Josh Cake - Making Art Is No Joke

0:00 Slam poetry doesn't care if. It's perfect. It's. The biggest poem I've got inside of You. Love me. Love a haunted house. Blood black Nothingness began to spin this day. I hate pork chops. I am the master. I am the Captain, the most radical podcast since that one Chris Pine made in Don't Worry Darling. Welcome to I Think Therefore I Slam, bringing you the best spoken word and slam poetry artist from Australia and beyond. My name is Andrew. My guest today is a Melbourne born artist, currently in between residing in Paris and Edinburgh, renowned for his multifaceted talents in comedy, music and poetry. His official website introduces him humorously as someone engaged in comedy, music, poetry, death. Eventually, in 2023, my guest released a poetry album titled Words to Regret When I'm Better at Editing, which showcases his prowess as a poet.

1:05 Notably, he achieved the distinction of being the top ranked poet in the National Poetry Slam in Australia. He's here for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. He is Melbourne poetry's favorite expat. Josh Keg, welcome on. Hello Andrew, thank you for having me. That was a very warm introduction. Renowned is a big cold. They're just things that I do. Renowned for is huge. Yeah, I I I think renowned to me means your reputation and your name precedes you, you know, and, and yeah, I've had tabs on you, my friend. Oh, no. Ever since we shared the stage in 2019, I thought, this is someone who knows what they're doing. Oh yeah, And people who seem like they know what they're doing. Yeah, I've seen you perform fun. I think that's all I want. Just entertain each other.

1:48 Good, good. That's all I'm looking. For good. It's sounding quite circle jerky at the moment, but we we mean it with love, don't we? Yeah. Yeah, we do. This is I've, I don't know if I've ever been on a podcast before where somebody played the music live into my they you just normally start recording and they put that in later in, you know, in audition or like Audacity if they're poor, but mixing in his life. That was, I just want everyone to know I heard that at the same time. And as you, that was done organically the old fashioned way. Yeah, we got like a lot of unused little sound effect pads here, so we do it properly here. So thank you for the praise. Thank you for that, it was fun. Now you're in town for Melbourne International Not Poetry Festival, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

2:32 Rather that's, that is correct, all comedy. Nope. Actually, no. There's quite a lot of poems at the Comedy Festival. Yeah, but yes, the Comedy Festival. Yes, Now I believe that you you're not showcasing a full show this year. You have in the past. Yes. You're more of a a featured guest at a few shows. Yes, I'm doing things with my friends. I spent a lot of time on stage by myself last year and I have a lot of fun playing music for my friends and supporting roles for them. So I'm playing piano in one improv show and I'm acting in a friend's show and just having a nice time. You know you'll do spots of solo stuff, but it's really nice to be on stage with my buddies that's. Nice, you've come from Adelaide, The Fringe Festival. Yes, same the same thing in Adelaide. I did a bit of solo poetry stuff there, but the rest was, you know, playing music for a comedy show or acting in my friends com show or just taking a Com show, just supporting.

3:19 It's a lot of fun. Oh good, mate. It's, it's good to, you know, have you back in your own backyard kind of giving back to the, the that scene. It's it's it's good. Yeah, giving back, I think also taken I was very I've seen a lot of shows and had a lot of fun. I'm I'm taking a lot. Good, good, good. Soak it up, soak it up. Oh. Yeah, yeah, Actually, that's an interesting. When are you giving and when you take? Because as an audience member, I, I often feel like I'm taking, I'm enjoying, I'm receiving it. But you know, I have a very loud laugh. Yeah. So people say, oh, you're giving. Yeah, that's interesting. I guess some people ask their audience to give a lot. Have you ever been to burlesque? Oh, a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And they're like, you've got a whoop.

3:59 Just every single step you've it asks a lot of the. I think magic asks so much of the audience. Take a card, show it to everyone. Not to me. I was like, the audience members working. You're just going to take that card, move it around and bring it back. I I hate magic and magicians, the art form and the magic. Are you kidding? OK. Magic is just gaslighting your audience. It's so boring. There's no narrative, there's no story, there's no purposes. Just lying to them. You know, you pick a card and you say you pick the four of hearts, all the and then you put it back. All the magician does is just move it around and bring it back to you. That's so boring. Every time I know this is going to move the card and bring it back. All. You know the machines they use where they chop themselves in half or do an illusion. Yes, they've just gone to a magic shop and they've bought a device that we haven't seen the internals of. And then they that would be like if I'd never seen a toaster and you went and bought a toaster and you put bread in in a Kmart toaster.

4:51 And I was like, wow, it's magic. No, you're just taking advantage of the fact that I haven't seen a toaster. So it's either lying or just moving stuff around. And and also they're creepy. I've never met a non creepy magician. I was like, I'm saying the art form and the people I will make up. I will go on record. I hate all magic and all magicians. I don't because like, even if you were to practice sleight of hand, I, you know, I've got a friend called Karen. She practiced sleight of hand for years on the cello, and now she gives a beautiful gift to the world with her music. Rather than just moving a card round and giving it back to me. Also, they pretend they're doing something new. All they're doing is moving a card round. Like I'm going to do something. A magician. You've never seen a magician do this before? And I'm like, what?

5:31 Ask for consent? I hate magic. Wow, that is That is a hot take. We're going to get some clack back from some magicians, maybe some illusionist, Michael. Fight me, magician. I want to fight a magician. Bring it. Man to be taken. Seriously. Yeah, bring it on midnight by the era. Let's do this. It's going down. Yeah. And I guess some, I guess there is, you know, some comedians ask a lot of their audiences, particularly if you're in the front row, and you might cop a bit of Flack or some heckling or that you might be caught up on stage or whatever. Your front row. And Auntie Donna must be wild. I think it it's involved, but at least they're kind. I think there's some comedians to just bully their audiences. Yeah. So what do you do for a living loser? It's like that's that's not good. Or just picking on people when I've seen a lot of comedians who I think they haven't really thought through and safely devise a crowd work because if you're asking questions, you've got to have a purpose of, oh, I'm leading into this next step. And they were really hoping people would answer in one way. And then somebody answers a different way because they're a different person.

6:29 And the comedian goes, oh, you answered that wrong. That's it's so. Yeah, I've seen a lot of irresponsible crowd work. Oh, comedians are not off the hook. I hate all magicians without exception. But some comedians get things wrong, too. Yeah. I don't believe I I think if you've paid money for entertainment, you shouldn't be bullied. That's my take. Yeah, I, I don't mind it. This reminds me of going to the pop up restaurant Karen's in Carlton when it was a thing. And look, it was a, it was a cool novel experience. So this is the one where you go in and all the servers are horrible and they abuse you and whatever. Now I went there with some friends before a movie and it was OK, but it was it was mediocre. I was in, the food was mediocre. I ordered Buffalo wings because I love Buffalo wings.

7:12 Hadn't had them in age. So like, I'm getting some Buffalo wings. Let's go. They brought out wings. No Buffalo sauce. Now I'm sitting there, Josh, and I'm going, is this like, is this a joke or did they actually forget my order? I will never know. And that kind of pissed me off because I'm like, well, how far can you take this? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. With the carrying, there's almost what has the you. I would want really clear guidelines for what is the consumer signed up for. Is it? Oh, we're gonna as a little joke, we don't bring the sauce. Then you ask about it and we go me, me, me. Yeah, you ask me. We bring it in because, yeah, I think it'd be interesting to bring the Australian, what's it the A triple C? The consumer protection thing is like, where is the like? Because I think if you paid for Buffalo sauce with wing, sorry, Buffalo wings with sauce, you should get that. Yes.

