Life Uncut - The best of THE PICKUP - 30th April

Episode Date: April 30, 2023

It's our weekly round up! The best of the week from our National radio show THE PICKUP. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gavigal land of the Aurora Nation. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany.

And I'm Mitch. Because this is The Picker. Oh my gosh. this show this week was so jam-packed with like everything you can imagine i feel like we covered some real ground yeah like emotional whiplash it was right took me everywhere yeah we had our highs we had our lows we spoke to so many different people probably one of the most interesting for me actually this week was um actually i have two but one of them is a perth woman that we spoke to who couldn't find love in australia so she went and fell in love with a prisoner from america i

I know that we should say we shouldn't yuck anyone's yarn, but I'm not yucking it, but I'm interested. I just think it's a very challenging set up. It's hard to choose someone who lives in another country. Long distance is hard enough. That was very diplomatic. Long distance and in prison, challenging. I just find it extreme.

I find these chats, and I would have loved to have spoken to them longer, but I find them so interesting. Like how did you get there? How did it start? Then how did it evolve? And how is it going to physically work? work what's going to happen at the end like there are so it's like an onion so I love that you're all you're saying is like all the unanswered questions we have we didn't ask her no but we

we didn't know but that's what I mean this is what I'm interested in we asked her a lot of it but I still could have kept talking to her I think there's got to be an aspect of her that is with him for the excitement of it or it's not even him it is the it's the chase and the thrill and the story behind it all it has to be I like I mean people are definitely attracted to like obviously toxic relationships we talked about so many times and I'm not saying that this relationship is toxic but it's definitely unconventional and it can't act like a normal relationship because you physically can't be together. I think there's a lot, to be honest, I think there's a lot of it

that's altruistic and when I say that it's because a lot of people that end up in these relationships with prisoners is because they start because they genuinely want to help them. They want to help them reform. They want to help them in there. They want to help them have a better life. Empathetic, like they're a carer. Yeah, so I feel like a lot of people in their relationships only want to,

even if they're not in prison, they want to date people that they have to help. So I think there's definitely a level of that. It was an interesting chat for sure. Well, something else that was quite interesting is the fact that Mitch and I are getting married. We've fallen in love. Happened very quickly. Yes, we are.

It's been really fast. Shotgun wedding. Britt is emceeing it. And look, I think it's a beautiful ceremony. I agree. And the sex is great with us because we just don't have it. I think you sort of need to tell people a bit about why you're getting married. Because we're in love.

We love each other. Yeah, we want to be together. Love knows no bounds. No bounds. Okay, I'll tell you because they're not playing along. But I got asked to emcee my brother's wedding and Mitch and Laura weren't sure that I would have the talent or skill required to do a successful emceeing. So they've asked me to do a fake emcee wedding speech for their fake wedding. Yeah, I mean, I emcee weddings on the side.

It's what I do for work sometimes and I emcee all my friends' and family's weddings. So we thought I'll actually watch your performance and I'll tell you if I think you've got the chops to emcee a wedding. Well, really, I just thought it was because we loved each other. But anyway, if you guys want to go and check the galleries, see you. Don't fight like this in front of a friend. Darling. Also on the show, you know what we discuss? What?

This is important. It actually is very important. You've probably heard about this. It's been all over the press. But the Presbyterian Church wanting to ban students that identify as queer or straight kids that are sexually active from rising to positions of leadership within Catholic schools. In terms of school captains and things like that. Yes, and I'm gay and I was school captain in both primary school and high school. And, yes, I do want to preface by saying I had the privilege of not being out when I was school captain because being an out queer kid is much harder than being a queer kid that knows it but isn't out and still gets to hide behind that fact that, no, I'm straight.

We have a conversation about it because it is discrimination. That's what it is. Yeah, and Mitch shares exactly, like, how you feel about that, being someone who's been in that position. Yeah, exactly. All right, well, let's get into the show. Ladies, I was out on the weekend with a couple of pals, a couple of guy friends. Do you have friends other than us? Shock, horror, yes.

Okay, continue. No two girlfriends, just they're all boys. They're the only girls I know, which does tie into this, yeah, because I'm a gay man. I was with all my gay buddies on the weekend. We were having drinks. It was lovely, and dinner. And I got approached by two guys that apparently I went to school with.

I didn't know them. I was obviously in an older year. They were in a younger year. They came up to me. They listened to the show. They listened to other things that I do. They've seen me around. And they both thanked me for being openly gay.

And I was out to dinner with my boyfriend. and I saw a couple of them at Mardi Gras as well and they didn't come up to me and it was a moment that I hadn't really had before where I was thanked for being openly gay and it really touched me. I'd never had that before. Thanks in terms of you've helped them,

they're obviously gay, you've helped them feel comfortable in who they are? Exactly, yeah. I mean, where I'm from, it's a predominantly heterosexual Caucasian community and I think seeing me in school and seeing me flourish outside of school especially touched them because they're obviously gay themselves, yeah.

Well, because you, correct me if I'm wrong, Mitch, you weren't gay at school. I mean, you were gay, but you didn't come out at school. No, I didn't come out until 2018. I've only recently come out in the last five years or so. But then it got us talking about everything that's happening down in Victoria now with the Presbyterian Church that have come out and said, if you are a queer kid, if you are gay and you are in any of these religious schools in Victoria, essentially you can't rise to a position of power, which was me.

