Imagination Rejuvenation, Failure Folly, and More with Ned Donovan

Ned Donovan: 00:00:19

I got added to his friends fantasy golf league because they put my email on the thread, not his. And. And I was in that league for like a year and a half. Like, I played, I was really rude, I talked a lot of crap.

And yet one day in the middle of like my second season, a new name got added to the email thread and they were like, hi, this is our friend and college classmate, Ned Donovan. Who are you?

Danny Brown: 00:00:56

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 Ned Donovan.

Ned is an actor, singer, writer, producer, and a bunch of different hyphens around the entertainment industry.

He's a serious regular on and co creator, executive producer on the Dungeons and Dragons TV show Encounter Party, as well as a co host of Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You, a Tip of the Day podcast in two minutes or less.

He's also the director of audio fiction for the New Jersey Web Festival, the first film festival experience for fiction podcasts and actual play media.

Now in its fifth year, Ned's worked with festivals all over the world to launch the Audio Fiction World cup, the first international collective of festival experiences with jury adjudicated competitions in audio fiction. So, Ned, welcome to five Random Questions.

Ned Donovan: 00:02:02

Hey, thanks. It's so awesome to be here.

Danny Brown: 00:02:05

You are very welcome. And one thing I didn't mention in the intro there, but you have a dog called Bugsy Moggs. I do, and I feel that's a name I should maybe know.

It's not Bugsy Malone. Cause that's what it's called.

Ned Donovan: 00:02:20

It's not Bugsy Malone. So, interestingly enough, I don't know that you would, being from Scotland and Canada. Where in Canada are you?

Danny Brown: 00:02:30

So I'm about three hours north of Toronto.

Ned Donovan: 00:02:33

Okay. So only if you happen to be a Toronto's Rap, a Toronto Raptors fan, might this make sense to you.

But there is back in the 90s, a point guard for the Charlotte Hornets named Mugsy Bogues. And Mugsy was my favorite basketball player growing up because he was so short.

And I found it awesome that he was as good as he was, surrounded by these men who were like 2ft taller than him. And when we got our dog, he had a name from the rescue that we didn't feel fit his personality. So we didn't give him a name for a while.

We just sort of, like, hung out with him and called him nicknames. And we found ourselves calling him Bug as a nickname. And we felt, okay, Bug feels right. Bug feels good. But he can't be called Bug.

He needs a name that shortens into Bug. And we can't name him Bugsy Malone because that's rude. So. So we. But we found ourselves liking Bugsy.

And that's when my brain said, well, why don't we spoonerize famous Charlotte Hornets point guard Mugsy Bogues and make him Bugsy Moggs? And that is where the name came from. And it's funny because I'm not a huge basketball person.

So people who do know Mugsy Bogues will meet the dog and be like, oh, so you're a big Hornets fan? And like, well, no, I like the Boston Celtics. And they'll be like, oh, so you just really like the NBA? And I'm like, not really.

But for some reason, Mugsy Bogues really got it for me.

And listeners, if you don't know who Mugsy Bogues is, you, you might, because he's the point guard who the Monstars steal the talent from in the classic 90s movie Space Jam.

Danny Brown: 00:04:12

Ah, right. Well, I've seen that movie. It's been a while since I've seen it.

Ned Donovan: 00:04:15

He's the really short one who turns into the really short monster.

Danny Brown: 00:04:18

Right. I will have to look. I'll have to go back and watch that. We watched that. We were kids a few years back, when they were still younger.

They're now teens and they're not quite as interested in. But I'll have a look out for that because it's one of my wife's favorite movies, funnily enough.

Ned Donovan: 00:04:30

Well, it's funny. Revisiting that movie is hard because I don't know that it's as good as it wants to be.

I rewatch it every once in a while because I really love that movie, but I more and more love it for the nostalgia of it. It is just like a giant nonsensical advertisement.

Danny Brown: 00:04:45

Well, yeah, I tend to find that a lot of movies now, they may be. Not have aged quite as well as we kind of remember them. I mean, goodness is awesome. It always will be.

And I feel that's one of these that will stand the test of time. But then you go back and watch something else from that period. You think, not quite. You know, not quite. But so Is your dog short then? Is that why.

Ned Donovan: 00:05:04

No.

Danny Brown: 00:05:04

So it's a tall dog.

Ned Donovan: 00:05:06

He's 60 pounds. He's a black lab German shepherd. He runs around a lot. It was purely so that we could have a name that abbreviated to bug.

Danny Brown: 00:05:15

And another thing that you also enjoy is tabletop, tabletop role playing games.

And I know Henry Cavill, Superman, for, you know, for one of his many roles, is a massive tabletopper role playing fan, especially with the Warhammer universe. So, Ned, could you take Henry Cavill in a tabletop game?

Ned Donovan: 00:05:35

Well, the first and most important rule of most tabletop games is they're not competitive, they're collaborative. We are working together as friends to tell a story.

If you watch my TV show Encounter Party, which is available listeners on Roku, Tubi and Plex for free right now, 22 episodes. Each episode's an hour long. It's a fantasy mystery thriller improvised in real time by playing Dungeons and Dragons on a soundstage.

And the way the game works is everyone has their own character and everyone has their own wants and needs. And then there's one person at the head of the table whose job it is to weave the story along with the players.

And you are never trying to, quote, unquote, win. You are actively trying to create story experiences for yourself and for your friends that are fun and explorative.

When I was in college for musical theater, I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop role playing games, specifically as a way to keep my improv skills and my acting skills up.

Because, you know, someone across from the table will say something random, and it's your job to react and be part of it and have fun with your friends.

Of course, the difference between my television show and the actual game is that my television show is designed for seven actors to make a great product for an audience. It is completely improvised, but we're all thinking about things from a larger television perspective.

At home, I've had like three beers, and the only people I'm trying to entertain are the five other friends I'm playing the game with. And it's a very different experience. You know, we have a lot of fans in our Encounter Party Discord server. We call them the party people.

And the party people will be like, this seems like the most fun D and D experience of all time. And I'll say the same thing every time. Oh, it's the most fun acting job I've ever had, no question.

But it is not the most fun I've ever had playing Dungeons and dragons because for eight to 10 hours a day, we were on camera having to be, like, very active and very focused and very cognizant that if we were bad, we were just ruining a ton of money for a major corporation. And so. So it was. I would go back to my hotel room every night a shell of a human. And we did that for 10 straight days. Like, is it cool? Absolutely.

Was it the most fun I've ever had playing D and D? No, but it is the most fun I've ever had as an actor. So the answer is, I don't think I could take Kenry Cavill because we'd be working together.

Danny Brown: 00:07:59

Well, I like it. It's funny.

The episode that just dropped today, actually, as we record this, my guest is Jen Trebek, and one of the questions came up was, who would I. Her question for me, actually was, who would be my ideal guest? I ended up with two, actually.

I cheated a little bit, but one of them was Ryan Reynolds, obviously. Deadpool.

Ned Donovan: 00:08:19

He'd be Deadpool.

Danny Brown: 00:08:19

So it'd be awesome for you to bring Henry Cavill for me to get Ryan Reynolds. We should all come on, do a special one off live taping.

Ned Donovan: 00:08:26

Dang.

