Aliens Ambassador, Fun with Fawlty, and More with Bob LeDrew

Danny Brown: 00:00:00

Hey there, Danny here from 5 Random Questions. Today's episode touches on the topic of suicide.

And while it's a brief part of the episode, if you feel this may upset you, it may be worth giving this week's episode a miss. And we'll see you next time. Take care.

Bob LeDrew: 00:00:14

You know, we live in a time where some of our leaders are doing terrible things.

And I think if aliens came to Earth, I would want them to look at the little bits of humanity and the little goods that get created every day rather than some of the political shenanigans and tragic outcomes of those shenanigans that we hear about on the news every day.

Danny Brown: 00:00:49

Hi, and welcome to 5 Random Questions, the show with unexpected questions and unfiltered answers. I'm your host, Danny Brown, and each week I'll be asking my guest five questions created by a random question generator.

The guest has no idea what the questions are and neither do I, which means this could go either way. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into this week's episode. Today's guest is Bob LeDrew. Bob is a recovering podcaster and lots of other things.

After a long career in the word game doing journalism, PR and social media, he's now helping to manage a fair trade store and working on poetry and fiction projects. And he says he's known me since before I was a rapper. We'll have to ask about that, but, Bob, welcome to 5 Random Questions.

Bob LeDrew: 00:01:31

Danny, this is such a pleasure to be here. I listened to. I think I've listened to all of the episodes, but. So it's a real kick to actually be on one with you.

Danny Brown: 00:01:42

And I shall make sure the cheque is in the mail by my little admin assistant for saying that. But I would mention there, obviously, while introducing you, we have known each other for quite a while.

Maybe not since my rapper days, but we've certainly. We've known each other.

I was thinking about this earlier, actually, mate, and we've known each other almost as long as me and my wife's been married and certainly longer than my kids have been alive, which is quite a while.

Bob LeDrew: 00:02:05

That is quite a while. It's really.

I think it's a function of getting to a certain age, but you begin to realize the longevity of certain relationships and you sort of see what I think is really cool is that you see various phases of people's lives, you know, and I've seen you. You know, I could remember seeing posts when both Salem and Ewan were born. You know, I've seen all of these Sort of things happen.

I've seen your wife start publishing books. I've seen her move on. I've seen her podcast. I've seen your podcast, I've seen your project. It's exciting.

You know, I get to live vicariously through other people.

Danny Brown: 00:02:48

And it's funny you mentioned about stages of life because obviously we've got a mutual friend in Jenny over in the town/city, where you as a bookstore where you're going after this recording. Funnily enough, that is true.

Bob LeDrew: 00:02:59

The new Stephen King book is out.

Danny Brown: 00:03:01

Well, and that's it.

And I just think it's just weird that people, I remember when social media first started and people were saying, oh, it's not real, you can't have real friendships, et cetera. But I mean, you have us as an example. Might not be a great example, but you have us an example.

We got to know Jenny, or my wife got to know Jenny through an online relationship, you know, with friends that loved books on Goodreads, etc. Started a book business together. So it's just weird how these little sort of sliding doors moments actually filter over into real life.

Bob LeDrew: 00:03:30

And the other thing that I think is really cool about what social media has done, which is a good thing as opposed to the many bad things that it sometimes can be blamed for, is that you have the ability to keep up with people from far distances. I was talking with someone online just a few days ago who I went to university with in the early nineties. She's in Egypt now. She's.

She's an Egyptian and she's in Egypt, but we can still stay in touch. And you know, she had a loss in her family a few years ago that was pretty devastating.

And she had just mentioned that something I said at that time came up in her Facebook memories and she remembered how it had helped her at that time.

And that's really touching to know that, you know, even though there's this far flung relationship, that even without regular physical presence, you can have an impact on someone. You can, you know, you can make their day a little bit better and it can stick around that long.

So it's, it's, that's one of the bits of social media that has been a powerful good.

Danny Brown: 00:04:47

And I feel that's kind of similar to podcasting. One of the reasons I love the medium.

You mentioned a great point there, mate, about you can impact someone's life really positively and never even know about it.

But that's just like, you know, one of the positive aspects of when you share something online where you say something or in this case, when you record and publish it as audio, for example.

So I feel even if you don't, you know, I know sometimes, especially with kids, my son wants to be a YouTuber, for example, because he sees all the millions, the subscribers and all the money that should come with that, etc. But even if you've just got like one person that you can help, I think that's, that's a worthwhile legacy to leave right behind.

Bob LeDrew: 00:05:25

Yeah, absolutely.

Danny Brown: 00:05:26

Well, speaking of legacies, I am curious as to what legacy we're going to leave behind with this episode, mate, and what key questions, stroke answers we're going to get. So are you ready for the five random questions? Hot seat? Mr.