I was school captain in both primary school and in high school. Still wear the badges proudly every day. He's wearing it right now. Did you feel when you were at school, and I mean, you went to a public school, did you feel that you weren't able to come out? Did you feel that there was a lot of shame around it? I mean, and this is, how many years ago were you at school? I left in 2013.

Okay. And did you hold that in because you were worried about the judgment at the time or were you just not at a point where you'd grappled with your own sexuality? Oh, it was 100% because of everyone else. If it was a perfect world, I would have come out the moment I realized when I was eight and when I was nine. How does it make you feel then seeing this? I mean, knowing that, one, you were school captain in your school and seeing what's going on in Victoria, that if you go to a Presbyterian school there, that if you are a queer kid or if you're someone who is not even queer, if you're sexually active, that you're no longer potentially allowed to have a role of leadership within the school because it doesn't uphold the Christian values of the school.

Ridiculous. I mean, one, I think you made this point, Laura, how are they going to police it? I mean, are they going to go on your phone and see if you've got gay Tinder or, like, look through your apps and, yeah, yeah, turn up to school and they're going to have a metal detector and go, anyone got any sex toys? It's ridiculous. It's not going to be about that, but it's going to be about suppressing, and I'm going to say child because they are a child, they're under 18. It's suppressing kids to say, well, if you want to achieve anything here of significance, don't be gay. Don't come out, don't be queer. And that's going to cause a whole bunch of problems.

I can't tell you how awful it was going through school in year 12, trying to work out my HSC, trying to keep my parents happy, keep my friends happy, without the notion of potentially being different to everyone and being gay. Then I realised that on top of it, then the bullying that goes on top of it, it was one of the worst periods of my life. That's why I didn't come out until five years after school. Imagine saying, it's literally, the more I'm thinking about it, the more infuriated I am. Imagine saying you are less than, you are not worthy of what your peers are worthy of because you are choosing. Not even, I mean, we all know sometimes it's not a choice. This is the discussion. But you're less than your peer because you're queer.

That rhymes. That is a trademark. That should not be, this should not be happening to these poor kids in school. It shouldn't happen to anyone. Nobody should be at a disadvantage because they identify as queer. All it is is enforcing that this is wrong. Fundamentally, that something that you can't change, that you were born with, is wrong. And you cannot be equal to someone in your exact same year because of this difference.

That you wake up every day and you are stuck with. The torture that it would do to young queer kids, it upsets me. But a young kid in high school, it would do irreversible damage for their whole life. Well, I think it also reinforces. I mean, we know that queer kids experience bullying at school. It also reinforces that it's okay to other someone. And it's coming from the top down. The people who are in power, who are supposed to protect, who are supposed to encourage,

who are supposed to help you be the best, the brightest, most engaged person. it's they're saying be you but be different yeah and then reinforces to everybody else that it's okay for them to other you at the same time did you mitch experience i mean you knew you were gay from nine years old i was a kid yeah but you obviously felt that you couldn't come out did you experience bullying at school because were you perceived as gay was it assumed you were gay what was your experience like yes i mean you know the six inches of coiffed hair at the top and being And the leader of the drama department didn't help. A little giveaway, yeah.

It was a little dead giveaway, yeah. But it was assumed that I was gay. I had got all the slurs under the sun. And I'm lucky that I had a great family and I was lucky that I was headstrong enough. But you get one kid who has, it's awful, you get one kid who's got a tough upbringing and he's also grappling with their sexuality and that is enough to really ruin someone's life. And I mean this coming from a public school where I'm guessing was more accepting than say a Presbyterian school where they are making it very clear

how not acceptable it is, and that's being reinforced. One of the things I thought was really interesting, so the Scotch College chairman, Alex Sloan, came out and said, we will continue to reflect values of respect, tolerance, and inclusion. It's okay to say one thing, but you're doing the complete opposite. There is nothing about tolerance or inclusion that's happening here when you say that children who are queer cannot take leadership roles. Calling bullshit on Sloan, sorry.

Literally. Also, if your beliefs are stopping others from doing something that is inherently part of them, they're not beliefs. It's discrimination. It's also just saying, I am so furious, it's also just saying that queer people essentially do not have the skills to be successful or leaders in any aspect of life. It's saying how shameful it is.

It's bringing it back to shame and I think that we've worked so hard to try and get to a place where people do not feel shameful about their sexuality and it's one step forward, 17 steps back. And if you want to push gay people out, enjoy having no entertainment. I mean, every show you watch is produced, created. I'm gay. I'm talking on the radio.

Turn the radio off if you don't want to hear me. You know what I mean? I mean, nothing will be fun anymore if you get rid of the gay people. It's true. The gay. You're the only fun ones that there are. That's exactly right. No, but on a serious note, thoughts are out there, kids who are going through this, because

it is rough. And my DMs are always open. Absolutely. And I second that. Mitch's DMs are always open. But ours are too. I was a joke. But ours are, we're always here.

