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Here's a show that we recommend. This

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of give a perspective that Aylin and

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I think that we have, we certainly

1:57

hope we have, on using

2:00

Apple products as regular

2:02

folks. And to really

2:24

kind of ask the question how is it really fitting in your

2:26

life? Thank

2:31

you for being here. I'm Washi Ginsburg. This is Better Than

2:33

Yesterday, which we've been doing this since 2013 and

2:36

just trying to make it better every episode every

2:39

single week. Who am I?

2:41

I am a podcaster, I'm an author, I'm a

2:43

TV host, I'm a dad,

2:45

I'm a stepdad. I am a

2:47

man who watches two YouTube videos

2:49

on drainage and then considers himself

2:51

an expert in dealing with stormwater

2:53

runoff. Mm-hmm. We've got gigs,

2:55

we've got live gigs in Melbourne. Come check out the

2:57

news show that we do at the Melbourne International Comedy

3:00

Festival. We're there for the second year in a row.

3:02

We count wait tickets are in the show notes. The

3:04

mailing list is there as well. And

3:06

thank you for all the lovely messages about the

3:08

news show that we're running on Fridays. It's super

3:10

fun. I'm loving doing it. It's so fun getting

3:13

the band back together. Speaking

3:15

of getting the band back together, I

3:18

wear hearing aids. You may not

3:20

know this about me. If you meet

3:22

me in person, usually I will

3:24

have my hearing aids on. That's so I can

3:26

hear the difference between the letter S and the

3:28

letter F and

3:30

D and T and P and B and

3:33

V. Look, I can't hear very well. All

3:35

right? It's industrial deafness. 30 years

3:37

in broadcasting, earpieces, headphones, DJing, playing in

3:39

a funk metal band for a couple

3:42

of years. All of those things, all

3:44

that enormous amounts of decibel volume played

3:46

a role in why my hearing is

3:48

what it is. And before that, before I

3:50

even got into radio, I was

3:52

a roadie For three years.

3:54

I Lugged and operated lighting rigs

3:57

for cover bands up and down

3:59

the Queensland. I had a nice of

4:01

while coast for forty five minutes set tonight.

4:03

For the five nights a week, there's a

4:05

lot of exposure to a lot of what

4:08

annoys. this is at a time before Dj

4:10

eyes and it was just as they changed

4:12

the rules in Queensland about allowing poker machines

4:14

because before, naughty, naughty to we never had

4:17

poker machines to. Needless to say, as soon

4:19

as they did, A pretty soon

4:21

publicans found out that they could break

4:23

even by one pm if I would

4:25

just convert the stage and the dance

4:28

floor into a Vip room and let

4:30

the vulnerable people in a community to

4:32

come on, push the grocery money into

4:34

the snout of the Black Rhino. It's

4:36

so. Digs became hotter. Not a combined.

4:39

Vulnerable People, however, aren't the only

4:41

casualties of Park in the Saints.

4:44

The live music same also just

4:46

changed forever. Fans found it harder

4:48

and harder to get gigs and

4:51

while the original bands sane still

4:53

does continue and can't always has

4:55

and Scoreline Underground Weiss will never

4:58

ever go back to the heyday

5:00

of the Australian cover bands saying

5:02

where they was. A

5:05

like that was the attraction to get people into

5:07

a pubs. There was a bad for a cover

5:09

band like every weekend not front of selling has

5:11

always been. Sunday. Sessions as well.

5:13

There was even a time when to

5:15

do our suit exchange right and that

5:18

some bands who a huge overseas would

5:20

never ever to us. What sprung up

5:22

to fill this gap in the market

5:25

was the idea of a tribute band

5:27

Doc Sort of The Moon, the Australian

5:29

Pink Floyd experienced Meatballs, Fattah Hell was

5:32

abandoned. Played. Both that particular

5:34

make live album just kind of front to

5:36

back with an impersonator in a fat suit

5:38

up but I will. Quite good I'm I'm

5:40

saying I'm ah think the most famous to

5:42

be bad as actually Israeli Bjorn Again it's

5:44

considered the most successful tribute band of all

5:46

time because they did such an epic job

5:49

of being Abba when Abba when interested in

5:51

being Aba but people wanted added to be

5:53

Abba so they paid to go and see.

5:55

People pretend to be aba and didn't hear.

5:58

The even that bad had to go. overseas to get

6:00

any work. There were

6:03

good tribute bands and there were terrible

6:05

tribute bands. And at the moment,

6:08

I myself, I'm doing my

6:11

best to be lead ukulele and

6:13

lead vocals for Dad Zeppelin, the

6:15

worst parenting tribute band of all

6:17

time. If

6:19

you're a parent, you may have read a book about raising

6:21

kids. There's a lot more than just the what to expect

6:23

one. Books about raising kids

6:26

are actually quite wonderful tools, especially for

6:28

those of us who want to perhaps

6:30

not repeat the kind of things that

6:33

we might have gone through when we were young. Not

6:35

to say anything bad about my own parents. I'm

6:37

sure like yours, they did the best

6:40

they could with the tools that they had and

6:42

the cultural norms of the time. And

6:45

so did for that matter. So did my teachers.

