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Origin Story w/ David McIntosh JrOrigin Story w/ David McIntosh Jr

The Comedian Who Got 1,000 People to Watch Him Fold a Sheet - Dan Boerman

Dan Boerman is a Comedian and TV Personality on Jimmy Carr's Am I The A**hole. He is also a good friend. I’ve wanted to record this conversation for a long time. Dan Boerman is a New Zealand comedian who left a steady job, moved to the other side of the world, and has been relentlessly chasing stand-up ever since – from sleeping in a kid’s dinosaur bed outside Edinburgh to getting a thousand people to watch him fold a fitted sheet on a hill. In this episode, we get into: Growing up in small-town rural New Zealand and dropping out of school Years on benefits, smoking tiny “Russian doll” cigarettes in the kitchen Barbering as accidental crowd work – and the now infamous Jimmy Carr Am I the A**hole? story Leaving security behind to move to Edinburgh for comedy Why London feels like kindling for opportunity The viral sheet stunt that turned into awards, brand deals and a new life “Don’t die wondering” and what it really means to bet on yourself Why some people live and die never hearing the sound of their own voice This is an episode about chasing the weird, specific thing you can’t stop thinking about – and refusing to let your life pass in quiet comfort. If you enjoyed this one, send it to someone who’s been talking about “one day” for too long. Follow Dan: @danboermancomedy Follow me / Origin Story: @davidmcnintoshjr

David McIntosh JrhostDan Boermanguest
Dec 12, 202551mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:36

    Crypto banter, internet drift, and finding the conversation wormholes

    1. DJ

      Dan Boerman, welcome to "Origin Story," mate.

    2. DB

      Thank you for finally having me, bro. Very excited to chat to you.

    3. DJ

      Well, I couldn't get ahold of your agent, and I couldn't get ahold of you directly. Your fees were too high, and now it just takes a couple of Nutonix and a Red Bull to get you here.

    4. DB

      That's what it takes, man. Famously charging in Bitcoin. No paper trail.

    5. DJ

      No altcoins.

    6. DB

      No altcoins, no. They're not about that life. Do you own crypto?

    7. DJ

      I had Purple Pepe for a bit, which was like a hype meme coin.

    8. DB

      Oh, okay.

    9. DJ

      And my ADHD allowed me to forget that I had it.

    10. DB

      Okay.

    11. DJ

      And then it plummeted to zero, and then I've never invested in altcoins or crypto again.

    12. DB

      I bought Bitcoin about a month ago and immediately lost 20%.

    13. DJ

      Dude, we're two white guys talking about crypto straight away.

    14. DB

      I thought this is... You, you sent the agenda through. That was all it said, just crypto.

    15. DJ

      [laughing] Oh, really?

    16. DB

      I was like, "It's a real short agenda." Like, I'm about it, but yeah. I love that. That's funny, isn't it, how that happens? What do they call that? Convergent evolution, where independently it just, we, we both end up just doing that.

    17. DJ

      Have you heard of that phrase Churchillian drift?

    18. DB

      No.

    19. DJ

      It's this idea that basically every modern quote as we know it can be attributed to Churchill and find its way back to him.

    20. DB

      Oh, yep.

    21. DJ

      Um, rightly or wrongly. So I think we're, like, experiencing, like, Elon drift at the moment.

    22. DB

      Right.

    23. DJ

      Everything kind of like relays back to crypto.

    24. DB

      Elon drift, not dissimilar to, like, if you go through Wikipedia and you click enough links, you just end up on the Wikipedia for Adolf Hitler.

    25. DJ

      [laughs]

    26. DB

      Which is always, what's that? Like one click away from Elon, isn't it?

    27. DJ

      [laughs]

    28. DB

      Just one extra step, end up there.

    29. DJ

      Ah, I knew this is how this podcast would start.

    30. DB

      100%, bro. Yep. Good luck to your editor.

  2. 1:36 – 5:22

    Being memorable in comedy: sweets, donuts, and the ‘resume in your belly’ tactic

    1. DJ

      I wanna take it back to a time where I met you.

    2. DB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. DJ

      It was at the Stand Comedy Club maybe around a year ago to date. Close enough.

    4. DB

      Thereabouts.

    5. DJ

      And I was introduced you, to you through another comedic friend, another comedian, Pierce Higgins. You were at The Stand trying to kind of edge your way onto a last-minute dropout five spot. And one thing that stood out for me was that I think you were holding a box of chocolates of some sort, or you had one by your side.

    6. DB

      Sounds like me.

    7. DJ

      It was either like Quality Street or Cadbury's.

    8. DB

      Yeah.

    9. DJ

      And at the time, it didn't dawn on me to why you had that with you, uh, or why you were giving out these sweets. And then I realized-

    10. DB

      Mm-hmm

    11. DJ

      ... it was a, like an act of gesture to the club-

    12. DB

      Mm-hmm

    13. DJ

      ... so that they would remember you. So if any future spots, whether it was an open spot or a open mic night came available, they would remember the guy with the, the sweets.

    14. DB

      Mm. Hopefully they would, yeah. Yeah.

    15. DJ

      And I just think that's a kind of, a good illumination of your character already.

    16. DB

      Yeah. Cheers, man. I, I think so. Historically, I mean, you would've seen that thing years ago. I don't know if it was Pinterest or, or what it was. I mean, you and I probably don't spend a lot of time on Pinterest, but there was, uh, a, a dude who took his resume into prospective employers, and he had like a box of donuts with him. And he was like, "Most resumes end up in the trash, mine in your belly." And it was a dozen donuts with his resume on the top. And I used to do that with jobs back in New Zealand when I'd apply for job. Jobs would take like donuts into the office because they've got a stack of resumes and they've got one box of donuts. It's like, well, they would hopefully remember the donuts. And with any comedy clubs I'd go into, I just want to like, you know, there's 100 people trying to do the same thing, so just like taking a box of sweets or whatever, try and be memorable. Like I do baking. I've got a, um, got a scar under my left rib 'cause when I first moved to Edinburgh, I'd, I'd baked some cookies for The Stand in Edinburgh, and I was like in a rush before the gig, so I hadn't put any clothes on. I was like, "I just need to make some biscuits." And I just got like a big burn from the cookie tray, and I was in such a rush when I took them to the club, they were like half-baked. So it's a real shame.