Danny Brown: 00:08:27

Right, Questions, role playing, tabletop, everything.

Ned Donovan: 00:08:30

But I bet we can make that happen. That seems like an achievable goal, I.

Danny Brown: 00:08:34

Feel, when you, like, get in touch with all our contacts and just make this just a social challenge going right now.

Ned Donovan: 00:08:39

Hey, as an actor, I have to pay for IMDb Pro so that I can have my headshots on IMDb. Like, that's the only reason I pay for it. But it's also a great way to figure out whose managers and what their emails are.

So it isn't hard to reach out to the people who manage those people. It's harder to get a response.

Danny Brown: 00:08:59

Well, we shall. We shall look at that. We shall look at that.

And speaking of entertainment, it is now time to bring you and place you on the five random questions hot seat. Are we ready to go, Ned?

Ned Donovan: 00:09:09

Oh, you know, I'm ready to go.

This is just like, by the way, in Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop games, there are many things called random tables, which is a list of between usually 5 and 500 things in a theme, and you roll dice to decide which one you're dealing with. So I really just feel like I'm in a D and D campaign where you have a random table and you're rolling a D20.

Danny Brown: 00:09:33

All righty, let's see how that D20 goes then. Let's bring up question number one. Okay. I feel this is a good one to start with because we spoke about how you named your dog.

So for you, Ned, question number one. How did you get your name and do you know the meaning of your name?

Ned Donovan: 00:09:50

Yes. I am from a waspy white background in New England, and names in my family are a negotiation.

And so everyone gets a name from one side of the family and then another name from the other side of the family. And so I am not actually Ned. I'm Edward. And Edward was my mom's dad's first name.

And then my middle name is Hilliard, which was my dad's mom's maiden name. It's a. It's a transactional equation. I became Ned because most of the people in my family who are Edward, we have a bunch of them are Ted.

And my parents wanted just something unique, and so they just picked Ned at random. And the, the kind of fun piece of it is I've been Ned my whole life. Very. It is hard for me to respond to someone calling me Edward.

When I was in first grade, second grade, somewhere in like the kindergarten to second grade range, they were doing attendance on the first day of school and they said Edward Donovan. And I literally was like, oh, there's another guy with my same last name.

Like, I didn't know that I was the Edward they were talking about because I've just been Ned my whole life. It made it really easy as an actor because my legal name and my. My stage name air quotes are different. And so you can find Ned Donovan everywhere.

And you're going to find mostly my acting stuff and my dike, and that's great for me. That works out awesome. But Edward Donovan is my legal name, but truly is not a person that I'm aware of. Doesn't speak to my personality.

People meet me and I tell them I'm an Edward and they get confused. I feel like a Ned to people. So that is the origin of my name. And, and in my family, almost everyone has some kind of that negotiation.

You get a first name from one side of the family and a middle name from the other side of the family. And so the lineage continues.

Danny Brown: 00:11:51

Well, it's like you said, I do feel Ned is a lot more approachable. It's like an every person, an everyman name. Whereas Edward is. To me, it's like, I think of Edward like the king of, I guess the king of the uk.

Edward is seventh or whatever it was.

I'm not a big royal, as you can probably tell, but he was one of the kings And I think he abdicated because he got involved with a married woman or something like that. He was married and he got involved with someone. But Edward seems a very formal name. You think of, you're an acting.

You think of actors, you think of obviously Ed Norton, amazing Ed Furlong. Then you get Edward Fox. And Edward Fox is a very print proper. And then you look at good old Ned and the immediate Ned is going to be Ned Flanders.

Ned Donovan: 00:12:34

It is the common. The other piece of it is there are a lot of Edward Donovan's, right?

Donovan's a pretty, you know, Eurocentric last name and Edwards a pretty Eurocentric first name. There aren't a lot of Ned Donovans. So it's helpful in terms of just like uniqueness.

There is unfortunately a very famous British journalist named Ned Donovan who happens to be Roald Dahl's grandson. And he's also married to a Jordanian princess.

And so I get like, he'll write a, an article in the UK and I will get his hate mail because I'm a little older than him. So I got the Ned Donovan handles on Twitter and everywhere else. And so people try to find him and they get to me also our emails are similar.

They're not the same. They're. They're in the same ballpark. And so people will misspell his email and I'll get like his dinner reservations.

And so I have his phone number now and I'll text him to be like, hey, a contract came in for you. I'm going to forward it.

Danny Brown: 00:13:36

That is cool. You know, when I was a lot more active on Twitter, obviously playing Danny Brown, and there's a very famous rapper called Danny Brown as well.

And his fans used to, they obviously never looked at the avatar. You'd see this middle aged white guy as opposed to the young, you know, black rapper. So they also never checked the avatar.

But I used to get some stuff from his fans and he actually messaged me once, said, hey, I'm really sorry about this man. He was really nice. But I'm really sorry about this man. Don't mind them, they're just having fun. Say, oh no, I've heard worse things. But it was funny.

And it reminds me of on Twitter as well, there's a guy like a satirist, I believe, called Liam Neeson.

Ned Donovan: 00:14:17

Yes.

Danny Brown: 00:14:17

But he gets mistaken for Liam Neeson the actor. And obviously it's spelled different like Nissan the car as opposed to the actual actor or whatever.

So, yeah, I can imagine, you know, it could how that can happen and especially if you mentioned that he writes columns for the newspapers. Normally you'll have either people for his column or against the column, whatever the column is. So I can understand you getting interesting messages.

What's been your favorite there? Have you got a favorite? Good or bad?

Ned Donovan: 00:14:45

Well, when we were both in college, because he's not that much younger than me, he tweeted at me challenging me to a duel for the Ed Donovan handle. And he told me to meet him in Piccadilly Circus with swords. And I said, this is America. You can meet me in Times Square.

And we've sort of been friends ever since. The other thing that happened is that there's a Ned Donovan who's a good deal younger than both of us.

And he was in college after I was well out, and I got added to his friend's fantasy golf league because they put my email on the thread, not his. And. And I was in that league for like a year and half. Like, I played, I was really rude, I talked a lot of crap.

And one day in the middle of like my second season, a new name got added to the email thread. And they were like, hi, this is our friend and college classmate, Ned Donovan. Who are you? Oh, hello. I'm an actor in New York City.

And this has been really fun.

Danny Brown: 00:16:01

I. I saw something like that once where somebody had been called up by this company and they were asking for update on the accounts or something, year end reports accounts or whatever.

And it wasn't a guy, they just called the wrong number, but he ran with it for about a month or two and it was like a little business in Albany just outside New York or whatever. And just watching the back and forth, it was just like, crazy.

So, yeah, I could imagine, you know, making a quick exit once the real Ned Donovan appeared.

Ned Donovan: 00:16:30

Yeah, he. He then accidentally sent me his Keurig that he bought for himself. And I had to find.

I had to like, go find the invoice because he had, like spent money on this. And I don't know this person, nor do I know how to get a hold of him.

And I, like, went to Keurig and I was like, hi, I'm not the person who bought this machine. Can you please go to the invoice and give me his phone number? And they're like, well, that's a violation of privacy.

I was like, do you want this guy to get his coffee machine or not?

