You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out Loud and to our Friday show, which is where we take a break from the.
News cycle and we breathe oouch.
Especially today as you're about to find her why. Today is Friday, the twelfth of July, and my name is Holly Wainwright.
I'm Maya Friedman and I'm Jesse Stevens and out louders. If you are listening to this episode and whatever app click follow. There are a lot of you who do not currently follow this podcast. If you do, will automatically come up.
Imagine that podcast work. God, you're weird, but apparently this is a thing on a lot of podcasts people don't follow.
I know they don't.
There was another way that's wow, goodness on the show today?
Are you feeling run down, tired, trying to sell me a drug? You're hanging on your last nerve and you might just cut a bitch if one more person asked you for something.
He totally's describing herself.
Mess is a diary in print that my friends is called the Midyear means we're calling it plus three things to watch over the weekend, including a very irritating but hypnotic walk down Memory Lane, an international game show, and a docco that comes with a million little wriggly sperm and a recipe. Even these idiots could make a brain with holes in it, and Jesse went out out again.
That's our best of worst of the week.
But first, Jesse Stevens, In case you missed it, the first movie written entirely by AI has been released, and no one wants you to say it. The Last Screenwriter is all about a writer who discovers an AI system that is way better at his job than he is and triggered. It was written in real life after chat GPT four was fed a seventeen word prompt. It took chat gpt four days to write this script.
A long time. I thought the same for a machine. I thought you thought it was going to be like four seconds, me.
Too, But it took up four days.
My screenwriting friends, of which I have you both here well Jesse in particular, how long would it take a person to write a movie.
It's a lot of.
Pages, yeahbuble years, So four days is quiet, and so many drafts and a lot of drafts. Although this was not perfect, and the director knew it wasn't. The director is named Peter Luisi, and he decided to create exactly what was on the page, even though parts of it were repetitive and strange and kind of defied human logic.
So he was trying to prove a point.
That's trying to prove a point.
He had real actors, real lighting, real sound design, and he made this movie. A cinema in London has canceled its world premiere after hundreds and hundreds of complaints. You'll recall that this was a subject of the Big Writers Strike. Writers are very scared that AI is taking their jobs. May or would you say it? No, I would be very interested.
I don't have time to see the actual movies that are written by people that I want to see.
Yeah, that's the thing I get.
Alone, something that's proving to me that it's shit. I mean, I'd like you to see it and then just tell me about it briefly on the show.
So, as the British culture writer Marina Hyde said, when I heard her talking about this, she was like, repetitive doesn't make a lot of sense. How several false endings sounds like nearly every action movie I've seen in the last ten years, which a is true, but also maybe
the writer was trying to prove a point. But also the fact that everybody is so freaked out they won't look at it is being called out as exactly the problem that if AI is really coming for all these creative industries, and you know, looks almost inevitable that it is, at some point we've got to like reckon with it and look it in the face. But instead everybody's going no, don't engage, don't look, don't put the movie on, Let's not watch the movie.
It'll go away. It'll go away. Maybe if we hide from it, it'll go away.
Problem is not good.
But at the same time, I think that humanity is at a crossroads, and if we're going I refuse to consume art made by something that is not human, then that could change the course of history.
I think going in too blindly crossroads, too.
Tired, bad luck, it's coming for you. It's coming.
You won't mind when it takes your job. You'll put your fader, can have a rest.
You'll be like, here's my JD. You do please.
Sam has been.
Having a rolling intervention with me this week for being grumpy, and look, it's.
True why I just haven't taken the bait like she's just been. And I know that I'm sometimes crabby, and I know that the two of you probably glance at each other and just go, she's being a cranky bitch again. And Hole's been going through all of those things, and I've just empathized.
I've just been like, which is weird because neither of you hormonally are operating as you once did, so it can't be PMS.
Right, might be.
A bit.
Once did. I love that description about Helleen.
Anyway, it's true, and today I worked out why because I read a story that made perfect sense to me.
And I need to make some addendums as well. It's true that, yes, I have a headache.
And everyone's irritating you.
I've been working on my book Reen Rights.
Yes things have been busy lately. But also it's.
Not about me. It's about all of us. It's about all of us together.
And the mid year slump, also known i've decided as the mid mean as fuck mid year slump. Here are two things I need to tell you about it. Because I read an article in the Herald about the mid year slump. It's definitely a thing. The article is by Nell Gretz. Apparently, burnout obviously can occur all year round, we all know that, but in Australia it's particularly likely to happen right now because it is winter. We're susceptible to it mid year since it coincides with colder weather
a minimal daylight. Yes, we know that, and also coincides with all these fuckers on Instagram showing us of them having a lovely thing in their euros. I'm like, you know, what's not a thing? When you live in the Northern Hemisphere, nobody talks about like the Southern Hemisphere summer.
Nobody talks about that. It's not a thing. Like it's weird.
