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since time began we found ways to settle our differences this town ain't big
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enough for the both of us what you heard looks pretty darn spacious to me there ain't nothing but space but today
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we don't shoot it out we bet it out right draw right jockey man those one shoots out the
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gate bet it out with beta r18 bet responsibly Sean planket welcome to my podcast nice
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to be here do good to see you um first of all I'm very excited about this today
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because um you you and I have sort of met and passing over the years we've had
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a few drinks yeah and I've always enoy parties yeah yeah and you know when I go
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into a room and you're there it's like oh this is good you know you know that
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Sean's good for a chat good for a laugh um good for a bit of Gossip usually yeah
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y always always um not not necessarily factually proven gossip but but fun I mean that's I mean that's the stuff of
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life isn't it that you yarn with people and we interact with people that's what
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life's all about yet if you Google your name you're like one of the most
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despised polarizing hated hated people in New Zealand by some people I I don't bump to
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them very often um apparently I'm controversial I don't mind that um and
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look I have had this my whole life life um and I don't know what it is but I get energy throwing at me good
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and bad and that's a good thing um but you got to take your your lumps and yes
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there is a small group of people who seem to Delight in despising me and you know there bug all I can do about that
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is there isn't there you know well I I don't know I part of me feels like you
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um you you relish being despised like you're you're a [ __ ] ster yeah yeah
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that's right but but look if someone is most people and I love it when I get
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a call on the platform and someone comes in hot and heavy and you do this and you
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do that and I love when people you're always interrupting people I go yes and
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I just shut up and I said anything else you want to say and most people come around and I've
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had lots of calls and even interviews with people and Patty gal would be that interview with Patty paty was all by the
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end of it he was asking me for a job it was fantastic um so just engagement is the joy of it
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whether it's good or bad and look nothing's more boring than sitting in a
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room with everyone agreeing with each other yeah 100% well I'm um why did you
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agree to come here today why are you here today Bella right Bella's dad is an
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old old mate of mine he's a good guy so when Bella Rings if I can do my mate
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being a solid I will brilliant nothing to do with you dog no Bella's um Bella's
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been doing some like guest booking for me for a while now and she's fantastic
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she's absolutely brilliant um first of all who who is who is Shan planket and
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why and why not Oliver when did you drop the Oliver um I'm named Oliver because
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it's an old family name I've always been called Shan the problem was if my
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parents true story though I'm going to digress here my mom wanted to call me
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Barney I think I would have been a terrific Barney I think it would have suited me down to the ground I wouldn't
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end up running a pub somewhere um and my father said if if your choice of name is
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Barney I'll call him a tiller for a second name like a tiller the H so I could have been Barney so Mom just gave
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up and said to Dad you pick the names Oliver is after the saint Oliver blessed Oliver planket P one of the patron
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saints of Ireland whose head sits in a church West of Dublin and he was back down the family line so I'm Oliver to
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carry on that name and I've always been Shan except for Nelson college and if I
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meet someone who calls me olle I know there's someone I went to school with because that was I when I was at Nelson
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college someone went through the Personnel F and real names Oliver let's piss him off and call him olle for the
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rest of his school career and what what were you like um what were you like as a
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kid what was young Sean like were you argumentative and combative sort of back then like I had um a brother and sister
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pretty smart and argumentative and we did a lot of talking in our house and and I guess I'll tell you what
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my I can always remember leaving boarding school and um my housem lovely guy called Harvey Proctor he wrote on
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sort of the general assessment of me on my last school report it said um sha is always willing to express in a
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reasonable manner a contrary View and I just think that is that's kind of me you know a reasonable
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contrary View and not exploring whether or not something is true is really important in in real life and I I'm
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pretty intolerant and I've always been pretty intolerant of being gaset or lied to and
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I really try and look for the truth in every situation I'm in and not pretend
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that the truth isn't the truth I think we all live lives where we construct in
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our heads an idea of who we are or the way the world is often it has no bearing with reality
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whatsoever um and like to live in the real world as bumpy as it might be so you've always been that way yeah yeah I
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think so yeah so why um why a career in um like journalism I I feel I feel you could have been a fantastic like a
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criminal defense lawyer you could have been like a like a Greg king or a Mike buay I actually wanted to be an actor
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did you I really loved singing uh dancing and appearing on the stage did you and I once again at school
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I did a lot of drama and did a lot of debating as a young man and um I had an opportunity when I was in I
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think the fifth for or whatever year that's called now and I got offered free
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acting lessons because some people had seen me act and said we will um give you free acting lessons and to do it I was
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going to have to um I was at boarding school I was going to have to have two nights a week
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when I went to this acting acad and Nelson and my dad and my house Master put the kibos on it and I of looked back
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and said I should have told them to get stuffed and just done it um but the reason I
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guess journalism came along was it is or broadcast journalism is kind of a mixture of acting and probably
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a little bit of AD advocacy and a bit of law um and my dad was a journalist yeah
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Pat yeah really well really well respected right well depends who you depends who you talk to um look I quite
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successful yeah quite successful and he had a long career and he was uh uncompromising in his career he did a
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lot of things and gosh a lot of people I work with now got their first jobs from
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Dad way back in the day I think Barry SOA got his first job in television from my old man wow Mark sainsbury worked for
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him kri woodam worked for him so and Dad stayed sort of true to and he never called it a profession he says it's a
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vocation or a craft cuz you don't need a degree to be a journalist and you don't
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need any form of tery qualification you don't get your ticket you just say I'm a
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journalist and you learn by doing and um you know Dad was right up till about 6 months before he died um he was still
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covering court for the Dom he was still down there and I think uh one person said to me at his funeral they said your
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father was the only guy who could cover three court cases from the back bar at the back bench
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when when did he pass um got 17 18 years ago okay after what um dad said he he said um this isn't a battle with cancer
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it's a freaking Massacre and I'm on the wrong side of it yeah cuz he yeah he he
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had uh lung cancer right he was a he smoker yeah um but but that wasn't what
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killed him the tumor in his brain was Tiny But mzed and he got brain lesions and stuff and it was a pretty awful it
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was a pretty awful way to Jo to be honest yeah it's Grim you know yeah it is and and you you had a good
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relationship like did you did you get into journalism because I'll be honest
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so my parents split up when I was five and Dad remarried which was okay but I really didn't see much of
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dad till I left school and took up journalism we really got to know each other in my early 20s because we had the
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Shar vocation thing so but I don't ever felt like I missed out on on anything
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with Dad he was a really good Mentor and I still have days when I think gez I'd
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like to ask Dad how I should play that um because he did have a lot of life experience yeah do you think um I don't