Bob LeDrew: 00:05:38

I am going to take a sip of water and then I will be ready.

Danny Brown: 00:05:42

Not a problem. While you're doing that, I'm going to bring up my random question generator. Okay. So I feel this is a nice easy one to start with. Mr.

Bob, question number one, if aliens just landed on Earth, what message would you send them?

Bob LeDrew: 00:06:00

I am tempted. My funny answer is, don't blame me, I didn't do this. But a more serious answer I think would be don't judge us by our leaders.

You know, I think it goes, and this actually goes back to what we were just talking about. You know, we, we live in a time where some of our leaders are doing terrible things.

And I think if aliens came to Earth, I would want them to look at the little bits of humanity and the little goods that get created every day rather than some of the political shenanigans and tragic outcomes of those shenanigans that we hear about on the news every day.

Danny Brown: 00:06:56

Well, I remember when I, because we were of a certain age, you'd alluded it to, to it earlier.

And I remember when there was like the, the big news story about the time capsule being put together and sent out and I can't remember the name of the big transmitter or even the, the ship that went out that held this sort of time capsule information.

Bob LeDrew: 00:07:15

Voyager.

Danny Brown: 00:07:16

Voyager. That's it. Thank you. Because that was years ago. That was like maybe what was that four decades ago?

I'm thinking probably when we sent that up, whether that's been found or not, and people, aliens, et cetera, are on their way to checkout and what they'd think compared to that message that had been in there and all the products or whatever else was in that message to what they would find today.

Bob LeDrew: 00:07:37

If I recall correctly, I think there's audio of Richard Nixon in that time Capsule. So it's going to be, it's going to be. There's going to be a shock by the. Is Richard Nixon still in charge? No. No. That didn't end well.

Danny Brown: 00:07:51

No. So I'm curious, I mean, we talked about the time capsule there. What would you.

If you were putting one together today for future generations, either on our planet or hopefully of a benevolent alien race to pick it up, what would be the kind of things or message that you would put in a capsule today then?

Bob LeDrew: 00:08:12

I think that I would go with some of the best music that I could choose. I think I'd throw some Glenn Gould Bachelor on there. The well Tempered Clavier. I would throw my, my favorite singer songwriter, Danny Michelle.

I'd throw, I'd throw a Danny Michelle song on there. I'd throw some Stan Rogers in there. And then there's got to be books. There's got to be. There's got to be a book.

Maybe something by Alistair McLeod or by Rohinta Mistry. A Fine Balance by Rohinta Mistry. And then you gotta have some art in there. So I'd throw a Caravaggio in there.

An image of a Caravaggio and yeah, I think oftentimes the greatest things that we humans have been able to create are artistic expressions in one form or another. So I would skew heavily towards the art, the technology. It's gonna be kind of implied by the fact that it's like, oh, they got this to us.

So they obviously have some advanced technology. I want to show them some of the great art and cultural achievements that we've been able to make.

Danny Brown: 00:09:27

And do you think. And I'm going to assume yes, but I'm going to ask anyway. Do you think you, if you were the ambassador.

So let's say the spaceship lands have found your capsule, your time capsule. You're welcome. How would you act as an ambassador, the official ambassador to welcome them humbly?

Bob LeDrew: 00:09:49

Because if they've been able to get across space time to get to us, they're obviously way more powerful than we are. So I'm just going to do my best to give them a nice introduction to Earth and convince them that we're worth not incinerating and hopefully we don't.

Danny Brown: 00:10:06

Need to make an ID for Independence Day kind of message or anything.

Bob LeDrew: 00:10:10

No, let's not make that a documentary.

Danny Brown: 00:10:13

Well, I feel that's a good introduction and humble introduction to this week's episode. So if you're listening, any future presidents or any current presidents, with the exception of a few, maybe Mr. Bob is your man.

If any aliens land tomorrow, let's get it sorted. So, on that note, let's have a look at question number two. Hmm? Okay, Bob, question two. When was the last time you felt like a failure?

Bob LeDrew: 00:10:41

Oh, man. Um.

Danny Brown: 00:10:43

Can I say earlier today when trying to get this recording going.

Bob LeDrew: 00:10:48

No, you know, that. That one. I didn't feel bad because it was a stupid Mac in its settings, so I. I don't feel that was a personal failure, but it's. It's. That's a.

That is a question that I have struggled with for a long, long time. That's.

That's something that I've gotten help with over the years, is persistent feelings of that, so that, you know, you don't want to be in a situation where every day you get up and you enumerate the list of failures from the previous day. And the other part of getting help for that is to recognize that if you fail that it's not a catastrophe.

That's another thing that I've done a lot of work on over the years.

But to answer the question directly, I think the last time I felt like a failure, I was working on a script for a fundraising event in my old hometown of Ottawa.