Now, it's no secret that I was single for a very long time. A solid decade I was on the app swiping left, right and centre. You've got calluses on your fingers. I had RSI in my thumb. Yeah, it caused me a lot of problems. I saw wrists, things like that. Well, that was from the swiping before you guys get ahead of yourself. But I came across a lot of people in that time, a lot of dates.

I even came across Channing Tatum. I came across some famous people. On Raya? Yeah, because I was on all the apps. I was on so many apps. Brittany's done them all. I had no storage on my phone. but um one person i did not come across is a man by the name of stephen pierre tomlin he's 32

and i don't know how i didn't come across him because he is officially tinder's most swiped man he is the most swiped person in the world on tinder that was in 2017 14 600 right swipes i want to know how the hell someone does that so i decided to call him he's in he's in london It's 4 a.m. Hi, Pierre. Hi, Stefan. How are you? Hey, Stefan.

Yeah, really well, thanks. Thanks for having me, guys. How's it going? I need to know, how on earth is it even remotely possible to have 14,000 matches? Like how much time do you spend on Tinder in order to rack up that many swipes? Do you know what?

Yeah, obviously it became a bit of a game for me at the time. Love is not a game, Stefan. Yeah, it was quite addictive. No, I spent probably about two hours a day. wow on tinder uh back in 2017 wow stefan pierre i i need to know people in the car would be thinking what the hell does this guy look like um because you to get that many right swipes right for those who aren't on the apps right is yes left is no so i mean how tall are you do you want to i mean you're handsome you got beautiful beautiful eyes white teeth thank you so much you're so kind

but i mean it is it is 4 30 in the morning so i'm probably not looking the best right now you're Handsome man. You're pretty good. I'm currently, well, I'm six foot two and a half. I've been a fashion model for six and a half, oh, sorry, 13 years. Oh, wow. Signed.

I've worked with some big brands like D Squared, Armani, Burberry. And so is that what your profile's like? I'm tall, dark, and handsome. But let us know what your profile is like because you've, I mean, 14,600 people have swiped right. So give us some tips. What are your pictures like and what's your bio like? yeah so um the first picture was a professional one um yeah and uh it was a portrait photo of

myself um the bio is quite snappy i think i had a little joke in there i'm not actually on tinder at the moment um and the pictures have to be really used to be careful not to have your friends in the pictures um because then it becomes a game of like where's wally yeah and if you got it depends on your hot your hobbies as well so mine's flying so I had quite a few pictures of me flying as well and then you sort of attract people into aviation but I mean if you're like into horse riding then it's always recommended to put a picture of your hobby in as well always helps so in order to go through this many swipes and matches did you have your like parameters set to everything were you like you can be up to 100 and live in Spain what was your parameters for dating yeah they were

quite wide actually i think at that time i was there probably 18 up to 45 18 to 45 that's a wide net um hold on so how many of these are you turning around into actual dates you know i was quite fussy actually um because initially when when tinder told me that i was the most white man it was on statistics so it's how many people right swipe you um and yeah being being a fashion model traveling up and down the country and being on national tv as well i've done like eight or nine dating shows so my face was quite familiar so but you're still single um i'm actually i'm actually seeing someone at the moment yeah i am seeing someone at the moment um yeah just seeing how things go at the moment to be fair i'm actually um helping unfortunate men um at the moment

using ai um yeah i'm sort of love coaching at the moment so i'm passing the love don't look at me when you say unfortunate men um explain what you're doing so you're profiting off being the most white men on tinder how are you using ai to help other guys yeah so we've actually made an app which which yeah so i'm using ai chat gpt and some special um ai prompts we basically ask them for photos and we put them through us we put them through the software and it makes about 40 to 45 ai generated pictures some people say catfishing but i don't think it is it's just yeah it's just being ahead of the game really but it's changing their picture i know but like if you compare it in comparison to like in the past when i was swiping there was a lot of girls that use filters

right oh i get his no i get his point yeah girls yeah and guys and guys yeah i mean those filters attracting a certain type of guy, right, that's exactly the same thing. Don't you feel like you, yeah, you turned up and you were like, hey, you tricked me with your filters. Don't you think you're tricking people now with your man filters? Well, yeah, I kind of felt like that at some stage, but at the end of the day, you still bagged the date, right? Okay, why do you think people need this service?

Like when you say unfortunate men, what makes a man unfortunate? yeah yeah when i say unfortunate i mean it's someone that wouldn't necessarily match others um as i've been it's quite a hard one actually it's just someone that needs help with their online dating um for example it could be someone that's you know not very good at the chat um needs a bit of coaching with their bio we actually go through my team goes through their social media and tells them to sort of you know take down pictures change this and that so it's like fine tweaking and we we've got the highest success rate we've changed um quite a lot of men from zero to hero stefan if you had to write like a caption for me on tinder what would you write

knowing me in this short period of time looking at me how would you describe what would my tinder bio be if i hired your expertise i would i would put i'm a funny man i'm handsome and i work in radio short and simple oh wow short and sharp how much money are you making how much would i pay for that yeah so yeah we charge 45 pounds um a month um and this includes half an hour coaching with myself and my team um and obviously you get your ai generated pictures and you get all your edited profile uh prompts as well it just makes dating like so lazy you don't have to do anything anymore literally we can call you up and then you can do it for us do people can they come to you and say oh i'm not sure how to respond to this message or i don't know what the right way yeah like is that

