Speaker 1: You're listening to I'm Am A mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Unleash, the podcast for gen X
Speaker 2: women who need a laugh.
Speaker 1: If you have spent.
Speaker 2: Hours trying to crimp your hair, welcome, your found your people.
Speaker 1: So, who is on the couch today?
Speaker 3: Hi?
Speaker 4: I'm Mary Cuss, I'm an actress, rider, I'm Brune Pevendre,
Speaker 4: a film and TV producer.
Speaker 3: Grace Bam Bam lamb fashion stylers.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Kat Mahoney, my honey, my honey. Right, okay,
Speaker 2: wherever you're listening and clencher jewel, clencher, pelvic floor. Let's
Speaker 2: get ready to unleash.
Speaker 1: Okay, who wants the floor?
Speaker 3: Oh go Grace, As you might not know that I
Speaker 3: am in love with Lewis Hamilton, seven times world champion,
Speaker 3: a former one eight times in my book, and he
Speaker 3: is the David Beckham of F one. Okay, welcome to
Speaker 3: my world. And Jason knows about this.
Speaker 4: You know, infidelity, it's pretty clear on your social media.
Speaker 1: Very clear.
Speaker 3: And recently there were rumors about him dating Kim Kardashian.
Speaker 4: It was more than rumors, wasn't it.
Speaker 5: So at the.
Speaker 3: Beginning was rumors, but now they've hard launched their relationship
Speaker 3: in the formulaa Monico Grand Prix because she went to
Speaker 3: the Grand Prix. Now all his loyal f one fans
Speaker 3: are so against this, including me, right, So I feel
Speaker 3: like I need to say something to my Lewis Hamilton.
Speaker 3: So Lewis listen to me. I don't think she's right
Speaker 3: for you, because clearly I'm more right for you than
Speaker 3: she is.
Speaker 1: Grace, I've got to ask, why do you think she's
Speaker 1: so wrong?
Speaker 3: I just can't comprehend that someone like him, who's so
Speaker 3: good on and off the track, all the amount of
Speaker 3: work that he's done off the track to help the
Speaker 3: underprivileged kids or the charity works that he's done, he
Speaker 3: is just a good human, whereas hers all about attention
Speaker 3: seeking and she's just what kind of talent has she got?
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 3: I don't really know, And as this number one fan,
Speaker 3: I want to say to Sir Louis, ditch her because
Speaker 3: you can do better. I don't think Kim is right
Speaker 3: for you because I am right for you clearly, and
Speaker 3: as much as she is all that, I just don't
Speaker 3: think she's your woman. So as a loyal fan, I
Speaker 3: am totally against it. What I want to ask you, ladies,
Speaker 3: have you ever worn a girlfriend when you see that
Speaker 3: they're dating someone who's very dodgy or not right for her,
Speaker 3: and what happened to that relationship?
Speaker 4: Mah, Well, I have a very close male friend and
Speaker 4: he was dating someone and I didn't think it was
Speaker 4: for maybe the right reasons. He's quite wealthy, he's great guy,
Speaker 4: one of the best people you could ever have a friend.
Speaker 4: And I just felt like she was very icy of
Speaker 4: all his friends, and there was like a real negative energy.
Speaker 4: I didn't say anything because it was traveling fast in
Speaker 4: a very serious direction. But it didn't last, and now
Speaker 4: he's with someone that we all love. But no, I
Speaker 4: didn't say anything.
Speaker 2: I'm a real worse when it comes to saying stuff
Speaker 2: to people who were dating the wrong people, because I
Speaker 2: just think when I was younger, I'd said it to
Speaker 2: a few people and then they got married, you know,
Speaker 2: So I'm just I'm really cautious about doing that. Also,
Speaker 2: I have been that nightmare friend that has gone with
Speaker 2: all of the dramas that a current boyfriend has given me,
Speaker 2: you know, really like kind of got into the nitty
Speaker 2: gritty of what a douchebag he was they've totally agreed
Speaker 2: we should split up. We've split up, and then I've
Speaker 2: got back together with that person, and then that person,
Speaker 2: your friend is just sat there going, oh, I've said
Speaker 2: all this shit about them, and now I've got.
Speaker 5: That person.
Speaker 4: Oh where I'm too early when they split, I'm too early.
Speaker 4: I go in too hard, too honest. Oh my god,
Speaker 4: like you're so much better off.
Speaker 5: He's this, he's that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I just go full like I'm all about you,
Speaker 4: and they always get back together, and then I'm the
Speaker 4: idiot who told the truth. So I've stopped doing it.
Speaker 4: I'm really cautious now. In fact, I did it the
Speaker 4: other day where someone was talking about a breakup and
Speaker 4: I thought I was doing the right thing to say, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, they're not that smart, you can do better,
Speaker 4: and they went full defensive mode of that. So I'm
Speaker 4: out on honesty. I'm out on honesty. I wish I
Speaker 4: could be that honest friend, but I can't.
Speaker 5: I've done both.
Speaker 3: I've won my friends and they've also worn me. But
Speaker 3: I think with relationships sometimes you have to go through
Speaker 3: it until you hit rock bottom or until you can
Speaker 3: see that person's not good for you, and then you leave.
Speaker 4: Has anyone ever told you you're dating the wrong person?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, A friend did. In the early days.
Speaker 2: The guy that took my cherry was ten years older
Speaker 2: than me. To take it, he took it on holiday
Speaker 2: with somebody else.
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 5: I think it's popped my cherry.
Speaker 2: Just to clarify, yeah, yeah, pop, he took my popped,
Speaker 2: he popped my balloon. I mean that was never gonna work.
Speaker 2: Like I was seventeen, he was twenty seven. So my
Speaker 2: girlfriend was just I think preempting the heartbreak that came.
Speaker 2: Two months after he popped my cherry.
Speaker 4: I went out with a guy that was very polarizing.