And I felt a huge amount of pressure because it was the final edition of this fundraising event after 20 years, and I just felt like I had to make this one amazingly good. And I just found myself frozen and. And unable to generate the. The level of stuff that I wanted to. And I felt like a failure there. And, you know, the.

The hard part and the shockingly easy part is oftentimes it's the admission that you're in trouble to someone that allows you to get out of that trouble, you know, is to say to my friend who was the producer, I'm just. I'm struggling with this right now. I'm having a hard time. I've got a. You know, I don't know how to get out of this rut that I'm in on it.

And he was able to help pull me out of that, Ruth. So not so long ago.

Danny Brown: 00:12:59

Yeah. And do you think that's like a conditioning that we have to get better as humans where we oftentimes.

And I've seen this before, like, whether on newspapers, tv, or whatever, we always celebrate. It's easy to celebrate or pick up on the negatives and, you know, amplify that as opposed to the positives that we've just done.

So instead of congratulating ourselves on a job well done, we've got that One tiny little thing that we didn't do and that's the one we put so much energy into. And I don't know, like you mentioned there, like you've had many times over your life, rightly or wrongly, where you felt this way.

I'm just curious, you know, from your perspective, what kind of causes that for you?

Bob LeDrew: 00:13:41

I think it goes way back. I was what today would have been called a gifted kid. I more or less taught myself to read when I was, wasn't in school, before I got to school.

And so academically I was advanced.

And one of the, I think the things that's tricky when you have a kid like that is you have to make them feel good about what they are rather than what they do. It's easy to get praised for what you do if you perform well on a test.

If you, you know, oh, look at, look at my little four year old, he can read this or that. And so it becomes a performance based value.

And so if you can't perform, then what are you, right, you're not very good because you're only as good as what you do. You're not good inherently in yourself.

And so that in my case led me to a situation in my brain where if I wasn't constantly doing stuff, if I wasn't constantly, you know, feeling like I was achieving and excelling and things like that, I was afraid that that would lead to people saying like, well, you know, sure, he, you know, he did that, but that was six weeks ago or six months ago, you know, and give them a chance and they'll figure out that I'm actually not very inherently valuable. So it was a, you know, it's one of those things that you have to sort of tease out.

And I was really lucky to find a psychologist that I saw for several years and we worked very hard on that aspect of my personality because it leads nowhere good. You know, it just leads to anxiety and stress and, you know, coping mechanisms that are not good for you.

And it just, it's, it's not a, it's not a good situation.

Danny Brown: 00:15:55

And is that improved? You mentioned that you got a really good psychologist to help you. Is that improved with age?

Do you find yourself less harsh on yourself and not spot on fallacies or things that you've not done? Or do you still feel it's there but now you cope better?

Bob LeDrew: 00:16:10

It's, it's a combination of the two, I think, I think it's, I always think of it as sort of a, you know, when you pull a plug in your bathtub and there's that little whirlpool that's going down the drain. So that whirlpool is always kind of there. And you always can find yourself getting pulled around that whirlpool and spinning.

But you can if you have better tools to get yourself out of that. If you can swim better, you can get away from that spiral of negativity and do better.

But I also think that I'm going to be 59 later this year, and I think you just get more secure in the fact that this is who I am and it's not so bad.

And honestly, I feel so fortunate to be in the place, in the world that I am and have the things that I do in terms of, you know, a stable relationship and a job that demands an appropriate amount from me and that I can give an appropriate amount to and that I believe in and time to pursue things that are creative and a comfortable place to live. And good food when I'm hungry. Like, I have so much that it makes you feel secure.

It makes you feel much more at ease than I would have, you know, 30 years ago, 25 years ago.

Danny Brown: 00:17:51

I mean, it's one of the good things that comes with age. I know I keep complaining to my wife about my bones are sore every morning when I wake up.

No matter if I've had a great night's sleep or not, I just sore. And it doesn't get much better during the day either.

But yeah, I think like you say, mate, when you get to a certain age, like maturity, whatever you want to word does really change your perspective and makes you more appreciative.

Especially you spoke earlier about some of the things that are happening in the world, especially with some of the things that are happening in the world. We are where we live in Canada, et cetera. It's not the greatest, but it's not the worst by a long, long shot.

Bob LeDrew: 00:18:26

No, no, far from it.

Danny Brown: 00:18:28

Well, speaking of experience and moving on to better things and accepting better things, it's time to move on. Not that there's anything wrong with question two in your answer, Bob, but I'm saying question three is better. U.S. moving on to that.

And again, that was that terrible, terrible segue. I apologize, dear listener, for that.

Bob LeDrew: 00:18:44

Just don't feel like a failure about it.

Danny Brown: 00:18:47

Exactly. I'm going to take your advice there, mate. I'm going to take your advice there. So we've spoken about just, just now.

Well, we've spoken about your approach on a certain age in life now, but on the Flip side of that. Question number three. What did you want to become when you were younger?