It feels very the haves and have nots in Australia this time of year, because there are people I know that appear to do it and when I say no, I mean follow on Instagram do it every year and it just feels like a personal attack. Well, I came home and my sister stayed for another two weeks, and now I wasn't happy those two weeks they.
Ever have that I just look at it and just it's like looking watching an animal documentary or something, you know, like I don't go I hate them. I wish I was there, maybe because I don't like holidays that much.
Yeah, I think there's a bit of resentment too. When I interrogate my resentment towards my sister, someone's picking up the work. When there's a mass exodus to Europe, you'll find that workplaces get particularly tense because there's a lot of leave happening seemingly at the same time, and the people left behind not only aren't in Mayorca, they are also working longer hours.
Well, it's a bit of escapism. Does it make you cranky? I mean everything does?
It does?
And also there's another bit to this.
Also.
Another reason why this month is particularly stressful, according to this article in The Herald, is that there's the stress of the end of financial year. Others may be frustrated. And we're going to get into this now that new year's resolutions or business plans are not coming to fruition as quickly as.
They had hoped.
We are almost exactly halfway through the year right now, which seems as good a time as any for us to consider whether this might be part of also what's giving us the mid year means, and that is that we are not living up to our hopes and dreams, and specifically, for out Louders, that means our words of
the year. Everybody who listens to out loud regularly knows that on January the first, we always drop an episode and we always invite all the out louders to join in where we get very serious and we look deep inside ourselves to choose a word that's going to define our year ahead.
Mere freedom. What was that word that you thought so hard about? I literally not only do like it does not only can I not remember the world, It doesn't even ring a bell, like not even a fate.
Was something I do because I remember that mine was kindness and I wanted to be kind but I was different.
Rember was like years ago.
I remember, Create was one.
Create was one when you got knocked out, It was juice one.
This one was something about being nicely me.
It was grace Fuck me.
Look out Louders, I don't want everybody at this point in the podcast to throw their phone in the sea and say, what's even the point of these bitches? If they make us all said a word at the beginning of the year and then they can't even remember what it is. But I think this is a useful illustration, a useful check in, a useful coming together holding hands time for us to remember why we felt we needed that word and in what ways have we lived up
to it or not? Freedman, can you remember why you chose grace?
I think as I was having a nervous break which kind of rolled on until about March or.
April, we always do our word of the year, and we often go look at us, we've all chosen something similar because you choose kindness, you teach grace and Jesse community.
What's wrong with my word?
I've been.
To me that's kindness is what he is? What kindness is? All right? Come on, Jesse, how do you feel it? Going on? Kindness? Also? How do we measure kindness?
Doing kind ship? And I just feel like, do you think.
Did I choose kind in that particular sit Yeah?
And there's been clear moments even in the last few months, where I've been like what do I do and like trying to make a decision.
You have not chosen kind, chosen violence.
I didn't even have that word in my head as a guiding thing, and I sought help from Grace over here, and I'll tell you, Grace was not great great.
Grace that was not coming to the phone because she's dead. Now I've remembered that yours is grace mere.
Every time you going off with me about something in the group chat, I'm just going to go.
Grace, not I don't mean money.
And when I say going off at me, I don't mean you're going off at me, like attacking me.
But like getting upset about something. I think that I have shown remarkable grace in the face of your So I'm living my word. What was your word, hollywaen right? It was community and I am not living it to be proud of your community through a granky bitch.
But also I was literally driving today and thinking the reason I chose that, The reason I chose that was because I wanted to be more outward looking, less inward looking.
I wanted to help build bridges. I do do that. That's true, that's community.
I wanted to build community in my new home, in my new town. Look all that to a point, But to be really honest, the thing that happens often when you're you know, busy, busy, busy is It's all about you, right, And it's been all about me for all the first half of the year. I have been, you know, like, oh,
here's the thing I'm doing. I'm going on tour, I'm writing the book of me, Me, Me, Me Me, and it's not I've got to find I'm going to try really hard in the next half of the year to find more pockets of my life.
I mean, obviously there are.
Parts of my life that are about my children and my dog and my family and my workmates. But I want to find pockets of this year when I can find some space to do what I set out to do. Otherwise I'm going to get to the end of the year and feel like the worst person.
In the world.
I know, so am I I feel like kindness requires energy of which I don't have a great deal at the moment. Like choosing the kind thing is often like take a deep breath and exert yourself slightly.
It also requires a bit more time.
Yeah, it does, it does, and it's really easy to go.
I'll watch someone recently that I know and we had mutual acquaintance, who had a terrible health scare and I was speaking to her and she said, oh, so when I dropped off, I made sure that I cleaned her house, and and like she wasn't trying to perform that, she was just saying it.
And I was like, holy shit, Like that almost.
Wouldn't even cross my mind, because I'm such a piece of ship that.
