Being Poor, But a Good Looking Melon Head, with Rob Lynch
In this week’s 5 Random Questions, Danny chats with Rob Lynch, author of "Voudon Caliber". They discuss everything from wealth creating toxic people, creativity, why he'd want a melon for a head, and more.
Answering the questions this week: Rob Lynch
I've always been a jack of all trades, but with the common thread of the written word connecting everything together. I've written music reviews, screenplays, short stories, movie reviews, sporting articles and just released my first full length novel Voudon Caliber available on Amazon. With the deaths of many important family members in the last few years, and the complicated presence of addiction in my family, my whole way of thinking and negotiating life has been turned on its head, and I work to understand life a little more day to day. Life is about gratitude and service, and finding out what that looks like to you.
@Official_voudoncaliber on Instagram
Further reading for this episode
- Voudon Caliber, by Rob Lynch
- Little Face | Dick Tracy Wiki | Fandom
- So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) - IMDb
- Beetlejuice Waiting Room Scene
- DNA Genetic Testing For Health, Ancestry And More - 23andMe
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Transcript
Rob: I think I'd want my face to be proportionate. It would just,
Speaker:Rob: you know, like having, you know, having a melon head is weird enough as it is,
Speaker:Rob: but that if you have like a tiny face inside your melon head,
Speaker:Rob: you know, children are going to run screaming every time that they see you. Right.
Speaker:Danny: Hi, and welcome to 5 Random Questions, a show with unexpected questions and unfiltered answers.
Speaker:Danny: I'm your host, Danny Brown, and each week I'll be asking my guests 5 questions
Speaker:Danny: created by a random question generator.
Speaker:Danny: The guest has no idea what the questions are, and neither do I,
Speaker:Danny: which means this could go either way.
Speaker:Danny: So sit back, relax, and let's dive into this week's episode.
Speaker:Danny: Today's guest is Rob Lynch. Rob says he's always been a jack-of-all-trades,
Speaker:Danny: but with the common thread of the written word connecting everything together.
Speaker:Danny: He's written music reviews, screenplays, short stories, movie reviews,
Speaker:Danny: sports and articles and just released his first full-length novel,
Speaker:Danny: Voudon Caliber, available on Amazon.
Speaker:Danny: With the deaths of many important family members in the last few years and the
Speaker:Danny: complicated presence of addiction in his family, Rob's whole way of thinking
Speaker:Danny: and negotiating life has been turned on its head and he works to understand
Speaker:Danny: life a little more day to day.
Speaker:Danny: Life is about gratitude and service, as Rob says, and finding out what that looks like to you.
Speaker:Danny: So Rob, welcome to Five Random Questions.
Speaker:Rob: Thank you so much for having me. And it's so great to see you again.
Speaker:Danny: I know, mate. I was just thinking that. I mean, we've known each other.
Speaker:Danny: I was thinking about this as I was getting ready to come on and record with you.
Speaker:Danny: We've actually known each other for almost 20 years. And you were actually a
Speaker:Danny: groomsman at my wedding in 2008.
Speaker:Danny: So that's at least how long we've known each other.
Speaker:Danny: Now, most people find increased wisdom as the years progress.
Speaker:Danny: In 20 years or almost 20 years is quite a long chunk.
Speaker:Danny: But, I mean, in that time, you still support Tottenham Hotspur.
Speaker:Danny: So what's your excuse there, mate?
Speaker:Rob: Well, actually, I have to...
Speaker:Rob: My support with Spurs has kind of fallen by the wayside, if I'm being completely honest.
Speaker:Rob: And it's got nothing to do with their dubious performance. it's more about I really
Speaker:Rob: And I know that this is probably going to come off sounding a little naive,
Speaker:Rob: but I really, really hate the way that most European football,
Speaker:Rob: especially English Premier League, has been monetized and made so exclusive, right?
Speaker:Rob: From the moment that we started getting it here, and I want to say it was around
Speaker:Rob: maybe 95, and we were getting like one game on a Saturday morning, right?
Speaker:Rob: And it felt like it was always a Man U game, I might add. But it really sort
Speaker:Rob: of gained in popularity.
Speaker:Rob: And then we started getting full slates or games, like three on a Saturday morning,
Speaker:Rob: three on a Sunday morning.
Speaker:Rob: Sometimes you get one on a Monday evening when you got home from work.
Speaker:Rob: And then all of this subscription type service started.
Speaker:Rob: And it was just one of those things that I said to myself, you know what?
Speaker:Rob: Like, it's just, it's, it's, it's one commitment too far.
Speaker:Rob: And I just don't want to be part of this anymore.
Speaker:Rob: And like, I, I follow like the tables randomly and I'll look for highlights
Speaker:Rob: and, you know, that sort of thing.
Speaker:Rob: But yeah, I've kind of, I've kind of like walked away from it.
Speaker:Rob: You know, I'm more about the national program and MLS and, you know, Scottish league.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah. I hear, I mean, especially, I mean, like this year we've seen the world
Speaker:Danny: cup prices that were released by FIFA.
Speaker:Danny: And it's just got crazy, crazy scandalous. And the amount of games that you
Speaker:Danny: mentioned, the pressure that's put on players and we're seeing more injuries
Speaker:Danny: than that, it's definitely not,
Speaker:Danny: it doesn't feel like the common fans game anymore. I 100% get you there.
Speaker:Danny: I'm still going to stick to the fact that Spurs are crap. And I'm saying that
Speaker:Danny: as an Arsenal fan, so I'm obviously biased. And you just came to your senses, Mick.
Speaker:Rob: Okay, well, I'll give you that. This is your room, your show,
Speaker:Rob: so I'll give you that for now, okay?
Speaker:Danny: No, no, I hear you. I hear you. It's like ridiculous life. The subscription for Fubo is just crazy.
Speaker:Danny: And your book, you just published your first book. So congratulations on that.
Speaker:Danny: And it's a mash of different genres with crime, adventure, horror,
Speaker:Danny: and more between the pages.
Speaker:Danny: So I'm curious, and we'll get two or five random questions soon.
Speaker:Danny: But I'm curious, what's the most difficult thing in bringing multiple genres together like that?
Speaker:Rob: I think maybe creating a level of plausibility. would be the biggest challenge.
Speaker:Rob: I've always really been...
Speaker:Rob: Attracted to mashup stories a lot
Speaker:Rob: of them don't do particularly well whether we're
Speaker:Rob: talking about a movie or a book um or
Speaker:Rob: any other kind of media because i think it's
Speaker:Rob: a very sort of foreign idea to a lot of people
Speaker:Rob: like for example done a little bit
Speaker:Rob: differently and better marketing the movie cowboys versus
Speaker:Rob: aliens should have been huge that movie
Speaker:Rob: should have been huge you know but uh for whatever reason that just didn't work
Speaker:Rob: and um over the course of the last few years i think i've maybe kind of been
Speaker:Rob: emboldened a little bit because um very quickly my favorite genre of novel has
Speaker:Rob: been the horror western which which is really making a lot of headway
Speaker:Rob: And, uh, you know, makes for some absolutely fantastic stuff.
Speaker:Rob: So I'll finish off your question, you know, by going back to,
Speaker:Rob: you know, where the idea first sort of sprang into my head.
Speaker:Rob: And it was actually something that I had been carrying around for 35 years.
Speaker:Rob: And I'm going to be dating myself here, um, by saying that, uh,
Speaker:Rob: when I was in college, I worked in a video store, right.
