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

David McIntosh Jr 0:00 Dan Boerman, welcome to "Origin Story," mate.

Dan Boerman 0:02 Thank you for finally having me, bro. Very excited to chat to you.

David McIntosh Jr 0:05 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.

Dan Boerman 0:14 That's what it takes, man. Famously charging in Bitcoin. No paper trail.

David McIntosh Jr 0:19 No altcoins.

Dan Boerman 0:20 No altcoins, no. They're not about that life. Do you own crypto?

David McIntosh Jr 0:24 I had Purple Pepe for a bit, which was like a hype meme coin.

Dan Boerman 0:27 Oh, okay.

David McIntosh Jr 0:28 And my ADHD allowed me to forget that I had it.

Dan Boerman 0:31 Okay.

David McIntosh Jr 0:31 And then it plummeted to zero, and then I've never invested in altcoins or crypto again.

Dan Boerman 0:37 I bought Bitcoin about a month ago and immediately lost 20%.

David McIntosh Jr 0:40 Dude, we're two white guys talking about crypto straight away.

Dan Boerman 0:43 I thought this is... You, you sent the agenda through. That was all it said, just crypto.

David McIntosh Jr 0:47 [laughing] Oh, really?

Dan Boerman 0:48 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.

David McIntosh Jr 0:58 Have you heard of that phrase Churchillian drift?

Dan Boerman 1:01 No.

David McIntosh Jr 1:02 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.

Dan Boerman 1:08 Oh, yep.

David McIntosh Jr 1:09 Um, rightly or wrongly. So I think we're, like, experiencing, like, Elon drift at the moment.

Dan Boerman 1:14 Right.

David McIntosh Jr 1:14 Everything kind of like relays back to crypto.

Dan Boerman 1:17 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.

David McIntosh Jr 1:23 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 1:24 Which is always, what's that? Like one click away from Elon, isn't it?

David McIntosh Jr 1:28 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 1:28 Just one extra step, end up there.

David McIntosh Jr 1:31 Ah, I knew this is how this podcast would start.

Dan Boerman 1:33 100%, bro. Yep. Good luck to your editor.

David McIntosh Jr 1:36 I wanna take it back to a time where I met you.

Dan Boerman 1:39 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 1:39 It was at the Stand Comedy Club maybe around a year ago to date. Close enough.

Dan Boerman 1:43 Thereabouts.

David McIntosh Jr 1:44 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.

Dan Boerman 2:01 Sounds like me.

David McIntosh Jr 2:01 It was either like Quality Street or Cadbury's.

Dan Boerman 2:04 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 2:06 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-

Dan Boerman 2:11 Mm-hmm

David McIntosh Jr 2:11 ... it was a, like an act of gesture to the club-

Dan Boerman 2:14 Mm-hmm

David McIntosh Jr 2:14 ... 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.

Dan Boerman 2:23 Mm. Hopefully they would, yeah. Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 2:26 And I just think that's a kind of, a good illumination of your character already.

Dan Boerman 2:30 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.

David McIntosh Jr 3:35 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 3:36 Try and be memorable though, eh?

David McIntosh Jr 3:38 I mean, the accent helps.

Dan Boerman 3:40 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-"

David McIntosh Jr 3:48 Red carpet every night.

Dan Boerman 3:50 100%, 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.

David McIntosh Jr 4:15 Kind of ironically, Edinburgh is in uniform, and the similarity that everyone has is that they're diverse.

Dan Boerman 4:23 Mm.

David McIntosh Jr 4:24 So like a Kiwi or an Aussie or whatever-

Dan Boerman 4:27 Mm

David McIntosh Jr 4:27 ... 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.

Dan Boerman 4:37 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?

David McIntosh Jr 4:59 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-

Dan Boerman 5:08 You and I can both feel it happening, bro.

David McIntosh Jr 5:09 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 5:09 We know the way. They were just... We, we just the word go and we'll do it, yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 5:14 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 5:15 We just know all we need is permission.

David McIntosh Jr 5:16 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 5:16 We just need someone to just mention Ethereum, and we're like, "Let's go." We're there.

David McIntosh Jr 5:22 Take me back to New Zealand before the tattoos.