And so they finally gave me his phone number and I called him and I was like, hi, is this Ned Donovan who used to go to insert University that I won't name to protect his privacy. And he was like, yes, why do you know that? And I was like, hello, this is Ned Donovan who pretended to be you in a fantasy golf league.

I have your Keurig.

Danny Brown: 00:17:19

Put a ransom note for his Keurig. Awesome. Well, one thing we will try not to get mistaken is the lineup of the questions.

So I feel that was a good one, a nice one to start off with there, Ned. And I love the answer you gave me there in the sharing bit. Let's have a look and see what question number two is.

And this kind of follows along actually. And I've not seen this pop up on the show before, so this is good to have. Question two, Ned, what's your family like?

Ned Donovan: 00:17:47

What? I mean what is anyone's family like? Wonderful and dysfunctional and all of the stuff. I'm from an upper middle class background in New England.

My mom's side of the family is former upper crust from upstate New York. My father's family are self made business people from the Boston area.

And I would say my family sort of like runs along the lines of those two things slammed together. You know, my great grandfather on my mom's side was a guy named Edward Peck Curtis. You can look him up. He's mad cool.

He was a general in the Air Force during World War I and he is the, the top credited flying ace during World War I. Now we joke that that can't have been that hard to be statistically because planes were only like 7 years old at that time.

But he was really cool and he ended up after he left the Air Force, he was a vice president at Eastman Kodak which, you know, K act created film and all that. He ended up found being part of the team that founded the FAA for Eisenhower. Very cool.

Like rich American history on my mom's side and then my dad's side is the story of, of you know, immigrants and, and kind of a, a lower class through and self made people and a lot less generational wealth and a lot more like grind it out, build a business, build a family. My close nuclear family. My parents got divorced when I was young. I'm a very happy product of divorce.

I joked about it all the time, like not only did I get two Christmases, but just like life got better. My dad ended up moving when I was in middle school to Pennsylvania. He was a college professor of business and economics.

ly passed away from cancer in: 2016

And so then it's Me and when I, before I was born, my parents lost a daughter and so my family was just always sort of like we were defined by what we did. My mom was a teacher, I did a bunch of, you know, extracurriculars as a kid. My older brother was also an extracurricular forward person.

Ended up moving to the Middle east for his career, non military. And we just sort of like floated around being little weirdos, living our lives. My brother and I remain pretty close, I'm in New York, he's not.

But we, we travel to see each other a lot. And then my extended family, my mom's side and my dad's side never really like intermingled.

So I hang out with my dad's side of the family and I hang out with my mom's side of the family. I've got a plethora of aunts, uncles and cousins on my mom's side. I have just a couple on my dad's side.

And then I'm married to a wonderful family that we see their family a lot. So my specific nuclear family as a kid was kind of defined by travel and visiting and traditions and things like that and my family life.

Now I've always been a big believer in chosen family matters more than blood family. And I'm very fortunate that I chose my blood family to be my chosen family. And so I have a great community of people I call family here in New York.

Beyond my wife and her extended family, we have a really close knit group of friends and community here in New York. And especially at holiday time it's sometimes very expensive to get home.

So New Yorkers often stay and so usually we're throwing Thanksgiving and other holidays here in my apartment and bringing people over that we call family. When I was growing up I, after my dad moved away, right, I was a precocious little teenager being raised by a single blind mother.

So I was a real asshole. And I was ended up raised by an extended crew of people I call family to this day.

And so I've also sort of always said like I chose my parents, I love my parents very much and I have a lot of people in this planet that I call mom and dad who have no blood relation to me. And so I always define family as like there is blood family and there's, there's commitments there and traditions there and things like that.

But for me family is defined by community. And my blood and extended family happens to be part of my community.

Danny Brown: 00:22:09

That's a wonderful answer. I really like that. And one thing that was Interesting when you mentioned it there, Boston and New York.

Yeah, I've got friends in Boston, I've got friends in New York.

And if you could pick two communities, if you like, in the U.S. i don't know all the U.S. but where I've been in the U.S. anyway, if you could pick two communities in the U.S. that are very a stubborn and headstrong, but also no BS and tell you exactly what they feel so you know exactly where they stand, it would be Boston and New Yorkers.

Ned Donovan: 00:22:39

That's true.

Danny Brown: 00:22:40

So I feel it must have been interesting as well, growing up with a family that's got these two sides. I'm not going to say they were button heads or anything, but was there stubbornness there? And was there, you know, did you see?

Well, I'm New York, so I'm right, I'm Boston, I'm right. That kind of thing or no, because.

Ned Donovan: 00:22:56

My mother very much wanted to be a Mainer. Both of my parents loved Maine more than their home states. And so I always have identified as a Mainer.

And being a Mainer means I'm in New England, which means I'm by association connected to Boston. My father's greatest life dream was to be first baseman for the Boston Red Sox.

He was not first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, but I was raised to be a die hard, no holds barred, unapologetic Boston sports fan. And my mom had no problem with this. My mother was not a huge sports person growing up, so she had no allegiances.

And then she liked being a Mainer so she just attached herself to the main teams. Also, she lived in Maine for more years than she ever lived in New York by the end of her life. And so she. We have. I've.

I, from a cultural perspective, identify as being from New England. I will admit, and I'm gonna say this on a podcast or a bunch of people might hate me. I don't love Boston as a city.

It's not like a place I love to hang out. Sorry, Boston, but.

But I love New England and I love Boston sports teams and I, I love being in New York as the jerk who stands up against New York sports teams because of the Boston New York rivalry. With one exception. I as a kid was a season ticket holder to the Portland Sea Dogs, which is the minor league baseball team in my hometown.

And at the time they were an affiliate of the Miami Marlins. Now they're an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. And I, after becoming an adult, desperately like, wanted to be a season ticket holder of something.

I Love sports. I love being a fan, I love going to games. But I live in New York and I can't be a New York sports fan because my family will kill me.

There are rules here and so because of that I've had to sort of just like not be one. However, my wife and I became season ticket holders for the National Women's Soccer League team here in New York, the Gotham Football Club.

Because there's no Boston team, so it's a loophole. I'm not violating any rules here. Now, after becoming a season ticket holder for Gotham, Boston announced they were getting a team.

But I, I'm not going to change allegiances. I just now have one New York team and then all of my New England teams.

Danny Brown: 00:25:28

I know I had a friend, as I mentioned, I've got friends in Boston and New York and they moved from Boston. Where did they go? Washington, I believe they moved to. And his wife loved Washington, fell in love. They moved young when the kids were young.

So the kids grew up supporting Washington sports teams.

But the father, the dad would always, when Boston came to town, he'd park his family off in the Washington side, drop them off and then he'd walk around to the Boston side and go in there and cheer on with these teams.

Ned Donovan: 00:25:54

Same with you then obviously I'm exactly the same way. And my wife and I, we use the Gotham soccer team as our like travel.

We go to a lot of their away games and we contact the teams we're going to and we'll put together like packets of 10 and 20 tickets and we'll take all our local friends that live in that city to come with us. And we always say to them, you should rep your home team. That's fine. Here's their colors. But I'm going to show up and be a real jerk New York fan.

Everyone just needs to be ready for that.

