The Chaser Report - Please Give Us Taylor Swift Tickets

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Charles and Dom both failed to purchase tickets for Taylor Swift's upcoming concert. Meanwhile Dom shares the inspiring story of a 20yr old who has solved the rent crisis - and totally isn't your usual News.com dribble. Plus Charles has some bragging to do, and a giveaway announcement for our 6 millionth listener! 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. And Dom, are you feeling very accurate today? Not at all. No, I'm feeling erroneous. I'm feeling incorrect. I'm feeling like everything I say is rubbish, including what I just said, that everything I say is rubbish. Some of it's not. Or maybe it is. Well, thanks for asking. I, on the other hand, am feeling extremely,

I can tell because there's a massive smirk on your face, which frankly, dear listener, you're lucky you can't see. So, you know how we did that virally successful episode last week about Putin and explaining what it was going on, all that sort of stuff? It was this week, but that's okay. A lot's happened. Oh, sorry, I was a little bit inaccurate about that. You were thinking about your own submarines too, weren't you?

You've had a lot of theories about things lately. Anyway, in that explainer, I said a couple of things, which have turned out to be incredibly good analysis, right? And I just want to gloat for a second. Sure. Yeah. First one is, you know how I said, look, we don't know what actually pressure progosian was under? And I said, you know, did they threaten his daughter, right? That was something I said. That's something you said. Yeah. It turns out, that's what happened. Why are they reporting that actually the FSO, which is Putin's bodyguards,

went and grabbed Progoshin's family and said, we've got your family. Now, I think they're called the FSB, but nevertheless... No, no, that's the other thing that I mentioned. The other thing that I mentioned was the FSB is what everyone looks at because that's the old KGB, right? And they interpreted in terms of Soviet sort of things. There's actually another arm, which has become far more important in Putin's Russia, which is called the FSO, which is Putin's bodyguard.

I actually mentioned that. So there's actually a Praetorian guard of Putin. Yes. What an idiot for not securing... Everyone knows they take your daughter and your family? Pregoation presumably takes people's relatives all the time. This is why I think my overarching analysis is turning out to be true and true by the day, which is this is an office politics dispute.

No one, you know, if you, you know, I have an argument with the boss about who gets to control the stapler or, you know, or changing the toner or cleaning the kitchen, you don't think about securing your family because you don't think it's going to explode like that. You just think this is an office politics situation. it's not going to, you know, like my, you know, the person I'm warring with is not going to go home and threaten to kill my children. But that's what happened. But it's the person is, like if you worked it, if you worked in Vladimir Putin's office,

Charles, you would absolutely know that. You'd be checking every single glass of water. Anyone brought you for polonium in the office. But don't you think, this says to me, Charles. Don't you think after a while your hypervigilance would sort of decline? No. No. You can't go near a window in Putin's Russia

without the chance of being thrown out of it. No, clearly generals do keep going near windows because they keep dropping their guard and falling out windows. I suspect they don't go near the windows until they're picked up and thrown out them. But Charles, also, this suggests to me, like gloating about being right about what was going on means that you're skilled in thinking like Vladimir Putin.

That's not an attribute I would be boasting about, frankly. Well, I think you think that because you weren't as accurate as me. I was not as accurate, yeah. So anyway, stay tuned to the Chaser Report, the home of occasionally accurate analysis and constant gloating when it is accurate. Think like a despot with Charles Firth

on the Chaser Report exclusively presented to you here. Well done, Charles. No, look, these things, I must say, when I realised that the episode was going to be you cobbling together various bits of information you'd gathered from the internet, I was quite worried, particularly on the submarine stuff, because you made some very big calls

about how dodgy it all was. Yes. And you're absolutely right. Completely true. So good cobbling. Yes. So talking about what we've cobbled together for today's episode, we're going to talk about the Taylor Swift major event.

Oh yes. That's coming up. Plus, I'm going to talk about how great I am. Oh, again. God. Plus, I have a way to survive and even thrive in the Sydney rental market. It's all after this. Okay, can we start with how great I am?