Speaker 4: It wasn't I wouldn't say we're an official couple, but
Speaker 4: we dated for quite a while. He was a lot
Speaker 4: older than me. And this friend, this male friend that
Speaker 4: was with someone that I didn't think was great for him,
Speaker 4: was the one that pulled me to the side and said,
Speaker 4: are you really thinking about this? This person's got a
Speaker 4: terrible reputation. I don't know about this. I'm really worried
Speaker 4: about you, and you know what, I agreed with him,
Speaker 4: but I still went out with that person for a
Speaker 4: little bit.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to think who it is now? Is it
Speaker 5: a famous football commentator?
Speaker 4: Piss off.
Speaker 5: To take my mind back in the day, Next brilliant girls.
Speaker 4: I've got a confession, Jake, premium on screen drama. Yes,
Speaker 4: that you'll enjoy for adults, for grown ups. But here's
Speaker 4: my dirty little secret. So I can't get enough of
Speaker 4: this kind of sexy teen drama that is taking the
Speaker 4: world by storm. I'm talking about off campus. I'm talking
Speaker 4: about the summer I turn pretty. I'm talking about every
Speaker 4: summer after. I'm talking about hated rivalry. Like there's just
Speaker 4: so much out there for the young people right now,
Speaker 4: and I'm watching all of it.
Speaker 5: I love it. Do I have a problem?
Speaker 4: No, I get it. I mean, look, love is never
Speaker 4: more exciting, I think than when it's crushy and when
Speaker 4: it's innocent. But Mary, it's not innocent. Like we grew
Speaker 4: up on the OC and not grew up. I mean
Speaker 4: I was older when I was watching it, but like
Speaker 4: we grew up on Felicity and like that stuff that
Speaker 4: Weeginex's grew up and is so tame compared to what
Speaker 4: I'm talking about, like the off campuses.
Speaker 5: Of the world.
Speaker 4: Do you love it because your daughter loves it. Yes,
Speaker 4: I think I love it because there's something we can share.
Speaker 4: But it's not just like young women. Like apparently the
Speaker 4: biggest demographic tuning in is women who are thirty to
Speaker 4: fifty five.
Speaker 1: I am in that demographic. I am mad for it.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you've been, if you know og and Lisha,
Speaker 2: you'll know that I talked about heated drive away in.
Speaker 1: At one back in the day.
Speaker 2: I'm only halfway through off Campus. Holy Moly, Holy Moley.
Speaker 2: And the good thing is Hannah and Garrett are the
Speaker 2: leads in that. Hannah is a nineteen year old actress.
Speaker 2: Garrett is played by a twenty nine year old man,
Speaker 2: so he is fair game.
Speaker 1: As far as I'm concerned to perve on.
Speaker 2: I think it works at our age because it brings
Speaker 2: that innocence back and a bit like Mary said, it
Speaker 2: takes you back to being seventeen. So for me when
Speaker 2: I was sort of sixteen or seventeen, apart from wanting
Speaker 2: to leave the small town I lived in, you know,
Speaker 2: and have a great career, I just wanted the happy
Speaker 2: ever after. All the pop songs, all the movies we
Speaker 2: watched were all promising you meet the guy and then
Speaker 2: it'll be fabulous, And back then you had that hope
Speaker 2: that there would be a happy ever after. As we
Speaker 2: get to our age, even if you're still with your
Speaker 2: happy ever after, you know, there's sleepless nights, there's kids,
Speaker 2: there's kind of you know, there's separate bedrooms, there is mortgages,
Speaker 2: there's stress, there's dishwashers to empty.
Speaker 1: When you're seventeen, you don't.
Speaker 5: Have any of that.
Speaker 4: Watching it to reclaim that optimism a bit for yourself.
Speaker 2: I think so, And I think it takes you back,
Speaker 2: like you feel watching it, you're back in that space again.
Speaker 2: You know, it is just and it's steamy. Yeah, it's steamy,
Speaker 2: and it's great. And you also it's not a guilty secret,
Speaker 2: you know, like that we are the biggest demo watching
Speaker 2: these kind of these movies.
Speaker 1: Is it because.
Speaker 4: Back in those days, when we were younger, we didn't
Speaker 4: have great expectations when it came to relationships. It was
Speaker 4: usually a pretty physical thing, it was a chemistry thing.
Speaker 4: It was all in our imaginations. We didn't expect them
Speaker 4: to have great income, come with no drama, you know,
Speaker 4: like all the things we put on adult relationships and
Speaker 4: all the expectations and pressures we put on adult relationships.
Speaker 4: Is it because it was just pure lustful love, you know,
Speaker 4: or whatever that crushiness was that we don't tend to
Speaker 4: feel the od we yet. But I think it's actually
Speaker 4: a little bit cultural, like the Americans, like there's a reason.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's not that many Australian shows that we
Speaker 4: can point to that do this right, but there is
Speaker 4: something the Americans do, Like the Americans have a college
Speaker 4: experience in a way that we do not, right. The
Speaker 4: Americans have like they like I remember going to America
Speaker 4: to live and they were like, well, we're dating, and
Speaker 4: the whole idea of dating is like a real thing.
Speaker 4: You have to declare your exclusive where we just like
Speaker 4: sleep with people in Australia we have like one night stance.
Speaker 4: We're not like it's very different, it's very structured. So
Speaker 4: I think there's something that we romanticize about American drama.
Speaker 4: Like This New One I watched every summer after that's
Speaker 4: a massive book series. I was so involved and engaged
Speaker 4: because it is like really nostalgic and really basic romance
Speaker 4: in terms of like will these two people who you
Speaker 4: want to be together be together?
Speaker 2: You're so open when You're young to love, aren't you,
Speaker 2: And I think as we age, you're so much more
Speaker 2: guarded to falling in love. So these shows allow you
Speaker 2: as the viewer to just fall in the way that
Speaker 2: you did when you're a teenager, you know, without without escape.