    17. DJ

      [laughs]

    18. DB

      Try and be memorable though, eh?

    19. DJ

      I mean, the accent helps.

    20. DB

      Yeah. Well, it does and it doesn't. I thought when I moved to the UK that being Kiwi would be so novel that you could just get on every lineup. They'd be like, "Oh, this guy is like-"

    21. DJ

      Red carpet every night.

    22. DB

      100%, that was my expectation. But I think, um, I think now in 2025, everything's so connected with tech and social media that being Kiwi isn't as novel as it was in 2000 when people would move over here from New Zealand and they'd, they'd get on lineups and they'd start their own nights, and it was like a Kiwi comedy night. I think it's, I think it's less novel now being from overseas because we're so connected now.

    23. DJ

      Kind of ironically, Edinburgh is in uniform, and the similarity that everyone has is that they're diverse.

    24. DB

      Mm.

    25. DJ

      So like a Kiwi or an Aussie or whatever-

    26. DB

      Mm

    27. DJ

      ... isn't so rare anymore because Edinburgh sees such an influx of tourism, uh, especially within the arts. So actually being Kiwi isn't that unique.

    28. DB

      Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I think you get lumped in with Australians. People think you're Australian anyway, so there's like seven, eight times as many Aussies in London or Edinburgh as there is Kiwis, and people are like, "Oh, are you from Australia?" I'm like, "No, no, New Zealand." They're like, "Oh yeah, the same thing," you know? So you, you're lumped in with the Antipodeans when you come over to do comedy, you know?

    29. DJ

      We need to go into the origin story. It's the name of the podcast. I fear that we'd end up going into a wormhole, a hole of crypto and Hitler and-

    30. DB

      You and I can both feel it happening, bro.

  3. 5:22 – 6:18

    Rural New Zealand beginnings: Martinborough, dropping out, and recurring ‘comedy epiphanies’

    1. DJ

      Take me back to New Zealand before the tattoos.

    2. DB

      Yes.

    3. DJ

      Rural New Zealand, give me the origin story, mate.

    4. DB

      Rural New Zealand. I grew up in the Wairarapa region, um, of New Zealand. Small town of about 1,000 people. Small town called Martinborough. Um, to look at from the sky, town's in the shape of a Union Jack, so like colonization squared, right? 'Cause the town square's literally in the shape of, of a Union Jack. Grew up there and toyed with the idea of doing comedy since I was a teenager. I always grew up playing in bands and jamming Dropped out of school when I was like 16. Was a beneficiary, staying at home, smoking cigarettes and drinking-

    5. DJ

      Yeah, you were on benefits for a good few years, right?

    6. DB

      Yeah, a couple of years, two or three years. It was equivalent to about 50, 60 pounds a week that I'd get. So I'd buy a pack of cigarettes, and then I'd split the cigarettes up to make smaller cigarettes out of them, um-

    7. DJ

      It's-

    8. DB

      ... and then just smoke tiny cigarettes

    9. DJ

      ... tobacco Russian dolls.

    10. DB

      Yeah, yeah.

    11. DJ

      [laughs]

  4. 6:18 – 10:07

    First open mic chaos: silence, panic, flipping off the crowd, then recovering

    1. DB

      Tobacco Russian dolls, exactly what I was doing. And then, um, toyed with the idea of getting into comedy because, you know, I was, I-- The one thing-- The two things at school that I had kinda going for me was like public speaking, I could lock into doing that, and, and music, right? Like creative pursuits like talking and playing drums, I could lock into that. Everything else I was just, I was too h-hyperactive to focus on. Toyed with the idea of doing comedy as a teenager. Put my name down for an open mic when I was 18, back in 2012, and it's kinda lost to history whether or not I was too nervous to go or if I just kinda forgot that I had booked in that night because I was flatting with five other fellas and we were just smoking weed in the kitchen, and it's possible that I was just smoking weed off the oven and forgot that I had booked in a show that night. But I toyed with doing it, um, but that was about 14 years ago. And what would happen is every several years, I think I might've told you this when I met you, what would happen is every two or three years I would have this like epiphany, just this like aha moment where I'm like, "Comedy." That like, "I'm gonna do comedy. That's it. I'm gonna be a comedian." And I'd get like all excited and inspired for like an afternoon, and then I'd forget about it for another couple of years. Um, I came over here to the UK eight years back for the first time just for Christmas with my ex-partner, and the same thing happened. I watched a documentary on the flight over. It was either "Dying Laughing" or "Dying of Laughter," really good documentary, black and white.

    2. DJ

      So where they interview a bunch of comedi-

    3. DB

      Yep.

    4. DJ

      I think, think I've seen that, yeah, yeah.

    5. DB

      You know the one. And I watched that on the flight over and I was like, "Comedy, that's me. I'm, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna lock in." And that would happen every few years. It wasn't till about four years ago that I finally gave it a go. I was like, "Okay, I've been saying for about a decade now that I'm gonna do it. I should just go and do it." And I did my first open mic in New Zealand. It was during the Comedy Fest as well, so even though it was an open mic on a Monday, the venue was packed out. It was 100 capacity. It was, it was a full room and it was a, it was a hot, hot room. And the emcee was David Correos, a pal of mine from back in New Zealand. He was on "Taskmaster."

    6. DJ

      "Taskmaster," oh yeah.

    7. DB

      Loveliest dude in the world. You, you know of him. He was emceeing and he's like, "All right, please welcome Dan Boerman." And I go to jump up on the stage and I just, I was just waiting for him to leave the stage so I could get on. I didn't know that you go up, shake hands, and then he leaves. So I was just like waiting side of stage, and then he obviously thought I was too scared to come up. He's like, "No, come up." I was like, "No, you..." "Come up." Get up on the stage, tell my first joke. And it wasn't even a bomb, 'cause if a joke bombs, you tell a joke and people are like, "Okay, he said a joke and that just wasn't very funny." What happened is people didn't know the joke was done.

    8. DJ

      Hmm.