Dan Boerman 5:25 Yes.

David McIntosh Jr 5:25 Rural New Zealand, give me the origin story, mate.

Dan Boerman 5:27 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-

David McIntosh Jr 6:02 Yeah, you were on benefits for a good few years, right?

Dan Boerman 6:04 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-

David McIntosh Jr 6:15 It's-

Dan Boerman 6:15 ... and then just smoke tiny cigarettes

David McIntosh Jr 6:16 ... tobacco Russian dolls.

Dan Boerman 6:17 Yeah, yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 6:18 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 6:18 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.

David McIntosh Jr 7:51 So where they interview a bunch of comedi-

Dan Boerman 7:52 Yep.

David McIntosh Jr 7:52 I think, think I've seen that, yeah, yeah.

Dan Boerman 7:53 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."

David McIntosh Jr 8:26 "Taskmaster," oh yeah.

Dan Boerman 8:26 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.

David McIntosh Jr 8:59 Hmm.

Dan Boerman 9:01 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.

David McIntosh Jr 10:07 Do you think volume is the deciding factor of how lucky you get in the industry?

Dan Boerman 10:16 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-

David McIntosh Jr 10:56 Buying all the lottery tickets

Dan Boerman 10:57 ... 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.

David McIntosh Jr 11:23 I like that one. Talk to me about being a barber in New Zealand.

Dan Boerman 11:28 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."

David McIntosh Jr 11:37 Which is incredible given that you have such luscious long locks.

Dan Boerman 11:41 Yeah, dude, it almost feels like, um... Yeah, it's kinda weird. I, I'm sure like a, a th-

David McIntosh Jr 11:45 We're at like separate ends of the hair spectrum.

Dan Boerman 11:48 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 11:48 [chuckles] I'm losing mine-

Dan Boerman 11:49 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 11:49 ... and you're just growing yours from everywhere.

Dan Boerman 11:51 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.

David McIntosh Jr 11:57 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 11:57 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?

David McIntosh Jr 12:30 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.

Dan Boerman 12:46 Mm.

David McIntosh Jr 12:46 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-

Dan Boerman 12:55 Mm

David McIntosh Jr 12:55 ... um, barbers are like mental health first trained or they're therapists.

Dan Boerman 12:59 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 13:00 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.

Dan Boerman 13:08 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 13:08 And given that I have this comedic gear and that's how I guess you and I know each other-

Dan Boerman 13:12 Mm-hmm

David McIntosh Jr 13:12 ... I feel more capable of sharing some of those jokes-

Dan Boerman 13:15 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 13:15 ... within a barber shop. So I can imagine being a barber, that's almost like your first stage, you know?

Dan Boerman 13:20 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 13:20 You can say things and ask things that you can almost like MC a gig almost from-

Dan Boerman 13:24 You, you're absolutely right

David McIntosh Jr 13:25 ... being a barber.

Dan Boerman 13:25 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.

David McIntosh Jr 14:26 I, uh, watched you tell a story on Jimmy Carr's "Am I The A**hole?"

Dan Boerman 14:32 Yes.

David McIntosh Jr 14:33 Which involved barbering in the barber chair.

Dan Boerman 14:35 Mm.

David McIntosh Jr 14:35 Can you share that story?

Dan Boerman 14:38 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.

David McIntosh Jr 14:47 Sorry, Dan, can we, uh, for context actually, can you give an idea to what that show is?

Dan Boerman 14:52 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.

David McIntosh Jr 16:06 Mm.

Dan Boerman 16:07 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.

David McIntosh Jr 17:18 [chuckles]

Dan Boerman 17:18 "Adonis hyphen Jimmy Carr," just with no other context. Just be like, yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 17:24 You're Adonis, man. I think he'll, I think he'll back that, by the way.

Dan Boerman 17:28 I'm hoping.

David McIntosh Jr 17:31 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?

Dan Boerman 17:39 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-

David McIntosh Jr 19:50 It's part of the human condition. We're anticipatory beings.

Dan Boerman 19:53 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?

David McIntosh Jr 20:29 I enjoyed being part of the meta of it because I got to find out just through privately-

Dan Boerman 20:33 Mm.