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know if if you've thought about this too much but do you think subconsciously
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maybe you got into journalism because you wanted to like impress him or I'll be honest I'm a lazy preg and it
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was the easiest thing I could do it was just sitting there why not you know I don't know there was a whole lot of you
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know father son uh competitive stuff going on and he did say you know dad was in his time you know a bit of a legend
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but I met so many contemporaries of his and friends of his who said he may not have ever told you but your dad was so
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proud of you um and he wasn't he of a generation where you probably don't
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you're not that express it so much but um certainly as he was passing we had
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some great conversations and I think we got each other yeah yeah yeah uh I heard
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that from um an early age like your goals were to be um the host of fgo and Morning Report which what age are we
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talking cuz you both got those jobs so I used to we used to get up in the morning
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and I was ly gety under bed my we had a big old grammophone and dad was actually the
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first Chief reporter on Morning Report when it got set up but we would start the day at s my brother would wind up
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this valve radio on Morning Report so I woke up from about the age of 10 or 11 every morning listening to morning
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report and by the time and then fear go started I can remember watching that thinking that's a great show and I kind
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of put my mind there are two jobs I'd like to do I'd like to present morning
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report and I'd like to be on Fair go what age like 10 about 12 I think 12 intermediate age you're very young yeah
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yeah yeah and you got both I got both of them yeah so how how did you feel recently when um your F guy got canned
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is there like a I thought it was a a freaking travesty M um and to be honest all this other crap on TV and those are
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the programs you choose to X and it was almost like the management or the culture at tvnz was giving middle New
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Zealand a big finger saying oh well you don't like what we're doing you don't
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like us being woke we'll teach you um and I really do think I really loved working on fgo that's some of the best
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journalism I ever did how long were you there for I about 3 years I think on fgo
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with Kevin Mo Brett dumbleton was there um Leanne Clark Rosy Nelson and it was just it was the days before the internet
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man we got letters from people complaining about stuff we had to get pick up the phone phone books stuff like
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that but it was a really disciplined and I I think I learned an awful lot about journalism and checking your facts and
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getting your story straight and also about the people that you deal with and often you were dealing with people who
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had been through quite traumatic issues and we're being jerked around and we
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solved as many stories off here as we did on here and it was really you know it was quite an amazing project to be
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involved in yeah yeah it was it was a huge show um yeah I had Hayden Jones who spent a bit of time on Figo on the
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podcast about a year ago we were rumin missing about like you know growing up and this is probably when you were on
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fgo but you'd over hear people in shops saying I'm going to take this to Fe and
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gez you would pick up the phone and say hello it's Sean oh and the business you hear this
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big take a breath um you then now people just film it and put it on Tik Tok yeah that's
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right yeah they just hold their phone out don't they there's no romance in
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that is there yeah yeah yeah um you said just before you're you're a lazy person
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um but I I'd dispute that because um actually we might bounce around a little
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bit here there's no sort of order of things but um you're wearing a t-shirt
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that says the platform um the platform is um a venture that you set up you you've you've set up this business so
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you're a CEO you're the breakfast host as well that would suggest anything but
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[ __ ] lazy well how old are you now you 60 I'm I'm just about I'm about to
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turn 60 in September um you're probably working harder than what you've ever
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worked in your life yeah and I feel younger than I ever have and I think in broadcasting
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careers I mean you know it's a long bloody hul and I and this September will
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be 40 years working in in broadcasting I began work September 84 um after the snap
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election um yes so so tell us about the platform so you you were on a station called um Magic Talk and you got um you
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got [ __ ] canned by media works well I got who knows what happen I think I the cancel culture came for me yeah and I to
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be honest I didn't spend too much time interrogating what happened as I said I
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like living in the real world the writing was on the wall they paid me a bit of money to go quietly
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uh and they they didn't publicly say anything nasty about me and that happens
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you know jobs gigs come to an end it is the natural thing and I reckon in this game and in broadcasting it is can you
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reimagine yourself are you going to get up and go again and it's really strange
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because I had had before that happened that came a bolt out of the blue one white Tang weekend I'd already been
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formulating my head this idea that the news media and and radio stations and television
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stations weren't really operating in a way that was going to be sustainable when you looked at social media and the
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way the me the landscape was changing so I'd already had this idea that I was stuck in a sunset
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industry and I was bored to be honest I mean I love doing talk back and talking to people but when I looked at the
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bigger picture I wasn't as engaged as I should have been so we in the hammer f
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fell media works I um already had this plan in my head and I gave myself 6 months to put this thing together and
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I've never run a business before um and but you know I literally got in my car I
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started driving around the country talking to people that might want to invest um and that became my thing and it still
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is my thing and I I don't feel like I'm I feel like I'm engaged with the world
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and I don't clock in pull my paycheck and go home at 5:00 which is a really neat way to be at the age of 60 because
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most people and I have got a lot of mates who are you know working less hours looking forward to the gold card
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and I don't I feel like there's another at least 10 years of dynamic change and
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activity to go you I think there's there's two ways of looking at it a so
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I've had um I had Paul Henry on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and he he hates the idea of working
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loves his retirement and then you got someone like hosing who just loves it and will die behind the microphone um so
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I think there's no sort of right or wrong but yeah I like I saw my granddad he was a school principal and then he
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retired at 60 or whatever and he was dead like 12 years later like retirement is um it's a mugs game for a lot of
00:16:17
people it's dangerous and to be honest the other thing about I guess the platform is it's lovely for the first
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time in my life to be in control um and and also to be honest to have we've got all together I think
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about 14 staff and it feels kind of good that I get up every morning and I'm
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providing an environment for other people some of them my contemporaries some of them much younger to be involved
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in media and and and I that's probably the most satisfying thing is that I've
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got a team of people and that's the biggest responsibility is that I want to keep
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them moving forward with their careers yeah okay so for anyone that's just hearing about the platform for the first
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time now how would you how would you describe it what's like the elevator pitch that's an app we're a New Media
00:17:08
Company um and that's what I call us we are internet TalkBack radio and we engage in current affairs and if you
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like the culture wars and we are an interactive a truly interactive media platform um and that was you know that
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was the philosophy of it to engage people in a new way using the technology that was available and it's not about
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having a transmission tower or having a receptionist and a whole corporate structure um the biggest the biggest
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problem I've had is that I always work for organizations and I was a foundation
00:17:47
pupil of TV3 when that started back in ' 89 I was are you doing Nightline night
00:17:53
line yeah yeah yeah um that was iconic back then I had that spirit of being new and
00:18:00
different and it's really energizing I'm I'm a startup kind of guy but media works and all media
00:18:07
companies very quickly can become fundamentally just you know advertising departments
00:18:14
with a bit of broadcasting tacked on and I never want to be the platform from that what we do in our engagement is the