Oh, God. We did we do that already? No, actually, can we talk about Taylor Swift first? Yes, let's talk about that's great Taylor Swift is. It's the biggest story of the day. On Tuesday afternoon, the Victorian government took the unprecedented decision to declare the Taylor Swift tour a major event. Now, it's news to me that it wasn't a major event. I thought it was a major event.

Does that mean that it's on the same sort of scale as, I don't know, the Formula One Grand Prix or when Dan Andrews fall down a pair of stairs, that kind of thing? Yeah. I think what it means is. is that the Herald Sun has to have constant attack articles on everything. Yes, that's good. That happens. No, what it is, is it's an anti-scolping piece of legislation that they brought about in 2009, I think for the Formula One,

which says that you can't buy a Taylor Swift ticket and then sell it for more than 10% more than it's worth. Right. Which is a huge pity because I went out when I heard that Taylor Swift was coming, I bought up all the tickets in Victoria for the MCG and started selling them at $40,000 a ticket. But now I'm not allowed to sell them anymore. What happened to capitalism?

Dictator, Dad, hates small businesses. Yes. Just honest scalpers, just trying to chisel kids out of their dreams. Honest con men, just trying to make a dishonest day's labour. I mean, everyone knows, Charles, that if you want to make an outrageous killing out of gigs, All you need to do is be a ticketing agency. You have exclusive control of a particular venue. Yes.

And you just get to charge a massive amount for an automated process that generates a PDF in one second. So this is why I'm proud to announce that we're going to have a new arm of the chaser from now. Oh, yeah. It's called ticket chaser. Ticket chaser. Yeah. And we will become an official ticket seller.

Right. And we'll just cash in and make lots of money. Well, that's actually quite a good thing because, I mean, the current. services don't live up to their names. I mean, ticket tech involves no tech. There's no technology involved. It's absolutely terrible. And ticket master, there's no mastery of anything there. Oh, no. Well, the ticket master site crashed.

Of course it did. Because they went, oh, we had no idea that Taylor Swift would be popular. There's no mastery there. I mean, they had these frustrating systems that put you in a queue. You know, we have to sit there for half an hour or an hour, waiting to get in. At least those ones didn't crash. But now, now even that doesn't work. Now also, whereas ticket chases, surely, even if you get a lot,

Like, just, I don't know, run it off a Nintendo Wii or something. It'll be more reliable than theirs. Well, the thing is that its name will be accurate because if you log on to us, you will still be chasing a ticket for hours and hours and hours. Or you'll be chasing us for refunds. It's the other thing you'll be chasing, for sure. So, anyway, that's my new plan. Are you going?

Are you going to Taita? Well, I thought so. But, no, so this is the other embarrassing detail. So I saw online that you could, American Express has this exclusive offer. And I've got an American Express card. Oh, do you like paying massive punitive interest at 10? Yeah.

So I thought, well, I'll log in to my, there must be some sort of section on the website that allows me to buy this ticket early or something. Because it's the deal, right? And apparently I'm, the card that I have as an American Express member allows me entry to business loungers around the world. Oh. Not to Taylor Swift's concerts.

Like you've got to have a specific type of American Express. Express card to be allowed to get the... Like one of those metal centurion ones? No, no, I think it's just like the card for people who enjoy entertainment and partying. Oh, you've got the business one? I've got some... I don't know. I didn't know that it was the business one.

I just... Like, it's literally, like, the things that I can do is I can rent a suburban car with it. Like, like, these are the offers on its sort of thing is rent cheaper with Avis or something. I did see, I did see, I once peered. into an Amex lounge at Sydney Airport or something. It was about the size of this studio, so very, very small. And it had like filter coffee. It wasn't exactly premium.

