The Little Dum Dum Club with Tommy & Karl - 219 - HG Nelson & Tom Ballard

Episode Date: December 17, 2014

Air BnB, The ARIAs and The Channel Nine Show.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of The Little Dumb Dumb Club is brought to you by Punchline DVD. Punchline is Australia's number one retailer for comedy-related DVDs, and with Christmas coming up, why wouldn't you head over there for great DVDs by people like Fiona O'Loughlin, Harley Breen, and Arj Barker. So if you want to stuff some stockings with some of the best comedy that you can get your hands on, head over to punchline.com.au right now. And Punchline have also recently sponsored my album, Dreamboat. It is an hour of me doing stand-up that I recorded in Perth. Thank you to everyone who's bought it

so far and sent me messages to say they're enjoying it. If you want to hear that now, it's just $7 at tommydassolo.bandcamp.com, or you can find it on iTunes. And also my new stand-up show, Cutie Pie, is on sale now for next year for Perth, Brisbane and Melbourne. In Melbourne, there's a special pre-sale ticket deal for the month of December as a little treat. All tickets for all nights are $15, which is an awesome saving. So if you like booking for things way in advance, if you think you'll have nothing going on in March and April,

then book up now. Ticket links for all those things are at TommyDassolo.com. See you, mates. Hey, mates. Welcome once again into the Little Dumb Dumb Club for another week. Thank you very much for joining us. My name is Tommy Dasolo. Sitting next to me, the other half of the program, Carl Chandler.

G'day, dickhead. Hey, I've been teaching my mum how to text. Have you ever done that? Have you taught a parent to use text at all? No, no. Yeah, I'd love to. My dream is to buy my mum and dad an iPhone and get them onto the internet. So mum can text now, but yeah.

Right, well, that's what I did. I gave my old iPhone to my mum. Right. And I'm teaching her how to text. Wow, and you've wiped the history, obviously. Yeah, I did a full restore. Yeah, right, right. I didn't want anything from the cloud showing up on there.

Yeah. Yeah, so I was talking her through it and sitting down with her and just showing her how to do it. And then she got, you know, she wanted to get into the prac of it. So she's like, okay, so when you go home go home just at some time today don't tell me when 10 in the morning for but whatever time send me a message when i'm not expecting it so i can see what this is like for real i like what don't don't tell me when no well you weren't going to give her a text to warn her that you were going to give her a text i call and i say i'm going to text after this no but so so i did that i just sent her a text randomly. I'm like, hi, Mum.

And so she writes back almost immediately. Hi, Tom. I'm like, great, she's got it. But she wanted to keep doing that. So for like a week, our text log on my phone is just literally, hi, Mum. Hi, Tom. This is me texting.

Love, Mum. Just like back and forth. And then I said to her, you know, at a certain point, you want to start putting actual information in these because that's sort of the point. It's not test pattern. Yeah. So this morning I get a text saying, hi, Tom, in the hospital because Nan had a fall. Love, Mum. Oh, good.

Yeah. I kind of reckon this is like a bit far on the other extreme. I reckon anything medical, like family related, that's probably a phone call. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I agree because, you know, I don't get a phone call on my birthday anymore from mum oh i get a text and it's like shouldn't this be the other way around yeah like mum's not gen y i'm pretty sure like that's pretty well because my birthday's just gone so i've got a year wait to find out if that's what the territory mum's gonna be yeah yeah oh man that's brutal yeah um today on the show uh live no not

live from sydney uh it's live at the moment it's live at the moment it's currently happening uh That's brutal. Yeah. Today on the show, live, no, not live, from Sydney. It's live at the moment. It's live at the moment. It is currently happening. First of all, you know him from Reality Check and from Triple J. Please welcome back into the Little Dumb Dumb Club, Tom Ballard. Hello. Yay. G'day, mates.

And also joining us from his own house, welcoming him onto the show from inside his own house. We're also in the house, let's be clear. One half of Roy and HG. HG Nelson. Yes! Delighted to be here in the Dum Dum Club. It's a dream come true. I'm simply over the moon, as you can probably tell.

I don't think we've ever had a guest so desperate to not have us in their house. Well, you know, there's an old adage, never bring film crews or radio crews into your home because there's nothing left when they leave. And never work with children and animals, which is fair enough. I'm always interested in getting out of the house because I live here. Yes. And so the nearest cafe was about, I don't know, 20 steps away.

Yep, very close. And sadly it was too noisy and the power plug looked a bit dodgy. So we've retreated to the actual house. Yeah, you even came back here to get an extension cord, which is when I thought, something's going on in HG's house that he does not want us to see. And Carl was like, are we really, this is too noisy, and I was like, I feel like if the house was an option,

it might have come up by now. Yeah. I feel bad prodding this, but... Remember, I understand nothing about technology. Okay, sure. So there's nothing, there's no hidden skeletons here that you worry about? Well, there are bound to be hidden skeletons here, but, you know, you've got to find them.

That's the thing about hidden things, generally. Exactly. I know where they are. If this was on actual radio at the moment, we'd be thrown out to the phones right now going, call in, what do you think? Who do you think Hayes She's killed? Or what's hidden at your place? What is hidden

at my place? This is the thing. I've toyed with the idea of when I go away, putting my house up on Airbnb. But I just have this unnatural fear of people finding dodgy things in my house that I know I don't have. Do you know what I mean? I always think about Airbnb. It's that thing where people go into

that agreement just going, well, everyone's going to steal everything in every house, aren't they? Is that the deal? Is everyone just steal stuff every time they go to a house? People lock cupboards and stuff and they put things away and there's a beautiful share economy vibe to Airbnb. We're all getting along. I'm not going to steal your stuff.

I'm probably going to fuck in your bed, but nothing else. But that's the dream. But I just think realistically, I haven't done Airbnb, I just think realistically the worst of people, and people would just be hiding skeletons and stealing other skeletons. Not my skeletons! How did you find them?

I've talked about this before, but I kind of feel like if you're staying at someone's house, it's a bit of an unwritten contract that when I'm in your shower, I'm going through your products, you know what I mean? I'm having a crack of your shampoo. I thought you were going to say something much worse, to be honest. But again, that goes without saying. I think most people who put their houses on Airbnb tidy them up a bit before they do it.

Have you been following what's happening in New York with all of this? Understandably, the people in the apartment are jacking up on people putting their houses up for rent. Jacking off in the shower and jacking up elsewhere. And now it looks as though there's going to be much greater, what would you call it, oversight of all of this. Regulations. The golden era is over.

Right. There's a crazy story about a guy in a penthouse, like, in this beautiful apartment in New York, renting it out to Airbnb, and those people who took the apartment proceeded to have a very involved orgy in that apartment. He was a comedian. A New York comedian. Oh, really?

