Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Dai Henwood on living in the moment!

Episode Date: June 9, 2024

Dai shares the hilarious tale of being soaked in a whopping 20 litres of mayonnaise, the moment when a compassionate bystander thought he had aids, and an exciting update about his new book "The Life of Dai." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This John O'Bend podcast brought to you by HelloFresh, the experts and tastes that Kiwis love. Guy, who more joins us in the studio? New book, The Life of Guy. Congratulations, beautiful book. Hey, thanks. It's something I never thought I would actually do, a book, because my job is generally standing up, talking rubbish and walking away. Whereas a book involves a lot of writing, rewriting. And it's there forever. Yeah, exactly. That's what stressed me out because it's like,

I want to get everything right and then there's a point where you've just got to get it out there. Yeah. And then you're editing and they're like, send me a Word document and it's okay,

so we've got about a thousand things you need to look at. Like, is this a, an an or an a? Oh my God. Put it through chat GPT. Exactly. I did. a thousand things you need to look at. Like, is this a, an an, or an a? Oh, they go, oh, they join. And you went and put it through chat GPT. Exactly. I did. And now it's, none of it's about my life.

That's a great talk. No, but it is. It's your story, but then obviously with, you know, what you've been going through for the last few years, it's also about hope and motivation, and people can take a lot for their lives out of what you've gone through. That's the whole thing with this book.

It's got a lot of laughs in it. It's got my sort of trajectory through comedy, and then it moves into what I've been dealing with with sort of an incurable cancer diagnosis over the last four years. A lot of tips in there, how you just can deal with anxiety and depression and things like that.

So I'm super proud of it. Plus it's got just the weird life I've lived and the weird how I've ended up doing gigs. I've got a great story in there about my weirdest gig where I show up and look at the line-up. Savage. The rapper. The rapper.

He's great. He's awesome. Myself and Buzz Aldrin. That was the line-up. Where? At Sky Grand Convention Centre. Now, your average late 60s space nerd is not a massive fan of New Zealand hip-hop.

Savage and I, right? We've got a bit of crossover with our audience. So Buzz Aldrin goes up. Is he opening it? He's opening it. So I go up and I just welcome people. Then Buzz Aldrin's the warm-up act. He comes out.

And he's always good value, Buzz Aldrin. Because Neil Armstrong got on the moon, right? Yeah. He had the one great step for man, one giant step for mankind. Buzz Aldrin was the last person out of the spaceship. He gets out, shuts the door, pats his suit and goes,

I left the bloody keys in there. He planned a gag. So he said, I've locked us out of the spaceship. I left the keys in there. That is brilliant. First thing he does on the moon. That should have been the line that we all remember. I know.

How good was that if it was just a gag? So they go, get Buzz Aldrin up. He's a bit of an interesting guy, right? Because he punched out someone in a courtroom, remember? Who said they didn't land on the moon? Yeah, who said the moon landing was fake? Yeah. He does his thing.

Then the organizer goes to me, now, you go up there and you go, thanks very much to Buzz Aldrin. Now now can you please give it up so i do that savage comes out white towel the crowd is slowly like takes a few mates go oh come and, come and watch the Savage gig. There's no one else here. Just with me. All right. I reckon people have been at a long lunch at a sort of flash-type restaurant.

You're on your third bottle of peanut green. Maybe Savage. Maybe you go buzz Aldrin to Savage. There's fun stories in there. It's a very conversational read. Jackie Brown, who's just, we were talking off air, Megan. Yeah, I love that woman. And it's great that you guys are still friends because you talk in the book that, you know,

she was hosting a show, Pop Goes the Weasel, and one of the gags was to tip mayonnaise all over you at the end you had no idea about it like drop from the roof and you're allergic to eggs yeah so you glossed over quite a crucial point in that story i was meant to just be wrestling a porn star in a paddling pool of mayonnaise no the mayonnaise had nothing to do with it. It was just a paddling pool, which was the diameter of the ring. Jeez, you've done some high concept stuff over the years. Buzz Aldrin's porn stars in pools. So they were like, there's Pop Goes the Weasel music game show. If you lose this round, you have to wrestle a porn star in a paddling pool.

