The Chaser Report - 30-Year Reunion Debate: Did We Peak in High School or Middle Age?

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Charles made the mistake of attending his school reunion and finding out everybody else's lives are better. Meanwhile Dom dives into the complex political history of Singapore. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hi, Charles. How are you going? You sound a little downbeat for this exciting episode of our topical podcast. There's nothing in the news, Dom. I mean, there's lots of things in the news. There's heaps. It's all, yes, but they're horrible. No, no. Everything.

Okay, let me just go through a few topics and we'll find something to talk about. and just craft into a fantastic uplifting 20 plus minute episode. Yep. Well, take, for example, the voice. So on the weekend, Anthony Albanyi went to the Garman Festival. And he had a shock revelation. Do you know what? No, it's big news.

What? He's not canceling it. That's what it was reported as is he's still going ahead, even though it seems increasingly doomed. That's the news. Actually, that's not really uplifting. Let's definitely not talk about that. Some big legal news.

I love it. The announcement is there was no major announcement today. He hasn't completely pulled up something yet. The Bruce Lehman... No! Every single person suing everybody else. It's extraordinary. Like the Venn diagram of that.

We don't want to be drawn into that loop by talking about it. We'll definitely get sued. We don't want to get sued. All right, okay, let's not do that. But definitely not doing that. The war in Ukraine, that's nearing a resigning. No. It's not.

It's nearing a quagmire. Yeah, it just gets more quagmirey. The quagmire has moved into a different stale mate. We're not doing that. What else is making news? Let me, on the Women's World Cup is, but we're recording this before the Matilda's crucial game, so we can't really talk about that. No.

It was fun seeing the US eliminated on penalties. I must say that was enjoyable. Yeah, that sort of Swedish goal, which wasn't really in. It just crossed over the line. It was fantastic. I love it. Yeah, it was legit. Was that legit?

It was they use Hawkeye for that. If you believe in Hawkeye, you believe in that goal. The US don't know about Hawkeye because they don't have cricket. But it looked like it touched the line. Hold the ball over the hole of the line. That's all it has to be. And that's what it was. And I'm not hearing anything about that because the US are out.

Yeah. Is the climate crisis finally catching out with Antarctica? No. Barbies set a box office record. Have you seen it? Is a billionaire? Is she a billionaire yet? Yes, she is.

She's topped a billion dollars. in global ticket sales, the biggest ever movie by a female director. Have you seen it? No. I haven't said it rather. We can't talk about it. We should, though. Yeah.

Because what that project really needs is more men weighing internet. Actually, no, we should never discuss it because it's not for us. Isn't that good that it's not for us? No, but also, I think it is for us in that it's very funny, apparently. It's apparently very good. Yeah. Maybe we should. Well, we can't talk about it.

Can't talk about. I haven't seen it. So. Okay. So I've got a suggestion for the podcast. Which news story that's, uh, Burning, do you want to talk about? Well, you'll find out after this.

Susan Lee's been just been evicted for question time after accusing Richard Miles of mansplaining. Oh, there was a good one which is PWC released a report about consultancy practices in Canberra. I assume it was a Mayor Cooper. No, no. It was saying that KPMG had done a terrible job, I think on defense or something like that. Oh, this is good. They're going after each other.

Actually, I think we should do a go-fund-me to just, I mean, I suppose you could just pay for the public purse. Maybe they owe us after all the work that they're overcharged for. I want them all to go after each other until they're all just in a smoking room and do it and never work again.

Whenever our interns came up with a good idea, which was, you know, let's get trending on Twitter, not all consultants. Oh, that's good thing. I suggested, he too. You know, like, get at the he-to movement. Like, everyone did it. I suspect that's yet another way of being cancelled.

How have you not been cancelled permanently? I honestly don't know. I'm so cautious about that and you're so not. And yet there seems to be no impact, no consequences. There's a whole thing. There was like during the Me Too movement, two very feminist friends of mine explained to me very carefully that actually there was a slight...

In fact, we did it in one of our live stage shows, that there is a sort of... sliding scale based on how good-looking somebody is with how much they can get away with. And I think what happened is, because I'm so devastatingly good-looking, women are, you know, just predisposed to forgive my flaws.

