Groan Men
If you've reached that age where you groan every time you do anything, Groan Men is for you. You groan not just when you get out of a chair, or lift heavy things. You groan at bad drivers and greedy politicians and annoying fads. Groan Men is a place to go where people get you and what you’re going through. Somewhere you can laugh. Somewhere you can listen to people talking about what makes them groan – and what helps them to not groan.
Groan Men
Groan Final Week
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Footy's a funny game and there's been plenty to groan about this year. Especially in the lead up to the granny. News of the Swans scandal even reached our groan man in Italy, Brett Straughan. So, we thought we'd call Brett up, interrupt his vacation, and get his thoughts on the AFL, the NRL and the joys of de-groaning in Europe.
Hello and welcome to Grown Men, the podcast for anyone who's in that magical age where your body starts making more random sounds than you can on a cold morning. I'm Peter, your host, your fellow midlife survivor, and the only bloke who can pull a hamstring just by looking in the mirror. For this episode, we thought it'd be good to talk about the footy. It's almost grown final week, and there's been plenty to groan about through the semis. So I've reached out to someone who has a love-hate relationship with footy and probably a love-hate relationship with me too, especially when I phone him up while he's on holidays in Italy. Good morning, Brett. Or should I say buongiorno?
SPEAKER_01Bongiorno, Pio. You can't be Peter anymore. You have to be have to be PO and come over, I suppose. How are you?
SPEAKER_03Is it is that the is that really you just made that up. Is that the Italian equivalent for Peter? Is it PO?
SPEAKER_01It is. PO.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It sounds wrong. Sounds like a little uh like a a brand of car. I'm driving, I'm driving a two-seater. The feat PO, that's it. You can park it anywhere. Oh god. I was gonna say that one of the reasons I've uh I've gotten you out of bed, because of course here it's beer o'clock. I'm having a beer and you're having uh breakfast of sorts.
SPEAKER_01Yes, a big glass of metamucil or something.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna ask you what breakfast was, but I didn't want to I didn't want to intrude. It's a very personal breakfast. I mean over there, isn't it? Just go down to the it's not it's not the patisserie. What it what do you call it? I don't know what your bread bread shops are.
SPEAKER_01Well funny old place that we're in, it's got two bars directly across from each other.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um you just sort of alternate day to day going from one to the other, and you go down there and get your pastries or uh whatever your your fancy is and while away the morning and then decide what to do for the rest of the day. Pretty good. Pretty good life. The whole I I've been treating this treating the time over here as uh to use your term to be doing a bit of de-groaning, I suppose. And just having that time to sit down in the little piazza and contemplate life and look around and do some people watching. Very good, very good. But anyway, on to more important things. Football.
SPEAKER_03Well, so I don't know, I don't know if they are more important things. And I feel like now that you've you know you've slowed your your your blood pressure is down, you've slowed your heartbeat, you know, you're getting up and having a pastry in the morning and then you're going for a nap, and then you're going for a swim of the lake. Exactly. And and I reckon while you've been over there, you're probably having a bit of a device detox as well, I'd I'd guess. Because it's probably terrible.
SPEAKER_01To a degree, yes.
SPEAKER_03To a degree, which is good, but I mean that that means you may not even be up with the the latest. And I want to chat about footy news, as I said, you know, bad pun, but I'm saying it is grown final around the corner. And last night was uh a big game, as you might not be up on this one, but it was um Sydney versus the Dockers in a in a prelim. And it was a great game, fantastic game of footy, and I think um surprised everybody because Sydney looked like they had them had them beaten for the yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, from what I could gather, the Dockers had three terrible quarters, but that's uh that's just what I've heard through the Great Fine.
SPEAKER_03Really good game, really good game, and it's just um you know, I it's interesting to see that the Dockers are now in the grand final, so they've made it through and they'll they'll see who comes to meet them. But the Dockers have just got, of course, the world's worst song. I mean, it's a really weird Aussie Aussie rules AFL thing that every every team has to have a song and every team has to sing the song and the fans sing the song, and they've got the world's worst song, which is like some sort of dirge kind of thing. I can't imagine that to give you anything less musical.
SPEAKER_01Well, they can't be allowed to win the grand final and and play that then, surely.
SPEAKER_03And make everybody sing that. Um I can't the other thing that I find funny about about Frio is they've got the world's worst song, and they've got so many uh super fans, like there's a lot of people in Western Australia who are massive Fremantle fans, and they've all come out of the woodwork recently. And when I worked out that one of their biggest fans is Tim Minchin.