So I'm standing in a paddling pool just thinking, how can I do this? It's awkward. Where do you grab them without it getting awkward? So then we both step into the paddling pool. 20 litres of mayonnaise falls out of the lighting grid. And I'm just panicking. I'm allergic to egg. I get anaphylactic shock.

I start swelling a bit. Oh, you actually have a reaction. Yeah, I'm just screaming, I'm allergic to eggs. You've got to tell someone when you drop mayonnaise on them. How's the porn star reacting to this? Strangely, this felt like just another day at the office for her. I definitely had a few more issues with it. You've got to tell someone.

I know, you've got to tell someone. Because I'm like, I could just act it. And even if you know someone's going gonna drop 20 liters of mayonnaise on you it's still surprising yeah and so then once the the furore had died down i'd like had been checked up i hadn't swallowed any it was sort of okay i just had a bit of swelling on my face. Then we suddenly realised they went, oh, this is a TV studio. Those lights are really hot. And it was the three news studio where we recorded the pilot.

So Sam Hayes and Mick Roberts, the whole studio stunk of mayonnaise for like three weeks. You boys remember the C4 days. Oh, wow. There was no HR department. There was nothing. You've got an idea.

You have to go to air. So we've got to do something. And sometimes you haven't fully thought through the repercussions of how it might play out. Honestly, I believe that's how all of our TV careers started is just out of pure desperation for them to fill air time. We were pretty much delivering this tape as it was going into press play. No one was watching any of this before it went to air.

You've got Di Henwood with us. The life of Di, the book out now. You must have found it quite therapeutic going through this whole writing process, I imagine. So ironically, it was therapeutic, but it was also, I was doing chemotherapy at the time of writing it and at the publication of the book i'd done 20 rounds of chemo i've done 26 now um it was also sort of

therapeutic yet traumatic in a way because i was then going through this sort of intense six surgeries i've had six major surgeries and all this chemo and radiation so i was sort of intense six surgeries. I had six major surgeries and all this chemo and radiation. So I was sort of going through that and piecing it together. But then it was actually sort of a testament to how much a human can go through. And also I'm a very positive person, and my sort of motto through this and my motto for life is that optimism won't cure me but pessimism will kill me

you've got to keep i've got to just get out there and live life and it's about just remembering you've got to love you've got to love yourself you've got to love your friends and you've got to just live today i'm living with cancer and not people, people who aren't touched with something that maybe makes them aware on the clock, like, oh, I actually have a finite time, which we all do. A lot of people aren't living. And I'm like, I can pack so much life in today.

I'm not doing treatment. I'm talking with mates. Living in the moment is a big thing through the book. Yeah, and that's the thing. It's like, you're on Instagram, you see a lot'll just living in the moment it's a big thing through the book you know yeah and that's the thing it's like you're on instagram you see a lot of people living in the moment with their lulu lemon leggings promoting a portable blender you know i'm just living in the moment but it's actually so hard to do that whole idea of mindfulness being present is really hard to do so now i'm far more conscious of okay i'm going out to play mini golf with my daughter just put the phone in the car yeah just good on you yeah you've got a

in your in your in your front yard or backyard as well yeah so that sort of gives you a moment to stop and reflect as well yeah i'm i'm sort of when i was, I was over in Japan, and my dad was touring a theatre show, and one of the actors was a Buddhist. And she took me to a monastery, and I learnt full Zen Buddhism and Zazen meditation. Then I got on the piss for about 20 seconds. LAUGHTER And then, strangely enough,