No, no, I think it works the way around. Oh, it's the enverse. I think, because I think traditionally Christian Porter was considered handsome. Am I allowed to say that? Is that defamatory that he was considered handsome? I don't know. That's very defamatory.

Very defamatory. Not all porters. I don't even know what the imputation would be from what I just said, but we'll go with it. Christian Porter is or is not good-looking, make your own decision. Yes. And that has nothing to do with his reputation. Let's talk about my 30-year reunion, which, high school reunion, which I had on Friday night. It's going to be one of those episodes.

Buckle up, listeners, 6.1 million people have listened to this thing now. We don't have stats on how many of them stayed all the way through, though. That's the beauty of it. Look, the thing is, I don't know whether you went. 10 of your previous reunions, Don. Yeah, I always go. There was a surprising number of people there.

It was about a third of the year went there. And a good portion of them, I had no recollection of ever knowing or being in relationship with. Like, I had a half-hour conversation with one guy, and I have no, complete blank,

that he ever existed. Like, he could have just been in spite, which is interesting, because actually he'd been in the Defence Force for the last 30 years. Oh, well, that's why. So maybe he was a very good spy. He probably wasn't actually in your years.

Probably just there for cover. Yes. And he's one of those, you know, movie characters where they sort of invagal themselves into... And no one calls him on it. Yeah. He's probably actually Russian or something. Probably. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, it's not massively surprising. It's a long time to remember details about somebody. I've just, I got a text actually. Speaking of which, I got a text from someone in my year of school. Yeah. on the weekend, saying that he'd heard an ad for our podcast in a serious national security podcast called The View from Washington. Yes.

The episode is called The View from Washington. Yeah, the national security podcast it's called. What the fuck are we doing that? But thank you for the heads up. Yeah. I appreciate it. So there you go. So, you know, people are coming across us in unexpected places.

But it's a long time. Have many years. 30 years is a long time to remember the details about somebody who you never really knew and could barely put a name to the face. No, but what fascinated me was the variety of people that, you know, a variety of things that people had become. Oh, yeah. So ophthalmology, for example.

Really? This guy literally spends his whole day injecting syringes into people's eyes. But that's his job. That's fantastic. That's far more useful than what we do. But imagine, it's like, oh, you'd see a clockwork orange and then you go, I want to be that guy. Did you mention that? Did you?

Or is he like, oh, God, don't mention a clockwork orange. Orange would be a bit hacked for an ophthalmologist. Another guy, a lot of people, one guy who I've got good friends with now lives in Hawaii. Oh, that's not bad. Managing his investments. There's a lot of people who just manage their investments nowadays. They sort of worked hard for five seconds, 20 years ago. Did you feel like a complete failure, or did you just feel like you'd made a bunch of choices that came off, just one of them wasn't getting very rich?

Well, it was one of those things where people would say, so what do you do, Charles? And it'd be like, I don't know. And then it was like, but what do you do to make money? It's like, I really don't know. I don't know. I found it very hard. Like, I had to sort of eventually work out a way to abbreviate what I did.

Yeah. And the fact that given that your business is trying to sell tickets to what you're doing, that's unfortunate that they're not aware of the answer of that question. I don't think they're the target demographic, though. A war on 2022.3.3.com general sale tickets available today. Help the poor bastard out to you. It's something that he can say that he does when he goes to his next reunion. But no, it's true.

I mean, it's kind of a cliche in Hollywood, isn't it? I mean, you remember that movie Romney Michelle's High School reunion where there's two women who feel they haven't done anything with their lives go to the reunion and make up a whole elaborate story about themselves? It's true. You do go to those things and think, God, what have I actually achieved during that period? And it's very hard. And the worst part is, you sort of go, okay, well, now, like, that's 10 years.

Like, I literally said to my wife the next day, well, because she said, you're going to catch up with anybody. And it's like, God, no, like, they've done my 10 years. I can do another 10 years in 10 years time. And now, I've had several SMS this morning. Oh, can we have lunch next week and stuff like that? I'm sorry. No, yeah, you don't want that.

I mean, scheduled in for 2033, right? Yeah, exactly. Like, the whole point about these things is no commitment. I don't want to... You know what the awful thing is? I'm full up with friends. I don't want less friends. I don't want more friends.

