quite common.

Josh: Like, no, but it's like it can— it's that feeling of not being able to get breath.

Tommy: It's— you don't have enough oxygen. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan: So you're overthinking it.

Josh: Yeah.

Jordan: So that, that was the issue. It was you just, you start thinking about breathing and eating and normal things because you're so in your head.

Tommy: Are you past it now?

Jordan: Oh, for sure.

Tommy: Yeah.

Jordan: So I started, I started taking, um, it got to a point I did counseling. I think I did like 20 sessions and she was just like, look, you've gotten so far, you've done a lot of work. 'But you probably need to start taking— you probably have this underlying thing that, that probably runs deep in your family.' I think that most of my family are quite A-type anxious individuals, and for me it was just this is how it manifested. So I ended up taking— I take 20 milligrammes of something called fluoxetine, which I'm pretty sure is Prozac in America.

Josh: Oh yeah, the one that just helps you study better?

Jordan: No, no, you're thinking of, um, Ritalin, like Ritalin.

Tommy: Yeah, Adderall.

Josh: What is Prozac? What's the, what's the benefits of Prozac, Seb? Should I get on on it.

Jordan: Look, look up Floxetan.

Mason: Yeah, it is. It's sold under, um, the name Prozac.

Jordan: Yeah, so here they brand it Floxetan. I think it's just, um, what do you— you know when you go to the chemist and they, they ask you, do you want branded or non-branded?

Josh: You always go non-branded.

Tommy: Yeah, it's cheaper.

Josh: Yeah, what's the point?

Tommy: Yeah, asthma pump is like $7 versus $11.

Jordan: My old mate's, um, sister, she actually sells that stuff, uh, to all those chemists. So she's like legitimately like, she's a farmer. Yeah, big farmer.

Tommy: It's like those movies where they go around on the door-to-door or like salespeople.

Jordan: But most of the non-branded companies are basically smaller local companies that are making stuff because the, the IP, the patent, whatever has run out.

Josh: Like public domain, like public knowledge.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, it's— I mean, so dangerous, like the EpiPen stuff. The regulation, like the laws around companies and how much they can charge, because some of them are privately owned and can't be dictated through the government and get subsidies and stuff. So some of them could come out and say, nah, it's $1,500 a pen.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And then all these people are panicking.

Jordan: Well, insulin's one. My brother's got type 1 diabetes, and that, if you dig into that, that's a shit show. It's, it's actually really fucking annoying how the pharmaceutical companies basically dictate how this person can live their life. Like, I had a mate as well who's got type 1 diabetes, and they've got this new thing now where they have a pump which basically mimics your pancreas, and you have these tubes and it goes into like a needle. So it's pumping you with insulin all day long like you and I would do normally with our pancreas.

Tommy: So if you ate sugar, it's like it can regulate—

Jordan: You can regulate it based on your blood sugar. And, um, he ran out of like these tubes and they'd stopped selling the tubes, uh, that went with this model in Australia.

Josh: Like fucking Sony cameras, you know, go buy the specific—

Jordan: it's ridiculous.

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Jordan: But his pump, his pump, uh, he had to get a totally new pump, but his insurer wouldn't cover it. It was like out of pocket by $10,000.

Tommy: All right.

Jordan: And then he had to work it out with his new insurer to ensure to get the actual pump. But, um, anyway, back, back to your original question around what it do— it just stopped me panicking.

Josh: Okay, what does that feel like?

Jordan: Um, like when you start focusing on your breathing, you just start focusing on your swallowing.

Josh: And so when you take it, take the medication, it completely goes away.

Jordan: It's long-acting, so it takes like a few weeks to kick in and a few weeks to stop. But, um, yeah, it just makes me feel normal. Like, I still have elements of anxiety, but I just don't panic anymore.

Josh: So is it the— so it doesn't just fix the swallowing thing, it fixes the cause, which then all the other things—

Jordan: It fixes one of the key symptoms that blocks you from getting over this thing.

Josh: Does it start— I wonder, like, say something like that, does all of a sudden you have less fear, like, jaywalking?

Jordan: No.

Josh: No. So they've got it pretty, like, dialled in.

Jordan: I think— I mean, the— this is the thing with psychology and, you know, using chemicals like this, right? Like, we have these connections, and this is why you for her, the psychologist was saying to me that you're just not going to be able to stop this thing because you build up this connection so strong in your brain that you, you'll actually take this medicine, it will stop the panic, but you still do it by habit.

Josh: Sure.

Jordan: So like, I was— I still do it a little bit with pills, but I don't have any panic, like no feeling of panic.

Josh: Or is that medication a pill? Uh, yeah, that's fucking annoying at the start.

Jordan: No, no, but it'll go over time.

Josh: It's just that I have to know at the start, like, how the fuck do you swallow a pill if you've got a problem swallowing? And they're like, hey, to fix the swallowing, we need you to swallow this pill.

Jordan: They just gave me a, um, crush it down or something. Not a cr— like one that if you put in water, it sort of breaks down, dissolve.

Tommy: I used to give my dog a pill, um, in butter. Do you remember that with dogs?

Josh: No.

Tommy: Do you have a dog, Jordan, growing up?

Jordan: I never— yeah, I did, but I never get— I mean, we gave it in their food, not butter.

Tommy: I used to get it in butter and just put it and it'll go down.

Josh: Medication's a funny one.

Tommy: I've, um, I feel like I'm not taking anything.

Josh: Well, so I realised, uh, I've gotten into the habit of taking something and I think it's low level, but we've got this migraine stick at home and it smells like peppermint.

Tommy: It's not, it's not medication. We're talking, we're talking actual pharmaceutical drugs.

Josh: Because I was just wondering, because I've just started not even using it for my— I put it on like, oh, like this morning I was like, I'll just put it on.

Tommy: It's not like putting tea tree oil on your little hands.

Josh: And so that is fine. Well, because I guess you'd look at like, uh, no nasal spray.

Tommy: So that's, that's my—

Josh: yeah, that can be an issue.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: But, um, no, I haven't taken anything. But I think that, uh, we're talking about the, um, genetic test stuff. Which one did we get?

Jordan: 23andMe.

Josh: 23andMe.

Jordan: Yeah.

Josh: And so when I got the 23andMe done, it wasn't as regulated by— it's not the FCC. What is it in the US? The, um, the medical side of things.

Jordan: The FDA.

Josh: FDA, yeah. So the FDA, uh, went in and said you can't be giving all this health information from a genetics point of view with 23andMe. You can only give the, like, the genealogy, like the family stuff, origins. And but I don't know if we log— if I log into the website, but I used to be able to see all these medical studies and whether I was like predisposed to certain things.

Jordan: Yeah, you can. Yeah, I mean, still do that. There's one called Found My Fitness. Oh yeah, so basically what you do is you download the data. Yeah, Rhonda Patrick. And so you download the data, then you upload it to this other system, other piece of software. Rhonda Patrick's the most well-known one because she covers metabolism and lipids, which is sort of the key thing for that, that you— we can all make decisions on. Like, there's no point putting it in for cancers and all this sort of stuff because you can't effectively make a decision.

Josh: So metabolism, what is it going to say? Josh, you've got a slow metabolism.

Jordan: Like, as an example, for me, I think I was saying this to Bree when we were talking about it, that I have this genetic thing that my mum has as well, where if I eat food that is higher in saturated fat, it actually spikes my blood glucose. So I noticed when I stopped eating as much saturated fat, I dropped like a few kilos.

Josh: Oh, this is good. Seb, see you around this, you're getting excited about this.

Tommy: And so hang on, the— no, the anomaly there is that saturated fat shouldn't be elevating your glucose.

Jordan: For most people.

Tommy: For most people.

Josh: Yeah. So you shouldn't go on fucking keto or something.

Jordan: For me, I was on keto for a a long period— not a long period, let's say 18 months—

Josh: put on 20 kilos.

Jordan: Yeah, well, I put on weight.

Josh: Yeah, I was eating a lot of cheese. I fucking ate so much dairy.

Jordan: Cheese is fine if you're having an imbalance with something. Like, I might have cheese with some salmon and so on, but it just— to me, it highlighted the fact that we all have a background, right? And there are certain foods that we are more obliged to based on that background. Like, most of my ancestry is islands nearby the sea, so I probably shouldn't be having lots of beef based on that fact.

Josh: Or, you know, like fish and chip shop a lot.

Jordan: Uh, I have a lot of fish.

Tommy: Where are the islands? Greek Islands?

