Earlier this week I caught up with the very talented Francis Greenslade in my favourite Melbourne suburb in terms of pronunciation: Elsternwick. We chatted for an hour about insects, acting, Blue Heelers, Winners & Losers, Shaun Micallef, sketch comedy, theatre, musical instruments and other related things.
Fortunately, this fascinating conversation was recorded and you can hear it all in the latest episode of David M. Green & Other Famous People. Available on iTunes, as well as in the player embedded below:
In response to new Education Minister Christopher Pyne’s comments last week RE: again abolishing compulsory student services fees at Australian universities, I wrote an opinion piece for ABC’s The Drum website about my own experience last time it happened and the impact it had on student media.
The good people at Radio Adelaide – where my media career began – saw the article and invited me onto their breakfast show on Monday to have a chat with Radio’s Angus Randall. It was slightly too early in the morning for me, but you can listen to the audio here.
Always too happy to give back to Radio Adelaide, the station that gave me everything. Including an award, which they have since misplaced.
If anyone sees the 2007 South Australian Community Broadcasting Association “Bilby” Award for Best Station ID 2007 anywhere, would you let me know?
Kind regards,
David M. Green
And good to hear The Empire Times is back up and running.
Hold on to your pants because it’s a brand new episode of The Good Show! The sketch comedy podcast with Anthony’s McCormack and the me guy.
In Ep 4, we’re joined “live” in Studio Pleasant by special guest controversial commentator Andrew Bolt; Anthony reveals his new brand of Special Water; Babysitting with Michael Wincott; a paid political message from a minor political party; plus we give you the outside scoop on 31 Questions, Big Brother and the flimsy relationship between those two TV programmes.
It’s also got the most absurdly over-produced intro theme in the history of The Good Show, if not all shows that are good (It took me 6 hours to edit the first 65 seconds!). I’ve wanted to do a ridiculous over-produced “wall-of-sound-esque” intro for a while. Something that just makes fun of commercial radio imaging. Because really, it’s worthy of ridicule. I even blended in a few grabs from some American radio promos circa 1986/87, courtesy of YouTube and some guy with a cassette tape.
You can listen to Ep 4 of The Good Show, entitled “Andrew Bolt Loves Animals” via this embedded player thing:
As hilarious and elaborately edited as our sketches are, I suspect it’ll be the cameo from Australia’s most read political blogger that’ll get people talking. So for your convenience, I’ve taken the liberty of isolating Andrew Bolt’s appearance on The Good Show.
Here is my gift to the Internet:
Kind regards,
David M. Green
Been hanging on to that one for a while.
31 Questions S2E06 aired on C31 Melbourne & Geelong on the 31st day of August. And there is it on glorious YouTube.
I spent 4 days in Sydney last week. It was the first time in seven years I’d been somewhere that wasn’t Melbourne or Adelaide. And it was fantastic.
I stayed in the seaside suburb of Sans Souci on the shores of Botany Bay (to my knowledge, the only bay named after a spaceship from Star Trek) with the lovely Barb Badham:
She’s mother to my good friend and mentor Van Badham. Here’s a photo of her aged 14, which I discovered in a drawer that wasn’t locked in any serious kind of way:
I forgot that I actually like Sydney. Last time I was there it was for New Year’s Eve 2006 when my Grandma treated the family to watch the fireworks on Sydney Harbour. An unforgettable experience. Back then, I returned to Adelaide via Melbourne. On that trip, I had a much better time in Sydney than Melbourne. To quote my 19-year-old self from my own diary:
7 January 2007
“I think I prefer Sydney to Melbourne. Watching this promotional video in the Rialto Tower really gave me the impression Melbourne is an arrogant city. It’s really just a bigger, more disorganised Adelaide.”
It probably didn’t help I was travelling with my good friend John Timoney and by the time we got to Melbourne, we were well and truly sick of each other. While I’ve got my diaries out, here’s how I felt about Melbourne when I was there again 18 months later:
12 July 2008
“Melbourne is great. I can see myself living here more than I could last time.”
Quite a turn around! And since then, the only news I ever hear about Sydney is to do with traffic congestion, high cost of living and racist electorates in the western suburbs. But I always have a great time when I’m there (I don’t drive and I stay away from the western suburbs).