SPEAKER_01Oh, right. Okay, didn't see that coming.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so you get there you go. So you've got music, music royalty is Tim Minchin, right? And you go, wow, you're like almost number one ticket ticket holder for the Fremantle Dockers. You really know how to write a song.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, would you mind?
SPEAKER_03Why don't they just get you to re can you rewrite the song? Because that's bloody awful. Um, anyway, that's uh that's pretty sad. But the other thing is that that I found about it, I didn't know who to cheer for because I'm not a fan of either team. That you know, good footy, good footy is good footy, even if you don't have you know a team in the hunt. But for Sydney, it was really sad, and that and you know, you see the typical thing, the players are you know almost in tears because they've been on a great run, they they lost a game that they wouldn't have thought was possible to lose so far in front. But for them, they've just got they've gone from this sort of really their story has been amazing. They said, Oh, that's the end of the fairy tale. But it all started for them was the when it all exploded in the last game of the season. Yeah, uh was the big scandal, the the the booze up and lap dancing scandal, which came out of nowhere. I mean, I've I don't think I've ever seen a a team kind of shoot themselves in the foot as as badly. It was just and it and it just took over the the news headlines. It was like it was like it was never going away. Two weeks of talking about nothing but the Sydney Swords.
SPEAKER_01That's the media for you, though, isn't it? I mean, they they just latch onto something like that and and just absolutely flog it to death. Got to get those those clicks.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I I I it's funny because you no one really knew what the whole story is. Like obviously it's it's with the police, nobody has really any of the details, but everyone was tying themselves in knots trying to not say the wrong thing, um to you know not take sides and to, you know, it may not even be all these players involved, and what actually happened in the room, it's he said, she said, we don't know yet. Um but it was just it was horrible to watch, such a such a train wreck. I was amazed that they could even get themselves out of that and get themselves back on the field and have a couple of really good impressive wins with bringing out you know the players from the reserves almost.
SPEAKER_01That's that's a huge hill, huge hill to climb, you know, try and deal with that in the background, all that noise, and then have to perform on the field. Yeah, credit to them for that.
SPEAKER_03Well, you think about it, five players, five of your your your best players are out. That's a massive hole. And then I think they had two more injuries. I think the captain got injured as well. And they still they still kept on playing like a team that was just on fire, not not concerned. It's unbelievable that they actually came out of that. I uh it did make me groan though.
SPEAKER_01I was just going to Well, it does. I I guess that emotion can only get you so far the wheels have to fall off eventually. It it's got to take its toll on you. But yeah, definitely groan worthy, that's for sure the whole thing. And again, I I'm I'm happy to point the finger at the media overall of that. That they certainly make me groan the way they cover things, and it's um yeah, not not my favourite uh industry at the moment, but uh it was perfect for them.
SPEAKER_03It was like just yeah, wounded gazelle just wandered into their sights and they went, Yeah, we've got this, and we're just gonna blast away. And boy, oh boy. Did that but then it it got it it sort of picked up its own energy as well. Because I don't know if you saw there was the um I think it was the first game after the incident. There was a double header, and it was the women uh Sydney women's team were playing first, right, and then the men men's team were playing afterwards. So all these fans went to the game, and then there was a protest where a bunch of the Sydney Swans fans in all their gear got up after women's game and walked out of the stadium. I didn't see about that. Oh, it was awful, and it is it was just awful, yeah. I just I don't get how it would be drummed into them so much about guys, look obviously number one, why are you out boozing? What you've you've still got a you've still got a final series coming up, but I don't understand that at all. In what universe do you think it's a good idea to bring girls back to the room? And these guys have got girlfriends and wives, like what are you doing? I don't I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_01And they all go through such in-depth training and and lecturing on this sort of stuff, yeah, all throughout the season. That's that that's a big part of the club's role is trying to um control their attitudes and and wrangle these guys into being normal, presentable, decent human beings.
SPEAKER_03Because they did that, all the other teams were able to have a wake-up call. Before they got to their mad Monday, they went, oh, oh, oh that's right, we're gonna go and get absolutely trolley, you know, shit faced, and we're gonna go completely off the rails, and you can do anything on mad Monday, right? Boy, oh boy, did they just suddenly go, oh my god, there's there's the message. We've just we just stuck a head on a on a stake and put it outside the the castle walls. You now know, don't do it.