Jordan: Uh, so Cyprus, um, which is near Turkey, and it's like a predominantly Greek. Um, and then, uh, my, my mother's family is from like Northern England but near the coast.

Tommy: Yeah.

Jordan: Um, but she's got this— she did the gene test as well. She's got this thing where like, uh, 90% of the population in, what is it, Scandinavia has this gene. So it sort of lends to the fact that—

Josh: Is it the good-looking gene?

Jordan: I don't know. I don't understand it fully, but it just seems like, yeah, Vikings came over to this part of England and raped and pillaged and therefore they have those genes.

Tommy: Fuck, it's so full-on. I mean, when you think about it like that, where, how we've ended up here through those years, I mean, so there's a few things going on at the moment in the world. The new disease that's broken out in China, the virus that's broken out in China.

Jordan: That's nothing, by the way.

Josh: Oh really?

Tommy: Tell us, you got the insight?

Jordan: I've been, I've been obsessed with that in the last 24 hours.

Josh: Is that out of a worry that you could like—

Jordan: No, I've always— I love the movie Contagion. I love that movie. And I've loved— So one of my best mates, um, he's from Zimbabwe and his dad's a probably the most— one of the most preeminent I don't know what they call them now.

Josh: Infectious disease.

Jordan: He studies infectious diseases in Johannesburg in South Africa. So he never migrated over to Australia because he had— he was so prominent over in Africa.

Tommy: And obviously you're going to say he caught one of the diseases.

Jordan: No, no, no. But so he, he taught me a few little facts. The first thing is what they call the kill rate. So as morbid as that sounds, you got to look at how many people, how many documented cases of people being infected. Versus how many people have died.

Josh: You really eyeballed me when you said kill, right?

Tommy: At this point, 17 people have died from this. But then—

Jordan: But there's a lot of people that have been infected.

Tommy: And then there's been people dying in hospitals that they don't— haven't checked for this specific virus.

Jordan: Another thing that he told me is that how quickly it comes about. So, so, you can be infected and you can— it can be dormant in your body for 10 days before you start seeing symptoms.. And even those symptoms can be quite, quite benign, like a cold or something like that. But if it's like immediate, which is what this disease is, then it's actually not an effective disease because your body will see it. It means that your body's discovered it very quickly and will start killing it off.

Tommy: The sooner you're seeing symptoms, the sooner the—

Jordan: The better it is.

Tommy: Yes.

Jordan: So, so basically who will be bad for is immunocompromised, which is children and elderly people. And that's why you go and get vaccinations.

Josh: I mean, how good are you guys again? So, you know, like people talk about anti-vaxxers and all that sort of thing. So there's that side of things. And then there's the anti-adminners, which I guess it's adminners. Adminners. So it's like, I'm not anti-vaxx, but I'm not going to the doctor much. Like, I'm not doing— I'm not like—

Tommy: I think so.

Josh: Do we need to start setting up like flu shots?

Tommy: No, you can.

Josh: Well, it sounds like Sev wants to.

Jordan: You should.

Tommy: I'd be happy to. Yeah, the thing— so let me tell you real quick, let me tell you that.

Josh: What's your horoscope?

Tommy: The key— so in children, it is— so if you're an anti-vaxxer as a parent, which I'm not— no, no, no. If you're an anti-vaxxer with a— as a parent with a child, you're giving real pushback to the system because, yeah, the, the government actually holds money, give you subsidies if you are playing ball and vaccinating. And so the anti-vaxxers, I mean, it is a pretty serious thing.

Jordan: I think in Victoria they started imposing like financial impact.

Tommy: I do. We missed Bodhi's vaccination. He was a bit sick. We took him in. They said, look, come back another time. We waited a couple of weeks. He got sick again as we booked in, just had a little cold. And then they're like, ah, hold off. And then we lost money. They held money for daycare, which means we were out of pocket severely.

Josh: Little Bodhi, we don't care if you're sick, you're getting this little—

Tommy: Mate, I just I was like, give me the syringe, I'll do it. And so we got it done, but then it was very hard. It was admin city. It created more admin than what— than previous.

Josh: One place I don't want to visit. So annoying. Admin city.

Tommy: Admin city.

Jordan: Horrible place. What is admin city? Is this Medicare?

Tommy: People that don't like admin. No, no, no, that's it. I've got Centrelink and Medicare. Like, Amy spent hours in that joint. Medicare's all right. Fucking have a kid and then try that, buddy.

Mason: Nah, Medicare, you just, you just Swipe your card.

Jordan: What Medicare are you going to?

Mason: Well, you don't go to— I don't go to any of them. Just use the card.

Tommy: So Centrelink is connecting with— and so the— it is all a part, like Amy's trying to— it's all a part of myGov. Talk with the subsidies, disconnecting. Oh my God.

Jordan: Yeah, if you have to call or if you ever have to go into a branch, it's a nightmare. It's just a no, like, right off half the day.

Tommy: Yeah, Centrelink aren't just giving dole payments, they're also family benefits and shit like that.

Jordan: This reminds me of like, do you guys know Michael Cusack?

Tommy: No, I heard the name. Who is he?

Jordan: We interviewed him recently, but he's like a cartoonist and he does like a bit where it's like these derros per se, these bogans at the centre like complaining about how long it takes and they're just like, why don't you just give us a job?

Josh: That's a good point. Like, it's fair.

Jordan: No, anyway, I just thought of that.

Tommy: So, um, so there's the virus thing going on, but there's also, um Have you heard the conspiracy? Jeff Bezos.

Jordan: That he what?

Tommy: So which one? Yeah, maybe there's a few.

Jordan: Look at our phones, huh?

Tommy: Yeah. So he is saying the Saudi prince WhatsApped him and infected his iPhone, and then these leaked text messages or comms through that someone would have had to have access to his phone.

Josh: Oh, I love this.

Tommy: Were released. And it was about him cheating on his wife.

Jordan: Is this the crown?

Tommy: Can you just find it, mate?

Jordan: Is this the crown prince?

Josh: Yeah, the Saudi prince was trying to get dick pics off.

Tommy: Hey Jeff, what's up buddy?

Josh: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: And then just infects his phone.

Jordan: Honestly, I would not put that past the Saudis, mate.

Tommy: So like, how much money is at this?

Josh: Throwing a lot of shade at the Saudis.

Jordan: I said to Amy, I know, I know the geopolitics of that area so well, and no one likes the Saudis. The, like, Saudi people are lovely people. Yeah, but the Saudi government are awful.

Josh: The, um, I, I've been deep diving into Iran.

Tommy: I want some clarity on this.

Jordan: Yeah, that's right. And the 23andMe thing, I got 5% Iranian.

Josh: He's Iranian.

Jordan: So potentially from my dad's side.

Tommy: Potentially he won't like how Josh has been talking about it.

Josh: No, no, but it's actually— I've been saying nothing like what you've said about the Saudis.

Mason: Yeah. So the UN has called for an investigation into the allegations that Saudi Crown Prince was involved in hacking Jeff Bezos's phone.

Jordan: Were you reading UN calls into everything?

Tommy: This is literally on— is that the thing?

Mason: The United Nations Human Rights website.

Tommy: So when would— how do you get the UN involved? That seems— is that scary? Is that big? I don't like—

Jordan: I don't know, the UN doesn't seem like a very powerful body to me anymore.

Tommy: I mean, Jeff Bezos could be more powerful than anybody in the world based on his net worth. Like, he's the richest guy in the world.

Jordan: I don't know. I don't know enough about it, honestly.

Tommy: Couldn't he be paying off people?

Josh: Well, yeah, we don't know, do we?

Tommy: I love that you are speculating at this stage. These are conspiracies, right? It's conspiracies.

Mason: Well, not even pretty latched onto it if the UN's talking about it.

Josh: I think it's more than a conspiracy.

Mason: But what's interesting, like, how do you send that stuff through WhatsApp?

Tommy: How about for an iPhone? He's got an iPhone, sure.

Mason: What about WhatsApp? And iPhones are pretty locked down.

Tommy: That's what I meant. Yeah, but so this is Saudi shit going on, right?

Josh: So how about How about this?

Tommy: How about this?

Josh: Right. So the doco that I just watched this morning on Iran.

Tommy: You're watching docos in the morning before?

Josh: Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan: What was it? That's a lot.

Josh: Like, it's pretty indulgent.

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah.

Josh: I was like, I'm like, I don't want to leave until the office and home until quarter to 9 so I can then get my coffee and be at the post office just after they open because I was collecting my books.

Jordan: I love that you're doing this before our interview.