Speaker:Rob: And it was like a January night where there
Speaker:Rob: was a snowstorm going on inside and me and one of my friends um who
Speaker:Rob: i'm still in touch with today we were sitting there nobody was
Speaker:Rob: coming in we were bored we're just talking about
Speaker:Rob: different things we're going back and forth and we were talking about the um
Speaker:Rob: the virtues of um the western film which is my favorite genre and the gangster
Speaker:Rob: film which is his favorite genre right and we're going back and forth and no
Speaker:Rob: mine's better because of this and no, mine's better because of this.
Speaker:Rob: And then one of us, and I don't remember who one of us had said,
Speaker:Rob: but it would be really cool to figure out a way to get them both in the same movie, wouldn't it?
Speaker:Rob: And I carried that around with me for like over three decades.
Speaker:Rob: And then when lockdown hit and I decided that I was going to finally do this,
Speaker:Rob: I was going to write this.
Speaker:Rob: I started out with, it was going to be gangsters and cowboys.
Speaker:Rob: And then I thought to myself, wait a
Speaker:Rob: If I'm in for a penny, I'm in for a pound. I'm going to stretch this as much
Speaker:Rob: as I possibly can, right?
Speaker:Rob: So I took every kind of pulp fiction action archetype and put them all in the same story.
Speaker:Rob: And I think, you know, at least based on test reads and based on the feedback
Speaker:Rob: that I've been getting so far, since I released it at the end of October,
Speaker:Rob: I figured out a way to make it work.
Speaker:Rob: So I'm very grateful for that.
Speaker:Danny: And I know the reviews on the Amazon page, the sales page, they say,
Speaker:Danny: they speak to that where a lot are saying they're grabbed from the first page,
Speaker:Danny: the genre mash-in works really well and the plot threads tie together well.
Speaker:Danny: So obviously I'll be sure to leave the link to that in the show notes.
Speaker:Danny: So whatever app you're listening on, make sure you check that out and check out Rob's book.
Speaker:Danny: And we'll speak about where to find that later for sure.
Speaker:Danny: But as is our want, we're here for five random questions, mate.
Speaker:Danny: So if you're ready, I will bring up the random question generator and we'll jump into it.
Speaker:Rob: I am ready as I'm going to be.
Speaker:Danny: All right, let's have a look. Okay. Question number one, Rob.
Speaker:Danny: Would you rather be rich and ugly or poor and good looking?
Speaker:Rob: Nothing like, you know, nothing like coming out of the gate slow,
Speaker:Rob: huh? We're going to go right to the heavy hitters.
Speaker:Danny: We're going to put you right in the spot, mate.
Speaker:Rob: Oh, I think that my answer to
Speaker:Rob: this would be based upon how it is that I'm feeling on any particular day.
Speaker:Rob: But considering that we're doing this today, I think I would probably say...
Speaker:Rob: I think I would say poor and good-looking.
Speaker:Danny: Poor and good-looking. So you're going for, I'm not going to say vain,
Speaker:Danny: but what's your reason in there?
Speaker:Danny: Because if you're ugly, if you're rich, you could probably get work done maybe.
Speaker:Danny: I'm not sure how much work and how bad it might look. But what's your reason behind that choice?
Speaker:Rob: So I was just having a conversation with somebody a couple of days ago.
Speaker:Rob: And we were talking about people who have really kind of shaped the landscape
Speaker:Rob: of the economic Western world.
Speaker:Rob: You know, your Rockefellers, your Carnegie's, Henry Ford, uh,
Speaker:Rob: JP Morgan, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker:Rob: And I don't know that I 100% looked at the question as what would traditionally
Speaker:Rob: be considered physically ugly.
Speaker:Rob: Um, I know that based on my limited knowledge of a lot of these people,
Speaker:Rob: um, while some of them may have been very, you know, striking specimens of human
Speaker:Rob: beings, I don't think that they were particularly nice.
Speaker:Rob: I think that some of them actually had some pretty ugly souls.
Speaker:Rob: And I think that maybe looking at it both from an inside and an outside perspective
Speaker:Rob: is what shaped my answer.
Speaker:Rob: I don't believe that it has to be an inevitability that just because you become
Speaker:Rob: rich and famous, that you have to become rich.
Speaker:Rob: Ugly or corrupt but i think
Speaker:Rob: a lot of times by default that does happen with people
Speaker:Rob: um just because you're forced to make a lot of really unkind
Speaker:Rob: and um inhumane decisions just for that extra million so i think maybe i was
Speaker:Rob: a quote i was i was equating that not just uh as much to physical good looks
Speaker:Rob: but maybe sort of kindness of soul as well too does that make sense it does Yeah,
Speaker:Danny: And it's interesting you mentioned some of the names that you mentioned and
Speaker:Danny: whether you're born into riches, for example, or you work your way to riches.
Speaker:Danny: And I think using your metaphors, I think if I think of some of the people that
Speaker:Danny: have been given riches by their parents, a lot of them are actually very toxic people.
Speaker:Danny: Whereas if you've got people that have worked their way up and know what it's
Speaker:Danny: like to be poor and struggling and and recognize that there's a really well
Speaker:Danny: known actor. My brain's taken a dump on me and I can't remember who it is.
Speaker:Danny: But a really well-known actor who came up through hard times and he makes sure
Speaker:Danny: that he knows that his kids know about that and that their lifestyle isn't normal.
Speaker:Danny: It's not what everybody experiences and you have to work hard and kindness is
Speaker:Danny: so key to that and you can't treat people like crap just because you've got the power to.
Speaker:Danny: So it's interesting. You feel like there's more if people are given riches in
Speaker:Danny: later life either through parents or they've come into it with not working too hard for it.
Speaker:Danny: Do you think that's easier, you've got this newfound power, like you say,
Speaker:Danny: to become less of a nicer person as opposed to people that don't have riches to start with?
Speaker:Rob: I think that maybe that comes down to the responsibility of the person who has provided those riches.
Speaker:Rob: I know somebody who is...
Speaker:Rob: She is really, really successful in her field and, um, is very much a mentor to me.
Speaker:Rob: And, um, I know that at least up until recently, every, I could be wrong.
Speaker:Rob: I think it was every Easter, every Thanksgiving and every Christmas,
Speaker:Rob: she would take her kids on the actual holiday to work in a soup kitchen, right.
Speaker:Rob: And say, this is, this is how you, you know, this, this is how you keep yourself
Speaker:Rob: in check and remember that you're owed nothing, right?
Speaker:Rob: This is, you know, what we have is from hard work and that, you know,
Speaker:Rob: what it is that we're contributing to right now, that can easily happen to anybody.
Speaker:Rob: So, you know, count your blessings and, you know, never forget what it is,
Speaker:Rob: you know, to retain your humanity.
Speaker:Rob: And, you know, further to that, I would also say that all of my,
Speaker:Rob: You look at anybody who has helped shape generational culture, right?
Speaker:Rob: You go Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, Zeppelin, all of those people,
Speaker:Rob: they each represent a different decade.
Speaker:Rob: They all came from abject poverty.
Speaker:Rob: They all came from, well, maybe abject poverty is a bit of a stretch,
Speaker:Rob: but they all came from very lower working class.
Speaker:Rob: And you know even Kurt Cobain could be thrown in there as well too but these
Speaker:Rob: are the people that are hungry and these are the people that are always going
Speaker:Rob: to change things because they know what it's like to need and want
Speaker:Danny: Yeah it's you were telling me um in the green room before we started recording
Speaker:Danny: uh about a fan uh event that you went to uh where tamora morrison the guy that
Speaker:Danny: plays boba fett in the star wars movies um had a really nice interaction with
Speaker:Danny: you and your daughter that He was looking for a fan stamp.