7:55 I agree. So did you ask? I did and all I got was a roll of the eyes. And, you know, it was, it was amusing. I was like, oh, this is part of the joke. But as I sat there eating my, you know, not as flavorful as I could have been wings, I just thought, and you're right with guidelines, there were no guidelines. Like, you know, we knew the reputation, but there were no guidelines provided. And if I ran that joint because I think play is great. Play doesn't always have to be structured, but I think it helps, especially in a commercial environment. Yes, and if you know all right, I will get my stuff eventually. Or or if everyone knows, hey, ordering something with sauce means you don't get the sauce, it's fine as long as the person knows what they're paying for. Give my order to like the wrong person on the table.

8:37 That's fine. OK, now we're good. Now we're in enjoying it. But yeah, I haven't been back since then. So yeah. Wow, Everyone's copying a spray. We've got magicians, comedians, Karens. We've got one safe. And no one is safe from the talents of Josh Cake. We're going to. You're very safe. I use those responsibly. Hey, if you don't, if you don't want these, you can just stop listening to me. That's so easy. Fair enough. Everyone is very safe from whatever talent I have. Fair enough, fair enough. Yes, like I said, it's it's an opt in process, but we're going to hear some of your finest poetry work today, so you've got piece.

9:17 Number one, some of my finest. I was just going to do some poems well. Your poems are so fine. They're so fine they blow my mind. Wow. Thank you. I'll just do one. OK, This is called Lonely Settler at the End of the World Remembers Snacks. What the fuck is a post workout smoothie and why is that your sole definition of your smoothie? And why is that a recipe category in your bookshop? Anything that meets the description can be a post workout smoothie or a non workout smoothie, or indeed a smoothie divorced from any aerobic correlation. Unless you have positioned your blender at the end of an obstacle course, this is meaningless.

9:57 When you post about your post workout smoothie, the post workout is not an ingredient, it is a brag. I respect an honest brag but it was slimy to hide it. It was easy to work out your post. I don't mind when you say pre workout smoothie as this implies A stimulant. Or at least hope. My mother asks why I will not give up anything for Lent. I regurgitate climate science, bring up all the foods that will vanish. Chocolate, coffee, corn, potatoes. Each ingredient leaves my lips coated in the bile of unforgiveness. I feast now. My Lent will come later.

10:39 It's rising every year, the gap between the chocolate bar and the size that it used to be, the ratio of the pointless dry husk of a biscuit to the worthwhile creamy centre, the discrepancy between my memory of the heft of crisps in a bag and the smattering now provided. It is called shrink flation. The profits surge hand in hand with our loss of dignity until all foods are reduced to a mere granule of a simulacrum of a once great institution. Too much emptiness to imagine what we could have become. Remember, we will sigh as we loyally chew our trademarked crumbs. Now is the good time. A scarf eats a crap.

11:22 A mullet. It's a Chico roll. A two piece suit. It's a three piece sushi tray. A puffer jacket eats a butter chicken extra mild. A sharp fade eats a lamb kebab. A blue fringe eats a falafel kebab. A cardigan drinks a herbal tea. A bride to be sash drinks an espresso martini. A crop top drinks a post workout smoothie. A cardboard blanket accepts. Whatever falls now is abundance. Someday. When my Lent arrives, I keep posting the location of each empty house. I crash into the procession of abandoned news feeds.

12:03 I have stopped reheating the canned soup, beans, beef, but I have resumed pouring the wine into a cup. In the morning I will plant crops in the park and wish for indigenous knowledge. Well, thank you. No one, no one is safe. Those posting. Yeah, your selfies with your post work smoothie. And I love that. A piece that started off as kind of a jokey joke. And this is what this is what I appreciate about a lot of your work, Josh. You start off in one place and you you end up with something with with unique depth and perspective. Yeah. I just think that's wonderful. Thank you very much. Let's let's jump in the DeLorean, shall we? Where are we going and.

12:46 We are we going? Oh, yeah, Duck. That's a terrible. That's a terrible, Marty. No, no, do it. I have a, I have a second go. I feel like you've got a better one in you. Oh. Gee, duck karate chops all the time. That's all I do. That was better than the first. Yeah. I'm glad we took a moment. Thank you. I didn't want, I didn't want people to go away thinking that was your best attempt at it the first time. Do you go what? Yes, thank you. You bailed me out there. Let's get into the DeLorean and let's go 88 mph. Did I get that right? Right. I don't know. I should have said it with more confidence and then just going on. I I believe it. I've never seen this move. Cool, cool. What is the? What's your origin story of, you know, starting to create your works and sharing them on on stage So well polished. I mean, the origin story is not sharing them well polished. Yeah, I think the origin story is sharing garbage for a long time.

13:38 And eventually it, you know, if you have you seen that thing where if you just get a jagged rock and you just somebody kicks it along the street for days and days and it eventually becomes a beautiful sphere. Diamond, hopefully. Yeah, Yeah. I think that's what happened. So it wasn't polished at 1st and then it became that way, hopefully. Oh, it's still polishing, still pretty jagged. I don't know. What kind of places were you sharing your jagged rocks in? Oh, they were fresh. Oh, yeah. I mean, when I was a little kid, I just wrote, read some poems, wrote some poems, you know, submitted them for the, you know, those Bradley, Trevor Grieves, Taronga Foundation poems by young Australians. Was he kids in Prince? Yeah. Yeah. And then I think I got in there when I was 10 and 12. And then when I was 13, I decided I hated everything I'd ever written. And I didn't write poems.

14:22 I kept writing music and like in my teenage years I got into comedy, but I didn't write poems until I was 18, teen 19. So that's good because I think everyone who writes poems in their teens, there's a lot of angsty, embarrassing teenage. I just skipped over that due to insecurities. So that was great. I was more focused on music. I was doing classical music and then I got into musical theatre at uni and making musicals and then stand up comedy and musical comedy. And then when I was 19, I went to Paris and they've got these things that are essentially like open mics, like salons and stuff. There was one on a Monday night in the basement of for Chernois. And it was, you could share anything if it had a word in it. So you'd get a lot of poems. He had people doing a song, a little excerpt from a play. You get people doing stand up, just anything with a word in it because that's good.

15:10 It keeps the mimes out. There's too many of them in France. You do need to have, I don't know, you know in Australia there's a lot of, you'll see a lot of sort of 20 year old guys just attempting the same crappy stand up routine. Sure. Yeah, imagine that. But mimes, right, Just like the same guys do and I'm trapped in a box. But the object work isn't there, so they're just waving their hands around and they're really serious and they won't say a word, which I don't like. I I like it when you learn the words. It's all in the fingertips. I assume you need to. You need to make me believe that you're pressing against glass. Yeah, and you need to practice and you need to not be doing the same thing as everyone else. Anyway, no mimes there. Beautiful experience. And I went there, you know, with some songs.

15:52 I had some theater friends and some jokes and stuff. And I heard some poems and it was cool because they would get stuck in your head or you'd get, I think it was the best insight I'd had into somebody with a completely different life. The other thing of when you you, you go looking for perspectives that are different from yours. And you can do that in any art form, books, films, whatever. You can do it, just do conversations with people, but you know, the experience of somebody with a completely different identity, completely different story, actually understanding what that felt like. I found poetry did that better than anything else. And I'd, you know, go there and just like, listen to someone explain what it was like to be trans and then just have that line stuck in my head all week to the point where it's irritating, where you're trying to do something else and that's stuck in your head.

16:37 And it's like, wow, this poetry stuff is very annoying too. Much empathy. I'm, I'm going to do it. So that, that was where I started. I got into poems again as an adult in, in Paris at Monday nights at Au Chenois. And, you know, it's sort of a mixture of English and French. You just try stuff out. And then I came back to Australia. I didn't do much for a few years. Then, you know, Amy Bedossi in the cabaret. So she was very active in those days and she was, this would have been for 2017. And she hired me as a musician 'cause you need something to play guitar and piano behind her songs and poems and stuff. And I went around regional gigs with her. And then she had a thing at the Toff in town and she invited me and she had a bunch of poets as warmer backs. And I thought, oh, this is fun.