SPEAKER_01One of those light, it's a light bulb moment you'd like to think for them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03There's two other things that I probably want to talk about in terms of things that have made me groan, and I've and things that I've grown out of. So initially in the AFL, the big thing this year was the wildcard. They decided to have the wildcard round. And it was and when they announced it, I I was like everybody else, just groaning, going, Oh, this is ridiculous. This is as bad as when they talked to meatloaf for the grand final. Like this nobody is gonna want this. It's a second chance that nobody should get. Either you make the eighth or you don't make the eighth. What are we doing? But when the when the wild card card came around, it was some of the best footy I've ever seen. It was fantastic. The the G was absolutely packed, it was over 90,000 in for two of the games. Oh my god. And it the quality of the football and the desperation, it was just it's here to stay. It absolutely was a master stroke.
SPEAKER_01I would not have expected that, I must admit. Because our uh great friend Peter Vallandis running the NRL, has um decided to steal the idea and wants to implement it for the rugby league as well. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. That's uh that's what he's doing.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, I think a sim similar similar thing. Like I think um the NRL probably stole the march with the whole idea of playing in Vegas, the opening round in Vegas or whatever that was. Yeah, it sort of threw the AFL because they started inventing something that was kind of like not round one but round O or something, something very strange was going on. They sort of split the opening round, so it wasn't all the teams playing on the first weekend, it was like half the teams playing in the weekend, and they were literally just trying to be start the season early, like the NRL were doing, and so they tied themselves up in knots trying to do that. But I don't even know if that's a success. Is that a success, that Vegas thing?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, to a degree, I I guess it is. But it I think it's tough on the teams that have to go there, that's for sure, to go and play there, then fly back and play another round. Um, but they seem to be getting the numbers. Whether it has any appeal to an American audience, I I doubt it. It just seems to pull in Australian, New Zealand, and English tourists that want to go to Vegas and do Vegas things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so it's probably uh it's a win-win for Vegas because yes, more more tourism dollars flowing into the States, which is good, but it's probably a bunch of experts watching the game. So I don't know if it it's actually getting the penetration that they want it to. They just want to get a tiny fraction of the audience in America and it'd be worth absolute fortune.
SPEAKER_01It would, it would, but I I just I can't see it taking off to any extent over there. But uh no, I guess you have to give them credit for trying these things, but uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Hopefully they know when to cut their losses and just get back to the basics and and play good footy. And it speaking of good footy, I think the thing that I I was groaning about at the start of the season, but I'm still groaning about is um the quality of the umpiring in Aussie Rules. I don't know what I don't know what the referee what I don't know what you think about the quality of the referees in rugby league, but it's been doing my head in in the AFL because it feels like there's about a thousand people on there blowing the whistle, and they're all getting there's no consistency. I don't know what one guy at one end of the field is going to pay something, and the guy at the other end of the field isn't gonna pay something.
SPEAKER_01That is the big thing. Yeah. From you know, game to game on the same weekend or weekend to weekend, the the officiating is just it's certainly been the worst year that I can recall for from a consistency point of view. It's it's been hopeless. And that's the best we've got.
SPEAKER_03And you've got the whole you've got the bunker stuff as well, haven't you? You got and the captain's challenge.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's the six-again rule that has got most of the regular Rustadon fans pretty upset because it it changes the momentum of a game so quickly. If you're getting a couple of back-to-back six agains, then the opposition uh they're fatigued, and it just it's it's hopeless. It'll it'll swing again, you know, in a matter of minutes, and there's no coming back from it.
SPEAKER_03So and mostly that's that's judged on hold that's holding the player down and in the tackle too long, isn't it? That's when they normally go here's another six.
SPEAKER_01Well, who can tell? That's it. They just wave their arm, go six again. But there's no explanation. It's all just done on the fly. And that that's what you know people are getting upset about. With the penalty, it's it's clear what's happened. But this you know, six again, six again, six again, there's no no explanation. Everyone's going, even the players are saying we don't know what half of them are for. And it's it's made a huge change to the game. And uh it's uh I'd love to see the back of it, but there's no way it'll happen.
SPEAKER_03The other thing that's weird is of course, as you said, the players are confused and they're sort of you know baffled and and and angry at times. But you know, you've got to be careful because if players start um mouthing off at refs, I know in in uh the AFL more not this year, but last year. I think it was last year, it was when they kind of went, if you if you said something to the to the umpire after he'd paid it a kick and you go, well that's that's bullshit, I don't know what that was. Look at the replay. You just had to look at this at the replay on the scoreboard, that was enough to get a 50 meter penalty awarded against you, and that was happening every week, seems to have disappeared this year. I think I think they've decided they don't want to do it, and that's the players are now starting to mouth off again. Does that happen in the rugby leaders a bit more? Is that a bit of verbal abuse to the reps, or is that just not taken on?