Danny Brown: 00:26:24

I like it, I like it. And that's, that's fine. I'm a big ball football stroke soccer fan. Sure. And there's no way I could support anybody else but my team.

You know, where I lived, my team's Arsenal.

Ned Donovan: 00:26:35

Oh sure. It's what a good team to be.

Danny Brown: 00:26:38

A fan of at the moment. It's, it looks good. We've got a good manager in, good backing, etc, so good, good times.

Ned Donovan: 00:26:44

Well, and the Arsenal women's team is arguably the best women's team in the world. You know, someday you're going to come down to New York, Danny, and you're going to join us for a Gotham Football Club match.

And you're going to lose your mind. Because in my opin, women's soccer is better soccer. But when I lived in.

I lived in London for school for six months and I went to a bunch of prem matches because when else am I going to have that opportunity? And I took myself up to Liverpool to see Liverpool versus Man U. And I didn't know much about Premier League soccer as a kid.

My best friend's dad was from Tottenham, so he told me if I ever picked up a prem team, it had to be the Hotspurs. And I was always a fan of Watford because I think it's really funny that their logo's a moose, but their name's the Hornets. That's the only reason.

But I went to this Liverpool match and I'm enjoying the match, having a good time. The break, the.

lone. Famously from the early: 1900

And I was a musical theater major at the time.

And I don't mean to be stereotypical, but I don't really associate Liverpool with musical theater or with a song that is often taken by the LGBTQIA community. Liverpool's not necessarily a town that I associate with that community. And I was so confused.

And I turned to a man after me afterwards, sitting there listening to, you know, thousands of men sing a song that I have only ever heard sung by women of color. And I turned to this man and I said, why is this the Liverpool fight song? And he was like, oh, well, it's a song by. And he named a band.

I can't remember. It's a. It's a 90s.

Danny Brown: 00:28:43

Yeah, Jared and the Pacemakers.

Ned Donovan: 00:28:44

Great. And I was like, no, it is not. And he was like, yeah, no, it's a. It's a punk song. We sing it for the. It was a mining incident, apparently.

ng by a woman in a musical in: 1922

Danny Brown: 00:29:09

No, and like you say, the Liverpool community are like such a working class community and they'll stand up for anybody and everybody. Great community. And like, if I didn't support Arsenal. I probably would support Liverpool purely because of that community.

I might not like the team, but the team, the community itself. But yeah, the song, I always just knew it from, you know, German pacemakers, because that's what.

Ned Donovan: 00:29:30

I don't even know who this is.

Danny Brown: 00:29:31

Oh, they're a very famous, like, Liverpool band. Kind of not quite up to the Beatles level, but a bit above other Liverpool bands. So. And that was their big, big song.

They had a couple others, but that was the big, big one.

Ned Donovan: 00:29:42

Did they do like an album of musical theater covers or did they just pick that song?

Danny Brown: 00:29:47

I think they just picked that song, mate. They just. I guess I like the lyrics, you know. And then like you said, it got picked up by the Scousers.

Ned Donovan: 00:29:55

It's so funny to me, when it was on, like, I saw the most recent revival on Broadway and all I could think was like, what would a guy, you know, who might not be a musical theater person, who came to New York as a tourist and was like, you know what? I'm going to go see a Broadway show. And the ticket that made the most sense was Carousel.

What would his brain do if they started singing you'll never Walk alone at the end of Act 2?

Danny Brown: 00:30:19

Probably thinking the musical director is a Liverpool fan. Yes, Liverpool fc. They'll be shouting that from the rafters.

Ned Donovan: 00:30:26

I think about it all the time.

Danny Brown: 00:30:28

I love it. And I always love to hear about people's family, so thank you for that. So let's have a look at question number three. Question number three.

And this is a nice timing, actually. So as we record, this was sort of kind of going from summer into fall, so changes in the weather, etc. Ned, question number three.

What is your favorite day of the year?

Ned Donovan: 00:30:50

My favorite day of the year? Well, I'll open by saying I hate birthdays. I'm sure a lot of people say birthdays, but I actively dislike my birthday.

I'm not a person who loves attention, which is weird because I'm an actor. So everyone's like, oh, well, you must love attention. And the answer's like, no.

I like when people watch art that I make, but I don't love when I'm the center of attention. Like me, Ned as Ned. You know what I mean? That's just that. So birthday's not it. I'm a big believer, and this is controversial, that summer is a scam.

We all love summer because it was the break from school, right? Like, that's why summer. So it was a long, extended period of time that we were Able to go do things.

So our love of summer is deeply tied into the like, schedule of life when we were younger. But it is my belief that summer sucks. It's hot, it's nasty. You know what's awesome? Fall.

And what we should do is readjust the world calendar to have like August to October off instead of June to August. In my opinion, if we had those months off, we'd all be happier, better people. And we can be in school through the summer because the summer sucks.

So in that vein, probably my favorite day of the year is going to be esoterically like the first day that feels like fall. Crisp wind. Maybe you need a light coat over it. A day that I used to call for you football. But for me, premier soccer level soccer weather.

It would be soccer playoff weather. When I was in high school, like late October, early November, maybe a little earlier than that. If it shifts early.

The leaves are changing but haven't all fallen yet. It's crisp, it's cool. You can be outside all day because it's not too hot, it's not too cold.

That would be to me, the favorite day of the year, which I'll arbitrarily assign to like October 13th.

Danny Brown: 00:32:55

That's just a few days before my birthday. So I will willingly accept that. Exactly. But yeah, that, that makes sense. I mean, I'm. I'm a huge winter person.

I love the snow, I love the colder weather. I feel it's easier to walk.

Ned Donovan: 00:33:05

That's good where you live.

Danny Brown: 00:33:06

Oh, I guess it has to be. Last year was horrendous, but I liked it. But yeah, I mean, I guess it also ties into your upbringing. So you mentioned your main.

Now New York, New York can be stinky like Toronto. Here in Canada, it can be stinky, hot and humid in the summer.

Ned Donovan: 00:33:22

Brutal.

Danny Brown: 00:33:23

But Maine, I could imagine New England, etc. Boston areas gotta be lovely in the fall with all the.

Ned Donovan: 00:33:28

There is no place better on earth than Portland, Maine in October, November. It is, it is. If you're planning a trip, people. Portland, Maine.

Mid to late October through early November is to me the best time of year anywhere on the planet. Go enjoy yourselves.

Danny Brown: 00:33:46

Now, is that because of the color? I've never been to Portland, but is that because of the colors and the, the cooler temps or.

Ned Donovan: 00:33:51

Well, first of all, Portland, Maine is the place I would live if I could make a living as an actor. I love where I'm from. I love my home.

Every time I'm there, I think like, ugh, I wish that my career aligned with living Because I'd move here tomorrow. And if ever I decide that I'm done acting like I will hard look at Portland, Maine as my next destination.

So Portland is just like my favorite city on earth, right? The food's good, the people are good. It's not too big. You can do it all in a certain amount of time. The community feels right. Right.

Like, if you're visiting, you can get all the things you want to get done done in, you know, a normal amount of time. You don't feel like you missed anything, but also you feel like you could come back again and again and again again.