Bob LeDrew: 00:19:03

Oh, man. I've got two answers for this. The first thing that I wanted to become was a paleontologist.

I read a ton about Richard and Mary Leakey, who were a husband and wife team of anthropologists. And they unearthed Xinganthropus and Pithecanthropus and all of these early, early forms of human beings in the Gobi Desert.

And I went from there to the people who hunted for dinosaurs in the deserts and in Alberta and all of those places. And I really wanted to be out there with the little brush, you know, the little toothbrush and the magnifying glass.

Digging up bones has not happened yet, but I don't know, it could happen.

y, if you had talked to me in: 1986

Danny Brown: 00:20:25

So obviously dinosaurs. I can get that, kids, dinosaurs. That's a no brainer, mate. And did you ever read the Crichton books as well, Jurassic park and that?

Bob LeDrew: 00:20:33

Oh yeah, well, I certainly. I read the first. I don't know if. Have there been sequel books to Jurassic Park? I know there have been tons of movies.

Danny Brown: 00:20:41

Good question. I don't know. You can ask Janny today when you see her.

Bob LeDrew: 00:20:45

There you go.

Danny Brown: 00:20:46

But I don't know. I'd like to say there were, but no, in Hollywood it's just been a money grab for movies. Right.

Bob LeDrew: 00:20:52

But yeah, I totally devoured Jurassic Park. The idea that you could be somewhere and actually see these beasts. Oh, mind blowing.

Danny Brown: 00:21:03

I feel if given to, or if the technology was put into the hands of some people today, be weaponized, you know, you'd be getting weaponized dinosaurs like laser head pterodactyls.

Bob LeDrew: 00:21:15

They'd be dropping T. Rexes from Black Hawk helicopters with missiles launchers on their tiny little arms.

Danny Brown: 00:21:23

Yeah, I mean, I'd watch it as a movie, but real life, not so much. But to go from that then and to like you mentioned in psychology, that's a real big. I know you were, you were older, you're at university. Yeah.

What kind of piqued your interest in that then? Was that like a teen thing or.

Bob LeDrew: 00:21:42

It was, yeah, it was definitely a teen thing. And there were, there were two things that, that happened in my early teens that really sparked that for me. And one was kind of tragic.

I lost a brother to suicide, and that shaped everything afterwards. I was 13 at the time and kind of a peak age. You know, puberty's just hitting and you're trying to.

And then this horrifying thing happens in your family. And it kind of threw everything off. And I think it changed everything for me and it shaped everything for me. So that was one thing.

And then this is gonna sound really banal compared to that, but the police around that time released a record called Synchronicity, which I absolutely loved. And I started reading the lyrics of Synchronicity and finding out that Sting had been inspired by Carl Jung.

And so I went down this Carl Jung rabbit hole and started reading everything that I get my hands on from Carl Jung and really loved all of that stuff. And then I, at the same time, found.

There's a trilogy of novels by Robertson Davies, a Canadian writer, and one of them is heavily involved with Jungian psychology as well. And Jung had all of these concepts of, like, the collective unconscious. And synchronicity is sort of meaningful coincidence.

So, you know, if I thought of you today, Danny, and went out of my house and just walked downtown into Coburg, and there you were standing on the main street, according to Jung, that's not some sort of psychic thing, but it is a meaningful coincidence. And that's what synchronicity was. So I got totally into all of that stuff.

And I think clinical psychology for me was this idea that if I were to study that field and become a clinical. Clinical psychologist, I'd be able to save people from doing what my brother did. And I think I was.

What I was really trying to do was kind of rewrite the past and undo what had happened in my life. And at some level, I think when I was finishing up my first degree, I realized that that was what I was doing, that it just wasn't.

It wasn't a solid foundation for me to build on. And I changed my mind and didn't go to grad school. So that was what happened. Yeah.

Danny Brown: 00:24:36

And do you think if you had continued down that course of the degree and the career path that you're possibly going to take, having come to the realization that you mentioned that you were doing it for a specific reason, do you think that might have.

For want of a better word or better description, you think that might have given you not closure, but clearer understanding of your brother's decision? Or would that have come out anyway, do you feel?

Bob LeDrew: 00:25:02

I think one way or another, it would have.

It would have come out, like, I think in order to have a successful life in any way, and you've got some kind of scar tissue like that, you've got to figure out a way around it and a way through it. I always describe losses like that as like some sort of huge knee injury.

If you're a skier and you completely destroy your knee on a ski slope afterwards, you know, you get surgery and then you get physiotherapy and you have assistive devices, and eventually your knee comes back to being able to do what a knee is supposed to do, but it never does it in quite the same way that it did beforehand. And if it's going to rain out, all of a sudden it starts to hurt a little bit and you can never quite tell if it's going to give out on you.