Speaker:Danny: And I feel that's a good example where, you know, that kindness was something
Speaker:Danny: that didn't need to be shown, but he took that moment and showed kindness.
Speaker:Danny: And I feel he's probably come from a working class background where he realized
Speaker:Danny: that it doesn't take a lot to be kind, but it means such a lot to be that person.
Speaker:Rob: Absolutely. I completely agree. It's a great example for sure.
Speaker:Danny: That's awesome. I like that. I loved your answer, by the way,
Speaker:Danny: but I like that question as I want to ease us in.
Speaker:Danny: So poor and good looking, but not in the vain, you know, Carly Simon,
Speaker:Danny: you're so vain approach to, you know, good looking. I like that.
Speaker:Danny: So let's have a look then, Rob, at what question number two brings up.
Speaker:Danny: All right, I'm curious about this because you've got a lot of different experiences.
Speaker:Danny: So and you obviously you're well written, well traveled.
Speaker:Danny: Question two, Rob, what was your least favorite subject in school?
Speaker:Rob: Math.
Speaker:Rob: Math easy particular
Speaker:Danny: One because i know there's like various subcategories right or.
Speaker:Rob: Yeah i never um i never got to
Speaker:Rob: the point uh through my uh educational career
Speaker:Rob: that i was sort of um for lack of a better term specializing um i like you know
Speaker:Rob: calculus trigonometry um functions all that kind of stuff i dropped that from
Speaker:Rob: my curriculum i don't know what it is like now but in my day you had to,
Speaker:Rob: once you hit high school,
Speaker:Rob: you had to do two years. You had to do grade nine and grade 10.
Speaker:Rob: After that, it became an optional subject, right?
Speaker:Rob: And based on your very kind intro that you gave regarding me,
Speaker:Rob: I've always been a word person.
Speaker:Rob: My entire life, I've always been a word person.
Speaker:Rob: And I just think that I have somewhat of an intellectual allergy to numbers.
Speaker:Rob: It has just never worked for me.
Speaker:Rob: And funnily enough, both of those grades of math, grade 9 and grade 10,
Speaker:Rob: I failed them both and had to do summer school.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, I think it's still the same now, actually. Our kids, our son's now in
Speaker:Danny: high school. Our daughter starts after the summer, so she'll start in September.
Speaker:Danny: And I think it's the same way we were trying to help him select these courses.
Speaker:Danny: And there were some that were mandatory, and I'm pretty sure English,
Speaker:Danny: math, maybe even French, because obviously we're in Canada. That may have been mandatory too.
Speaker:Rob: French was mandatory for two years when I was a kid. I don't know if it still is.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, I think it is. I'm not sure. But I'm with you. I hated math.
Speaker:Danny: I was in the UK at the time when I was in high school and my subjects were always
Speaker:Danny: English, art and history. I loved history of a passion.
Speaker:Danny: But I'm curious, I mean, you're a creative person and you mentioned obviously
Speaker:Danny: you skew more towards the written word.
Speaker:Danny: Do you feel like English and art and subjects maybe like that are more suited
Speaker:Danny: and more natural to move towards as someone that's creative?
Speaker:Danny: And maybe math and geography, for example, Possibly, you know,
Speaker:Danny: science like physics, chemistry are more for people that are very,
Speaker:Danny: not strict, but more structured in their way of thinking and learning, etc.
Speaker:Rob: Partially, yes. Only because, and I apologize if I'm sticking on your terminology
Speaker:Rob: or tripping on your terminology too much.
Speaker:Rob: Despite the fact that I, that I lean towards more of a creative vein,
Speaker:Rob: I still have a lot of, a lot of discipline and regimen in my life.
Speaker:Rob: I was just thinking before we had met up in the green room and,
Speaker:Rob: uh, we're shooting the breeze.
Speaker:Rob: I was just thinking about, um, have you read, uh, Stephen King's on writing?
Speaker:Danny: I haven't, no. Okay.
Speaker:Rob: So he released it a few years ago, and it's sort of his, into the look,
Speaker:Rob: you know, through the looking glass, this is how I created what I created. This is how I work.
Speaker:Rob: This is how I would suggest that you work, and that kind of thing.
Speaker:Rob: And I am by no means Stephen King's greatest fans.
Speaker:Rob: I would take up the whole show if I talked to you about all the problems that
Speaker:Rob: I have with the way that he does things, right?
Speaker:Rob: But you can't deny his success, and you
Speaker:Rob: can't deny his popularity and what an
Speaker:Rob: absolutely amazing book i couldn't recommend it higher um because
Speaker:Rob: he talks a lot about discipline and he talks about what it is that you need
Speaker:Rob: to do uh to get to where you want to be and you know he says oh you know and
Speaker:Rob: it's and i think it's a little a little millennial sparring that he throws in
Speaker:Rob: there in that he says oh you know you're you're tired.
Speaker:Rob: You've got a part-time job. You have to go to school.
Speaker:Rob: You're having grief with somebody in your life. Well, let me explain to you
Speaker:Rob: that when I wrote, I think it was The Shining.
Speaker:Rob: It might've been The Shining or maybe it was The Stand, but it was one of his like magnum opuses.
Speaker:Rob: And he had said that he was living in a trailer with his wife and two kids,
Speaker:Rob: was working a full-time job during the day and then at night after the kids
Speaker:Rob: went to bed he wrote that book on a
Speaker:Rob: Fallout ironing board that came out of the wall of the trailer
Speaker:Rob: And did that probably until the wee hours of the morning, then went to sleep
Speaker:Rob: for a few hours, and then the cycle started over again.
Speaker:Rob: So if that isn't discipline, then I don't know what is. And then the proof is
Speaker:Rob: in the pudding. You look at where the guy is right now.
Speaker:Rob: He is considered the master of the genre and probably will be for some time.
Speaker:Rob: So there's my long-winded intro to your question.
Speaker:Rob: Uh i would say that the uh short answer is that i do think that there are certain people
Speaker:Rob: that are i i believe that the the common colloquialism is left brain right brain
Speaker:Rob: right the one is more one is more hard fact which is you know science and you
Speaker:Rob: know maths and uh that sort of thing and the other side of the brain is a little
Speaker:Rob: bit more creative that's where
Speaker:Rob: your musicians your painters your actors uh your writers uh that that sort of
Speaker:Rob: thing comes from i think there's also been maybe some kind of correlation that has been made between
Speaker:Rob: left-handed and right-handed people that there's maybe something there that
Speaker:Rob: is tied with creativity versus hard sciences but uh that would be a whole other
Speaker:Rob: vein of discussion i think i
Speaker:Danny: Thought it'd be interesting because i know i can i only know i think one left-handed
Speaker:Danny: person And I always was amazed.
Speaker:Danny: And this was like, again, when I was in the UK, I was always amazed watching
Speaker:Danny: her ride because it's natural.
Speaker:Danny: Obviously, the right hand person, you're moving from left to right.
Speaker:Danny: It's a natural course or flow of your hand.
Speaker:Danny: But to be left handed and do the same, it looks more awkward because you're
Speaker:Danny: now kind of pushing your hand over as opposed to, you know, just letting it flow over.
Speaker:Danny: Well, tangent. but yeah it makes sense because like the left brain right brain
Speaker:Danny: if that ties into the left hand right hand and what you know what part of your
Speaker:Danny: brain is more creative virtually structured it'd be kind of cool to to dig into
Speaker:Danny: that might have to do just some uh some good old googling to use that term if
Speaker:Danny: we can still use googling after this mate i.