Mason: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: That's what I do. Well, what did you do?

Jordan: I just got up and went to a meeting.

Josh: Yeah, similar. But no, so I was watching this doco and, um, uh, do you guys remember that there was a virus? I think it was like, uh, mid-2000s, uh, that I remember it getting a bit of news coverage, but it was actually targeting a nuclear power, um, site in Iran. Do you remember?

Jordan: The virus was Stuxnet.

Josh: Yes.

Jordan: What's it called? Stuxnet. Stuxnet. S-T-U-X-N-E-T.

Josh: You've got a very good memory because I watched the doco and I couldn't remember what the virus was called.

Jordan: You remember what it did?

Tommy: Yeah.

Jordan: What did it do?

Tommy: So this is a game.

Josh: This is— are you testing his memory or you just want to know? I want to know. Well, yeah, how well was I watching the doco? So basically what it did was, um, Uh, the nuclear, uh, power stuff has these fucking— I don't know what they're called.

Jordan: Rods.

Josh: Yeah, tube things or whatever. And they've got like, uh, what the fuel cell is in.

Tommy: Yeah, it's a reactor, right? It's in a reactor.

Josh: And they've got like fan— like they've got like all these like mechanical bits. Like there's a fan or some shit.

Jordan: It's cool. It's cooled by water basically.

Josh: And so what happened was, and why I thought it was interesting in regards to the disease and talking about the effectiveness of a disease, I guess you can look at a computer virus. You know, it's a virus. They specifically did the whole Stuxnet thing so that it would knock them out slowly. So they could have, uh, got it all happening straight away and fucked everything. But what they did is by turning on these, like, um, they turned the, turned the, uh, the coolant up and down. Yeah.

Jordan: So it went into like mini, um, what's the word when a reactor—

Josh: Homer Simpson meltdown.

Jordan: Like, it like went into a— not a meltdown, but it was testing like these levels, but the software didn't show it on the display. So they only found out because they caught it somehow.

Josh: Like, they, they, there was 5,000 of those like rod things or whatever it's called. They didn't call them rods, they're like the big fucking— Sebs, can you say what it is?

Jordan: They're rods. So the way, the way it works, it's like a grid, it's like a big square grid, and they've got all these little rods that are like fuel, like batteries in there.

Josh: So the, the rod, there's an outside of the rod, what's that called?

Jordan: It's some sort of metal.

Josh: Yeah, it's like a cylinder. Maybe it's like cylinder things.

Mason: And then the fuel is called a nuclear centrifuge. Centrifuge.

Jordan: Centrifuge is the middle bit though. So the rods have got like, um, you guys seen, uh, what was that? The Simpsons? No, no, the show, uh, Chernobyl. Oh, that was great. Yeah, how good is that?

Mason: Yeah, great.

Jordan: So you like the mini-series?

Josh: No, no, mini-series, all made up.

Mason: It's on Prime. Yeah, it's great.

Jordan: No, it's, it's about Chernobyl.

Josh: It was a, it was a joke. It was a joke, the fiction.

Tommy: He was posting about it, remember?

Jordan: I remember seeing.

Tommy: It was— Pete, you were posting like clips of them.

Jordan: Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Josh: So you're— got around your nuclear chat right now. Is this the equivalent of me watching an aircraft crash investigation of an A380 and being like, I'm now an aviation expert?

Jordan: Um, yeah. Or do you— I mean, I've— my brother's, um, me and my brother love this topic.

Josh: Okay.

Jordan: So he studied maths and he's really into like nuclear energy.

Josh: Oh cool.

Jordan: Yeah, so he's taught me a lot. But, um, I wouldn't say I'm by no means an expert. I just find it really—

Josh: Yeah, good that you remember. Like, I wish I could remember shit. I'll remember it later, but it's too fresh.

Jordan: I just find in interviews, like, are there certain things that you forget? Like, I always forget last names, or sometimes I just forget names in the middle of an interview when I know that I should know this name.

Josh: What's like Ethan Daskalou? The day before he comes on, I'm trying to remember his name, how to say it. And on the day, like, you fucking stumble, or you sort of say it.

Tommy: You would have nailed his name.

Josh: No.

Jordan: Yeah, well, it's not actually pronounced the right way. It's pronounced Athan Didaskalo. But he tells everyone—

Josh: fucking kidding me. No, but I've been learning the wrong—

Jordan: he tells everyone to— I actually pronounced it the Greek way when I did my intro, and he's like, actually, can you do it again? Because I just go by like Athan.

Josh: Really? He's just giving up.

Jordan: He's just giving up.

Josh: You overbaked it.

Jordan: It's like with mine, because that's a good flex.

Josh: I like that. It's like, oh, can I have that? Um, it's like going to a restaurant and using like fillet of fish.

Tommy: Yeah, or fillet of fish. You know, what's the fillet?

Josh: Yeah, you just want the fish, don't you?

Tommy: You mean the fillet of fish?

Josh: I mean, that's hard, isn't it? It's like going to a Thai restaurant and saying, you know, sawadee krup, and they're like, do you mean hello?

Tommy: Oh dude, I've been down a rabbit hole on YouTube of— they're like, um, real sort of like headline, uh, names for these videos. It's like, um, white guy, uh, uh, like blows Chinese people's minds by ordering in. I've seen that, um, like, uh, whatever, like fluent Chinese. And so he's like, this is just a white American dude walking in, it's like, hi, can I sit down? And, and then all of a sudden he's speaking just like, it's amazing.

Josh: Please don't do that.

Tommy: It was close to it.

Josh: And so yeah, I can imagine you clicking. Well, Hamish Blake did that in, uh, Italy. What, learnt a bunch of Italian? Yeah. And then impressed the family.

Jordan: It's not the same though. This guy's like a polyglot.

Josh: Yeah.

Jordan: Where they know like multiple languages.

Tommy: He spent a lot of time working on—

Jordan: It's clearly like YouTube bait. Like he's going in there, he's pretending like, oh, I'm just this dumb fucking American guy.

Tommy: Yeah. So he's setting it up like that. But then there's a whole genre of this shit online.

Josh: I want to be that guy. What's an easy way that I could do it? Because that's a lot to learn.

Jordan: I think there's something, um, Like, like these people who can learn languages so easy, there's something that they just— the way that they learn, that they must have some sort of, uh, not genetic ability, but like a learning ability above others.

Josh: Isn't that annoying? They get that, and then I— and what I get is like not being able to breathe and you can't swallow. Like, it's a real— could go either way, right?

Tommy: I think this is a choice. That other stuff is probably more happening.

Josh: No, but that's a genetic— like, they, they're just genetically smarter than we are as well. You don't think?

Tommy: I think there's a whole people that are struggling genetically and have worked out how to maximise the little genetics they have.

Jordan: Yeah.

Tommy: And so that's like, I think it's like your ability to learn.

Jordan: Maybe it's just like that they're more, they're more, they're better with like language than they are with numbers.

Josh: Well, I'm going to get— Sebs, what's the thing that I said I want to get into in 2020? The card thing. So I remember shit.

Tommy: Fuck, this is ironic.

Mason: Quizlet.

Jordan: Quizlet.

Tommy: Do you think it is like the relying on Seb's now where you're trying to—

Josh: well, I just remember everything. Because the thing is, I've got—

Jordan: so this is how I'm already onto it. I can just see his eyes like he's already got like—

Josh: so I have— I reckon my problem is I'm taking too much information every day. So before I like come into the office, I've probably watched 2 and a half hours of stuff.

Tommy: It's fucking crazy, dude.

Josh: And so, so crazy. And then I like walk in and I'm like listening to stuff still.

Jordan: You need a kid, mate.

Josh: Yeah, no, no, but I wouldn't be able to consume all this stuff. And so I guess the hard thing is that I'm like doing this and I'm just sort of hoping that some of it sticks.

Jordan: What does stick?

Josh: Ethan Daskalou, like how to say his, his name.

Tommy: But not at the time you needed it.

Josh: Yeah, but now it can. So we need to get him back on.

Tommy: Just call him. I called him and I said, I delivered that. Yeah, yeah, I said that.

Josh: And so, no, but I think that it takes time. And so, um, I caught up, uh, with my mate Naysan, who we've got on the show tomorrow, and, uh, he's Persian. And, uh, so I was talking about Iran stuff and then sort of like going, oh, like, hey, this is why I'm not— like, tell me more, like, what else, what else is there? But so I feel like I'm moving along. I remember more stuff Remember I couldn't remember Qasem Soleimani's name, the general? But I mean, but now I know it.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: So, I need to— the problem is that then all of my conversations are skewed with the little bit that I know.