Speaker 1: Net.
Speaker 3: I have to disagree. I watched one episode and I
Speaker 3: hated it so much, which because first of all, off
Speaker 3: campum camp. Because first of all, I don't find any
Speaker 3: of those people attractive. I mean, I do understand all
Speaker 3: the muscle from Brussels, or all the bumbs and all
Speaker 3: the tits, but none I find none of them attractive.
Speaker 3: It was way too Americanized for me, and I just
Speaker 3: thought it was just too I just, you know what,
Speaker 3: because Bruno Pepperoni kept banging on about it. I started
Speaker 3: watching it and me and Jason, my husband, I had
Speaker 3: to fast forward the whole thing. I just couldn't deal
Speaker 3: with it. And then I start watching Heated Rivalry and
Speaker 3: I love it. First episode I was very different because
Speaker 3: when I watched something in I look at the camera angle,
Speaker 3: I look at the artistic direction, I look at everything
Speaker 3: about the lighting. Off Campus does nothing of that, and
Speaker 3: I'm just like thinking, I'm wasting wasting my time watching
Speaker 3: that show.
Speaker 5: Maybe you're not the audience.
Speaker 3: Definitely not.
Speaker 4: But I will say, obviously ice skating, you know, getting
Speaker 4: a big comeback here.
Speaker 5: Maybe if you want to find someone there.
Speaker 4: Here's the lesson and all the shows head to the
Speaker 4: ice skating ring.
Speaker 5: Girls.
Speaker 3: So, ladies, would you want to go back in time
Speaker 3: to a teenage self? Me?
Speaker 5: Definitely not.
Speaker 2: Oh no, not to relive it, but I'd like to
Speaker 2: go back and tell her it's all going to be okay,
Speaker 2: even the shipbits, and that it is. There is no
Speaker 2: happy ever after, It just continues in highs and lows.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Oh, I don't know whether i'd want to.
Speaker 4: There were good times and there were crushing times as well.
Speaker 4: I think that was really hard. You're trying to find
Speaker 4: out who you are and where you fit and all
Speaker 4: of those things. But I do miss that crushiness. I
Speaker 4: do miss someone walking past you and you're losing your breath,
Speaker 4: you know, all all of that stuff that lived in
Speaker 4: our heads so much, and you know, our really overactive imaginations.
Speaker 5: So I miss that.
Speaker 1: Brunes.
Speaker 5: No, I definitely don't want to go back.
Speaker 4: In fact, I think every stage is kind of amazing,
Speaker 4: but I definitely don't want to go back. But I
Speaker 4: saw a great Instagram post the other day, you guys,
Speaker 4: probably on the same feet as me, but it was
Speaker 4: a woman dancing and she was like, I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to convince people I'm thirty five. I'm showing thirty five
Speaker 4: year olds how good it is to be fifty five
Speaker 4: something like that. It was something like that, and I
Speaker 4: was like, that's how I feel. Do you guys think
Speaker 4: that like part of the appeal of these shows is
Speaker 4: because it's of the complexity of like young adult life
Speaker 4: right now, Oh, an escape.
Speaker 3: When you're that young, you're very free, right, free from trouble,
Speaker 3: financial burden, You're just trying to find your feet, you know,
Speaker 3: in the world, right, So I think it's all about
Speaker 3: how to build a relationship with your friends. Just having
Speaker 3: fun getting drunk.
Speaker 1: Is so freeing.
Speaker 4: Do you think it's a sign of the times where
Speaker 4: people are watching more of this stuff because it's so
Speaker 4: difficult to go out there and spend money because of
Speaker 4: the cost of living. And do you think people are
Speaker 4: escaping to romance and to young, you know, more optimistic
Speaker 4: ways of being. Do you think that's as popularity? Yes,
Speaker 4: I think that, like technology has a lot to do
Speaker 4: with it, because I think we're so you know whatever,
Speaker 4: electronics AI, everyone's so desensitized that I think people are
Speaker 4: craving the kind of basic things, and I think romance
Speaker 4: is thriving right now in film and TV because of that.
Speaker 4: I just don't think we had an shows to watch
Speaker 4: with our parents. I don't remember watching anything. I mean,
Speaker 4: obviously my parents were migrants, so what would I sit
Speaker 4: and watch with them? They didn't really want to watch
Speaker 4: English speaking shows, and back then maybe SBS had a
Speaker 4: few Greek shows. They'd watch the news and maybe on
Speaker 4: like Happy Days in the Brady Barmy we did, but
Speaker 4: we didn't watch it as a family.
Speaker 5: You didn't see I know.
Speaker 4: I mean what I know from Mcropolis now the show
Speaker 4: that I was in that birth Defie. People loved watching
Speaker 4: that with their parents because it was one of those
Speaker 4: shows that you know, minimized, marginalized Australians. New Australians I
Speaker 4: suppose what they were called back then, could watch this show.
Speaker 4: You know, two generations could watch the same show and
Speaker 4: get the same thing out of it. I didn't have
Speaker 4: that experience with my parents in terms of what I
Speaker 4: watched when I was young, do you think there's a
Speaker 4: lot of mothers that are watching these shows with their kids,
Speaker 4: and maybe that's where the older demographics.
Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of co viewing.
Speaker 4: I think when these shows really take off, there's two
Speaker 4: things that happened. Either people are viewing it in different
Speaker 4: generations and demographics, or they're watching it repeatedly. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 4: like the summer I turned pretty these kids just watched
Speaker 4: and watched and watched.
Speaker 5: You know the boys Wednesday.
Speaker 4: They're not watching it once stranger things, they're watching it
Speaker 4: over and over again and they're debating it.
Speaker 3: But you come watch off campus with Lewis?
Speaker 5: Can you?