the sort of detailed level that you can give to somebody who's wanting you know a bit of dating yeah no 100 i mean everyone's different right we've got confidence coaches we've got um yeah we've got myself i'm basically the modern day hitch so yeah i got asked something incredible yesterday guys and no it was not to marry ben that was not the question i feel like we would have known about that by now had that been the question everyone on social media would have known too no i'd probably turn into radio content yeah you gotta really use your life no i got asked by my brother and his fiancee to emcee their wedding that was a simultaneous i don't know how i would feel if that was me so i want to be happy and i i want to do it a part of me because he might be

listening yeah he's here now in the car no but i just feel like there's immense amount of pressure like to get asked to mc a wedding because i know the reason they said like they want we we want you to be the mc because you're funny you have this radio job you speak for a living you have the podcast but actually you know mitch we've spoken about this before because mitch you're a very funny person laura you are too but mitch is a very naturally can always funny person and you and i have spoken about this just off air in terms of when because i i have this bad habit of introducing you to people it's like oh it's the funniest guy you'll meet you say it a lot all the time yeah so you have said like it's always hard then because you feel like you've

got to be on your a game all the time that's how i feel i think people think i'm going to come in and do this amazing job. How do I emcee a wedding? You emcee everything. Yeah, I emcee a lot of weddings. I'm the go-to for all my friends because obviously I'm a radio person. I've been doing it for years. And everyone asks me.

To the point where you end up not enjoying weddings of people close to you, I emcee my sister's wedding and I didn't really get to enjoy the day because I was so focused on doing such a good job and I feel you do the same. I think everyone thinks because it is a very prestigious thing to be asked to be a bridesmaid, a maid of honour, an emcee. They are very prestigious roles to play in a wedding. But not everybody wants to be asked because it is, I mean,

it just means, like you said, Mitch, you don't get to sit there and have a few wines and relax and laugh. You've got to bring the entertainment. Oh, my God. A good emcee makes or breaks a wedding. If they're bad, the wedding sucks. I forgot that you just two minutes ago off air asked me to emcee your 40th. Thank God you didn't ask me.

30th? 30th? Sorry, 30th. Which is in three years. I actually forgot you just asked me. Mitch is a baby. So what, okay, I have until October. So they've asked me now.

I have a lot of time to plan my jokes. What do I do? Okay, well, this is good because I get paid to MC weddings. I've got tips for you. Tip number one, it's not your day. It's not about you. For God's sake, the wedding is about the bride and the groom. Oh, I'm not marrying my brother?

Shock horror. No, but you know you go to weddings and some MCs make it all about themselves. It's a stand-up routine. You can't just tell jokes about yourself. But you also have to find that very nice balance between roasting your brother, roasting the groom and the bride, but also doing it with tender love. So it has to be equal portions of roast then love, roast then love. Like a sandwich, like a roast beef love sandwich.

Yeah, with lots of love put in there. Because I think some MCs think it's all about comedy, comedy, comedy hour. And then you walk away from it and you're like, do they even like each other? I don't have a problem roasting my brother. So moving on, what's the next one? What about loving? You need the love, yeah. What about that?

Oh, no, I can sprinkle the love on top. Say you love your brother. Dane, I love you. Believable. She's also a paid actress, but you're a dickhead. All right, next point. You need to make sure you have a personal connection with the bride and groom. There is also nothing worse than going to a wedding where they've clearly paid for someone that they've never met

and they had one brunch with before the wedding and, well, this is our perfect emcee and they get the name wrong and it's a mess and it's awful. Mitch, this is my brother. I've got a personal connection. Can you give me some points I can use? They came out of the same womb. Yeah. Okay, true.

It was very true. So what's some points I can use? I think you need to come fully prepared. Don't wing it because Brittany wings everything. I do. You need to write points. You need to know the ins and the outs. You need to know where the bathrooms are.

You're like a flight attendant. You know where the emergency exit rows are. You need to know everything. Also, Brittany, okay, how do we feel about this? Britt loves a revealing dress. I wish I could share with you the dress that she was going to wear to my wedding. Yeah, keyword going to. I didn't wear it.

It was a piece of floss. And I'm glad that you saw it and you thought maybe this one won't be appropriate. So how revealing can the MC be? Do you have to be a bit demure or can you just get the girls out for the party? I was going to wear a three-piece suit. No, the girls can be out. You want to be looked at. You've got to command attention.

So I think get the puppies out. Okay, right. Get the puppies out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to give the old people some reason to, you know, enjoy the wedding. What, my breasts? Oh, they're all family too, actually. No, wrong.

No, wrong. We don't know what the Huffleys do in their family. I think the best way to vet your gig of emceeing your brother's wedding is to write a practice introduction. Let's say, for example, you know what? Let's throw a little pick-up wedding. Let's do it. We invite you here today to celebrate the wedding of Laura Byrne.

Johnson, who's already married. Laura Johnson. Yes, I mean, polygamy's fine. Yep, and Mitch Chury, myself. Oh, Mitch, I've always wished that we were in a relationship and that you were heterosexual and asked me to marry you. That's also weird, Matt. Block your ears.