Jordan: So, what helps you remember things though? Like, do you, are you a, like, do you pair like a visual thing?

Josh: So, Qasem, I did like a car symbol and an equal sign. So, car and some— kasam— Soleimani.

Jordan: Yeah, that works. It's good.

Josh: How do you remember stuff?

Jordan: Um, I feel like I, um, append like images to it. Yeah, like if I, if I think about a memory, I'm often thinking about like a photo of that situation, that topic, that book, whatever it may be.

Josh: So when you're researching, when you, you are, uh, one of the best researchers, I feel like whenever you are got someone on your show, within a few minutes they've said you've done your research.

Tommy: Yeah, it's usually because back in 2009 you had an ABN registered under a company of Josh Jensen family.

Josh: How much time are you spending on acid? And so yeah, what's the, um, how do you get all the information and then sort of reconcile it into something that you can then use in an interview?

Jordan: It's hard. I mean, um, I don't know, I just, I spend a day just, or a few hours just getting as much in, like just slamming my brain with, with information. I put it into this document which generally has a structure because I want the interview to be sort of biographical. And then I'll go to bed that night, maybe I'll think about it, maybe I won't. But the next day I sort of, I've allowed my brain to sort of let it sift through and settle, and then I'll just go through all of the notes and come up with like, you know, the early life and then key topics and then things that round it out. So, um, it's just, just consuming as much things as possible.

Josh: You listen to other podcasts where people have been on?

Jordan: Yeah, like your interview with, um, Athan was super handy. Um, I like to see like, you know, things that are, that aren't covered or are covered. So I don't want to cover things that have already been done.

Josh: Oh, definitely.

Jordan: I hate that.

Josh: Yeah. Um, and you know that there's certain people, especially if they're sort of in the media or being media trained, they know their storey and they can just fall into this, the narrative.

Jordan: Yeah. I like— do you guys watch Hot Ones?

Tommy: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan: So I really have always— my interview style was along that similar, uh, way that he sort of builds the preamble into it. So you show that you're— you understand this thing about their history, because some people just have like these these PR lines in their head that they feel they have to get out there. So I just give them— I just put it out there so they don't have to go through it again. And then I'll ask something that is different about that topic.

Josh: Like page 5 of Google, I feel like you spend a lot of time—

Jordan: like, yeah, I always get down to page 10.

Josh: Yeah, if I can.

Tommy: Is it page 10?

Josh: It's page 10 where it gets, gets good.

Jordan: Depends on the person. I mean, like, um, uh, Ethan yesterday is a good example. He just has so much stuff that you get to page 10, it's just the same like PR-related interviews. And so I look for the deeper interviews, like the one that you guys did. He did an interview on the AFR, which is really quite in-depth. And then he did another one for some magazine, uh, direct-to-consumer mag or something like that. That was super helpful.

Josh: Was he impressed by you being able to pronounce his name properly?

Jordan: Like, um, oh no, if you do it again, I think maybe he might expect it. Being that we both have a Greek background.

Tommy: Can you speak Greek?

Jordan: No, not a word. I went to— I went, I went— well, I can speak like random words, but not conversationally. I'm actually—

Tommy: it was the ones, the ones floating around in the, um, primary school yard. Malaka and that kind of—

Jordan: yeah, all that sort of stuff. I, I went to Greek school for a week when I was like 5 or 6, when I was at primary school.

Tommy: I can't remember kids going to like Sunday Greek school.

Jordan: Bentley East Primary. I think it was Bentley East on Brewer Road. They had— do you know Bentley East?

Tommy: Probably no, but I, I know that they went out that way. Yeah, kids around my neighborhood, there was some Greeks that lived up the road. Ah, we had some of the best spits down there.

Jordan: Yeah, so we— I went to there and I just, I hated it. I got teased because I had like fairer hair and I couldn't speak much Greek at all. Like most of these kids are speaking Greek at home already and I'm just this dumb dumb Aussie kid, as they used to say. And I couldn't, I couldn't speak much English. And so, it was like, yeah, it was like being a baby again.

Josh: Do you sort of, do you feel sometimes then?

Jordan: I really regret it. I really regret that my parents didn't follow through. And I have a theory that it's the parents, the mother who defines whether you'd learn like a, you know, a language as a kid because you spend more time with your mum in the first 2, 3 years, let's say. Like, I've noticed that friends who— a lot of friends who are Greek, the ones who had fathers who are Greek versus mothers who are Greek, the ones who had mothers are Greek, almost all of them speak fluent Greek.

Josh: That's why they, like, when they're working in developing countries, they spend so much time on the mother, on the mothers and the women, because it's like, if you can give the support to them, they're actually gonna fucking— yeah, they, they hold the community together.

Jordan: I think, um, Christopher Hitchens spoke about this like plenty of times. Like, if you educate and give women access to the proper healthcare, then you can actually measure how many, uh, GDP points, like percentage points, the economy will increase. Yeah, which I find really interesting.

Tommy: It is crazy that you could just— like, Bodhi's born in Australia, you could drop him in Greece, Mykonos, he grows up and would speak fluent Greek.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: It's phenomenal.

Josh: That sounds fun.

Tommy: Well, you mean, I shouldn't do that too much. No, I like him.

Josh: But you could maybe go.

Tommy: I'd rather wait till he's 18, then we go party on the Mykonos.

Jordan: Do this talk show live from Athens.

Josh: Yeah, that'd be fun.

Tommy: I've done Athens.

Josh: I've, um, Athens is great.

Jordan: Yamas.

Josh: I've actually, I've done a show with recorded from Athens.

Tommy: Oh yeah, there we go. We have done a show from Athens.

Josh: Yeah, and they, uh, the hotel I remember had great internet, especially because I just, uh, being in Paros where the, um, the internet was shit. Oh, I mean, that's a big one. It was like, it was actually really good. I think I was getting like 100 megabits up and down. It was really good.

Jordan: We'll be going— well, I mean, so my family's from Cyprus. We'll be going to Cyprus for our honeymoon next year, um, you know, get back to the roots. But I've never been to, uh, to Cyprus or Greece.

Josh: And you were looking at Japan for your wedding?

Jordan: Yeah.

Tommy: You love Japan, don't you, mate?

Jordan: It's just more the fact that like we've got these big fam— I've got a big Greek family. My mum's family is also big. She's one of 10.

Josh: So is it a filter system? Like they don't want to go to Japan?

Jordan: Yeah, I don't— we were like, we just want to do an overseas wedding because that won't place as many obligations to have as many people as say if we have it here locally. But it proved—

Tommy: it proved enough. Great thinking, mate. My brother did that in Bali and got 100 and something people.

Josh: But that's what happens when you go to Bali. Like Bali, It's—

Jordan: it's not exactly— I just don't think—

Tommy: I don't think the logic's there unless you're going to Norway and Japan.

Josh: But I guess if he— yeah, I guess you got to find the most neutral place. Things that aren't neutral like Fiji, Vanuatu, anything too tropical.

Jordan: The rationale with Japan was that we'd been there twice in the last, um, I don't know, 18 months for, for just personal travel. And we're like, well, it's too far to go to Europe and spend all that money, plus to have the wedding by the time we want to have it. So let's just go to Japan. It's quick, it's easy, and we'll have a look then. As it, as it proved otherwise, uh, it was just not easy. It's not easy.

Tommy: You're not doing it there?

Jordan: No. I mean, like, the celebrant here, as an example, a very good celebrant, you'll pay $1,000 to $1,500. Uh, they speak English for a start. You won't have any issues registering the marriage, whereas over there it's like 4 grand for a decent celebrant. So yeah, yeah, because they have to— the, the way they have like provinces, you got to have the wedding, let's say you have it in Nagano, which is just outside Tokyo, and then they've got to register the marriage there. Then that marriage has to be registered with the embassy. Then the embassy, um, from both sides has to recognise it. Then you've got to go back and register.

Josh: Yeah, you're fucked.

Jordan: It's just ridiculous.

Tommy: Or you could get married at the office in the CBD here in Melbourne and then go and have a wedding, pay an actor. We thought $800. We can star now Elvis.

Josh: They'll dress up as whatever you want. Matt D'Avella did the drive-through.

Tommy: Yeah, drive-through wedding. Vegas, baby.

Josh: Vegas.