So Portland, Maine is just like my favorite place. And then at that time of year, leaves are changing, temperatures are perfect. There's often like a morning mist, which is fun.

The days are getting shorter, which is a bummer. But, like, the daytime that there is is like perfect daytime.

And then the evenings aren't blisteringly cold yet, so you can go out and have a nice time. That's a good time to be around the ocean. And anyway, if you've got like a good wind jacket, like, being out on a boat is perfect at that time.

So for me, that's kind of the answer is like, fall in New England rules.

And then Portland, Maine, being my favorite place and fall being my favorite time of year, means that's like the perfect window to slam the two things together.

Danny Brown: 00:35:18

It reminds me of the. Again, I'm thinking back to when I was growing up and what music my parents would listen to and in the background. And as a kid, you became the.

Remember the music that you grew up with. And my mum was a huge Barry Manilow fan, and he's got that very famous song, Weeknd in New England.

One of my favorite songs, like the piano progression, chords, etc. So it was a weekend in New England, just like Barry. I mean, I'm trying to remember the lyrics now. I think it was a love song.

As opposed to talking about New England.

Ned Donovan: 00:35:45

Yeah, it's more of like a we're gonna go on a romantic getaway song. But it is a good song. There's a great band, kind of folklore band from. I don't know what their range was, maybe like 70s to 90s.

But they're called Schooner Fair and they do a lot of, like, folk music, classic Irish music, sea shanty type music, things like that. And they have a song called I See the Light, which is about driving down 95, 295 through Maine.

And Portland, Maine is a peninsula, so it's surrounded by Water and one of the highways, as you drive in, you're looking out over the bay of the ocean at the city and I see the light. Light is about that. And that's sort of what I think about with that track is I see the light across the bay.

Like that's just like the vibe of Portland to me.

Danny Brown: 00:36:36

And obviously you mentioned that your mom, she always wanted to be.

Ned Donovan: 00:36:39

She always wanted to be a Mainer.

Danny Brown: 00:36:41

Did she get to Portland?

Ned Donovan: 00:36:42

Yeah, because I grew up in downtown Portland and that's, that's my, that's my, my home. And since my parents have passed away, like, I still consider. My parents moved a lot when I was a kid. Right.

My parents got divorced, my dad bounced around to other places. My mom bounced around to other places. She lost her eyesight, she moved closer to work.

And so I never had like a house that I lived in for, I would say longer than like six years as a kid. And so Portland just kind of became the ethos of home.

There was not like a house I went to or there was like a restaurant I'd go to for lunch or like a coffee shop. Like Portland is just home to me. Kind of as a blanket statement.

Danny Brown: 00:37:18

Right. And obviously, like you say, now you're in New York, your family. So is your family. Is your wife a New Yorker?

Ned Donovan: 00:37:23

My, My wife is from Connecticut, so fellow New Englander. Both north and we live on the north side of the city. Specific. Because it's easier to get home to visit our families. And we actually spent.

My wife and I spent a good chunk of COVID lockdown.

We rented a house in the middle of the woods of Maine and just went up there because we were both working fully remote at the time, so we didn't need to be crammed in a New York City apartment. And so we have spent a good chunk of our relationship in Maine. It's a place we try to get to at least twice a year, if not more.

It's only about depending on where in Maine we're going. It's only like a five hour drive from where we live. So it's a, it's a, it's an achievable goal, as it were.

Danny Brown: 00:38:03

Yeah, it's funny, I know we were speaking in the green room earlier before we start recording about Maine being Stephen King territory.

And when you mentioned you went to like the cabin in the woods kind of thing, it reminds me of him, I guess, like the Misery book where the writer wants to go to the cabin to get away and create a new book. Do you Ever get that feeling when you're there? Obviously you're in the creative field. Is your wife in the creative space as well?

Ned Donovan: 00:38:26

No, my wife works in tech.

Danny Brown: 00:38:28

Okay, cool. So that's still kind of creative, but not actor, media, creative.

Do you ever get that sort of inspirational feel when you're there that, hey, we should just stay here and work on X, let's do this dream that we've always had?

Ned Donovan: 00:38:40

Or I've done it multiple times where I'm in Maine and I'll. And these projects have never been made. They were like creative thought experiments more than anything. Back during.

In: 2017

My creative collaborator Marcus bagala, worked with 10 writers in New York City to write, like, an audio fiction about a snowstorm that took place in Maine, where we told the writers how the episode had to start and how the episode had to end, but then they could write anything into the middle. And so the whole. It's like.

It's a fever dream of nonsense because we have writers who come from theater and writers who come from film and writers who make, like, novels and it's. And like, we never ended up recording that show, which I'm still bummed about. I think about it a lot.

And I wrote a movie with some friends that took place at a house that we were in. Yeah, I'm. I'm. I'm generally a person. I make a living creating projects, selling projects, making new projects. I constantly have too many projects.

I admit that my wife lovingly tells me it all the time, and I'm creatively stimulated when I'm in places and situations that are. That feel exciting and new. Right. If. If I'm.

And that could be anything from, like, seeing a really good piece of theater to, like, sitting in a park with a friend I haven't talked to in a while. A little idea will pop into my brain, and I get a lot of those in me, and then I end up writing them and I usually don't end up releasing them.

And that's fine.

Danny Brown: 00:40:19

But it could be a podcast.

I know you said earlier, even though you are a podcaster with a podcast, your main, you know, living experience, if you like, or working in experience, is in the creative space. So acting musicals, etc. But could also be a podcast idea down the line. You know, the unreleased, you know, thinkings of Ned Donovan.

Ned Donovan: 00:40:37

Man, Danny, don't give me another one. I've already got two new podcasts I'm developing awesome.

Danny Brown: 00:40:45

I always feel like tattoos, you know, you get your first tattoo and you want more. And I found this with podcasts, and you create one, you enjoy it, you think, this is easy, I could do it. And then you realize it's not quite as easy.

Once you've got 10 under your belt.

Ned Donovan: 00:40:57

All of a sudden you have four and you're like, oh, God, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Danny Brown: 00:41:00

100%, 100%. So let's have a look at question number four. I'm laughing because we were just kind of speaking about why you hate summer. So question number four.

What do you miss most about being a kid? And I'm guessing it's not summer.

Ned Donovan: 00:42:43

I'll be so honest with you. This I'm gonna take, like, a cop out answer and you might say, well, then we're gonna click a new question.

I still feel like a kid when I went through acting training.

Like, 90% of the training I went through in college was them trying to convince us to feel like kids again, to imagine and play and, you know, like, a kid will think of something and they'll just do it, and it's fun and it's reactive. And that is kind of a necessity in the world of acting, right?

Someone does something, you have to react to it honestly, and you have to react to it without the. The baggage of life behind you. And so, so much of my life is built around play.

Whether it's screenwriting and I'm just making up worlds in my head, whether it's walking my dog and, like, I'll write. So while running with my dog, like, just running up the road humming stuff to myself into a voice note.

So much of, like, as a kid, being a kid feels so defined by play that I feel like I play all the time. So I often still feel like a kid. Now.

I would say, like, the thing I miss most in life, and this has been true since the day I graduated high school, is God, Danny, I miss playing sports. I was a soccer player, I was a lacrosse player, I was a tennis player, and I golf now.