17:19 And then she said come to the Motley Bear House, there's this thing called the P Word Sessions. And I turned up and I brought a poem. And that was 2019 I think the first time I did poetry in Australia. And then from then it was just non-stop every week, like writing every day, going to every gig I possibly could. And I think, yeah, that's how I got into poetry. So Amy, Amy had a pivotal role and it was just accidentally stumbling into poets. Yeah, through, through the way of, of music and more of a like a variety show kind of aspect. Yeah. How did you get into it? How did I get into it has? This already been covered on the podcast Am I Boring on? The list. I'm so self indulgent that I'm happy to go through it. Yes, fine, I want to hear. Yeah, I, I've always written. I was, I had delusions of grandeur at 13 where I was like, I'm going to write a dystopian sci-fi novel and I thought telling everyone about it before I even did anything was a good idea, I suppose.

18:14 But no, I've always, I've always wanted to communicate and be communicated to. I wanna be a satellite dish. I don't wanna be a person. I wanna be a person. Satellite dish. That's cool. And you mentioned that you didn't write poetry in your teens. I did. And it was like free verse. And it was. Yeah. It is buried in a in an archive in a hard drive somewhere where it where it probably belongs, but was actually really helpful. It was almost like a a journal substitute, if you like. Yeah. It wasn't something that I was sharing with a lot of people, only with. Yeah, maybe a very, very small circle of people. And then it was just the power of invitation. You know, 10 years after I went through that stage, someone in my life, Jessie Croissant, who's who's been on the podcast, invited me to an open mic night in Melbourne SE And most people there do spoken word.

19:08 And I just kinda fell in love with it, got into Melbourne spoken word prize via Wild Card. And that's when I saw you and the whole range of artists around Melbourne. I was like, what am I doing here? But it's it's been cool finding my own, my own flavour and my own place and just enjoying what's happening here, yeah. Yeah, nice. Yeah, so your work, Josh, you really are the triple threat. You've got poetry, you've got music, you've got comedy. I'm wondering how you see these different mediums kind of interacting in your creative process, As in, you know what, what's the similarities? What's the distinctions? How do you decide whether this piece is going to be a song, a poem, a bit?

19:50 Oh yeah, that's that's a good question. I mean, usually triple threat means something more useful, like singer actor does. So normally it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've Co opted it. Yeah, just like yeah, any three skills is a triple threat. Wow, reading, writing, wow. I you know, I can fry, bake and blanch. Yes, well, that's that's just one. It's it's interesting me how we break down. Skill sets, you know, like if we broke down poetry into more skill sets, we'd go, this person's a page poet, this person's a stage poet, this person understands ekphrastic work or something. Or if we lived in a world where everyone did poetry, music and comedy, we'd have one word for it and be one job. I think about that sometimes. I don't know. Or like the way we use triple threats saying the musical theatre world, it means they do those three things.

20:35 But you could drill down and say a singer's already doing 7 things. I don't know. That's something I thought about for years. You like this, this could just be a tweet. This could be a web comic, this could be a joke. Sometimes you can put the, you can explore the same idea in different things. Like you can get a piece of information. Go here's how that's a song, here's how that's a poem, here's how that stand up. And I have, I've definitely done that. I think I just look at it and go, where do I want to take this idea? Or it happens pretty organically. I'll just start writing something and go, oh, yeah, that's jokes. Oh, that's a poem. I used to overthink it a lot and wonder where best to place things. And then I've just figured out ideas kind of don't stop coming because the world keeps happening.

21:16 And if you run out of ideas, you can just unknown, just open any newspaper or any book or walk down the street and say, who's willing to chat to you or go to an art gallery. And then you'll figure out where to put them. So I think, yeah, I used to really worry about where is the best place for this idea until I realized you can talk about the same things in more than one place. You know, I've got like, plenty of actually. I don't think I've written any songs. No, I have like, so songs about climate change or poetry about climate change or stand up about climate change. And it gives you different angles. There's, there's thing in comedy where you can just say really bleak facts and people laugh. And yeah, I think it finds its place as you're writing. And sometimes you might change tag halfway through and go, oh, this idea doesn't belong here.

22:01 And you, I have an enormous bag of unused ideas. I think for I did do. I've done account basically at the end of every three months. And for about every 20 pages I write, one page makes it out to the. And that doesn't matter whether it's poetry or comedy. I think the rest just goes, you know, and it's like, I was like, this is fairly good. I didn't care about it though. Yeah, you're looking for the cream. That and like, I'm not going to remember it. That's I think I filter with memorization. If I can't remember it, how can I expect an audience to find this memorable if I can't even remember this? So I filter out by that and I just let things traipse into whatever category they are. And I think the lines are pretty blurry sometimes. I mean, music is very deliberate. You got to get a like a guitar out or something or something out.

22:44 But poetry and comedy, sometimes I reckon you could say stuff and defy people to, especially when people are doing very free verse. I'm like, OK, you, you pick the category. I don't care. Yeah. And those 3 forms, you know, comedy, music, poetry, they're all disarming in like different ways, I think. Like threats. Sure, sure. And, and there's an element of timing to all of them as well. You know, there's almost a musicality to the way everyone talks and communicates. And what I find amazing that what you do is that I'm sure there's artists out there that when they're getting ideas, they might get the seed for, for a song, let's say. But because they don't have the training and the background and the access to that that they do, those ideas may either die on the vine or they end up as poems.

23:29 Whereas you have, you know, seemingly umpteenth options of what you could do to explore something. I think that's, yeah. I mean, I was lucky enough to get music lessons as a kid and, you know, it's lucky to grow up in Melbourne. You know, you can't not be exposed to comedy growing up in Melbourne. And you know, there's, I think we do take it for granted in this rather way. We are very aware of this one particular theatrical art form in Australia because of the Comedy Festival and because of our culture of comedy. And a lot of countries are way less aware of it. So yeah, I had a bit of good luck privilege. Same for poetry, you know, the good fortune of poets finding me. I think, yeah, I'd feel bad for somebody who just lived in a place where they never got exposed to anything. So they don't.

24:10 They've got great ideas and they don't know where to put them. And maybe they could be, you know, the world's most wonderful poet or comedian or painter, or that's a Terry Pratchett quote. They're like tragedies. All the, all the people who never saw a flute, so they were mediocre carpenters. And the people who never saw a saw and a workshop. So they were mediocre flute players. Missed your calling. Yeah, yeah. People who never, you know, you think about somebody who would have been an amazing JavaScript coder, but they lived in the 1400s and they're like, oh, Leonardo's fucking killing it on the Abacus. That's not not useful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point. So yeah, I think I've been lucky enough to find things that worked for me. I I have tried a lot of stuff and found the ones that are comfortable for me.

24:53 I wonder if there's something else that I'd enjoy. Probably I'll, I'll get into something else later. Yeah, I'm, I'm clinically distractible, so I will get into something. But yeah, it's, it's been, I think it's been lucky to be exposed to that. And you know, one of the things I really care about is especially getting kids exposed to so many different art forms and, and sports and arts and ways to move your body and express yourself with your words, with your body and everything. And hopefully they find the one that's right for them, or the OR the three or whatever. That's good. And zooming in on comedy, you know, comedy is so often a way to breakdown walls and kind of tackle serious topics in in what's a lighter, more digestible way? How do you balance humour with, I guess, deeper themes in your work?