Jordan: Yeah, we thought we'd do that. But then when we were in Japan this time around, there was also a typhoon and like Lauren's parents were just like really not keen. They were just like, we do not want you to get married in Japan. Just don't.

Tommy: So what are you doing? Where are you getting married?

Jordan: We're getting married at, um, Port Phillip Estate on the Peninsula.

Josh: You've really come around.

Tommy: Beautiful.

Jordan: It's very close to where her parents live, and we've got a lot— like, they've got a house there that people can use, and it's, um, it's gonna be good.

Josh: This— will it stress you out a little bit, the whole wedding thing?

Tommy: Or—

Jordan: to be honest, we just realized, like, with the amount of connections we have amongst Melbourne, it just didn't make any sense to do it anywhere else. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: I mean, it's—

Jordan: yeah, and it's proved cheaper anyway. My parents and her parents are stoked because they don't have to travel now.

Tommy: So, well, I mean, it will be just a memory in a year and a half's time. Yeah, that you can watch back or not if you don't get a videographer.

Jordan: When are you gonna get married?

Josh: Uh, so the wedding thing is what I'm not sure on, the wedding side of things. Like the idea of, um, have you guys— all the people—

Jordan: have you guys spoken about it?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: I like the idea of like being a little bit older, and so then you can really mean though— well, so say if we're like 35 or something, so if you're in your like 30s, then you've really— because you think about how many people have weddings and it's like, oh, what happened to your best man? It's like, oh yeah, we've fallen out of touch, not really like connecting anymore. Like that happens with everyone, right? Like if you go into and look at someone's—

Jordan: I don't think it applies in this case. How long have you guys been together?

Josh: We've been together 12 years.

Jordan: Yeah, same with Lauren and I.

Josh: And so The thinking being, it's like, if I— if we're really— I mean, this is the thinking, and maybe it's a little bit flawed— super cashed up, we even potentially have our own place. Like, wouldn't it be fucking awesome to have an epic place where you can have a really cool wedding, but you have it at our own home or something like that?

Jordan: I don't know.

Josh: But then we need to— we're not having it in the Collingwood apartment, unfortunately. There's a lot of wind.

Tommy: No, I think that's fine. You, um, You can just have a party too. You don't have to do it formally.

Josh: Yeah, I don't even have parties. I don't have parties.

Tommy: You can have a dinner.

Jordan: What do you mean you can have a party?

Josh: You can have a big sad party.

Jordan: Yeah, Friday night drinks.

Josh: We did that once. Yeah.

Tommy: And we'll do it again. Are we gonna do it again?

Josh: Yeah, we'll definitely do it again.

Tommy: You can have a, just a big dinner or something like that. I mean, it doesn't really matter. Definitely. Like, or you can go into— you should just fuck— just shock everyone, go to the city, get married.

Josh: Do it on— just raise a paper. Do it this weekend.

Tommy: Literally, I actually gotta book in. Can we find out about— I think it's about $240. To go into the CBD.

Josh: Could we do it public holiday?

Tommy: Someone has to be there to witness. I'd be happy to. Mr. 97 could too. We could do it for a bit of content.

Josh: That'd be fun.

Tommy: And, um, and next minute, would you bring the gimbal?

Josh: Would you do it? Would you be our videographer?

Jordan: I'll bring the, uh, the mobile gimbal.

Josh: Would you really?

Jordan: Yeah, why not? That's actually around the corner from me. Yeah, what, the, um, the Treasury Building? Okay, that's where you'd have to get it done.

Josh: Is that where it is? You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talking about podcast stuff, uh, we're pre-recording.

Jordan: How do we get to this?

Josh: I don't know. This is good. No, this is great. This is what it's all about. Um, no, but I wanted to get your thoughts because I did a tweet, uh, the other day about the, um, the Australian Podcast Ranker.

Jordan: Australian Podcast Ranker, what's that?

Tommy: And if you're not a podcast wanker, what is that?

Josh: So the podcast ranker, you might have seen it in the news a few months, probably 6 months ago. Commercial, like, radio. It's the Commercial Radio Australia's ranking.

Jordan: Done by like PodcastOne.

Josh: No, it's done by Commercial Radio Australia, whatever, CRA or whatever it is, and Triton Digital.

Jordan: Yeah. Which Triton Digital, who owns Omni and all their clients are like PodcastOne, the radio stations, etc.

Josh: And so this is the interesting thing, right?

Jordan: I reckon it's an inside job.

Tommy: Well, is this a Jeff Bezos conspiracy?

Josh: This is great.

Tommy: I mean, do we need the UN involved?

Jordan: It's all radio shows.

Josh: Yeah. So it is. So it's all radio shows. But here's the kicker, right? So I was reading— Sevs, can you actually bring up the podcast, Australian Podcast Ranker? And then just—

Jordan: That's the ratio of Sevs between you guys.

Tommy: I can't bring up anything. I'm just playing with egg in my—

Josh: Just trying to crush it down. Just being like, am I going to have to chuck out this?

Tommy: I have. I'm ditching the hoodie.

Josh: It's like a toothpick, you know, a toothpick. By the end of it, the wood is like, you fucking got splinters. Um, if you, Sevs, look at the bottom of the, um, the ranker, it describes how they rank the, um, it tells you the formula, formula. And so what I think would be interesting is we'll get Sevs to say, and then tell me what, if you think it's flawed and why it's flawed. Does that sound good?

Jordan: Yeah.

Josh: So you found it?

Mason: Is it on their website?

Josh: If you just go to like Radio Today and you'll find like the latest one, which would have been like December 19 or something, or 13, um, and then you click on the link and you see like you get brought up the PDF.

Jordan: Before we get to that, what do you think matters more, downloads or unique listeners?

Josh: Okay, so the downloads versus unique listeners.

Tommy: Who are you speaking to? Who's your audience?

Josh: Yeah, I guess like, what, what's the, what's the overall goal? So like, for instance, so download— what does downloads implies versus what does unique audience or listeners imply? Unique listeners is the number of, uh, people. Downloads, how many things they're listening to. So downloads, I actually think for us not having a huge number. We would prefer having smaller unique listeners, higher downloads. Yeah. Which would imply that they're continually listening. More people listen— sorry, people listening to more shows, more consistently, based on our format as well. Yeah. So versus if you had a high listenership, what that could potentially do, especially with like an interview show, I reckon you would have a higher listenership, lower downloads.

Jordan: Yeah. Unique, uniques is what I Yeah, for us.

Josh: And so the unique listeners for you, if you have, um, because you push really the guest out, like the guest element is a big part of it, right? This week we've got this person on. Yeah, you'll get a segment of that audience each time, whereas I think we probably understate the guest part of it a little bit more, so we're not gaining as big a unique listenership each time.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense.

Josh: And so for us specifically, because we do 7 days Yeah, unique down— if I would actually be wrapped if our unique downloads— yeah, unique downloads. Sorry, not unique downloads, unique listeners. Unique listeners and download numbers. If unique listeners was low and the downloads were high, if we got to a point where it was like 90% of our audience listened to fucking 30 episodes a month, that's like the best scenario.

Jordan: Yeah. And so, and horses for courses.

Josh: Yeah. What does that actually mean, horses for courses?

Tommy: For chalk.

Josh: Cheese for sure.

Tommy: Just made that up.

Jordan: It's just two things. I guess it owes to the, the fact that you can't just apply every, like, exactly some one thing to everything.

Josh: And so this is what I have issue with, with the Australian Podcast Ranker. Can you just— it's very short. Can you just read what it says at the bottom there, Seb?

Mason: The Australian Podcast Ranker is based on a 4-week reporting period. The entities listed are ranked by average weekly downloads Monday to Sunday in accordance with the latest IAB Technical Measurement Guidelines.

Jordan: Okay, so, okay, so average weekly downloads.

Josh: So if you are a radio station— so commercial radio—

Jordan: Jason PJ is going to do better than Will Anderson's Willosophy.

Josh: Yeah, why is that?

Jordan: Because he will have one episode every two weeks or a week, whereas Jason PJ will be doing five a week, and so it's a bonus episode.

Josh: And so if you were a radio station and you wanted to play the finite game of trying to rank well, what would you do? If you were in strategy and it's like, for a radio station? Yeah. So for instance, like the radio station, because it's mainly radio stations, right? Or if it was anyone, if you're on the ranker and it's like, we want to get to number 1, what is a strategy that you would implement? So you want to get the— you want to get the weekly downloads up?