I think I've been quite kind this year. All right, give us an examples.
I feel like that's not great, so continue, Please tell us about that I've been kind.
I mean, I thinkately quite kind.
You are, But give me an example where you chose you.
It's not my word, but I think I've been kind to family. Family. Give me an example.
When we went away, Miya like made a photo album for Luna that made her holiday. It meant that every time we sat down to eat, Luna just looked through her photo album.
That made her so so happy.
You've got incredible first birthday presents to the very spoiled little ground.
Please tell me about.
That every now and then you'll just fill our fridge.
Trickerry's the other you know, on on a his first birthday just turned up to our door just a whole lot of ice cream to just say, like, congratulations on that.
That's very thought. It is true.
She is mere Friedman is very very good at ther HT. So here's the story, your word, I'm here's a story for you about mea Friedman. Is that when I was feeling really poorly and she was worried that it was my hormones, she managed to track down the hormone stuff that had that I couldn't get my hands on because I live in the country.
This is great.
I'm enjoying the show. Okay, so you have been quite kind.
Yeah, X do you think Here's the thing about midyear slumps and you know, end of year burnout and all that stuff, is do we ever recognize patterns when we're in them? You know how very often you'll go, oh, that's right, you know. And this is where you read articles like this and you're like, of course, everyone gets to the middle of the year and they're sort of assessing. The first thing everyone it says, right at this time of the year is can you believe it's July already?
Can you believe it July already?
That's what everybody says.
And then everybody gets a bit panicky because you feel like time is rushing past and it's harder than ever.
It feels like to sort of grab it and hold.
On to it, and we're like, oh, and then we read an article at this and we go, oh, yeah, I always feel like this at this time of year. But do we ever recognize those kind of patterns when they're actually in motion.
I don't think we do, or at least I know I don't. I feel like you're at your spot on with the busyness, and then the overarching value or the overarching goal of this year gets completely lost because you get stuck in the minutia of your every day. And I think that when it is family, like I just keep having this thing when my cousin Simon talk about him a lot. He calls me every night and we used talk at eight o'clock every single night.
That was our thing.
And he has disability, and it like I just know how happy that makes him.
And sometimes like that's Luna's just gone down and it's been a really.
Big day and I don't call him back, and I get kind, well, it's kind if I speak to him.
No, But I mean, if you just don't call him back as.
You chose, That's what I mean is it's just me failing at my word, and I get into bed and I go I am just riddled with guilt.
I just feel so so awful that I haven't been able to do that. I haven't called my pop, I haven't like.
And it's just sees things that would like. Yeah, it's just an extra thing that can.
Sometimes feel like a job.
And that's not what our word is supposed to be, is it, me, a freedman, It's not supposed to be a stick to beat ourselves with, is it.
It is a little bit in terms of it's meant to be not a stick to beat ourselves with, but it's meant to be a bit of a north star or a guiding light. I think you chose the wrong year to have this as your word, because what the first year of parenthood does is crunch your time like you've never experienced and your energy, and as you rightly predicted, kindness and community both require time and energy, and so I think you almost inadvertently set yourself up to fail with your word.
Yeah, why don't you tell me that?
I didn't think about it at the time, but it's like, I completely understand why, because so much of being a parent is about being selfless. So kindness is about being and never will you learn about selflessness more in an abrupt way than when you become a parent. And so I think you are already being so challenged on that front, and you probably you know that takes a lot of adjustment.
You know.
It's the exact same pattern that I've had since I started this podcast, like seven years ago or whenever it was, which is I'm always year behind. So my word last year was family. I feel like I'm actually nailing that. I feel like I'm really good, got like from my time with Learner to my parents really investing in all of that. I feel as though that's coming to fruition maybe next year.
Yeah, I agree, I think that you always but that also makes sense a little bit with the word of the year, because we're often and you'd already been a parent for six months when you chose this word. So I think it's often about where we feel that we want to focus because we're lacking. Yeah, So I think that that's really interesting. And for me, I think I also chose grace because there was absolutely none of it, none of it towards myself, none of it in my life.
I felt shitty anguished, upset, losing my mind, and so grace felt like this tranquil thing because in the beginning of the year, even though we say these words aren't resolutions, there's still a sense of optimism and hope at the beginning of the year that I've got a fresh blank page, I'm gonna set my intention. And that's why I think that the mid year is so bereft of hope, because there's no optimism by midyear, because all you're confronted with is all the ways in which your intentions at the
beginning of the year have not come to fruition. And you're too far away from January, where you feel hopeful and optimistic. But then December and Christmas and maybe a virtual kind of finish line about summer and holidays, hopefully in Christmas feels impossibly far away. So you're just in this existential despair.
I'm going to write down my word and put above my desk so I remember it more, I think about it more.
I don't know. I just think it's going to make you feel bad because I just don't think you have time to be kind at the moment, Like I really don't. I think you should go back to the last two weeks.