But the primary reason I don't play sports, one, I'm not 18 anymore, but two, is that I make a living dancing and moving. And I need to be able to be agile and flexible. And if I'm in a TV show and I need to run down the street, I need to be able to run down the street.

And in New York City, if I join, like, a rec soccer league, some ex cop with something to prove is going to, like, shatter my leg. On a slide tackle, and it's going to ruin my career.

So the day and when I went to college, they actually made a bunch of us who came from athletic backgrounds sign a little agreement with the school that said we wouldn't play contact sports and we wouldn't play sports with a high risk of, like, knee injury while at school. So I haven't played a soccer game since I was 18 years old. I haven't played a lacrosse game since I was 18 years old. That bums me out, man.

I'm well over double that now. And I, I haven't played since. And, and sports, I would say, like, I love acting and I love theater and I love music and I love creating.

Danny Brown: 00:45:08

I.

Ned Donovan: 00:45:09

My heart, it's my soul. I love tabletop games, but damn it, Danny, I love sports.

I will go in on sports more than anything else in the world, and not being able to play them kills me. I played a pickup, one pickup game of basketball when I moved to New York City, I went me up.

My friend who I was living with played at a court every weekend and I went with him, took my basketball, called next, ended up on a five team of five of guys I don't know. And I took an elbow to the face that almost shattered my orbital socket. And for, like, three weeks, I had a massive black eye. Danny.

I auditioned for musicals five to 15 times a week. I can't be walking in looking. I just got punched in the face. That's crazy.

So I, I, that's the last time I played, like, an organized sport that wasn't lacrosse or, I mean, golf, because golf at least, like, no one can hurt me but me.

Danny Brown: 00:46:00

No, it's. Why am I hearing that? Both our kids are competitive athletes. My son's competitive soccer. My daughter's competitive cheer.

But they both wanted play on their school teams as well, you know, so my daughter wants to play netball, volleyball. My son wants to play basketball, soccer for his school.

But their teams have said to them, well, you can do that, but we'd prefer you didn't do that, because if something happens, you're now out this team. That's six months or whatever, right? You break it up.

Ned Donovan: 00:46:28

It's the club versus international problem, right?

Like, we love international and we love club, but every once in a while you see a player tear their ACL in an international match and you think, what a nightmare.

Danny Brown: 00:46:38

Yeah, especially if it's, like, a friendly, which I see no problem. What's the point of friendly?

That, like you say, they don't pay the wages, the Team loses a player there, the athlete loses an opportunity to play for their country in the big competitions. Totally. So yeah, I don't understand that at all. I'm curious. I mean I like the fact you said play there as well. I'm curious.

Do you think it's a bit different for kids now? You mentioned you. I'm going to assume you're over 40 because you mentioned you.

Ned Donovan: 00:47:05

I'm not. That's very kind of you.

Danny Brown: 00:47:07

You.

Ned Donovan: 00:47:08

I'm not over 40. I'm in the ballpark of 40.

Danny Brown: 00:47:11

Okay, well it was when you says I'm double that and more so I.

Ned Donovan: 00:47:14

Thought, okay, I'll be mid-30s.

Danny Brown: 00:47:16

All right, mid-30s. Let me rewind that. I will not edit this out. I'll make myself look like a head.

Ned Donovan: 00:47:21

A single second of it out. Danny.

Danny Brown: 00:47:24

Right. Do you think then that obviously you grew up playing physical sports? Do you think that's less a thing now with electronics, video games, et cetera?

And I'm not saying it's a bad thing necessarily. I was a big video gamer, less so now for multiple reasons.

But it just seems that there's less opportunities now for kids to do physical stuff as opposed to techy electronic y stuff and they might not miss it as much if I was to ask maybe your son or daughter in 20 years down the line.

Ned Donovan: 00:47:53

I was and am a massive video game player. So I've never really found a disconnect between the two concepts simply because like I did both, you know, I same with theater, right?

Like I would play DND and do theater. I would get out of theater class and go play Halo 2 until 2 o' clock in the morning. I love video games.

I have cousins and nieces and nephews who are much younger than me and I've sort of like watched curious about this question.

And the only thing I think that I consistently see with just like children as a whole is they are itching for creativity and stimulation and what's not. And you know, I even think about it to this day. Like I was a voracious reader as a child.

I loved, I took 10 books out from the library, I consumed them. They wrote stories into my brain and I imagined pretty pictures and it was wonderful. And I read like a book a month now and like what a bummer.

I, I think, I don't think there's less opportunities. You know, I went to a summer camp when I was a kid.

It was a seven week, no electricity, camping in canvas tents on an island in the middle of a lake for. And I love that Camp. If I could go back and do that camp again and again and again, I would to this day. Now they see a declining enrollment.

And the easy way is to say, like, oh, kids aren't interested in outdoorsy camp anymore.

But the reason that they see declining enrollment almost exclusively is that schools are coming back earlier and earlier and so the kids have to miss a week of camp so the parents just don't send them.

Or like, unfortunately we're putting pressures on kids now to have extracurriculars and varsity stuff and community service and they have to go to camp to get prepped for a college like we have. We are breaking.

We are so, so obsessed with making kids pre professionals at 7 years old or whatever that a lot of the experiences that I had as a kid that are still there are seeing declining enrollment purely due to that conflict. And I don't think it's a screens problem. And I don't like, I don't. I think it can be.

I think kids with too much screen time, what it can do is, is reduce their ability to imagine. Because when you don't have a screen, you have to make up the world in your head versus if it's spoon fed to you.

It's the same reason why I think it's really interesting watching adults who love watching TV who have trouble reading because they don't imagine anymore because TV feeds you the image on a platter and your imagination is no longer stimulated. And I would say, like as a whole, adults blanket statement are bad at imagining things. Their imaginations have atrophied.

It's a muscle they don't use. And I think that a lack of imagination historically leads to a lack of empathy. Right.

If you can't imagine big grand worlds in your head, then you also can't imagine what it's like for that person with a different life experience down the road for you.

I think there's a direct causal line from giving human beings things that imagine for them and human beings have less empathy for their neighbors and for, you know, less privileged people, underrepresented communities. I think it is a direct causal line from I use AI to generate stuff to I also dislike people who don't look like me.

And I truly think that line is when you don't imagine things, when you don't imagine worlds and then a thing hits in your brain, we go like, I just made up a person. What's that person's backstory?

When your brain doesn't make those leaps like they do as a kid, empathy gets blown out of the water because you just can't imagine what other people's lives are like.

So you assume everyone's life has to be like yours and if they're not living like you and they're doing things that you feel like are attacking your life, then they're doing it wrong.

And I, I have a strong feeling that that is based on a lack of imagination which I think can be attribute a screen based culture and a TV based culture and a film based culture rather than an imagination based culture. But I, I also think that's not limited to children.

And something that I, I think adults are really good at and I think it's crap is assigning blame to generations below them for anything and trying to attribute it to something that they have that they didn't have, that they didn't have back then. So obviously not having it made the them better.