David McIntosh Jr 20:33 ... uh, through you that you'd interviewed and been on the show and-

Dan Boerman 20:37 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 20:37 ... just watching that go to production and like fruition and publication was... It's almost like seeing, like experiencing that secondhand.

Dan Boerman 20:45 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 20:45 Because of course, like you get, I got to like relive it-

Dan Boerman 20:48 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 20:48 ... with you. So I, I, I watched it when it was happening in real life, and then-

Dan Boerman 20:52 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 20:52 ... when it went into like publication, you get to have that second kind of order of dopamine.

Dan Boerman 20:56 Yeah. Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 20:57 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.

Dan Boerman 21:05 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.

David McIntosh Jr 21:18 Looked pretty racist on some of them.

Dan Boerman 21:19 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?

David McIntosh Jr 21:43 Oh, no.

Dan Boerman 21:43 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]

David McIntosh Jr 22:19 [chuckles]

Dan Boerman 22:19 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?

David McIntosh Jr 22:40 There's gonna be a barber that thins your hair at some point.

Dan Boerman 22:43 I haven't had my hair cut in a year, dude, because I know-

David McIntosh Jr 22:46 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 22:46 ... I know that the, the type of person-

David McIntosh Jr 22:47 There are other guys like you. [laughs]

Dan Boerman 22:49 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-

David McIntosh Jr 23:40 Let's talk about your commitment to stand-up comedy. You left New Zealand, flew to the other side of the world to-

Dan Boerman 23:45 Mm

David McIntosh Jr 23:45 ... Edinburgh and gave yourself a kind of no regrets bet that you would make it work.

Dan Boerman 23:51 Yes.

David McIntosh Jr 23:52 Tell me about that process, that thought process.

Dan Boerman 23:54 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-

David McIntosh Jr 24:43 It's like an Uber Eats, Uber type role?

Dan Boerman 24:45 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-

David McIntosh Jr 26:02 Cot. [laughs]

Dan Boerman 26:03 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."

David McIntosh Jr 26:15 [laughs] Then the kid goes, "Wow." [laughs]

Dan Boerman 26:20 No, no, genuinely. There, there was a... You, you laugh, bro, but like I'm laying there looking at-

David McIntosh Jr 26:23 Is that true?

Dan Boerman 26:24 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.

David McIntosh Jr 26:50 He'll be back on this podcast. [laughs]

Dan Boerman 26:51 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.

David McIntosh Jr 27:54 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.

Dan Boerman 28:03 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.

David McIntosh Jr 28:37 Is it?

Dan Boerman 28:38 Well, yeah, 'cause every four-year-old-

David McIntosh Jr 28:39 I'm from Glasgow. I definitely didn't learn that.

Dan Boerman 28:40 No, right. I wonder-

David McIntosh Jr 28:41 I learned knife crime.

Dan Boerman 28:42 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."

David McIntosh Jr 28:58 That makes sense, or the evolution of man, I guess.

Dan Boerman 29:00 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."

David McIntosh Jr 29:23 They then teach them about God and they go, "He's not real." [laughs]

Dan Boerman 29:25 Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 29:28 Then it's Santa, of course.

Dan Boerman 29:30 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."

David McIntosh Jr 30:15 Yeah, I, I believe... I try and get down here like maybe once if not twice a month.

Dan Boerman 30:20 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 30:20 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.

Dan Boerman 31:05 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-

David McIntosh Jr 31:18 Mm-hmm

Dan Boerman 31:18 ... 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.

David McIntosh Jr 32:05 Last night I was doing some news-

Dan Boerman 32:06 Shout out to the arsonists.

David McIntosh Jr 32:08 [laughs] The Guy Fawkes.

Dan Boerman 32:10 Isn't that a football team? I don't follow them.

David McIntosh Jr 32:13 The arsonists?

Dan Boerman 32:14 Yeah, something like that. I don't know. I'm a rugby boy.

David McIntosh Jr 32:16 It sounds like a band that you'd probably be a part of.

Dan Boerman 32:19 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.

David McIntosh Jr 32:31 Let's talk about folding a fitted sheet.

Dan Boerman 32:33 Yes.