Yeah. Oh, wow. And it cost like $15,000, just insane amounts of damage. He got evicted. So he'd put it up. He was gone for the weekend. Yeah. And then he realised he'd left something at home.

Yeah. And was like, oh, I'll just duck back in and just grab whatever it was. And comes in and there's just... And then he finds on the internet they'd been putting out, here's where the sex party is. Yeah. This is the address, get into it. Well, that's the thing I always wonder, and it's not quite the Airbnb. Here's the sex party.

That's what they call it. Did they get elected, by the way, in Victoria? Yeah, they rule New York now. The campaign headquarters. They're going to get Disney back out of Times Square. They're going to get the porno theatres back in. But that's what I do wonder about hotel rooms. Like, you know, when you see, you know, you go to a party

and maybe someone has pornography on. That's how I'm justifying seeing any pornography. And it's clearly in a hotel room. I always think, how do they get that team of people, the production crew and everyone into the hotel room? Like, surely they see, you know, like seven people walk through a reception with big cameras and going, yeah, we're just in 1A. That's all right.

We're just going to go in and have a nap. Do you know what I mean? I don't. It's filmed. It's set up. No, but you can see they're actually – You watch Jurassic Park and going, how did they get these dinosaurs in this suit? No, no, no, no, no, no.

It's not a set. They don't build sets for porn movies. Yes, they do. No, in bad ones they don't. They clearly don't. You mean like the amateur stuff? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And they're clearly in hotel rooms. Have you never, do you only ever watch the Ridley Scott pornos? Yeah. The ones that are set in space. I like the high budget stuff. I don't like these art house pornos where you can't think too much. Yeah, it's like fucking in space. No, but there's a lot, traditionally there's a lot of pornography

filled in real hotel rooms. I think like the LA scene, it's like porn is a huge industry, so it's like there's probably hotels that we're like, want to film your porn somewhere? Oh, right, right. Wear your hotel for your porn. A porn hotel. Maybe.

Right, okay. All right, well, that makes sense. All right. I'm just... Is that on Airbnb? I would love that, but I'm more a bit put off that you seem like you've got no concept of pornography. Filmmaking is the thing.

Oh, right, right. I'm a true artist, man. I don't see porn, I just see film. Yeah, yeah. Again, I've never watched a porno and go, gee, I wonder what the logistics of filming this will look like. Right, okay. I wonder what the gaffer was doing while this was going on. Yeah, yeah.

Is that the best boy? Because he looks like he's the best at something. Now, you, Tom and HD, you both attended the Arias last week. Whoop, going on. Yeah, yeah. Is that the best boy? Because he looks like he's the best at something. Now, you, Tom and HG, you both attended the Arias last week. Whoop, whoop. Yeah. You got into a little bit of trouble, HG, with your... Oh, I wouldn't say trouble. No, the difficulty in doing the red carpet is that it's a sort of longish afternoon with

very little reward in it in terms of, well, I'd say... Happiness? Happiness or employee perks. Longish Afternoon with no reward is basically what this podcast is about. The motto of our podcast, yeah. Maybe change its name. Anyway, what happened was we were in a good spot, sort of one off the curb, the second one off the curb,

and we were able to stand there for about the best part of four hours and interview a lot of people who even the producers were struggling to work out who they were, let alone me. But we did manage to secure a great interview with... Well, a sort of great interview with Harry Stiles from One Direction, who happened to be talking to Channel V most of the time, but I realised he was actually standing more in my space, my sort of allotted space.

So I started talking to him until the minders came along and shuffled him away. And this was the highlight of the afternoon, really, because he seemed quite an approachable guy with some sort of weird story to tell about being in New York on, what would it be, Monday, getting on a plane and flying to Australia, losing a day and getting here on Wednesday.

That may be wrong, it might have been and flying to Australia, losing a day and getting here on Wednesday. That may be wrong. It might have been Thursday. That does sound like a ripping yarn. Did he lose a day in New York when he ran out of his apartment? He would have when he put on Airbnb. So it was quite good fun for me. I wouldn't say I added anything to the occasion, but it was a pleasant way to pass the four or five hours

in circumstances that I'll never do again. Well, I mean, really unlikely to be asked to do again. So it was a real genuine one-sit. I was walking the carpet and getting out of the car and seeing you as one of the, you really were one of the first people you see when you walk out of the car and seeing HG there.

You think, oh, this is going to be alright. This won't be a fucking painful, like, pulling teeth process because HG's year. It's fine. I'm sure lots of people were pleasantly surprised when they got over there. But why were you in trouble? So, Tommy, you said.

No, I've got. They've got blown up. This isn't really a story. Well, I just hope it's got traction in social media. My troubles at the red carpet. If you put anything like I talked to Harry Styles, you'll get 50,000 retweets just by the fact that you're putting that up.

I only rivaled by if you'd said you'd talked to Andrew Bolt on the red carpet. I just saw the story in a real click-baity kind of hit line. They share a lot of the same fans, the One Directioners and the Boltites. Wow. Yeah. A lot of crossover.

Wow, now that is interesting. They both think, there's a lot of One Direction with both of them. It. Wow. Yeah. A lot of crossover. Wow. Now, that is interesting. They both think there's a lot of One Direction with both of them. Yeah. There certainly is. Andrew Bolt should open up for One Direction. Like, he comes out for the parents at the start and then... Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, for the... Yeah. For some of the parents. Yeah. Yeah. For some of the parents. He comes out. That'll be a...

Oh, yeah. Wow. Now, that's a scoop. That is a scoop. Now, we've got something. All right. Now, you're in trouble for the RS Tom how was your

So you're on the other side You're walking the carpet Walking the carpet They send out, before you go there They send out a list of media requests for you So obviously all the people who are lining the red carpet With the media have a list of all the people Who will be walking down the red carpet and in what order

And then they then sort of set out all the people who have requested to talk to you on the red carpet. And for me, that was a zero. That was a zero request to me. That was new requestamundo. Wait, even HG didn't want that? No, no, no, HG. I just saw HG and said, hey, HG, and he said, I'll talk to you.

I don't know why. I didn't know he was coming. Why were you there? I presented an award. I presented best group and Best Comedy Release. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Who won the Best Group?

Not Shepard? Shepard won, yes. Right. Now, they're a really interesting act, I reckon. I can't. There's not one moment. Bombs away. I know.

Geronimo. There's not one moment of Shepard that's crossed my world. Do you know what I mean? I mean, most of the acts there I recognised either, you know, media release or something about them or, you know, somehow you'd come across them. Yeah. Shepard, completely out of left field.