Speaker 1: Or heated rivalry?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Yes, So I think that's just some solo viewing at
Speaker 1: my house.
Speaker 5: I'm obviously a bad parent.
Speaker 2: Speaking of team drama, can we do a little blast
Speaker 2: in the past?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Something I read this week actually just took me right
Speaker 2: back down memory lane. Okay, So I am English, but
Speaker 2: we moved to South Wales and I was four and
Speaker 2: moved to a town called porth Call. I grew up
Speaker 2: in Newton, which was a tiny little village in poorth Call,
Speaker 2: and our house was right next to this twelfth century church.
Speaker 2: Literally you could climb from my house into the church graveyard.
Speaker 2: Kylie Minogue and Quentin Tarantino just filmed some scenes there.
Speaker 2: I heard about this, Yes, anyway, it took me back
Speaker 2: to remember that age where you were active in a
Speaker 2: pashing sense or a snogging sense, probably not having sex,
Speaker 2: but you know, having the kisses.
Speaker 1: But you didn't have a car. The guy that you
Speaker 1: with didn't have a car.
Speaker 2: You were not bringing them into the house for a snog.
Speaker 2: You couldn't go to bars, you know, a cinema for
Speaker 2: us was twenty minutes away. We were really limited for
Speaker 2: where you could cop off for people, and so there
Speaker 2: were two places to pash in Newton Village when you
Speaker 2: were like thirteen or fourteen.
Speaker 1: There was the bush shelter.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: Now, the good thing was the bush shelter was kind
Speaker 2: of like a quadrant, so there were four sides to
Speaker 2: the bush shelter.
Speaker 1: So if you've gone on a date with a lot of.
Speaker 2: Other couples, you you could take a corner and not
Speaker 2: be seen. So it was the bush shelter or the graveyard.
Speaker 2: And this is a time when we're trying to do
Speaker 2: Wiegi bars, when we're all scared shitless with all of
Speaker 2: the rating movies we've never seen.
Speaker 1: It's pitch black. It gets dark in the UK at
Speaker 1: five pm.
Speaker 2: If you're there on a Friday night at ten pm
Speaker 2: passing in a graveyard, it does give you the hebgb's.
Speaker 2: So you try not to think about ghosts. When do
Speaker 2: you know when you're heavy petting and having a snog.
Speaker 4: Were you worried that your parents were just next door
Speaker 4: that they could possibly look over the things?
Speaker 1: There was no street lights, no down lights. It's scared.
Speaker 1: It was just you and a lot of dead people. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was fine.
Speaker 2: Most of these people had been buried there since like
Speaker 2: the sixteen hundred, so you're pretty sure that they weren't popping.
Speaker 1: Up, but still popping up. A few things popped on
Speaker 1: the jeans. Anyway.
Speaker 2: My point is I was doing my business in a
Speaker 2: twelfth century Sue.
Speaker 4: It sounds like you're indug You've to go business.
Speaker 2: Doing the business. And as you know, it was just
Speaker 2: heavy petting, it was just snogging. So ladies, blast from
Speaker 2: the past. Where did you guys?
Speaker 1: There's weirdest place you have snogged or pashed?
Speaker 4: Well, I from a very young age. A lot of us,
Speaker 4: I'm sure worked part time jobs, and I got a
Speaker 4: job working in the ice cream department at Maya did
Speaker 4: the City Department. It was a food court type of thing,
Speaker 4: and I worked in the ice cream.
Speaker 5: I think they should bring that back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, obviously I'm not a big fan of ice cream,
Speaker 4: but I worked there and I remember I had to
Speaker 4: go back to a storeroom to get something and the
Speaker 4: young boy that I was also working at that place
Speaker 4: with he came to help me carry some things back
Speaker 4: and we had a pass in the collroom.
Speaker 5: In the ballroom, it was Colledge.
Speaker 3: It was who started it first.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know. Maybe I was like gigging like
Speaker 4: an idiot on the way sending the message.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember,
Speaker 4: but I just just remember it was hot in a
Speaker 4: very cold environment. Well let me let me let me
Speaker 4: take you to something that is literally the physical opposite
Speaker 4: of that. Yeah, my I would say most anonymous.
Speaker 5: Adventure inurist pash occurred.
Speaker 4: I've been living overseas for a few years and I
Speaker 4: came back and I was staying to remember the Como
Speaker 4: Hotel in Melbourne, which was the place.
Speaker 5: Okay, so picture me. I'm going up to.
Speaker 4: The pool and I'm in a robe and the lift
Speaker 4: doors open, and standing before me is.
Speaker 5: Like an Adonis.
Speaker 4: Wow, gorgeous model like Adonnis. And he's in a robe
Speaker 4: and he says, my key's not working to the spa.
Speaker 4: Can someone let me in? And I go, well, I'm
Speaker 4: going in there.
Speaker 2: And so I let him in.
Speaker 4: He follows me into the sauna. Yes, not the freezer, Mary,
Speaker 4: the sauna, and some major passion occurred and it was
Speaker 4: completely names were not exchanged hot hot from room to sauna.
Speaker 3: So I was in a huge park with mountains behind
Speaker 3: me where people go hiking. Which country I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: say because then, okay, person will know I'm like talking
Speaker 3: about him. And it was nine pm. Start off as
Speaker 3: a snog, and then one thing led to another and the.
Speaker 4: Are you standing up? Are you sitting down?
Speaker 3: And you are standing up in the middle of the park.
Speaker 3: No one was around, and it was very dark, and
Speaker 3: as we were snogging, one thing led to another. I
Speaker 3: found myself, you know, just about to get some action.
Speaker 1: You know, when you.
Speaker 4: Feel in the park, in the park standing up, yes,
Speaker 4: you know, when you can feel someone's behind you.
Speaker 5: It wasn't.
Speaker 3: It wasn't. My mother by the way, I felt someone
Speaker 3: was behind me, and we both turn around. There was
Speaker 3: a group of wild dogs surrounding us.