David McIntosh Jr 32:34 Why is that important to your story?

Dan Boerman 32:37 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."

David McIntosh Jr 35:25 [chuckles]

Dan Boerman 35:26 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?

David McIntosh Jr 36:36 Can I go full circle back to what I first mentioned on the podcast about you being remembered, or at least by me-

Dan Boerman 36:42 Mm

David McIntosh Jr 36:42 ... for bringing sweets to a gig.

Dan Boerman 36:44 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 36:44 And then here you're remembered-

Dan Boerman 36:46 Bringing sheets to a gig. [both laughing] Yeah, dude. It's just, yeah, it was just, um-

David McIntosh Jr 36:51 That was quick. [chuckles]

Dan Boerman 36:52 It was just, just gr- simple grammar, yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 36:54 [laughs] Uh, yeah. [chuckles] I guess the meta lesson is be memorable. Be at the extremes-

Dan Boerman 37:02 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 37:02 ... you know?

Dan Boerman 37:03 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.

David McIntosh Jr 37:34 That needs to go on your, uh, tour poster for next year.

Dan Boerman 37:36 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.

David McIntosh Jr 37:42 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 37:43 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."

David McIntosh Jr 38:18 Yeah.

Dan Boerman 38:18 He said, "No, no, it'll be fine." "Please don't."

David McIntosh Jr 38:20 And just for context, you are-

Dan Boerman 38:22 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 38:22 ... covered-

Dan Boerman 38:23 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.

David McIntosh Jr 38:46 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?

Dan Boerman 38:54 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 38:54 Have you had any ideas for what's next-

Dan Boerman 38:56 Oh, yeah

David McIntosh Jr 38:56 ... to market the next show?

Dan Boerman 38:57 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 38:58 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.

Dan Boerman 39:03 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.

David McIntosh Jr 39:14 It sounds like a new Uber-

Dan Boerman 39:16 Yeah. U-U-

David McIntosh Jr 39:16 ... service.

Dan Boerman 39:17 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.

David McIntosh Jr 39:44 Social illusion almost.

Dan Boerman 39:45 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-

David McIntosh Jr 41:12 Mm

Dan Boerman 41:12 ... 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."

David McIntosh Jr 41:46 And then you go back to dinosaur bed. [chuckles]

Dan Boerman 41:48 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-

David McIntosh Jr 42:11 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 42:12 ... "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.

David McIntosh Jr 42:23 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 42:24 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.

David McIntosh Jr 42:39 Imagine your partner's horror when you folded the sheet and took it to work the next day. [laughs]

Dan Boerman 42:44 Yeah. Yeah, imagine getting the sheets mixed up, eh, and you're up on the hill, you're like, "Right, everybody."

David McIntosh Jr 42:49 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 42:51 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."

David McIntosh Jr 43:00 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 43:01 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."

David McIntosh Jr 43:08 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 43:11 Unreal.

David McIntosh Jr 43:11 Oh, that was great. That was great. You spoke about, um, feeling like a god, feeling important in that moment, feeling like a celebrity.

Dan Boerman 43:19 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 43:19 And we had this really profound conversation, and I might have recalled it with you again recently.

Dan Boerman 43:23 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 43:23 And it's one of the most profound conversations I had. You and I were in this coffee shop in a nice part of Edinburgh.

Dan Boerman 43:30 Shout out Caffyn. Incredible.

David McIntosh Jr 43:31 Caffyn. And we were bonding over this mutuality of our love for stand-up comedy, and the meta was that it feels so amazing to have that moment where everyone loves you for a brief second, and they're clapping and they're laughing because they love a joke that you told, and for a brief moment you feel like a rock star.

Dan Boerman 43:48 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 43:49 And then I quoted Jimmy Carr when he came on the podcast, and he said, "Some people live and die and never hear the sound of their own voice."

Dan Boerman 43:55 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 43:55 And I said to you, "I just wish everyone unanimously had a moment like that."

Dan Boerman 44:01 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 44:01 Got to feel what we feel when we are on stage telling a joke and everyone laughs.