And I think if I had become a psychologist, I hopefully would have figured out those tools in some way and they would have made themselves apparent to me. And ideally, most psychologists, I think, work with a mentor figure, so they have someone that they're going to and.

And saying, you know, I'm struggling with this in my practice. What should I do? And hopefully a good mentor would have helped me with that.

But the other thing that I think would have been hard for me is I think I'm a pretty empathic person and I think dealing with people who are in pain and struggling on a daily basis probably would have brought me down a great deal. I'm not sure I would have been able to cope well with the psychic drama that I'd be experiencing secondhand from my clients.

Danny Brown: 00:26:58

Yeah, it makes me think of the. Do you ever watch shrinking on Apple tv? I love that show and I felt it just ended the right way. I was a bit scared.

I'm not giving any spoilers to anyone that's not watched it. Please. If you're not watching, you've got access to Apple tv. Watch it. Amazing, amazing show. But you mentioned mentor.

And obviously you've got the Harrison Ford character, then you've got the Jason Segal. It's Jason Segel, right? Jason Seal. That's right.

I feel he'd be your character where you want to help so many, but you're taking on all their hearts as well to get them like the guy, like the violent guy that he brings into his home at the start of season one, et cetera. So I feel like if we ever do ever see a Canadian version, let's get you involved in something, the creative side.

But yeah, it's just when you were mentioning that it Made me think of that relationship there, too.

Bob LeDrew: 00:27:44

Yeah. Yeah. And I think shrinking's a really good example of.

I think Jason Sagal's character at the start of this is struggling to help people, but he's at that point, incapable of helping himself because he's suffered a loss. And it's just. He's become undone by this loss.

And so he is struggling to help other people, but he's not able to bring himself back into line and to sort of be a fully functional human being. So it's a really. He's a really strong actor, and I really appreciate how he played that part, particularly in the first season.

Danny Brown: 00:28:33

Definitely. And as mentioned, I would recommend anybody to watch it. And if you can't watch it, reach out to me.

I'll put you in touch with Bob, and we'll get you a Canadianized version of Jason Segel's character, Eugene Levy.

Bob LeDrew: 00:28:45

If you're out there, I am available for the ripe fee.

Danny Brown: 00:28:49

There we go. And Eugene could be the Harrison Ford character. I feel perfect. Perfect. All right, we're sorted on that one, then.

So, speaking of sorting out, let's sort ourselves over to question number four. And I feel this is a good. I feel this is like a good countermeasure to the second question, mate. So, Bob, question number four.

What do you like most about yourself?

Bob LeDrew: 00:30:37

I think I would say my sense of humor. You know, I think I'm a pretty funny person. I'm lucky that I have a partner who various people have said is my best audience.

And so I spend a great deal of time figuring out how to make her laugh. And if I get that laugh, then it's like, score. I've accomplished something on that day. But, yeah, I think it's my sense of humor.

I had a great uncle who in my family mythology, was sitting around a house party at one point, and people were laughing at something his son had said. And he looked around the room and he said, I never saw anything in my life funny enough to laugh at. And what a horrible way to go through life.

I could just. I could not do that.

Danny Brown: 00:31:34

It's almost like the Monty Burns approach. Right? It's like there's just. You're just so. I'm not sure. Miserable, but just. Yeah, there's no humor in that life.

And even with his, like, sidekick, there's no humor at all. Right. Which. For a humorous show. But, yeah, I mean, what was it about your. Your uncle, then, that it just made him.

That was just like a generational thing.

Bob LeDrew: 00:31:54

Who knows? He was. He was way Way older than me. So I don't. I don't have the ability to. To. To analyze him, but it just became part of family lore.

And, you know, the great irony, of course, is that his son was of all of my dad's clan. And my dad grew up. Dad was part of a big family. He was the jokester, this guy. He married into the Ledru family and he was the jokester. And here.

Here he was with a dad who, you know, wouldn't crack a smile with a crowbar.

Danny Brown: 00:32:33

So you mentioned that humor is your. Your favorite thing. How would people. So let's, let's. I've got two little bonus questions here for you, mate, because I would agree.

I think you've got a great sense of humour. I've hung out with you numerous times. And yes, I would definitely agree. So, A, how would you describe your humor? And B, would others agree with that?

Or vice versa? You choose.

Bob LeDrew: 00:32:55

Hmm. That's a really interesting question.

I think I would describe my sense of humor as I think there are two things that I do that are my sense of humor wordplay. Because I love words, and I, you know, I've been in love with words for what feels like my whole life.

And so I love things that are focused on wordplay. I love a good pun. I love a good grony dad joke. Even though I don't have kids myself, I'm still an aficionado with a dad joke.

And then the other side of humor that I think I possess, and I think people would agree is kind of an absurdist side, because I loved Monty Python. I loved the outrageousness of the early Warner Brothers cartoons, the classic Looney Tunes cartoons.

