Our Family Has Expanded And It's Not How You Think

Hello, and welcome the separate bathrooms. We would like to acknowledge the Gadigle people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects to the elders both past and present. My nas Cam Daddo, I'm Ali Dado. We we're dealing with change today. We've arrived here in the studio and our guests have been given the wrong information or we've been given the wrong information.

It's been a glitch. We'll just put it. We'll just put it that way.

Yeah, like you know the one we had with IBM ten days ago.

Microsoft.

Yeah, well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can see. I'm an Apple person. It's that other thing. The other platform fell down.

Just the biggest it blackout in the world, that one.

That one, that one, that one. So we're kind of still in that glitch. Is it a mercury retrograde?

Well, there was a big, big full moon. I don't have that had anything to do with it. I don't know if there was any retrograde. I didn't look into that. Probably someone's looked into it. In fact, I'm sure thousands and millions of astrologers have looked into that.

It would make sense, wouldn't it? With all that's happening.

We've got Olympics happening. Yes, we've got.

The footy both codes nrl AFL getting to the pointy end. People fans are getting stressed. Other fans are getting as cited.

Sarondado is getting really stressed. We've got America and the politics over there. Wow, that's a trip.

There's a lot happening in this world.

Who would have as people keep saying that if you had written that in a movie, that whole line of politics in America, people would be like that, would never have it, I know, but it's happening.

We won't go down that road too much. We may get there during this chat.

But we are a relationship podcast.

We are, and our and our family has grown. Would you say we have.

A relationship that we're going to explore it?

Yes, because so we've we've been at this for I'd say three years.

I think it's more. We started in twenty nineteen, did we Yeah, see.

How time flies. We've had several producers on our show, and our most recent producer, Adair has moved back to Tazzy to take care of her family and things. And we have a new member of our family. Xander's come in and he's our new producer. Hi, Xander, Hello, another boy.

Is my debut in your bathroom?

This is very Excitingly, we've never done this. As Cam said, we're pulling back the bathroom.

Kurt, Yeah, the curtain.

It's a lovely sight. Let me tell you Xander's in the barroom.

So listener, you know it's not just us, It's not just Allie and I. We have a producer who helps us out, makes the calls, gets our guests organized. Adair has been doing it sadly, we said Ofir to her. Last week Xander's joined us, we thought, why not, Let's get to know Xander well.

Xander also said, I'm an open book and I've had a rather interesting life. Now that picked own interest.

Especially yours.

Your eyebrow cocked, I'd like to think, so anyway you might start asking questions.

Ask some questions, Xander.

That's happening.

So Xander, just first of all, what what does a producer do? What do you do for this?

It's a very good question because people ask me that all the time, and I struggle to answer it. But I do do a lot. I swear I do do a lot. So it's a lot of guestbooking, it's a

So did you always want to be in radio?

No? So I wanted to be a dance teacher, Okay, then that changed to professional dancer, and I just kind.

Of doesn't dancing come before you teach? You wanted to be a teacher, before you actually went to.

UNI for two years to become like a high school dance teacher. Realized I hated it, and then I was like, full steam ahead, want.

To go professional a dancer?

I did?

Yeah? And then what kind of dancing?

Irish dancing?

See now you have to talk about this because a lot of people look at Irish dancing and just go what the Yeah? I personally love it because I love anything that's Irish. But how like, where did a kid decide to go.

I like that dancing.

That's the dancing I'm going to learn.

Well, it was the nineties, so Irish dancing was all the craze. River dance, of course, Riverdance out ninety three?

Did you go see river Dance?

So I staw it on TV. My mom's best friend is Irish, so we flew over to visit when I was about six and I saw Revenents on TV and I wouldn't stop talking about it for months and months. Mom was like, oh God, we just got to put him in lessons, I think yep. So came back to Sydney. Put me in lessons like a Billy Elliott literally though literally yeah, very cool. Yeah, yeah, put me. I did it competitively for about fifteen years. Yeah. Did the World Championships?

At what age were you when you're doing that?

So the World's I did for the first time. I think I was nineteen, and then the North Americans around the same age as well. I competed state nationally in Australia since I was seven.

Now tell us why what is the meaning of the hands beside the body? And why you're not allowed to do anything with your arms whatsoever. Is it just to focus on the feet.