Speaker:Rob: Think it's okay i am a lefty myself so i know exactly what it is you're talking
Speaker:Rob: about um and i also recently read speaking of Googling.
Speaker:Rob: I also recently read online that the amount of left-handed people in the world
Speaker:Rob: is actually increasing.
Speaker:Rob: It's very slow, but it is increasing. It isn't so much a rarity as what it used to be.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah. Well, now I can say I know two people. So now my knowledge of left-handed
Speaker:Danny: is doubled. So that's a result.
Speaker:Rob: I am sure that I am in excellent company.
Speaker:Danny: She, I don't know, I lost touch with her years ago, but yeah, she was awesome.
Speaker:Danny: She's a very creative person as well, though. She became an artist,
Speaker:Danny: opened her own sort of art studio, like saw a ton of stuff.
Speaker:Danny: So, you know, definitely a creative side there, I feel, of left-handed anywhere.
Speaker:Rob: Lovely.
Speaker:Danny: So, there we go then. Left-handed, don't like math. We can live with that one, I feel.
Speaker:Danny: So, let's have a look then. Rob, doing well here, mate. Let's have a look at
Speaker:Danny: what question number three brings up. okay and remember this is a family podcast
Speaker:Danny: so question for you rob do you shower in the morning or the evening.
Speaker:Rob: Morning morning
Speaker:Danny: Always mornings mate.
Speaker:Rob: Uh not always uh if it has been a day of hard stringent yard work or i don't
Speaker:Rob: really play in any beer leagues anymore um for you know football or hockey or
Speaker:Rob: anything like that um so sometimes that would warrant an extra one.
Speaker:Rob: But, um, yeah, it is almost always morning.
Speaker:Rob: I feel that it's just such a natural beginning to the day, right?
Speaker:Rob: There's again, like what I was saying in the last question about,
Speaker:Rob: you know, discipline and about routine.
Speaker:Rob: I am such a slave to routine.
Speaker:Rob: Um, it's almost embarrassing, but, uh, I, I find that if it,
Speaker:Rob: if it gets thrown off too much, it, um, really creates a lot of problems for me.
Speaker:Rob: And it can really throw my day off. I will always tell people the story that
Speaker:Rob: for a brief period in my late teen years, I was flirting with the idea of joining
Speaker:Rob: either the police or the military.
Speaker:Rob: And I am actually the first generation of my people,
Speaker:Rob: meaning to say the lynches that go all the way back to, I think it's 400 years
Speaker:Rob: in Scotland and then maybe 700 years in Ireland previous to that.
Speaker:Rob: And then I think before that we might've been Gauls, but I'm not sure before
Speaker:Rob: he passed, my father was fooling around with this stuff, doing a lot of genealogy.
Speaker:Rob: So, you know, it was very, it
Speaker:Rob: was very interesting. It's a shame that he never got finished with that.
Speaker:Rob: Maybe I should pick that up one day, but I'm the first person in my,
Speaker:Rob: in my generation as far, or I'm the first generation, I should say.
Speaker:Rob: I was people within my family that was not military.
Speaker:Rob: I had military running through what looks to be hundreds of years.
Speaker:Rob: And for years i looked at it as a dig that when i talked to my my folks about it you know
Speaker:Rob: both of which were gone now and they both served um when
Speaker:Rob: i talked to my folks about it i had said you know i'm thinking about this i
Speaker:Rob: had a good friend in high school um that i used to play like dungeons and dragons
Speaker:Rob: where and he was in the reserve and he ended up i think he ended up pursuing a full career.
Speaker:Rob: And I think became an officer if I understand correctly, but I think maybe he inspired me.
Speaker:Rob: And I had said to my folks, you know, I'm thinking about maybe doing this.
Speaker:Rob: And I remember my father who was a very stern man, you know,
Speaker:Rob: grew up in a, in a port town
Speaker:Rob: during world war II, you know, so he, he, he saw some hard stuff and, you know, he said to me
Speaker:Rob: with as tender a voice as his
Speaker:Rob: brogue could muster the military is not for
Speaker:Rob: you son right and i took that as an
Speaker:Rob: affront for you know for for a long period of time and
Speaker:Rob: what you know what's he saying is he saying that i'm soft and you know
Speaker:Rob: whatever else and you know what yeah he was saying that i was soft
Speaker:Rob: and i think that this maybe ties in with one of the earlier conversations that
Speaker:Rob: we were having that um i think that i think that hardship breeds necessity and
Speaker:Rob: you know my folks were really really hardworking people and they really understood
Speaker:Rob: the difference between want and need.
Speaker:Rob: And we had everything that we needed. We didn't necessarily have everything that we wanted.
Speaker:Rob: And there's some, my father served in a live theater in his late teens and early 20s.
Speaker:Rob: And he never spoke about it. He never wanted to talk about it.
Speaker:Rob: And I talked about this at great length in his eulogy when I eulogized him a few years ago.
Speaker:Rob: And I think that whatever it was that he saw and whatever it was that he experienced,
Speaker:Rob: it shaped the way that he did things for the rest of his life.
Speaker:Rob: And he was always grateful for quiet moments.
Speaker:Rob: He was always grateful, even just for an orange, something like that,
Speaker:Rob: something that we completely take for granted.
Speaker:Rob: And even though my father wasn't the most day-to-day regimented person,
Speaker:Rob: he had an incredible conviction of character.
Speaker:Rob: And um i think that some of that ended up getting
Speaker:Rob: passed down to me in terms of discipline as well too
Speaker:Rob: uh again if i was talking
Speaker:Rob: about the differences between my father and i we would be here until
Speaker:Rob: the sun went down but i think that that
Speaker:Rob: probably ties in maybe there's even something like kind of genetic there about
Speaker:Rob: the fact that my showers always have to be uh first thing in the day you know
Speaker:Rob: for me it's like you know it's wake up stretch shower coffee out the door morning
Speaker:Rob: commute right i even feel it sometimes on the weekends that you know when it's like i wake up
Speaker:Rob: i realize it isn't as early as what i'm used to it being um and it can sometimes
Speaker:Rob: throw me off a little bit that oh i'm used to you know i'm i'm used to things
Speaker:Rob: just being a b c d e right it's probably also why i'm a relatively simple eater as well too
Speaker:Rob: simplified even more since i became a vegetarian but uh
Speaker:Rob: Yeah. Man, I really made a meal of that question.
Speaker:Danny: None at all, mate. And this is why I love the show, because it does take my
Speaker:Danny: guests into tangents and lets you open up and just tell your story, which I always love.
Speaker:Danny: So I appreciate you sharing that, mate. And it's weird, because where we live,
Speaker:Danny: we live on a well, so our water is limited.
Speaker:Danny: We have to sort of manage it, especially in the warmer weather.
Speaker:Danny: But our son, both our kids are competitive athletes.
Speaker:Danny: My son does soccer, football. My daughter does cheer.
Speaker:Danny: So obviously they love showers. But in warm weather, it's because we have to limit it more.
Speaker:Danny: It kind of messes up with the routine. So I can completely 100% get that, mate.
Speaker:Rob: You know, it's a creature comfort. It's a simple comfort. But it's all part and parcel.
Speaker:Rob: It's all like a piece in the juice out it gets us through day to day.
Speaker:Rob: I think. Right. So yeah, morning showers all the way.