6:49

Because I went to school in a time when

6:51

it was perfectly acceptable to whack a misbehaving little

6:53

shit like me. If you're a school

6:55

teacher. I mean, I did

6:58

get whacked and it did help me to

7:00

understand something and to pull my head in a bit. But

7:04

I don't know if I really learned much out of it. But

7:07

now we know better. And so

7:09

we do better. And

7:11

it is in the interest of this that I've read a

7:13

few books about parenting twofold

7:16

because I'm a curious person

7:19

and because I want to learn as

7:21

much as I can about other ways to do things. I'm

7:24

reading a book at the moment about raising

7:26

kids with big brains. Not that

7:29

either G or Wolf have those

7:31

tendencies far from it. They

7:34

are both able to regulate and handle

7:36

the world in far superior ways to

7:38

me, even though one's four and

7:40

a half, one's nearly 20 and I'm a 50 year

7:42

old man. They are superior to me in many, many

7:44

ways. Now I'm reading this book

7:46

about dealing with kids with big brains because I'm

7:49

trying to understand a bit more about myself and

7:52

kind of process what I went through

7:54

as a kid, I think. And

7:57

as I got through this book, There's

8:00

some proper flashbacks. Some of the scenarios

8:02

that are described, it's a

8:04

little like when I needed to get sober and

8:06

I heard other people tell stories that were very

8:08

similar to mine, I was like, oh, I'm not

8:10

a special snowflake. This is the thing that

8:12

happens. Ah, okay. So it

8:14

helped me understand, even though I'm

8:17

getting flashbacks, I'm able to go, oh, right. Oh,

8:19

okay, so this is a common thing. It's

8:21

a common response from people who have brains that

8:24

aren't mine and they're trying to look after a kid like me, this

8:26

common that they would react like this and it's common that

8:29

this particular kid would behave in the

8:31

ways that I remember behaving. Ah,

8:33

good. That means there's a

8:35

solution to it, but it was quite visceral,

8:37

all right. Some of the scenarios that are

8:39

described in this book sound word

8:42

for word, like the things

8:44

that I did and said to my teachers and

8:47

things that were said and done to

8:49

me. Part

8:52

of the challenge for me though,

8:54

as I learn about ways of

8:56

parenting or in particular

8:58

discipline that are now successfully used

9:00

for kids who have brains like

9:02

I have, part of the challenge

9:04

for me is to not be

9:07

resentful. And I do feel

9:09

it come up, all right. But

9:11

luckily I watch two YouTube videos

9:13

about drainage. So I'm up to my shins

9:16

in muddy gravel and being

9:18

eaten by mosquitoes in my backyard while I'm listening

9:20

to this. So I'm able to be in my

9:22

body a bit and kind of notice what's

9:25

happening, but it's hard. It's

9:28

hard, isn't it? To understand

9:30

that there was another option

9:33

than to be shouted at by

9:35

people that you love and

9:37

trust. I

9:39

have to remind myself that these were people

9:42

who didn't understand what else might have been

9:44

going on. It's in a time before the

9:46

tools and the techniques that

9:48

exist now were around to help

9:50

kids who have brains that operate in a

9:52

different way, to help kids to develop skills

9:54

that would allow them to go through life

9:56

with a better chance at things. There's

10:00

a lot of breathing, a lot of big breathing. Now

10:02

what does this have to do with Australian tribute

10:05

bands? For example, how has

10:07

this got anything to do with Basket Case, the

10:09

Australian Green Day Show or Shipping Steel, the

10:12

Australian Cold Chisel experience? Well,

10:15

my band, Dad Zeppelin, which is a solo outfit,

10:17

and when I'm not on ukulele, I play bass,

10:20

Dad Zeppelin is trying as hard as possible to be

10:22

the worst version of my parents that I can possibly

10:24

be, in that I am

10:27

doing everything I can to be a

10:30

parent from a standing start,

10:32

from an assumption of zero knowledge, as if

10:34

I know nothing. Now, of course, that is

10:36

very difficult to do. There

10:39

are ways of being and ways of

10:41

parenting, ways of reacting and ways of

10:43

responding that are wired into us, modelled

10:45

after our family of origin, modelled after

10:48

what we experienced. And we

10:50

don't deliberately do them. Say they were in

10:52

a stressful moment with our kids and someone's

10:54

flinging potato across a room or something. In

10:56

my adult life, generally, I'm not at a

10:58

table where someone I'm dining with

11:01

flings a potato with a catapult fashioned

11:03

out of a spoon to splat it

11:05

on a wall. So

11:07

in that moment, my brain opens up

11:10

a hard drive and searches for a way to

11:12

react to the situation. And

11:14

it brings up the best and only idea

11:16

that I've got, which is just do what

11:18

you did last time this happened, which was

11:20

somewhere around 1982. And

11:22

my brain goes like, quick, shout at them.