We'll never get together. We'll sleep in separate bedrooms. That's perfect. But we'll have the best friendship ever. Oh, that's so much fun. And share a wardrobe. We get to watch movies all the time. Oh, it's not about us.

Not about us. It's about you. Tomorrow on the show, you need to go to bed and you need to prepare an introductory statement as if you were emceeing our wedding and then perform it to us on the next show. You're giving me homework. You know I hate homework. You just said I love to be on the fly. I hate homework.

Well, we're just making sure that you can actually prepare for something because we know you don't prepare for this show. And a good emcee prepares. So the next show, we want to see. I'm writing an introductory wedding speech for my co-host, Miss Thierry and Laura Byrne-Johnson. Yeah, because we love each other. We never touch each other.

No, sleep in separate beds. So, yeah, standard marriage. Yeah, essentially, yes. Maybe once your brother hears this, he'll decide whether or not he actually wants you to be the MC or not. He might call us afterwards and say, sorry, Brandon, you know, you're good at radio, but MCing's not the strong point. Let's role play.

So, babe, the wedding's about to start. Oh, my God, I love you so much. I hope Brittany says wonderful things about us. Should we consummate? Ew. why don't you love me excuse me everyone can we have some quiet it is time to start the wedding sit down take your seats most of us have gathered here today for the same reason and that is the buffet but for those psychopaths that don't love an all you can eat and are here to actually

celebrate the wedding of mitch and laura i welcome darling i welcome you all i'm sure you are all as confused as i am by this union but uh hey if there's one thing i've learned from these two wonderfully chaotic humans here it's well actually come to think of it i haven't learned a lot um but let's just roll with it it's kind of like a gross thing at the moment yeah i'm not feeling the love yet these two have so many similarities that make this union today absolutely perfect we both like men one of those shared similarities is their stubbornness and determination they really do go above and beyond to ensure success in all aspects of their life nothing stands in their way no matter how big small or gay literally not even the fact that mitch is gay and laura is

married with kids will stop them we love each other no we do no laura's and mitch love is built on a foundation of trust respect reality tv and mutual piss taking they have a deep understanding of each other's needs and desires and they work together to make each other's dreams a reality their love is a shining example of what true love can be in a fantasy world okay and the only greater thing than their commitment to each other is their commitment to content creation it truly is an inspiration to everyone and i am so honored to stand here today and wish you both a lifetime of happiness and no sex i will hire you to be the mc at our at our imaginary wedding i will just say as someone who mcs wedding for a living i get paid to do it you had lightness you had love

you had humour towards the end that was actually really beautiful for a moment there I was like wouldn't this be a beautiful wedding speech

we should do a bitch I almost thought we were getting married for a point well if I'm being honest the last sentimental part was AI but the rest of it

was me what you got artificial intelligence I got the artificial intelligence to write the sentimental part because I just don't love you guys enough but I could do

the piss take part that's so good alright well what I've gone and done is I don't know Britt doesn't know this but we've got Dane Britt's brother

on the line hi Dane thanks for joining us on the pick up mate How are you? Hey, good. How are you going? Oh, hi, Dane.

Dane, I feel like you've actually made a pretty good choice here. I firstly was going to say I don't know if Britt's emceeing will be up to the match, but I'll tell you, that was pretty good. Dane, did you just hear that? I didn't know you were on the line. Yeah, no, it was all right. Oh, okay. Sorry, do you have higher expectations of me?

Do you still want Britt to be the emcee? Yeah, well, I could have gone either way, really, but I figured she's a lot better at public speaking than I am and I can't really emcee my own wedding, so she might as well have a crack at it. Wait, no, you can't emcee your own wedding. Wait, what I'm getting from this is that if you could have, you would have preferred to have done the job yourself,

but you gave it to your sister. Yeah, 100%. Okay. I'm sorry, I thought I was calling you to say I'll do it, but are you calling to let me know if I'm allowed? No, no, you can do it. 100%. Take some pressure off me.

But I reckon I've given you a nice carry over the years and it's probably time you gave me some back in return. Oh, absolutely. Dane, can you tell us why did you choose, apart from the fact that we all know Brit can speak underwater because it's literally her job, why did you choose Brit to be your MC? Yeah, there's three other siblings.

Yeah, well, yeah, Mitch, he'd be all right, but he'd probably just get into too much politics and all the other jazz that he likes to talk about. He's very political, my brother. The old man would just talk about frigging Banjo Patterson. That's true. He'd recite a poem. So we need to get to the point.

So, Brittany, you need to decide now whether or not you want to accept Dane's offer, which kind of was taken back, but also now it's back on the table. It sounds like you're the best of a bad situation, really. Dane, you have put me through 36 years of absolute hell. We fought, we kicked, we screamed, but I would be honoured to be your MC. if you're still having it. I'll have you.

I'll have you for sure. Happy ending, Dane. Thank you. And also, congratulations, Dane. Congrats on the big wedding. Thank you. You're invited if you want to come. Sure.

I love a free buffet. The whole pickup can come. Dane, can I come to the box? I love a titty bar. We're going to have the 1770 Fission, so come along. I'm there every weekend anyway, so brilliant. I'll see you out there. Girls, and everyone listening, we all have a single friend right now

Because we're all in relationships, committed relationships, and we all have a single friend out there that can tell us how bad it is and how grim it is out there in the dating scene. I mean, I was the single friend for 10 years, and I can tell you it was horrific. Trying to find a relationship was tough work. Online dating, you know, trying to do the rounds at the bars. Swiping through the apps. It can be really hard. But the thing we're not doing, we're not looking in the right places. We're not looking in federal prisons.