Speaker 5: Like this story got very dark, right, and.
Speaker 3: Then I thought, oh my god, I'm scared of dogs
Speaker 3: at that point right now. I love dogs, but when
Speaker 3: it's like so many of them looking at us, you don't.
Speaker 3: Like in National Geographic Documentary, when a whole group of
Speaker 3: like hyhenas looking at you. That was exactly what was happening.
Speaker 3: And then slowly they were coming towards us. And I
Speaker 3: was slowly pulling back for this guy and he said,
Speaker 3: whatever you do, do not run. I mean, I said
Speaker 3: to him, I can't run with my nickas down my anchors.
Speaker 5: By the way, so we were.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I literally did the moon walk slowly trying to go
Speaker 3: back to safety. All the dogs coming towards they were
Speaker 3: coming to us like this, right, I mean, I have
Speaker 3: to say, like when when they saw my Chinese bun
Speaker 3: they want a bite of it, I have to say,
Speaker 3: I have a cute bun. So then I moon walked
Speaker 3: back and once we got to safety, I ran like
Speaker 3: a bitch and then escape.
Speaker 5: I went from a snot sexy part moment. Yes horror
Speaker 5: film Wow.
Speaker 4: We also used to go to the local laundromat that
Speaker 4: was hot.
Speaker 1: No worry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had a laundromer at the top of the street.
Speaker 1: You do it wherever you could, couldn't it?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 5: I would not go to a graveyard.
Speaker 4: It's tragic when you have to hang out at a
Speaker 4: laundromaticon we're not doing your washing with Greek mother doing
Speaker 4: my washing, but I'm hanging out a load of sexy
Speaker 4: What's happened to just simple people watching? I wonder because
Speaker 4: I read Sarah Wilson when she got asked why she
Speaker 4: had moved to Paris, and one of her simplest ways
Speaker 4: of justifying her move to Paris. This is a well
Speaker 4: known writer and podcaster and she's got a huge social
Speaker 4: media following, she said, because the chairs face outward, and
Speaker 4: there is an art form to people watching in Europe.
Speaker 4: They like to sit out and watch life pass them
Speaker 4: by and people pass them by, and it's my favorite pastime.
Speaker 4: I can't get enough of that stuff no matter where
Speaker 4: I am, whether it's at a bus stop or a
Speaker 4: tram stop, picking up my kid from school, at the lights,
Speaker 4: I want to see what people are doing. But it
Speaker 4: seems these days people are so interested in what's happening
Speaker 4: virus screen that they're forgetting to look up and look out.
Speaker 4: So I was listening to the brilliant Esther Perell, who
Speaker 4: was fantastic. She was on No Filter with Kate Langbrook
Speaker 4: and she was talking about how much of a dying
Speaker 4: art form it is to just talk to strangers. Just
Speaker 4: have these little, beautiful community moments of just talking to
Speaker 4: someone of which you're not trying to get anything out
Speaker 4: of them. It's just saying hello, smiling, studying a conversation.
Speaker 4: Have a listened to what she has to say.
Speaker 6: Yesterday, when I landed, I was waiting for the uber
Speaker 6: and a young woman was standing in front of me
Speaker 6: and she heard me leave a message to someone and
Speaker 6: she turned around and she started talking and we had
Speaker 6: a little bit of a chatter.
Speaker 4: You here first time, Yes I am, No.
Speaker 5: I'm not.
Speaker 6: And I just told I said, wow, this is becoming
Speaker 6: an exception. And it was so nice because we had
Speaker 6: a long queue and learned lot of things. She learned
Speaker 6: a lot of things.
Speaker 5: But it is no longer a given.
Speaker 6: It's the fact that the spontaneity of it, the serendipity
Speaker 6: of it is no longer just an obvious thing. It's
Speaker 6: it's you notice it, but also when you ad the
Speaker 6: recipient of it, you realize, oh my god, I don't
Speaker 6: get this so often anymore.
Speaker 1: I used to this used to be part of my
Speaker 1: daily life.
Speaker 6: That kind of what I would call a social lubricant
Speaker 6: is not present. So then everything starts to feel like
Speaker 6: it's an unusual effort.
Speaker 2: Yes, and then you become suspicious of any encounter because
Speaker 2: you're so unused to it.
Speaker 6: Yes, more and more people began to lose their social skills.
Speaker 6: That there is a massive social atrophy. When you don't
Speaker 6: use a muscle, the muscle atrophies. It is no different
Speaker 6: in our social life.
Speaker 5: I love that.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I grew up on a main road in Collingwood. We
Speaker 4: watch the world walk past every single day. We knew
Speaker 4: our neighbors' names, we knew what nationality they were, where
Speaker 4: the parents worked. You go to the local milk bar,
Speaker 4: you talk to the person there. They'd shout you something.
Speaker 4: I still talk to strangers all the time.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: That is one of my favorite pastimes. But it seems
Speaker 4: to be a dying art form. And I think that's
Speaker 4: when you discover things that you don't anticipate. I was
Speaker 4: in an uber the other day going to the airport,
Speaker 4: and the guy that picked me up didn't seem that helpful.
Speaker 4: Suddenly they don't like opening the boot or helping you
Speaker 4: in put your case in the boot. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: oh I gay a bit chili con carnty from this
Speaker 4: guy was cool des ice, And we sat in the
Speaker 4: car and four minutes in he spills his guts to me,
Speaker 4: because he I'm just a genuinely curious person. I'm not
Speaker 4: going to tell anyone except for a listening audience on
Speaker 4: a podcast, Long Story Long, this guy tells me about
Speaker 4: how his marriage was falling apart, his wife started having affairs,
Speaker 4: He went through a really hard time, and then he
Speaker 4: came back to his marriage and decided that he was
Speaker 4: going to fight for it, and then told me that
Speaker 4: they're swinging, okay, swung in a direction I anticipated either.