Yes, it really comes from the history of Irish occupation because England obviously used to control you know, island, and so a lot of the time they were kind of essentially outlawed from having fun. So what they would do is they would put their arms by their side, and so people in the window they'd be dancing, but you couldn't actually tell that dancing.

No, are you kidding me?

Is that really it?

I mean I think so, it's a great story.

Anyway, what an excellent I I'm not dancing.

Nothing to see here.

Before, because you know, I was thinking of like like barman behind a bar and like they're they're sort of like dancing, you know, they can only see the top half their feet are doing this.

It actually reminds me of our friends who told us that their son was was just notoriously addicted to his phone and they're saying, you can't use your phone, and he's having a conversation with them across the kitchen bench and they're sitting on one side and he's on the other side, and he was actually texting a friends whilst they were saying get off your phone or you know,

They this is the gen Z version of Irish occupation.

Clearly, that is amazing.

Wow.

So but when you wanted to be a high school teacher, you didn't want to teach Irish dancing to high school kids, did you?

Or I know? So I obviously started the Irish when I was quite young. Yeah, and when I got into my mid teens, I moved into other styles as well. So I mean I kind of really didn't think it through, to be honest, Like I just kind of went to UNI because I was just told that's what you got to do.

Yeah. Sure.

And then a year and a half and I was like, I hate this. I didn't want to go teach high school kids. They're awful, and so I was like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. And I always said that I'd go and like I'd make my own Irish school and teach people Irish dancing. But after I toured, I was done. I didn't want to touch it. I didn't want to teach. I just kind of moved on from it, and I, you know, that's what kind of when I fell into radio after that.

So okay, so you moved into radio. How long have you been doing this for? About?

This will be my fifth year, the fifth or fourth year?

Okay? And what do you like about radio?

Similar to the touring? It's different every day, Yeah, something new that happens every day. You know. I produced three podcasts.

Here with Nova, which are the ones you produce.

Obviously the amazing Separate Bathrooms. I produced Big Business with Britney Saunders and also Skin Influence with Jamie Joe and Jason mssion.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so like the beauty of doing it is that every episode is different, every guest is different, every day is different, Like it's never it's not mundane. I in Covid, I actually worked for Sanelink and I was doing the job seeker claims for people because I had no other work. And after a few months, I was like, Oh, I can't do this anymore. This is just too the same,

So what do you see the differences between radio and podcasting? And do you think podcastings are fad because there's a lot of podcasts out there, you know, it's like everyone's got a podcast, So there's that joke. So is it a long term thing do you think? Or is it just something that we do right now? And what is the appeal? According to you.

Radio is stressful. Radio is really stressful. I've done breakfast radio, I've done drive radio, and from the producer standpoint, definitely, from the producer standpoint, I think that actually producers don't get enough credit, like very hard working. Yeah, and you

Aren't we all?

This is why I went to wake up at three am in the morning. You know, it's not ideal as a brutal Yeah, and but I think podcasting is here to stay.

Yeah.

The brilliant thing with podcasting is that it's an intimate relationship with the listener, and I don't think you have that in radio. It's a different kind of relationship with the hosts. With podcasting, you really feel like a lot of the time that you're in the car where you're jogging with a friend. You can also talk about stuff on podcasting you can't mention on radio. There's different laws there or standards of practice. So I love that about podcasting.

Yes, it's it's bite sized pieces, isn't it? In radio? Work podcast that long form conversation.

Get into the.

Okay, So question, what have you got an idea for a podcast?

I actually have my own. We're a hiatus at the moment. Yeah, what's your podcast. It's called Pivotal Pop and it's with me and two other pop music nerds. Yes, and we take an album that one of us loves, We break that album down, we discuss it, we talk about the

I love that. Will you blended to things? Pop music and nerd?

Yeah?

You know, and it's fun being a nerd. It is of what you're interested in and how you break that down. So who's your favorite? Do you have a favorite pop person?

I mean Kylie Minogue's an icon. Yeah, sure, and she's the pop icon. Everyone says Madonna's queen of pop, but you know what Kyl is? Kylie is it for me. There's an R and B singer called Brandy who was really bigg it.

Remember Brandy.

She's nicknamed the vocal Bible. Why because most of the R and B singers especially female you here today, a lot of how they produce their vocals is based on what she used to do. So she actually popularized vocal layering, like as in layering your own voice on top of your yeah yeah yeah.

Even before Michael Jackson do you reckon?

Yeah?

Yeah?

She?