Speaker:Rob: That being said, before we move on, I do understand people who do it in the evening as well too.
Speaker:Rob: My, my, my oldest, for example, my oldest daughter, she's an evening shower person.
Speaker:Rob: Because she wants that time to get herself together in the morning and focus
Speaker:Rob: on other things and reserve energy for, you know,
Speaker:Rob: maybe, you know, what her ensemble is going to be for the day or her hair or,
Speaker:Rob: you know, thinking about if she's got a presentation at school,
Speaker:Rob: you know, how am I going to tackle this, that sort of thing.
Speaker:Rob: So not taking away anything from the evening people, but the morning shower
Speaker:Rob: just works better for me.
Speaker:Danny: I like it. I like it. and speaking of
Speaker:Danny: what's working better that's a terrible segue
Speaker:Danny: no i like it and i i'm
Speaker:Danny: a i i for me i'd probably be an evening person but
Speaker:Danny: i'd be an evening bath person as opposed to shower i feel shower is
Speaker:Danny: there to like freshen and make you really feel refreshed so
Speaker:Danny: i feel we probably if we had like the unlimited water supply from the
Speaker:Danny: city i'd probably have more baths but yeah um nice
Speaker:Danny: warm bath in the evening but i get you i hear you talk completely on
Speaker:Danny: that mate like i say our son he prefers the winter
Speaker:Danny: because the water is more plentiful you know so he's
Speaker:Danny: good to go there so all good all good but yeah i like that that's a good one
Speaker:Danny: to have for question number three mate let's have a look and see what question
Speaker:Danny: number four is and you just mentioned you become a vegetarian so rob question
Speaker:Danny: four do you prefer to cook or order takeout cook.
Speaker:Rob: I have found um so it's almost six years
Speaker:Rob: that I've been a vegetarian. Uh, it was actually, uh, and I'm about to date
Speaker:Rob: myself here. It was my 50th birthday.
Speaker:Rob: That was the last time that I ate meat and, uh, it was a steak and ale pie as
Speaker:Rob: a matter of fact. So I know that I'm looking at you right now.
Speaker:Rob: You can, uh, wipe that drool off your mouth.
Speaker:Rob: Um, but that was, that was the last one that I had.
Speaker:Rob: Um, I, I don't want to oversell it though i do sometimes still
Speaker:Rob: eat fish but i would say that cook is is better like so and and and that's really
Speaker:Rob: it's for a few different reasons one it's economic unless uh you are one of
Speaker:Rob: you know one of the people that we were talking about in one of the earlier
Speaker:Rob: questions life isn't as fluid
Speaker:Rob: as what it was prior to lockdown right and uh money doesn't go as far as it did
Speaker:Rob: And i was just having this conversation with somebody not that long ago and
Speaker:Rob: i once i once saw um bill morris say the exact same thing on his television
Speaker:Rob: show that when you were a kid
Speaker:Rob: like going out for dinner or having something delivered
Speaker:Rob: to your door right it was one of the greatest treats on the planet it was such
Speaker:Rob: a big deal it was such a big deal right oh we're going we're going to swish
Speaker:Rob: la for dinner tonight oh my god i think i'm going to pass out i'm so excited
Speaker:Rob: whereas now it has become
Speaker:Rob: Such a mundane act. Whenever I, on a rare occasion, when I do walk into a restaurant,
Speaker:Rob: whether it be, you know, sit down, take away,
Speaker:Rob: whatever, the lobby is invariably always full of Uber Eats delivery people that
Speaker:Rob: are standing there waiting for orders for people who have put theirs in ahead of time.
Speaker:Rob: It doesn't feel as though maybe there's so much ceremony about going out to
Speaker:Rob: eat anymore as what there used to be or ordering something in.
Speaker:Rob: It's it has been made so easy now there's a lot to be said about progress and
Speaker:Rob: i know that there are a lot of people who make a living off of any of the uh
Speaker:Rob: delivery services uh that come out of that and uh so you know i don't want to
Speaker:Rob: i don't want to begrudge anyone or step on their toes
Speaker:Rob: for uh pursuing their hustle but i'm trying to bring back the whole idea perhaps
Speaker:Rob: on a subconscious level of maybe, um, making that sort of thing more of a treat, um,
Speaker:Rob: than what it has become.
Speaker:Rob: Uh, but then, so, you know, it is, it is somewhat economic, but beyond that as well too.
Speaker:Rob: For example, if I were, if I were to walk into a McDonald's right now,
Speaker:Rob: there is legit four things on the menu that I can eat.
Speaker:Rob: It is getting better, mind you, with finer dining, with more mid-level dining and up.
Speaker:Rob: Even the keg, which for anybody who isn't aware that is in Canada,
Speaker:Rob: is a big steakhouse franchise here.
Speaker:Rob: They even offer some plant-based alternatives to things.
Speaker:Rob: So it is getting a little bit better, but a lot of times the idea of going out
Speaker:Rob: to eat doesn't hold as much of a thrill for me as what it used to when I was
Speaker:Rob: younger and when I was eating meat.
Speaker:Rob: Because a lot of the excitement alternatives and options just aren't there anymore.
Speaker:Rob: Yeah, yeah. I don't know that I have anything else to add to that.
Speaker:Danny: No, no, it makes perfect sense. I mean, I think of, I used to love going to the movies.
Speaker:Danny: Loved it. And again, pre-lockdown, I feel so much has changed in the world, obviously, since 2020.
Speaker:Danny: But the movie theatres are suffering now because people realise,
Speaker:Danny: hey, I don't need to go out and, like, you've got kids, I've got kids.
Speaker:Danny: I don't have to go out and spend $100, $150 on movie tickets, popcorn, Coke, drinks.
Speaker:Danny: If we're hungry after the movie, now we've got another $100 plus for dinner
Speaker:Danny: or whatever. That's like one night out.
Speaker:Danny: Now it becomes $200, $300, which is ridiculous, where you get a decent sound
Speaker:Danny: system at home, decent-sized TV screen, make your own food, as you just mentioned, Matt.
Speaker:Danny: And you don't have to worry about people rustling chip papers or crisps.
Speaker:Danny: Or talking or a phone popping up, a little light screen on their phone with messages.
Speaker:Danny: It's just, it's very different. So I completely hear you. And I know we used
Speaker:Danny: to love going out to dinners as well.
Speaker:Danny: And like you say, it was treats would go maybe at the weekend,
Speaker:Danny: more than likely once a month though, to make it a proper treat.
Speaker:Danny: But even now we don't do that.
Speaker:Danny: And again, I feel a lot of that is done to the kids being super busy with sports.
Speaker:Danny: So we don't have a lot of time anyway. As a family in the evenings,
Speaker:Danny: they're super busy with what they're doing.
Speaker:Danny: Um so i i 100 hear you
Speaker:Danny: and it's do you feel like you obviously mentioned um economics but also choices
Speaker:Danny: do you feel things are getting a bit better or we're still struggling when it
Speaker:Danny: comes to good alternatives for vegetarian or vegan options as opposed to standard
Speaker:Danny: you know steaks at the keg for example.
Speaker:Rob: I uh i don't want to take any sake glory
Speaker:Rob: here because um i i i don't have
Speaker:Rob: and this ties in with our earlier discussion about discipline um
Speaker:Rob: i i don't have the discipline yet to be a full-blown vegan there's a lot of
Speaker:Rob: one of my daughter's friends is a full-blown vegan and it's like my hat is off
Speaker:Rob: to you man like it whoa like yeah that is that is serious and um
Speaker:Rob: But I do think that options are getting better, but maybe in a few more unlikely places.