Not one bit of their iceberg did I see. I've realised in the last two years I've hit a point where I used to be very on, I felt like I was very on top of everything musically and in the last year all of a sudden I'll drive past a giant billboard for a concert that's coming up at like a festival hall or something and I'll go oh I've never heard of that before this moment

and it's really disheartening. I'm the same with Gold FM just like, is it Led Zeppel what? No you mean Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. Yeah, yeah. That's what you mean.

They went straight past me. That's right. But so what sort of organisations are you getting? What sort of organisations are lining the red carpet? Well, would we be a chance of doing a red carpet at the Arias next year is what I'm getting at? Yeah, I think so. Are there any blogs sneaking in?

I imagine there'd be more and more blogs every year. Many blogs. Yeah, many blogs who I don't think have much sway with the people. And everything's got some sort of social media element and they're like, they have to explain to you in 20 seconds, like, oh, we're doing this thing where you have to tell us your favourite kind of sloth and then that's the new,

and then hashtag it Aria Sloth and then send that around or whatever. Social media and no sway with the people. Again, that is us. That is us down to a T. That just shows how bad we are because I've got this feeling that... One of many things. Yeah, I've got this feeling that people with a blog, so they get to get all those freebies at the RAs and stuff.

They can sort of talk their way into it. They're like, oh, social media, whatever. I see a lot of that around. We don't get any of that. But you get bloggers that get free international trips and free hotels and whatever it is. Are we still in the golden age of getting freebies for doing very little on social media?

Is there still time for us to get on board this? It's either a golden age or a crisis. I'm not sure which. Yeah, one of the two. That's weird because what I find is the power of blogging seems to be out of all proportion to its penetration. For sure. If I can continue the porn theme.

But do you know what I mean? I mean, it feels like as though it's last year's medal. Penetration.com. They're doing great right now. But the world hasn't caught up. Yeah. So I reckon by next year, you guys will be right up front and centre. Yeah.

Oh, we'll be riding the HG kerb spot. Oh, you'll be next to the kerb, between me and the kerb. Imagine I'm in the gutter getting the shit kicked out of us by security. Imagine I'm Harry Styles,

Carl. You want to be on Harry's red carpet. I'm walking down the red carpet. Hey. Everybody want to steal my girl.

Hey. Oh, hello. Hey, hey, hey. Who are you? Are you... Who am I? I'm Harry Styles. Are you the kid

out of Home Alone? Are you that guy? Are you that? am I? I'm Harry Styles. Are you the kid out of Home Alone? Are you that guy? Come over here. Let's talk. Oh, I'm not over with you yet? Okay, you're just yelling that across the cover? Yeah. All right.

Hello, no, I'm Harry Styles from One Direction. Oh, all right, Harry. Everybody wants to steal my girl. I just like singing my songs. Harry, I'll just jump in tonight. Who the fuck are you then? I'm the other half of the Little Dumb Dumb Club. Oh, I love you guys. Thank you. Oh, thank you. You listen, that's cool. So'll just jump in tonight. Who the fuck are you then? I'm the other half of the Little Dumb Dumb Club. Oh, I love you guys.

Thank you. Thank you. You listen, that's cool. So you guys are performing tonight. How did you get that? Yes. We were in one of the most popular bands in the world, and we just love Australia.

It's always been one of our best markets. Actually, a quote from him from the night. Referring to Australia as a market. Did you give the award to them? Were they the best comedy? Were they the best comedy release? No, they were nominated They've been best international act

I think so They did win that Yes, very surprising I like in your impression of Harry Styles He's just singing his own songs He doesn't have a lanyard So he just sings his own song to prove who he is That's what makes you beautiful, isn't it?

So you presented best comedy release Back to me? Friend of the show Yes, sorry, break character please And done Done That's what makes you beautiful, isn't it? So you presented Best Comedy Release. Back to me? Yeah, sorry. Break character, please. And done. Done. You presented Best Comedy Release, which a great friend of the show,

Ronnie Chang, was nominated for. So you had to sort of bring that out of the envelope and break little Ronnie's heart. I did. I felt bad. And congratulations to Buddy Good, someone who's won twice and seemed lovely on the night and stuff, but just is so far out of our world. I've never seen him performing.

He's my shepherd. I'm not even aware of the Buddy Good iceberg. HG Buddy Good. No, the iceberg. I sort of recognised it sort of vaguely. He releases a Christmas album every year and obviously sells very well and does very well and a lot of people in the industry are fans

and he's won again but it would have been lovely to see Ronnie You know, we attempted to say Delta Goodrum when you brought it out. Just throw a curveball in there Well, you know, just sort of, that's what I'd hoped a couple of people, in fact, Delta Goodrum I might have suggested the idea to her that she

read out, regardless of what she was awarding, just Jessica Mowboy Just chuck it in there Just to shake it in there. Eh? Just to shake it up a bit. They get Roddy to accept it on Delta's behalf. Yeah, that's right. That's what I was reading about the Irish this week,

that no one was taking it seriously. Oh, bullshit. Oh, really? No, that's absolute rubbish. Really? Rubbish. If you were there and you'd heard the screams for when Tom got out of the car,

it was just incredible. I was blown away. You know, Australian fans are the got out of the car. Yeah. It was just incredible. I was blown away. You know, Australian fans are the best fans in the world. I won't have this rubbish that the Arias weren't taken seriously. That is just, you know, have we got any soap here that you could wash your mouth out with? Because I think you've just cancelled your Aria invitation, buddy. All right, it's taken 20 minutes.

I finally found the thing that makes HG go off. I also like that he's not aware if he has soap in his own house. Right, so people are very passionate about it. People went fucking crazy. I mean, we went to an after party

and I ended up at a hotel with some other people late at night. It was about 3am. We go downstairs to go outside to have a cigarette and there were girls

out the front, four girls who had been there for two days to get a glimpse of Five Seconds of Summer. They knew Five Seconds of Summer was staying at the hotel. They were like 17, 18 and they were just hanging out there for days. Man, that's what you want. That's the dream. That was like the time when we used to record in the radio station

in Melbourne that we used to record in. Yes. And Justin Bieber was coming in one day and there was like a line of girls lined up outside of the studio when we came out. Yep. And you go, girls, he's coming out around the back. And they just lost their shit and all ran off.

It was pretty great. Just to be clear, he wasn't coming out around the back. He wasn't due there for like another day. He was like ages away. Yep. Yeah. Pranksy's. Yeah.

Classic. Classic Chandler. You texted me. I have to admit I didn't watch the areas. You texted me asking me for some feedback on a joke that you were maybe going to do. And I said I reckon go for it. Did you do it and how did it go? I did do the joke.