I mean, she popularized it. The way she did it was in a way that had never been done before, and a lot of people try and replicate that now are in a grunde for example, recently on her album Positions that was inspired by what branded oakally back in the two thousands.

Isn't that interesting because the nerd just get a bit nerdy too, because I heard a recent recording of all the layerings that Michael Jackson did in thriller Yeah and it is. It is insane.

It's incredible what he did, and to create the chorus of a sound of vocalization, even down to his yeah, all.

That sort of stuff. It was all beautifully placed and rhythmic and added to the whole ambience of the whole tracks. So that's very that's very interesting.

Who does more layering than anyone?

A Swedish chef and yeah, apparently Irish.

She's Irish. Let's just get back to the Irish lives in a castle now by herself, Yes, and apparently just sings things over and over again and layers it and that's how you get that haunting kind of incredible. Yeah.

I accidentally had her as one of my top artists last year because he's got to sleep listening to her. So I got my I'm an Apple music use a sorry guy, so Spotify boys and Girls up there. So when I looked at my end of year thing and he was on there, I was like, what the heck? But I forgot that she used to help me.

Fall this of course. Yeah, yeah, truly, she does have that beautiful ambience ness to her. I don't know if that's a word, but let's just leave it ambien ambience. Yeah, now I've just made it, made it up. I was going to ask you, I am. I have just started diving into true crime podcasts. I'm actually addicted, really love.

Now, mate. You don't know when she gets addicted to something. It's like I love watching footy and everything footy, and I can do that and now I'll go watching the footy again or the golf. Actually sports that's addicted. She does antique road show Antique. So I'm like, walk, are you watching the fo honey? She is watching the Yantic Roadshow says so, now I didn't know this, so now yes.

So that's really interesting. So they cast to the podcast. Yeah so, and it's and sometimes they're almost happening in real time. I'm listening to one called Bronwin at the moment, which is the death of this woman up in Lennox Head, and it's it's basically it's they're they're putting out the

True podcasts are so intricate to make. They must be the legalities behind the everything checked and at risk, So there's so much work that goes into making them.

It's so true because there's there's a particular language that this the guy I forget his name who hosts it, but he also did teacher his pet and basically got that guy convicted of murder and every time he has like a quote from someone, this is a quote from so and so. This is not their voice. It's been played by an actor. So he has to say that every time. I'm like this, I'm sure this is all legal. And he's never said we think this guy has done it.

Hard and then you've got to get the availability of Steve Martin and Martin Short to to play it as well for TV.

Right, right, Well, how did we segue there?

Well, it's only murders in the building and that's that's a podcast true crime, right as loose it was. It was a little string.

I'll give it to you. You can stay.

You can stay as that producer. You laugh at my job, at these tenuous threads I throw out.

When when to laugh and sue the talent? The talent have you had? Have you had someone that's come on one of the podcasts that you've produced that you've absolutely loved, like you had a favorite guest.

That is a good question. I'm going to answer in two ways because obviously I've been in radio as well. Yeah, right, So I'll start with radio. First I had I've been a massive Jessica cowboy fan for it's idle love her, and I'd never seen a live It just hadn't happened. And I'd always thought I'm going to run into one day because I'm in media. And last year I was working on a network and we booked her as a guest and I was like, oh my gosh, she's coming in. What am I going to do?

This is so crazy.

Anyway, she came here, she did the slot, and like I just couldn't wap the smile off my face, got just She's amazing. Yeah, and spoke to one of the people at the label and I said, I just like, you know, I'm a really big fan, and you know, if I could just love to chat to her for a second, and I'm like, yeah, sure. We ended up singing together. I've got a video of it because I

Yes, So did you admit to her that you were fanboying?

Oh yeah, I said, like, this is like a moment right now. Yeah, we completely bonded. It was great.

I love her. I love her on the voys. I just I just love her. It's fantastic. Speaking of which, can we get Kylie Minogue on separate bathrooms?

You know what I've sent the email already?

Yeah, you would.

Yeah. Can you imagine getting Kylie and Denny together? Oh wouldn't that we do?

That would be great to have that sibling.

Relations shows you kind of you've met.

Her through the years.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think.

I used to get mistaken for Kylie Minogue all the time.

I see that.