    9. DB

      I said the joke and there was just silence and I'm like, "Oh no. Six minutes of this." And it was only 11 seconds in. I was like, "Far out." And so I panicked and like the amygdala took over, the lizard brain took over, and I flipped off the crowd. And I just stood there with my middle fingers raised at the crowd just looking at them. And I was like... And now it's like 13 seconds into my first show. I'm like, "Well, this is going swimmingly." And I apologized. I was like, "Look, guys, I'm f- I'm freaking out right now. I'm really sorry." And everyone got behind me like, "You got this, man. You got this." And I ended up doing really well for the next six minutes. It like, it just like, I was just like real high energy. It wasn't necessarily funny, but it was a performance. And then, um, and then since then, haven't really looked back. I mean, the first year I was only doing a spot every like six weeks 'cause there was like a lockdown not long after doing that spot. But then it's been like exponentially more and more shows since then. You know, the year after was 50 spots and then 100 spots, and this year I've done over 200. So every year trying to do more than the year before.

  5. 10:07 – 11:23

    Volume as a career strategy: more spots, more buckets, more ‘lottery tickets’

    1. DJ

      Do you think volume is the deciding factor of how lucky you get in the industry?

    2. DB

      I think this, this, I mean, this is a bit of a shit analogy, but you know how like BMI isn't an indicator of health, but it's, it's a pretty good ballpark, right? That number's kinda gonna mean something at an upper or a lower end, right? It's not everything, but it's certainly important. I think, I think that does tie into it. I think too, too far down one end, 300, 400 spots an end, it might be quantity over quality. But I think in my mind, whether it's doing spots or applying for TV gigs or any extracurricular comedy activities, it's like you just, you're lighting more fires, you know, putting out as many buckets as you can-

    3. DJ

      Buying all the lottery tickets

    4. DB

      ... and hope that... Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly it, I, I think. And, you know, doing a, doing a mic to seven people, a, a bringer in London, you know, could, could you class that as a lottery ticket? You know, it might be a, I mean, that's like a, a one quid scratch card you find on the ground. That's probably not gonna lead to a great deal, but it's, uh, something. But yeah, I just see it as just putting out as many buckets as, as you can for when it rains is, is how I visualize it.

  6. 11:23 – 14:26

    Barbering as crowd work training (and why barber shops are confessionals)

    1. DJ

      I like that one. Talk to me about being a barber in New Zealand.

    2. DB

      Barbering was great fun. Barbering was the same thing for a few years where I was like, "I'm gonna be a barber," right? I have these ideas. I get all inspired. I'm like, "This is gonna be me. This is gonna like solve everything."

    3. DJ

      Which is incredible given that you have such luscious long locks.

    4. DB

      Yeah, dude, it almost feels like, um... Yeah, it's kinda weird. I, I'm sure like a, a th-

    5. DJ

      We're at like separate ends of the hair spectrum.

    6. DB

      Yeah.

    7. DJ

      [chuckles] I'm losing mine-

    8. DB

      Yeah

    9. DJ

      ... and you're just growing yours from everywhere.

    10. DB

      Yeah, I'm almost just kinda flexing. Hey, it's like a therapist could have a field day with the idea that I have this hair and I'm getting rid of other people's.

    11. DJ

      [laughs]

    12. DB

      You know what I mean? I'm just like, it's a, it's a weird one, bro. Started barbering about 10 years ago, and it was the same thing every few years. I was like, "Yeah, this is me. I'm gonna get into this. I'm gonna start barbering." 'Cause like barbering, you know, like it's, it's a cool job. Like it's a cool environment. Like when you were, when we were 18, 19, you know, you go into the shop, they're playing Kendrick over the speakers. They got their tattoos out and nose rings and shit, and they're just cool people, and it's a cool environment. It's a desirable job, right? Be like working in a skate shop. It's just a, a cool thing to do, you know?

    13. DJ

      And it's very similar to the comedy club. Maybe it's different in New Zealand, but at least in the UK, there are very few rules of what you can and cannot say in a barber shop. Um, and it's contextual to the environment. You couldn't say some of the things that... Some of the things I've said to my barber I couldn't say outside the shop.

    14. DB

      Mm.

    15. DJ

      Um, but it's appreci- it's almost like an audience, like a mini audience to do crowd work within. Um, I think there's like loads of like talking therapy groups in the UK where-

    16. DB

      Mm

    17. DJ

      ... um, barbers are like mental health first trained or they're therapists.

    18. DB

      Yeah.

    19. DJ

      And I, I find that it's, uh, at least an environment where, at least from my own perspective, I can talk about things I wouldn't speak about outside of it.

    20. DB

      Yeah.

    21. DJ

      And given that I have this comedic gear and that's how I guess you and I know each other-

    22. DB

      Mm-hmm

    23. DJ

      ... I feel more capable of sharing some of those jokes-

    24. DB

      Yeah

    25. DJ

      ... within a barber shop. So I can imagine being a barber, that's almost like your first stage, you know?

    26. DB

      Yeah.

    27. DJ

      You can say things and ask things that you can almost like MC a gig almost from-

    28. DB

      You, you're absolutely right

    29. DJ

      ... being a barber.

    30. DB

      That's, that's e- exactly it. You're... You know, before my first comedy gig, I'd done 10, 20,000 haircuts, and I'd met people from so many, you know, "What do you do, what do you do for a, you know, what do you do for a living?" Exactly that. So you're crowd working. You've got someone sat in the chair. It's almost like, um, it's almost like it's crowd work that they can't escape, right? You've got a cape on them. You've got a blade next to their head, and you're like, "What do you do for a living?" You know? It's like, yeah, you meet a lot of people doing a lot of different bits and pieces. But I guess when I do comedy, I think like if I go up on stage and I'm chatting to someone and they say that they're like a, a project analyst or something, it's not funny for me to know what they do or understand the nuance of that job. So I mean, you'll know from comedy, I take the angle of, of playing dumb and being like, "Oh, what is that? Explain that to me." Even though I've, I've cut the hair of 57 project analysts the last year I was barbering, you know? So I think you, um, I think you make a very good point that it is, it is just like an early iteration of, of crowd work.

  7. 14:26 – 17:31

    Jimmy Carr’s ‘Am I The A**hole?’: the thinning-scissors revenge story

    1. DJ

      I, uh, watched you tell a story on Jimmy Carr's "Am I The A**hole?"

    2. DB

      Yes.

    3. DJ

      Which involved barbering in the barber chair.

    4. DB

      Mm.

    5. DJ

      Can you share that story?