Oh, my God. That's what I did wrong. Yes. What do you mean? You need to find yourself a prison pen pal. This is true. An Aussie woman, Savannah Pfeiffer, has fallen in love with her American prisoner, Pen Pal. So she's a fly-in, fly-out worker over in Perth.

She's really busy, can't really lock someone down and find love. So what she's done is she's just gone and floundered out to Nevada in the United States to meet with a man that she's had correspondence with via the pen pal system. Did you mean that pun when you said she couldn't lock someone down, so she found someone who's literally locked down? No, I didn't. No, that's good, though. I should have.

Let's cross over to Nevada now because we actually have Savannah joining us. Hi, Savannah. You're not in the prison right now, are you? You're at home? Hi, Savannah. Hi. I'm not at the prison. Hi, hi.

Savannah, I love that Mitch just said you've flown over there to speak to someone you've had correspondence with, but it's your boyfriend, isn't it? Alex, who is in prison in Nevada, is your boyfriend? Yes. And so how did you get, like, I have a billion questions. Let's start from the start. How did you get to the point where you were a pen pal with someone in prison? So going back probably about two and a half years ago, I saw a TikTok of a girl who was doing something actually for like a university course.

It was more so research, if you could say, where she was writing a pen pal and he was really good at art. So she turned his art into stickers, sold it on Etsy, was making him money, like a release fund, basically, helping when he gets out. So I kind of wanted to do the same thing. um i wrote to somebody through write a prisoner which is a website not alex somebody else um and they wrote me one letter i wrote them back and i never actually heard from them again you got ghosted from a prisoner pretty much but um turned out to be the best thing really because um he is actually friends with alex and said well he started speaking to somebody else and he found a connection

so he passed my details on to alex and at first i was really mad i was like what so wait wait wait so you email you mailed to the friend first and was this unintentional were you looking for a romantic relationship or a romantic connection to start with she wanted to help out like the tiktok and so when alex sent you a letter to start with like does he send a photo how does this all unfold because I feel like it is I mean it must be very unconventional meeting someone becoming pen pals with but then forming a romantic connection with someone who is literally in prison yeah so um I obviously received his letter he didn't attach a picture to it but it has got what's called their badge number so I can look up their badge number within the Nevada um justice

system and it shows you their like mugshot it shows you all the crimes that they've ever done It gives you their height, their weight, their hair colour. So I knew everything about him before. So it's literally like going to get a sperm donor where you find out their history. So, Savannah, what did Alex do? Why is Alex in prison? So he got done for robbery, assault on battery

with a deadly weapon causing severe bodily harm. Okay, and so was there any part of you, yeah, that is a bit like, ooh, I don't know if I want to date someone like that? Or how did you think, I'm going to love this person? Or does it make you scared as well? um not really because all parties involved weren't innocent like it wasn't against women and children it wasn't some little innocent person in a shop or in a corner store that was like held up with a gun it wasn't anything like that per se so everyone involved there were no innocent

parties involved and obviously the circumstances surrounding the situation had a lot to do with his upbringing and the situations he sort of was put in savannah how have your family taken this have you told them that um you're in a relationship with someone in prison yeah at first my mom was a little bit skeptic like obviously you know he's in prison so that's not really he's not coming to family christmas pretty much pretty much well not for a couple years anyway um but so at first she was a bit standoffish but she can see how happy he sort of makes me even from a distance so they have conversations he sends her birthday cards and christmas cards and she sang him happy birthday last year when it was his birthday over the phone so yeah they get along now but at first

obviously there was some skepticism so this has been going on for a while then you how long have you been dating for um he sent me my first letter in may 2022 okay right so what do we know almost yeah yeah okay well you've just met him for the first time yeah do you meet him do you get like Like do you have to meet in the visitor room in front of everyone and the guards? Do you get alone time? Is it conjugal? Is there a piece of plexiglass between the two of you?

Yeah, what was the first contact like? Tell us everything. So because his prison is actually what they consider a camp, so it's minimum, so he managed to work his level from a maximum to a minimum to the point now where he's like the lowest pretty much of custody. So they're a lot more lenient with certain things. So I was the only person in visitation on the Saturday and the Sunday.

I got an additional day because I came from so far. You meet the correctional officers. They walk you into the room. Alex was already waiting there with, like, all the snacks and games and everything set up, and then they just walk you out. What? You play games and have snacks? Wow.

Oh, yeah, he really sucks at Connect 4. I'm totally a winner. Wait, so how long is he in for? Like, how long are you going to have to do this long distance before you're able to actually be in a relationship on the outside world? He expires in January 2026. So he can actually parole in July 2025, but due to good behaviour,

he's been able to get a lot of time reduced over the sentence. So for every month that he's in camp, his sentence actually gets reduced by 10 days every month that he's there. Do you get to, like, on your meetings, because obviously you have very limited time together. I'm in a long-distance relationship. My partner Ben's not in prison. But do you get to kiss, be physical?