I think you are kind, Like I get your point about like if you're not when you don't make the kind choice about something very tangible like calling Simon back me as one hundred percent right, you are touched out, spent out. You've given everything at that point. But in general, it's not like I'm seeing you walking around the world like making unkind choices.
I don't spit on people that would take more energy than I'm not spitting on them.
So I finally, no, I.
See you being kind to the people around you. I see you being a very excellent mother. I see you make like I don't. I think you might be being harsh, but there certainly isn't any question about whether or not I'm failing it anyway out a loud as we want to hear about you. Tell us about you and your words of the year. We had them all in our show in January. We would love you to jump in the Facebook group and tell us how you're going with it.
Are you allowed at this time if you're in a media slump it half a year left.
We have talked about this as much. I thought maybe one year we did. I think I might have just yeah said, I'm having a different.
I want out louder I reckon that you're allowed to change.
My word needs to be remember it really.
Does a memory.
You shock.
Get in the out Louders Facebook group and tell us how you're going or if you've chosen your word.
It's Friday, so we want to help set up your weekend with our best recommendations. And we're going to tell you about two things that we recommend and one thing that we tried that we want to save you from having to try as well. Jesse, why don't you go first.
It's time for me to recommend Taskmaster for those who.
Take joy from seeing comedians humiliating themselves.
Good news. That's kind of our whole day.
El Australia's most delete comedic minds coming out in a series of incredibly important tasks, such as.
Think the bowling ball you cannot get wet the fastest wins.
I've been watching it app it's been talking about it.
Explain it to me.
Luca got me onto it.
I think he found it on TikTok and we would watch it in the early days of lunar because it requires very little mental input, like you can watch.
It a cooking show.
Yes now started in England. I think they've had seventeen seasons and Australia is onto its second season and I believe it's been a real performer for them. So it's on Channel ten, but then it goes onto Amazon Prime, so we've been watching it there and the latest season has Josh Thomas, it has Will Anderson, Lloyd Langford, who I think is one of the funniest people in the world, Jenny Tian.
And An Edmunds to comedians.
They've got comedians, five comedians, and what they do is they give them a task. So the task could be something like biggest fluke wins. That's the whole task, right, what's your interpretation of what a fluke is? How do you prove that you've had a fluke and you can do anything. They're at this farm and they go and choose something to do. So they're creative, funny people and you watch their process and you watch them do it, and then Tom Gleeson gives them a score.
Tom Gleason seems to host everything. He seems to have a lot of shows in a card quiz and.
All those things. Yep, and this one has been a real success.
So we've gone back and we started watching the British one, which is also hilarious. It's just I was thinking, Holy, with kids of your age, it would be perfect. Yeah, we should watch because it's very like safe, it's very funny.
Masters or thank God you're here.
Yes, yeah, exactly like that. Yeah, really really good watch.
So brain off a little bit.
Yeah, and like sometimes I can be on my phone. It's very much I need to finish a few emails.
Let's put on Taskmaster.
Okay, it's on Amazon Prime, also on Time Play and Taskmaster UK is on Binge and there's seventeen seasons.
So have fun. Holly, what have you got?
Okay, So I'm really excited about my recommend even though it's no good.
So spending the.
Rules a little bit of Today's of the format today format testing, I am because I'm recommending the Brats documentary on Disney Plus.
If you were coming of age in the nineteen eighties, the Brat Pack was near the center of your cultural awareness. But for those of us experiencing it from the inside, the brad Pack was something very different. On June tenth, nineteen eighty five, New York Magazine pub was Hollywood's brat Pack. I just remember seeing that cover and thinking, oh.
Are you recommending we don't watch it?
No? Well maybe, so I watched it at the weekend because I have literally been looking forward to it. It is a documentary about the brat Pack. Does that mean anything to ninety?
I thought this was about the doll?
Yet no rats, So I'll let me explain a tiny bread doll.
I've never heard of a brat pack.
The brat Pack was the name given to a group of actors in the mid eighties who were dominating Hollywood, and they were all young and hot. Actually, one of the interesting things about going back and watching this is our definition of hot definitely changes over the years.
But anyway, who was in it?
So with the brat Pack, the most iconic movies of the brat Pack era were The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Saint Elmo's Fire.
Have you seen any of those movies?
Breakfast Club?
Yes, that's like iconic, iconic, Hanhannon, So all of the actors in that are in the brat Pack. So that is Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ali reenld Ali Sheedy, plus the person who made this documentary who's called Andrew McCarthy. He's not in Breakfast Club, but he is in Pretty in Pink, which is fucking great and you should go
and watch Pretty in Pink immediately. Anyway, So he has made a documentary for Netflix called Brats, and I have been hanging out for it because if you're gen X, those movies they came out when I was a teenager, right, So the eighties were my teenager is the Breakfast Club in particular, and Pretty in Pink for me, were just the movies everybody was talking about them. Think about a much more monolithic cultural world than.