    6. DB

      In summary, the, the, the, the tale on there was if someone came into the barber shop, and this, this realistically had happened once, maybe twice.

    7. DJ

      Sorry, Dan, can we, uh, for context actually, can you give an idea to what that show is?

    8. DB

      Yeah. Yeah, so it's, well, it's a show that's on Comedy Central. Jimmy Carr hosts with Jamali Maddix and GK Barry, and it's based off of the subreddit Am I The A**hole, where people ask the question, "Am I the a**hole?" And, and the, the panel, in this case, usually people on Reddit deliberate over whether or not this person is in the right or, or they're wrong. And it's a fun format because it's, it's very divisive, right? People for or people against what, what you do and what, what you say you did. And I went on the show many months ago, and it only aired a few weeks back with the story from when I was barbering, which was of people coming to the barber shop, and they are a certain type of individual, a, a t- a toxic man, a bad man. Um, I'd get the thinning scissors and make it look like they were going bald. And, you know, maybe to your earlier point about being someone long hair cutting other people's hair, maybe I am just like a bit of a psychopath. But it only happened a couple of times, and the story that I remember that I... And I, I wasn't allowed to share specifics on the TV show, but there was this guy that came into the shop, and he sat in the chair, and he was talking about being a... He worked out of the hostel around the corner from the barber's. He was like a, like a pickup artist.

    9. DJ

      Mm.

    10. DB

      And not, not, not just like, "Here's, here's how to be confident. Here's how to chat to women," you know, for like dudes who haven't been on a date or whatever. But it was like, "Here's some, here's some tips to get inside the mind of a woman so she'll sleep with you," even though she probably said no a few times. And so thinning scissors come out and, um, yeah, just go... I mean, I'd been barbering for, for five years at that point, so I, you know, I knew how to make a mistake not look like a mistake. It's kinda like how my parents raised me. There was just... No. There's this, [both chuckle] "We're having fun here, guys. It's good to be here tonight." No, and um, yeah, blended the back of this guy's hair to make it look like he's going bald, 'cause at the end of the cut, you normally thin out the hair, you texturize it. But I just showed him his in the mirror. I said, "Mate, you know, we can take a bit off the top, but don't know if we want to. Like, you got a bit of a bloody bald spot there." And, uh, yeah, five years later, ended up bloody chatting to Jimmy Carr about it, and he was like, "Nah, I don't think you're an a**hole. I think you're doing God's work." He, he, he called me... What did he call me? He said, "I think Dan's a hero," and he also called me an Adonis. So for, um, my Fringe show next year, I'm gonna put those as like pull quotes on the poster.

    11. DJ

      [chuckles]

    12. DB

      "Adonis hyphen Jimmy Carr," just with no other context. Just be like, yeah.

    13. DJ

      You're Adonis, man. I think he'll, I think he'll back that, by the way.

    14. DB

      I'm hoping.

  8. 17:31 – 23:40

    How he got cast: last-minute Instagram ad, jetlag auditions, and chasing ‘what if’

    1. DJ

      Tell me about how that process came around. So how did you end up on that show? What was the recruitment process for a storyteller such as you?

    2. DB

      Yeah, so I, I think like, I think I got incredibly lucky, but it's to that earlier point of just putting out lots of buckets, lighting lots of fires, and hoping one takes off. I'd just come back from New Zealand back in May, and I was at a hotel in Newcastle, and I saw an Instagram ad come up. Um, they were seeking applicants for this TV show, and the applications closed on a Friday night. And I saw this ad on a Sunday night, right? And if you've just flown from New Zealand, you've been flying for 41 hours at that point, so nearly two days of, of travel And I was jet lagged and, and I, I looked cooked and I felt worse. I was like, "The application's closed for the show a couple of days ago. I wanna apply for it, but I really just wanna like sleep right now." And I was like, "Oh, I'll just send through a video." And I was almost like feeling a bit like manic 'cause I'd gotten off of this flight and I was hungry and tired and wrecked. And I must have spent two or three hours just doing these audition takes again and again and again and again in the hotel room. I'd like do the take, say the thing, and then I'd be like, "Oh, I got it wrong." And have to take it again. And it was now 1:00 in the morning. It was now 2:00 in the morning. I was jet lagged. I was delirious. I'm like, "I just gotta upload this video 'cause like, what if?" And I sent through the video and then the file was too big, so then I had to sign up to Dropbox and it was, all of this is stressful enough at 2:00 AM, but I just desperately wanted to sleep. But I was like, like, "What, what if?" You know? And I sent it through. And they got in touch. They emailed a day or two later, the, the recruiters for, and they're like, "Oh, we want to do a phone interview." And between sending the email, phone interview, video interview, it was on- only like a two or three-day process. And they were like, "Yeah, keen to have you on the show. Send through the contract." And I was so excited, dude, 'cause like, y- you know, being on the show was exciting, but the process of like, what if I get to be on the show was as or more exciting. And I think for everything that I do, I've made peace with the fact that the, the, the what if, the wouldn't it be exciting if I got to do X, Y, Z is always going to be my driver and is always going to be as or more exciting than the opportunity itself, right? Like you or I thinking like, "Imagine if we got to be on 'Live at the Apollo.'" That thought is probably more exciting than being on the Apollo. Being on at the Apollo would be-

    3. DJ

      It's part of the human condition. We're anticipatory beings.

    4. DB

      Yeah, 100%. I mean, you can, "Live at the Apollo" would be fun, but we can sit here and think about it and just have the dopamine without doing it, right? And that's a, it's a, a dangerous spiral to get into thinking about things and not necessarily acting on them. But yeah, for me, I was like, "Imagine if I got to be on the show." Like even after the first phone interview, I was like DMing the family back home. I was like, "I had an interview for this show. Oh, the most exciting thing in the world." And then when I got on the show, I was like, "Yeah, I got on the show. That was cool." But the phone interview, I was like, "I, I might get to do this," you know? "Might get to do this thing." And then when I got to do the thing, I was like, "Oh, cool. This is fun," you know?

    5. DJ

      I enjoyed being part of the meta of it because I got to find out just through privately-

    6. DB

      Mm.

    7. DJ

      ... uh, through you that you'd interviewed and been on the show and-

    8. DB

      Yeah

    9. DJ

      ... just watching that go to production and like fruition and publication was... It's almost like seeing, like experiencing that secondhand.