25:35 Or do you just go kind of cavalier? I don't think there's any conflict, which I yeah, I mean, I do think like one of the limitations of comedy is that everything leading towards being funny. Poetry is freer because you can just do any human emotion. This can lead to laughing, this can lead to crying. This can lead to joy or like fighting or reconciliation or lust or hope or despair or just anything. And you're not constrained with it. But I think quite naturally some things are going to be if you're talking about everything, like because some parts of life are funny. So if you're talking about everything, some things are going to be funny. And I don't think there's any situation where there's no humor. And you know, even if you if you read like writings from like even people who've been in concentration camps writing about the jokes they did with their friends, there's no I like there are some situations where you might go, you know what, I'm going to leave it to the person who was in this situation to make the joke.

26:27 I don't think it's for me to make necessarily, but that I don't think that you'll find a situation in human life where the people going through it aren't finding something to laugh at sort of built into how we navigate today and how we survive. So in that sense, there's no conflict between handling a deep issue with human. I'm like, I'm not. There's so many examples of this. Yeah. You don't need to separate humor from life. It's it's in all aspects. I've never been to a funeral where somebody didn't mention something and everyone giggled. Yeah, there's like on people's deathbed, there's little giggles. In the most horrific situations I've seen and heard about, There's, there's something to laugh at if, if you find it and if you do it, you know, kindly and sensitively, or even if you don't, you will still find something to laugh at. So I, there's no conflict there for me. I, I don't have a line of this thing can never be joked about. It's about how you do it and like down to the very, very worst things.

27:20 And when you find, you know, stand up by Holocaust survivors, I think that proves my point. Yeah, it's it's a nice to the human experience, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So good, we come out as as crying babies, but like we're laughing pretty quickly. You know, if we're lucky, we carry that throughout life. I want to ask in your work widely, do you feel like any pressure to make your work more marketable, so to speak or or do you kind of embrace more of like a niche independence? I mean, you know, you've got to pay the rent. Yes. But I think I've been lucky enough that the stuff that I want to make some people want to see. I always like to come back to the analogy of selling food for artists. And this works for all kinds of contexts.

28:01 So if it comes down to, say, workers rights and paying people for things, I go, you wouldn't go to the bakery and say, hey, we're doing the big, big, big event. There's a lot of exposure. Give us some bread. You'd be like, no, let's, you know, let's work out something. Let's pay for this. And at the same time, if you're running the bakery, you got to make bread that people want to eat. And there are, you know, when people go, you got to support the arts. And I'm like, I get it. But also, do you have all of them? Because if my cool idea as a Baker is that I take, I make dough and then I put it in the oven for 20 seconds and bring it out and it's really wobbly and raw and then nobody wants to buy tickets to that, That's that's on me. I can't get mad at the public for bringing them my avant-garde idea that was frankly inedible and then say, oh, you should have supported the arts.

28:50 Why didn't you support the arts? Look at my half baked, wobbling pile of dough. Don't you want my half baked dough? You're bad people for not wanting my terrible, unpalatable product. So I think there is a line there. You have to make something. You have to make bread that people want to eat. Having said that, the best bakery isn't going to be the one that's just churning out boring bread that people will eat. The ones the bakeries that get long queues around the block are the ones doing something a bit different. It is within the realm of this bread is safety. I think that's a huge thing. It's like I'm not going to feel in danger eating this bread. It's yummy. I'm going to have a good experience as the consumer buying this bread. But also nobody else is doing this technique or this particular. They're not put in herbs in the knots. I don't know, I'm thinking of this one bakery in North Melbourne with really good garlic bread knots and they're doing something different that you can't get at any other bakery in Australia to my knowledge. When we're talking about marketable, I do like to think of that bakery thing is this is this bread that people want to eat, but then also what's fun for me, how do I want to make my bread different?

29:52 And I think there is a Venn diagram there you have to be intelligent about. This idea is really, really fun for me. It's actually, I think it's funny to throw the bread at the wall and have it crumble into a million pieces and serve that. But I also understand maybe people don't want to eat that broken, dirty piece of bread. And then there is bread that wouldn't be me. That would be just a generic supermarket loaf that people would buy. And I don't want to do that. And the sweet spot is bread. That's the fun, interesting stuff that I want to make that also people actually want to eat. Does that answer the question? That is such an apartment analogy. I'm I'm really, really chopped. We got that one down. Yeah, you cannot. I don't think any artist can sell every single thing that they're making. You have some ideas that are just and like that's, that's the fun of being with other artists. You know, every night at Comedy Festival afterwards in the artist bar, we're doing jokes that they're only funny if you're also a comedian who's seen maybe like 600 shows and has all the context for this level of subversion. It would be a deranged thing to say on stage and no one would enjoy.

30:50 So we share that with our other bakers. We're like, you know, this cookie crazy idea I've had have a listen to this and that's fun for us. And that's why we share our most experimental things, I think are with each other in private conversations. And then what we bring to the public is that overlap of what I want to do and what you want to eat. But yeah, I don't feel the pressure to be marketable cuz I do have fun playing with the ideas that I'm not gonna sell because they're not really food safe to put it that way. And then luckily what I doing, what I like to do, there's some people who like that. And I do think there's a lot, this is risky advice because I think a lot of artists will will sometimes make the error of being too self indulgent, not self included. We've all done that. But in every great work, there's got to be some sense of this was like a little bit self indulgent, like this was fun for the artist to make. I want the Baker to have fun with something and that's the loaf that I want to get.

31:41 So yeah, there's no pressure. You just just be smart about it. Make bread that people want to eat. So it sounds like you're saying that no matter what you're doing, you know, learn your craft, learn your craft well, you know, and use whatever early experience you had, maybe with, with rejection, with people not wanting to take your bread to refine stuff until you can find that sweet spot between this is feeding people and this is enjoyable for me. Yes, and I don't think people owe you anything for if you're having fun doing something creative, what a gift. You're spending your life having fun, you're doing something creative, that's great. No one owes you money for that. No, And I think that's a huge mistake. They're like, I'm doing this one specific thing that I find really fun. These people are bad people for not buying tickets. I was like, no, they're not.

32:25 You're having fun. Have fun with your friends. Along the way. You will find something that people will also want to see, but I don't. I don't think every single creative thing I do is worth other people's time. Some, you know, sometimes I have an idea where I go. You know what? That's just fun for Josh. Yeah, that's. I'm not gonna burden an audience with this. And with the bread analogy comes, yeah, that idea of of different flavors and movements, like, you know what, What was it like when Monty Python was on the scene? It would have been like the first time you tasted fairy bread or gluten. Free bread or something. A new dish, but one that people wanted to eat. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, some people want to eat like nothing can be everyone's bag, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. And you understand you're not favourable and you don't have to be if you are, if only one in 1000 people like you like what Melbourne's population is 5 million, that's 5000 people who like you, you don't have to be palatable to anymore. You can be incredibly, like, wealthy and successful and comfortable as an artist only being liked by one in 1000 people like, that's, that's the dream one in 1000. Yeah.

33:27 Oh, we wish. Yeah. All you need is. All you need is 1000 true fans as yeah. Yeah. As I think it was Kevin Kelly who said that I'll have to have to Fact Check that. Talking about your immigration journey to Europe and soon the the UK, how has that opened like new creative doors for you? And I'm curious how their art scene compares to Australia's. Yeah. Do you feel like it has better support? Is there more opportunity? What's what's going on over there? That's interesting. I think one of the greatest gifts I have is seeing the culture and the art that people make in different places. So even for years I'd go up and do the tour around the Australian East Coast and people in Cairns and Melbourne have very different priorities and you'll see that at their poetry reading. And so to go around and to hear the poetry coming out of different cultures, I mean, we call Australia country. This is way too big for it's bigger than Europe. It was 400 plus countries for like 60,000 years. Let's face it, yeah.