Jordan: I don't know, man. I was actually— I spoke to Jace the other week when he came in about how do they boost Listeners, and he honestly believes it's all in marketing. It's not like you consistently gain more listeners over time, um, for a radio show like theirs, or let's say on this podcast ranking list. But it is, is when they do marketing that they actually see a boost.

Josh: So I get that in the grand scheme of things. How about this, right? This is what I would— this is what I straight away went to and what we've seen happen since September, and it's like getting worse. Uh, if you are doing, say, 5 days a week, you could say, okay, go do 7 days a week. If it's like Monday to Sunday, it's getting, um, uh, sort of recorded or analyzed, do more shows. Then the other thing is, okay, if it is download numbers, what happens if you segment your shows? Like, rather than putting up the whole, like, the show.

Jordan: So are people doing that?

Josh: And so, yeah, what's been happening and what I tweeted about was what most— there's a couple of companies, radio companies, that are doing this, networks, where they're not being outrageous with it, but what they're doing is saying, we're going to post into the feed our 1-hour show, but then for every one of those, we're also doing like a 6-minute segment of one of the bits. And so then what you have doubled your weekly download numbers by adding double the amount of content.

Jordan: Yeah, it's a good point. You know, I, I mean, what do you— what are they meant to— no one's going to hold them accountable though.

Josh: But so this is the thing, so what's the point of it? So then you've got to start asking. It's like, if we— because I don't, uh, I'm not negative against the people who are doing it because it's just a strategy that would actually work. If your, if your boss says we need to increase downloads per week, it's like, oh fuck, well why don't we just, um, why don't we break it up? With Jason PJ, I wouldn't be surprised, like, if I was looking at it from a purely numbers point of view, I'd say, okay, you know that pre-show, uh, bit that you do? Make that its own thing.

Jordan: Which they have been doing, or they've been doing like mini episodes every now and then.

Josh: Yeah. And so like, yeah, but there are companies that are going really hard where you see it. So what What do you think about the, the ranker? Like, is there a way of doing this?

Tommy: How—

Jordan: I guess this is a, this is a more not philosophical but like strategic question. When I think I messaged you like after Jace's interview about how, like, because one of the things I asked him is how do— so we're in this sort of in-between period, right? Like, it's obvious that indie or, or smaller production teams like this can exist in a world of entertainment and do well, right? So we know, we know that is the case. Most of the, the ways that it is done is, you know, you publish through iTunes, YouTube, etc. You've still got the, the ARNs, the SCAs of the world where they're now cottoning on to that. So how, how do you get to a point where we as the indies can compete with that because they have the marketing budgets that we don't have. And I guess that was one of the things I messaged you about, is like, there's something in— I don't know, I feel like there's something in billboards, there's something in developing, uh, or banding together for a lot of these largest, uh, indie podcasts and doing something around pulling funds to market. I think in a mainstream sense, because you've got to spend a minimum amount with them, and if you can—

Tommy: if you sort of step sideways to go, the radio stations are commercial entities, so they need to make money. And a way to make money is by selling podcast advertising. One of the ways to sell podcast advertising is look like you have huge numbers or have lots of downloads, because when you're talking with any brand, they want to understand how many downloads do you guys get? And it can't be low, has to be high.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: A podcast ranking that is exclusive to, or seemingly at the start, exclusive to radio stations, these networks networks is a brand piece or a marketing piece that people will look to. I was at a person's house that's in tech industry but was in marketing and said, referenced that list, right? Said, oh yeah, I saw the Australian radio things, you know, I'm Shandy. So there you see how it creating something like that is serving the commercial network to sell advertising to fund their business, right?

Jordan: It was created by the association. Yeah. So I mean, that's that's then on marketers who are buying from these radio stations to keep them accountable. But also more kudos to the radio stations for coming up with a, a non-biased system that gives them more props, if that makes sense.

Josh: But I think that the, um, so why don't we just do that? Well, so I, I think we are, we're doing it right this second. Now I'll tell you, like, the, the difference between doing the billboard thing— if you guys are getting ready, fucking Fixing your pockets, getting ready for it.

Jordan: If you want to do this, you need to get the, the Shameless, uh, podcasts of the world on board to do it.

Josh: Yeah, well, I mean, the billboard— I mean, the thing on the billboard. So putting an ad on a billboard for us, we basically need to convince 80% of the people who are in the cars that they should be listening to podcasts at all. They're not like— they're currently not doing it. And so, uh, what I like about the radio industry and what they're doing is every time they say download our podcast, go to iHeart, download the podcast, they are increasing the amount of people who are listening to podcasts. What I think that we can do and the best marketing that we can have is cross-pollination by being on each other's shows. Because then if someone hears this right now, the audience size is 100% of the audience that is listening to this listens to podcasts, which means the translation—

Tommy: unless you're watching on YouTube and have never downloaded a podcast in your life. Yeah, should try it. It's good.

Josh: But I think that there is— we've got to consider that, which is, um, that I don't think it makes any sense for us at this particular moment to spend money on mainstream media. Unless— I think that the only reason that you would do it is if I was, say, Ticker, sound like Aaron, and I want to raise a bunch of cash and I want to position what I'm doing as a TV competing with TV networks, I would use things like billboards as status or as a way of demonstrating, um, you know, the posture of being a TV network that would get people to buy in. But I don't think that for us and what we're doing, it would actually increase the amount of downloads than, say, a great, um, you know, podcast collaboration.

Jordan: Well, I guess that comes to like the question of like monetization and networks, like, because networks have been a big thing in, uh in the US. So I mean, when are you guys going to consider monetizing?

Josh: Well, we are like, we're definitely, we have been, yeah, doing it, but it's been more iterative. It's been less like saying we're going to do all these ads. So it starts off.

Jordan: Yeah, it's less ad rolls and more experimental stuff.

Josh: Yeah. And so like we did the Four Seasons integration, which was awesome.

Jordan: That was good.

Josh: 90Sevs. We've done, we work with Brave Boys, isn't he? We, we've taken one for the team. Yeah, yeah. Um, Venture IP, our, our web host, we've got a great relationship with them. And so it is that longer, longer game that we're, we're playing. Um, but I think that you definitely hit on an important point around the network stuff. Like, I think that the one area that we want to work in or work with in 2020 is what does it look like to have a network, not necessarily the traditional network of having 100 of our own shows, like sort of a PodcastOne, but what does it mean to be an independent network? So what does it mean to have the benefits of a network with people like you and your show? Like, how do we, how do we create that web?

Jordan: Yeah.

Josh: Without having to say, hey, come on board, we're going to take a cut Yeah, because I don't see the long-term benefits. I've just seen too many times the Southern Cross Austereos of the world building personal brands, building the Hamish and Andys of the world, or giving a platform or saying, hey, here's a room, and then Hamish and Andy build this amazing thing. Hamish and Andy don't really owe SCA anything. They don't owe Podcast One anything. So they can just leave at any moment. And then the question becomes what are you as a network?

Jordan: Yeah.

Josh: And I believe that the networks are the people, and unless there is actual proper buy-in for those networks, unless those people who are talent own the network, you're renting, you're renting people. Yeah.

Jordan: I think you've got to see it like an industry association in a way. The way the industry associations will promote the benefits of their people that are members and and work on things that are mainly like marketing or promotional related.

Josh: So what would you do? What do you think we should do?

Jordan: I don't know, I, I— it's saying that I need to think about deeper. I, I've— I know that there is a good example in the US, um, something wolf is the name of the—

Josh: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan: So they— the way they did it is they just brought in talent and they co-promoted amongst, uh, the other podcasts that they have. Uh, and I think they pulled marketing goals as well, because another thing is, like you said before about promoting podcasts on other podcasts, like, um, I think I— did I speak to you about Podcorn at the, um—

Josh: yeah, no, you spoke to me. We've, um, we registered.

Tommy: Yeah.

Jordan: So yeah, I've noticed that, um, there are other, other podcasts now paying or setting campaigns up on Podcorn.

Josh: Well, I've got a theory on that too. The Podcorn Quick overview, marketplace for podcast ads.

Tommy: If you go to Podcasts, you can sign up and there's brands looking for people.

Josh: Podcasters are now appearing as brands. Yeah, let's say, uh, um, Jordan— how, uh, what's his last name? Habija.

Tommy: Yeah, something like that.