But like I can talk to a 9 year old and imagine great and grand things with them and then if they say something that could be contrived as bigoted or confusing, you can talk to them about what it's like to be that person and they can imagine that person as a person and they can talk themselves into realizing that people are just people. And adults can't do that because adults can't imagine. Therefore, what do I miss about being a kid?

I miss that the world around me had imagined imagination.

Danny Brown: 00:53:11

I love that I wrote about this when I used to blog years and years ago when I still wrote and I couldn't be arsed to not write anymore and get lazy and speak instead because that's easier to do.

And my daughter was, I'm going to say four at the time and we used to go around the library, the local library every week, every weekend so that she'd come home from daycare. We'd all be at home. Me, my wife, my daughter, my son.

But every weekend me and my daughter would go to the library and we just look at the books and she'd play with some of the toys and etc and she pulled out a book that was. I can't remember the guy's name. I'll leave it in the show notes. So when you listen to the episode, please do check out the show notes for this book.

I'll link through to it. But it's basically it was that a wordless book.

So it was just pictures and it was about a boy and he's playing and the illustrator, not the animator, the illustrator did such an amazing job that my daughter, even though she was 4, could go to different Places what this little boy was thinking. She was close to his age in the book anyway, but it was just the fact there was no words. You just had to imagine.

To your point there, Ned, what was happening with the boy at the time, in the plane, etc. And yeah, I 100% agree. I feel we can assert and blame to tech, blah, blah, social media, whatever, but it's on us at the end of the day as well.

You know, do we just want to take the easy route out and just, you know, believe the first thing that comes to us through a screen or do we actually want to go back to old library days where you had to take out 10 little check cards and work your way around the library, find a book and find a resource, et cetera. So I love that answer, Matt. I really appreciate that one.

Ned Donovan: 00:54:41

I really think empathy is tied to imagination and I think imagination is just like a losing skill. And I do think, you know, I play a lot of imagination games. I play tabletop role playing games all the time.

I'm in seven within campaigns with my friend, with various friend groups. So I am imagining all the time. I'm doing a lot of this. Like this is a skill that I have kept up because of what I like to do.

But I do find it interesting if I take a long break from role playing games to play a video game.

It is hard for me to imagine when I come back because a video game spoon feeds me the images and it really is just like a muscle you have to flex and if you choose not to flex it, I think society is worse for a unimaginative populace.

Danny Brown: 00:55:26

Nope, I'm an old fart now. I am over 40 so I will put that right out there. And as I say I will leave that little bit in about me being an arse and calling you over 40.

But yeah, I 100% agree, mate, 100% agree. So, yep, not using our imagination. We've reached question number five. So Ned, let's have a look at what question number five is. And I like this.

I feel this is going to be a good answer from you. Question 5 To end your time in the hot seat. Ned, what was your biggest failure and what did you learn from it?

Ned Donovan: 00:56:03

My biggest failure? I have such a weird relationship to failure in that I don't love it as a term, but I do love it as a term for people who aren't me.

And I don't mean that as shitty as it sounds.

What I mean is there are a lot of professions and life experiences and, and the way that people's lives are set up where failure is like a huge fork in the road. It's a big you did it or you didn't and the world continues. And most people's lives end up working like that.

Therefore, like, because most people's lives end up working like that, it becomes an a question that makes a lot of sense for people that aren't me. In the same way that I audition five to 15 times a week, I work two to five times a year.

So you can do like quick mental math and understand the amount of rejection I experience on a daily basis. That like, rejection is just sort of like a built in piece of my career and it doesn't bother me at all.

And I'm a big believer that if people in my profession want to have a long career and have longevity, they just got to get comfortable with rejection because it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. And the nice thing about rejection is it means someone else didn't get rejected. And it's nice that other people have opportunities.

And if you can just think like that, then it's not really a failure at all. It's just a different path your week took or your day took, or your year took or your life took.

So in that vein, I've had a lot of failures and you can get to the easy ones. Like I lost the soccer match in the state final my freshman year of high school. And I still think about it.

I can think about like hard failures where there was a path and then that path was closed off. I didn't get into a bunch of colleges I wanted to go to. I guess that's a failure, right? Like, you know, I'm going to say this on a podcast.

Someone might get mad at me. Many people on the Internet who love to be in my DMs like to ascribe the word failure to my television show.

Because at the end of the day it didn't become the most popular D and D show overnight. And, and we don't have a second season yet. And a lot of people say like, well then isn't that a failure?

My answer's like, no, cause I got a damn TV show like that's a huge success. You just have to like most failures until they're like super massive. Which I would say like, I don't think I've ever had one so massive.

I would attribute it on that scale. Most failures are just different paths you end up taking, making.

But I think my life is set up for that because rejection is a Consideration of failure. And so like I fail all the time that I just don't really care because it's such a baked in piece of my life.

I think this is different than like a career path in a company for 40 years where 36 years in you get fired. That feels like a failure because having to go find a new job and build a new path is hard, hard and daunting.

And that is a company actively affecting the rest of your life massively because your income streams go down and your pensions don't fail. And you're right, there are the normal, quote unquote path of an adult in society has big failures to take and learn from.

I just don't feel that the way my life works, it's similar. Like I've made a lot of projects and very few of them have gone on to be hits. So you, I guess, could call all the misses failures.

But I had fun doing them and they're cool as hell. And like, I don't view anything I've ever released as bad. It just maybe didn't connect and that's different.

And so what I learn from failure is that we ascribe too much to failure. But I'm privileged and fortunate that failure in my life is pretty small and I can move on from it the next day.

You know, like, I was in final callbacks for a major Broadway show that ran for a really long time. And the people that I know in that show made a lot of money. They now get a lot more work because they have a Broadway credit.

Like it changed the course of their career and I didn't get it.

So, like, I guess that's a failure, but I just don't think it's worth viewing it as such because if I'd been in that Broadway show at that time, I wouldn't have worked in tech when I took time off acting, which means I wouldn't have met my wife. And now I have a wife. And if I'd been in that Broadway show, our paths wouldn't have crossed.

So, like the, the world is full of failures, but the world is also full of like, successes you don't think about. Because we only think about the failures. And we only look at successes as big and we only look at failures as big.

And I think there's just like a lot of changes in direction all day, every day. Some big, some small, some successes, some failures. And what I learned from them is like a life is a life.

And so there's no need to like think about anything that big anymore. Right. Like nothing I've ever done that the world might consider a failure feels as monumental to my life as the days my parents died.

But that's not a success or failure. That's just a fact. You know what I mean? Like, and so it's, it's hard.

I don't think there's like a good answer to this question that comes immediately to mind because all of my failures feel like they have other successes and all of my successes feel couched in a little bit of failure. And if I like focus too much on any of them, I'll go insane.

Danny Brown: 01:01:35

No, I think that you've definitely not failed to answer the question. I think that's a perfect, you know, a perfect answer.

And it's like, you see, had you succeeded in any one of the things that you so called air quote, because it's an audio show, air quotes, time. Had you succeeded in any of the times that you'd failed, like you say, you've got that slide indoors moment now, your life completely different.

Maybe not the wife you're married to, the kids you've got, you know, the job that you've got, etc. Besides, there's a really good.

And again, I can't think of who the, the sportsman was that was getting interviewed, getting interviewed on TV after a game that the team had of a lot lost.