Speaker:Rob: A lot of your franchises, your North American franchises, they've been really slow on the uptake.
Speaker:Rob: I listen to UK radio during the day while I'm working, right?
Speaker:Rob: And I know for a fact that at least for two, maybe three years,
Speaker:Rob: McDonald's already had their vegetarian hamburger in place over there.
Speaker:Rob: We only just got it here in Canada, I think maybe seven months ago, something like that.
Speaker:Rob: So I think that maybe a lot of your more conventional outlets have been really slow.
Speaker:Rob: To jump on it because if, if it ain't broke, um, don't fix it.
Speaker:Rob: Right. Uh, at least as they see it.
Speaker:Rob: But I also think that one of those, uh, you know, one of the, uh,
Speaker:Rob: many faceted benefits of multiculturalism, like what we have here is that you
Speaker:Rob: have people coming from all corners of the world and there,
Speaker:Rob: there are entire cultures that are based on vegetarianism or that at least a
Speaker:Rob: large amount of the food, uh,
Speaker:Rob: that comes from there is, is a highway vegetarian component, right?
Speaker:Rob: Like, you know, you look at Indian food, for example, um, which I've always
Speaker:Rob: been, I had, I hadn't had a lot of exposure to up until recent, uh, recently in my life.
Speaker:Rob: And like, I am samosa daft now.
Speaker:Rob: Right. Um, and it's, it, it, there's, you know, not only are they delicious
Speaker:Rob: but you know it's it's like a real treat that has been added to my rotation
Speaker:Rob: in terms of of what it is that my my
Speaker:Rob: current way of living will support and then
Speaker:Rob: you know you get a lot of your even even further east asian foods as well too
Speaker:Rob: almost everything can be made without chicken or beef even as a kid like i it's
Speaker:Rob: funny because i remember you know going back to when it was a big treat.
Speaker:Rob: Like if it was somebody's birthday
Speaker:Rob: or we were going on vacation for two weeks or something like that.
Speaker:Rob: And then the folks decided to order Chinese food.
Speaker:Rob: We'd be looking at the menu. Like all of us would be, you know,
Speaker:Rob: me and my sister and my folks would be hovering over the menu.
Speaker:Rob: And I'd be thinking in my head, why would anybody ever get that vegetable fried rice?
Speaker:Rob: Why would anybody ever get vegetable chow mein? You know, when you've got chicken,
Speaker:Rob: you've got beef, and you've got pork, and you've got shrimp,
Speaker:Rob: and stuff like that. Well, you know, now I understand that.
Speaker:Rob: But I think that we certainly live in a corner of the world where such a lifestyle
Speaker:Rob: and such a diet has been made a lot easier by the doors that we've opened.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah. No, I hear. And the great thing that you say, I mean, Canada,
Speaker:Danny: we're very fortunate and that we have a lot of resources that can make that,
Speaker:Danny: you know, hopefully make that lifestyle easier.
Speaker:Danny: I say this as a non-vegetarian, so I apologize if I get that wrong,
Speaker:Danny: but I feel Canada's definitely got a lot of resources, natural resources,
Speaker:Danny: you know, for, you know, different lifestyles, which is awesome, obviously.
Speaker:Rob: You know, economic trends and
Speaker:Rob: grocery purchasing trends and general
Speaker:Rob: lifestyle trends are all zeering in
Speaker:Rob: the direction of a lesser consumption of meat with things going forward and
Speaker:Rob: please don't misunderstand me here danny i am not trying to say to anybody i'm
Speaker:Rob: right and you're wrong right i would never ever want to be that person but
Speaker:Rob: it's a decision that you make and you do your best to stand by it and I think that
Speaker:Rob: Yeah, a lot of, you know, a lot of changes are being made, like,
Speaker:Rob: especially in the agricultural world.
Speaker:Rob: But I don't think it's a wholesale shift at this point, but I think that there
Speaker:Rob: are some subtle hints that are going on that, you know, things are not going
Speaker:Rob: to remain the way that they have up until this point forever.
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, I say it's funny. My daughter made me laugh.
Speaker:Danny: Maybe last year, two years ago, it was during lockdown.
Speaker:Danny: So maybe even before that. But anyway, she came to us, you know,
Speaker:Danny: my wife, Jacqueline, you know, you guys know each other before I knew you, actually.
Speaker:Danny: But she came up to us and she says, OK, I want to be a vegetarian.
Speaker:Danny: Can you make me this tomorrow instead of, you know, whatever we normally have? Yeah, OK, no worries.
Speaker:Danny: That's not a problem. So we made it. And she's like, I'm real hungry for lunch.
Speaker:Danny: Can I have a sub sandwich? OK.
Speaker:Danny: And then she went back. It's like, you know, I feel, and I know it's just like
Speaker:Danny: a random, you know, addition to you.
Speaker:Danny: I don't want to take away from that at all, mate. But she did make me chuckle
Speaker:Danny: and you just made me think of that when, you know, what's available and how
Speaker:Danny: we change, you know, how people's minds change in that.
Speaker:Danny: But yeah, I hear you 100%, mate.
Speaker:Rob: I don't think it's uncommon. I think that, I know, I know my youngest went through that as well too.
Speaker:Rob: And even to this day she still will have periods where I haven't eaten in a
Speaker:Rob: week, I haven't eaten in two weeks that kind of thing and then
Speaker:Rob: You know, she's at a point in her life where there's other things that I think
Speaker:Rob: are taking a priority for her.
Speaker:Rob: And again, this is, you know, strictly about my own personal choice.
Speaker:Rob: I, you know, would never, ever, you know, if I walk into a restaurant with somebody
Speaker:Rob: and they, you know, order a steak across the table from me, I'm not going to sneer at them.
Speaker:Rob: And I'm not going to, you know, wag the finger and, you know,
Speaker:Rob: and preach the Holy gospel or anything like that.
Speaker:Rob: It's just, it's, it's, it's a lifestyle change. And I'll tell you this.
Speaker:Rob: Anybody who knew me prior to me making my
Speaker:Rob: change and if they didn't know before i know people who have been floored by
Speaker:Rob: the fact because oh man i was just i was all meat and potatoes and the rarer
Speaker:Rob: the better yeah so um how's and is your daughter like where is she with her eating now
Speaker:Danny: Yeah she's still like um she she likes
Speaker:Danny: her um chicken she loves chicken she likes
Speaker:Danny: that but she loves her veggies as well she's on that happy space where she's
Speaker:Danny: got her protein if she wants it but she loves her
Speaker:Danny: healthy you know um sides and the
Speaker:Danny: way we cook chicken it's like healthy anyway it's not deep fried or anything so
Speaker:Danny: um but yeah she still enjoys on meat currently i'll i'll say very good very
Speaker:Danny: good see she's 13 gonna be 14 in next month oh my gosh um 14 year old where
Speaker:Danny: did that go so yeah we'll see how she goes and like i say you mentioned it um
Speaker:Danny: you know earlier it's you know and I mentioned it in your intro,
Speaker:Danny: it's the decisions we make for ourselves, right? That's what's key at that time.
Speaker:Danny: And I support others and the decisions they want to make that's right for them.
Speaker:Rob: And so really.
Speaker:Danny: Well, speaking of decisions that are right for us, it's time to get to question number five.
Speaker:Danny: And we've done well to get to this point, Matt. So I'm going to finish with
Speaker:Danny: this one because I feel it ties in with the first question kind of.
Speaker:Danny: It kind of brings that back full circle.