00:18:22
primary mission of our organization not to make shite loads of money off manipulating data or man
00:18:30
manipulating an audience because everywhere I've worked ends up being the sales people are far more valued than
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you know those who engage the presenters yeah well you're being from a radio
00:18:42
background as well like I you know the uh the figures the survey figures are kind of cooked it's like we but I I um
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sometimes I get served um the platform content on YouTube and the analytics don't lie they're right there in bold
00:18:57
for everyone to see like we are still in terms of marketing and selling advertising the world is in chaos and
00:19:07
the old radio book is not going to survive this so it is about engagement and also about and I've been
00:19:16
really lucky with the advertisers we've got we've had fan advertisers and some
00:19:19
of them are big companies they've been very loyal to us and I know it sounds counterintuitive
00:19:25
but they don't always advertise on the plat form because the strict figures are
00:19:32
there and they can point to a you know a data point yeah it's not about the return on investment they it means that
00:19:37
their company identifies with the spirit of what the platform is and that's an
00:19:41
independent engaged it's honest and that's a good brand value to be alongside now when I start of course
00:19:47
everyone was saying you're a Nazi um you're a Mis you're a misogynist um this
00:19:53
will fail and I justly said well screw you we're just going to be what we are
00:19:58
and we are honest straight up engagement platform for people and we will let anyone have their say as long as they're
00:20:06
not inciting violence um or doing anything illegal are you are you a Nazi or a mogist time I look I love woman right um
00:20:16
and um no I don't think I'm a Nazi but you know a lot of people throw that word
00:20:21
around does does it um and I even get called rightwing and I'm not even rightwing right you know my dad taught
00:20:28
me I never knew how my dad voted and he always said if you want to be a journalist never go on a protest March
00:20:34
never join a club so you've got no skin on the game and you can look objectively
00:20:38
at the world in front of you and I have pretty assiduously um done that um so when
00:20:45
people say you're rightwing no I'm not I'm just not leftwing and the truth and
00:20:49
the truth is most journalists are leftwing and look I predicted when we set up the platform I went and gave a a
00:20:58
talk to the New Zealand initiative and that was when the dip and Trust had just started the first of the
00:21:04
surveys were coming out 3 years ago and Trust was down media was down to 58% and I said at this conference and I
00:21:11
Petty I didn't um you know record the speech I said that is going to dip down
00:21:16
to 35% in the next 3 years mainstream media companies are going to lose their revenue and there's got to be a new way
00:21:22
of doing things um and we were bang on we were bang on yeah Legacy Media is eroding at an alarming rate yeah it's
00:21:31
terrifying actually how quickly it's happening yeah but I don't think and I'm
00:21:35
sick and tired of reading stories about how this is a threat to democracy it isn't it's just a
00:21:41
change imagine how much media change when radio became idly available or the bloody printing press as long as your
00:21:50
values are the same you're going to be all right and the technology you've got
00:21:54
to adapt to and and move around um and still you know we spend a lot of time on the platform saying well that's not
00:22:02
working anymore because the environment's changed so we're going to have to you know we're going to have to
00:22:07
alter that yeah also if you're one of these media companies and you're you're
00:22:10
posting a loss of like 30 million or whatever every year eventually like you know you need to you need to do
00:22:16
something to stop the bleeding well without giving you any numbers I looked at what magic talk did after we left and
00:22:22
and sure enough they destroyed the brand and then they went to create Today FM which was kind of a millennial TalkBack
00:22:30
show now that's not a TalkBack audience and it was never going to be so I would
00:22:36
estimate the media Works burnt about $18 million with Today FM and they never rated what we did cuz I could I had ways
00:22:45
of telling so they never came near us um 18 million is a factor of four or more on what has been spent in the
00:22:55
entirety of the platform wow yeah so who's who so who bankrolled the platform some I um my
00:23:04
primary investors are a group a family called the right family out of tonger uh they run a charitable
00:23:10
Foundation which has got nothing to do with the platform which runs about 280 early childhood education um services
00:23:18
around the country and then they have the business arm of the family um which has helped bankroll the platform and I
00:23:26
spent a long time looking for the right people and I had a number of people who wanted to invest and you
00:23:32
know um but I always said to them and the editorial control of the platform rests with me as the founding editor and
00:23:41
me alone and you don't get to use it for your political points of view and you
00:23:47
don't get it to interfere in editorially what happens on the platform and I got close with a couple
00:23:54
of people and then it became quite obvious that they were never going to stick by that m absolute Bedrock
00:23:59
commitment and the rights have they've been awesome so what what's in it for
00:24:04
them um do they are they are they just like banking on you as a man look I'll tell
00:24:13
you how I pitched it I met them I went and met them in towerer I drove I here's
00:24:17
a story I've been up talking to NL Edmonds from no's house party no's house
00:24:23
party I'd gone up to M car to talk to no and Pitch the project to him and we were actually having quite a good
00:24:32
discussion and but I knew we weren't going to get there I I knew not nothing
00:24:37
wrong with no lovely guy and great company but that the objective and the vision I had wasn't going to be able to
00:24:44
line up and I was sitting on a beach at Omaha Beach and I don't know it was 6
00:24:49
months after magic T the payment was running out and jeez and the phone went and and it was
00:24:59
Wayne Wright Senior and someone had said to him that guy sh planket that you hear on used to
00:25:05
hear on Magic Talk he's doing something and he said I hear you doing some sort
00:25:10
of media thing I'd like to meet you so I drove down to Tanga um and I saw them I think the next
00:25:18
afternoon and sat down with them and after 5 minutes and I said the pitch was do you
00:25:23
guys want to change the world I said I think the media's a bit broken I think
00:25:27
New Zealand's a bit broken and it needs a place for people to have better conversations and I think the media
00:25:32
landscape's changing and Legacy Media don't know it um I said so really I
00:25:37
don't know if we'll ever make any money um but we're going to change the world
00:25:42
and that's why they did it and that's why I do it and I think that's a really
00:25:45
good motivation even for a business can you can you say how much their initial investment was or no we're not publicly
00:25:52
listed um but you know they've spent a bit they haven't spent 18 million
00:25:58
I can tell you that and I'm I'm guessing I don't even know if you'd know this
00:26:03
information but they must have got some backlash from people we we were really honest about
00:26:08
that and particularly in the early days there was you know the W Brigade and the
00:26:11
cancel culture Brigade came for us um but they're solid people dug their toes in well they didn't dig their toes
00:26:19
in they just most often you'll find you know the online bullies and the internet
00:26:23
bullies and the cancel culture people you ignore them and they go away um and you know that's just what we did and
00:26:31
look I'll be honest they don't always agree with what I do um I get to make
00:26:36
the decisions but when they disagree with me I get the odd phone call and I said yeah well that's great I can see
00:26:42
that you see it that way but it's my call um so it's a good creative tension
00:26:47
um that we've got uh and I don't think there would be anyone else in New
00:26:51
Zealand who would have allowed the platform I I said I got incredibly lucky no one else would have given given me
00:26:59
the freedom and the ability to set it up in the time we did you know if if they if if they took away the um that
00:27:08
pipeline now would you be financially viable could you make it work we're bloody close yeah really we're bloody
00:27:13
close but you know the next six months I think for any business anywhere in New Zealand is going to be incredibly tough
00:27:18
because we are in recession and I also think in media the advertising Market itself and how we as we talked earlier
00:27:27
how we measure what audiences or how engaged an audiences that is all going to change
00:27:33
and I think people are very um the people in the middle who clip the ticket on Advertising they're very unsure as to
00:27:41
what they should be buying or how they should be buying I'll tell you what we
00:27:45
use and I can be accurate about it time spent listening online so I'm not in a I'm not broadcasting so I'm not
00:27:54
you know I'm not in a radio book but I can tell because of how we stream through the app and through the website
00:28:00
I can tell live hours spent listening on devices and I'll give you a figure we
00:28:05
average per month about 470 480,000 live hours spent listening everything on the Rover app
00:28:17
all eight stations they've got they get 2 million live listening hours through
00:28:22
that app a month so I've got about a quarter with one wow channel in my app and that is that gives you a level of
00:28:30
Engagement but the other thing is people can say there's the number there's time spent listening cumulative
00:28:37
audience and everything but are they really engaged no of are they really loving what they
00:28:46
do and I'll tell you what I absolutely adore about the platform I know CU I'm watching the text
00:28:54
we get hundreds and hundreds of texts a day and we get calls and everything and people are really listening and part
00:29:01
of the goal of the platform was to build uh what Kevin Roberts from s used to call a love Mar I've got the book I
00:29:10
love it yeah and I went and I went and did a lot of conferences back in the day where Kevin would be a speaker and I
00:29:17
listened to every time he gave a speech and the platform has been designed to be
00:29:22
a love Mark and that is first build a consistent product that knows what it is and what it's trying to be and you don't
00:29:28
try and overreach that and then that product should occasionally and almost erratically absolutely delight and
00:29:36
engage its audience so listening to me on the radio should be a bit like watching a Formula 1 race you know he's
00:29:43
going fast and he's going to go around all the corners but he might crash and
00:29:47
often he does and often he does and that's what you listen for and the truth
00:29:51
is I don't know sometimes what's going to happen next on a show and we throw it
00:29:55
out there but I've never you know uh you get through it you know yeah Kevin Roberts I haven't heard that name is he
00:30:02
still alive Kevin Roberts got me toed out of saari sari's went through the big
00:30:07
at the time of the me too Kevin Roberts basically got Easter side um but still a
00:30:11
brilliant New Zealander was it Justified or no well I don't know who know know
00:30:16
his love marks book it's phenomenal and then he then he this is um actually I
00:30:20
must reread it cuz I've got this book as well he he followed it up with a book
00:30:23
called syo which um stands for sight sound motion and he was the this before everyone was walking around with an
00:30:29
iPhone he just talked about the future being screens and he's 100 110% spot on
00:30:34
yeah absolutely dead right yeah so that was so when you think about it I'm not a
00:30:40
business I'm a love Mark I'm a change agent and we can redefine what we are
00:30:47
individually or collectively and we can do that as many times as we want in our lives cuz
00:30:53
otherwise you're dead if you're not changing if you're not moving you well
00:30:58
you know yeah daisies you it's I mean um yeah you you've been doing this almost
00:31:02