I think this episode's going to help you with any school friends you return. But, you know, the difficult thing is what's everyone from the Chaser doing now? I mean, and then they say, of course, we know what Craig's doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A smaller number know what Chaz is doing. Yeah. He's got a new TV. Well, everyone, literally,

Everyone went, where's Dom? Like, yeah, why isn't Dom here? Are you serious? Yeah, and it was like, he wasn't in our year. That's so sweet. Yeah. That I... You've gained an honorary status amongst my year.

That's very odd. Yeah. Given that I was, yes, never. I'm a year younger than you. You were younger than us. But that's so weird that they thought I would be in your year. So they knew who I was and they cared where I, like, whereabouts was. Far more than me, obviously.

However, not enough to accurately remember anything. about me, such as the fact that, like, presumably they had memories of not talking to me at all during school. Yeah, yeah. Because I wasn't in your year. So they're probably like, like, oh yeah, I wanted to look down on Don, but he's not here. Yeah. Oh, God.

No, but it is challenging. So you've taken a look at your life and why aren't you in Hawaii managing your investments? Oh, that's right, because the chaser was your investment. You put in sweat equity. How's that working out? That's what we used to say when we started this thing. Sweat equity we talked about. It's so funny.

I saw my therapist this morning, and at the end of it, she sees it. she said to me, you know, sometimes fairly soon, I feel, you're going to really reassess your priorities in life. You've got to know you're on the wrong direction when someone who's paid to just externally sort of support you, support whatever you do, turns around you and says, you know, you're probably just going to, you know, like at some point realize. Do you think that she's taking notes, like just preparing for the crash? Because, I mean, to me, because just if you're not across this, Charles and I've known each other since our teens,

since, I know, I would have been, you'd have been 13, I would have been 12 when you first met probably. Yeah. And you've always had this kind of massively optimistic, happy, go, lucky thing of just wanting to start all these things and everything going okay. Yes. And at some point, which I really admire, and we've all benefited from, the chaser was your, your idea to begin with. Let's be really clear. Let the record show was Charles's idea to begin with. But at what point does the penny drop?

What point do you go, well, look, it's been a good. Good run. Yeah. But, you know, maybe... Maybe you want to sit on a beach in Hawaii and count your investments. Or maybe I want to inject people's eyeballs for a living. I mean, they were fascinating. Absolutely.

A lot of people had retired. What? Like, one guy had been working for 30... Well, he was doing long service leave, but it was like, what are you going to do after your long service leave? And it's like, I don't know, not really anything. Oh, God. You know, like, I'll find a hobby.

A lot of rich people. I know a lot of rich people. No, it's, it is depressing, isn't it? But don't worry, because the good news is, it's all solved. Oh, sorry, I'll just tell you one other fascinating detail, which is, like, literally 10% of our year lived in Singapore. Like, live in Singapore. And people were coming to this growing realization.

Like, a lot of them had moved there straight after school. And under the growing realization that it's a horrific state with incredibly authoritarian politics, and that, you know, the sort of, happy-go-lucky party town comes at an enormous political cost. Was that news to people? Well, you and I studied political science at uni. That was pretty clear back then.

We actually specifically studied that. I think these were people who were sort of in marketing and finance. Oh, and so they didn't see the downside. Well, are they aware that Singapore has basically labor camps for foreign workers and during COVID they basically locked everyone up? Well, this is like one guy who I said, oh, so did you have a mate? You live there for like seven years or something. Did you have a maid?

Did you own a maid? And I mean, I don't know. Well, you know, like whatever. Like, yeah, I mean, but everyone does. Helper. And it was like, where did they live? Because I've heard that, you know, if you have a helper, that they basically live in your cupboard, right?

And he said, oh, no, no, no. They live, like, by law, every apartment in Singapore has to have a bomb shelter, right? So he was on, like, level 37 of some apartment block. and it had a bomb shelter in their house, which is like the most ridiculously stupid idea for a bomb shelter ever because it's like 37 floors up in the air. And it's actually just code for, you know, here's a cupboard that doesn't have a window or any ventilation

because it's a bomb shelter. You can stick the maid in there. Do you know, I'm going to get a bit boring in political sciencey about this. Sorry. Yeah. Apologies. We studied in uni the way that Singapore maintains control of the political system. Yes.