I wanted to do a joke about how I was dressed as a fatter version of Niall from One Direction. And then I then texted Tommy a photo of Niall and Tommy said, yeah, that'd work. I've never heard of that guy at all. I've no idea who that person is. But I did it and it went

pretty well. Got a laugh. There you go. You're very welcome. Follow-up text would have been nice but yeah, just good to get it out on the podcast. Have you won an ARIA? Have either of you guys won ARIAs before? We did. We won the ARIA last year, yes. Right. Best Comedy Release. I think I've been nominated but not won,

and this is stretching the memory now, I think a couple of times, but not won. Have you won big awards before? Well, we have won big awards. Did you win a Logie? Oh, yeah, won a Logie. Oh, that was just an afterthought then. I mean, you see, I rate the Arias as bigger than the Logies.

Yeah, well, I found out that you were a little bit passionate about it. And last, not last, hang on, let's see, Friday week ago, I was at the South Australian Food Awards, which I have on an even higher pedestal than the Arias and the Logies. That's how I see it. There's a lot of daylight between the South Australian Food Awards

and the Arias. Did Avocado win again? No, I've got to say Armand Co. Oh, right. A lot of thanks to Armand Avocado. Have Roy and HG ever been nominated for a South Australian Food Award at all? No, not yet. No, okay. But we live in hope.

So you have Logies in this house then? That's a good question. Is that where you were hiding from before? You didn't want us to see your Logies? I had to shuffle them all away. Yeah. Um, that's a good question. Is that where you were hiding from before?

You didn't want us to see your Logies? I had to shuffle them all away. Yeah. Look, I've got to say is that Logies, you guys will appreciate this when you get there, Logies are the product of a lot of people trying to pull in the same direction. Yep. You know, and so you tend to feel as though,

given that you only get one, you feel a bit churlish hanging on to yourself. Right. So they tend to go to neutral sort of places, like there's a few at Seven and there's a few at the ABC. Right. Well, they wouldn't be at the ABC, they'd be melted down by now, but it's sold off. You win one

and then if you want more, you have to buy more of the trophies. Really? So if you've got a band of five people, you're getting one aria, and then if you want... So when you leave the arias, you have to walk out through the gift shop and the next aria is there. Oh, classic. This is how they get you. They pull you in.

Yeah. That's great. Well, I don't know if I've told this on the show before, but my friends, I grew up with the Avalanches, the band the Avalanches. Oh, the Avalanches. Yeah. And they won in 2000 or 2001 or something like that. And because there was five in the group or whatever there was back then, they turned

up to the awards. They also had a percussionist turn up to the awards that just sort of went, oh, come along. He was just playing on tour and he just met them at the entrance and went, oh, come along with you. And they were all a bit too scared to say anything about it. And then he rocked up on stage. They had only prepared five arias for the group.

He was there. So then they had to all give him one. And then he took off. No one ever saw him again. He's somewhere with six Arias. He's got all of them. He got one of everything. Yeah, they won four awards, so he got one for everything.

And then everyone didn't even get one for everything. He's the only one that got four Arias. Isn't that amazing? Wow, what a great story. It's a great story. Well, now, you could learn from that, you two. Yeah. Well, they, Ari obviously learned from it. If you're only getting one for now, you could learn from that, you two. Well, they, I already obviously learned

from it. If you're only getting one for everything, they've obviously changed the ruling. I've put out that we need an award for podcasting. And I'm not sure what it'll be called, but should this get up, this simple idea get up, remember that 1H? I think that'd be a point

of difference with the Arias. Every player wins a prize. Well, I'm glad you brought that up again. I was just would be a point of difference with the Arias. Yeah. Every player wins a prize. Well, I'm glad you brought that up again. I was just on my phone trying to find this email. David Warnicke, who's a comedian from Melbourne who listens to the show, when you told that story on the show before about your friend in the Arias, he sent me this and he said, last night I was hosting this corporate trivia gig for this company

and one of the answers to the question was Sophie Monk, and afterwards this dad comes up to me and goes, and says, oh, you'd think I'd get that question right. I've met Sophie Monk. I asked where, and he produces his phone with his Twitter account open, clicks on the profile and shows it to me. It's a few people standing on a stage with Sophie Monk on the right. He says it's at the Arias in 2001.

I ask why he was at the Arias and he says, the avalanches. I ask was he in the band and he says, yes. I'm about to jump into the story Carl told in your podcast about the guy gate-crashing the awards as a plus one of the band when he says, I played percussion. Oh, yes. I then ask for another look at the photo, looking more closely at the photo and there he is, standing there in the ridiculous hat that Carl described.

Yes. It's like a Paddy Field. Like a rice paddy hat. Paddy hat, yeah. He points at the guy and says, that's me. I was listening to the episode with the aria story on the way to the trivia gig so when this happened I couldn't believe it. I could barely contain myself but I asked, do you still have the arias?

And he goes, yeah, I've got them at home. I'm a music teacher and I bring them in every year to show the kids. I was 50 when I won the arias. And he goes, yeah, I've got them at home. I'm a music teacher and I bring them in every year to show the kids. I was 50 when I won those arias. When he won them. Yeah. As I was leaving, he was showing the other dads the photo. So there you have it. He still has the awards and he's still telling people he was a member of the Avalanche.

Yeah, just to be clear, they won it for the record they made. He did not play it on the record. He was like a touring drummer. They thanked me on the sleeve of the record I have more rights to those arias than he does He's bringing them into music class Wow Isn't that wild?

Wow There you go guys There you go kids If you work hard You can steal anything Isn't that great? That's a fantastic story Wow

So this is the next thing we need to hear from If you're a student And you have a music teacher That's ever bought in an aria to show you. We need to hear from you because we need to bust this guy wide open. Or if there's anybody, say, who might have won something at the South Australian Food Awards, could they get in touch as well that they didn't deserve it? Yeah.

They're just a trolley boy. Or you might be a backyard lettuce grower who piggybacked in on the lettuce growing award and all of a sudden you've got several gongs. They're beautiful things. They're great certificates, carefully framed. Yeah, they're the ones who just came in at the end of the – they won best apple.

They just came in and put the sticker on in the end and they're going, no, I'll have a best food and wine award. Thank you. Surely Maggie Beer just cleans up every year. She was put into the Hall of Fame. Well, of course she bloody was. Just fucking Maggie Beer. Along up every year. She was put into the Hall of Fame. Well, of course she bloody was. I was fucking Maggie Beer. Along with the banana.

And can I point out that somebody might have done this at the National Electrical and Communication Awards, which I've done a couple of times as well. It's another great night, which I have slightly ahead of the South Australian Food and Wine Awards. It sets it right in perspective.

And these are serious awards. Just so we know, ARIA's below all. So it goes electricity, food, ARIA's. Right, okay. Yeah, they're your best show business award, bar none. Yeah. You know, they're really up there, but they don't have the cash. In terms of utilities, you would have put those power awards.