40 years now the media thing um is is the and you've done it just just about
00:31:06
every job imaginable and been fired from almost well no here here's the truth
00:31:11
I've never been fired no and I wasn't fired for magic talk I've never been
00:31:15
fired I've been sued for leaving jobs when I left um when I was uh this there must there's a lot of indas around
00:31:25
no no I was at I was no no well not as far I know oh there's one that radi maybe when I left
00:31:32
TV3 when I got approached by Kevin M from Fe go to go on F go I looked at my contract with TV3 and said that
00:31:38
contract's [ __ ] it's never ending it's got no specified Clause so I handed
00:31:42
him a notice and I said well you can't go we're not going to let you go and I
00:31:47
said what do you mean I said no we own you and at that stage TV andz and TV3 had a very cozy
00:31:54
relationship that they would basically trade staff among themselves they were running a closed shop so suddenly I get
00:32:01
a call from Fair goat we can't hire you we withdraw and I said no you've got a
00:32:04
written contract so I got a very highly qualified qcm and we constructed a case and we went to TV and said and said Mr
00:32:13
planket is going to successfully sue you for his entire life earnings unless you
00:32:17
honor that contract and they read who it was from and they he's got us he's got us so then
00:32:25
they said okay let's do the deal if you can get yourself fired from TV3 so that they have no contractual
00:32:32
hold over you you'll be back on so I got another lawyer um to work for me at TV3 who knew
00:32:40
nothing about what was happening at TV andz and one day I was not in good odor at that stage and I'd been pulled out of
00:32:47
Parliament and I was being sent to cat up tree stories and I got assigned a cat up tree story in paliston north and
00:32:53
instead I went to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants Fone goes hello oh where are you I said I'm at
00:33:01
lunch um what do you mean you're not pal North no didn't think it was much of a
00:33:06
story well you know what this means y yep yep yep okay and Rod peton who was the in boss of TV3 news came down the
00:33:13
next day tears in a SI that's it you're over and everyone thought that fair go
00:33:18
had also pulled and that I my career i' blowing up my career but he kind of and
00:33:22
I broke my [ __ ] swipe card over and and I was marched out with my lawyer just going Sean my TV3 Sean how could
00:33:31
you do that it just destroyed your C I said hang on borrow your phone rang the producer F you go said
00:33:36
yeah I just been fired okay start Monday thank you and I said send me send me your bill I Beck and we kind of broke
00:33:44
the closed shop that broke the closed shop where tvnz and TV3 were trading people like freaking
00:33:50
Commodities um and I look back and that's a great that was a great thing I did and I got the job at Figo and I know
00:33:56
four years later I was back working for TV3 what a career oh and you did 14 years on um Morning Report I should I
00:34:04
should have done seven with um with um Jeff Robinson who was there for now um hand on heart um and I don't say this
00:34:11
with a great deal of Pride but I've never heard morning report in my life yeah cuz I was doing morning radio on a
00:34:16
on a a music station so I've never heard it but it's um so it's an institution
00:34:20
right and this guy Jeff Robinson there for 40 years you were there for when I listened to morning report as
00:34:26
a 12-year-old and said want to do that Jeff was presenting it right so I end up and I didn't know how I was in my 30s or
00:34:35
something then and that was just awesome and I didn't really get comfortable in
00:34:40
that job for two years because it's a hell of a it's a hell of a discipline
00:34:45
what what is Morning Report like a three-hour breakfast show it's a three-hour breakfast show that has no
00:34:50
ads in it and is all news breaking news and interviews from New Zealand and around the world it was and its day the
00:34:56
most comprehensive of news show made in New Zealand and we would get in there 4:30 every morning we'd start doing
00:35:03
pre-record with overseas correspondence and we'd run through 9:00 and we would
00:35:07
do I think Jeff and I we did eight interviews each morning eight hard News interviews each morning so we' notes to
00:35:15
brief uh on that so you know I've done literally thousands and thousands of News interviews as a result there and I
00:35:22
should have quit after 7 years and I stayed for 14 and I was like is always a good time and and the last seven years
00:35:30
were pretty um I was kind of bued out and I didn't even know because those hours kill you um they that's hard but
00:35:40
proudly I would say in our last seven years um that was the last time anyone beat ZB in The Breakfast slot Morning
00:35:47
Report was super successful um then it was the highest rating thing on radio so much so that they took non-commercial
00:35:55
radio out of the ratings yeah that's right right because we were making the change the rules and I look back look
00:36:02
farg go was the highest rating TV show when I worked on Morning Report was the highest rating um Jo so those are kind
00:36:08
of those are I guess career highlights yeah for sure um why did you stay seven years too long was the the money really
00:36:15
good or you just had nothing else to do Mone was crap I've never really worked
00:36:18
for money unfortunately well like can you say what it is now in like couple hundred thousand a year no it was way
00:36:24
less than that right [ __ ] I mean way less than that it was public service right so so at the time holes would have
00:36:30
been on ZB what would he would have been earning 600,000 yeah yeah yeah and I probably was earning 120 why do people
00:36:37
go a Morning Report then just the pr because because it's the was the best freaking journalistic show in the
00:36:42
country and it was you know yeah but if you're good you want to be paid fairly
00:36:47
oh I've never really done this for the money which is probably a failing but do I but do I love what I'm
00:36:54
doing do I get up every morning and want to go to work getting paids an incidental um but I probably stayed too
00:37:02
long because I was just physically burnt out uh and because that was where I first became aware of and I I told you I
00:37:11
like to see things as they really really are and I would describe it I suddenly realized I was a bit of a high priest I
00:37:18
mean I can remember somethingone saying to me I go to meetings of public servants and they're trying to think up
00:37:22
of what awards they can make to give to you and I suddenly realized I had certainly amongst the government cicles
00:37:29
and the Morning Report listeners um I was a celebrity but then I looked at some of the editorial
00:37:37
decisions we were making and some of the way rnz ran I thought this isn't as
00:37:42
straight as it should be and I kind of became a ghost in the machine and I had some pretty nasty
00:37:52
things done to me by management there and I could see the politics of why they were trying to get rid of me and I dug
00:37:58
my feet up what's sort of nasty stuff oh I had a I had a private conversation with a
00:38:07
manager at my home recorded and then a selective transcript linked to another manager to try and get
00:38:13
that manager to fire me and I took the chief executive of Radio New Zealand I took a dispute against her I never asked
00:38:20
for any money I asked for her to admit that she'd done it and apologize and she
00:38:25
did but I thought that would be the end of it no for the next 5 years you know once a month I had a uh QC on retainer
00:38:33
once a month they were trying to find some way to fire me and the wonderful thing was all the people I worked with
00:38:38
in the program knew what was going on and they didn't push me out it was a different battle I thought and I'm a
00:38:48
pretty stubborn bastard and I can remember actually Linda Clark who knew what was going on
00:38:54
she was working um doing 9: to noon then and she wed past one day she said I don't know how you do it I don't know
00:39:01
how you survive it but it was bloody-mindedness and after seven years and they couldn't get rid of me I just
00:39:07
said I'm tired and I need to go and do something else you know so you just stayed there that long because of your
00:39:13
stubbornness flipping in the and I didn't want the cancel culture I didn't
00:39:17
want the Pricks to win right and this is pre sort of cancel culture as we know yeah yeah internal you could see
00:39:25
underneath and this is the problem the media in general and this is why there's
00:39:29
no trust I can remember a political editor at Radio New Zealand one election there was an issue that was running and
00:39:35
I was doing very very hard interviews with the minister of the ground that was clearly damaging Labor's polling they
00:39:41
were the government at the time was Helen Clark and I got hauled aside by the radio New Zealand politican taught
00:39:47
me for a coffee and he said you've got to lay off Maran Hobs and I said why he
00:39:51
said we could lose and I said what do you mean we and he said well the Govern we could lose the election and I just
00:39:59
said to him mate never haul me for you're paying for the [ __ ] coffee and never say that to me again and I
00:40:06
suddenly realized the inherent bias that was accepted and is accepted now at places like TV andz and rnz and I'm
00:40:14
sorry news Hub and everywhere else and it's not impartial journalism I don't know that we can ever
00:40:21
be truly impartial as individuals but that should be the goal man we shouldn't
00:40:26
abandon that as a good idea if you want to you know be fair and be trusted why does no one trust the media cuz they're
00:40:33
not freaking trustworthy you know yeah yeah yeah yeah it feels like there that was um I don't know at least
00:40:42
from an outside as a casual Outsiders perspective it feels like um after Morning Report there was almost like a
00:40:47
like a change in you like a pivot would that be fair to say it feels like you were this you were the sort of
00:40:54
straight I wasn't the ghost in the machine anymore and because I'd rejected the idea of
00:40:59
being this constructed sort of cheerleader for stuff I didn't believe in what cancel culture does and what
00:41:06
power structures do if you're not with them you're against them so I suddenly
00:41:11
got painted as the Nazi as the right ring as the misogynist it was complete [ __ ] but that's what happens to
00:41:18
people that's how cultures work that's how societies coer and control people so
00:41:23
I went to ZB uh and enjoyed there doing a regional show and then I went to live and then
00:41:30
magic and kick around a bit in between um and I guess and I'll be honest the left people
00:41:39
on the left chose to paint me into a corner and there were a couple individuals who who waged personal
00:41:45
campaigns against me this guy David fer who makes these weird movies with public
00:41:50
money um The Campaign he ran against me and still runs against me to this day and his funny little web stack thing is
00:41:59
the most bizarre piece of character assassination I've ever seen you do you do have a neck of getting under some
00:42:06
people's skins well I don't know why I hardly ever met the guy yeah is there
00:42:11
any personal dealings no I met him once I think when I couldn't I got kicked out
00:42:16
of some film doing or was ages ago but he's really got an issue with me and I
00:42:20
don't know why what what about um other enemies is is Patty G an enemy no pett
00:42:25
fire is that is that Friendly Fire well look look we're all in the game we are
00:42:30
all in the game and what's you know no news is bad news and as I said my whole
00:42:36
life I've got this thing I tend to for some reason I'm a lightning rod for good
00:42:40
and bad um so when you say there was that change in me there was because I'd
00:42:45
walked away from playing the old game and it was far less comfortable it was far less
00:42:54
establishment but I could still sleep straight in my bed at night right was it a case of s not wanting to tow the
00:42:59
company line anymore well not the company line wanting to be true to the ideals I guess that my dad had instilled
00:43:06
me and that life had instilled me is that you try and be straight and honest with people have real
00:43:12
conversations um you are not nasty to the PE people just for being nasty and you report fairly inaccurate
00:43:20
and not people say both sides of a story any story has more than two sides all you're looking for is the truth you know