It's through a thing called garrison nationalism. Do you remember this? The concept is you have to have an external threat in the minds. And so the thing is you can justify not having, for instance, the right to free speech. There's no way the chaser could exist in Singapore. We would have all been arrested for defamation. When I say that, you declared bankrupt and then put in jail if you pay outpaid the fees. So yes.

But people are comfortable with that because, A, they get the lovely lifestyle, unless you like having free speech. But B, the external threat has to be projected. And so if every apartment building has a bomb shelter in it, if every apartment has a room to go to when unspecified, you know, oppressive forces attack, then it's in your mind. But it's very specified. I said, who would bomb you?

And he said, oh, Malaysia. Yeah, that's right. The threat was always Malaysia. Yeah. Even though Singapore could basically buy Malaysia at this point. No, it's absolutely to do that. It's true with race as well because of the Malays and the Chinese. The Chinese were essentially exiled in many cases to Singapore.

And yes, I've been to those apartments And I've seen what they're like They don't have windows And they've got these weird sort of sliding rubber doors They're big rooms That the maids live in But yeah, there's no window And so that is terrible

But as against that Big windowless cell-like rooms Well, I mean, they're not terrible They're not cupboards But you wouldn't want to live in one There's no window and no ventilation But Charles, as against that As against that, how many times

As a parent Have you wished you had a helper? I mean, it is the best way to raise children You have to be comfortable with the notion that someone from a very poor country such as the Philippines is leaving their own children to raise you. That's the deal. Yes. And that's the... If that troubles you at all, you shouldn't do it.

You have to be an awful person, but then you live quite a nice... Oh, you can go out. You can go out whenever you want. You can go out every night if you want to because the helpers look after the kids. Yeah. You don't need to raise your children. You know, I think what the therapist was trying to say is, you know, one day soon you'll realize that you want to move to Singapore. Well, your children are too old.

You've missed out. I've got a one-year-old and a five-year-old. I'm in the prime age to do this. And as long as I'm comfortable with the notion that some children in, let's say, the Philippines, never see their mother because she's in a rich country looking after my children instead of raising her children. If I think that's an okay way for the world to be, then it's great. Now, you know how you said that I'm good at coming up with business models. Yeah.

I think I was being sarcastic. I've got a pitch for you. Okay. What's your pitch? I think we move this podcast. The Chaser Report to Singapore, we call it The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles, and it'll be all about how frightening Malaysians are. Oh, that's good.

That's good. I was wondering how you're going to keep this going, given that our main thing is criticising people in politics. No, we'll criticise the Malaysians. And also maids or helpers and how to keep them a little bit in their place. Yeah, in their place. You wouldn't want to get them a window. No, exactly.

We've just made it impossible for us to ever live in Singapore with this podcast. You realise that, don't you? Oh, shit. Fuck! Ah! Because once a time, once a time on time, I would have said, look, I'll never find out. But now AI will scrape it. You know what we should do?

We should actually go and set one up in Malaysia. We should do it with the Malaysians, that's right. How terrible the Singaporeans are. Because if there's one thing that people in South East Asia really want, it's white guys coming and telling them what's what. I'm sure they'd be very greatly appreciated, John. The Chaser Report Less News

More often So, just hide it all in and not, so to speak Are you happy with your life, post-reunion? Are you more or less happy with your life post-reunion? We could do it in Hawaii. We could move the podcast to Hawaii. That's got free speech. Well, I actually, I grew up in Hawaii, so, you know.

You're the Barack Obama of Australian podcast. I really am. I think the thing that I've realised is everyone had given up on the idea that the world could be a better place. Like, I don't think I... Except maybe for the guy who was in the army, who was fascinating and whose job it was...

And I said, did you... Because he's been in the army for years and years. You know, it was in the cadets when he was at school and stuff like that. And I said, do you ever kill anyone? Have been killed anyone? He said, no, no, my job... Because he became an officer... It's not going to tell you.

From early on. No, he said, my job was to train people to kill people. Like, you know, to get other people to kill people. Yeah. That's awesome. Often it was the foreigners. So, you know, he went to Iraq. He went to Afghanistan, things like that.

And it was like, no, we, what we do is we got the Iraqis to kill the Iraqis. Oh, that's cool. Like, so, you know, like, constantly there'd be like child care centers suicide bombed, you know, in their, you know, just in their town. It's very uplifting, isn't it? And, but it was like, Iraq, it was Afghan on Afghani on Afghani violence. Right. And then you'd come in there and. It sounded terribly condescending as well.