I sort of got sober just before my diagnosis. And then when I had my diagnosis, I could fall back on this foundation of meditation I had in that. And that's been so amazing for keeping my head straight. Because the thing is, if I'm worrying about my next chemo, which I'll probably have to do some radiation and chemo in the near future, if I'm worrying about that now, it's ruining today. I'll have plenty of time to freak out about it when I'm driving there. You know, like don't worry twice. What a great way to approach it because you obviously went through it,

but just personally, I think it was one to two years before you went public with it. So a lot of people go through cancer, but then having to go through it on such a public platform i imagine a huge outpouring of support how do you handle all that it helped being public i was worried about how it was going to happen because i'd been private and people were just coming up to me in the street or after gigs coming up real hard out yeah bro but and then i was had all the sadness and trauma that was going on i was just bottling it up and now people just come up with so much empathy and granted a lot of people get the wrong end of the stick sometimes but i'd done this interview with jackie brown where i came out publicly and um I went out was it an hour on

YouTube it was a little segment on the project the next day this guy comes up to me in my cafe and went mate that interview just really touched me I mean I'm so sorry to hear about your AIDS oh mate did you watch it with the sound on? He went, I watched the whole thing. And I'm like, you really got the wrong end of the stick there, bro. But thank you. And the thing was, he was honestly kind. Yeah.

And then it got me thinking, what else in your life are you just getting Horrendously wrong The life and die It's so good As you said before It's great for What you can do Supporting people You know

Things like I thought it was really good Just do something Don't ask them questions Oh completely If someone's going through something Bring them around a meal Or take their kids out

Or things like that Without asking them Giving them another question Definitely make sure You know their kids don't just go around and grab their kids that's the thing is because when people are going through something massive especially on the health front so much of it is decision fatigue but if you just go flick them i'd just put 50 bucks here's a 50 buck uber eats voucher or you know here's for me i was given um some amazing like linen sort of sleep pants like nice and they have been they

went through all my hospital trips for me they're so comfortable it's that thing of like i wouldn't have thought to get them for myself and And it was just a little bright spark. And we've got mates who are very close with my kids, and that thing of, hey, I'll take you out to the blues game or something like that. And it's just, then the kids are having a great time, you know, because even though we've been very honest with our children, there's still, you know, they can feel the tension or the worry.

Yeah. So, no, just jump in. you know, they can feel the tension or the worry that's sort of in the house. So, no, just jump in. And also you can't do anything wrong. It's a bit like when you're trying to speak a language you can't speak. If you're making the effort honestly, people appreciate that. It doesn't matter if you make mistakes. And if someone out there is dealing with something big and you just,

when you're having a coffee with them, hey, do you want to chat about it? Well, nah, and you know, just go sometimes, hey, I'm just sick of talking about it, let's just talk. Because you wonder that, you know, I've caught up with you and we did the Warriors, you know, do you bring it up or do you just go, hey, we're here for the Warriors you probably don't want to talk about it, let's talk about the Warriors would you watch 20 to 30 hours

a week of league, I read in the book? Yeah, on a quiet week. And I would time it. I'd time my surgeries with the league round. So I'd always get a surgery on a Thursday and it would usually, I'd come to about 9pm and then I'd watch it on my iPad. I came out of my liver surgery

and because I don't tolerate opioids very well, they give me ketamine instead. So they gave me ketamine, which is quite full on. And I'm watching my iPad, and the Warriors are playing in 3D on my stomach. And I was like to the nurse check this out check this game is amazing two harris's on my chest and so i did have the joy of watching probably the most amazing game of rugby league in my life and then because there's like eight games in a weekend then i'd be in hospital and i would have something to look forward to although when i'd had a um lung surgery

and they're really monitoring your vitals they wouldn't allow me to watch the warriors because they said i was in the it's like lung and heart area and they said oh it's just people have had heart heart issues then they put the Warriors on, and that's fine. Oh, it's not good for them. They're sitting at the nurse's bay, and everyone's heart monitors are going. Oh, Diane, what a wonderful human being. The Life of Diets, a must-read. Really, really good book, and all good bookstores now.

We appreciate your time, mate. Oh, it's lovely to be in here. Awesome to see you.