: 5000

And Bugs immediately goes into baseball gear and goes, oh, well, I'm an umpire. And then the vampire goes, I am a bat. And he transforms into a bat. And then, of course, Bugs turns into a baseball bat because he was an umpire.

And then the vampire whips out a pair of spectacles and put. He goes, you wouldn't hit a bat with glasses, would you? At which point, of course, Bugs hits. Being a bat, hits him with the bat. And it's just.

The absurdity of that just completely tickles me. It just, you know, I love that kind of humor.

And so when I first got exposed to Monty Python via pbs, when cable TV first came to My little community. One of the things that came along was pbs, and they used to run Monty Python all the time.

And from Monty Python, I got to Fawlty Towers and all of that stuff. So that was a huge influence, I think, on me, to the point where I can recite off Monty Python sketches or Warner Brothers cartoons.

To the point of exhaustion in some cases. If not me, not my exhaustion, I could go on forever. It's other people who would get exhausted.

Danny Brown: 00:35:29

Just the audience around you. It's funny you mentioned Monty Python and Faulty Towers. I think that whole team. John Cleese was also part of Monty Python.

And just like Life of Brian for me, is one of the best movies, period, ever made. I can watch the whole 13 episodes of Faulty Towers.

Bob LeDrew: 00:35:47

Absolutely.

Danny Brown: 00:35:48

And still laugh at something. You know, it's just like. It's just. And I don't think.

I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think you could make a Monty Pie Fawlty Towers today, because I feel the humor might be. I mean, obviously it was very stereotypical to Manuel, the Spanish waiter. So we knew that.

And some of the things that the old major said to people who weren't white and old like him was quite horrible. But I feel also that was. That was deliberate on the case of Cleese and, you know, on the Python team to highlight these things as well.

But again, I'm not sure if you could make some stuff like that today.

Bob LeDrew: 00:36:23

Yeah, it's interesting.

I think the content might be different, but to me, what was always the appeal to me of Fawlty Towers in particular, was that the scripts were like these little Swiss watches of clockwork precision.

And if they brought up Subject A in the first scene, you knew that that was going to come around and they were going to pull it back in at the exact appropriate minute and close all of the loops at once. And it was almost. I think Fawlty Towers is like Shakespeare's comedies. It's so perfectly structured.

And the other thing I love about both Warner Brothers and Fawlty Towers, and in particular, are that they're based in constraints, Right? Warner Brothers cartoons. You had six minutes, and you had to get as many gags in in six minutes as you could.

Fawlty Towers, they said, we're going to do 13 perfect episodes, and they're each going to be, you know, 27 minutes long or whatever the length is going to be, and we are going to make them perfect within those constraints. And, you know, Basil has to be the butt of the joke in the end. Sybil has to be the tormentor of her husband. Manuel has to be the slapstick relief.

Paulie, you know, and so all of these things, creativity thrives when you give it constraints to work against, I think. And I think they were like amazing examples of creativity and constraint working to create beautiful things.

Danny Brown: 00:38:11

I think that's also why maybe some of the best improv works like it does, because you have two, maybe three very specific topics that the crowd's chosen and then you've got to stick within that to tell a story, but might get very funny as well, you know, as opposed to having this big scripted out, 40 minute set or whatever.

Bob LeDrew: 00:38:28

Yeah, I always think of it like, you know, there's the jazz music that I love and the improvisation in jazz music that I love comes from like Duke Ellington's era where the structures of the songs and the complexities of the songs were so hard that in order to be to riff on top of that, you had to understand the constraints and then figure out ways to, to break the bonds and create within them. Whereas if it's like just play anything, you know, everything, everything's the right note, it doesn't work as well for me.

I like that you have to have something to push against.

Danny Brown: 00:39:14

It's like the kids school concerts where they're playing any note they want most of the time. Sometimes we'll get the good ones, but sometimes. But yeah, I like that. I like that a lot.

And speaking of structure within constraints, we have got to the structured question number five. Although it's not really structured, mate, because they have been as always, and while I'm doing a show random.

Bob LeDrew: 00:39:36

So creativity within constraint is what I'm saying.

Danny Brown: 00:39:39

Exactly, mate, exactly. So let's see what question number five brings up. Okay, Bob and I feel we've got a bit personal with you on this episode. Time.

I'm liking this Question number five, Bob. What is one thing you would change about your home? And I'm going to give you a little leeway here as well.

So home can be either your physical home where you live with your partner, or it could be home as in your country. Whatever you want to class it as home.

Bob LeDrew: 00:40:06

Okay.

Danny Brown: 00:40:06

I feel a little bit generous there because there have been some personal, some personal questions there today.

Bob LeDrew: 00:40:11

I know.