So you could be going to Taylor Swift and instead, you've got the shittest lounge at the airport. Yeah. But also they think of me as Mr. Boring Man, but not the Taylor Swift fan vibe. Yeah, because being a Taylor Swift fan is very hip. Very cutting edge. That's not mainstream at all. I often, because my wife and I actually want to go and we said to the kids, you know, Let's go along, like using them as cover of the fact that we want to go.

And I went, no, we don't want to go to Taylor Swift. I think we're just going to be going alone. Do you want to come? I mean, yeah, if you pay for my ticket, I can't afford that. You don't have to run amex. Isn't it like 400 bucks? No, no, no, no. I looked it up.

There are ticket. There's something like F reserve or G reserve is like sort of 139. It's bargain. Sit up the back row of a stadium and look at a tiny, tiny blot on the side of the But it's worth it. So you can say to your kids, I went to Taylor Swift. Well, I went, I must say, I did that for Elton. Yeah, and it wasn't a good.

It was that at Homebush? No, I went to Elton at the Sydney Football Stadium. Oh, lovely. And I went on the wettest day ever. And I bought ticket to the last minute. I'm talking to you about this, should I go or not. And I wasn't going to go. And at the very last minute, I bought a ticket just for myself, went by myself.

And it was surprisingly cheap. And it was right in the middle of the field quite close to where Elton was. And I thought that's an amazing deal. And the view was incredible. Yes. But the reason why I got it was because someone had, in a refund because there was forecast for torrential rain. I've never been as wet in my entire life.

Like the entire centre of the field with no cover at all was absolutely drenched. And I caught a terrible cold that lasted for about a week. But I got to see Elton and it was totally worth it. Totally worth it. If I'd had an American Express, that would equal me a better seat. Anyway, speaking of people who don't have much money, I've got the solution to rental here. Oh, well, that's quite useful. So there's...

Talk about burying the lead. Yeah, thanks to news.com.com. are you, they've got a profile here of a 20-year-old man who's solved it. He's absolutely cracked it. He was paying 300 bucks a week to live in a little sharehouse in Rosebury to other housemates. You know what he did? He just got out of it.

Bought a motor home. Bought a motor home. Yes. Cost 70 grand to buy a decent motor home. Yes. And I must say, it makes a pretty strong argument. Like the first one that he got was on the back of a high-lux huge. You can imagine how small that is, not even enough room for a bed, but he's got a proper

Winnebago now. And what he does is, this is genius. I mean, you would, you should do this. He drives it to the pub, parks it outside the front of the pub. Yes. And then when he comes out of the bar, you know, hours later completely tanked, he doesn't drive. He just goes to the back of the motor home and sleeps there outside the pub. I mean, haven't you always wanted to sleep at the pub? It makes homelessness sound glamorous. It does. Yes. And also convenient. Yes. It's And it's sort of, and it's perfect, isn't it? Because you're like, you can park overnight outside most parks. Yeah, you can.

Yeah, it's allowed. And apparently all you have to do, this is the downside. Every fortnight you've got to go to the caravan park and empty the waste water and toilet. So you've got to pump your own sewage out of it. Yeah. But he's got everything he wants. It's got a stove. 70 grand.

It's got a lot of money. That is one of the complications. For a depreciating asset. Yes. It doesn't go up like. like Sydney property does, no. No. And presume, like, I mean, this is what's happened in the US, isn't it?

I mean, that's what Nomad Land, which won the Oscar last year was all about, was the fact that there's this sort of new category of homeless, which is the glamorous homeless. No, Charles, don't ruin it. Don't ruin this guy's dream. He reckons he solves it. He doesn't have a proper house, isn't have a garden. They don't even think about having a family. But he's happy, apparently.

Yeah, and drunk. He can be drunk? Well, yes, he's got plenty of spare money apparently to spend on getting drunk at pubs and then going and sleeping in the van. And what happens during the day? Like, where do you park it? Because certainly around where we live,

you have to move your car every two hours. Yeah, that would be challenging, particularly if you're working from home. To work for the cab of that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how it works. All I know is $70,000 a year for the Winnebago.