SPEAKER_01Not really, because they've always clamped down on that. Um any any back chat, you'd um you'd get marched 10 metres, and certainly uh you can't take it further, any you know, touching of the referee or anything like that, you'd you'd be sent off. Um so they they've clamped down on that, and it's not too bad. You'll see the odd odd occurrence now and then, but it's it's pretty rare, which um which is a good thing. I mean, I I'm the first one to to have a groan at referees and their performances, but I certainly wouldn't want to be doing the job, but they could have that.
SPEAKER_03No, no, I wouldn't want to be doing the job, but I mean does it pay well? Maybe maybe I do want it. Some of them pretty well.
SPEAKER_01I think it might. Yeah. Certainly in the last two years. Um they've had massive pay rises.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And then we've had, of course, the uh the scandal with one of our highest ranked referees having a gambling problem in his recent history.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was that's not a good look. You don't you don't want those little grey areas you can.
SPEAKER_01That's right. Particularly when the major sponsors are all gambling companies now, so which really talk about grown. That's something that really gets me going. I'd I'd love to see gambling sponsorship taken out of of sport. It's just such a bad mix. And somewhere where you can have an impact on the outcome and you're being paid by gambling companies, dangerous.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think I think they realise it's a it's very hard to get off that drug though, because if you think back to that's right, everything needs to be sponsored by you know Winfield cigarettes, Benson and Hedges cricket, uh, you know, Marlboro on you know Brock's Commodore sort of thing, you know, it was all it was all about and then you had you know foster's foster's Melbourne Cup. Like everything's been beer, cigarettes, all the good things. Now it's it's it's gambling. And if they did rule it out, which they sh they should, well what's well what's left?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well there's the money doesn't come from anywhere else. Although the government are having a pretty good go with this um new PNG rugby league team that's starting up in two years' time.
SPEAKER_03Is that is that a good idea?
SPEAKER_01No. No, you don't bring politics into sport.
SPEAKER_03So I think the re obviously the reason they're doing it is because uh you know, there's obviously they're trying to win friends and influence people and other people.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it is at all under the guise of international relationships and what have you, but yeah, it's not a good look. Huge advantage for for that team. Plus, they're all being given tax-free income. Are they? If you go and play, yeah. So if you go and play for the PNG team, you'll pay no tax on your income. Now that it virtually doubles their salary cap. It's such an unfair advantage to all the other clubs. But uh here we have.
SPEAKER_03How'd that make it have they worked out the logistics? No, of course not. I can't imagine a player wanting to live in live in Port Moresby. I'm I'm gonna fly in and fly out, don't I?
SPEAKER_01No, they they get to live in a compound.
SPEAKER_03Great. I'm living in a maximum security condo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it may not be that bad, but yeah, yeah, I I'd think twice about about making that decision, I think. Wow. But they've signed some some pretty good players already, and why not? You're gonna get double the money without that tax being taken out. But boy, there's there's probably nothing against PNG, but there's better places to live, probably. I don't know what their families do.
SPEAKER_03And but how many how many teams can the NRL have? So the what what will that bring it to when they put PNG in there?
SPEAKER_01It must be They're looking to 20, but they want to keep expanding. This is um this is the Landy's dream to just keep expanding, but the the talent's not there, and you're starting to see it already. Um the the number of players of that have that uh NRL standard in their game, it's just it's not there to support more teams. The only benefit of more teams, I guess, would be in an ideal world, each team plays each other once. Yeah. Because at the moment you've got um a season, yeah, where some teams play others twice and only others once. And yeah, it's not really not really fair, particularly being a Broncos fan, they have to play the top teams twice every year. Drives me nuts.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I just I just wonder whether he's actually diluting you know the value of the franchise. Like the NRL has value and each club you know, if you if you're someone who's put your money into one of the clubs and the number of clubs keeps going up, doesn't that dilute the value of what you've just bought?
SPEAKER_01Well, it does. Absolutely does. Yeah, 100%. But um, they they it's all been driven, I guess, by the TV deals, and the more teams you have, the more games you can have on on broadcast TV or pay TV. So that's what drives it. And it's becoming, I mean, the game is changing completely. It's becoming an entertainment product, and us old groony type people are just saying, you know, we want we want rugby league back to what it what it used to be. I mean, a a game that was you know six all at full time may be an absolutely fantastic game because it's just a hard-fought slog, a massive defensive efforts efforts, but now it's picking pick up the pace, and it's becoming becoming touch football.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the speed of it is phenomenal. And in fact, I you just start to wonder how far a human body can be pushed because it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's it. I think the injury injury tolls uh are probably higher. Um but that needs a bit of genuine research done to confirm that. But certainly, you know, standing back and having a an amateur look at it, there seems to be a lot more uh uh injured players this year compared to previous years. And it's got to be a fatigue driven.