11:24

And if they do it again, give them a whack. Now,

11:27

look, I understand the whack is not something I'd ever

11:30

do to my kids. I've never been in

11:32

a fight in my life, never hit anybody. Well, actually, no, I hit

11:34

one person once, but I'll tell you this story another

11:36

time. The shout flies out of

11:38

my mouth before I've even had a chance to

11:40

think about my response. I'm

11:42

unable to intervene. I

11:46

have found myself doing an impersonation of

11:48

my very stressed out mum, 42 years

11:51

ago, who

11:53

is trying to do her best with

11:55

four unruly boys at

11:57

dinner time. And

12:00

I was unable to not let it

12:02

happen. Interrupting those learned responses is quite

12:04

difficult. So this is where I do

12:07

my best to be self-aware

12:09

and just check in with what my body's doing.

12:11

Taking a breath usually helps. Puts a bit of

12:13

space in between action and reaction. Some days it's

12:15

easier than others, depending on how much sleep I've

12:17

had, if I've trained that day. So

12:20

while tribute bands seem

12:22

to still be around and do make a

12:25

bit of money, mostly in South Australia for

12:27

some reason, it's where

12:29

you can go and see new sensation, the Australian and etc.

12:33

While that does seem to happen, and good for them, Dad

12:36

Zeppelin is hopefully never going

12:38

to play a gig that anyone would ever want to be

12:40

at, ever. I'm hoping

12:42

to get worse and worse,

12:44

in fact. And again,

12:46

not because my parents didn't love us or care

12:48

for us, they absolutely did. They did the best

12:50

they could with the tools that they had and

12:53

in response to the experiences they went

12:55

through themselves and the upbringing that they

12:58

had. And I'm sure they

13:00

both adjusted themselves as they went too. My

13:02

folks were wonderful and supportive

13:04

in many, many ways. The best ways that

13:06

they know how, that they knew how. And

13:09

those are the things that I absolutely do for our kids.

13:11

I do them every day. But

13:14

thankfully, I live in a time when

13:16

the research and the interventions for kids who

13:18

have big brains is

13:21

very much focused on helping that kid

13:23

develop as many mechanisms as they can

13:26

within themselves to handle life

13:28

and indeed thrive at life. And

13:31

also that it sees the

13:33

kid and the condition as two separate things, which

13:36

is, I'm so happy for

13:38

kids like that now. And

13:41

while I do still get the flashes of

13:43

resentment that visit my head when I think

13:45

about my time in school, I honestly cannot

13:47

imagine that my old year master looks back

13:49

and thinks, you know, I am so happy

13:51

that I whacked all those kids as hard

13:54

as I could. If

13:56

he's still alive, he'd be retired at this point. I'm

13:59

sure. He would sit in his very big, comfy

14:01

chair watching a replay of the

14:03

1991 Rugby World Cup

14:05

final again. I'm

14:07

sure he sits there and thinks, you know what, we did our

14:10

best. I'm glad that we know better

14:12

now. I can't imagine what it would feel like

14:14

to be that guy going home at night knowing

14:16

that you whacked a couple of kids that day.

14:18

You'd probably feel pretty shit. I hope

14:20

you're okay wherever you are, Dave. I always say your last name,

14:23

but I hope you're okay. Just

14:26

don't expect Dad Zeppelin to come and play at

14:28

the local pub any time soon. Instead,

14:31

I'll be doing my very best to understand

14:34

what things don't belong in 2024 between my kids

14:39

and I and

14:41

do my best to leave them behind. Now,

14:46

I kind of want to sneak into a tribute band

14:48

show and see what

14:50

happens. I once saw Kiss Stereo,

14:53

but I tell you what I'd really love to see is

14:55

Little Kiss. They play in the States and

14:58

they are a kiss tribute band,

15:01

but only little people. I

15:04

have to go, see? I want to go. It'd be amazing because

15:07

I think there's wrestling involved as well. Some of

15:09

the moonlighters wrestle. I just want to go. I'm

15:13

curious. Thank you for being a part of the show.

15:16

Thank you for listening. Well, back here on Wednesday, Jess

15:18

Erlich is here. You may

15:20

know her work. She's from New

15:22

Zealand. She's a poet and her

15:25

writing is extraordinary. She writes

15:27

about parenthood, about

15:30

the kind of stuff we've just been discussing, the

15:32

whole concept of almost re-parenting yourself and realizing things

15:34

about your own parents that you can't

15:37

even know unless you do

15:39

some really solid work with a therapist, do

15:41

a really decent journaling or become

15:44

a step parent or even a

15:46

parent yourself. Her writing

15:48

is so wonderful and so moving and

15:51

the conversation is just a ray of sunshine.

15:54

I can't wait for you to hear it on Wednesday. Thanks

15:56

to everybody who helped me make the show today. Thanks

15:58

to Andy Ma on audio and video. post,

16:00

Abby Benno, our producer, Taylor

16:03

Heider, who made the music, Ben and Monica for keeping

16:05

the lights on on OGTV. Tickets on sale right now

16:07

for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival gigs. The

16:10

newsletters and the show notes, let me know what you

16:12

thought of the show. There's video episodes on YouTube. Thanks

16:14

for being a part of it. See you Wednesday. Do

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Carlos Alcaraz, who is arguably the

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