Dan Boerman 44:04 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 44:04 Feel like a hero just for that split second. I want everyone to feel like a stand-up comic. And maybe I'll leave over to you to, to share the lesson, but essentially what you said is that not everyone wants to feel like that.

Dan Boerman 44:15 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 44:16 Or specifically, not everyone wants to feel like a comedian in that moment.

Dan Boerman 44:19 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 44:19 You don't look at the barista and think, "Gosh, I wish I could make coffee like that."

Dan Boerman 44:24 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 44:25 No, the performance is individual.

Dan Boerman 44:29 Yeah. I, I, I think so, and, and I appreciate you quoting that on another episode many months back. Um, yeah, I remember that chat, and it's like super important to you and I, you know, doing comedy, uh, feeling, feeling approval, feeling funny, making people laugh is super important and super cool. But yeah, there's, there's versions of that. There's things that people do day to day, you know, that, that not that we don't place value in, but it's just like everyone's got, everyone's got their own version of that, right? Like the receptionist downstairs, you know, I say hello, I say thank you. She's probably a rock star in her field. She's probably like one of the best like facilities workers in this end of London. You know, you probably would have to be to work around these ways, you know? And in her mind, that's her version of, of being a fantastic performer, just as us doing this is someone else has their own version of that, you know?

David McIntosh Jr 45:20 I love that quote by Jimmy, "Some people live and die and never hear the sound of their own voice." I really encourage people to find the idiosyncratic thing that they're interested in.

Dan Boerman 45:30 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 45:31 And I actually wrote about this in Substack recently.

Dan Boerman 45:33 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 45:34 Uh, I wrote a Substack saying, um, why model trains might get you laid.

Dan Boerman 45:39 I remember seeing that. Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 45:41 And-

Dan Boerman 45:41 And they haven't, dude. I've tried.

David McIntosh Jr 45:43 [laughs] You're not meant to use them to get laid. That's where you're going wrong.

Dan Boerman 45:47 That's where I went wrong.

David McIntosh Jr 45:48 Yeah.

Dan Boerman 45:49 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 45:49 Crashing the train into the tunnel.

Dan Boerman 45:51 Well, it's more so just the aerodynamics of them. We don't have time to get into it, but-

David McIntosh Jr 45:54 But, uh, but essentially it was this reflection on, um, like online social media presents either monetize everything-

Dan Boerman 46:02 Mm-hmm

David McIntosh Jr 46:03 ... so everything becomes a commodity, so then you, you, you'd look for where there's financial gain to your content.

Dan Boerman 46:08 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 46:08 And if you don't do that, then social media also teaches you to be nonchalant and not give a fuck.

Dan Boerman 46:12 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 46:13 And I find that the most interesting people that I have around me, much like yourself, are people that give two fucks, three fucks, four fucks, who like unanimously give a fuck about-

Dan Boerman 46:22 Mm-hmm

David McIntosh Jr 46:22 ... whatever it is that they do. And it doesn't have to be podcast, it doesn't have to be comedy.

Dan Boerman 46:25 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 46:26 I came across an example whereby this guy has an insect podcast, and all he does is review insects.

Dan Boerman 46:31 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 46:32 I think that's fucking awesome.

Dan Boerman 46:33 Yeah.

David McIntosh Jr 46:33 And a really famous example is Sir Rod Stewart, the sex icon, uh, the rock and roll star. Every time, or maybe not every time, but there's, he famously purports that when he goes on tour to New York or wherever, he books a hotel room for him and then another hotel room for his model train set. And-

Dan Boerman 46:52 And they say they didn't have autism in the '70s.

David McIntosh Jr 46:55 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 46:55 They, they said that this is new, these diagnosises. "Oh, we didn't have that in my day." All right. Okay. You've got room 317 at the Hilton is a fucking Thomas the Tank Engine wooden set, and you're telling me that neurodiversity is new. Incredible.

David McIntosh Jr 47:09 [laughs]

Dan Boerman 47:10 Brilliant. I love that.

David McIntosh Jr 47:12 Jokes aside though, I just think that's just so fascinating-

Dan Boerman 47:14 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 47:14 ... because it doesn't add to the candor of his image. If anything, it might detract from it, but he's so passionate about it.

Dan Boerman 47:21 Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant.