And one of the, the, the journalists who'd probably never played sports, competitive sports anyway in their life had asked so what does it feel like to, to be, you know, to fail this year? And the, the, the sportsman came back, said, well, you look at Shaq and he maybe played 10 or 12 finals and he won two. And that could be wrong stats.

It's just like, you know, quoting wrongly there maybe. So the other 10 that Shaq didn't win, is he a failure? Are you going to see Shaq O' Neill as a failure for not winning? And these 10, come on.

You know, so you see, it's, it's context, it's like it's all relevant, right?

Ned Donovan: 01:02:46

And I think if you get focused on failure, you fight really hard to achieve a thing and then it doesn't happen.

I spent three years developing a script and a TV show that will never see the light of day, that I, I spent so much of my life working on creating in my head, putting on paper, putting into decks, meeting with people and then it just didn't happen. Is that a failure? No, because I went and made a different thing. You know what I mean? Like I, I just, I have.

If you Spend a lot of time ascribing the word failure to know and then like being haunted by that. No, then you're never going to go look at the next yes. You know what I mean?

Like you spend so much time looking backwards because all successes and all failures are in the past, which means, means none of them help you towards the future. So it's like move on. There are failures that are big enough, I assume to haunt people.

I just don't have one that makes it worth caring that much about.

Danny Brown: 01:03:51

Well, I like that approach and I like your approach to life in general, mate. You know, speaking to you over the last hour or so has taught me a few things about you which I didn't know before.

So I appreciate you taking the time to spend on the random question hot seat today day as is only fair because I've had you on the hot seat for the last hour or so. It is now time for me to pass the question baton over to you, mate.

Ned Donovan: 01:04:11

All right. I have a question that I'm very proud of. I do ask this question as like a conversation starter to people sometimes because I think it's fun.

But here's the question at hand. What is something mundane, totally not world changing or threatening, but a conspiracy theory you are 100% sure could be true.

That exists at a small level.

Danny Brown: 01:04:45

I mean, I guess you get the obvious ones. While Elvis is alive and he's living on the moon and he's jamming with Jimi Hendrix and all that kind of stuff.

You know, I'm going to say probably it's not. I don't think it's a concern conspiracy theory as such, but it may be. Anywho, so I'm Scottish, I live in Canada, but I'm Scottish.

And we've got our very own urban legend of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. And I've been to Loch Ness many, many a time. I've never seen her. And it's a she, you know, she. Nessie is a she.

But there was one that I heard and it was tied into this and I'll have to try to remember where I heard it about. It's not coming to at the moment, so I do apologize. But there was a little bit where I'd.

I'd heard that Nessie was basically a little lizard that had been frozen. And then, you know, for whatever reason there was mining happening at the time and she escaped. She.

She got frozen and she got warmed up because of the mining, the heat of the tools, all that crap. So she escaped and she ended up in Loch Ness.

So yeah, so there's like, there's meant to be like this sort of urban legend of Nessie and how she got unfrozen by the mine etc, but that sounds like a pile of crap. You know there's not going to be a lot of miniature dinosaur that got frozen and then got unfrozen.

So the locals were told to go and you know, swim about the lake and put their hand up and you can't see this because this is an audio show but if you were watching on YouTube or whatever.

very famous picture from the: 1950

I like to think Nessie is true. So I don't know if that's actually a conspiracy theory or not.

Ned Donovan: 01:06:38

I think that counts. Urban legends and conspiracy theories are kissing cousins, which is a weird phrase I don't know that I've ever said out loud and I didn't like it.

Danny Brown: 01:06:46

Kissing cousins.

Ned Donovan: 01:06:47

Yeah.

Danny Brown: 01:06:47

Then Elvis have a, a movie called Kissing Cousins I think or a song.

Ned Donovan: 01:06:52

I'll be so honest with you, I don't know.

Danny Brown: 01:06:55

No, I will have to look out, I will have to check that. I feel, I feel they did my mum like I say she was like a big music fan. Beatles, Elvis, etc about Manilow.

I feel Cousin Kissing Cousins was a movie of his but I could be wrong. I'll have to check that. But yeah, that would be, that would be my, my one. It's not, not. It's not up there with Area 51.

It's not up there with JFK and Elvis.

Ned Donovan: 01:07:16

It starred Elvis Presley Kissing cousins.

Danny Brown: 01:07:18

Ah, there you go then. So yeah, Elvis, you, you naughty dog. Kissing. Mind you, I mean that's a whole different conversation. Elvis and a 13 year old Priscilla.

I'm not going to get into that in case of any Elvis fans listening. But yeah, so Ned, I have really enjoyed, like I say mate, before you ask your question, I really enjoyed getting to know you today.

Ned Donovan: 01:07:39

This has been a blast.

Danny Brown: 01:07:41

I've really enjoyed it. I listened to the podcast you do with audio and anybody that hasn't checked that out, the dltips, I strongly urge you to check that out.

And again all the details will be there. But for people that want to listen to that podcast, check out your TV show, check out your music, your theater, anything about you.

Where's the best place to connect with you online? Or just find out where all that lives online?

Ned Donovan: 01:08:03

Well, as we sort of talked about about earlier in a in a in a question ago, I'm very findable on the Internet. I'm at Ned Donovan almost everywhere, except for the places that British journalist Ned Donovan got there first. The jerk in those places.

I'm Ned Donovan 13. You can find me almost anywhere under those handles. Ned Donovan.com has all the links.

It's also how you can contact me Daily Tips that May or May Not Help you is a Monday through Friday daily tip of the Day podcast where a consumable quick tip that may or may not help you from myself and Ariel NissanBlatt in under two minutes. It's fun, it's quick.

We're quickly approaching the end of our second year of existence and we're also quickly approaching our 500th episode and we would love for you to check out the show. It's a blast. It's fun. You can also follow that show at Daily Tips pod on LinkedIn.

You can follow it on Twitter, Blue Sky, Tik Tok, Instagram and Threads at Daily Tips Pod. And because the episodes are two minutes or less, every episode also releases on those platforms in video form.

So you can listen to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts or you can watch the show on any social media platform that we have.

Dailytipspodcast.com has all those links and encounter party, my TV show, I will tell you Danny, is geo locked to the United States at this time so you will have to watch it with a vpn, but it is available inside the United States or on VPN at on Plex, Tubi and Roku. And the original podcast Encounter Party that became the TV show can be listened to worldwide on all podcast platforms.

The TV show and the podcast have no connection except it's the same cast, but it is a completely new story and a completely new characters and it just shares the same name. So if you can't watch the TV show, the podcast is the next best thing.

Danny Brown: 01:09:57

And I shall be sure to leave all the links to those in the show notes as always, including some recommended VPNs in case you want to feel naughty and you're outside the US and watch the TV show, I'll be sure to leave them in the show notes.

So as always, whatever app you're listening on, or if you're listening to this on the website, check out the Episode Show Notes and all the links will be there through to Ned and all the cool stuff that he does. So again, Ned, really appreciate you coming on today's five Random Questions.

Ned Donovan: 01:10:22

This was a blast. Thank you. Thank you.

Danny Brown: 01:10:25

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 5randomquestions.com.

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