We have now.
Right, So there's and it was the first time and this is sort of investigated in this docco that teenagers had kind of really owned Hollywood, teenagers and young adults, that all the movies, all the hot movies were about the young people, and they have continued to be really anyway,
they would called the brat pack. This term was coined were They by a writer for the New York magazine called David Blum, who went and wrote one of those like classic profile pieces where he went and hung out with the Melio Estevez in La for a few days and he wrote this iconic thousands and thousands of words profile about what it's like hanging out with the hottest young actors in Hollywood, and he called them the brat pack.
He said they were, you know, they behaved as you would imagine young movie stars might behave.
When it was a play on the pack, the rat pack, which was from a generation earlier, which was like Frank Sinatra and I can't think of Dean Mutton, Yeah, Dean Mutton. So it was like a group of guys that are this is like the next generation because they were like young, and there were women and men, and it was like a new thing.
It was like a cohort of actors.
To me, Moore is also in the bra Yeah, because of some almost fire. Anyway, the article came out and it became one of those pieces of media that goes completely viral. In a day before there was no viral, but it did go completely viral, and this group of actors were always known as that.
Afterwards, the term went into the vernacular. They were always referred to as that.
Some of them really did not like it. In fact, nearly all of them did not like it. They didn't like being called brats. Some of them think it was very bad for their career. Some of them were like meh. And what Andrew McCarthy does in this documentary is he talks about how he thinks it affected him and his career, and then he goes and tracks down all the other members of the brat Pack and interviews them about what they think about it, as well as some adjacent people, directors, writers,
and ultimately the writer of the piece. That's a very good idea, great idea for it, a great idea, And the only reason that this record comes with a like is that as a documentary it's actually pretty unsatisfying.
Andrew McCarthy is so.
Pissed off about the brat Pack label that he feels derailed his forty years ago that it's a bit like you know, when you catch up with an old friend from school and they just want to keep bitching about the things from school even though they happened twenty years ago, like being trapped in a conversation.
Was that so looking forward to this because for gen X, those actors are iconic, right, and there are a lot of I mean, they were all very much in different ways defined by that era, but many of them went on to have big, satisfying yeah, of course, and Molly Ringworld went and reinvented herself and had an interesting life as well. But it sounds a little bit like Peter Pan, like who just never grew up? Is it that none
of the actors were ever allowed to grow up? Or the Andrew McCarthy's looking for escapegoat to blame the fact he's career went.
I think that they all got tarnished with it to a point. And what's interesting about it consider I didn't like it very much. I had a lot of thoughts. I've made notes writing a story like I'm very investing because it makes you think about the things from our youth, the things that happened to you when you're young, and how much they impact you. Because basically, you're talking about a group of people who were defined by a moment in time, and they always will be to a point.
I've got a comparison so like the Lindsay Lohan, Paris Britney spears.
And people will always want to bring them back to that and talk to them about that and remember, hey, how about that time blue right, And it's very much like that, and some of them have got healthy attitudes to it, some of them not Andrew McCarthy clearly not. There's a lot of therapy speak. They're all very over therapized, so there's a lot of that.
I feel like his therapists would say, don't make that do The.
Most fun is he tried. Demimore is great in it actually, and he just interviews her pajamas by her pool.
It's quite fun going into famous people's houses. Robb Loo as well, and mean Leostave.
Okay, okay.
He was my first heterosexual crush. The ones I had before him showed how broken my gait I was because it was boy George, George Michael and the guys from AHA also adam ant. So Rob Low was the first heterosexual crush that I had on my wall.
And he's in it and he was He's very cool about it all. And Ali Sheedy, she's so great anyway. The only person who won't speak to is Molly Ringle, which is very disappointing because I do love her. But she was like, Andrew, I think we should just leave things in the path of yeah, and.
It was it's.
Really I'm kind of recommending it if you're into that world. It immediately made me want to go and rewatch all those movies and think how desperately I want to show my daughter pretty in pink and this, and how good the soundtracks of those movies were and how iconic they were.
But as a doc, oh, it's a bit me. But I'd love to know what out loud. I would love to know because it was so interesting. I want to hear how it goes when you try to recapture your youth by showing your kids films. I made that mistake with Muriel's Wedding, and my kids were quite young, and I'm like, it's this great film, but films have changed, and then there's that terrible I'd forgotten that whole plot and Mural's wedding of the mother who takes a life, and it was just like the kids were.
Like, this is a why are we watching this?
Most interesting thing about watching old movies is that everyone had normal teeth back and their faces moved.
And actually looking at all these guys. They were obviously all handsome guys and they but they were It's a different level of hot that we require these days, a different level of hot. Anyway, do with it what you will. It's the brat STOCKO. It's on Disney Plus.