SPEAKER_03It's a weird fusion, it it is entertainment, and then it it's also you know huge money involved. Just jumping jumping to the other side of the Pacific. If you look at uh I saw recently that the LA Lakers, or the guy who'd who'd bought it, had to resell. It after about a year and a half or something, they got into trouble and had to had to get rid of it. He bought it for $10 billion. $10 billion for the LA Lakers. But he managed to offload it for like $12, $12.5 billion. So he's basically in a couple of in a couple of years, he made a two and a half billion dollar profit. So we're obviously in the wrong business, but just shows you the mut the money that's involved in a franchise.
SPEAKER_01That's absolutely mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_03It's mind-boggling, but it but that you're buying something that even if your team is having a bad season, people are riding that wave, they're welded onto your team, they'll buy all the merch, they'll they'll they you know players retire, players, new players join, that you know, someone's recruited, someone's injured. It's like it's it's reality TV on steroids, which is what you were saying about entertainment, but it just keeps renewing itself. Like the LA Lakers story will go on forever.
SPEAKER_01It will, it will. And uh certainly the that whole loyalty thing is is so strong in the AFL, isn't it? It's the league league's a little more fickle, but it's almost a religious thing from what I can gather down in in Victoria, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_03It is pretty pretty religious, but speaking of being fickle, you're still you're still a Broncos fan, aren't you? Sometimes a fair weather fan.
SPEAKER_01No, rock solid. What happened? It was a strange year. There were there are a lot of injuries in key positions, so you've got combinations changing week to week. You've got that premiership hangover that uh obviously hung around for quite a while. So I think it's just one of those ones you have to write it off, pretend it never happens, start again and and see what the new year brings. But again, media, boy oh boy, what an agenda they've had with our coach with uh Michael Maguire.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. He I was gonna say he looks like a guy who's really under siege.
SPEAKER_01Death riding him. And I I don't know what that's all about. Um I know there's a lot of uh upset people in the media when they wrestled Kevin Walters as coach and and brought Maguire in. I think there's some bitterness there, but it's just totally out of hand.
SPEAKER_03I mean, they're they're not going to be satisfied until he's he's fired or resigns, or just there seem to be, I don't know whether the media are onto something or whatever. You said they're sort of riding him pretty hard, and he looks like he's trying to defend himself. There was the whole Reynolds thing, which is a very odd end to a career, and it yeah.
SPEAKER_01That was a a a big misstep for the club, yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's right. Let's play a Kier ad at the stadium while your retiring captain's doing his lap of honor. Yeah, not not a good look. No, no, it was awful. That was disappointing. They they should be better than that. I mean, they're the biggest club in the country. They they need to get on top of that sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah, disappointing. But it happens.
SPEAKER_03So move on. That's that's an that's enough for footy. Well, I'll get I'll get you to nominate who's gonna win the uh NRL grand final. So next time we talk, I can I can laugh in your face.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Or I can tell you you're a genius. Well, do you have any tips? No.
SPEAKER_01Look, realistically, it'd be Penrith as the the most likely again. They missed out last year to the Broncos, but um they'll they'll come good. They they're a big game team. Their fitness and uh the way they play is just extraordinary. How quickly they can turn a defensive moment or a turnover into attack and just get back into formation, and they're extraordinary. Um so I think it'd have to be them. You know, the fairy tale for the NRL would probably be the Warriors from New Zealand winning because they're looking at bringing in another New Zealand team. So if you believe in conspiracies and fairy tales, then New Zealand maybe, but um no Penrith, surely they're just too polished. So yeah, happy to be laughed at.
SPEAKER_03I know, because you've already told me that everyone in Italy is laughing at you, so you know it'll just become the U U. There's a theme here. Uh so that's that uh that's enough of then. I just wanted to go to before we jumped on uh I said I want to have a bit of a chat. I did hit you with three three questions, but I don't know if you've done your your homework.
SPEAKER_01I I never did homework at school.
SPEAKER_03No, I'm sure you do. Why change? I'm sure you were a problem student all the way.
SPEAKER_02Possibly.
SPEAKER_03So uh in no particular order, uh was it the a word, word or phrase that makes you groan every time you hear it? A song title that might sound better if groan was in there somewhere, and the broken body part that makes you uh groan the loudest. So um which one would you like to hit me up with first?