34:22 Australia is the word that we Australia just means S. You know that, right? Like the King's mission to discover terror Incognito. Australia's unknown southern land. They didn't name it. They just called it South in Latin. And it's a word we use so we don't have to think about the 400 and something countries that were and in some cases still are here. So yeah, it's, it is not the same culture everywhere and it would be geographically impossible. It's, it's an unreasonable colonial expectation to treat this place as one country. So even within Australia, you start to notice these different things. And then of course, when I go somewhere else, like going to Europe and the UK and America and Africa, you'd see people making very different poetry and different comedy and different meeting and different art in different scenes. So I think in terms of opening new things, the number one thing that has been open to me is that I've been so informed. I've seen, I've seen what the culture is and like the kind of poems that people are trying to do in Brussels. I've had the luck of seeing that for. That's just one example.

35:18 And I think the more I'm exposed to, the more I absorb, you know, the thing of like, you watch art, you absorb like 2% of its power, sure. And then you make more varied, interesting art. So that's the first thing. And yeah, the second thing is there are obviously different systems and priorities in different countries. You know, there's a lot of work for artists in Paris, a lot more than you'd find. I mean, Melbourne has more work for artists than anywhere else in Australia, but it's still, you know, it's 5 million people pretty spread out. There isn't really the population density and there isn't that culture of going out and seeing stuff most of the time that you'd find in a place like Paris or Edinburgh, London.

36:02 So yeah, there are obviously more opportunities. You know, 40% of the staff, 40% of the workers at the Moulin Rouge are Australians, right? Because in Australia so many, especially girls do dance lessons in Australia. There's a huge industry in after school dance classes and Saturday dance classes. And what you get is this workforce of, you know, by 18, there's quite a lot of, you know, girls are like young women who've done a lot of dance training and then they're adults and they go, I'm an Australian with more than a decade of dance training. I'd like a job. And so it goes. And then France, German, America snaps them up. Imagine Disneyland is is full of expats as well. Rife and yeah, you'll find art scenes in Europe teeming with Australians because we do get pretty good education in some senses. We, you know at school you get to do quite a bit of music and theatre.

36:48 There's so much dance and then you grow up and there's less opportunities. But you know, Europe loves to snap us up and give us Canada's trying to advertise for us. There's quite a lot of Australians in America, you know, we go where the work is, yes, but you know, it's similarly if you were, there are some people who are talented athletes in the Asia Pacific region and they got to come to Australia if they really want the most employment and opportunities. I've noticed something about you can tell what a culture values by who gets to skip queues in transport. So if you're at an airport in Australia, any, any say national sports, it doesn't have to be an Australian one could be a visiting sports team turn up and they're in the uniform. The staff make sure you know, they jump to the front of the queue, they get out cuz that is I have we're very, very good at that and we treasure that.

37:33 Like in America, it's anyone in military get any veterans or serving members. Yes, everyone you know says thank you for your service and skips and past In France, it's if you're carrying a musical instrument. Wow. I was just carrying a guitar. And they were like, Yep, like carrying your stuff, putting it on the bus, the train, the everything. You know, you go to the train to go to England. That's the long queue. And they see the guitar and like somebody else with the violin and they pick us too. And we just, you know, that's that separate queue for first class and go, Yep, you skip everyone you do. We take care of our musicians, yeah, France is an example of they. You skip the cues if you're carrying an instrument and you're looked after really well, even if you're foreign, just like Australia will look after a foreign athlete because they're like, this is our heritage, this is what we're good at. We look after you.

38:13 It's. Almost like the Amex black card of. Yeah, yeah, the arts of like a profession that gets you looked after and cherished. Yeah, there are very different. I mean, Australia does have some enormous festivals. So Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the largest arts festival in the world and also in the history of the world. But then, you know, the second biggest is Adelaide, Melbourne Comedy Festival is huge. Perth Fringe is rapidly growing and maybe the 4th largest festival in the world soon. So we do have this circuit of very big festivals from January to April. And you know, there are foreign artists who don't come for that circuit. But for the rest of the year there's a lot more going on in a in a city like Paris or London. But you know, that's not all of Europe. If you go somewhere like Milan, there's there's less happening.

38:56 Yeah, fascinating. What a great little, little lesson in culture there. That's great. That's great. I think we're ready for piece #2. Oh, piece #2 yeah. I wonder, would this be what? What have we been talking about? We've been talking about music, we've been talking about comedy. We've been talking about travel. We've been talking about Australia, what other themes have come up for you? Are you trying to improvise a piece right? No no no no. I'm trying to pick from something that I wouldn't waste your listeners time with making up stuff. No, I will, but just out of what I have do. You have anything about making bread? Making you know what? I got some stuff about soup. Oh yeah, let's do it.

39:37 What fraction are you? What fraction black? What fraction white? What fraction foreign? What fraction belonging? What fraction of you is you? What fract is what are you? School teacher said that I am mixed, so could I please list my fractions? Stand at the front, name every land in my blood. My fractions would be helpful for the lesson. She was quite sure, so when I answered her, she wrote my ancestors inside cartoon pizza slices on the whiteboard. The teacher said that I was a great example of fractions and I learnt that I am a great example when I am broken apart. So I learnt my fractions by heart, learnt to serve myself in halves, in quarters, in eights, in whatever suits you taste.

40:20 Everyone likes pizza, right? For years my opener was I am descended from slaves and slave traders, so I make myself work hard. The crowd always laughed, so I continued to pit myself against myself. Wrote essays on reconciling identities, shredded my tongue so badly I never tasted my lungs. My lungs are always together. My lungs hold all of me with every breath that only splinters at my tongue. My exhale is whole until I speak myself into fractions. One year I date a New York socialite whose friends are rich and woke and white and rich woke, quite delighted that I am so diverse. They asked me for my fractions and I am well rehearsed. Afterwards.

41:10 They are so hasty to demonstrate that they are not racist, but they all talk about how much they love Obama. They say they are jealous of my skin. One says it looks like semi sweet chocolate, another says dark chocolate. They debate about me without me, 40 percent, 60%. No one can agree on my cacao fraction and I swear I have a strong sense of self. But the next day at the shop I stare a long time at the map above the chocolate shelf. Maps are just neat lies and I have learnt you can go to the place they call Border Walk with one foot on each side. It does not hurt. I am tired of being pizza. I will be soup.

41:54 No soup is half carrot, half potato. A carrot and potato. Soup is all carrot, all potato. I am taking the pizza knife off the table today. I hold myself with a ladle. Oh, Josh, my, my jaw dropped at several points during that poem, but especially with the story at the start again, I love, I love where you start with a piece and, and, and where it ends up going. It's it's fascinating. I'm assuming true story. Oh yeah, everything's true. Of your cultural background, I'm. Deeply unimaginative. OK, I've been thinking, you know, Myers Briggs yes.

42:35 And they're like, oh, are you extrovert or introvert? Why are you on the spectrum from feeling the sense in. I've been trying to do this for artists. So one of them is what I'm calling what is it reflectors versus imaginers. So if you join a spectrum between some people are just almost journalistic, just describing the world, observing the world, talking about what's real. And on the other end is people who make up like fantasy universes that, and obviously there's a spectrum between that, you know, some fancy universes that's just an allegory for the world and actually quite observational. Some of them are inventing new ideas and concepts and senses. And on that I'm 100% reflector. I, I'm, I'm not imagining or making up anything. I'm just describing and reflecting back.

43:16 So yeah, it is, It is true because I'm just, I admire fantasy, All authors, but all I know is like a very journalistic, like observational approach to the world. Yeah, it is. It's true. Also. It wasn't, I didn't clock it as such a big deal. I was in primary school. We're doing fractions. I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm this 1/8 this. I'm all of this. And then as I grew up, I was like, this method of perceiving myself is not serving me, so I will. And you, you are all the things you are. You're not like people aren't like half Italian, half Australian. They're just like Italian and they're Australian or whatever it is. I mean, and so many things happen, you know, at at that age or whatever, where, yeah, it's just not a big deal.