I watched a movie that it's a series actually that many out louders have been watching over the last week or so, which is The Man with one Thousand Kids on Netflix. What if I were to tell you that there is a man alive who may have fathered over eight thousand children. What can a man would do that?
I always wanted to be a mom, We wanted to have a family together.
A sperm donor is making up fifty percent of your child.
I got to know him on the internet.
He has curly hair.
His hair, we were totally sold. I'm ready to have beautiful babies.
Nine months later, I had a baby boy, but that wonderment was totally ripped from us.
I'm actually interviewing someone from that show on No Filter in the next week or so.
But it's basically about.
The world's most prolific sperm donor. It's this guy from the Netherlands who It starts off following a couple of single women and gay lesbian couples who look for a sperm donor because they want to have families, and one heterosexual couple who are infertile, and they all happened upon through various ways the same guy. Some some of them live in the Netherlands, so he literally don't donate sperm
to their door. One of them he offers to conceive naturally with them and she has sex with him, and others buy his sperm through a sperm bank and where he's a donor, and as it progresses, they all start to find out. Firstly, in this particular town in the Netherlands, they find accidentally that a woman who's a teacher, another teacher at her school also he's a sperm donor. And then they discover it was the same sperm donor, and at first they're like, oh hahaha, we should get the kids together.
They're like half siblings.
And then they find more and more people, and then they realize, oh no, and more and more and more people realize that this guy is actually trying to repopulate the world. Essentially, Oh my gosh, there's way too well that's a great question because he's not interviewed for this. But my complaint about this is that it's a bit cheesily done as the music and stuff, and there is way too many shots of sperm in donation cups, way too many depictions of sperm. Is upsetting is it's not
dangerous for like biodiversity. Yes, and this is the problem. It's not just like, oh, what a kooky guy, and oh how funny there's so.
Many kids around the community.
It's actually a problem because if you were just having children by having sex with women, there'd be sort of a limit by geography and time. But if you're depositing in sperm banks, not just in your country but in countries all over the world, a single donation can make twenty children.
Is that true?
Yeah, and so or more, you know, many many children. And so as these women start to discover that it's something called fertility fraud, that he's lying to them all, it becomes a problem because these children, when they grow up and they meet someone and they fall in love, they might not know that they've got the same father biologically, and they might have children and suddenly it's incest. And so it looks at this fight that the women have to stop him basically and sort of questions what his
motivation is. And there's an Australian lesbian couple in there that are amazing. They sort of lead the charge, and it talks about how they've had some gatherings between the different mothers where the children have met, and all the children look frighteningly alike, and there are whole Facebook groups
where they've all found each other. And it talks about this instant connection that the children have with each other because they share half of their DNA, so they've got the same taste, they've got the same likes, they've got similar personalities. So you know, there's one really frightening one where this little girl comes home and they've been at one of these gatherings, and she's about ten or eleven. She says, I think I'm in love with you know, Johan who is And the mother's like, no.
You can't be.
That's your brother, and she's like, but I've got feelings for him. I think I love him. And anyway, it's absolutely fascinating this idea of fertility fraud and Jonathan Meyer, who is this Dutch guy, and how these women tried to stop him, and also whether he's been stopped or not now absolutely fascinating. It's on Netflix.
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It is time for best and Worst. This is where we share a little more from our personal lives. Holly, what was your worst for this week?
Dog related?
I'm taking Mia smot I spoke a few weeks ago about how my baby Tuna, my beautiful little dog dog, has hurt her leg, which she has she can't run around. It's sad, but also I think she's been a bit out of sorts since then.
She's got the midyear memes means.
Right, and she can be a bit of an anxious poppy. She's a rescue dog. She can be bit anxious anyway. This week, because Brent and the kids were away and I had to come up to the city for work, I put her in the dog kennel for a few days, and you know, they.
Look after her very well there, but saying.
Goodbye to her that morning was really hard because she.
Doesn't like it when I leave. I she doesn't like being left.
And I took her in the place and her little tails down and her ears are down, and she can seal the whites of her eyes and she's looking around and you're just like sweety pie.
And I was like, I'm coming back.
I promise it's only two sleep.
Since she's looking at me like, I don't speak, you're weird like and then the lady was like trying to take her off to the and she wouldn't go.
She kept pulling back to me.
And then I was like, oh, I'm such a bad dog. Anyway, I had to walk to the door.
Then I'm like, bye, do good bye tonight.
Oh anyway, it makes me.
It's hilarious because the kids have been away too, and I barely even thought about that.
Not true. I do love the children. My kids and dogs have been away and it's been outstanding, one of the best ways of my life.
I'm just like, I cannot wait to be reunited with Tuna, oh and the children. But my best is food related, right, And I know that you two are going to go because you don't.
Know I'm into recipes now, I'm inter recipe okay, good, Yeah, I've got to have to cook now.