Josh: Uh, he, uh, he's on there saying, hey, uh, I'm wanting to advertise. And the thing is that if you read, uh, the description, he says, message me with, uh, your downloads numbers. And so my theory around that is that that's actually just an exercising, gaining data. So he wants— because I DM'd, I had like a 5-minute DM with him, um, we tried to get him on when we were in Los Angeles, and he's like, first question was like download numbers and all that sort of thing, and we're like sort of quite friendly in conversation. Then as soon as he got all of our stats, it was sort of like done. And so when I then saw him promoting that, I was like, oh, clever. He's probably got like— seems like the type of guy that you probably have a fucking VA somewhere and he's just running all these numbers. And he has a good sense of like the— like, it's clever. It's a good sense of the industry.

Tommy: So what's it doing? What's the benefit for him?

Jordan: Yeah, by doing that.

Josh: So the benefit would be gaining IP around. Like, there's no public way for us to really understand what sort of download numbers people are getting.

Jordan: Yeah.

Josh: And so if you start getting a good sense, and maybe there is, maybe there's 5% of what he's doing, like of that, uh, Podcorn or whatever example, where he then goes and says they're actually really undervalued with how many people they have listening versus what they're asking from advertising. And then they'd spend it. But I just, I connected those two interactions. I was like, oh, maybe, maybe he's building out that thing, especially if you are up at the— he's doing a lot of work in regards to like growth hacking and trying to build up his, his podcast.

Jordan: I've actually—

Josh: it's pretty skeptical.

Jordan: I've never listened to his podcast.

Tommy: He's probably never listened to yours. It's all good, it's all good.

Josh: He, uh, yeah, he also— he was on the— yeah, he was on the, um, he had the Art of Charm podcast that was his. And then, um, yeah, they— he rebranded, or he left that and is doing that now. But yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's a, um, it feels like a small community here in Australia.

Jordan: It does. It is small.

Tommy: Australia is small.

Jordan: I mean, in comparison, I don't know what— I haven't looked at the latest ABC, like, uh, you know how they collect that data on how many people actually listening to podcasts and whatnot, which, which makes me wonder around like how do you, how do you make it in this space here? Because I feel like, you know, this is one thing that we had with our show where we've moved away from the mics and gone towards more of a, an interview show style setting, um, is thinking about do you pitch the show to do a series on like a network or something like that? Like, where's our place in the market and how do you make it mainstream, I guess.

Josh: I think it— like, we're trying to be a little bit more like platform agnostic, so it's not like we're— and that's what you're doing as well, like talking about it being a show rather than just a podcast.

Tommy: Yeah, I think what about if you approach any creative project with— you're not going to be the megastar, you're not going to be the Tom Cruise of acting, the Logan Paul of YouTube, but which are the unicorns, they're the the grain of sand in the world, like in the—

Josh: that's very poetic.

Tommy: 100%. I'm a poetic guy.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: It was a— it's a single strand of hair.

Tommy: I was trying to just really give it that perspective.

Josh: Of course.

Tommy: And then so you go, well, what is the other options? The other options is isn't competing for the— the— you're not playing the status games of everybody else.

Jordan: Yeah, I guess it comes back to the fact of what, what is it that you actually want from what you're doing? I mean, to be honest, if, if I just continue doing the podcast, we don't make any money and we just make our money through the creative side of the business, I'd be quite happy.

Tommy: Isn't that monetizing the podcast then? Like, this is where I think the, the framing—

Jordan: but this is lifestyle creep. This is what happens when you get to a certain level and you keep improving and you start, you just keep asking yourself these You have ideas of, uh, what's the word, like grandioseness.

Josh: I think I've got lifestyle creep with my book, my books, and, um, that wine cellar.

Tommy: I want to—

Jordan: oh my God, I was listening to that last night.

Josh: Um, are you on board?

Jordan: Well, so I used to work as a sommelier when I was in—

Josh: that's like a wine specialist. Yeah, yeah.

Jordan: I mean, I can't remember what was the rationale for you even doing it, having wine, or what wine bit, or the, the cellar? The cellar?

Josh: The cellar's just like—

Tommy: it was a piece of information in the storey where he walked through his cellar into the wine, which is always the thing, that's have your, what, your books, your wine cellar into another room.

Josh: No, so what I was doing was anchoring the financials. So it's easier for me to sell to Bree, like, hey, what I'm talking about spending on books is a month is only like 3 bottles of good wine.

Jordan: I, I would say that it's a better investment buying the books anyway.

Josh: Yeah, because you're going to have a far more exponential return.

Tommy: Read the books though, Gordon, you have to read them.

Jordan: He doesn't read them to get them.

Josh: Do you read all the books you buy?

Tommy: Uh, you've got a few books in your—

Jordan: I do.

Josh: Yeah, all the one— I feel like the ones that you have in the background you maybe read because there's just—

Jordan: I've read them all except for one that are the ones that are up in this little corner because for a while I was buying like 50 at a time and I'd read through them.

Josh: Yeah, you do that.

Tommy: Yeah, Tim Ferriss as well, hadn't you, man?

Jordan: No, I'm not.

Josh: Um, actually I also need to cheque George's mum from Byron Bay, so she'll potentially buy my stock.

Tommy: Great.

Josh: On writing. So I need to cheque how many copies I have.

Tommy: Yeah, great. We'll do that today.

Josh: And I need to also find a fair price. I want to be fair. Yeah. Like, I really— I don't even— yeah. What do you—

Jordan: what are the—

Josh: was it going before anyway?

Jordan: Yeah. Yeah.

Josh: So the wine thing. So if I want to get into wine, because I'm always seeing you and Lauren at like Red Hill or some shit.

Jordan: So we would, we would buy a couple bottles a year, like 8 bottles a year that are nice. And we'll put them away in—

Josh: Lauren's dad said a couple, and then you said 8. Is that lifestyle great? Uh, you said a couple of bottles, 8 bottles.

Jordan: I don't know, 8 is a small number as opposed to 100 or whatever it was that you came up with.

Josh: Well, 100 is over a long period of time, but do you hold on to wine and not drink it?

Jordan: I rotate them. So like, we're drinking wines that we bought in 2012 at the moment. So when we went to Europe, we bought a good blend. Well, they're not from 2012, we just bought them in 2012.

Tommy: 2012. But it's still great.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah, like the wines are fantastic. We have a lot of good memories. Like, for us it's from 2012 memories.

Josh: Yeah, because we're travelling in Europe and so you want to drink as much wine that you forget the memory. Is that the idea?

Jordan: No, it's just, it's not like I— yeah, I enjoy— like, you've got a big Greek fan. I only open it at like birthdays, Christmases, Easters. Really?

Josh: So not on a Wednesday night?

Tommy: No.

Josh: What if the party is on Wednesday night?

Jordan: Yeah, like I'll go to like Blackheart and Sparrows and buy like a $40, $50 bottle.

Josh: Where's that?

Jordan: Is that in There's a couple around here, like there's one in Smith Street in Collingwood.

Tommy: What's the most expensive wine you've drank—

Josh: drink?

Jordan: So there used to be a guy— do you guys know, um, the guy who owns Specsavers? Have you ever seen him on the ads? You know, the old Specsavers ads?

Josh: Isn't that where your mum works? Does she work at Specsavers?

Mason: Yeah. I don't know if she knows the owner though.

Jordan: The owner used to be in the ads. He's sort of got like a comb-over, comb-over hair. It's a smart-looking dude. He'd always cross his arms at the end and say some line, but Should have gone to Specsavers. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he—

Josh: I mean, that's a lie.

Jordan: He used to say that. Anyway, so he— I worked at the Botanical as a wine waiter. This is when the Botanical went into receivership.

Josh: And where is the Botanical?

Jordan: Is that down Botanical Gardens?

Josh: Okay, yeah, yeah, good spot.

Jordan: So I got a job as a sommelier when I shouldn't have because all I had was experience as a waiter who really likes wine, but they couldn't hire anyone because everyone's like, fuck, The botanical went broke, blah, blah, blah. Get this job. I'm working like 40 hours a week. And on Saturdays you get this guy who'd come in and he'd buy like a bottle of Lafite Rothschild, which is like a $2,000 bottle, $3,000 bottle. And he'd have it with a plate of cheese. He'd sit there for 2 hours by himself on his own, and he'd leave me like this much. And I've still got all the bottles at home.

Tommy: What he said to you, mate, he's a bit—

Jordan: yeah, he'd always leave me like half a glass.

Tommy: And he'd, and he'd say though, this is for you.

Jordan: Yeah, he's a lovely guy.

Josh: Yeah, it was a real fanny cheese.

Tommy: It was a real power move.

Jordan: Yeah, he's like, I am so wealthy. Yeah, I will leave you this half.

Josh: Did you count? Were you like, okay, that was a $2,500 bottle?