Because it was like they would then go in and try and sort it out for them. Because that's right. They were going through a stage where they thought they could nation build in Afghanistan. Oh, that old. Their role was to sort of set up shop and show them the Western way. I think you've hit on something I want to talk about more at another point because we're at the end of this one. The question of whether we can actually have a better world, because I think many of us, and the Chaser was founded in this spirit, We're getting a bit serious

was the thought that if we kept talking and trying and discussing things the world could get better in the 90s that did you know

the Berlin Wall fell all these things happened there was a thought that we'd hit on the end of history and we come up with the final model of humanity

and that everyone's going to be comfortable and free and enjoy themselves I don't think anyone thinks that anymore I was thinking with this the other day

there are so many situations that have just not improved like where you just think okay oh will democracy come to China no no it won't and there's nothing on the horizon

that will change that. Will Putin get defeated in Russia or someone like him? No, no, there's no optimism for that. Will Australia have a prime minister who isn't mildly disappointed? I wouldn't have thought so. How would that happen? See, but you're now talking like the people who, you know, believe that the world, you know, like the whole point about the end of history is it actually always changes.

And that, you know, the mistake that everyone made in the 1990s was thinking, well, things are pretty good now. Well, that's it. They can't get worse than this. I think you're now making that same mistake again, but in the inverse, like things are going so badly. Yes. But it's just impossible to see.

But that's an end of history argument itself. Oh, in reverse. So we've hit a permanent. It's just like. We're headed an idea. I mean, no, not that. I mean, things can get worse. But I suppose what I think is interesting is,

I think what we have to grapple with as a human race is that we are now in the Anthropocene. We've sort of been in denial. Everything we do has a consequence with the planet and that we are now fully responsible for all the unintended consequences of all our unintended actions and all our intended actions and all that sort of stuff. You bracket you bought it is the era. Yeah. We are in the bracket you bought it era.

And, you know, like I was talking last week about how, you know, the sulfur dioxide in the diesel fuel has now led to massive more global warming. That then got written up, actually, in the Atlantic this week. Your research. Yeah, my reason. Well, I just a bit a little bit ahead of time. No, for sure. If you listen to this podcast, you sort of stay ahead.

But one of the interesting things about that article was it was arguing there's actually therefore, I mean, it's horrific because it shows the global warming is so much worse than we thought it was. But actually, there's a reason to be hopeful about that because actually the fact that we know that sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere causes. as acid rain, but it also leads to genuine, quantifiable cooling of the world's, you know, surface temperature is actually a reason to be optimistic because, well, if we just sort of go, okay, part of our job now is to engineer the climate of the world, then what could possibly go wrong? You know, like, you know, that ties it in it nicely because that's the happy-go-lucky,

unjustified optimism that gets Charles to work every day, working really hard. instead of just resting on his laurels and going, you know, in Hawaii. And that's just the exact thing that's going to come up when you have that crash anytime soon. We'll be back tomorrow with some actual topical analysis. I mean, it's not looking that way based on yesterday and today, but we'll do what we can. If you've made it this fast, innocent email, because I'm touched that you would be at this point in the podcast. So podcast at chaser.com.com. Tell us why you are optimistic or not optimistic about the planet.

And I'd love to know how you feel after hearing all of this. And we're going to start from this Thursday, we're starting a talkback radio segment. And we're going to open a Zoom line is how we think we're going to do it. Because that means up to 100 people can join us and we can just unmute you and have a chat to you. We're thinking it will be between three and four. About three and four on Thursday. On Thursdays. Sydney time.

If you keep an eye out on the social media, on TikTok. TikTok and Twitter and Facebook and threads and all those sorts of things, because we'll advertise it around. But basically, there'll be a sort of moment when you can all zoom in and we'll do a bit of talk back to see how that works. Yeah, and look, if you have, mate, as far on the podcast, you've got to find out about that before anyone else. That's your reward for persisting with this navel-gazing and lack of look at the news.

I've enjoyed it, though, Charles. Thank you. I don't feel optimistic about you or your life or indeed anything. No. But at least we're still here. I guess that's something. Our gear is from Road and we are part of the Oakland Glass Network. And some people we know have retired to Hawaii.