You would. You can't do anything else. I imagine there's a lot of pressure on whoever's doing the catering at the South Australian Food Awards. Yeah. Some tough critics in there. There are. And if I could just be critical of the South Australian Food Awards,

because they're great. Look, I didn't come here to listen. That's all right. Ease off. Look, what happened was that once I used to do something called the President's Medal which was put on by the Royal Agricultural Society and they used to have six nominations six nominations for the President's Medal and they came from different categories and the chef had to create a meal out

of these foodstuffs that were pretty hard to put together from my point of view, but they always came up with something to do. In South Australia, they hadn't got to that point of evolution of the art. So their finalists weren't... Not when he... The things that you ate on the night. Not that I had a chance to eat

because I was flat-out handing out these things and stuff like that and organising the troops and all that sort of stuff. But the one thing I can remember is that they had a blue-vein cheese that was the basis of a dessert. Now, that's a fairly big call. That's huge.

So the catering was better than the things that they were nominating? Is that like going into the arias and just the intro music, you're going, fuck, why isn't this one? Well, that's not bad. The catering in the President's Medal was outstanding. Yeah. Outstanding. So you sound like you've done so many awards nights.

I feel like, you know, you should be awarding best awards. You know, like when the Academy Awards comes on and they have best presentation, the Academy Awards from the previous year always wins. I hadn't noticed that, but there you go. No, that's a real thing. You check that out. Or maybe it's the Emmys.

The Emmys always wins at the Emmys. Right. Yeah. So what's the best trophy. If you check that out, like the – or maybe it's the Emmys. The Emmys always wins at the Emmys. Right. Yeah. So what's the best trophy night that you've presented at? Well, that's a good question. That is an excellent question. And I'm sorry, I don't know that I can come up with a quick answer. They should rename them Aria's Trophy Night as well.

Yeah. The Oscars Trophy Night. Trophy and Pie Night. Yeah. The ones that I like most are the ones that give you the shits the most, which is always the way that these things work out. So sometimes you are often giving out, it seems like, 50 awards. You know, the best plug, you know, the best, you know,

under $10 part, et cetera. You know, all this sort of stuff. You do get down to small things. My favourite one recently, though, was I had to do the NECA Awards, as they're called, that's the Electrical and Communications Award, in Brisbane, and Clive was going to come along. Clive Palmer was going to come along. I thought, oh, this will be great.

And I couldn't think of anything to do with Clive or anything. So I bought him a box of Tim Tams, as you do. I would have given him the invite to the Food and Wine Award, but anyway. He would have been, yeah, exactly. But the great thing is Clive apparently is a notorious no-show, as we glimpse as life goes on. Anyway, they asked if I could write something that would cover Clive's speech for him, and I'm looking at him blankly thinking, you've got to be joking.

Anyway, the only thing I could come up with was a political speech based on the idea of the Rugby League Party of Australia. What their policies would be in the arts and education and stuff like that. Mercifully, Clive turned up and spoke. It was a singularly unmemorable speech. It was very controversial. But he walked away with a packet of Tim Tams. Use that at the Food and Wine Awards.

I will. Yeah, yeah. But the best award night. That's hard. Sorry. I've never heard of anyone who's hosted so many different awards nights. Like, you're like Billy Crystal but just of everything. Yeah, I've done, I mean, I wouldn't, I would hesitate.

I do several a year and they're all different and they're all, I don't know what your awards night stuff's like. I've hosted the captioning awards. That stands out to me. Wow, that's fantastic. People on TV who write little captions and stuff. I feel like HG should be saying, how did you get that? But anyway.

There's a whole industry and it was a joyful night because when you do that, you sort of get introduced to this mini world that you have no idea about. And there was one guy who kept getting up who was clearly the fucking rock star of the captioning. Every time he got up, everyone was like, yeah! It was like Elvis jumping up there and there was a woman signing the entire time while

I was hosting as well. Really? Double captioning? Physical captioning. I applied for a job there many years ago to do captioning and it's a great example of a thing that you don't realise. A thing that you just always assume just happens. I was never even aware of it and a friend of mine told me she you don't realise, like a thing that you just always assume just happens.

Like I was never even aware of it and a friend of mine told me she did it and I was like, that would actually be great because they're like, you can sort of just do it whenever. You can just come in at night and you just sit there and if you're a quick typer, you're away. I had a friend that once the job was just watch movies to make sure they were suitable for Qantas, like for in-flight entertainment. I'm like, awesome. As long as you don't see a plane crash in a movie,

it's a big thumbs up from me. Yeah. They must not have that person anymore, I reckon. Because I've watched in-flight movies where you've just got your own little screen and, you know, you go, oh, I heard this is good, I'll watch this. And then, like, graphic sex scene comes up and there'll be, like, a child sitting next to you and then you look like

some deviant who's just queued up porn. Are you sure that wasn't just your iPad, to be fair, or was that really on the Codicin flight? It was me watching a video of a hotel that I was on my way to go stay at in New York. And which airline is it? This would have been Virgin, probably. Virgin, okay. Done the trophy night for that?

No, well, Virgin, the best. a trophy night for that or no how many well virgin the best we used to often get um uh we used to often get transported around by various airlines that are no longer with us uh impulse was our favorite uh that was a sort of weird idea of an airline between you'll have to remember airline history here and i can't get them right i think there was compass mark one that fell over then there was impulse and it was compass Mark 1, that fell over, then there was Impulse, then there was Compass Mark 2, they all fall over. Virgin's the only one that stuck, but they used to fly us around to various awards nights. Well, Impulse is my favourite airline that sounds

a bit like a brand of Rexona deodorant. It does. And they were lucky because we always used to be able to say, well, they allowed us to arm the doors and cross-check, which is what I always wanted to do on an airline. Do Allied Pickford still exist? I remember when I was growing up that they sponsored every game show.

Remember that? It was always sponsored by Allied Pickford's The Careful Movers. I always liked that they got their slogan in the plug. Yeah, they were up there with Tony Barlow. Yeah. Some sweet currency. Yeah, and when our guests are in town, they stay at Travelodge, I believe. I don't think it would have been Travelodge.

No, no, you're right. You're right. That's true that if you're on, say, I don't know, the Price is Right. This is going to be a fair time. The Price is Right or… Sale of the Century. Sale of the Century, they stay at the Travelodge. Yeah, yeah.

At least the Travelodge still exists but in a sort of Holiday Inn sort of way. Yeah, I think maybe that's it. Maybe they've been... Morphed. Yeah, they've sort of gone downhill after the sale of the century references, along with stick pins. Travel lodge a bit crap and budget?

Stick pins? Yeah. You haven't seen them? Is that a stick pin? It's not quite, but it's the modern version of the stick pin. Yeah, yeah. I think the stick pin's a bit dear,

and this flimsy bit of ribbon with a pin, a safety pin in it, is the modern version. Oh, right, right, right. So that's what you would... I've got to be honest, I did see stick pins at the table that I got this from. Oh. So they are coming back.