43:57 Whereas I look back on like, you know, my grade 3 teacher playing this like fun game where, you know, the the whole class was involved in it, where, you know, she'd, like close her eyes and have three random students. Goodness, it's going to sound awful. Can you feel like a little shoulder massage? And she had to. Guess who they were? No. And I never like at the time, it's like, whatever. It's only way later where you're like. Ohh that's so much worse than my. Yeah, I didn't expect that to come. Up. I think that's, you know, that's part of everyone's got the at least one real messed up story about teachers in primary school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've come a long way.

44:38 We're learning a lot. We're learning a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I want you to take us behind the scenes, Josh, of your award-winning cabaret show. Gender is a Scam and I am winning. Oh yeah. What does it take like to put together a solo show that is musically sound, funny and provocative? Again, triple threat. Just practice the things you know, Practice your music. Do you drills every day for decades? Lots of work shopping, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But like, just like sit down with the instrument and practice it. So then when you want to apply to comedy, you're not you're not spending all your attention. Focus on that. Because you can imagine, imagine, say there's an instrument that you and I don't know how to play.

45:18 Let's say somebody put a trombone in our hands and asked us to also learn some choreography that we don't know. And then also, are you any good on a Pogo stick? I wouldn't know. Yeah, me neither. I've never tried it. And you have to try all of these things. I think we would maybe not be that successful because each one of them is taking up a lot of our attention. A lot of our, you know, frontal cortex is occupied. But the more obviously, you know, the more you push something into. I don't really have to think about it. I'm just playing this, the less space it occupies and the more you can focus on other aspects of your performance. And I think that's when when you see people anxious or overwhelmed on stage that there's so many frameworks from which you can approach that. And you know, I do teach performance and things and often it's what is taking up your focus and how can we work on that so that it takes less and less and less if you focus. And if you thought of if somebody had been on a Pogo stick since five years old, as an expert Pogo stick, that's already going to take none of their focus. They can just worry about the trombone and the death. So I think if it's saying how you put those together, yeah, you work on the music.

46:23 So it's like, all right, this is easy. I'm not really attempting anything very musically difficult in that I keep it pretty simple. I've been doing a thing with my comedy where I don't write in the top fifth of my singing register. Just I was like, you know, those high notes. What if I get a cold? What if I'm tired? What if I wanted the party pretty harder festival. Either way, I don't think anyone's come into my comedy show about like social political analysis. But like, wow, I really love how Josh hits a high GI. Don't think anyone wants that. Yeah, it's seeing for like a Tim Minchin, you know, as much talent as he has. Yeah, you're not going there for. You know, trills and yeah, stuff like that. As if I were an opera singer, I'd be like, you know what? Maybe cool it on the jokes and the lyrics and focus on those high notes. It's what is your public to see what what is the purpose of the purpose of this is not a hit.

47:07 So that's a way to simplify it to take the pressure off to take the focus off just to take the stress off every day. I I could have the most wrecked voice I've ever had in my life and still go out and do that show because it's not does not enter a difficult range for me. It's in a very confusing. So that's one way to take the pressure off and take the focus off. So I guess when you ask how do you do all those things together? You set them up so that each component is well within your capacities. And obviously that's going to be different for different people. So for someone who's quite advanced as an instrumentalist, they can probably do things that other people would see as quite tricky, but it's easy for them. Whereas if they're very, very basic on the instrument, I'd recommend keep that so simple, focus on something else. So for me, it's yes, you've practiced your music, that's chill. You've practiced your comedy, that's chill. You're, you're focusing on the energy or the audience or something.

47:54 But practice until these various components are taking up less and less and less of your focus, so that your mind is free to be present and have fun. And that must have been how the Axis of Awesome built their four chord song or whatever. Like maybe. And that's the joke, the simplicity of it all, you know, and the fact that, yeah, you lay the foundation, you make it as easy as you can to then build on it. Yeah, I, I think you often see, you know, when you see somebody attempting something on stage and it's ambitious and the reason for it and they don't quite hit it, that that can be a very entertaining. But I think often what I try to do is it's a thing of imagine somebody's got to run, say 100 meters because they're a soccer player and they do 130 meter sprints. So that on the day they're never really pushing themselves to that capacity. And I think that's something I really, I do take a lot of learning from sports in the arts. And it's like practice beyond what you have to deliver on stage so that when you get there, it's like, oh, I'm cruising.

48:45 I'm, I'm never getting into like my 10 out of 10 gear. I'm operating at AB, skilled at about a 7 out of 10 difficulty for me so that I've got breathing space to have fun and be present and, you know, really enjoy it. Does that mean behind closed doors during rehearsal you are up in your high register just to? Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Practice. Oh, you know, I can, you know, I've I can play much more difficult piano than what is in that show because why would I? Yeah, what's the point? Or? Yeah, again, the the audience. Like what is the bread they're coming to eat? Yeah, I think they're coming for jokes. Hope. I really hope they're they're for joke. Yeah. I do think of that as comedy 1st and then it is a comedy show and then music supports that.

49:30 Yeah. It's not a music show with occasional jokes I I think. It's not Michael Bublé. Call me old fashioned. I think musical comedians should write jokes, and only some of them do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. Got a little bit of a hypothetical for you here. Gosh, if you had unlimited resources and no constraints? I'm terrible at hypotheticals, by the way, actually answering them. But if you had unlimited resources and no constraints, what kind of creative project would you create, do you reckon? I do a lot of commissioning, I reckon. I mean, we can go what's what's a niche? OK, there was this team of video game designers, I forget the name of the studio, and they made this game called The Saboteur, and it's beautiful. Pandemic. Got pandemic, you know, in peace. Yeah, yeah.

50:12 So it's set in occupied Paris and it's all black and white and you're just this this full of an Irish mechanic who thinks he's so cool and he he gets tangled up with the French resistance and gradually ends up falling into their cause. And as parts of Paris get liberated from the Nazis, they bloom into colour. And it's so beautiful. And it's a pretty accurate map of Paris. And just by regions like you can go around and find different regions. It does correspond. I have like gone to Paris, reinstalled it and played it and so much fun. And you know, he has he thinks he's a cool ladies man. And you know, without spoiling, he learns over the course of the game that the women that he thinks are into him actually just using him and they're in charge of the resistance and he's a fool.

50:54 And it's so beautiful and fun and, you know, it's, it's good to, you know, run around and kill Nazis. It's, it's a real fun game. And then Electronic Arts swallowed them up. You know, capitalism ended that studio and just swallowed them up into their thing. And you know, a lot of people lost their jobs. I would love to bring back whatever team made in the Saboteur, Give them so much money that they like, you know what, we can't have a game suit again. And I'd give them years and good wages and just see what they make next. But I'd probably want another French. I want the sequel. I'd want more French resistant stuff, you know, going through the rest of the country. That's one thing I would do. I reckon I would Commission a lot of friends to make things. Something I've thought about is kind of mean commissions.

51:37 Like what? OK, so comedian Grace Jarvis, she loves the bus. She's, I think she's written an article, might have been the age of the Guardian. You know, got to like, write an article about how much she loves the bus. I don't like the bus. How much money would I have to offer Grace to be like, hey, I'm going to pay you this much. You got to write an article about how bad the bus is, how rubbish the bus is, how much you hate the bus. There's got to be a point at which, like, that's worth it for her. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like nefarious, silly commissions, I think. Yeah, I would like to just make some artists work together. I'd love to go. You know Elf Lyons, she's a fantastic clown from the UK.

52:20 She's here at the moment for the show called Horses. It's it's incredible. I've never seen anybody do. She's got these single word shows like Sworn and Raven and Horses, and she's phenomenal in the way she takes an animal and turns it into funny clown for an hour. She's brilliant. I would love to see her work with a massive orchestra if I could just, you know, pay the orchestra and an elephant be like, yeah, you've got to develop a clown show with this. That would be fun to me. I'd love to get my my buddy Blake Everett and get him to work with a game design company because, you know, he makes very funny jokes. I'd like to see the bits he made played out in sort of an interactive game. I just have lots of ideas of people.