Speaker 4: By the time I got to the airport, I knew
Speaker 4: more about this person than probably anyone else sexually that
Speaker 4: I'm close to. So I just wonder, you know, like,
Speaker 4: are we missing out on discovering things about how people
Speaker 4: live because we're not having those conversations. Are we losing
Speaker 4: our social lubric Well, I'm.
Speaker 2: A chatterbox and I love stories, and I think you
Speaker 2: and I are similar when it comes to curiosity. And
Speaker 2: sometimes I'm on my own for a few days, you know,
Speaker 2: if I'm writing at home, if Lewis is at his dad's,
Speaker 2: I don't see anyone. So I am starved for that.
Speaker 2: So I am the person that will just chat to
Speaker 2: someone in Nicole's queue. There are people in Centennial Park
Speaker 2: that I speak to every day when I walk. Any
Speaker 2: of their names, but we've like looped each there for
Speaker 2: like seven rays. So there's a lovely Russian guy who's
Speaker 2: about hundred who looks a bit like al Pacino.
Speaker 1: But I live for this stuff. Yeah, and you just
Speaker 1: get the.
Speaker 2: Gold, so I'm probably, Yeah, it's definitely not dying in
Speaker 2: my world.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, it's so dying in mine. I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm a little bit of the opposite to you, do
Speaker 5: I think? I mean, I have this joke with my husband.
Speaker 4: He goes, oh, he goes on a plane, and I go, oh,
Speaker 4: how'd you sleep? He goes, oh, not much. I was
Speaker 4: just talking to the person next to me the whole night,
Speaker 4: and I was like, what are you talking about? Like,
Speaker 4: I'm on the plane, the headphones go on, I'm sending
Speaker 4: the signal.
Speaker 5: Do not interact with me because I'm just like in
Speaker 5: the zone.
Speaker 4: And I think I've become more like that now, I
Speaker 4: will say, I will have.
Speaker 5: The occasional conversation.
Speaker 4: In fact, I had a similar experience with a driver
Speaker 4: recently actually in Sydney, and he told me the most
Speaker 4: amazing life story, Like I was like, I kind of
Speaker 4: wanted to give hi my number by the end of
Speaker 4: the drive. So I do agree with esther that it's
Speaker 4: a dying art and that we need to be more open.
Speaker 4: And I certainly see in young people that they barely
Speaker 4: call their friends and interact in usk questions, let alone strangers.
Speaker 4: So I think I could probably do with a bit
Speaker 4: more of it. My husband's the opposite. He actually believes,
Speaker 4: like he'll get in a cab and even if someone's
Speaker 4: giving off negative energy, he believes he can shift their energy,
Speaker 4: and so he'll always engage and find out the story
Speaker 4: and kind of get to the heart of it. And
Speaker 4: I am a bit envious of people like that because
Speaker 4: I don't think I am that person.
Speaker 3: I love talking to everyone off I'm so good at it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean not to blow haunt, but I started when
Speaker 3: I moved to Melbourne year ago. I thought, we don't
Speaker 3: know anybody. Yeah, I want to meet people, so I
Speaker 3: start my IG series MSG Melbourne stuff O great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 3: I go up to people who look cool and I say,
Speaker 3: can I take a picture of you? And we start
Speaker 3: talking and you know, we start connecting on Instagram. And
Speaker 3: as you know, I'm a huge Formula one fan, so
Speaker 3: that's how I meet form On fans. When they wear
Speaker 3: anything merged from F one, I will go up to them,
Speaker 3: especially if they were Lewis Hamilton, the best of all time.
Speaker 3: I will go up and strike a conversation. And I
Speaker 3: have my own F one club, you know, WhatsApp group,
Speaker 3: so I find it quite easy to talk to people.
Speaker 3: And I also want to set an example to my
Speaker 3: kid how you strike a conversation, because nowadays young people
Speaker 3: don't know how to start conversation. And when I talk
Speaker 3: to people a bit younger, sometimes I don't even look
Speaker 3: at you.
Speaker 5: In the eye.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they just find it really hard to engage.
Speaker 3: And I really don't want my son to become like that.
Speaker 3: So he's very used to me chatting away with strangers
Speaker 3: talk about this and that. I mean on the way
Speaker 3: from Melbourne to here on my flight, there was a
Speaker 3: girl she checked in a massive cello. It was so
Speaker 3: big that everyone.
Speaker 5: Was like, what the hell.
Speaker 3: So I went up to her and said it's a
Speaker 3: dead body in there, and she goes, aha, yeah, And
Speaker 3: I said how long you've been playing? She's been playing
Speaker 3: since she was eight. She goes around the country. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's people have such interesting stories, and I think we
Speaker 3: need to share more stories. I loved chatting to people
Speaker 3: and just get to know what's going with their lives
Speaker 3: and then we say goodbye, no string attached.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do it from the stage every single show
Speaker 4: I do. There is half of that is improvised, where
Speaker 4: I'm just talking to the audience, and that's everyone's favorite
Speaker 4: part of the show because then the people in the
Speaker 4: audience get to start and I just think we've got
Speaker 4: to keep curiosity alive. I just think social currency is
Speaker 4: the most valuable one. If you can't feel confident to
Speaker 4: walk into a room where you can strike up a
Speaker 4: conversation with someone, you're really handstrung by what the opportunities
Speaker 4: are going to come your way. You can't rely on
Speaker 4: a piece of paper anymore. We know that a degree
Speaker 4: is not going to open doors anymore. We know that
Speaker 4: if you know someone that can open a door, that's
Speaker 4: considered like nepotism, So that's got a bit of a
Speaker 4: stench to it. So you can only really rely on
Speaker 4: your confidence, and your confidence comes from being able to
Speaker 4: connect with people yourself. I think the most powerful people
Speaker 4: in the world are the ones that are not privileged
Speaker 4: by money or attractiveness, but by character, by having the
Speaker 4: confidence to go in there and feel like you can
Speaker 4: improvise in real time with people, and you know, I
Speaker 4: have a conversation, exchange ideas and make a connection that way.