I'm not necessarily asking about sex, but, like, are there, like, no contact rules? because some of the movies you see, you know, when people come in and they're like, no touching. In certain prisons, yes. Like it obviously depends on their maximum, minimum, medium, all the different levels. So like if he was in the prison where he was before,

we wouldn't, we'd have to be sitting super far, no touching. But now there's no glasses, literally just him and I in the whole room. So, yeah, hold hands the whole time. And kiss and stuff. Kiss, hug. Yeah, whatever. Savannah. Not conjugal though.

I'm not being critical. I genuinely want to know, was the dating pool just so bad in Perth that you had to resort to a prison pen pal? I mean, I'm just trying to work out how it went from Tinder and the apps in Perth to a prison pen pal. Is it that bad over there? I wouldn't necessarily say it's that bad because I can't really put my experiences on everybody else, but the lack of effort

and the lack of emotional connection and things. For example, I work in the Pilbara Desert. Alex got a bunny rabbit made like a teddy bear in my favourite colour and he shipped it to my job in the Pilbara Desert. So when I got there, I had something to remind me of him and a present just for me to be there. From prison in a different country, whereas men in Perth can't even take you to coffee in their little kilometre.

It is. Look, that kind of a message of good morning. That's very sweet. That's very sweet. But also he's got to put in a bit more effort because he is in lockdown. Yeah. This is true. And he has plenty of time on his hands.

Okay. Not really. my worry is and do you not have the same one that he may commit a crime again that if this is something that he's done in his past and that it's something I mean is this the first big crime that he committed that landed him in jail or are you like no we know that he's not gonna re-offend I mean it would be naive of me to sit here and say that he's gonna come out and be an angel it's gonna all be perfect because at the end of the day mistakes happen every day people end up in jail for you know crashing their car or doing something wrong so it'd be naive of me to sit here and be

like yeah he's perfect he's going to come out and be a model citizen do i hope for that of course because i'd love to him for him to come out and have a normal life but in saying that you never really know well last question and we'll let you go i'm going to make an assumption that he's probably not allowed to leave america i could be wrong but do you have plans to move there to be together because i'm assuming when you've got a criminal record like that you can't relocate to another country especially australia yeah unfortunately so he can visit australia but he can't move there so i will have to relocate so i'm planning on hopefully relocating probably six months prior to him getting out just so that i can ensure he has the best sort of foot forward

and start in life if i have a house so it's somewhere for him to go so he's not coming out to nothing and no one so he doesn't have to resort to you're a good human you are a good human i I hope it works out. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. No worries. You enjoy the rest of your visits.

Pleasure chatting to you. Wow, that's an interesting story, isn't it? Bye. I just can't get my head around it. Do you know what? It is more common. I have read about this quite a bit. There are a lot of people that, I mean, Savannah's was accidental.

She was trying to do a good thing and she sort of fell in love. But a lot of people actually go intentionally to fall in love with a prisoner, which is a whole other story. Maybe that's like the excitement and the dangerous side of it as well. Maybe. Dangerous, sexy. No, not for me. Look, I saw an article pop up, guys, that was – it is –

I'm sure you're going to say it's old and the story's come out and it was many moons ago. It's about Lady Gaga. But I've only just seen it and I weirdly connected with it. I told our producer, Tony. We were having just like a real discussion actually as friends one day, believe it or not, not work related, that I agree with Lady Gaga. Now, this is a story about her deciding to be intentionally celibate.

I mean, you're also celibate, but it's because your boyfriend's on the other side of the world. Definitely not by choice. unintentional celibacy yeah i don't know if that's intentional or unintentional because i'm still choosing that relationship what but i'm not choosing celibacy believe me well i feel like if you were to be not celibate that would be cheating yeah celibacy is currently a byproduct of my choice of relationship okay right so lady gaga has said she wanted to become celibate because she believed that when she had sex creativity and like productivity left her body so every time she

had sex she thought it was being sucked out it was being sucked out of her like a vortex right now this is funny on the surface because you laugh at it because you're like as if your creativity leaves orifices of your body when you have a lot of mental images in this one but then i got thinking and this part of it that i sort of agree with i think when you are like single or celibate for me personally I am so much more productive like I I'm more creative I get more stuff done I I achieve more than I ever thought I could possibly achieve than when I'm in a relationship now I'm wondering is there something to be said with my creativity leaving different parts of my body wait wait are you saying that because Ben your boyfriend is on the other side of the world

and you are unintentional slash intentionally celibate that you now feel more creative wait if you are – it's got nothing to do with being celibate. It's got to do with your boyfriend being on the other side of the country. You can't see him. You're not going out on dates. You're not – like all the things and the energy that you have to put into casual dating or like when you first start dating someone,

it takes up so much time. I agree. Like it's the texting, the going on online dating. The trimming, shaving. All that stuff takes energy, effort and brain space and I think once you either shift into a very long-term relationship or you are intentionally celibate, you just free up so much more time in your life to dedicate to work.

Well, it led me down like a deep, dark track of famous people that have decided to go celibate. Now, these are people you wouldn't think. Did you know that Lenny Kravitz, who is like sex god, the singer, was celibate for three years? Because he'd had so much of it prior. He was just exhausted. He was capped out.