53:00 I'd like to send my friends off on a wild goose chase with a huge budget. And specifically, I want you to work with this music or I want you to work with this studio and and see where I end up. That is an extraordinary, generous answer, Josh, and I guess it. It's not generous. It's for my entertainment, right? Yeah, you are. I'm saying this selfishly. Fair enough. Yeah, you are, you know, being the patron for all these things or or in in the case of the the bus article, an anti patron. It's always like you're you're paying someone to not create. What I'm I'm bullying, my friend, is what's happening. Give it up, please. Great deep cut with the saboteur as well. Yeah, I mean, you know, Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming out soon. Maybe the saboteur too needs to take the fight to it or whatever.

53:45 We need more saboteur. I am. I'm a real sucker for any game that has an element of like cleaning to it, you know, and you mentioned the black and white to the, the, the colour. Like that's, that's what it's all about. I reckon the, the, the Tomb Raider reboot in 2013 is just like really, really aggressive, violent cleaning as you're kind of going around the island upgrading things and whatever love, love of Metroidvania. So yeah, rest in peace Pandemic one of one of Brisbane, I believe's greatest game studios. So. Yeah, it's whatever. I think there's a lot of great art that's been swallowed up by resources, and I'd love to get the resources to buy back their independence and the and just see what they do. Yeah, just just, oh, you know, when you've seen somebody who's just like, they're so talented, but I know they're going to struggle against the industry for 15 years before they get somewhere.

54:35 I'll have to just give them the funds to go go do if I could throw like, whatever money. Do you know Jackie Lumsdon? Right, you're name dropping a lot. She it's not named like that's good. Most people will have no idea who I'm talking like. Jackie Lumsen is a Melbourne indie musician. I reckon she's making some of the best pop music in the world. We just throw money at her for massive studio album. I would just get the benefits. So it's it's about my entertainment. Yes, yes. Well, we said no constraints, yes, so. Do you know what you'd spend it on? Pull, pull, whatever strings. Like I said, I'm terrible at hypotheticals. OK, so I don't know, but but I think if I really thought about it, it would be, it would also be along those lines. There would be, there would definitely be something for me and something that I want to have a crack at, but there would be people who I respect so much who are just an obscurity and the injustice of it all is annoying me. And that I want to, I want to change that through promotion, through the resources, the big studio, the the collaboration, whatever it is.

55:33 Yeah, you've inspired me on on that one. It's good. And also like I get an ice sculpture of Garfield 100. Percent. Just something really, really vain or or superfluous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No ragrats tattoo. Yeah, yeah. Over the front, I'm interested in what's what's next for you, Josh in in this kind of next, next stage. You're you're on the road for a lot of the year. Yes, the last time I spent 12 weeks in one city was March to May in Melbourne 2023. And since then it's been, there's been nine other countries. I think what's I am going to move to Edinburgh and settle the NB base there. I, I went there last year and I loved it so much. I really love Scotland, love the culture, the food.

56:16 I something that was interesting for me is like going up from London to Edinburgh. I've never seen this vibe shift before. My life where going up from England to Scotland it gets a lot whiter demographics wise but much less racist. Wow. Yeah, Scots are, they're really great. I and just going in and you know, you do poetry, you do comments just like stand up with a crowd. I was amazed by how easily I slot into that culture. I was like, really, I fit here. I belong here. So I mean, I also, you know, Paris and Melbourne, a wonderful place, but I'm going to be based in Edinburgh. What's coming up next? There's a hidden door festival in Edinburgh that's, you know, poetry, music, live arts festival that's on in June. I'll be in Paris, I think 16th of June for Paris. Spoken words coming up after that or I can't, like I've been, I can't announce it yet because there's, you know, when you get booked for something and you can't, you're not meant to say what The thing is yet.

57:16 But I will say in late June this year I will be in the English town of Glastonbury. Who knows why, Who could tell? I don't know. So just visiting Glastonbury I can say that. Yeah, I will be in the town of Glastonbury. And then I think July, I've got a date in Berlin. Berlin spoken word. And then coming up after that, Edinburgh Fringe, there's, there's a few things going on. I might be playing music for some people. I'll be hosting a sort of club Fringe piano bar, dance party on Sunday nights and I'm not sure what's happening after that. There's there's a yeah, there's a few things around Europe and the UK coming up in the following months. Wonderful, wonderful. Some good stuff on the horizon. I, I thought of another idea of, of what I would do in that in the case of like no restraints or whatever, I would in terms of like paying someone to not do something. I would pay out Disney for the rights for Firefly so they don't make any more stuff.

58:09 I don't want them to reboot it. They have the rights now. They could ruin it. Yeah, yeah, just leave. Leave that shit alone please. Yeah, That, that that's fair. Now I, I feel it's interesting because I'm about to ask a muser, you know, a very musical question. It's our overarching analogy for this season, which is, Josh, if your creative work was an instrument in an orchestra, a metaphorical orchestra, what instruments do you think it would be? For my creative work, is the orchestra like the entire art scene? Yeah, yeah, it kind of is. I don't know what that's that's AI. Reckon you could put that to different people and get different answers.

58:50 That's exactly. What, what vibe do I give off as because it's boring? Because I play guitar and piano and bass and stuff that's not interesting. What's a funny instrument that's also sometimes there? I don't know, like a tuba? We need a theremin. I think we need a theremin theremin. Yeah, I like tubers can go warm, but they can also be like real sad. Maybe a tuba, I don't know. And they wrap around you like a like a hug. Yeah, I don't know. What's what's the funny instruments? I think maybe percussion. You can get real silly. We can wake people up. They're not very sad. They're not What's a treat? Look all I'm really. What instrument lets you eat the most snacks? It would need to be something where your hands are free. Maybe.

59:32 Yeah, because like one of the joys of because I've been in orchestras, you know, playing keys or like, you know, the strings. Orchestra Victoria playing guitar. And one of the joys, especially if you're in the orchestra for a musical, is that you can snack. Yeah. It's like if there's one song where like, they don't need me too much on keys I'm meeting. So maybe it's maybe it's a kick drum because your mouth is free, your hands are free. Yeah, just a kick. Just the kick drum in the orc. Where in a magical world where you get hired to just do the kick drum? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. OK, that's fine. Kick drum maybe. Yeah, yeah. OK. Just just a foot based instrument we. Need someone to keep time. We need someone. To keep time, Yeah, that's fine. Whatever let's me stack, I reckon. Kick drums. Fun. Brilliant. I like that We'll. Slot.

1:00:13 You into? I don't think there are kick drums in most orchestras. It's getting, yeah, it's getting very fringy, very contemporary, very fast. Oh, Pyborgan. Oh yeah, Pyborgan. But I mostly just use the pedal, so I'm snacking. That's Pyborgans who do stuff with orchestras. Do you? Reckon Hans Zimmer like snacks a lot during his shows when he's on the organ. No, no, I thought about that and I think everyone's looking at him. It doesn't just duck behind for. A while so they tend not to let you bring food into those orchestras. Yeah, you don't want to. OK. The parts of genuinely like where I belong is musical theatre and orchestra. So it's like under the pit and no one can see. Yes. And like you know you can, you can have a snack. Goblin Goblin Corp.