But when I was feeling a bit poorly, I got this craving, you know, when you're just like your body knows what it needs. And I really wanted hardy, nourishing food. And I remember that one of my favorite things in the world is dal. You know what darl is, right, Indian lent of curry. And I was about to hear darl like hid as hi. Dahl is Indian lentil curry. It is one I came across this. The thing that made me think of it is I came across a recipe for Dahl, a really easy one on Instagram, which
will put a link in. But you can find really great, really authentic recipes for dahl everywhere.
On the internet, and it's all easy.
But let me just tell you I've been eating dahl solidly for a while.
Yellow split peas.
So that's lentils dried and yeah, yeah, yeah, in a pan, heavy bottomed pan.
Add a couple of cups of either water or stock.
Yep, easy, right, can do that.
Throw in a handful of cherry tomatoes.
This is a spinach to chop them.
No, this is the this is a spinach and tomato doll. But you can put this is a spinach and tomato doll. Throw in a handful of cherry tomatoes. Bang, throw in a couple of blocks of frozen spinach. Or if you have real spinach around, chop it up, put it in and then all you do then is you literally put on You can either curry powder if you've got curry powder,
or garam masala, which is like another spice. Sprinkle it in salt pepper, bring it to the boil, put it down on zimmer stick the lid on twenty minutes.
Oh my god, the easy.
Very I'm actually very impressed with.
There is and most delicious. And you can make dull more complicated if you want. You can chop up lots of herbs and onion, and you can toast spices in oil and put it on top. You can do all that if you want, or you can just do that that I just told you about, eat it with like a dollup of natural yogurt on top.
If that's your thing.
It is so delicious, so for you, and if you are if you've got the midwinter sads, just do it.
I like that that was my best, rediscovering no my worst is interesting because I've been thinking about this all week before I remembered what my word was, and my word of the year being grace, was also about having grace towards myself, because I'm fairly tough on myself, and my worst this week has been my brain. My I don't like talking about my ADHD very much because I don't want to be defined by it and I don't want to see my life through the lens of it.
But there are times where I really, really really batter with it and it makes my life really really hard, and it's been making.
My life really really hard lately.
And your steam do you think it's like this might be a dumb question, and I apologize if it is.
But if you are.
Such thing as a dumb questionnai show if you are tired, or if you are this, or if you are that. Do you think that there are times when you struggle more than others with your ADHD?
Yes, definitely, which is why a lot of women aren't diagnosed until they're in their footies, because things like hormones
can really affect it, stress can affect it. But for me also because I manage it with medication, it's not just an easy solution medication because it's different to Excelso take medication for anxiety, and that's like it's not instant, you don't feel it, like you just have it, and it's sort of just if it's working in the right dose, it takes the anxiety away or minimizes it, and you
might still have breakthrough anxiety. But the medication that is prescribed for ADHD is a bit can be a bit rollercoastery, and it's quite tiring to be on because what it does is it makes you really sharp, and the sharpness can bring with it some problems. It can make me really intense. It can make me really have to work
all the time and not be able to rest. But then when I'm not taking it, I can feel really tired and really my brain's like just jumping around, so like you can't when I just when you have an issue like this, you just can't get away from it. You can try to treat it, but it's just getting I'm just getting in my way, and it's just that sense of things that should be easy are just really really hard for me at the moment. And it just makes it's like trying to walk through quicksand it's just
really really hard. So yeah, that's my worst. My best is managing a really really tricky episode of No Filter this week that I've wanted to do for years and years and years. And I seem like I often say that, but lately I've landed a lot of people who have wanted to talk to for ages, and Dassi Earlick as
one of them. Dassi is an extraordinary woman from Melbourne who was sexually abused by the headmistress at her very religious school in Melbourne, was an all girls school called at Us and she was part of a very very religious, ultra author Jewish community in Melbourne, and she fought to bring this teacher, who was immediately spirited out of the country by the school to protect the abuser and to protect themselves and sent, you know, spirited back to Israel.
And then Darcy and her sisters, who were also abused by Malkhalifa, fought for years and years and years and years and years to bring her back to Australia to face justice, which finally she did and last year she was sentenced or the year four she was sentenced to fifteen years and she's currently serving those in prison. And Darcy's written this amazing books called In Good Faith, and
it's about her life. And what's amazing about Darcy is that by the time Malkalafa came along, because of the way in which she was brought up, like in any ultra religious community, those children and girls and boys, but girls in particular are sitting ducks for abuse because they don't even know the names of their body parts, they have no for of sex education, they have no contact with the outside world, so anyone that might be able to mandatory report, they don't have words even to describe
the abuse that they suffer, whether it's within the marriages that they are forced into or at the hands of other people. And in this case it was Dassy's head mistress. And it's just it's an incredible story and what she had experienced before she even met Malkhalefa was shocking and what the story ultimately is is And I cried during this interview, not during the awful parts, but at the end when I was talking to her about how she's got through it and her life and her hope and
her survival. Because humans are extraordinary people extraordinary creatures, the resilience that she's shown, the hope and the optimism, and the fact that yeah, it's just it was a beautiful story. And I'm just so I'm always very very anxious about those stories because it is a big responsibility telling them in a way that does justice to them and that takes care of them, as you know, as a survivor of abuse. And yeah, it's it's a beautiful episode, and
Dussy's really happy with it. So have a listen to that. We'll put a link in the show notes and in the newsletter as well.
