Urgh here we go again.

2023 was certainly the year of VHS Revue. With no writing work on Mad as Hell for the first time in a decade, I figured I’d go all in on the video tape-based web series I’ve been dabbling on since 2008. And I reckon the hard work paid off.

I made 16 episodes to bring the total to 50. This one is probably my favourite:

I thought I’d try doing some PR this year too. I ended up appearing on three radio shows, eight podcasts, plus three TV appearances! Here’s me shitting myself on Studio 10 shortly before the show was axed:

And here I am on Today Extra a mere 34 hours after getting back from Sweden, not entirely sure if any of this was real:

Then there’s the show’s growing audience on social media – especially TikTok – which started the year with about 12k followers and ends it at more than 27k, with one clip gaining more than one million views – a first for me on any platform.

It’s never the ones you think will do well…

@vhsrevue

Remember when Kmart sold stuff besides plastic shoes? Get a load of their range in this Aussie ad from 1984. #kmart #australia #vhsrevue #80s #nostalgia #videogames

? original sound – VHS Revue

Those 16 new episodes were also just enough to reach the magic 4,000 watch hours on YouTube within a 12 month period, thus finally allowing me to become a partner and start getting a slice of that YouTube ad money. So far I’ve made 28 cents.

The Patreon account has been a bit more successful. Currently the show has 52 paid subscribers. Thanks, you people! And thanks to everyone else who’s helped me make the show – or just watched it – over the last 50 episodes.

Oh yeah and I wrote an article for The Guardian too.

But what does the future hold for VHS Revue? Well I’ve certainly got no shortage of tapes…

Other work things and back in March I was in a TV commercial for Seek.com.au.

More of that please.

I had a little writing work on a TV quiz show and wrote a bit of website copy but nothing like Mad as Hell unfortunately. Doesn’t feel like there’ll be a show like that again any time soon, which is a bit of a shame (speaking as both a writer and viewer).

Still panelling radio at SEN. Pushed the buttons for the usual things: AFL, NBL, BBL, AFLW. I also panelled SEN’s first ever netball radio broadcast and did some of the FIFA Women’s World Cup coverage.

The Australia v. France penalty shootout was a pretty special sporting moment to be part of. You can see me on the video through the glass here.

See if you can tell what went wrong…

I also did a few days on Trade Radio and ended the year with three weeks panelling Afternoons with Jimmy Smith and The Run Home with Joel & Fletch on 1170 SEN Sydney.

The Sydney studios were out of action in November/December for refurbishing so all their programming had to be panelled from other studios around the network. It also resulted in my first on-air appearance on said network. Despite working for Crocmedia/SEN since 2012 and being referred to on various shows by everyone from Rex Hunt to Tim Gossage, I’d never actually been on air. Mainly because I can’t talk about sport. Still, The Run Home guys invited me on to say hi and once Jimmy Smith found out I was a comedy writer, well I had to give him something:

It’s been so long since I’ve hosted a radio show, I do kind of miss it. So it was cool this year to be part of a podcast pilot called ‘Back in Those Days’ with Isabella Valette, which we recorded at the fabulous HitMaker Studios in Port Melbourne. Hope we can make more of those.

Annika, Gus, Rockley and I have settled into Coburg. We’ve got our favourite cafés, playgounds and local landmarks (ie. The Cat House – if you know, you know).

One of the highlights of the year was our olive harvesting party, where we had some friends round to hang out, eat nice bread and pick the olives off our seven olive trees. We got 62kg of olives, which we had turned into 6 litres of olive oil.

There were still a few buckets left on the trees so I also preserved some in jars, a process I found surprisingly enjoyable. The black ones in particular turned out great. Probably won’t bother with the green ones next time (a bit too acidic. Probably best to use those for oil).

In June/July we spent a month in Sweden for midsommer. It was my first overseas trip since the pandemic, our first long haul flight with a baby and probably the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. But once we got there it was quite nice.

We introduced Gus to Annika’s side of the family. My Mum and her partner Nigel came too and they met all the Swedish relatives. Basically a lot of time with family and friends; eating, drinking, saunaing and enjoying the long summer days outdoors.

I’d been to Sweden three times before but this was my first time driving a car there. Thanks to those skills I picked up on our honeymoon in the US though, it wasn’t nearly as terrifying. Just like riding a bike.

Couldn’t quite say the same for the kayak…

That year 8 canoeing camp didn’t do squat.

Oh and I saw a moose for the first time! Which I’m told is actually quite rare. It was munching on some grass in the glade just outside our house. Had to get out the video camera for that one:

Thankfully the flight back wasn’t as bad.

God if there was ever a time to have a row to yourself…

There a Bob Odenkirk stand-up bit that gets recited quite a bit in our house:

“At some point your kids kinda mutate. They go from being beautiful miracles of love into the worst roommates you’ve ever had. Because they become roommates who: don’t help, who you have to drive around, who don’t think you’re funny, kinda hate you… you have to feed them or you go to jail. YOU go to jail if you don’t feed them. And you’ve had bad roommates but the worst part is you love them. You love these bastards.”

And he’s only 18 months…

No surprise I didn’t watch as many things or read as many books this year. Basically every free moment I had went into VHS Revue. But I did read ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ by George Saunders (2017), which was absolutely brilliant. Very original and full of many funny choices.

My favourite TV show at the moment is ‘For All Mankind’, now in its 4th season and the best Australian show this century returned with the season 2 of ‘The Newsreader’ on ABC TV. I highly recommend all of the above.

Sometimes I reckon I hit the genetic lottery (I mean, just look at that lush head of hair with nary a grey in sight) but I think this might have been the first year where I’ve started to see the cracks of middle age appearing. Particularly while editing VHS Revue, I saw a noticeable difference between the batch of episodes I shot in November 2021 compared to January 2023. It might have something to do with me becoming a parent in between and losing all notion of a good night’s sleep. Or maybe it’s because I shot 16 episodes in a single weekend, I don’t know.

But I’m 36 now. I can injure my back just by reaching for the shampoo in the shower. It’ll be my 20th high school reunion next year! And I’m getting closer to that point where there’s actually more years behind me than ahead. That’s if I’m lucky. Which of course I am.

There have been some horrible, disturbing and disappointing things happen in the world this year. War in Gaza, the failed referendum, global warming, AI, the soaring cost of everything, Elon Musk ruining Twitter. Right wing authoritarianism. It feels like we are teetering on some sort of precipice.

It’s a wonderful gift this life.

Wishing you all the good things.

DMG