1:00:56 Yeah, you're, you're just having a snack and then you're playing your pace. And then your friend who's, you know, there's no flute in this and you know, she's checking the cricket scores. That's what happens. That's not musical theatre. So, yeah. What? It's definitely a musical theatre orchestra and it's in the pit and it's whatever instrument gets the most breaks. There you go. Yeah, there you go. Magic triangle or something? Yeah, yeah. So they're not a drum because they they don't get breaks. Yeah, if there's a drum, they're in every single song. Yeah, that Achilles is just getting the workout. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty non-stop. I wouldn't. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be them. Good stuff. Bad for their ears, bad for their joints. Certainly, certainly a unique answer. But I do like, I do like the orchestra that we're we're building.

1:01:38 I think there's now 3 pianists. So there's a little bit of competition. I don't know if they'll be like playing, kind of. Do any of them actually play piano? No, it's it's a metaphor. But some of them do. Sorry, it's a metaphor. Yeah, OK, so that's. So if they're pianists, what they're saying is like, they're not normally part of the orchestra, but it's a piano Symphony and there's 80 people hired to support their solo. I think what we're trying to say, Josh, is I put, I put together this analogy without really thinking it through. So. So even though I'm under fire now. Everyone's, everyone's confidence. What's your instrument? Oh, mate, I am. I'm aiming the spotlight. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm interviewing people and I'm saying, hey, let's, let's look at you and blind you for an hour and a bit and let's, you know, let's, let's get you to move over this way kind of thing. I think that's me.

1:02:25 So you've got an orchestra with three pianos and then a separate, like under the pit orchestra with me just snacking on whatever. Let's say. Yeah, I reckon a, you know what bass guitar, because I so rarely get to play it and it's so fun for me. And you can be silly on it. Yes. You want to be the bass. Devastatingly sad. You can get a good rhythm going. It's fun. And you're not needing every song to get yeah, I'm a bass guitar, but you can't see me. I'm under the pit. OK, so we're the final answer. That's. Yeah, I did, yeah. Brilliant. Well, that's our first bass guitar. So we do. We do need that. So we appreciate you being up to the task. Now we're coming to the the segment shamelessly ripped off Diary of a CEO. I call it Diary of a POET.

1:03:05 This is a question left for you by my former guests. This question comes from Antoinette and Annabella Liu, Josh. What is the main technique that you like to play with in writing? Oh, that's fun. I don't think there's any good poets playing with only one favorite main technique. It takes like so many to make a poem. Love a little pause. You heard of this imagery? Love when there's imagery. Yes. I like to compare things to soup quite a lot. That's not a technique, That's just I like soup. I like, you know, every time you bring up food, you're playing of sound, sight, smell and touch. You're playing with the sensors favorite. I would be very bad at picking a favorite to play with. I think I do like taking an audience through different emotions to the same in the same thread where you know you can bring them into a topic with laughter and then you can get into some heavy stuff without without making them feel dreadful.

1:04:05 Hopefully, I hope. Yeah. I think, I think it's the way you can manage and play with the listeners feelings. I think that's a very fun thing to play with. Feelings and expectations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah, you've really showed that in like the pieces that you've you've done today and and in a lot of your work. So I think you've spoiled. Thank you. I'm I'm trying to. Good. Now, Josh, you have the large responsibility of leaving a question for my next guest. Yes, hello, next guest. My question for you is what treats are part of your creative process? When you sit down to write or prepare something, what treats go with that? I don't mind whether they're food or substances or anything at all, but it's sensory.

1:04:47 It is something you take in through your senses. It could be snacks, it could be sound, anything. What are your treats that go with your writing and creative process? Brilliance. Oh, now, now I'm feeling hungry because yeah, everyone's got yeah, I think everyone's got something different, you know? Do you go for the the crunch of a grain wave? You know, do you go for the, the soft pliable? Did you go for hummus? Yeah. Do you go for the soft, pliable skin of a Jelly baby? Yeah, the treats going into this podcast, I just want people to know, like on the table are these hummus flavoured crackers that are then being dipped into more hummus. Wait, what? Is that true? Yeah, look at the side, it says hummus to go protein.

1:05:28 Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, let's run with it because that's that's the funnier idea. Did I get that wrong? I read hummus high protein homes to go so apparently. It's high protein hummus with with kind of garden. Did you crackers? Did you? Is that a description of the whole box? I'm so wrong, sorry. It is crackers with hummus that is the treats feel in this podcast. Add a little hedgehog slice and many espressos before I came here. Should I be taking a picture of this and saying this is my post workout hummus considering it is such high protein? I know you should just enjoy a snack. I mean, I reckon, I reckon you can just be like, hey, I think I did something cool. But like, sneaking it into something else is so annoying to me. Yeah.

1:06:12 Yeah, for sure, for sure. Josh Cake, this has been amazing. If people want to know more about you, follow your work in all the spheres that we've discussed today and and all your adventures around the world. Where's the best place for them to head? They should head to a doctor and get their head checked. No, fine. They you can find me on Instagram. Look, I'm at Josh Cake Music, but there's like poetry and music and comedy and whatever random stuff I put up there that that's a good spot. Or I've got my website, joshcake.com. But yeah, Instagram's where I'm actually active. And as I know full well, if you play your cards right on the website, you might just end up with a cool exclusive shirt.

1:06:55 So go, go take a look and poke around. There's some silly stuff there. There's a void. Keep it, keep it. I know you said you wanted to take it down, but keep it. OK? Josh, you've got one more piece for us before we we wrap up. Oh yeah, And how? How long have we got? How am I doing for time? Imagine you had one day left to live. Imagine. Would you pray? Would you forgive? Would you tell everyone how you feel sober? Run around until you keel over, Cook the final meal over? Think because death was real, or would you carry on as normal? Imagine you had one week left to live.

1:07:35 Would you quit that grind that you hate, issue writs to divide your estate, wish your wits on a wide contemplating of pits that your mind can't escape? Or would you sit with a kind, honest mate, chew the grit and the rind of your fate? Or would you carry on as normal? Imagine you had one year. No. Imagine you had one. Imagine the permanent Arctic frost is melting into the sea. How am I doing? For time, Seven years. OK, so I'm dying. 200 species vanish every day. So hot the cows won't touch their hay. Here, the scientist here, the grazier here, Iceland who wrote a plaque to monarch their first lost glacier.

1:08:20 And more will follow. But what's crazier is that we all know it's all for profit. We marched to our deaths so that someone can make money off it, line their coffers with our stolen breaths. Make me an offer. How am I doing for time? We all know that you and I are being killed on burnt ground for a couple of dollar bills and I'll earned pounds. That koalas just got listed as endangered because the states sold their trees to the first scrub. Who'd pay them that? When the Prime Minister of Australia meets, the Prime Minister of Tonga looks a weeping leader in the eye and says your islands will have to go underwater because I can't let my coal industry die. So lead your people to the slaughter. We will burn for money and we will drown for money. And some of us already have.

1:09:04 How am I doing for time? Imagine you had seven years left to live. Would your day-to-day seem strange? What would you change if you knew? And we'd do that. A powerful few would end your world for profit and it would take all of us working together to block it. Would you fight for your life to stop it, or would you carry on as normal? My psyche says it's normal to feel distressed and to fight for my future with every oz. But she also says that I need to rest and water my roots between the bouts. So I'm trying to savor everything. Every last bite of fruit, every hand, every tune. Not a glance to minute, every word shared with you. But despite all this beauty that question drills through, how am I doing for time?

1:09:54 Wow, Definitely some great stuff to chew on there, Josh. Now wherever you are in the world, yeah, if you see a show that Josh is is headlining, you need to get there to see the best stuff. That's that's all I can say. Josh Cake. It's been an absolute privilege having you on the show. Thank you so much for thinking with us and slamming with us. Thank you very much. It was so fun. You're a very fun host. You're very expressive. If you ever get on this podcast, this guy's face when you're reading a poem, it's the whole audience. It's so good. I throw hands, but I'm not, I'm not fighting. I'm just, they're just out there. Very expressive. Thank you very much.

1:10:40 Wait, your big fans? What's that all about?