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's so easy to think of words that make me groan. There's plenty of them. And you hear them a lot. Yeah, things like this won't be my answer, but things like um being called legend or champ or or rock star. Oh, yeah, I just drives me nuts. I'm even like you see it on social media all over the place, but I'm even seeing it in work emails where someone will say, you know, hey champ, you're a you're a legend or you're a rock somewhere. A little bit yeah, just a tiny bit professional. But anyway, that's that's that's an aside.
SPEAKER_03So that I I think that's part of um just the modern workplaces and though. I think I think people uh I don't think I fit in anymore. They try to be as positive as possible and as encouraging and acknowledging as possible. So I I kind of I think that's maybe a generational thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that I'm not part of.
SPEAKER_01And well, what it's probably continuing on the generational thing, the the word I'll choose is influencer and being an influencer. Oh and that whole thing just provokes absolute contempt in me. This whole influencer thing where they're there's just these weird empty vessels that um you know they're seeking attention, and the attention's the the only currency that seems to count for them. Drives me nuts. Do you are you seeing influencers in any of your social media spaces?
SPEAKER_03Uh I know I know what you're talking about. I do I find it a really interesting sort of space because I think some of them, as you said, are just empty vessels. Um but it's a genuine, um genuine kind of career path.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's it's a real thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, a lot of POMs have before um before the war broke out and the bombs started raining down uh in different parts of the Middle East, uh like Dubai, which apparently was the the hub for a lot of British uh influences, and they were kind of almost uh state sponsored. They would offer them all these great things, apartments and and you know, money, and you know, be here because we want you to create content about you know this part of the world. So they were doing that up until up until the bombs started dropping. They all packed their bags and got the hell out of there.
SPEAKER_01I'll go and get a real job. I can't I can't uh can't decide which made me groan more, the wellness influences or the travel influences, I guess. The travel ones are hilarious, like they they'll line up for an hour at a at a you know beautiful location to take the perfect photo, but there's you know 4,000 people doing exactly the same thing in a line behind them. It's there's just nothing, I don't know, there's nothing genuine about it. All of a sudden it's uh go it's you know got this currency that I don't understand. But you know, credit to them. They're they're making money, and as you say, it's a it's a genuine career, but uh it just it drives me nuts and yeah, groan.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean there's uh I mean there's not that's not bagging people who are who are content creators, because I mean there's plenty of people who are good content creators are actually providing um you know material that people want to consume and really enjoy.
SPEAKER_01Well, the the standard of it's pretty high, I must admit. Um but then again, there's also some shocking stuff. Some people should not be allowed to own cameras. But uh no, the the the standard of content being produced by you know everyday people is pretty impressive. So I can't groan at that, other than it's destroying the industry that I was in, that my job's become irrelevant. Being taken over by amateurs.
SPEAKER_03It's a very different animal now. It's very funny. We'll have to talk about that one day too, because we could bore people by talking about the uh the evolution of the industry. But anyway. Big changes. So in influences, this is one of those things that just makes your your skin crawl a bit.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it does. It does. And it's not all of it, but let's say it's most of it. Yeah. I just I can't take it seriously. Yeah. And particularly the ones that you know are bursting into tears and oh, I'm so emotional because this is happening. And but buy this product and you know, all will be well.
SPEAKER_03Please. Anyway, that's that's it.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say I I can't avoid it, even my blood type is B negative. So you know it's fate. Yeah, well, it's a fact. Can't fight nature.
SPEAKER_03Oh dear. Well, while you're in that in that you're that negativity uh coursing through your veins, what what it what's actually uh the broken part body part you've at the moment it's my liver.
SPEAKER_01What? After the the four-day festival I've just been through.
SPEAKER_03You've given it a hammering. But you had all those issues too with your didn't your hand give you all sorts of grief too, because you're just editing videos from dusk to dawn for a hundred years.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's it. Everything's broken from poor career choices. Yeah, sitting sitting down in front of computers for you know endless hours for days on end. It's it's not conducive to a a healthy body. And that's probably the the thing I'd pick. And it's it's a common thing, but lower back. Oh boy. Yeah, that that's that's one that's got me. And the stupid thing is, and this is part of being a a male, I think, or an older male, is I've got the exercises, I know what I'm supposed to do to fix it, but yeah, I don't do them, even though I know I should. So you just sort of suffer with it, and and there's there's the groan every morning, getting out of bed.