That's kind of less than most people rent in this. And what happens if you, Winnebago breaks? down and you've got to take it to the mechanic like do you just then that's good isn't it you got a permanent address sleep in it while it's being being towed repaired overnight like what do you do you're then literally homeless yes if you've got to get it repaired or you just or you just sneak in maybe you just sneak into the dealership after hours and just sleep in and maybe

try maybe say oh i want to try out this new winnebago yeah that's a good oh do a test yeah i mean the The only problem is I don't have 70 grand to buy one, but if I did, it'd be a bargain. I know, because this doesn't sound like a solution at all. I don't know anyone who's struggling with rent, who has a spare 70 grand lying around. Like, I don't think this is a solution, Dom. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think, does this guy also have a whole lot of, you know, investment properties? Yeah, probably.

But I'm also now realising, because it's a news.com. You are scroll down at the bottom, and it's actually sponsored content, I think, for a company called Camp Lify, which lets you share a caravan motorhome. And the punchline. Boy, you don't want to share it. It's your fucking home. No, but it's like a kind of car next door for camper vans. Yeah, okay.

And it's going to say his parents bought in the camper van, didn't they? I presume. You know, it's only way you can afford that shit in this economy. Oh, plus, how the fuck do you pay for petrol? Petrol is very expensive. And it would be very expensive for a camper van. These things are heavy. Yeah.

It's a stupid idea. Where's Twetzer going to put out of a camera? It would be as much as rent, wouldn't it? It would be like 300 bucks a week. Probably would, yeah, yeah. Nevertheless, at least you get to pay the same amount of money for a smaller place. The Chaser Report, more news, less often. Well, that sounds like a terrible solution and doesn't work in any way, Don't.

No, it doesn't. But I'm glad I brought it to the table anyway. It does. I have one useful implication. Don't read news.com. That are you. Now, I was going to conclude this. episode by gloating. But I think what we should do is actually park that idea.

Oh, yeah. And what we'll do is we'll just come back tomorrow and we'll have a whole episode on how great I am. Charles, we haven't announced through the six million. Well, and, no, this is what I think we should discuss right now, which is, we've been flooded by even more people applying to the six millionth downloader. A lot of people are very keen. Some people, there was one today who actually claimed that he'd never downloaded the Chaser report podcast. That was a big call. That was very big because it's like, how did you know?

And he said, well, you will like this because it's ironic and comedians like irony. It's a bit too confident. It was almost as cocky as you. It was very cocky. But so keep the entries coming in, podcast at chaser.com. What we might do is we might interview, we might also be looking for the 5,999,999. Oh, to disappoint. Yeah.

So if you want to apply it for that. that position, that would be good. I'm not saying that we've already selected the 6 millionth listener. That would be, because it hasn't happened yet. But, you know, I'm just saying that might be a position. And also the 6 millionth and 1th and first listener would also be good. Because I think what we're going to do, it's going to be a bit of a media event. I think that the Victorian government is probably going to deem it a special event.

Inevitably, I don't know. What should we do? I think we should have a big party. I think we should organise the first ever Chaser Report piss up. Six million. Yeah. Can we get six million beers from a sponsor? Yeah, I think that's a great idea.

We'll reach out to a beer manufacturer and see whether they'll give us six million beers. The entry that I found most compelling Charles, one that says, someone just called GA, title, I'm the six millionth downloader, but I don't want an inflatable avocado. I know, there's been several of that. Podcast at chaser.com.com. You explain why you should be the 6 millionth downloader.

Charles has a bunch of unsold free shit that he would like to dump on you, including potentially an inflatable avocado. Actually, a guy called Brad on Twitter. Tweeted us a picture. He actually bought one. I know. It's very rare. It's mysterious.

Yeah. I'm surprised it hasn't broken. Well, actually, it wasn't inflated. It's entirely possible. It had deflated. All right. See you next time. See, yeah.

Our gear is from Roeb. We're part of the iconoclass network. And I'm in no way responsible for those. fucking avocados.