Highlights of this Sydney trip include meeting Mark Humphries from ABC2’s “The Roast” at Pizza Hut. We talked comedy and TV and such for 5 hours straight. Didn’t even take a photo with him. But he’s pretty good in this:
I also caught the train to the Petersham TAFE to be interviewed by Sean Campbell for his “The Sean Campbell Show” on XRLENT Radio. Good guy. We talked about 31 Questions, TVS, RMITV, radio and Adelaide. Here’s the video of our chat:
On Thursday, after one and a half cancellations, I finally caught up with my old radio pal Matty B at the Queen Victoria Building (or MB at the QVB). Hadn’t seen him in 3 years. Again no photo, but we did do this once:
[display_podcast]
And now for the strangest experience of my trip…
On Thursday night, to coincide with the broadcast of S2E04 on TVS, I journeyed to Ultimo (a couple of streets back from the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), home to the infamous “Ultimo Bachelor Pad” – the self proclaimed (and probably rightly so) biggest 31 Questions fans in, if not Sydney, then the world.
Now, they are some REAL fans…
To illustrate:
Dear God. We must be doing something right with 31 Questions?
Thanks again to Mike, James, Zoe, Nathan, Mel and (via Skype from Europe) Daniel for a magnificent dinner and cake, as well as their ridiculous amount of support they continue to give to me and the rest of the 31 Questions team. Fans in other cities, you’ve got your work cut out for you if you plan on topping that.
I’m now safely back in Melbourne. And it’s back to the hyper-reality that is my life.
Kind regards,
David M. Green
PS. 31 Questions debuts on Face Television New Zealand this Thursday 9.30PM.
If you missed my piece (opinion piece, I mean. Not a firearm.) in mX last week, here it is in fabulous scanned electro-newsprint:
And if that’s not working for ya, here’s the text version:
For What It’s Worth David M. Green on Twitter Etiquette
I followed Phil Collins on Twitter. You’d think of all people, the guy who sang “Follow You Follow Me” would follow back. He didn’t.
But he’s a big star – even if he hasn’t had a hit in 15 years. He can’t possibly follow back all his Twitter fans. So what’s your excuse for not following back? Are YOU famous?
I don’t think so.
So what is proper Twitter etiquette, or “Twittiquette”?
The ultimate insult in 2013 is to ignore someone online. It’s one thing to simply ignore someone you don’t know or with whom you have no common interests. We do this to millions of people by default.
But unless you’re a celebrity, you’re in a genuine category of jerk if someone you’ve met in your travels follows you on Twitter, and you don’t follow back.
It’s the technological equivalent of sticking out your hand for a high five, only to be left hanging. You’d have to truly despise someone – and want them to know it – to do that. You never leave a guy hanging.
A Twitter following is seen by many as a symbol of power. More followers means more influence. And more chance someone will want to give you a briefcase full of money for no reason. The history of the Internet is filled with stories like that, right?
But it’s not enough simply to have a pile of followers. The assumption seems to be: “I’ll only be seen as powerful and interesting if I have lots of followers AND I’m not following many people”. In other words, you need an impressive “power ratio”.
There are many ways to get that power ratio. You can do what a few politicians have done and just buy some Twitter followers, which is great if you like robots. You can do a Miley Cyrus and twerk your way to a pile of followers with a controversial public stunt. You could even try actually working hard in the real world for a number of years to establish yourself as an influential figure in your chosen field… Na.
The fastest and cheapest way to get Twitter followers is to follow a bunch of people, then unfollow the ones who didn’t follow back. And then unfollow the ones who DID follow back. Presto! Power ratio.
Although, there is a slight problem with that. If you’re actively ignoring people who follow you because you think it’ll enhance your power ratio, you’re ultimately just making enemies. I don’t know about you, but I feel less inclined to like someone if I know they’re not interested in me. Screw the power games.
The amazing thing is; being nice on Twitter is so easy. It’s the easiest way to be nice in the history of social interaction. Take the high road. Keep your followers. Keep following back. That’s all you’ve got to do. Even if you hate their guts.
Of course, if you’re followed by a business that treats Twitter like a spam-delivery system, you’re under no obligation to follow back. And life is too short for trolls, bots and troll-bots (they’re the worst).
But if you want to be the nicest person in the online world, follow back, like a status and give a retweet now and then. People will love you for life. Or at least until you stop following them.
—
And a big welcome to my 5 new Twitter followers!
I may have acquired more had mX been able to print underscores properly.