When I was when we were back in my Dolly days, I had one young, clearly young girl, just gay fellow follow me. One day I was on a I was on the Manly to Shelley Walk and I could see him like frothing over there, and you know, he's looking at his friends and he's like he's like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, is it hers? And he's almost like in tears and then he kind of could feel him following, and I'm like, is he a Dolly fan or what is it? And then he came up and he was like, it's you, Kylie.

Is it you.

I was like, oh honey, it's not me, it's not Kylie. And he's like, you're just like her. I'm sorry, but he was so beside himself to think that I might have been Kylie.

That was like the time in Los Angeles at Pasadena where that guy was frothing over me and he came up and he said, God damn, Billy Bob Thornton, I love your work.

And you were like, please do not put me in That cad.

Came back to you and I was just like, Billy Pop, what mirror am I looking at?

Yeah?

I love those moments though.

Yeah.

Okay, so suggests Malboy for radio podcast fan Boy Moment.

So I've only been in podcasting for this. This is my first year in podcasting. Okay, So I haven't had too many guests yet. However, we recently had Christian Hole on Big Business with Britney Saunders. I mean he was forced to shut down his business. And usually we're interviewing like founders of businesses that are thriving, and you know, we talk about the moments where it hasn't gone so well. But he had had to shut down his business because he's an absolute financial strife. So it was just a

Okay, or maybe something in the title.

That items energetically it might Yeah, has he has? He rebranded as he started up again with something I.

Shut it down. He made a very vulnerable video on TikTok saying, this is the reality of my situation. I have two and fifty thousand dollars worth of stock I have to sell, and I think within the first three days he's sold over one hundred thousand dollars of it because people are just like, let's support this and help him out. So yeah, that must be a good learning absolutely.

Yeah, Curfe, you listening to all of that because it's I've been meaning to listen to that one big business, right, yeah business? Yeah? Nice? And how's the skin going? Because now you're listening to.

I'm actually I've got a sort of light beat on this morning. I'm using the door backstage, face and body foundation and I feel great.

Yeah, there you go. I love that.

Wow, really impress Its so related. I'm really impressive to.

Podcasts one on skincare, own beauty and on money and business.

Yeah, well it's not so much that it's the it's the skincare and how you're able to just immediately tell me and our listener, and how what you have on your face and how open people are. Hugh Jackman posted the other day on his Instagram, this is fifty five. I believe he thinks, and he's got too like pieces of paper under his underneath his eye eyes. I guess you know, you.

Think it was paper. It would have been like a four cut up.

Yeah, pieces of paper. I mean like maybe it's a Selene schmidged on them or something going on.

Working on my masks much.

That's what he had on there. He was wearing high masks taking care of his Well.

Now it's radio. I get enough sleep so I don't need the usk.

But anyway, male skincare has really come a long way. Yeah, definitely, people aren't. Yeah, that's good. It's good. Hey, we're getting to know Xander, our new producer on Separate Bathrooms. Mate, do you have a celebrity crush.

Oh, let me think about that for a second. You know what, because I work in media, the kind of hype around celebrity isn't It doesn't do it for me. Like when I meet people, obviously, God, what I I meet someone like Jessica mal By, I'm excited, but they're just another person to me, Like, I don't really play into the celebrity of it all. So it's such a boring answer. I don't think I really have a celebrity crush.

Is there a sporting crush or a political crush?

You've changed? Yeah, you've changed the game now. I don't know if I worked on your blame. I don't know if I could say any of them, because every second sports walked in, I was like, yeah, he's good.

Sports fan.

So yeah. My dad actually used to coach NRL. His name's Paul Cross. He used to coach the reserve grade, so he used to coach paramatter coach Newcastle. He had a bit to do with men Storm at one point. I believe so.

And did that go down the list to you in terms of was he.

That's why he became and Iron supporter? Straight down?

Dad has been the most supportive parent in terms of my dancing since the get go, that's so goodous it.

Is Billy Elliott. He wasn't a minor, he.

Was a he was a reserve.

There's a booby in his I'm sure you don't know.

The half of this is just the surface.

Yeah, okay, So then Sporting crush, when you said, oh he's good, what comes to me? Or she's good? What what comes to mind?

I know a lot of them. I can't say that.

It's got to keep it. It's got to keep it tight lipped on this one.

Really Otherwise the girl there's that's stalker producer.

Okay, juicy, you have to be cool. See Roger Federer for me, No, I stood beside him on my fiftieth birthday at Nobu in sound like or Malanboo because I just wanted to stand. I did the same with Buddy Franklin, just went and stood beside him at the at the counter paying for a thing.