Jordan: No, not really. I just, I just enjoyed it.

Tommy: Was it good? Was it good?

Josh: Did you say that you have the bottles still?

Jordan: Yeah, I've got them.

Josh: They've got the drink in them or no?

Jordan: No, because it goes back because you've Yeah, I didn't drink it, Josh, and I just left it in the bottle.

Josh: No, but as in, like, I thought because once you've opened it, it's fucked, you need to drink it straight away.

Jordan: Yeah, you drink it straight away. I, I would let others taste it just so they, they, they could learn what this wine tastes like.

Josh: I love that you just saw this. I'll let you have some. But George's become a real bitch since, since the Specsaver guys.

Jordan: It's a job though, because you'd be doing training for people and you want them to see what these—

Josh: what does it taste like? What is it, 2.5 $5,000 bottle of wine, how's it taste different to the $23 one from Dan Murphy's?

Jordan: I reckon there is, uh, not much difference between— it depends on the wine and who, who makes it. Honestly, you can, you can buy a $30 bottle at, uh, Blackheart and Sparrows and it'll be far better than a $200 bottle that you'll find at Dan's. I, I often find, because it's dependent on the quality of the winemaker. But when you get to that level, you're, you're tasting wines that are made by, uh, a machine that basically removes all imperf— not a machine, machine, but like a system that removes all imperfections, uh, in the wine, uh, through the age of the vines, through the processes in which they make it.

Josh: Um, so is organic important?

Jordan: Uh, depends. Do you get, uh, for Lauren it does. She gets red flush if she has like lots of sulphur base wines.

Tommy: Oh, I saw, um, I think it was Gemma's mum. She's allergic to something in the red wine, so she had wine drops and you put it into the wine.

Josh: And that's next level, isn't it? I'm fucking having this drink. I thought it was a great idea.

Tommy: They look cute little drops.

Josh: It's just like people who— it's like Mikey with these dairy—

Tommy: oh yeah, yeah, has his, um, like fucking— well, yeah, you have like just at that point you have your cheese and then you smash your lactase. It's like, that's fine.

Josh: That's very funny. Yes.

Jordan: Back to these wines from 2012. We bought a lot of stuff in Italy in this place in Pienza where it's a wine shop owned by an old bloke who knows the region, and he would just buy local wineries and he'd buy like a case of every single wine they'd make. And no one really like is going for these medium sort of wineries, these wineries that hadn't been around as long, but now they've been around for a while. So we like bought bottles that were from 1986 that were €15 and we brought back, and there's none of them in Australia, and they were fucking amazing.

Josh: And so how do you— what's the— because I could get around this. So import, bringing it in, you can bring—

Jordan: I don't know what it is, 90 serves, but, uh, a certain amount of literage that you can bring, like 4 or 5 bottles or something like that.

Josh: It's not much, is it?

Jordan: It's not much, I guess, each per person. So we brought it back, we brought back like 10.

Mason: Yeah, 2.25 litres per adult.

Jordan: Yeah, so my brother bought back a stash when he left France, and then I brought a stash back with, um, with, uh, Lauren.

Josh: Should we be doing this? Like, if we ever go to Europe, is it just a—

Jordan: Honestly, Josh, no.

Tommy: Really? I mean, if you go there, you don't know what you're doing, like, or you need to know what—

Josh: Because I'll just go to the Dan Murphy's equivalent.

Jordan: I mean, isn't it just another thing to do?

Josh: Yeah, isn't, isn't that what life is?

Jordan: Yeah, it's true. It's a good point.

Josh: I don't know, I'll go to Wings and Sparrows or whatever you said.

Jordan: Black Hearts and Sparrows is really good.

Josh: All right, uh, Jordan, we should make this a regular actually. Maybe we would. Would you do—

Jordan: I need to have you guys back. Yeah, it's been a while since you're on.

Josh: I mean, the thing is that your format's obviously that found— like the, that biographical sort of thing. Could we do— I guess we can't really do banter. Well, if we came back, what would you like to talk about?

Tommy: Just—

Jordan: we can do banter. I mean, I think, um, it's horses for courses, um, chalk for cheese. Yeah, I just— it just depends. I mean, we get guests on regularly now, which we just— it's more, it's more of a band style. Yeah.

Tommy: How are you fitting 3 people into your setup?

Jordan: Have you done it yet?

Josh: We haven't done it yet.

Tommy: I mean, if you want to have Josh around to talk to you about books he hasn't read, like, I'd love to do one.

Josh: Like, wine and books. So how— I mean, Are you stingy with your wine? Like, if I was to hang out with you— if I— no, but if I was hanging out with you, would you be like, ah, like, no, I have some wine, or you're like, no, Lauren, this is Lauren and my thing. Like, that, that fucking glass, that's—

Jordan: I'll always get something nice because I don't drink very frequently.

Josh: As in, say if I was to hang out with you.

Jordan: Yeah.

Josh: And like we came over and we had dinner.

Jordan: Yeah. What would I—

Josh: would you open up wine?

Jordan: I would probably go to Blackhearts and Sparrows and buy like a $40, $50.

Tommy: Okay, do you talk about the wine when you're there?

Jordan: Yeah, I want to know about what's— who made it, where's it from, and what do you tell the people at— yeah, so this is where I said this is how you used to sell as a sommelier. You could bring a bottle that's $100 and $200 next to each other, and if the storey's better on the $200 one, they'd take that.

Josh: And so what's the, what's the ethics around, like, um, or the social sort of stuff Because say Sebbs and I went to, uh, Gem's, uh, New Year's Eve party and we brought some alcohol and then she said, now is this for the fridge or for the esky? First of all, I'm like, what's the difference? Do you guys know what the difference is in regards to—

Tommy: I don't know, you want to drink it right now or you want to put in the fridge for later?

Josh: Fridge or esky though?

Mason: Esky.

Tommy: Esky is like— esky is quick accessibility. What, what was it? What was the alcohol?

Josh: Well, it wasn't— it wasn't red wine, it was champagne.

Jordan: I'd love to see what the audience thinks about eskie etiquette, you know. Yeah, so what is it, beers only? Is it beers and wine? And so it's like the wine labels can start to— some of them can start to sort of peel off.

Josh: You've never had wine.

Tommy: You're drinking white wine or rosé at that point. It's like churning, you're just churning through that shit. Eskie's like ready to go. Yeah, unless it's an eskie off to the side that is closed that you like put some shit in there that you want.

Mason: There were two eskies.

Josh: Yeah, I don't know.

Tommy: If anything, at Gemma's house, it's the ready-to-go's in the eskie. But so what we drink—

Josh: but what we did, Bree and I were like, we ended up having like margaritas and stuff, and we're like, oh, we didn't actually need the champagne. And so like, let's leave it for Gemma. Yeah, we told her the next day, like, we left you some champagne. Yeah. And she's like, oh, it's not there. And she did a whole investigation and found her, um, pregnant friend had drunk it.

Tommy: Drank a glass, not a bottle.

Josh: Yeah, with their friends.

Tommy: You can't drink a fucking bottle when you're pregnant. You can't. You can, or you know, you probably shouldn't. You probably had a half a glass. Yeah, I'm not promoting it.

Jordan: I mean, look, my mum drank and smoked for the first, uh, 3 months when she was pregnant with me. She didn't even know.

Josh: Yeah, I really— all right, yeah, just can't swallow sometimes.

Tommy: Jordan Michaelides, thanks buddy for coming on the show. Let's—

Josh: yeah, we'll do it again and have a wine or something.

Jordan: Awesome.

Tommy: Oh, that'd be good, an episode with the wine.

Josh: Yeah, I'd love that.

Jordan: Red wine.

Josh: Yeah, and offline I want to get a list.

Tommy: Wine Library. We're gonna— oh yeah, we need maybe 3 bottles, not to get through them all, but to taste the difference and hear the storeys from Jordan.

Josh: 5 seconds. The Empathy wine thing, all rah-rah or actually good wine?

Jordan: It's okay.

Josh: It's rah-rah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Tommy: All right.

Josh: And that's not because Gary Vee didn't show up, you know?

Jordan: No, it's just okay rosé.

Josh: Okay. Okay, there's the title of the show.

Tommy: It's a daily talk show.

Josh: If you enjoy the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Uh, also cheque out Jordan's podcast every single Tuesday— is that when you release? Uh, yeah, Tuesday, Wednesday, uh, with a guest every day. It's called Uncommon. Just type that in. Otherwise, see you tomorrow, guys.

Tommy: See you guys.