00:43:29
and that really and even doing a talk back show in Cy about current affairs is journalism I'm still looking for the
00:43:36
truth and the great thing is that people who are listening know that and they know you know I think we're in moment
00:43:43
we're at a moment in our culture where people suddenly realize it's okay to say
00:43:49
look the emperor's got no clothes and I think maybe for the last seven or eight
00:43:53
years everyone was too afraid to say that M and it's a neat change you know but there have been some like um some
00:44:00
some moments that sort of I suppose like spikes where you you cross over into mainstream for things you've you've said
00:44:07
and done and like one of them that Springs to mind is the the Tweet um about Harvey W and and that was and I
00:44:14
think that was the first social media cancellation right of and I think that led to things sort of going off it live
00:44:22
and I did kind of do it as a social experiment but dun can grieve in the spin off just piled in on that and I
00:44:30
also realized I had people who was I was trying to deal with in ministries who were retweeting it and I see I said what
00:44:37
the f are you doing and it was clearly a tweet that was designed to be taken many
00:44:42
different ways I said is anyone else feeling for Harvey Weinstein yeah by the way feeling
00:44:49
what and I was just watching and he was being cancelled on a global scale and it
00:44:55
was an example of just how powerful this new monster of social media interaction
00:45:01
was so it was an observation but suddenly as K Coach Works the people who have issues with me decided I was Harvey
00:45:11
Weinstein but we what I can remember being interviewed by a guy Adam duding who was doing a profile on me he said
00:45:18
and he said in have you ever sexually assaulted someone or anything I said no of course I haven't I trying to draw a
00:45:26
correlation between your tweet and but why would you even dip your toe in that water oh hell because you're a [ __ ]
00:45:34
Ste it's a free country you're allowed to say anything you want aren't you yeah
00:45:41
you are well you are but then yeah you and if anyone if anyone is freaking stupid enough to think that makes me a
00:45:48
monster then they're idiots but it was that did have probably for me massive
00:45:54
consequences and I still meet people who say now that I've met you you're not at
00:45:59
all the person that I thought you were yeah and there's nothing I can do about
00:46:05
there and in this modern day there's nothing any of us can do about it you know um David F still writes the
00:46:13
craziest [ __ ] about me and I suppose I could sue him for defamation he threatened sue me for defamation said he
00:46:18
definitely would and he never did wouldn't wouldn't your life be just so much so much more more tranquil
00:46:26
though with without these little these little fires to put out or I I get the feeling you quite enjoy it well it's
00:46:32
like a sport is it life's not boring life's not boring it be so much easier yes so the Weinstein thing so you
00:46:45
you just got a job as one of the the panel or whatever on the broadcasting standards Authority and then they oh now
00:46:52
so that was weird so I go to my first BSA meeting and we've got a a petition from action station online
00:47:01
which is a branch of the green party and I'm talking to these other board members and I said yeah we'll just
00:47:08
carry on with the meeting and they all these people are saying this in Social so so what and I sat in that meeting it
00:47:14
just became obvious to me I was sitting around with a bunch of people with no guts who were going to be influenced by
00:47:20
and I said you can't figure out a way out of this CU you can't find me because
00:47:24
I'm appointed by the governor general and they and I said but you don't want
00:47:28
to support me do you said I'm going to make it easy for you said I'm going to
00:47:33
resign CU I'm not making the boat go faster I said now I'm probably going to
00:47:38
have to write the press release for you because otherwise you st yeah that'd be
00:47:42
really helpful so shortest career on the BSA ever um and you know what did I lose by that I got a
00:47:51
life experience I learned something about structures I don't know was was has that been a challenging time though
00:47:57
was that a challenging time or oh yeah yeah I think it was I I think I sent you a DM at the time I don't know I don't
00:48:04
have Twitter or any any more challenging than anything else probably not actually
00:48:10
what what is the biggest adversity you've gone through personal or professional I think the hardest thing
00:48:18
I've ever done is be a dad um and without a portioning blame I think anyone who's had and gone through
00:48:27
a divorce when I look at it those are probably that is because I think we build up expectations as we want to do
00:48:35
better than our parents did towards us and everything and I think having divorce and that feeling of letting your
00:48:41
kids down is bloody difficult and I'm uh and my ex and the whole family are way out the other end of it now but
00:48:49
when I look back um I think geez that was you know that was a hard time you so you you've
00:48:55
only been married the one time just the one and just the one son and one son who's in his like mid late 20 mid 20s
00:49:01
yeah yeah yeah um how long were you married um well I was with my partner for 14 years yeah it's [ __ ] hard hey
00:49:08
it's hard I um yeah I'm the same as you I'm one down yeah um and it's hard you
00:49:14
feel like a failure and also I got to say my job made and my public notoriety made then and still makes
00:49:24
relationships bloody difficult does it cuz people say to your partners oh what are you seeing what are you doing and or
00:49:31
they say or you should do this you should stop doing that you shouldn't say that well you never say that to Sean
00:49:37
plank I'm just going to say it louder aren't I um oh God so that public Persona yeah um
00:49:47
which isn't me um can't help but seep into your private life well and it seeps
00:49:52
into your private life and you know I'm not it it it's just bloody difficult you
00:49:58
know because people do have a perception of you and everyone else is telling them
00:50:04
their opinion of their partner and it can be quite difficult you know but do you do you believe everything you you
00:50:10
say or is a lot of it done to I mean you understand you got to listen very carefully because sometimes I'm not
00:50:16
taking a position I'm just throwing it out there to see what happens and yes
00:50:21
it's sometimes it's provocative a lot of a lot of what you say is very very very tongue and cheek
00:50:27
like maybe wouldn't necessarily work in print form but on as an audio medium uh
00:50:32
you can definitely see that you're you're taking the P but um I yeah you've
00:50:36
been doing this game a long time so I know you understand like the importance of you I've never been sued for
00:50:42
defamation I think I've only had one BSA complaint upheld against me in 40 years
00:50:47
with literally hundreds of thousands of interviews so I think I'm doing all right but it is often you have to listen
00:50:53
carefully um sometimes it feels like like it's a standup comedy routine and it's
00:50:59
observational humor um that I'm doing on the radio because there is nothing more
00:51:05
bizarre and weird than life itself in a lot of instances that that is true I I am I think you're a fantastic
00:51:12
interviewer like you you have this ability to um just like dismantle people um well love dismantling I always look
00:51:20
and say there's only limited time my audience only has limited time I only have limited time report our
00:51:27
interviews are 5 minutes long we had to get to the Kel of the story and after doing all those interviews I can tell
00:51:33
when someone is beaten around the freaking Bush and is never going to get point in about four words and I get
00:51:40
accused of being too um of interrupting people too much I know when someone's
00:51:45
talking [ __ ] and I'm trying to get them back online it's not being rude
00:51:48
it's just if you're going to front up let's not waste everyone's freaking time
00:51:52
let's get to the point you know so it's not aggression um and my I look I'm like this with my
00:52:00
family my mom will start saying something I said for God's sake get to the point oh my God you know you must be a
00:52:09
nightmare you know people who start well I was that the other day or you ask somebody to question and they start way
00:52:13
over here to get to the answer to your question and yeah it is I my my my partner does that when she she tells
00:52:21
stories and she'll be introducing names of characters that are unnecessary the
00:52:25
radio guy in me is thinking could do but I just bite my tongue whereas you'd
00:52:29
probably say it good story is a short story you know yeah but um no I like I think you're you're a fantastic
00:52:36
interviewer and fantastic debator um you yeah you've you've got this neack where
00:52:41
you can almost like give people enough rope to hang themselves in a way I don't
00:52:45
know what was what was the Jordan Peterson thing I I remember because I saw you the when we started was it was
00:52:51
this on the platform was this when you're on Magic Live magic it was live it might have been Magic Talk we were in
00:52:57
The Flower Street Studio I think it was what what happened there I remember there was a big thing
00:53:02
with well he was coming we were setting up magic it was here we were setting up magic and I thought who would who would
00:53:11
be the greatest you know what would be the best hit for this audience that I could get
00:53:16
and I'd been watching a bit of this guy Jordan Peterson and been following the
00:53:21
controversy and being involved in Canada and then I saw he was on a speaking tour
00:53:25
and I said to my producer I want him I want him he's coming to newand I want to
00:53:29
get an interview with him and he's notoriously difficult like all people like that to get on so I basically told
00:53:38
Mary she was useless she hadn't got the interview but then a group in Oakland
00:53:43
came out and put out this press release that his visit represented a threat to everything decent about New
00:53:49
Zealand and they were a group involved in some pretty nasty activities hard left a Liberation League or something
00:53:57
some bloody thing or peace activist Oakland and I found that they had terrorized elderly people by putting
00:54:03
fake bombs and movie theaters and stuff like that and they fronted to do an interview with me a guy who was
00:54:10
transitioning I don't know which way but he was somewhere in the middle um and I did an interview with
00:54:16
him and literally he just hung himself it was a train wreck and I didn't even
00:54:22
have to try hard I was sitting there having a coffee saying Okay so and so I deconstructed him that
00:54:28
interview and someone sent it to Jordan Peterson then the phone went my phone goes and he goes hello Jordan Peterson
00:54:36
here I've just watched you you know that interview that's better than what I did
00:54:40
with Kathy Newman which was a big interview he did where he deconstructed a journalist he said what do you want I
00:54:46
said I want you on air for an hour tomorrow I want you to take calls so we did a video link out of Sydney and that
00:54:54
at the mo I think two weeks later that it had 833 th000 views on YouTube yeah it was a big interview it was like a
00:55:00
podcast right it was like a podcast um and that was really interesting that showed me the kind of power of the get
00:55:08
or doing things right and that was a big thing and I think once again though because it was Jordan Peterson all the
00:55:14
detractors suddenly put me in a you know put me in a box with him yeah CU I am I
00:55:20
I I was talking to you outside the um the Jordan Peterson show I didn't realize there was a big um controversy
00:55:25
about him like I I bought I bought his book um 12 rules for life at an airport and I read it and I thought it was
00:55:30
fantastic then my friend Matt Heath fromi he he had tickets to the Sha and invited me to go and there were
00:55:36
protesters outside I had no idea of the Scandal I thought the was magic in the culture wars he is one of the major
00:55:42
protagonists right in the you know well because he's he's considered to be
00:55:47
transphobic in some sort to be a n he's a na mate you didn't realize NY right
00:55:52
did you not see this right um and I think we've I've deliberately engaged in those sorts of issues in New