SPEAKER_03And I think that's also, once again, generational thing. I think we are the workaholics who just sit down and I've got to get this job done, I'll work through lunch, I'll work the weekend, I'll work at night, and I won't take a break. And so you your back's hurting, you your eyes are going because you're stare staring at a screen all day, and then you get sore shoulder, sore wrist. You know, we we do we do it to ourselves, which is crazy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. There's no one else to blame. Um, but the whole thing, oh, well, you you've got to get up every 10 minutes and do a little walk and do everything we do has been deadline driven. You you don't have that luxury. If you've got to sit there and work, you know, for 20 hours straight or whatever, you that's that's what you've got to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you've got you've got a deadline, but you also you you drive yourself because you go it's got to be good, you know, near enough's not good enough.
SPEAKER_01No, it really isn't. You've try and be Mr. Perfect, but uh yeah, it's not easy. I don't know if I've been successful at all, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so the last question is uh a song title. What have we got for a song title?
SPEAKER_01Song titles with swapping out a word.
SPEAKER_03Being groan in there. What about you had your go? Did you go if you go to your back catalogue?
SPEAKER_01A bit of a movie fan, yeah. What about um Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Groan? I like it. Probably not playing within the rules. What about groan hard instead of die hard?
SPEAKER_03That could groan hard.
SPEAKER_01That could be a pretty good movie. That could have been the title.
SPEAKER_03That could have been the title.
SPEAKER_01Groan hard. I'm I'm sure it's a movie, but not one that you'd show to your family.
SPEAKER_03It's a different sort of different genre.
SPEAKER_01Pretty sure, pretty sure. Pretty sure. What about oh bit of going back further? Um, the postman always groans twice. I I don't know. Yes, yes, yeah, who knows. What what about you? Have you? I'm sure you've got one. This is really this is your area of expertise. Oh, wordplay, wordplay is your skill, man. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, kind of, but I kind of also had the puns knocked out of me every time I have to give myself a swift uppercut because I'm always resort to a pun. People don't like puns.
SPEAKER_01Don't they? That's jealousy, that's what it is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I didn't I didn't go, I didn't go, I didn't go into the movie catalogue like you did. I was I was just thinking very simply, I was just going with the old flip with lack. Um, you know, you can groin your groin your own way. I thought that was the that was the way to go. I love I lucky love flipwood back. It's it that's a that's gonna be a guilty plan, isn't it? Like that's that's an album from 77, 78 or something.
SPEAKER_01That's that's where I'm back with all my music at the moment, back in that era. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It it's pretty an extraordinary time, really. And I'm happy to groan at modern music that is just disposable, but that 70s period, holy dooly, that was some extraordinary stuff there. And genuine talent, the musicianship was extraordinary, and the songwriting as well. Yeah, just just an amazing time. But you can't go back, you can't hang on to the past, apparently.
SPEAKER_03Well, do you you do you are you a bit of a bit of a movie fan? You've what have you watched um Almost Famous?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_03Did that did that just captures that whole idea where they're coming out of the 60s, they're moving into the 70s, and they and and uh this kid writing for Rolling Stone, and they're kind of going, look, capture it now, because it's all about to change. This is this is the last vestige of you know art and rock and roll and uh you know a bit of integrity and the whole and the whole thing, yeah. It'll change a moment in time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, good film.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you should do film reviews. Amazing film. Oh, we should do film reviews, yes.
SPEAKER_01Have you seen uh man, that'd be so have you seen or heard The Critical Drinker, the film reviews that he does? No, very good, very good. He's brutal, but yeah, quite insightful as well. Often quite correct.
SPEAKER_03Maybe I should have referred to him before I went and saw the Odyssey. Yeah, I'd have you seen that.
SPEAKER_01I haven't. I'm not I'm not sure whether I will, to be honest. I I don't know what to believe. This is the thing, it's been getting a caning from certain sectors and and huge raps from others. Yeah. I'm sure the truth lies in between somewhere, but I think it is I think it is in between.
SPEAKER_03I think it it'll probably get a couple of nominations for Oscars and various awards, and probably more for cinematography. Right. I think I think um but the fact that they've kind of gone, we're gonna bring back the you know, the whole IMAX camera thing. We're gonna shoot for this thing, we're gonna change the technology so that it's not roaring like a you know a jet engine every time we we say shoot. And then um the fact that he could only like I must have it's got this amazing, huge film that's gone through there because he wants it to be perfect for an IMAX screen. So they would go through a magazine of film in about three minutes. Yes, yeah. So mid-take, not mid-take. Yeah, so you imagine they're having this epic scene where they're fighting the cyclops or you know, someone's dying, or you know, what some amazing moment, and he has to say, stop, just hold that thought, stay in the groove. I'm just gonna go and change the film lag. It'll take me about ten minutes, and then we'll get back to you drowning, drowning in the ocean and the the ship turning over. That must have been a really incredible process. So I think he'll get I think he'll get a gong probably for special effects, it'd be like a Lord of the Rings kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Is there a point to base your whole production on it being shown in a huge cinema screen? I mean, is there is there a future for cinema release for it?