David McIntosh Jr 47:22 Um, and I really think this kind of nonchalant culture online where-

Dan Boerman 47:26 Yeah

David McIntosh Jr 47:26 ... giving a fuck is uncool or ambition is uncool.

Dan Boerman 47:29 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 47:30 I think you live a very empty life when digital consumption or digital media consumption is your only hobby.

Dan Boerman 47:37 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 47:37 You'll find yourself having very little to talk about or be interesting about.

Dan Boerman 47:41 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 47:42 And for me, like the most interesting people sit at the extremes.

Dan Boerman 47:46 Mm-hmm.

David McIntosh Jr 47:46 And it goes back to that quote, "Some people live and die and never hear the sound of their own voice." And I think that's such a sad way to live and an even more sad way to die.

Dan Boerman 47:55 I completely agree, and what you're describing is what I'm trying to communicate with my solo show next year, is the through line of my show next year. Uh, working title, I probably won't call it this, is something I saw graffitied on a rubbish bin the week that I broke up with my partner a couple years back, which was just, "Don't die wondering." Someone had just tagged that on a rubbish bin, "Don't die wondering," and it was my phone wallpaper for a long time. I love the idea that everyone has their own thing, the bug collection, the model trains, the podcast, the whatever, and that whatever that is, that you should get after it Or that there was something that you wanted to do, someone you wanted to be when you were like four years old, and then you just kinda let that dream die and now you have a cozy job and every once in a while you're like, "Damn, I always wanted to do ballet. Oh, well." It's like, do it because like don't die wondering like you... What, what are you gonna do? Like pick it up in the next lifetime? It's like if that excited you when you were a kid, like the only qualifier you have when you were as a kid for what you're interested in is like what makes me happy.

David McIntosh Jr 48:59 Mm.

Dan Boerman 48:59 'Cause it's not what can you monetize. It's not like what's gonna look good on social media. It's like literally what like speaks to me in my core, what lights a fire, what really excites me. You know, I wanna be an astronaut, I wanna do ballet. It's like, well, that's the thing surely. That's like the purest form of like wanting something or ambition is when you're like a little kid, what do you wanna do? You know? Okay, being an astronaut's not realistic. Katy Perry's taught us that. But get after that thing. Just go and do it, you idiot. Why, why are you working in a... Just go at least, at least try and do that thing, you know? And it's something that I believe in and it's something that I, I wanna hype people up on that idea next year for my show, and I'm still working through it. I don't want it to just be like a 60-minute mansplain, but I do wanna go up and light that fire and hope that even one person sees the show and they're like, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna get after the thing I wanted to do. You know, I wanna, I wanna go and bloody... I'm gonna go and learn the piano, you know? I'm gonna train dogs to do backflips or something." I don't know what that thing is.

David McIntosh Jr 49:57 Train dogs to do backflips. What an end to this podcast, Dan. I love that we ended on something remotely self-developmental. Um-

Dan Boerman 50:05 Brilliant.

David McIntosh Jr 50:06 Buy crypto. [laughs]

Dan Boerman 50:08 Buy crypto. Buy doggy coin. Yeah. Train dogs and buy dog coin. Yeah, 100%. This is not financial advice.

David McIntosh Jr 50:14 Dan-

Dan Boerman 50:15 I appreciate your time, bro. It's so cool, man. Um, and as I say, it's a year tomorrow that I've been in the UK. Feels like accountability chatting to you when you're like, "How's it been going?" And I'm like, "Train dogs if that's what speaks to your heart."

David McIntosh Jr 50:28 I love you, man. We're good friends. We chat quite often. We see each other less often than I would like, but when we do catch up, it's always an amazing conversation. I'm very proud of you, the direction that you're going in. If people wanna follow along and be on this journey with you, where they, can they find you?

Dan Boerman 50:43 I think the best place is just my Insta, to be honest, bro. Just Dan Boerman Comedy. I've got a podcast as well. Um, I don't wanna promote something that's a work in progress. If it's decent enough longer term, people will probably find it organically, but for now @danboermancomedy.

David McIntosh Jr 51:00 Thanks, man.

Dan Boerman 51:01 Appreciate your time, bro.