I will name someone. I will name someone, Reese Walsh, Prison, broncos Right. I just do a lot of good things at the moment, and not just anyone.

That they completely knocked out in the Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, completely knocked out in the first few minutes of round one. Just knocked him out unconscious, one of the new South Wales.

This is in State of cam what's going on here? NRL. Yeah, I look, I really try. I like watching close games, close matches of anything, whether that's whether that's the world game, hockey in the Olympics, I'm excited about that, the hockey, US hockey ruse or.

Forward to watching the Olympics.

It's really good.

I love the Olympics.

Oh my gosh, we've had the weekend of swimming that's.

Been always good.

It's amazing.

I do weirdly enough, I love the rowing. I also love the kayaking, like I know Jess Fox, you know, our flag bearer, like her winning gold and her sister's bloody and the Olympics too. Amazing family. But I actually love the gymnastics. Do you love the gymnastics?

Yeah, that's my face.

Because you're like doing gymnastics now I am.

And he started her in may I.

Know, did you? I was we were talking about this before he does. He trains three days a week at a gymnastics time. Yeah.

Is that floor exercise or you do the you look strong enough to do the ring Xander.

I know there's ring classes. Would you like tumbling classes? Learning how to like flip and things like that. There's they've got specific classes for just working your handstands. It's bloody great lay strength Alexandria here in Sydney, fantastic.

How old are they people in there? Like the oldest? If you got this like the people in their fifties, could I do it?

Rely? Yeah, it's it's anyone with any ability. You actually get taken in and you do a private lesson first with one of the instructors and that's for them to kind of assess your ability and where they think that you can kind of fit in classes.

You give them a little dance number and they went straight straight to the top.

It was so embarrassing. It was so embarrassing because he was like, Okay, we're gonna do a Ford role. I was thinking because I was like, how do I do? I haven't done a Ford role in like twenty years?

I do?

It? Was scary?

And did?

Yeah?

I did it.

Do you love the rhythmic gymnastics with the ball and the batons.

All the ribbons?

Yes?

I love to do a ribbon number.

My god, I love it.

My sister like she it makes her want to vomit like she seems. Yea, she hates it with a passion. And I love it because I did ballet when I was younger me. It's such and those is so hard. It is so hard, the flexibility, and.

I really like to appreciate gymnastics since starting, you know, my basic level myself. Yeah, but I honestly think it is the hardest sport in the world. It is crazy. And you know what, fun fact, my barber is twelfth in the world for the pommel. Yeah for real, yea, for real, yes, right now, Yeah, that's insane.

Gosh, he must day must be.

So strong, a strong boy.

Yeah, yeah, he'd be able to spin you around on that barber chair and help you leave over you And we've actually got a really good shot possibly of winning a medal in the rhythmic gymnastics. Then yes, there's a young lady who is actually originally from Greece. She was I think she was born in Greece, moved here as a young girl, and she's really really brilliant. They're talking about the possibility of it that would be placed first ever, Yes, what I thought, I know.

It's amazing. It's amazing times we're in and we're in a time of growth and change, and Xander's joined us. Xander just before we wind this up, and first of all, welcome and thank you, thank you, thanks for being here. It's so great and the fact that we were able to create something out of nothing today has been incredible because obviously we were going to do something else that didn't happen. I was going to say, actually, when you're talking about radio and how live radio is, when that

Do you know. I want to know something funny. The entire time they were doing that show, the separate bathroom for Randing was ever in the studio because they couldn't change it from our record.

Oh my gosh, they were looking at us the whole time. Were it was so good. They just were energized picture.

Of us because they we were recording an episode for you and we lost the whole thing. We had to say goodbye to our guests and go, oh, we'll have to do this another time, and so it was quite incredible being here.

We like to.

Finish our podcast with a two minute shower. I've got a question for you, just just a quick one. What the world needs more of is.

Oh. I think what the world needs more of is some understanding of people's situations. I think we're very very quick to judge, and I think, I mean, we're all on this journey together, to be honest. Why don't make it a good one together?

Beautiful?

Yeah? Okay, one question from me. One thing. You can't leave home without my dignity because the greatest love of all.

I've left home without it before, and you know, doesn't end well and it's not.

Good when you don't come home with it.

All right, Xander our new producer of Separate Bathrooms.

Play us out, Mate, play us out.

Thanks yay