00:56:01
Zealand and in New Zealand we don't you know I just understand you know mate we
00:56:07
don't actually engage in those things I think that's changed a bit so we've kind
00:56:11
of Lent on on the platform to the debate over puberty block blockers and the Medical Treatments we give people who've
00:56:17
got gender dysphoria those are legitimate debates to have but we had been living in a culture where you just
00:56:24
couldn't question the liberal orthodoxies of things like that or I'm sorry you
00:56:30
know gender quotas or yes Mari language on the TV news Etc these are things that
00:56:36
are debatable points um and a good Society debates them uh it doesn't say you're not
00:56:44
allowed to think like that or you'll get cancelled you know that was the world we
00:56:50
were living in and I I think it's changing you know but I'll give you another example taky Carson was out
00:56:55
Aussie um just recently uh his people approached me and wanted me to facilitate and be like
00:57:03
Prime naming right sponsor for Tu Carlson doing a New Zealand league so they wanted the platform in on it and we
00:57:09
thought really hard about that and I said actually you know what that's not my core business everyone can get taker
00:57:16
Carlson and see what he says on the internet I've got no particular School set and booking you know a venue for X
00:57:23
th000 people and I would just be cailing on his momentary Global celebrity so we kind of walked away from
00:57:33
that and also I got to say I looked at some of the stuff taky Carlson does and he's a bit of a
00:57:37
nut yeah I saw some clips on YouTube from Australia and um yes he kind of lost me a bit with some of his um ad
00:57:44
stuff like when talked about her teeth and just some P some personal one thing and people may not get it I you know I
00:57:52
see a lot of that um and I see a lot and we get texting we get people trying to say it on here and look I don't care if
00:58:00
you don't like dinder or if you didn't like your policies or you didn't want
00:58:04
happen do the co lockdown but there's no reason to call anyone freaking names you
00:58:09
must have a pretty lousy argument if all you can do is berate someone because of
00:58:14
their physical appearance or or behave like a school child so and I I got admit sometimes I get
00:58:21
pissed off because I think I'm bracketed in with those people I'd never use that
00:58:26
against someone I'd have an argument with them ask some questions I'd have a
00:58:29
debate with them but name calling and finger pointing is just bloody ridiculous and it's lazy and social
00:58:35
media is [ __ ] into it isn't it in a huge way yeah yeah well yeah I'm pretty
00:58:41
sure I've seen some stuff on line about you like oh yeah oh no I think the best
00:58:44
one was someone wishing that I and my son could be fed into a wood chipper right so I've had death threats
00:58:51
I get so I'm a little bit cynical with politic oh I did the shoplifting because
00:58:55
I st and someone made death threat against me that just comes with the freaking territory honestly it shouldn't
00:59:01
though right no but it does that's the reality and that's the reality of social
00:59:06
media and how it's changed you know everything and people are here's an example of how it work I
00:59:14
got banned off Twitter apparently at some stage which was gleefully reported by all the Legacy Media that I've been
00:59:20
banned off Twitter when I got banned off Twitter I had 6 and a half thousand followers
00:59:26
and that was about a year and a half ago I now have 25,000 Twitter followers so I
00:59:30
don't know how I got unbanned I just got unbanned Elon and then B it takes off
00:59:37
but I must admit I spend less time on social media than I used to and I recognize that it can be bloody
00:59:42
corrosive and it can waste a lot of time yeah would does Twitter add something to
00:59:47
your life or do you think your life would be better it adds less less and less um I do use it for news it is a
00:59:53
place strangely enough when something happens someone of those 25,000 people is going to know about it so it actually
01:00:00
very is a very good tool for breaking news I you know I I learn of breaking stories most often on
01:00:07
Twitter but I am I now monitor how many hours I'm on social media day and I'm
01:00:13
trying to get it down from 8 it's a big time waste right it's a Vortex you can be stuck there for hour I
01:00:20
look at people walking up and down the street scrolling away look at their phones there are people there to talk to
01:00:25
you know there are real people out there and I reckon like one of the government's best policies is Banning
01:00:29
smartphones and schools I reckon that is an absolute a idea and there are there's
01:00:36
research in the states that and we're about five or six years behind increas in self harm
01:00:43
self-loathing of young women in particular is all because of so their exposure to social media through their
01:00:49
smartphones um people aren't living in the real world and they're having this
01:00:52
unrealistic idea of you know they want to be influencers or whatever content creators it's YouTubers it's a whole
01:01:01
career path is and I know people who are really serious about I just you are insane yeah
01:01:09
um I don't know if you want to um get into much personal stuff but um there's
01:01:14
a um an amazing clip online that I watched yesterday from you a couple of years ago it was almost like an onia
01:01:20
live o bittery for your brother yeah um is that one of the hardest voice breaks you've done in your life
01:01:26
it just happened um and I had to say something um and that was almost two years ago to the day actually yeah
01:01:36
um and you know you you do a lot of stories about people who commit suicide or take
01:01:43
their own lives it's when it's someone you know that close to you it's something else and
01:01:49
there was still to be honest some Downstream of that in the next week or two um some Downstream what do you mean
01:01:55
oh well the coronus report looked into um uh how he obtained the means to kill himself and it was part of an
01:02:04
international story there's a guy in Canada who was facing multiple charges Murder One charges in
01:02:12
Canada for basically on the dark web having a site and um he was selling suicide kits
01:02:20
online and posting them out around the world Jes um and hundreds of people have taken their lives through his stuff and
01:02:26
that's all the question about how do we monitor the internet do we censor that
01:02:31
stuff um but to be honest n none of that will bring you know James back yeah yeah
01:02:38
tell us about James he was he's my half brother um and James like a lot of people in Co he was a personal trainer
01:02:44
and a DJ So Co was not the greatest time for him J you two could not be any different could you I know James was a
01:02:52
very talented guy and he he was a great talker he was a f talker um but um that was yeah that was a
01:03:01
pretty challenging time and what happened was I went to his funeral and the next day I had a heart
01:03:07
attack and suddenly realized i' been setting up the platform where a thing called atrial fibrillation which is just
01:03:14
a natural condition which is now fixed so when I looked back and think actually it was quite a two years ago was we were
01:03:21
getting things going things were quite rugged but I was still having a good time you get through the things don't
01:03:26
you somehow um yeah know but the way you structured that voice break was really good you sort of you do it like it's um
01:03:31
a news story and you're just reporting a sudden death and then um then you sort
01:03:36
of break the fourth wall down and say oh you know it was my brother and it would
01:03:39
just be another news story but it's yeah that's really really touching and quite
01:03:43
poyant well I sat there and thought well there I couldn't I didn't script that I
01:03:48
had a vague idea of what I was going to say and I sat there and I'd really wondered whether I was going to do it or
01:03:54
say anything and I just did and I spoke Straight From the Heart and the truth be told now on
01:04:02
the platform because we're working on the Forum I there's no script in that studio ever
01:04:09
everything I do is head is straight off the top I might read a story off the screen and everything but we don't have
01:04:16
scripts intros outros it is all as it happens how much prep do you do well I am probably 24 hours a day
01:04:27
somewhere in the news cycle in my head so I would say actually I never really turn off it now integrates into
01:04:35
how I live my life so I wouldn't say I start work or I sit down and pray for
01:04:39
the show I check Twitter before I go to sleep at night um I've got news feeds on
01:04:45
my phone and I come in in the morning and I scroll down so I don't know it's
01:04:51
just never s it's second it's second nature now really and you know you want
01:04:55
to talk about personal things I don't know I don't know that I have a personal
01:04:59
life I have my life and everything's integrated but it's taken me a long time
01:05:04
to get there and I think one of the things I philosophically have struggled with in my life is and I think we all do
01:05:11
who am I am I this person on the radio am I this person goes to work am I the person in relationship I'm with the
01:05:16
father and I think the trick is you've just got to be what you are um I've also
01:05:22
suffered um most of my life with extreme anxiety um which my entire family seemed to be
01:05:31
uh predisposed towards and my answer to that used to be to just work harder and harder and
01:05:37
harder and keep going and not stop and I have for the first time my life in the last two or three years got
01:05:43
to a place where I'm a way more chill person than I've ever been before and I
01:05:50
do not sweat the small stuff anymore I don't get outraged by things and I just
01:05:55
let the world unfold around me but it's taken an awful 60 years yeah 60 years
01:06:00
Jes i' when I was 25 um I probably wouldn't have put myself or a whole lot
01:06:05
of other people through the shot that I did you know other people is in oh just people around me I could be a real I I
01:06:13
can be a pain up the ass i a p up the ass yeah are you are you a debater at home like are you well this just me at
01:06:21
home but look I talk to you know my bendus I'm talking to people all day every day and I have arguments with my
01:06:29
friends and agreements with my friends and family arguments as an as an um like healthy
01:06:36
debate that's bullsh you're wrong about that you know um oh that's fun though
01:06:40
that's and that's fun that's sport for you yeah yeah as long as it's Friendly
01:06:43
Fire it's like you know bantering with someone about a you know sports game or
01:06:48
whatever how's how's your mental health you you battled with depression well I
01:06:51
said I've battled anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder all my life and I've had SPS of quite severe
01:06:57
depression um and uh drugs have never worked for me anti-depressants have never worked for me
01:07:04
um and as I say I don't know I just feel happier than I have I drink a [ __ ] lad
01:07:09
less than I used to um and I'm not on a go in this but a wower I'm giving up boo
01:07:16
um with my heart condition and a few other things I just said okay that is not a
01:07:21
productive that's not a productive behavior when it becomes habitual like that so I would drink maybe once a
01:07:27
fortnite um I can not one B but it's not structured into part of my life I have
01:07:34
no alcohol at home at my home uh and I haven't had any alcohol in my home for
01:07:38
about two years oh not a beer or anything well the the sort of work that you're taking on at the moment in terms
01:07:44
of doing the show and running this organization and um you're leading 14 people you just you can't do that with a
01:07:50
cloudy head can you no no um but I'm not a wower and I wouldn't say once you get
01:07:57
alcohol and it's evil people just most people and you know I thought obviously a lot about addiction um
01:08:05
because of what happened to James um did he have addiction issues yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um quite
01:08:14
although you those um both those um things you mentioned like DJing and personal training yeah I think drugs are
01:08:20
quite rif in both those Industries AR yeah yeah um but I think and I I look at and I've had other people very close to
01:08:27
me that I've helped get into rehab and have got through major drug problems and most often it seems to me
01:08:35