    10. DB

      Yeah.

    11. DJ

      Because of course, like you get, I got to like relive it-

    12. DB

      Yeah

    13. DJ

      ... with you. So I, I, I watched it when it was happening in real life, and then-

    14. DB

      Yeah

    15. DJ

      ... when it went into like publication, you get to have that second kind of order of dopamine.

    16. DB

      Yeah. Yeah.

    17. DJ

      I can imagine you felt that way as well because of course you got to do it and then you got to watch yourself do it by watching yourself on TV, if that makes sense.

    18. DB

      Yeah. Watching myself on TV with a, uh, with a fake tan during a heat wave as well. So they put on the, the tan and it was, you know, depending on what model of telly you had, I looked pretty orange on some of those. Like I looked like I'd come off of Love Island.

    19. DJ

      Looked pretty racist on some of them.

    20. DB

      Yeah. Yeah. Even without the fake tan. No. But, um, there, there's something for your editor to take out. But when, when I did the bloody, um, [lip smack] when that went on TV, like I had to, I had to get like a subscription to Paramount or whatever to watch it. And I had a, um, I had a date around at mine a few weeks back. She's like, "Oh, what should we put on TV?" I was like, "I don't know. I don't watch TV. I see what's on here," you know?

    21. DJ

      Oh, no.

    22. DB

      Just put on the episode. You have to do it. I'll tell you why you have to do it, David, because I have a sublease here in London, [lip smack] costs me 1,000 quid a month, and I'm just doing comedy and living off of my money from the Edinburgh Fringe. So I've got a nest egg that runs out, and my hope is that an opportunity will come up before this money runs out. So I've got an expensive sublet here in London, and the sublet's a tiny room, and there's not enough room in the room for a TV. But the woman whose room I'm taking has a little remote control on the bed, and you press the button and then it's like "MTV Cribs." [mimicking mechanical sound]

    23. DJ

      [chuckles]

    24. DB

      The TV comes out of the base of the bed. So you tell me, if you've been on Jimmy Carr's show and it's your first TV appearance and you've got a Hinge date around and you've got a bed that does that, what are you putting on that TV? Any dude in their right mind is going to, "Oh, let's check out Comedy Central." And, and I put it on and I was like, "Oh, look at that. It's me." 'Cause you only get to do that once, don't you?

    25. DJ

      There's gonna be a barber that thins your hair at some point.

    26. DB

      I haven't had my hair cut in a year, dude, because I know-

    27. DJ

      [laughs]

    28. DB

      ... I know that the, the type of person-

    29. DJ

      There are other guys like you. [laughs]

    30. DB

      Well, I mean, I saw, dude, I saw the, um, I saw the comments online and it was a good litmus test for, um, just being perceived publicly like that was hectic because, you know, there's ne- near a million views on social media when the clip went up on, on Jimmy Carr's page, and all, all the comments, it was like a 50/50 split of like 50-plus American divorcees who were like, "Oh, if I was 10 years younger." Which is hectic because I'm 20 years younger than them. And then the other 50% was just dudes who were like, "Blah, blah, blah," you know? Who, who maybe had done some hectic things themselves and were thinking, "Oh, maybe I tell my barber a little bit too much." You know, as you were saying, maybe I confide about some, some bad behaviors. Um, yeah, it was, it was polarizing, but I guess that's kind of the point in the, in the show and the format, right? Is-

  9. 23:40 – 29:30

    All-in on comedy: post-Fringe silence, quitting a stable job, and the dinosaur-bed reality check

    1. DJ

      Let's talk about your commitment to stand-up comedy. You left New Zealand, flew to the other side of the world to-

    2. DB

      Mm

    3. DJ

      ... Edinburgh and gave yourself a kind of no regrets bet that you would make it work.

    4. DB

      Yes.

    5. DJ

      Tell me about that process, that thought process.

    6. DB

      So did the Edinburgh Fringe last year, and that, that went well. I had enough money from that to last me several months for rent. And when I got back to New Zealand, the, the, the aha moment, one of those little life epiphanies that I had was I got back to New Zealand. I'd just done the Edinburgh Fringe, and I walked into the flat that I was leasing in, in Wellington, the capital city back home. Go into my apartment, put down my suitcases I can only describe it as like a deafening silence, like how quiet my apartment was and how quiet the streets were and everything was. It was, it was overwhelming and it was intense, the absence of noise after a month at the Edinburgh Fringe. I was like, "I don't like this. I need to go back. I don't like it. I need to go back." And within six weeks I'd resigned from my job. Decent, decent job as well. Um, it was-

    7. DJ

      It's like an Uber Eats, Uber type role?

    8. DB

      That was, yeah, it was a job that I had a couple years before that, like a operations gig for Uber's competitor in New Zealand. But this was, um, I was working as a property manager for like a government organization, so it was like decent enough salary. Um, I wasn't great at the job, but I'm good at interviewing 'cause I bring them donuts and then the rest kinda figures itself out from there. So, got back to New Zealand, put the suitcases down, overwhelming silence. Six weeks later, was living in the UK. And I moved back to Edinburgh and I, I don't think, I don't think from the last year of living in the UK, I, I don't think the, the benefit has been what I've achieved, but just w- like the lessons that I've learned, the mistakes that I've learned from, right? 'Cause I moved back to Edinburgh after the Fringe, and you'll know outside of the Fringe, Edinburgh's not super busy. So I'm catching a bus for an hour and a half to, to Glasgow where I met you, you know, to try and jump on an open mic there. I'm, I'm trying to jump on at clubs in Edinburgh, but it's obviously a lot more quiet outside of the Fringe, you know? So it was a big swing, but I was living half an hour out of Edinburgh in some rural spot with a woman who'd met me at the Edinburgh Fringe, who's like, "Oh, come stay with me. I have a spare room." And then it wasn't a spare room, it was her kid's room, and I was sleeping in a four foot-

    9. DJ

      Cot. [laughs]

    10. DB

      No, it was like a dinosaur bed, bro. It was like half the length of me. Turn off the lights. Bro, I turn off the lights and the ceiling starts glowing in the dark, and I'm laying there looking up at the ceiling and I was like, "I think I've fucked up."