Thank you for your honesty. This is just like the Lawrence and Fiona episode. There's so much more honesty coming out. You've got to understand that this was a table near the hospital in town today because it's December the 1st, World AIDS Day. But I got a scoop, I got a tea towel. And the person said, I know you've got to take one of these as well. And I said, well, you know, the stick pin.

Yeah. How often am I going to wear it? Yeah. So this was, I don't mean to be unkind here, but I could throw this away at the end of the day. I'm not feeling embarrassed. Just getting back to awards very quickly. If we do a little Dum Dum Club awards, are you in?

Are you in to host? Hang on. Who's catering? Wait a minute. We're thinking that – I forget where you were last night, but let's say it was in at Cleveland Street there somewhere. Yep, yep. We're going to set it up and we're going to have real awards

and you're going to provide a trophy like a dum-dum bullet and you're going to mount it on a stand and give it to everybody and the categories are going to be what? I'm thinking maybe something like... Are we the only nominees for all of this stuff because it's a little dum-dum? So best episode? The avalanches, remember, the avalanches. Best clang?

Best how did you get that. Yeah, yeah, right. You know, best example of you being yelled at in the street. Yes. And you just award it to different episodes. How do you sort through all that? Yeah, and you get to read out that. And you don't know what any of this is, HG,

which kind of makes it better in our eyes. But we are the only nominees for everything. No, no, no. You've had guests on the show. Yeah, yeah. Tom will win something, of course, you know. Sure. I should have too.

Well, it'll be like those MTV awards or whatever it is where it's like they find out who can make the awards and then they go alright well we'll give them an award

like anyone that's not rocking up to the award doesn't get anything so Tom will probably scoop about six because we're in Sydney full credit to the ARIAs for that

like if you can't make it to the ARIAs you're sure you're still with the ARIA you know what I mean because they can't afford to I think because

people overseas are travelling all the time they can't afford to, I think, because people overseas are travelling all the time, they can't afford to instil that rule, otherwise fuckheads like me would win every year. You see that stuff where it's like Katy Perry's in town and then you see the awards come up, best female singer-songwriter, Katy Perry or Joan Jett or whatever and you're like, well, I haven't heard of Joan Jett being in town, so I reckon Katie's a big chance.

Did she perform on the night, going back to the Arias? Katie Berry did not. She appeared. She was there, presented an award. Yes, now One Direction performed, Five Seconds of Summer performed. We presented an award the year that Taylor Swift was there too, and we had a joke that sort of ended in Taylor Swift,

and we sort of, Taylor Swift, at too and we had a joke that sort of ended in Taylor Swift and we sort of Taylor Swift, at which point all the teenage girls in the audience just erupted with screams at the very mention of her. Well, that's fucked that joke. Thank you very much. That's like a pretty big roster of internationals, isn't it? Like to have that many I guess five seconds to summarize the international bit.

Like One Direction, Katy Perry. Normally it's just like one that they've That'd be fairly normal, I think. Yeah, I mean, it's like the Logies, you know, whenever they... But the Logies are guilty of just having one, like a bit player on Big Bang Theory or whatever. Yeah, like a background extra in Hangin' With Mr Cooper is like this year's, I think.

So that's a bit different from the Arias. That's like the Aria. Who would you have the Arias? You know, like the drummer from Boss Gags comes out this year. Wow. Yeah. Do you like that? That's like the Ari Who would you have the Ari's You know like the drummer from Boss Gags Comes out this year Wow Yeah Do you like that?

That's very good The weirdest thing was that Recently there's been a big sort of bump In Boss Gags revivalism Has there really? It's incredible Because he plays the instrument That's one thing

And there's no suggestion of tapes or anything like that, the whole thing. So when you see him playing, they're actually playing, and the drummer is incredible. Oh, really? And there's a big thing. What Did I Say, I think, might be the big hit. And so now you can go on YouTube and see this is getting a lot of hits.

Is it revival just through secondhand shops? Because I used to go into secondhand shops and it was either, you go to your record department, it was either Boss Gags or Herb Albert and his Tijuana Brass. That was the only two options

you could buy. The one record, Silk Degrees or Boss Gags Live. They were the only two records. Right, yeah. The one where he's on the park bench sort of looking over his shoulder.

Yeah, good on you. Well done. In rather lurid colours. That's well remembered. Look, you know, when I was a kid he was really a surprising thing. Right.

Because he just had that sort of odd sound that lapped over from, obviously, black performers into white performers. But he could sort of carry it off. Right. And because he played the guitar. I did not know we were going to go into so much detail when I picked out an obscure reference from 1978. No, that's weird because I would have had

a lot of interest in Boz Gags just watching the music stuff and people sending me things in the last month and a half. Well, I'm actually a bit sad they didn't bring the drummer from Boz Gags to the R.E.A.S. now. You would have been right, only if you would have had First Cab off the rank to interview him when he got out of the limo. Anyway, that's a big show. True, that's true.

I would be the only person who'd be interested in interviewing him. Channel V, not sure about them. All the Boss Gags blogs would be onto it straight away. Yeah, yeah. Free tickets to the drummer's show. Now, to move away from awards briefly, I'm sure we'll be back, but just talking about that whole world, HG, what's been...

Is there anything that stands out as, like, a real... Like, in terms of getting kind of, like, access to something or a perk or a showbiz thing that really sticks out as like a real highlight? Like what's the – You mean do I get something for free? What's the biggest, physically biggest thing you've ever got for free? Right. The weird thing here is that whether I would like them or whether the world at large would think that was a good thing.

Do you understand? Can I make that difference? Yeah. And so… Like Boz Skaggs' references were to these guys then. Yeah, that's right. Very good, very good. Now, again, this is an excellent question.

What I'd say is that if I trawl back through the things, like something like getting a the closing ceremony olympics what the athletes were wearing the closing ceremony several days before they got it that sort of thing is that what you mean yeah that was real kudos it meant absolutely nothing to no one yeah but i was able to wear it on the show or the idea that i got there were three fatsos made this is just in the sydney olympic stuff there were three Fatsos made, this is just in the Sydney Olympics stuff, there were three Fatsos made and I've got one of them. Fatso the wombat, yeah, yeah.

Fatso the wombat. Not to be confused with Nutmeg the wombat, who's now the Asian Cup, the football competition early next year, the Asian Cup mascot, another wombat but not in the same league, not in the same fucking league as Fatso. You reckon they're biting his style? Is that what you're saying? Well, wait till you see Nutmeg.

I think Nutmeg has no connection to the Aussie battlers. It doesn't. It's actually beautifully put, Tom. That's right. That's right. The battler's prince. That's right. Who backed his way into the hearts of the nation.