And I think that I'm going to take this a little bit further out and say that if there was one thing that I would change about the country that we live in is that there will be more homes for more people. As we were saying in the green room before we got Started. I'm on a committee related to a new shelter in my town for homeless folks.

And as I've been learning about the issues around homelessness, affordability is a gigantic problem for so many people. Right now I live in a small town in southern Ontario and a one bedroom apartment here, you're looking at $1,600 a month, $1,800 a month.

And it just seems insurmountable to me. If you're trying to start out your adult life and you think, oh, I'd love a little place of my own.

Just the basic costs of living and having a place of your own are so high right now.

And if something goes wrong, you know, if you lose a job, if you injure yourself, if you, you know, or if you develop a substance issue, it's so easy to fall off of that, you know, fall out of that. You get ren evicted. You know, people get.

There's this whole phenomenon of ren eviction where a landlord will say, oh, well, I'm going to renovate this apartment. So you have to go out. And then they renovate it, but it comes back at like twice the price and the person can't come back and pay that rent.

And you know, they end up living in a car, they end up living in a shelter. And it's. It's a desperate situation for lots of folks.

So I would figure out some magic wand swipe that would make housing more affordable for more people.

Danny Brown: 00:42:16

I know for listeners that aren't from Canada that may or may not know, we just had our federal election, obviously. And I know Carney, the new prime minister. Well, he was the existing prime minister.

Bob LeDrew: 00:42:28

The new newly elected. Yeah, he has a mandate now.

Danny Brown: 00:42:33

He has that. Yeah, he did mention him and his team about building prefabricated homes as a. Not as a stopgap.

I mean, they're obviously still quality homes, but they're maybe not as long term, say brick and mortar, etc. Do you feel that's a good solution for now, to get people into affordable housing or.

Bob LeDrew: 00:42:52

I hope it is. You know, I think back to.

In Canada after the war, there was this whole program of building what were called victory bungalows, which were little houses. You know, they were probably 900 square feet, which is not a huge space.

But that was where tons of World War II veterans got their start in the housing market was by having access to affordable basic housing. And now it seems like so many houses that are built now are these huge structures.

You know, families keep getting smaller and houses keep getting bigger.

You know, and so you see these, you know, mini mansions getting tossed up and it's like, well, you know, you're, you're limiting who has access to housing when you're building 4,500 square foot homes.

Danny Brown: 00:43:48

I remember as a kid growing up in Scotland, in Edinburgh, my grandma used to live in a prefab home and they were built after World War II in the UK, so similar idea, it was the troops coming home and they needed places to settled down because obviously they'd all been abroad for like four or five years. And I'm making that sound like a holiday camp. I apologize, but they've been away from the UK for so long that they needed, you know, new homes, etc.

And they were tiny. But to your point, it was a home.

And I feel that, and I don't like to get political in the shop, obviously, obviously the world dictates it at times, but I also feel that, you know, having a basic roof over your head, I mean, I've been homeless in the UK before. I know that situation is not fun.

But if you had like a ubi, Universal Basic Income, some kind of, you know, home that you have, I feel that that encourages and helps people, you know, to move forward in their life and also pay it forward and help others in their same situation.

Bob LeDrew: 00:44:50

Absolutely, yeah. And I think there's an approach around homelessness called housing first.

And the idea is that if you can't really get to any of the other issues that a person may have, until you get them into some sort of stable living arrangement, it's very hard to, you know, someone has a mental health issue that they need to address if they have a substance issue that they want to work on. It's very difficult to do that if they're living in a really tenuous situation or if they're living rough.

So housing first means you get them housed and then you say, okay, what else do you want to work on and how can we help you work on it? So.

Danny Brown: 00:45:35

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's less expensive to actually put people into housing as opposed to trying to pay for shelter.

Bob LeDrew: 00:45:42

Oh, sure.

Danny Brown: 00:45:42

You know, clear up tent cities and you know, the places that these, you know, these poor folks are going to live because there's no housing. So it's like that weird vicious circle that you can do this or you can do that and this is actually better, but for some reason you're doing that.

I don't understand. So I'm not a politician, mate.

Bob LeDrew: 00:45:57

Exactly. You and me both, you know, it'd.

Danny Brown: 00:46:00

Be like you want to save everybody. You know, as a psychologist, you want to do that as a politician? No. Ideally you'd want to do that as a politician, but not everybody does.

Bob LeDrew: 00:46:07

Yeah.

Danny Brown: 00:46:07

So, Bob, we've reached the end of your time in a hot seat. You can relax now. You've got through to the end of the five random questions.

Bob LeDrew: 00:46:15

How could I be anything but relaxed? I've talked about myself and for a half an hour.

Danny Brown: 00:46:19

That's the fun part. That's the fun part. But now the real fun part comes in as well.

So this is where as it's on the fair, I'm going to hand over the question in realm and reigns, not even in realm rains to you.