    11. DJ

      [laughs] Then the kid goes, "Wow." [laughs]

    12. DB

      No, no, genuinely. There, there was a... You, you laugh, bro, but like I'm laying there looking at-

    13. DJ

      Is that true?

    14. DB

      Yes, all of it. I'm, I'm not riffing and I'm not, I'm not sharing this story from a place of like, "Oh, I'd, I, I had a fan put me up." No, there was just a woman who'd met me at the Fringe last year, and she's like, "Come and stay with me. I'll stay in the spare room." And it wasn't a spare room, it was her kid's room, and then the kid would just sleep in her bed for a month. I was like, "This, this dude's like four years old. This can't be great for his development." But you know in like 12 years he's gonna be like a great musician or something, right? Just from that little like blip in his youth.

    15. DJ

      He'll be back on this podcast. [laughs]

    16. DB

      He will, yeah, sitting there. "Where did it all start?" And he's sitting there, he's like, "Well, my first memory was this, this dude who refused to get a haircut, and I think he was Australian. I'm not sure. They're all the same." But yeah, it was... I tell, I tell you maybe more interesting than funny, dude, but I was, I was sleeping in, in this kid bed, turn off the lights and the glow-in-the-dark stars, and I don't know if serendipitous is the word or what it was, but I hadn't seen glow-in-the-dark stars on a ceiling since I was four. And so I'm now 30, turn off the lights, glow-in-the-dark stars, and it was such a moment for thought to just look at the ceiling. It was such a cinematic, "You're probably wondering how I got here" kind of moment, right? It was that record scratch moment where it was, uh, it was the first time in a long time I'd taken a step back and looked at my life and I was like, the last time I'd looked at this kinda like three quid night sky, I was like a four-year-old boy, and now I'd fast-forwarded to 30 and I was just kinda taking stock on where I was and I was like, it's like that, that once in a lifetime song, like how did I get here? You may find yourself in a... I forget the lyrics.

    17. DJ

      Do you know what I think has happened? Are you religious or spiritual at least? Maybe you had prayed to be amongst the stars [laughs] and that's what you got.

    18. DB

      Maybe I am, dude. Yeah. Imagine. Yeah. Imagine, yeah. The f- the God I prayed to wasn't super literate. Or mayb- maybe it was like an autistic God who just took it real literal. That's the one, bro. That's when you're like, yeah, you wake up and your Rubik's cube's been solved. You're like, "Thank you, spectrum God." Yeah, I don't know, bro. That was, uh, it could've been what happened, the glow-in-the-dark stars. I learned so much about dinosaurs against my will as well, bro, 'cause there was so many dinosaur facts and posters on the wall. It's a we- it's a weird thing that, like I'm going off on a tangent, but I don't understand why they, um, why that's the first thing you teach kids is dinosaurs.

    19. DJ

      Is it?

    20. DB

      Well, yeah, 'cause every four-year-old-

    21. DJ

      I'm from Glasgow. I definitely didn't learn that.

    22. DB

      No, right. I wonder-

    23. DJ

      I learned knife crime.

    24. DB

      I think even the dinosaurs probably avoided Glasgow. They're like, "Yeah, no, that's probably what went extinct was just the bloody, the carrying weapons." I don't know, dude. But I, um, it's just weird to me that a four-year-old, they're like, "Right, everything in the world you could learn about is like let's start 200 million years ago."

    25. DJ

      That makes sense, or the evolution of man, I guess.

    26. DB

      It does, but you're setting them up for... I, I think teaching kids about dinosaurs, and I'm not riffing here, but I think what it's doing is it's telling kids like not to get attached, right? It's like, "Don't fall in love. You're gonna get your heart broken in life." 'Cause they're like, "These are so interesting and cool," and then they learn, "By the way, here's where oil comes from. You know, your favorite thing you're learning about, they've been gone forever, and mommy's fueling her car with them."

    27. DJ

      They then teach them about God and they go, "He's not real." [laughs]

    28. DB

      Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

    29. DJ

      Then it's Santa, of course.

  10. 29:30 – 32:31

    Why London changes the odds: opportunity density, coincidence, and catching fire

    1. DB

      Yeah, dude. Yeah. And then, uh, and then since then I've been in London somewhere along the way. And, and, and I bought, and I bought some crypto and lost about 20% of it. But yeah, I was, I was, I was in Edinburgh until the Fringe this year, and then after Edinburgh Fringe moved down to London, because everyone moves to London initially, and in my head I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna do it slightly different. London's expensive and there's too many people trying to get after it." But the more time I spend in London, the more I'm like, "Oh, this is why everyone's trying to get after it, because London's awesome and there's so much opportunity here." The thing that converted me was doing that Jimmy Carr show. I was like, "Television is here. Opportunities are here. It's just a melting pot. There's just so much happening."

    2. DJ

      Yeah, I, I believe... I try and get down here like maybe once if not twice a month.

    3. DB

      Yeah.

    4. DJ

      I'm always here. And it's not because I think It's, it's my podcast or it's not because there's better studios here, even though I love this space. Shout out Adam. It's because like in Glasgow or Edinburgh, you can make your own luck, but you have to make it. You have to work twice as hard to find the lottery tickets. Whereas in London, it might just be at the bar you go to one late evening, or it might be the person beside you in the morning when you order your coffee. It might be a networking event or it might be at a corporate gig, you know? Like you don't have that same over-the-shoulder luck in Glasgow or in these smaller places. But I think in London you can literally essentially bump into opportunity.

    5. DB

      You've, yeah, you do a good job of articulating the, the thing that I love about this place, right? There is, there's just, there's so much happening. There's so many, there's so much room for coincidence or-

    6. DJ

      Mm-hmm

    7. DB

      ... bumping into people or opportunities coming up. Yeah, I th- I, I think that's what draws me to the place is there's just, there's so m- so many more... The, I mean, th- this is a bit of a crappy analogy, but I was having the same chat with my pal recently as it's li- I think of it as like you, you, you're trying to make it, you're the fire analogy, right? Like I'm sitting up in Glasgow or Edinburgh, I've got a pack of matches and I'm just like lighting them and just throwing them like that. But like in Glasgow and Edinburgh, it's not a very dry place. There's not a lot of tinder. I mean, it is like the weather and everything else is like a wet environment. You're throwing them, trying to start a fire and nothing's really gonna catch. But you move to somewhere like London and it's all just like kindling. It's all just like that, that rich environment, just like, and sooner or later you're just kinda doing that, something's gonna take off.