The current Nutmeg is a carpet-off, cut-and-gaffer-taped assemblage that just looks pathetic and will not talk to kids. Fact. Is that the sort of thing you mean? Sure, definitely. Because there's those sort of things. Can I ask you, because I was doing... My television reality check was with the production company

and people there used to work with your good self on various shows, including, they tried to explain to me, the Channel 9 show. The Channel 9 show. Do you remember watching the Channel 9 show at all? It was sort of explained to me and I find it very hard to get my head around. Okay, the Channel 9 show was made in about 98, 99. What was the name of that one? The Channel 9 show.

Oh, it was called the Channel 9 show. What? What was... So, what channel... The Channel 9 show. Oh, it was called the Channel 9 show. What? So what channel? I see why you're having trouble wrapping your hair up. It's very confusing. In that era there was a lot of chat about Roy and HG going to work on Channel 9 and so we thought, oh, fuck them, we'll make them the Channel 9 show, put it on

the ABC and then they'll be able to see what it's like. That's what you'd normally do. And so we persuaded them. This has got an elaborate story. But what was great was we'd change the name of the Nissen Cedrics to A Current Affair. And the game in the show was... The Nissen Cedrics were the backup dancers.

Yeah, backup girls. It might have featured the Australian Rolling Stones or whatever it was. And the Nissen Cedrics who now were A Current Affair. And the great thing in it was the great thing was come on in ray which was the idea of having three doors on the set and somebody out of the audience speaking of great things that you guys will be able to use you had to come up and guess which one uh was the photo of ray martin behind so three choices and you were running like ads so you had ad breaks on the ABC, but ads for Channel 9 shows.

Channel 9 shows and products and products. Stick pins? They were real things, as you might find on Channel 9, but they were, you know, they were elegantly rewritten to be implausible. Right. So there was vodka from, you know, wherever, and there was a real ad for vodka that we bought and revoiced

it and stuff like that. This featured I think also ads for things like Australia's Funniest Doors which is my favourite show which was fronted by Ian Terp's Terpy sadly no longer with us but

Australia's Funniest Doors and there were many episodes of this show. What did the doors do? Well they squeak and you got me. That is good. There's a lot of door work going on on this show. What was lovely was in the first one we had actually Ray Martin as a guest and so the real Ray Martin stood there

and when the contestant opened the door and got it right he was completely flummoxed about what to do. The show was called Come On In, Ray, but he just stood there. But so the ABC doesn't put back against this at all? They're happy for you to...? Well, the ABC, remember, in those days, this is a bit hard to explain, had put up with three years of a show called Club Buggery.

And so they thought the Channel 9 show was at least some sort of concession to... Not that. Not that. But the real problem was that after you do, you know, well, I mean, by the time you get to do three years and they would make up to 40 shows a year, you've made 120 shows, all of a sudden you're really struggling to come up with one,

some way of packaging, what amounts to a lot of old tat, show business, you know, cabaret tat. Now, when we started off it was a great push back at the things that I had to watch as a child. You know, like my parents and grandparents would watch these terrible Dean Martin based sort of, you know, like shows.

And so we made this show that we always thought would bob up in a leagues club now you know then meaning then uh you know the people who go to the rugby league and then go down to the what we call the taj mahal and you know st george dragons territory and then they put up with these shows where people like turps would come out and sing a few songs and you know there'd be a rather tawdry you know side act and you know then people had great martin had walked through a door you know that's right now you've got classic rsl stuff yeah that's right classic rsl stuff anyway um so having done all of this then we thought well what are we going to do now all this chat about going to channel

nine oh let's make the channel nine show on the abc so we don't have to go anywhere but they wouldn't they wouldn't there's no way they would let you do these things now. Yeah. Surely the coalition government at the time would have been excited about getting a few ads on the ABC and privatising it a little bit. Well, I'm sure that was the case. The ads tended to be, though, for products that you couldn't – Didn't exist. Yeah, that's right, that's right. Even though they were real ads, when we'd finish with them,

they didn't exist. There is quite a lot of, though, that sort of thing there where the structure was so different. It's a bit hard to explain this quickly, but the structure of making television inside the ABC was so different. It was different, yeah. And you couldn't go to them now, I don't think, and say, well, what have we got?

I think we got that by your shows that are called The Channel 9 Show and Club Buggery. I think we can see that things have changed yeah you can you can club buggery our last show i think for the abc although this may be wrong was something called the the memphis trousers half hour oh that's i remember that yeah and this was a failed sort of show that tried to get the idea of what would happen what would america's view of australia be week? Right. It didn't ever come quite off. It was quite a kind of a good idea. Yeah.

And what we had hoped to build into it was ad breaks because it was on American, you know, like on an American, you know, so I suppose the model would be, you know, a visible model would be something like either Glenn Beck or, you know, or, you know, Johnny Stewart or something like that. So it did have ad breaks in it. But in the ad breaks, you'd see the people wrestling with the issues of making the television show,

of what was really going on, and then cutting back because you didn't see the ads. You only had the gap. You only saw the gap. Do you understand? The ads were fictitious. So they left the camera on. Yeah, and then they said they created this other world

and then slotted back into this rather terrific survey of the show in America. I like that. Because I've seen that TV meet-and-greet. I remember going and seeing Letterman and then you see everyone, like 10 people jump on Letterman in the ad break and you go, oh, what are they saying? What are they saying? Correct.

That was what we tried to make it work like. Right. There was a lot of resistance in the ABC. I've got to say. They finally had gotten fed up with you. We've got to push back at one of these ideas at some point. there was a lot of resistance in the ABC they finally had gotten fed up with you like we've got to push back at one of these ideas at some point we've been letting these guys run rampant

they've been advertising Channel 9 on our network that's what we always imagined would be something like that I'm not sure how we ever thought that you could realise the ads as well as not show them but that was a separate thing so did you ever hear anything back from Channel 9

about calling your show the Channel 9 show? Channel 9 would worry about it, but then they realised, look at this free publicity. Yeah. What were they worried about? It's sort of a bit hard to explain this, but in those days the channels were more important than they are now.

I mean, they're not... It was more branded back then. Good on you. Well done. Well done. People would literally be attached to a channel. Yeah, yeah. We're Channel 7 people.

We're Channel 9 people. We're ABC people. That sort of is all gone now. That just doesn't happen. I'm a gem person. Yeah, yeah, right. Right. That's how I like to think of myself.