Speaker:Danny: So Rob, question five of your time in the random question hot seat.
Speaker:Danny: Would you rather have a grapefruit sized head or a head the size of a watermelon oh.
Speaker:Rob: My god i oh man i don't even know where to go with this um
Speaker:Rob: I guess that both of those, or either one, would create a pretty conspicuous
Speaker:Rob: physical appearance, right?
Speaker:Danny: I feel so. I feel maybe one's a little bit less conspicuous,
Speaker:Danny: but yeah, I feel you're going to be noticeable right away when you're walking down the street, mate.
Speaker:Rob: Yeah, yeah. So with the first option, I'm thinking about that guy who's in the
Speaker:Rob: waiting room in Beetlejuice, you know, smoking the cigarette and, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Danny: He's almost like Beaker out of The Muppet Show, I feel. He's got that kind of vibe.
Speaker:Rob: Yeah, yeah, because he has that bottom trap mouth and the big bug eyes, right?
Speaker:Rob: I think I'll go for the watermelon, and I'll tell you why.
Speaker:Rob: How anticlimactic would that
Speaker:Rob: be if I just said, I think I'll go for the watermelon. See you, Danny.
Speaker:Danny: Recording over.
Speaker:Rob: Yeah. I think I'd go for the watermelon because I think that a reasonable assumption Thank you.
Speaker:Rob: There would be enhanced brainpower. If you've got a bigger head,
Speaker:Rob: that probably houses a bigger brain.
Speaker:Rob: Now, of course, if you're into dinosaurs, that throws my whole theory out the window.
Speaker:Rob: But I would like to think that we've maybe advanced a little bit beyond the
Speaker:Rob: T-Rex and the Stegosaurus.
Speaker:Rob: But yeah, I think I would probably go for the watermelon head.
Speaker:Danny: When I feel the watermelons, it's more similar to a natural-sized head drive.
Speaker:Danny: You think about the size, unless you get like a massive watermelon it always
Speaker:Danny: makes me think of so i married an axe murderer you know would you look at the
Speaker:Danny: size of that cranium he'd move the size of.
Speaker:Rob: That boy's yeah
Speaker:Danny: That's but yeah i feel yeah i feel like
Speaker:Danny: a watermelon unless it was like a super big massive plump
Speaker:Danny: ripe one that's probably closer to a human head size
Speaker:Danny: as opposed to having that tiny little lemon but it'd
Speaker:Danny: be it'd be interesting to see because obviously your your body would say the
Speaker:Danny: same size but then does your physical features of your face adapt i'm going
Speaker:Danny: to assume they adapt right you're not going to have like the same size mouse
Speaker:Danny: you've got now on a lemon it's like it pokes over the side or it looks small
Speaker:Danny: because now you've got this big massive watermelon head,
Speaker:Danny: and would you wear anything in disguise like a hat or a scarf or anything yeah.
Speaker:Rob: Yeah i'm sort of you know going back into the because i studied from in college
Speaker:Rob: and you know i'm such a i'm such a student of a film um i'm going back now to
Speaker:Rob: there was a villain in the dick tracy movie
Speaker:Rob: um who i think his name was little face and he has this big melon head but with
Speaker:Rob: a face that's about you know the size of a dessert plate right in the middle
Speaker:Rob: of it uh which is just the oddest but also the bizarrely funniest thing that
Speaker:Rob: you've ever seen so i think i'd want my face to be proportionate
Speaker:Rob: um it would just you know like having you know having a melon head is weird
Speaker:Rob: enough as it is but that if you had like a tiny face inside your melon head
Speaker:Rob: you know children are going to run screaming every time that they see you right it'd
Speaker:Danny: Be yeah it'd be something else man.
Speaker:Rob: It also the the the visual the visual in my head the first thing that comes
Speaker:Rob: to mind too is i'm reminded of the appearance
Speaker:Rob: of one of my favorite batman enemies who is the scarecrow he's got that pumpkin
Speaker:Rob: for a head right with the with the floppy straw hat on top of it and that's
Speaker:Rob: actually kind of a cool look so i think that i think i definitely made the right choice there but
Speaker:Danny: You'd have to be a villain though as well right.
Speaker:Rob: Yeah yeah yeah yeah he's just he's he's just misunderstood
Speaker:Danny: We will like that we will like that well speaking of misunderstood i don't think
Speaker:Danny: it's misunderstood that we've reached the end of your time in the random hot
Speaker:Danny: seat mate and I like that I like how that kind of came around a whole 360 angle
Speaker:Danny: there from good looking, ugly,
Speaker:Danny: rich, poor to watermelon head I think that was a nice you know,
Speaker:Danny: nice segue there so Rob, I appreciate your time on the five random question hot seat,
Speaker:Danny: as is only fair I've had you on the hot seat for about 45, 50 minutes now it's
Speaker:Danny: only fair to put the question,
Speaker:Danny: master task over to you.
Speaker:Rob: All right i thought long and hard on this one
Speaker:Rob: oh dear there we go this this permeated my
Speaker:Rob: thoughts so i hope i don't let you down this permeated my
Speaker:Rob: thoughts all week long as i was like you know winding down
Speaker:Rob: from christmas and then moving into new years and um you know binging a couple
Speaker:Rob: of things and doing some household chores and everything else so what is the
Speaker:Rob: most important film book or movie that you have experienced so far in your life
Speaker:Rob: not favorite most important most
Speaker:Danny: Important film book movie,
Speaker:Danny: Ooh, that's a good one, mate.
Speaker:Rob: And why?
Speaker:Danny: That's a good one. I'm trying to think of what's really impacted me,
Speaker:Danny: as opposed to your favourite, like you say. There are two very different things.
Speaker:Danny: I would say the most important, maybe, maybe, and I might change my mind here,
Speaker:Danny: so be prepared for that, but the most important movie, I'm going to say anyway,
Speaker:Danny: is the original Star Wars back in 77.
Speaker:Danny: 78 when it was released in the UK It was 77 in North America But we got it in
Speaker:Danny: 78 And the reason for that is like There's a few reasons actually So I'd lost
Speaker:Danny: a lot of family members to cancer In the summer of 77,
Speaker:Danny: I'd lost a very dear school friend To an asthma attack Also in the summer of
Speaker:Danny: 77 So 77 was like a horrible horrible Shitty crappy year,
Speaker:Danny: And prior to the passing, one of the people that passed was my stepdad.
Speaker:Danny: Now, we didn't really get on, but we tolerated each other.
Speaker:Danny: It's typical Scottish stepdad, stepson environment.
Speaker:Danny: But he had promised to, he'd heard of this big movie. He saw how excited all
Speaker:Danny: the school kids were, me being one of them, about this movie that just released
Speaker:Danny: in the US called Star Wars.
Speaker:Danny: And it was getting amazing, amazing reviews and word of mouth and all that.
Speaker:Danny: And being a big sci-fi geek, even at that young age, I was 8 at the time so that's aging me.