    8. DJ

      Last night I was doing some news-

    9. DB

      Shout out to the arsonists.

    10. DJ

      [laughs] The Guy Fawkes.

    11. DB

      Isn't that a football team? I don't follow them.

    12. DJ

      The arsonists?

    13. DB

      Yeah, something like that. I don't know. I'm a rugby boy.

    14. DJ

      It sounds like a band that you'd probably be a part of.

    15. DB

      Yeah, The Arsonists, yeah. Keep having to fire the pyro guy. I said fire-y. You're gonna have to edit that out. That's not even a real word. It's 10:00 AM, forgive me. I haven't had my brain drink.

  11. 32:31 – 36:36

    The fitted-sheet phenomenon: ambiguity marketing that pulled 1,000 people to a hill

    1. DJ

      Let's talk about folding a fitted sheet.

    2. DB

      Yes.

    3. DJ

      Why is that important to your story?

    4. DB

      So I had a solo show this year called "Dan Boerman Folds a Fitted Sheet on His Own," and the show's called that because it's a show about relationships and it's a show about being with someone for nearly a decade, the aforementioned woman that I came over here with eight years ago from the UK herself, and it's a show about just navigating life as a single guy. And to me it's a funny, silly, relatable millennial name for a show because folding a sheet is a relatable struggle, right? And it's like when you're with someone, you're doing stuff together, you're making the bed together, you're going on road trips, you're doing whatever. But now it's like, you know, Dan Boerman cooks his own dinner, he sleeps in his own bed, and he's folds a fitted sheet on his own. And my earlier point that I made was sometimes we can get caught up in things that are like dopamine rich or exciting, not necessarily doing work, but like chasing the sexy, interesting idea, ideas in our mind. And for me, marketing a show is always as or more rewarding as doing the show itself. Like I, I love, I love like guerrilla style marketing. I love creating hype and I love everything around like advertising. I just find it real interesting. So to promote the show, I was doing it in New Zealand in May this year. I didn't have any money to promote it, but I wanted a way to promote it while I was still in Scotland in the weeks before I went back to New Zealand. So I paid a guy 20 quid to put some stickers around town that said, "Come watch me fold a fitted sheet." And that's all they said. And I was like, you've got ambiguity, you've got a QR code that you can track how many people are scanning it, and you've got an Instagram page. And by the time I went to fold this fitted sheet publicly, there was 100,000 views on the reel on the Instagram. There was 1,000 followers. There's 2,000 people who had scanned the QR code. It had gone viral on all these different meme pages and it had cost me nothing. And I ended up learning how to fold a sheet the night before I did this. I'd got back to my mum's house in New Zealand and, and I couldn't fold a sheet. I was like, "Oh, fuck, I feel like if anyone should know how [chuckles] it's probably me. I'm about to do this publicly." And I, I did it. I went, I had some music on, UE Boom speaker, folded a sheet, did this in Wellington back home, and it got on the news. It was like a, a, it, it got on the, um, our equivalent of like "Mock the Week," like a panel show back in New Zealand. And it was, it was on a lot of TV, a lot of radio, and it created a lot of hype for the show I did in New Zealand. It sold a lot of tickets, this viral stunt. And I did the same thing again, uh, just before the Edinburgh Fringe. And I thought, "Surely you can't get that lucky with like a silly marketing stunt. Lightning's not gonna strike twice."

    5. DJ

      [chuckles]

    6. DB

      And then, uh, did the same thing in Edinburgh. Got these, legally I'll say that it wasn't me, put these stickers around town, "Come watch me fold a fitted sheet up Calton Hill." And yeah, it was like 1,000 people, dude. There was like, people had driven from Glasgow to come and see it. It was on radio in Dubai. It was on like Canadian national radio. It, it was on podcasts back in New Zealand. They're like, "The sheet guy's done it again." I landed a brand deal with a sheet company in Australia that paid a significant amount of, of rent here in London. And so all the hype has been around the marketing and me being a guy that publicly folds a sheet. And I think to my earlier point, you know, if you're an opportunist, if you try and light a lot of fires and see what takes off, you know, I moved over here like, "I'm gonna do stand-up comedy and be good at comedy." Has that gone well? Yeah, I've done a lot of gigs and gotten funnier, but now I'm known for a thing I never even planned, which was publicly folding a sheet. And if you, you say yes to things and follow your nose and you just Don't turn down opportunities. You just end up-- Now I've just got sponsored by a betting company in Australia, you know?

  12. 36:36 – 38:46

    Being remembered (again): from sweets to sheets, plus the weirdness of micro-fame

    1. DJ

      Can I go full circle back to what I first mentioned on the podcast about you being remembered, or at least by me-

    2. DB

      Mm

    3. DJ

      ... for bringing sweets to a gig.

    4. DB

      Yeah.

    5. DJ

      And then here you're remembered-

    6. DB

      Bringing sheets to a gig. [both laughing] Yeah, dude. It's just, yeah, it was just, um-

    7. DJ

      That was quick. [chuckles]

    8. DB

      It was just, just gr- simple grammar, yeah.

    9. DJ

      [laughs] Uh, yeah. [chuckles] I guess the meta lesson is be memorable. Be at the extremes-

    10. DB

      Yeah

    11. DJ

      ... you know?

    12. DB

      I, I think so. Yeah, just trying to stand out because someone mentioned to me as well, I mean, I don't know if this, you can verify this, but, uh, 'cause I got a award nomination from that, the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award for Edinburgh Fringe. Someone mentioned to me, unverified, that it was the biggest gig at the Edinburgh Fringe this year because I, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think there are 1,000 capacity venues. There's big venues nearly that big, but of all the events that happened, of all the gigs during the Fringe, that arguably was the biggest 'cause it was 1,000 people up a hill, um, watching me fold a sheet.

    13. DJ

      That needs to go on your, uh, tour poster for next year.

    14. DB

      Might be a bit of a stretch. Look, I'm not in the business of ripping off, uh, pull quotes for posters, dude. I'm a bit more honest than that.