He'd hit the peak. He was like, all right, I'm topped up. I don't need to have sex for three years now. Also, everyone wants him. There's no fun in it if everyone wants to sleep with you. No, that would be pretty fun. There's no chase. Imagine if the only reason why he'd want it was because of the chase.

Do you not think that we kind of like overemphasise this whole idea of a chase a bit? No, men love a chase. Okay, yeah, fair. Not a physical chase. God, I want to sit down. Not me. But I mean, the metaphorical chase is fun. Mitch loves a DM chase.

I'm not going anywhere. A DM chase. That's about all we love. Katy Perry. Katy Perry. One year she was celibate, but not even kissing. Yeah, but she kissed a girl, so she really went backwards. And she liked it.

And she loved it. Adriana Lima, who is like the number one Victoria's Secret model. Now, this is like a kick to all the men she dated because she dated a lot of men. But she was no sex at all, celibate before marriage. Brittany, what's your point? Are you trying to get Laura and I into a celibacy pact or something? You want us to join the celibacy cult? Do you think you're more productive and more effective pre your relationship, Mitch?

No, I'm definitely lazier now because I've got a partner. I've got it on tap. I'm lazy as all hell. Yeah, there's something to be said for it. To be fair, I mean, sometimes we go through some pretty celibate stints in a long-term relationship. We've got two kids. We're not having sex every day.

Yeah, so you are celibate, which is why – We're not celibate, but I think when you start dating, it's every day. It's like, you know, it's on high rotation and then you know each other so intimately, you love each other and you're like, God, we'll just do it tomorrow night when we're not tired. I'm with you. And then two weeks passes and, you know, I feel creative in other ways, but trust me, it's just sometimes it goes by the wayside.

But it's also like I know exactly what you do. Yeah, I know the formula. Totally. I know we're going to have a cuddle. Yes, you know exactly the turns you take. You know when the light's going to go red. You know the maccas you go through. It's exactly like driving a word.

Do you reckon we could call Matty J, your husband, as like a serious prank and like ask and tell him that you've decided you want to do it. You did all this research and you think you should try it for a year and see what he would do. Do you reckon we could do that? Yeah, that's cool. Oh, yeah, he'd say, oh, well, it makes no difference to me.

He's like, how is that any different from what we already do? Let's call Matty J right now. Do we call him? He's going to love this. Where is he right now? What would he be doing? It's the afternoon. Working.

Oh, my God. Okay. Getting ready to pick the kids up from daycare. Oh, no. All right, let's do it. Let's call Maddie J, Laura's husband. We're not here. Hello?

Hey, honey. Hello. So, I was talking to Britt about something and I have an idea for us that I would like us to try and you have to hear me out. Okay. So, did you hear about how Lady Gaga went celibate for like three years? What? No.

Okay. So Lady Gaga went celibate because she felt like when she had intimacy and when she had sex that it was creatively depleting her. So like by abstaining from sex, she felt like she could be more creative and she was better at her job. Okay. Well, okay. You know how I've been talking about how I feel like I have nothing left

in the tank because obviously work's been full on trying to juggle the kids i wanted to get your opinion on trialing being intentionally celibate for like a few months we don't have sex anyway we do have sex every single week we have sex why do you always say that we've been trying this for the last six months that's so untrue okay well in that case if you actually think it's been six month we literally have sex every single week and you always think you always think every week like clockwork that is not true at all it is it absolutely had sex last week and then i can't remember the time before that we had sex on thursday that's that's not even a week ago it's four days ago but then before that it's been like months it was two weeks and it was because i had

my period really okay well how long would you like to not have sex for well if you think we've been going six months how what okay one year no sex for one year no sex for one year because you want to be more creative well I both of us I think it would make us both more creative and then also how good would it be when we start doing it again hello this this rule is stupid I mean I'm just gonna masturbate a hell of a lot but sure Just think of how good you'd be. Matt, it's going to feel so good when you do it for the first time. No, honey.

Believe it or not, I do not want to go a year. And also, how dare you? It is every single week except for the weeks when, you know, the natural body clock says no. Sorry, you're on the pick-up, by the way, Matt. You're on the radio. I think he's figured that out with my cackle. That was actually – Mitch and I just sat in on a therapy session

about your sex life, actually. It was not supposed to happen. I think a week's plenty of time. I mean, that's very good to do it weekly, man. Last Thursday. That's why you didn't answer my call when I called you guys last Thursday night. Exactly. We were doing it for that whole seven minutes that you were calling.

My question is, how would you actually feel if we tried to do six months? Pretty sad. I just don't get it. I just don't get why people in a world where there's such a lack of enjoyment, the one thing that brings you a little bit of joy, why would you want to remove that for such a long period of time? It doesn't make any sense. I mean, people do like to torture themselves.

I'm by choice in a celibate relationship. Yeah, but that's because the body part you need is far away from you. Yeah, exactly. All right. Anyway, that's enough of a fair sex life. Darling, I promise it'll be less than six months that you have to wait. Maybe another week. It's going to be tonight.

Four days. When are we going to have sex next? Okay, that's a private discussion not to be had on the radio. There you go. Australia's Matty J, everyone. Good luck with that conversation. What a lucky man he is. We'll be right back.