My worst is what I'm going to call the downfall, the decline, the demise of diet coke. Allow me to explain. When I was away, I go sit down. I'm not a big drinker. I might say, every now and then, can I have a diet coke? When I order or look for a diet coke, I really feel like one, and it's a real treat. But they would say, oh, coke zero, and I was like, oh, you've misunderstood. Coke zero not the same as diet coke. That it's completely different.
Diet coke is a good drink. Coke zero tastes like battery us.
But what's the actual difference.
They have different chemicals that are not good for us, but like a different.
They taste different. They taste so different.
Different recipe and diet coke I'm a big fan of and that felt very big, Like ten years.
They've got a very good brand.
Is it diet?
Yeah?
But phasing it out? Is that the moral? Yes?
I think they're phasing it out. So what has happened to me is I will be out and about, like I'll even be at work and I'll go, oh, go get diet coke and every shop I walk into they've just got coke zero and full strength.
Do you think that's because the word diets become a negative?
I wonder.
I mean, coke zero sounds cool, but diet coke coke zero.
Like like people get it. It's just completely different. And even I also really like pepsi max. But there are lots of people that's really mean is that diet pepsy you get your tea? There used to be and then they phase that out as well, and they think we don't notice. But people with a preference for their can of soft drink can't. We can't do a bait and switch I have an addiction.
Now.
I think there's not enough of you. It's like the Witchery theory, you know, like all the people that say, I know what we treat to change, Well, maybe you should have gone on board a top.
Yeah, I think I think it's true. I think that poll who like diet coke need to unionize.
Soft drinks are not it, Jesse, that's why.
Oh you've upset everyone, and by that, I mean you've upset me. My best is I went to a concert on Saturday night out again. Go to a lot of concerts, but I went to see Missy Higgins at the IC six States.
Do remember never go that fark live with.
Missy friend of the pod. I really wanted to go and see that concert, but I can't sit through concerts. I felt terrible that I didn't go because I love her so much. I love listening to a music, but I can't sit and watch a constabull shot. You went to Taylor Swift different.
I am dancing and I'm going the first August or second something States Theater.
Something or somewhere I can away.
I love her too. I think missus an out louder.
Okay, I'm Missy so when I was thirteen, Miss Higgins was the first concert I ever went to. I went to Darling Harbor and I saw her. She was on like a thing in the water. That's weird your memory. Anyway, she was the first person I ever loved, and like, I really liked her music, not because everyone else liked it.
Like I remember in primary school, it's like.
If everyone loves Nelly Fotato, you pretend like you do. But what Missy Higgins did for me at a moment in my life to be transported back there. She said this great thing, which was like, you know, there's thousands of people in the ICC, and she was like, it's so weird that everyone's transported back to twenty years ago, whatever you were doing, wherever you were in your life. All these memories are just kind of circulating.
And that album, true, it was a sad track of our life.
It was.
I love her music so much and did.
When I had Luna.
For some reason, I don't usually listen to music at home. I usually listen to podcasts, but I just sounded white. It was on and it just brought me, brought me back. And she's got this new album coming out which sounds amazing. It is all about her separation, and it reminded me of you know, Adele wrote easy on Me like and it was this soundtrack that we hadn't really heard like women talking about that periods. So that's coming out that
I'm excited about. And she sung this song called Song for Sammy, which is a song she wrote like a lullaby for her first born. And anyone who is in the period of having a newborn or you've ever had a newborn, just listen to that, because I don't think I've ever heard it captured so perfectly. Like you have to listen above to hear that.
That is all we've got time for today and this week out loud as we hope that you are not feeling a my year slump.
We hope that.
You've blown off some steam with us today and you go into a weekend feeling you know, sang win sanguin.
I've never said that word out loud.
Sanguine, sanguinetine. It's sanguine, sanguine, sang me. It's kind of like, what does it mean? What do you think sanguine means? It means like I think of it as being like peace reflected like sanguine exactly it.
It's time for us all to have a little bit of sanguinity.
Now we're just making up words.
That's what.
Thank you, out louders. Thank you to our amazing team. This episode was produced by Emiline Gazillas. The assistant producer is Charlie Blackman. We've had audio production from Leah.
Porge's and we will see you next week.
Bye bye.
Shout out to any Mum and MEA subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description.