    15. DJ

      [laughs]

    16. DB

      But yeah. Yeah, it was, um... That, that, that's probably the most outrageous thing I've ever done in my life. When I go to sleep at night, I sometimes think about that. I was like, "What? Why did they come and see that? 1,000 people. What?" That was bananas. Up a hill, and they were so excited for it as well. I was doing autographs after. I was getting photos with people. One guy wanted to, like, get my autograph tattooed, and I was like, "Dude, I, I understand more than anyone spontaneous tattoos that you're gonna regret five days later. Don't do it."

    17. DJ

      Yeah.

    18. DB

      He said, "No, no, it'll be fine." "Please don't."

    19. DJ

      And just for context, you are-

    20. DB

      Yeah

    21. DJ

      ... covered-

    22. DB

      I have a lot of tattoos. I got this one at the Fringe last year that says, "Make 'em laugh." I got that on my wrist as a little reminder. And, um, the first gig, the gig that evening that I did after getting the make 'em laugh tattoo, I ate shit and bombed really hard. So sometimes, um, you can't manifest your dreams. [both laughing] That's the takeaway from this episode. Sometimes you, you can't manifest your dreams, and that's okay.

  13. 38:46 – 51:02

    What’s next: engineered public events, social illusion inspiration, and ‘don’t die wondering’

    1. DJ

      What's next in terms of the s- marketing strategies that you might move forward with if you know that this fitted sheet scenario works?

    2. DB

      Yeah.

    3. DJ

      Have you had any ideas for what's next-

    4. DB

      Oh, yeah

    5. DJ

      ... to market the next show?

    6. DB

      Yeah.

    7. DJ

      Can you leak them on the show? Or give us a little smell or a hint of some of the ideas that may not have made it.

    8. DB

      Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, um, I've been learning recently about the comedian, the personality, the entertainer, Uber Butler. He had, uh, Uber Butler, he had the... I'm saying it wrong. I'm so sorry.

    9. DJ

      It sounds like a new Uber-

    10. DB

      Yeah. U-U-

    11. DJ

      ... service.

    12. DB

      Yeah. I'm so sorry if I'm getting his name wrong. He had something, he was on Vice a few years ago. He set up a fake restaurant in London, and he got to the top of TripAdvisor, um, through reverse engineering, uh, the algorithm essentially, and he set up a fake restaurant that didn't exist, but he got to the top of TripAdvisor. And so much of what he does is based around, uh, I don't know if you'd call it social manipulation, but just gaming the system and big public viral events.

    13. DJ

      Social illusion almost.

    14. DB

      Something like that, yeah. Very smart dude, very funny dude. And I think potentially the brand of what I'm doing going forward, and maybe there is an expectation, is that, yeah, like I'm a, I'm a decent stand-up, but it's like public viral events, like flash mob style events, events that like connect people. Um, I have an idea for what I'm doing in New Zealand. It'll either be when I'm back in December, more likely in April, May next year if, if I do the fest next year. Um, would, would be, would be something big and exciting up the top of a hill to promote the, the show. So I think like public events with ambiguous FOMO style marketing is, is the way forward. And the beauty of it as well is the, the knock-on effect is that you're not just doing like a big event. "Come watch me fold a sheet." "Yay, he folded a sheet." It's that you got that hype and then that dies down, and then five days later, all the news outlets pick it up because everyone's been posting it to TikTok, and then there's this big FOMO thing of, "Oh, we should have gone and seen the sheet guy. I wish I was up that hill. That looks so fun. What?" People DM-ing me, "Can you, can you do it again?" "Well, no, I can't do it again. But I am doing a show at Hoots 3 at 6:30 PM." So going forward, I think, I mean, it's, it's, it's just so fun to get people together and do something silly and do something where everyone's off their phones and do something where everyone's just in public hanging out, 2011 style millennial flash mob getting together. It's like, like the "Pokémon Go" days-

    15. DJ

      Mm

    16. DB

      ... you know? It's just like a big public event for people to just be excited together. It's, it's, it's very, it's very pure, it's very harmless, and everyone leaves feeling good, and I feel slightly more famous. [both laughing] And I've gotta be honest, bro, 'cause that was the thing, when people were getting autographs afterwards and taking photos with me, and there's me and 1,000 people cheering for me and like Roman architecture in the background, you do briefly feel like a god. And I was saying that to my pal who was filming. I was like, "Dude, this is such like a false dopamine right now. Like I f- I feel like a rock star right now, and I've done nothing."

    17. DJ

      And then you go back to dinosaur bed. [chuckles]

    18. DB

      Go back to dinosaur bed. I, I, I, I, I s- I sound like, I feel like such a slag saying this, but I will share it because it is funny. Um, lady I was seeing at the time, we were i- in my bedroom later that week, and in like mid, uh, how do you, how do you say? Coitus. She turns to me and she's like, "Is this the sheet?" I was like-

    19. DJ

      [laughs]

    20. DB

      ... "Yeah, this is..." She's like, "Is this, are we, are we fucking on the sheet?" I was like, "Yeah, this is..." She's like, "Oh my God, this is the sheet. This is famous." It was like that dude, that intern who got in trouble with NASA because he was having sex on the moon rocks.

    21. DJ

      [laughs]

    22. DB

      I don't know if you ever heard about that, but it's like if you're at NASA, like the, the biggest crime is, is sex on the moonMoon rocks, apparently. Yeah. And it's like he, he had then like, they're like a priceless artifact from the moon. He like put them under his bed and was like shagging on top of them and got in unspeakable trouble.

    23. DJ

      Imagine your partner's horror when you folded the sheet and took it to work the next day. [laughs]

    24. DB

      Yeah. Yeah, imagine getting the sheets mixed up, eh, and you're up on the hill, you're like, "Right, everybody."

    25. DJ

      [laughs]

    26. DB

      That'd be the quick- the quickest you've ever folded a sheet in your life, eh? The BBC's there, you got all the Edinburgh Live, and they're just filming it, and they're like, "What is this? Like a bloody Picasso."

    27. DJ

      [laughs]

    28. DB

      It's like one of those things where you like look at the blots on the paper and it's like, "What do you, what do you see from your childhood?" "That looks like a dinosaur."

    29. DJ

      [laughs]

    30. DB

      Unreal.

Episode duration: 51:03

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