I'm a seven-mate man myself. Yeah, I'm a red-blooded Auss think of myself. I'm a seven-mate man myself. Yeah, I'm a red-blooded Aussie man, so it's just seven-mate for me. I can't stay in this house any longer. Anything that has porn pickers on there. I do. I do love those shows. I know that everyone says they're the shows that are breaking TV and what's wrong with the world, but I love the porn show TVs,

the porn shop TVs. Yeah, right. It's antiques Rojo for idiots, basically. Yes, yes. It's like antiques Rojo, but it's just shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of I found this brooch that was given to my great-grandfather, it's like I found this chewing gum and parka.

Parka. Parka. Parka. Why is there only the English one where they drive all over the place? It bobs up on SBS every so often. It's one where they go to places, mainly hoarders. Pickers. Is that it?

No, it's not pickers. It's a sort of stylish one. Actually, they get quite good things. That is Antiques Roadshow, isn't it? Antiques Roadshow. No, Antiques Roadshow is where people bring things along and they have a panel of specialists. How do I know this?

They have a panel of specialists who look at it. A rather fruity, older English guy tends to be the emcee and says the clock's interesting but worthless, but that turn is not bad and all this sort of stuff. This other one, they drive all over the country. They're not visiting Arundel Castle and has a sort of fate going on in the background of people trying to flog stuff. They drive to where the hoarders are.

They go to them. They turn up to people's house uninvited and try to find the most expensive thing in there. Correct. That's good. Much like what we're going to do once we're done recording this podcast. Here's just people robbing houses. Now, that's good. Correct. Much like what we're going to do once we're done recording this podcast. Yeah, that's right. It's just people robbing houses.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Is it Home Alone? Were you watching Home Alone? Yeah, yeah. The owner's there at the time. That's what we're going to do here when we find the Arias. Yeah.

Yes, the Arias. I do love those shows. It's called Pickers in America. Yeah, there's Cash Cowboys. There's quite a lot of them. Yeah, yeah, right. They're all the same thing. Yeah, yeah's cash cowboys. There's quite a lot of them. Yeah, yeah, right. They're all the same thing. Yeah, yeah.

They're just rocking up and just looking at whatever's stuck to the walls and going, this is like $50. And they go, no, it's more like $40. And then you spend 10 minutes of TV arguing over $10 of price of an old Pepsi Cola sign. It's bizarre. Indeed. Or there's one where they sell them by houses.

Right. Unseen. Unseen. Yeah, yeah. They stand out the front, there's one where they sell them by houses. Right. Unseen, unseen. Yeah, yeah. They stand out the front and they think, oh, you know, we get $350,000 for that. No, you won't. You get $450,000 for that.

Okay, $500,000, done. And they go inside and it's all derelict and completely stuck on site. And it's one of those movie facades where it's just the front and nothing at the back. Yeah, right. I don't know if they've done a show of this, but I have heard about this, this thing where people's storage lockers,

like once they... Oh, yeah. People disappear and it's literally like they'll auction the locker, but you don't see in it. And there was a thing on This American Life of it where people... Televised lucky dip. It's awesome. Pretty much, yeah.

So you go in, it's just people going big on something that they've got no idea what's in there. And there's stories about people opening it up and there are just insane paintings in there, like really, really, really valuable stuff and then another guy opening it up and it's just like a jar of urine or something. Wow. And he's paid like

hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. Well, I tell you what, if it was Lance Armstrong to urine I'd be interested. Yeah, that's the secret twist at the end. Thought it was bad, it turned out to be great. He blew it wide open. Guys, I think that's about all the time we have on the little dum-dum club for this week. Tom Ballard, HG Nelson, thank you very much for joining us.

Did we help at all? HG just wrote some notes before we started. He wrote podcast first, the 12th, 2014, and then just dum-dum club. Well, I think he's gone through all of his job points there. And remember, my only advice if people are caught up in this, remember the great – I once had to do a show called Good News Week a number of times, and my great mentor on that show was Jim Owen. And I said, Jim, you know, what's the skill here? And he said, try not to say anything.

That's always the greatest bit of advice I've ever had. Why? What's that mean? It's complicated to explain. When you go on shows, I don't know if you've had this experience, which are set in their ways, it's often hard if you're walking in to quickly work out the house rules and to work out how to play whatever the game is.

And Jim Owen had obviously been in this position before and his great bit of advice was try not to say anything. Right. And so I thought that was elegant advice because the people like in that case, I mean, Mikey and Paul can do all the heavy lifting you like and so they can do all the heavy lifting and I can just sit there.

Yeah. Jumpy. I mean, yeah, I always maybe jumped in a bit too much to get involved, but there are scheduled times when they come to each guest and you're given a time to shine. I was on Good News Week with Jimmy Barnes once,

and there was a... What was his advice to you? Ah! There was a story about a gathering of all the unemployed people in Nimbin, and so I said, hey, wouldn't all the unemployed people in Nimbin just be Nimbin? And I got a laugh, and then Jimmy Barnes goes, yeah, they'd just be like all the people who live in the town.

That was his sweet topper. He should have taken Jemoan's advice. He definitely did. There was Jemoan on that one. There should just be a giant, like, hanging over so the audience can't see it, just a giant picture of Jemoan's head with a speech bubble coming out just saying...

No. No, a thought bubble. Yeah, a thought bubble. Less is more. Yeah. Anytime it looks like someone's about to say

something dumb it just starts flashing like the opposite of an applause sign no just one of his eyes starts winking

at you or the studio they turn into the lunar park star and you walk through Jermon's mouth okay that's as

far as that can go Tom have you got things coming up that you would like to plug you doing the festivals and stuff next year.

I'm doing the festivals, yes. My show is called Taxis and Rainbows and Hatred. I believe Adelaide and Brisbane are on sale now. And I also have a week of gigs coming up in Melbourne from the 14th of December at your lovely rooms, Carl. Yes, exactly. And to mothers around town, the details are on my website, tomballard.com.au.

I thought you said two mothers around town. The details are on my website. And I've got a beauty. If this is up by the weekend, we've got an event. This is hard to imagine, but at the National Gallery in Victoria,

I think it's in the one in Federation Square, and it's to do with the history of Mambo from about 1984 to now. Yes. And their opening got on Saturday afternoon. I think all are welcome. Especially rad dads out there, I'd imagine. Yeah, all the loud shirt people coming down from Nimbin.

I can see them setting off already. And there's a bit of a Kne-up connected with that on Sunday afternoon. Oh, wow. Are you going to be in town on the Sunday? I won't be in town on the Sunday, no. Sorry about that. We're doing live gig. We could have gotten the awards ceremony to happen.

The Dum Dum Awards. I could be there. Anything but an award. Maybe we can make something happen on Saturday. No, I think what you need to do with the awards is build up towards it. It's a good idea. No, I think it's perfect for us. We just rolled out three days after we

announced it. Okay, that's great. But can I warn about going off half-cocked? You should have been the Jumohan to us before we started this podcast. Don't go off half-cocked.