Speaker 4: That seems to be a dying art form. And I
Speaker 4: really worry about young people because most of them can't
Speaker 4: really even hold a conversation or carry one, or even
Speaker 4: answer a question beyond a yes or no, which I
Speaker 4: think is really concerning. Can I just like be counted
Speaker 4: to that because we all have a lot of young
Speaker 4: people in our lives, and I don't know, I see
Speaker 4: them kind of starting conversations and kind of thinking and
Speaker 4: being interested in things and kind of engaging with each
Speaker 4: other in a way that or with each other. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but with a friend group, with groups like I see
Speaker 4: them kind of engaging and being in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, kids will always play, right, I'm not talking about that.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about a young person being even able to
Speaker 4: have a conversation with an older person that is not
Speaker 4: their parent or you know, or an older person actually
Speaker 4: showing some genuine interest into a younger person, not just
Speaker 4: doing what's convenient, what's logical, or what's exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, may you started this to talk about this
Speaker 3: people watching. When I get into my building's lift, I
Speaker 3: always struck a conversation with my neighbors. And one time
Speaker 3: I was in the lift by myself. Two people came in,
Speaker 3: a couple older couple. They must he must be in
Speaker 3: his seventies and she must be late late sixties, and
Speaker 3: they were very lovely dovey with each other. And I
Speaker 3: started saying, because there was so lovely dovey, I said, Jesus,
Speaker 3: get a room, let me in, or something like that, right,
Speaker 3: And then she she just turned around looked at me.
Speaker 3: She goes, oh, hello, sorry about no, no, no, no, you
Speaker 3: guys are so loved I was so cute. And then
Speaker 3: she said, oh, we just met at the party last night.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, that's so sweet. And then I said
Speaker 3: to her, watch out for that one to the guy.
Speaker 3: Pointing at the guy, I said, he's a naughty one.
Speaker 3: He looked at me and gave me a look, and
Speaker 3: that's when I thought, oh my god, I've seen him
Speaker 3: with his wife.
Speaker 1: No I know, no. So then he looked.
Speaker 3: At me like with like dagger's eyes, and I quickly said,
Speaker 3: I'm only joking. And then we both went to the car.
Speaker 3: We got out, and then he makes some kind of
Speaker 3: joke and I was like, oh my god, that was
Speaker 3: a bit crazy. So that's a problem.
Speaker 1: I have been so.
Speaker 5: Nosy paying attention.
Speaker 3: Yes, too much attention.
Speaker 2: It's that time in the show where we take a
Speaker 2: problem from a listener.
Speaker 1: We call it other people's problems. Yay.
Speaker 2: This is the part of the show where you, the listeners,
Speaker 2: send in your dilemmas and we, the hosts, give you
Speaker 2: terrible advice. You ready, ladies, Okay. Today's problem comes from Katie,
Speaker 2: who says, dear unleash ladies, my younger sister has been
Speaker 2: posting things on Facebook that I'm a bit befuddled by.
Speaker 2: She posts about our childhood with long captions about breaking
Speaker 2: generational cycles and how toxic it was growing up. The
Speaker 2: problem is I was there, and while our parents weren't perfect,
Speaker 2: I don't really know what she's talking about. Last week,
Speaker 2: she posted a photo of versus kids with the caption
Speaker 2: no one knew what was happening behind closed doors. Oh
Speaker 2: but from what I remember, we were just eating apricot
Speaker 2: chicken and watching Hey hey it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Cousins are commenting things like you're so brave, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what is going on? Am I the asshole? Can two
Speaker 2: siblings have completely different childhoods in the same house? Is
Speaker 2: this an attention thing?
Speaker 1: Help? All right, ladies?
Speaker 4: Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Do you think what advice she needs?
Speaker 5: To have a conversation with her sister?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, if that's.
Speaker 4: Not a light small thing, right, Like, obviously her sisters
Speaker 4: had some kind of negative experience. I don't think she
Speaker 4: would be randomly posting that's pretty inflammatory. So my advice is, yeah,
Speaker 4: have an honest conversation with your sister and find out
Speaker 4: what's there. Well, I do think that two siblings can
Speaker 4: be looking at things from different points of view and
Speaker 4: without I mean, it does the way it's written, it
Speaker 4: sounds like she has created this whole other story that
Speaker 4: maybe didn't exist. But maybe maybe something did happen to
Speaker 4: this sister, and if she is lying, maybe something happened
Speaker 4: to her for her to want to tell that lie.
Speaker 4: So I don't know. Look, my brother and I grew
Speaker 4: up in the same house, and when we look back
Speaker 4: at history, he'll not have noticed something that I did,
Speaker 4: and vice versa. And I always say to him, well,
Speaker 4: between the two of us, we've got it covered. Because
Speaker 4: he was looking at it through his lens and I
Speaker 4: was looking at it through mine. And I did a
Speaker 4: one woman show and I gave him the script just
Speaker 4: before I started rehearsing it and said, you know, you
Speaker 4: should read this. It's about our life. And he came
Speaker 4: up the stairs and he said, I don't remember that
Speaker 4: ever happening in that room that night. And my mother
Speaker 4: didn't know what we were talking talking about, and she said,
Speaker 4: what are you talking about? And I retold a scene
Speaker 4: that happened at a hospital with a family friend of
Speaker 4: ours that was dying and what I witnessed in the
Speaker 4: moments after the death, and that was like the highlight
Speaker 4: scene in the show. And my mother, without knowing that
Speaker 4: that was the scene we were talking about. Said what
Speaker 4: are you talking about? And I said, you remember that
Speaker 4: time when we were at the hospital and such and
Speaker 4: such died, And she went straight to the bit that
Speaker 4: I highlighted in the in the script. So my brother said,
Speaker 4: I was there. I wasn't looking at that. So sometimes
Speaker 4: I think we're looking at very different things. It is
Speaker 4: the same house. There is a part of the way
Speaker 4: that that's written that makes me think that the sister
Speaker 4: is probably making a lot of it up, or at
Speaker 4: least amplifying it to a degree that maybe me makes
Speaker 4: you think that because her own sibling is seeing it
Speaker 4: very very loud to your point, like, I mean, I'll
Speaker 4: remember things that my mum will go that didn't happen.