Bob LeDrew: 00:46:32

I wrote down this question earlier this morning. I thought about what I wanted to know from you and here is your question.

Danny, tell me about a time when you made a decision that worried you at the time, that you were uncertain about and it turned out to be better than you could have imagined.

Danny Brown: 00:46:54

y to that is coming to Canada: 2006

First time something clicked but I was essentially giving up everything because if it didn't work out, I had no real. I'd given up. I didn't have a, like a home home.

I wasn't a mortgage owner or anything, but I basically was saying goodbye to the UK and hoping it worked out because if it hadn't worked out and I've got to go back now, I've got to start again and where I live and all that stuff. But thankfully it did turn out for the best. That's the easy answer. I'll give you a little one more though.

And I feel it was similar in as much that I left Scotland when I was 20 years old, I think 20, 21, something like that, to go live and work or work and live, either or both in England. But I knew no one down. I was going for a job. I used to be part of an electrical retail company, salesman, etc. And so I was going down for a job.

I was basically living at a hotel for the first six weeks or so. The company thankfully paid for, but still.

But again, if I, if whatever reason, if I couldn't get housing down there, of the job fell through, if I didn't mean my sales quotas, anything like that could have gone wrong, I was like, then at the time, thankfully I would had like a family backup so my mum and dad would have put me up. Hopefully I was 20 and I told him to bugger off, I'm moving.

But that worked out and it's, it's, it goes back to what you mentioned way back at the start of the episode, Bob, about synchronicity and you know, all these things.

It's kind of like the sliding doors, you know, phenomena where all these things that happened wouldn't have happened had I not gone to England for that job. And that's that cascading effect.

ing out to Ottawa in December: 2009

Bob LeDrew: 00:49:00

Was also a very good decision, you know.

Danny Brown: 00:49:03

So yeah, so I would say that's probably the big ones there, mate. It's like they've been big life changing moves and thankfully for whatever reason they've worked out. And certainly there's the second one anyway.

Bob LeDrew: 00:49:15

One of my favorite writers, Ray Bradbury says jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.

Danny Brown: 00:49:21

Icarus might disagree. Mind you, he had wings already. He went up the way and then came back down. But yeah, so yeah, Matt, I appreciate that mate. Thanks for that question.

As I mentioned earlier, we've known each other for years, mate, and I knew this was going to be enjoyable and it's been really, really enjoyable.

And we have to catch up before another podcast episode because it's been too long for anybody that wants to know more about who Bob is, what you do, the work that you do now with Fair Trade, for example, if they're ever in the neighbourhood of Coburg, which is a beautiful town, Stroke City. Got lots of great crafts there as well. Where's the best place for people to connect with you?

Bob LeDrew: 00:50:00

A couple of places.

If you want to know about Fair Trade, you can go to VillageScoburg, Ca, which is the website for the store that I work for, 10,000 villages, which is a fair trade store. And if you want to know a little bit more about my creative stuff, probably the best way is to go to.

I've got a substack like everybody else in the world right now, Bob Ledrew B O B L E d r e w.substack.com and I try to write a new poem and post it there every day. So don't always make that. But that's the name of the substack and that's the goal. So that's. Those are good places to go.

And then for anything else, you can find me on threads most of the time. And I'm Ledru Bob there. I missed out on Bob Ledru. So I got Ledru Bob.

Danny Brown: 00:50:54

Oh, now I want to know who the other Bob Ledru is and how dare he.

Bob LeDrew: 00:50:57

I will tell you. There are two other Bob Ledrus out there.

One, my dad used to call me on Saturday nights periodically if the Edmonton Oilers were playing on hockey night in Canada because Bob Ledru is or was a gold judge in the Edmonton rink. So that was one. And there is a moving company in Newfoundland called Bob Ledru and Sons. Moving. No relation, but.

So I always figure we're fighting it out amongst the three of us for the social media handles.

Danny Brown: 00:51:30

All right, well, I'm going to leave all these links in the show notes and we're going to start a campaign to get threads Bob La Drew handed over to this gentleman here. But yeah, whatever podcast app you're listening to the episode on or if you're online on the website, check the episode out.

All the links will be in the show notes as usual. So be sure to check them out and I'll link you straight through to the correct Bob Le Drew. The one and only. Let's face it, Bob Le Drew.

So again, mate, been a real blast and a real pleasure to have you on five random Questions today.

Bob LeDrew: 00:51:55

Ah, Danny, it was a thrill.

Danny Brown: 00:51:58

Thanks for listening to five random questions. If you enjoyed this week's episode, I'd love for you to leave a review on the app you're currently listening on or over at fiverandomquestions. Com.

Review and if you know someone else who would enjoy the show, be sure to send one this way. It's very much appreciated. Until the next time, keep asking those questions.