Speaker:Danny: He said he was going to take us and then obviously he couldn't because he passed,
Speaker:Danny: so eventually my uncle took us to see it me and my cousin took us to see it
Speaker:Danny: probably early winter of 78 it got released in London,
Speaker:Danny: Christmas 77 the rest of the UK 78 so I went to see it, sat there,
Speaker:Danny: and I'd never seen anything like it like that
Speaker:Danny: opening shot where the blockade runner that princess liaison
Speaker:Danny: is getting chased by Darth Raiders star destroyer and
Speaker:Danny: that big massive spaceship when you're eight year old
Speaker:Danny: or nine year old in a darkened theater we're in
Speaker:Danny: the odian uh which is like a chain in the uk we're in
Speaker:Danny: the odian in edinburgh smacking the middle of edinburgh and this massive massive
Speaker:Danny: spaceship came over my my head it was like changed my
Speaker:Danny: thinking of what movies could be like um and because
Speaker:Danny: of that i got into writing i wanted to write my
Speaker:Danny: own version of star wars and fantasy stuff like that so i
Speaker:Danny: wrote some stuff that um i got an award
Speaker:Danny: at my my school for a fantasy story or whatever um
Speaker:Danny: and that kind of put me into my creative like path
Speaker:Danny: if you like it i disappeared and did you know educational stuff what have you
Speaker:Danny: but it kind of lit that spark of uh let's use this pun lit the spark of rebellion
Speaker:Danny: or spark you know to to use it from one of the movies like one of the recent
Speaker:Danny: sequels but yeah that kind of got me into my love of A Star Wars creativity,
Speaker:Danny: storytelling etc that I feel was kind of.
Speaker:Danny: Put me where i am now and even though i've gone on
Speaker:Danny: different paths throughout my life i've always come come back
Speaker:Danny: to this love of spectacle you know
Speaker:Danny: excitement adventure like your book mate you know where it's just it's escapism
Speaker:Danny: to take you out of what can be a crappy world and at that time it was a really
Speaker:Danny: crappy world for me and this movie changed that completely so that that's probably
Speaker:Danny: i feel yeah that's my most impactful movie well.
Speaker:Rob: Said man well said and i i i
Speaker:Rob: don't i don't think that your answer is dissimilar to a lot of people and it
Speaker:Rob: is so funny how many times i have read you know famous and just everyday people
Speaker:Rob: alike how that one particular shot when you know the the the Imperial Starship,
Speaker:Rob: like how long it takes for its full length to crawl into the frame.
Speaker:Rob: Like that just blew everybody's mind. It's like, Oh my God. It's like,
Speaker:Rob: you're practically looking to watch how long is it going to take until we see
Speaker:Rob: the jets at the back. Right.
Speaker:Danny: Well, especially in a big theater where you've got like the massive screen,
Speaker:Danny: you're like a boy, you're not even 10 years old.
Speaker:Danny: And it's just like the sound and everything is just vibrating and shaking your
Speaker:Danny: whole body. You're thinking, Holy crap. You know?
Speaker:Rob: So putting aside, or maybe keeping in mind the original three films.
Speaker:Rob: How do you feel that the franchise has done as a whole? Like leading up to this
Speaker:Rob: moment, what is today, January 3rd?
Speaker:Danny: Yeah.
Speaker:Rob: January 3rd, 2026, right up to here. How do you feel like with all the TV series,
Speaker:Rob: with the animated series, with the supplementary theatrical releases?
Speaker:Danny: Yeah, I feel like, it's funny, the company I work at, we're all Star Wars nerds, all Star Wars fans.
Speaker:Danny: It feels like a requisite to work there, to be a Star Wars nerd and we have
Speaker:Danny: definite opinions on this I feel,
Speaker:Danny: Movie-wise, they peaked with the original trilogy.
Speaker:Danny: I was never a fan of the prequels. I still am not a fan of the prequels,
Speaker:Danny: whereas my colleagues are big fans of the prequels.
Speaker:Danny: And then the new trilogy that came out with The Force Awakens and finished with
Speaker:Danny: The Rise of Skywalker, I enjoyed them, but they didn't feel strong.
Speaker:Danny: They kind of felt like there was just bookending a story, basically, and tying up loose ends.
Speaker:Danny: It weren't really there even. I've been more impressed with the TV shows.
Speaker:Danny: So first season of Mandalorian and or season one and two, best Star Wars around, period.
Speaker:Danny: I loved the Han Solo movie. I'm one of the few that actually really enjoyed that. So I'm more...
Speaker:Rob: Yes, you are.
Speaker:Danny: I'm more of like a fan of the TV stuff. I loved Skeleton Crew.
Speaker:Danny: I thought that was so different from Star Wars. Right?
Speaker:Danny: It was basically the Goonies in space in the Star Wars universe, I feel.
Speaker:Danny: And it was amazing. I did not have high hopes for that when I saw the initial
Speaker:Danny: trailers and you saw, like, lampposts or streetlights and, you know,
Speaker:Danny: suburban houses, essentially, suburban streets.
Speaker:Danny: I thought, what is going on here? And I was more pumped for the acolyte.
Speaker:Danny: But then I watched both shows and I loved, loved, loved Skeleton Crew.
Speaker:Danny: So, yeah, I would say from a creative point of view, the original trilogy for me is where it peaked.
Speaker:Danny: I'm all about the TV shows. I'm not even, this new Mandalorian Grogu movie that's
Speaker:Danny: coming out in the summer, I'm not even bothered about that.
Speaker:Danny: I'll probably wait until that comes on streaming and see how it goes.
Speaker:Danny: But yeah, I could speak all day. Maybe we'll get an offshoot show called Five
Speaker:Danny: Random Fantasy Crapshoots or whatever.
Speaker:Danny: But I could talk all day about Star Wars, mate. So yeah, thank you for that
Speaker:Danny: question and making me remind myself of that.
Speaker:Rob: Pleasure, man. Pleasure. And great answer too.
Speaker:Danny: No, no. And you're welcome. thank you for asking me it hey
Speaker:Danny: rob i've had you on five random questions and thank you again
Speaker:Danny: for sharing your answers with me for people that want
Speaker:Danny: to check out your book and dig into the the genre and see why people are loving
Speaker:Danny: it so much to find out some of the cool stuff that you're doing in your own
Speaker:Danny: life or maybe even just to reach out to you and say hey what's a good vegetarian
Speaker:Danny: dish to introduce to someone where's the best place to connect and hang out
Speaker:Danny: and see what you're up to uh.
Speaker:Rob: So um you can get as you mentioned
Speaker:Rob: in the intro you can get my book on amazon i have um an instagram uh which uh
Speaker:Rob: you know supports and promotes the book um that my daughters are actually running
Speaker:Rob: for me um gives them something to do because us old guys you know social media
Speaker:Rob: is a foreign language to us um so it is official underscore voodon caliber
Speaker:Rob: and then I also have an email address which is set up in support of the book
Speaker:Rob: vc-thenovel at rogers.com so that's everywhere that you can reach me
Speaker:Danny: And I will be sure to leave the links to that in the show notes so whatever
Speaker:Danny: app you're listening on or even if you're listening to this episode on the website
Speaker:Danny: just check the show notes out and that will link through to the book site Instagram
Speaker:Danny: and everything cool that you can do there with Rob so again Rob I appreciate
Speaker:Danny: you appearing today on five random questions.
Speaker:Rob: Cheers man thank you so much for having me it's been great catching up uh it's
Speaker:Rob: been a great experience and it's just been really good seeing you again man happy new year
Speaker:Danny: Ditto mate ditto cheers boss,
Speaker:Danny: Thanks for listening to five random questions. And if this is your first time
Speaker:Danny: here, feel free to hit follow and start anywhere.
Speaker:Danny: If you enjoyed this week's episode, I'd love for you to leave a review on the
Speaker:Danny: app you're currently listening on.
Speaker:Danny: Or if you know someone else that would enjoy the show, be sure to send them
Speaker:Danny: this way. It's very much appreciated.
Speaker:Danny: Until the next time, keep asking those questions.