Speaker 4: I'll be like, I've worked part time but much because no,
Speaker 4: you didn't, but did you know?
Speaker 5: I think not. I think she has a better memory
Speaker 5: than me.
Speaker 4: But I'm just saying, like some people really specific things
Speaker 4: from children, and some people just have blocked.
Speaker 3: I also think that the brilliant Gabel Mates always said this,
Speaker 3: a group of children's siblings live in the same household
Speaker 3: would have very different experiences, right, And I think sometimes
Speaker 3: with siblings like I've had this experience, not that anything
Speaker 3: crazy happened, but I told a story once in front
Speaker 3: of my siblings, and one of them said to me,
Speaker 3: why you always make it up, like as if we
Speaker 3: had a really bad childhood and it wasn't my intention.
Speaker 3: And then I thought, well, that's your thought. This is
Speaker 3: my story, my side of a story. We're so different,
Speaker 3: so exactly your point, Bruno, like, sometimes when things happen
Speaker 3: to you, you look at it very different lens to
Speaker 3: your siblings, because we're all so different and we take
Speaker 3: things so differently. And I kind of feel this this
Speaker 3: girl's sister.
Speaker 5: I don't think she's lying.
Speaker 3: I think she's desperately trying to tell her older sister
Speaker 3: or youngest sister a story that she's not even asking,
Speaker 3: and whether it's severe or not, all you have to
Speaker 3: do is ask her and maybe say, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'd much rather you'd come and talk to me than
Speaker 3: put it on Facebook.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think Katie, you say like, I'm trying to
Speaker 4: understand what it is you're talking about.
Speaker 1: It agreed, and not come with judgment.
Speaker 2: I guess if Katie approaches his sister with perhaps we've
Speaker 2: seen things differently or I don't remember things the way
Speaker 2: that you do. You know, share with me, take me
Speaker 2: through it, Talk me through it, how you feeling, what happened?
Speaker 1: You know, what can we do about it?
Speaker 2: I am not pro putting this stuff on Facebook, though,
Speaker 2: I do think this is not always the place for
Speaker 2: people to pick over you.
Speaker 3: But also I feel sometimes with families and siblings that
Speaker 3: they the level of respect is very different from, you know,
Speaker 3: from maybe how they treat their friends, because if you're family,
Speaker 3: they feel like, oh, you know, what you're feeling doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: because we're siblings, you know, we should it should be fine.
Speaker 3: But I think, especially in my family, because we're also
Speaker 3: such strong women, we sometimes does each other's feelings without
Speaker 3: even realizing. Now, at fifty three young, I realize that's
Speaker 3: what we've been doing all the time, and this has
Speaker 3: got a change.
Speaker 4: I feel like I need to say what Ginny would say, like,
Speaker 4: I'm a Google doctor.
Speaker 5: I'm not your doctor. I'm a Google psychologist.
Speaker 4: I'm not your psychologist, So please take what I've said.
Speaker 1: With a look.
Speaker 4: I obviously look at everything through a theatrical lens, like
Speaker 4: I look for character, and I look for comedy, and
Speaker 4: I look for tragedy. And I look for those things
Speaker 4: that serve my work and the way I like to
Speaker 4: read into people's lives and create theater out of the
Speaker 4: every day. So I come at it from that point
Speaker 4: of view. My brother is a very different character to me,
Speaker 4: so I'm sure he sees it differently. Look, it might
Speaker 4: be just a character difference, or maybe something else happened
Speaker 4: that Katie doesn't know about, and a conversation to get
Speaker 4: closer to understanding why there's such a disconnect in the
Speaker 4: history that they share would be a healthy Wow.
Speaker 2: Aren't we in a privileged place where our listeners feel
Speaker 2: safe to send things like this into us? And we
Speaker 2: are the people that you can tell when you've got
Speaker 2: no one to tell. Yes, anyway, I hope that helps Katie.
Speaker 2: And if you're listening and you want to send in
Speaker 2: one of your problems, please do dm us at Unleashed
Speaker 2: Dot Show on Instagram.
Speaker 5: We love your problem.
Speaker 1: We do love your problem. Talk to us. I think
Speaker 1: that's all we've got time for, ladies. It's flown by,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: So if you have a friend who has a shitty partner,
Speaker 2: perhaps like ce Lewis Hamilton, as Grace suggested, or if
Speaker 2: you're enter teen drama as much as myself and Brunna.
Speaker 2: Or if you've got a friend who's passed somebody in
Speaker 2: a graveyard, share this episode with them. We don't have
Speaker 2: big budget here, we don't have a billboard yet, but
Speaker 2: what we do have is the unleashers who can share
Speaker 2: in a very gen x way with other gen xers.
Speaker 2: So if you can share this episode, that would be fabulous.
Speaker 2: If you want to reach out to us or message us,
Speaker 2: go to unleash dot show Instagram and we might even.
Speaker 1: Ask you to send a voice message that we will
Speaker 1: then play on the show.
Speaker 2: All right, then we will be back next Tuesday, or
Speaker 2: as we like to.
Speaker 3: Say, see me Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Until then, stay unfiltered, stay unreasonable, and stay unleashed.
Speaker 5: Bye.
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