SPEAKER_03I don't know, because I I think if uh in this neck of the woods, the only place you could see it in true IMAX style was uh a theatre on the Gold Coast. I think everything else is a slightly compromised version of it. So he had this vision, but I don't think anyone actually, or very few people have actually seen it the way he wanted it to be seen.
SPEAKER_01No. What a waste. The effort that that has to go into that, but uh and and people will be watching it on their their TVs or phones or whatever.
SPEAKER_03I know, shrink everything down the sides. I think that I for me personally I didn't find that it was um you know emotionally engaging, and I also think that maybe I probably missed a trick on the music because I I think of things like uh Inception, which is a you know big screen movie, the music gets in your head like it's an earworm's you know, Zimmer at his best, and you kind of go, Oh wow, I love that. It's so important. There was no memorable music in uh in Odyssey. I didn't walk out remembering any music.
SPEAKER_01That's a big miss, isn't it? It's such a huge part of the experience. Oh, because you spend a million bucks making it.
SPEAKER_03It's a massive budget. The biggest budget of all time.
SPEAKER_01I hate to think what it was.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well. I mean, I love it when I see you know low budget movies do really well. I think it's great when you see um you know Blair Witch project or something, you know, someone doing something with no money.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's funny, it was just just thinking about that Blair Witch project last week, how that just exploded. And it was a terrible film, it was hopeless, but uh yeah, all the hype around it was was just extraordinary. You know, people lining lining up. I remember I was in America at the time it was released, and there's huge cues of people wanting to get their hands on the VHS tape of it, and just unbelievable. I'd never seen anything like it before.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. They yeah, they definitely nailed the hype. They got people they were able to tease people, it's probably of its era too. I think people were kind of probably wasn't being overanalyzed, but people went, Oh, this looks really cool. This looks really cool, this looks really scary. Um, anyway. But I love the idea that someone can spend stuff all and then make millions of dollars. That's right.
SPEAKER_01It's so good. With all the money they spent on the Odyssey, he could have bought the LA Lakers. Might have had a better return.
SPEAKER_03That is one of the best returns I've ever seen on anyone's investment. Two and a half billion dollars in a couple of years. Wow.
SPEAKER_01Yes. You've got to be on the right uh the right team. You've got to be on the A team to be playing in that field, I think.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I think you've got to be one of the tech, they're the guys, and they're the guys who want to buy all that stuff. They just want to buy stuff that's not gonna go out of style, not making too much.
SPEAKER_01Well, they're the least athletic people that need to buy something that's remotely uh athletic and manly, maybe. I don't know.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_03Something like that. Something like that. Well, I think that's enough. That's enough chatter for today. I think we've um thanks. I just want to say, look, you know, thanks for giving up some of your European vacation to have a chat.
SPEAKER_01No problem at all.
SPEAKER_03You know, maybe next time we we should talk about uh it feels like you're in semi-retirement mode, so next time we should talk about your views on retirement. Trying to be. I guess that are you you're sort of semi-retired. You've done a little bit of work while you're over there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I've got a job I need to knock off today, but um trying to get that that balance right, the clock's ticking age-wise and what have you. And there comes a time where you probably have to change priorities a little bit. And I'm at that point now. Uh the bills keep coming in, so I'll I'll keep doing uh keep doing some work here and there. But the great thing is I I I can do it from over here and and have a um have a nice life here and um and get a little bit of income as well. It's all good. So far, anyway.
SPEAKER_03Well, anyway, thanks, Brett. Thanks for uh tuning in uh at breakfast time. I'll let you get back. You can wander down to the cafe now and uh have yourself a pastry.
SPEAKER_01No, in keeping in keeping with the theme of the show, I think I might go and have a I'll have a negroni. I think that seems the sensible thing to do and sign off with that.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely no. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01No problem. Good to talk to you.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much, Brett. We'll talk again soon.
SPEAKER_01Champ here.
SPEAKER_03Grazie mille. Is that the way you say it? I probably need to move my hand. Grazie.
SPEAKER_01That's the one. Perfect.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, mate. That's all we've got time for today. Thanks for listening to Grown Men. Hope you can join us again soon as we talk about growing old and getting on with it.