addiction it is not the drug that is the problem it is always the addict that has
01:08:40
a hole they trying to F right that's why people take drugs escapism escapism and until a person or an
01:08:49
individual is prepared to sit there with themselves and have a look at the hole inside them
01:08:55
um you're never going to solve them or or fix them and it takes a while and I
01:09:00
think I probably think I've had a look at the holes inside me and I'm slowly
01:09:05
filling them up with other stuff and and not with you know not with a a quar of whiskey or you know shoving something up
01:09:12
my nose yeah it takes um it does take a while he like I'm I'm 51 now when I was
01:09:18
um like 20 or 30 I would have thought you know 51 you see a 51 year old you think they've got it all figured out and
01:09:23
then you realize that everyone's just sort of like muddling their way and I used to look at yeah I used to be the S
01:09:28
got 51 I'm still pretty [ __ ] at this and look I might at 70 have a a whole another level of karmic
01:09:38
awareness but I get I think the older you get to you realize you cannot go back and change the past you got to live
01:09:45
with whatever you have done or whatever's happened to you and you do get slightly more
01:09:51
effective but I look back even just talking to you geez some whack stuff happened to me I've had a really
01:09:57
interesting life and it's still going you know yeah you've you've been through
01:10:01
some big battles yeah a lot lot of them you got yourself into I said the other day when news my
01:10:09
best day at work I got teargas I met Nelson Mandela before he was the prime minister
01:10:16
of South Africa and I introduced him to Jim buer though Barry S say it was him I
01:10:20
say it was me then I went and got held up at gunpoint turned around to gun point with Mark Jennings at a roadblock
01:10:27
down the road in in Harari and we B back went back the next day snuck into this University and then we got tear Gast by
01:10:34
mcg's Riot police and we got footage of all that and then we do stopped Robert
01:10:39
mcabby and that was a great day at work wow that was a great day at work wow and we won with that story we
01:10:47
won the first news award that TV3 ever W for news coverage so that's what you got
01:10:52
to do to win an award yeah that's extrem [ __ ] you know yeah and I was a little bit sad that no one hoed that out
01:11:00
of the archive and played that um but you know you know TV3 had changed by the end quite quite drastically I think yeah
01:11:09
you quite drastically have have you ever you ever done therapy or anything you ever seen a therapist or what
01:11:17
no no listening to the show 7:00 weekday mornings there's my therapy and I've got these lovely people
01:11:26
who ring up and and help me out yeah no you you're um but you like you're a
01:11:32
supremely talented man um yeah so I I don't know maybe yeah if you into therapy like it just gives you a
01:11:39
different way of like looking at things which maybe you can't see yourself sometimes I don't know I I I found it
01:11:44
quite beneficial for me when it's not for everyone though yeah yeah but you're
01:11:48
yeah seems like you're in a good place at the moment are you seeing anyone or
01:11:51
you you're riding Sol oh well look I I describe it like this I'm single but I'm
01:11:54
not l um and you know um once again as you get older your expectations I mean I've
01:12:04
done I've you know I'm a dad we've done the kids I've had houses with people
01:12:10
I've cohabitated um and there's not really much room with everything else I'm doing
01:12:16
at the moment for that um and you know I think you also when you're younger you sit there am I going
01:12:23
to be alone and you Dre Yul worried about being alone and yeah people say it's like the worst thing that and it's
01:12:30
actually not I'm never alone you know I can I can go to any City in this country
01:12:35
pick up the phone and catch up with someone for a coffee and have an interesting conversation I've never felt
01:12:40
less alone in my life but I've been single for about I think five six years and that's all right you know yeah
01:12:47
there's there's a big difference between um being alone and being lonely he no
01:12:50
one wants to be lonely that's terrible but but yeah being alone I I think um as
01:12:55
get older the longer you've been um on your own you do kind of get stuck in your ways and it's harder to I'm not
01:13:00
sure that I am ret trable and probably the biggest thing I got during Co I was working uh was
01:13:07
working for was it magic working for live during the co lockdown uh and I had my dog and my dog
01:13:14
died at the end of very end of the last lockdown and I had to get him put down He was 17 years old and and it was
01:13:21
always but I still bloody miss him um and I do not even have time even say you should get another dog I don't have time
01:13:29
to take care of a dog the way I would want to with my current chedu but that's
01:13:34
they're hell of a lot easier to train than girlfriend stuff never answer back to I feel like
01:13:40
it's like having a kid that never does anything to annoy you you know so the
01:13:44
natural progression of like being a parent and having a kid by the time they get to 16 17 18 you're ready for them to
01:13:49
[ __ ] off and they're ready to to leave but look I've got to say too I think I
01:13:53
mean I look maybe with a little tinge of regret or Envy at people and I know lots
01:13:58
of people have got good relationships in their relationships uh their whole lives
01:14:04
um but it's not a must have you are not an incomplete person if life doesn't
01:14:09
work that out that way for you um and you know there's always you know Hope Springs Eternal yeah do you still have a
01:14:17
like a cordial sort of relationship with your your your son's mom she has been a
01:14:22
terrific mother and I think we all be and it's funny isn't he saying I'm a
01:14:26
solo parent well there are two solo parents you're never really a solo parent there's always someone else is
01:14:31
the parent um but I think we had both negotiated the difficulties of going through that and most people
01:14:38
do uh pretty well and he's come out the other end a complete and pretty good
01:14:44
decent human being and I couldn't have done that without her and I hope she would think she couldn't have done that
01:14:51
without me so you get there in the end but I I look back my parents got divorced way before it
01:14:57
was fashionable and I think they're only two kids in a school of 500 people at
01:15:02
pan who everyone knew their parents were divorced and we were one of them we were
01:15:07
absolutely the outliers but now I'd say it's more likely that more people get
01:15:12
divorced than yeah it's at least 50/50 is it's at least 50/50 so the the whole
01:15:16
social stigma around it is different but we were definitely at school we were the
01:15:21
kids of the solo M yeah you know yeah a num standard three when my parents had a
01:15:26
break and I I remember being really excited at the time because my best mate Craig he was the only kid in the class
01:15:31
with divorced parents so that's all I had to base it on and his dad would pick
01:15:35
him up every Friday and had have all these new clothes and gifts on Monday so I was like this is going to be amazing
01:15:41
but there know Dad's a tight ass so but I'd say also you know when people talk
01:15:46
about misogyny one thing for me that affected me I think very deeply was watching my mother as a solo
01:15:54
mother in a society and it was actually the days before the dpb or anything right and I look at the difficult
01:16:04
choices mom had to make and she did a bloody good job with three of us kids quite demanding kids and it
01:16:11
wasn't I had a pretty interesting upbringing for various reasons because mom got
01:16:16
pushed to the outside of society because she wasn't married and she was a threat
01:16:23
to all her friends all her married women friends oh she was going to steal the me
01:16:27
and Men looked at her in those days and said she must be a woman of loose virtue so Mom sort of became a hippie we
01:16:35
liveed quite a Bohemian and at times very chaotic lifestyle um and I look that and think that's
01:16:44
because Mom was a woman and she lived in a society which discriminated against her in aund different
01:16:49
ways uh and I get I do get pissed off when people say I'm a misogynist not I'm
01:16:54
a bloody feminist because I have lived with the consequences of a patriarchal society making it difficult for women to
01:17:03
care for their families and kids and it that left a very deep impression on me you know is your mom still around mom's
01:17:11
still around she's I think 83 later this month yeah she's still actively engaged still active she's
01:17:17
living with my sister she lived with me for a few years um and uh the brain cha was attack the
01:17:25
um you know crapping out occasionally um and and when I talked about Dad influencing my career my life most
01:17:33
definitely I was brought up by my mother and Mama's has been the I guess the
01:17:38
dominant um you know actually the dominant for she got this out of me I've never quite described it like that
01:17:44
before but mom mom brought me up Dad I got to know you know when I entered the same professional sphere as him I got to
01:17:52
know him better but really m more mate relationship at that point is mom bought us up and it was Bloody tough for her
01:17:59
because as I said she was a solo mom in a society that Bloody didn't treat women
01:18:06
well do did you you probably didn't realize that at the time or did you realize that at the time yeah I did
01:18:11
realize at at the time and I did realize was wrong and it is heartbreaking you know it really is um have you told her
01:18:20
as an adult that oh yeah yeah and all of my brother and sister and I that three the first batch of Dead's batch um we
01:18:29
we've we we've talked about a lot about the the challenges of that and you know
01:18:34
we moved from plym which is a nice little sent nor we moved to Peru because Mom's economics cumstances changed but
01:18:42
Mom said no you are still going to pmon school and you're going to catch the
01:18:46
train every day from per to pmon so we were the only kids from P at plon school but Mom insisted because she knew that
01:18:53
it was a really good school and we were going to get good education there m so you know she did a lot of and I look
01:18:59
back and we thought sometimes mom was absolute crap to us I now you know you realize yeah um just the Liv of
01:19:09
sacrifice just the Liv and how hard it was I mean I can remember you know solo Dad we had Joseph later in life and I
01:19:16
God it's hard being a while I was eing good bloody money you know I had a solid
01:19:21
income and I was mature I looked at mom she was in in her early 20s and she had three
01:19:27
kids three tiny kids that she was bringing up on her own in a society that wasn't actually that
01:19:34
welcoming to her once she got divorced and that's a hell of a thing you know
01:19:38
that's a hell of a bur to have done I yeah yeah yeah well thanks for sharing
01:19:44
that you know yeah so um and so you how's your health are you you okay the heart is um the heart's way better so
01:19:55
when I went when I had my heart attack two years ago my resting heart rate was 124 beats per minute is that good or bad
01:20:02
is that's is that quiet that's that's like you're jogging all the time and I
01:20:07
wondered why I was tired all the time I think it's cuz I get up at 5:30 and I
01:20:11
and I you know and I'm doing all this work I then suddenly realized no it's
01:20:15
because I've just I've got this heart condition and we had a couple of cracks
01:20:20
over the next year turning my heart on and off again and then I had this um procedure where they burnt out some of
01:20:26
the tissue of my heart cuz it was short circuiting and my resting heart rate average resting heart rate rate now is
01:20:32
68 beats per minute wow awesome so I've got got a lot more energy but I also
01:20:38
struggle with um diabetes type two diabetes and that's under control at the moment but it hasn't always been you
01:20:46
know so you you don't need to inject with insulin or yeah I I shoot up insulin once a day and I take replace
01:20:52
the heroin and and I and I have about six medication and it was funny I went to a play the other night a um at cira
01:21:01
theater that Ross Made M Ross Jolly was uh directing um and it was a Roger Hall play his latest thing and I'm sitting in
01:21:11
this audience of people about my age and this thing comes up on the screen of the
01:21:16
um the uh medicine's dispenser with all the days of the week on it and everyone
01:21:21
laughed in recognition I thought I'm laughing in recognition too I'm freaking
01:21:25
home one of the plastic containers you had a double decker one or a sing double a PM and every Sunday I get together I
01:21:34
load the thing up and I think God I'm old but it's just what it is isn't it
01:21:38
and I guess I tell you what I do now appreciate how important in a way I didn't before I'd always been a pretty
01:21:45
robust guy I suddenly appreciate how when people say your Health's important
01:21:50
it really is and guys in particular can you know I I look at the abuse I gave to
01:21:56
my body um and I suddenly realiz that is actually now one of my focuses is actually doing a bit more work on that
01:22:04
and you know sticking around because you can reverse a lot of that stuff um oh you still have the occasional cig i c
01:22:12
and God I damn it I hate it it is that is my addiction how many a day would you have ah I got down to like three and
01:22:21
then I can go up to 20 and then I can slap a patch have a cigarette for a week but it's habitual with me and oh Jesus
01:22:30
look I'm so embarrassed about it to be honest are you are you really why it's
01:22:33
the dumbest freaking thing smoking is the dumbest and I know I don't look like
01:22:37
[ __ ] James Bond or the MBR man I don't I know it doesn't make me look tough or rugged or cool despite all
01:22:45
those 50s movies with Robert Mitch and them I know it's dumb and I still do it
01:22:50
and I'm angry at myself because that is one it's not logical that's addiction
01:22:55
right I suppose it is yeah yeah yeah but why could I be addicted to something more
01:23:00
fun well you are like trolling people online yeah what addictions do you have so there smoking um trolling
01:23:10
well I think I was for a long time and I think you get l in the game there is an
01:23:15
adrenaline Russian being live on here I have a rule with my show down I never do
01:23:19
a pre-record everything we do is live in the moment um and I do get it I'm probably addicted to that I'm probably
01:23:28
addicted to the thrill of that and you know sometimes I literally turn up there and I've only got one or two interviews
01:23:35
and we got three hours to fill and you know I think I don't know how we're going to do this and I love
01:23:42
that that's really engaged um and that is probably an addiction that I need to
01:23:46
Wing myself on it's hard like when you told the story before about um you Mandela and Tas and macabi like it's
01:23:54
it's it most things seem boring after that you know what I mean like just it's
01:23:59
a level of excitement in your life yeah like it's yeah it's tough um but I think
01:24:04
we all and I think also in this game and I think you've seen it and I'm not going
01:24:10
to mention any names and I did this in my career um you get a little bit famous or
01:24:16
you think you're a little bit famous and you disappear somewhere up your fuu
01:24:19
valve for a while and you got to come out the other end at some stage yeah yeah you know and
01:24:26
sometimes it's pretty bumpy coming out the other end but you're a way better
01:24:30
person for IT um if you survive it and that is life's journey you know and I
01:24:36
look at young people who are doing incredibly well and I think there are some very talented young journalists and
01:24:42
broadcasters around at the moment but I still temper it with life experience and
01:24:47
say I kind of feel for them because you know they are going to have to suffer the crash at some stage and we all do no
01:24:58
one has a blessed upward trajectory all the time uh career and I think about you
01:25:04
know Paul Henry up and down all over the place and he's out of it now he's got
01:25:08
through it I looked at old Paul Holmes and Paul Holmes was in our generation right he was the 64,000
01:25:16
gorilla um and I ended up being quite good friends with Paul for various reasons I worked on a show for a bit I
01:25:22
did the only story ever that was repeated due to public Demand on the home show what was that it was I went
01:25:30
and made and I look back these were all signals of what was to come um I made I went up to a little model
01:25:39
Railway up in cap and I did the voice over like Ringo Star and I did a thing called Thomas the
01:25:46
politically correct tankage and it was just taking the piss out of political correctness but this was back in the
01:25:52
'90s and we played it and then all these people wrote Into the show said we want
01:25:56
to see that story again it was so funny and it was the days before the internet right yeah and then I found that they've
01:26:03
T they took that piece and it was being taught um at the Christ use broadcasting
01:26:08
school as the way satirical journalism could work I don't know I haven't seen
01:26:13
it since um how how the hell did I talk about I don't know this parallels between but holes but Holmes
01:26:21
was Holmes did get there and he was the last he was the last vestage or the last
01:26:28
individual before the internet came and busted traditional media and Legacy Media apart and I think I can remember
01:26:38
thinging I want to be poor holes I want to be the next poor homes and it took me
01:26:43
a while to realize there was never going to be another poor homes and even if there was you couldn't be someone else
01:26:49
that wasn't a good career trajectory to want to be like someone else yeah cuz
01:26:52
you're only ever going to be the second best po homes yeah that's right there's
01:26:56
there's a lot of parallels between you and homsy I think hey um I don't know he
01:27:00
was wildly successful made a lot of money and was on screen for years in one show I don't think there's any parallels
01:27:05
unfortunately no they both um both polarizing um both both like very very intelligent and very sharp Paul Paul I
01:27:15
always needs the thing I don't know if they've still got it in television the
01:27:18
star five rating and it's the secret attitudinal research they do on um on presenters and most often the
01:27:26
presenters never see it so it's deep deep dark psychological research that tells you where a presenter sits in the
01:27:34
audience's mind and my understanding having talked to people who had access to that stuff about home said it's
01:27:41
amazing everyone knows who he is so absolute Market awareness and everyone feels really strongly about him but
01:27:49
interestingly 50% of people hated him and 50% of people loved him and there was no one but there was nothing in
01:27:56
between and that's why he was so successful because he created either negative or positive emotional response
01:28:03
in people every time he was on screen you know if you look if you look at all the greats and i' I'd um put you in this
01:28:10
mix as well um they they all have that they polarizing you know holes Henry hosking even hether probably put hether
01:28:17
in that mix as well I think brilliant Petty G you know oh he is he polarizing he's he's
01:28:24
no he's I think he's quite widely loved isn't he well equally not and depends
01:28:31
what it depends which Echo chamber you're in yeah yeah right right you know it really does but you cannot ignore him
01:28:39
yeah see I'd look at Patty I think his leaders debates are the best lead they
01:28:44
were better than Holmes ones Patty has a talent when he's got a live audience and
01:28:49
two politicians in front of him off keeping what can be a very boring formulation think really interesting I
01:28:55
still think he's done the best um the best pre-election leaders debates that I've ever seen on New
01:29:02
Zealand television and I told him that I think last time I said you knowed it again you know Patty yeah that's awesome
01:29:09
[ __ ] you guys might become mates I would hate to I would hate to think that there's anyone on the
01:29:18
C well I don't feel like I've got enemies I've got people who don't
01:29:22
understand me or don't know me and I always thought when I got into this that I am part of a Continuum and I
01:29:30
looked up to and I was talking about this on here the other day I Johnson who was a great
01:29:36
interviewer and I got to know him Ian Fraser uh Jeff who I work with for years and had enormous and taught me an awful
01:29:43
lot and I'm just part of a Continuum of people in the media and I am no and I've had my career
01:29:50
thing Fair gu morning report and everything and I've bumbled along since and everyone else coming out behind me
01:29:56
is the next Generation Um and that's what we're part of we're part of this kind of circle that that
01:30:03
keeps on Reinventing itself yeah it's exciting and it's exciting I think for
01:30:08
you being um 60 and being part of this new wave yeah yeah um it's really exciting and I can't wait to see where
01:30:14
the platform goes hey couple of quick ones to finish with um are you proud of yourself
01:30:21
um I'm proud of surviving I hold myself to pretty high standards and I'm more forgiving of
01:30:29
myself than I used to be when I said I got rid of my anxiety I'm not so worried
01:30:32
about what other people think about me and I'm way more gentle on myself than I
01:30:38
have ever been before in my life so yes I'm satisfied with myself I wouldn't say
01:30:43
Pride that comes before a fall doesn't it so you're you're in a voice as as
01:30:48
yeah you're quite kind to yourself now yeah yeah much more so than I used to be
01:30:52
and your self-esteem uh pretty good yeah pretty good but you know I don't want to
01:30:57
be complacent I've got a kind of philosophy that I have you read a poem called dayat no I'll show you deat
01:31:04
online after this and you can read it and that's and that has helped me a lot
01:31:08
you know that philosophy so no I am I'm am I satisfied no there's always
01:31:14
something more to do there's always going to be another mountain to climb it's exhausting eh but when you realize
01:31:20
that's the flow of life you just have to just keep moving forward um what about
01:31:25
regrets um oh jeez don't get me started we haven't got another hour um regrets I left ZB too
01:31:38
early if I wanted to have a more comfortable stable career I should have stayed at ZB when I was doing the
01:31:44
Wellington show and not gone to radio live and you know what I did it for the freaking money and it's the only time
01:31:50
I'd ever moved for the money it was the worst career move I ever if I look and it doesn't seem big to you but for a
01:31:56
whole lot of reasons in my life that's the worst career move I ever made and I
01:32:01
said it was motivated by money and it was the wrong motivator yeah um but other than
01:32:08
that no I'd still tweet anyone else feeling for Harvey Weinstein I wouldn't
01:32:12
take a single bloody thing back off you would why why you just making yeah we've
01:32:19
got mountains to climb it's like you were just like sometimes looking for mountains I think yeah yeah yeah
01:32:24
but bring it on no I wouldn't change a damn thing okay and um say say it's your
01:32:29
funeral and there's a bunch of people there what what three words would you like people to use to describe
01:32:37
you oh Jesus tell this one came about there was um I had a guy on the podcast called dug
01:32:43
Allen who's um won the coasta coast a number of times he's a part of Team New
01:32:47
Zealand now he was doing an adventure race with Richie mcco you know what people I'd like the three words I like
01:32:51
people to say what's that I'll miss them there to do it I'll miss them just a
01:32:57
recognition that your passing would leave a void in someone's life yeah yeah
01:33:03
that's cool yeah I think that's a good place to end it anything you want to add
01:33:07
no but thanks for the opportunity and it was really interesting I don't do uh for
01:33:12
someone who does a lot of interviews I hardly ever get interviewed and that was good I enjoyed it well I I listened to a
01:33:17
couple of podcast you've been on in anticipation of this and it's kind of it
01:33:20
felt like it was just um broadcasters that wanted to try and uh Jou with you yeah um but I just wanted to get to know
01:33:28
the person the person behind the microphone and uh well it was nice it was fun yeah I've really enjoyed it too
01:33:34
Michelle Obama's got I'm I'm fantastic at botching quotes I'll probably [ __ ]
01:33:38
this one up but Michelle Obama's got a quite see something like most people are
01:33:41
hard to dislike up close yeah and um I'd agree with that or Will Rogers I never
01:33:48
been a man I didn't like you know we leave it at that Sean planket thank you feast